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My question is, where was “my friend Natalie” while all this was going on?

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

But hey, that’s what the world is like outside of the bright shining very small bubble we call Western Civilization. And, if Chicago is any evidence, it’s gnawing at the door, trying to get in.

Just sayin’.

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Well, actually the Anglican tradition of being a Christian-themed Cargo Cult.

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And, to the best of my knowledge, the only people who give a shit can be numbered on one hand.

Guys, get a life.

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1. Thank God you don’t live in Britain.
2. Nothing else.

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1. Thank God you don’t live in Britain.
2. Without eternal vigilance, it could happen here. (What am I saying? It’s already happening here….)

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Much like attracting the attention of a taxing authority.

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Bet he’s a Democrat. Sounds like something a Democrat would do.

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Thus, we have two situations which ethics underpin, yet the current wisdom claims both are beyond the reach of ethics. It seems as though we are repeatedly hit in the face by the swinging doors of unintended consequences wherever we turn. We can see the results very clearly in these two areas: abortions and markets. Both of them proclaimed to be ethics-free and both of them riddled with problems no one foresaw. Or at least no one was listening to those who did foresee and tried to warn us.

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Let that be a lesson to us all.

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Change you can believe in.

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That’s the new Britain for you.

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The democratically elected government of South Africa is forcing white farm owners to sell to the government which turns large white-run farms into many small black-run farms. One result is that food production is dropping.

Funny how that works. South Africa is turning into a slower version of Zimbabwe.

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The decapitated bodies of 12 men were discovered early Sunday scattered in and around a state capital in southern Mexico. Nine of the headless corpses were strewn along a busy street, where the Guerrero state governor later appeared for a religious procession. Authorities said some of the victims were Mexican army soldiers.

Yeah, we really want more of these people in our country.

Fence, please?

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Hint: Mostly missing.

The thought of a terrorist highjacking my plane and flying it into a building somewhere doesn’t prevent me from flying. The prospect of having to run the gauntlet of would-be concentration camp guards to get on the plan does.

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I am not making this up.

Rhode Island is in dire straits.

“Rhode Island and some of the other Northeastern states were really the cradle of the Industrial Revolution,” said Edward M. Mazze, a professor of business administration at the University of Rhode Island. “This is where manufacturing began. . . . That worked well up until the 1960s.”

For a long time, those factories provided good jobs for the state’s blue-collar population. But today, many of those factories are no longer here, having either relocated south or gone overseas.

Gee, I wonder why they would do that?

A big issue here is the state’s tax rates. Many Rhode Islanders said the high tax burden has discouraged businesses from locating here and pushed others to leave. The most recent state-by-state comparison of business tax climate by the Tax Foundation put Rhode Island at 46 out of 50th, with only four states — Ohio, California, New York and New Jersey — having a less favorable business tax environment.

Take whatever action you think is appropriate. Or starve. Your choice.

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Boy, those Zimbabweans are sure lucky they’re no longer under the boot of that oppressive white regime.

Thank God for the U.N. and the international community, or who knows what sort of hell they’d be living in now.

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Darwin Award nominee.

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I saw a movie about this once, had Max von Sydow in it I think.

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Yes, South Africa boasts perpetual sunshine, jaw-dropping scenery and vigorously free media and civic debate. But since the dawn of democracy in 1994, many thousands have found reasons to emigrate, and 2008 delivered several more — political uncertainty, power shortages, gruesome attacks on foreigners.

The most oft-cited reason for leaving, though, remains crime. Ghastly, violent crime.

Well, that’s what happens when you deliver the country into the hands of radical fringe groups, which the ANC and it’s wannabes are. For all of the hagiography of Nelson Mandela, don’t forget that he was imprisoned for being a Marxist terrorist — exactly like Robert Mugabe — and the only reason he isn’t a Marxist terrorist today is that he’s too damned old.

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I am not making this up.

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A Jew and a Viking walked into a bar….

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Boy, those Zimbabweans are sure lucky they’re no longer under the boot of that oppressive white regime.

Thank God for the U.N. and the international community, or who knows what sort of hell they’d be living in now.

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In a landmark decision that critics have said only proves the maxim that no good deed goes unpunished, the court decided that California’s Good Samaritan law only protects people from liability if they are administering emergency aid.

California — of course.

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This verges on being a Darwin Award nomination situation.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

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Oh, but who are we to judge their authentic foreign culture, so much more real than our own? Who are we to impose our bourgeois Western values on an ancient civilization? Does diversity mean nothing these days?

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And I have no problem with that. After all, who are we to criticize this authentic Iraqi culture?

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Well, I guess the Japanese do these things differently.

There is no life after work, anyway.

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What family doesn’t have its ups and downs?

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This is the sort of crap that causes people to move to America.

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The levy is a sort of “you’re a criminal tax” that assumes blank CDs are going to be used for unauthorized copying. Blank CDs in Canada are now often more expensive than blank DVDs (which have no levy and hold more data), and most of that cost goes directly to the record industry.

Such corporatism is characteristic of socialist states — like Canada.

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So all the thief needs is your finger, not your whole body. And, to be safe, he’ll need all ten, since he won’t know which one it’s set to.

Thanks a bunch, guys.

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The British respect tradition, yes they do.

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Nery Clark was dismissed on the spot after she tried to get £5 off a grocery bill at the shop where she had worked for 11 years.

When the mother-of-four came home to tell her husband the news, he suffered a heart attack and died instantly.

Marks & Spencer insists Mrs Clark knew she was not supposed to use the discount card on her day off and says it was right to sack her.

Merry Christmas.

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Well, socialized medicine is like that. Canada has the same problem. With a single-payer system, unless that single payer has unlimited resources (and, popular mythology to the contrary notwithstanding, the government doesn’t), you’ll get rationing.

David Friedman is always worth reading.

A physics professor my wife knows complains that few of his students have any idea of how to do plausibility calculations, how to figure out whether quantitative claims could be true. My wife suggests that it would be a good topic for a class in elementary school, since such calculations usually require nothing more than arithmetic and demonstrate one reason why arithmetic is useful. It occurs to me that it might also be a good topic for a book.

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Well, they do things differently in Britain, don’t you know.

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Welcome to Londonistan.

1. Thank God you don’t live in Britain.
2. Without eternal vigilance, it could happen here. Probably in Ann Arbor.

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It is sad but true that Jeremiah Wright was Barack Obama’s long-time pastor at the Trinity United Church. Obama admired his wit and wisdom, citing one of his sermons as a turning point in his life in Dreams From My Father and drawing the title of The Audacity of Hope from the same sermon. He had a long and close relationship with him until earlier this year when it became politically inconvenient.

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Two words: Lethal Injection.

Or we could give him to Planned Parenthood — in an era where the overriding value is to Make Every Child A Wanted Child, killing those that aren’t wanted … well, I doubt seriously that anybody wants this child.

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But not enough to do anything serious about preventing these people from coming into the United States. That would be bigoted and insensitive.

Many people, too, are afraid of the kidnapping crews, which no longer limit their targets to the super-rich, and travel in armored cars and with bodyguards. Kidnappers now snatch middle-class and even poor victims, demanding as little as $500 in ransom for their return.

This year, the 14-year-old son of sporting goods magnate Alejandro Martí was kidnapped and killed. His body was found rotting in the trunk of a car. Authorities suspect a federal police officer was involved in the abduction.

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But what is this “democracy” that everyone talks about? We all have a general idea about it: the ballot box, the purple fingers, a legislature composed of the people’s elected representatives, and so on. But, strictly speaking, democracy is just one form of representative government, and possibly the worst. Other, sturdier forms include the constitutional republic and the constitutional monarchy, both of which have long and distinguished pedigrees.

Most people instinctively disdain any constitutional provisions that run counter to popular opinion. But they overlook an unpleasant and dangerous truth: unconstrained democracy leads inevitably to tyranny.

There are no exceptions. If democracy is not hedged around with safeguards to check the venal and capricious expressions of the popular will, then tyranny will eventually be voted into existence.

Jonah Goldberg once wrote, “Democracy is a system under which 51% of the population can pee in the soup of the other 49%.” And that sums up the essential nature of democracy better than anything else.

John Derbyshire, Patron Saint of Dyspepsia, does what he does best.

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When Political Correctness comes up against reality, reality always wins, because reality is self-supporting.

Darwin Award nominee.

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Stupid people ought to be encouraged to commit suicide. Think of it as evoluton in action.