Read it.

Two lessons to be learned here:

1. It is possible to overthrow a repressive regime.
2. Those who suffer an oppressive regime to continue are by doing so responsible to a degree for their own repression.

Read it.

A Muslim obey kafir law? It is to laugh.

Read it.

Seems surprised by the nature of a Communist government.

“It’s disappointing, not to mention outrageous,” Mr Auletta said, adding he didn’t know where to begin to appeal to the Chinese government.

“It sounds like a faceless decision. It doesn’t sound like one person you appeal to …

It just sounds like ‘1984.”‘

Ya think?

Bryan Caplan scratches his head.

Read it.

We like wood. Wood is good.

Gates of Vienna hits the nail on the head.

Barack Hussein is not the disease. Barack Hussein is the symptom.

Read it.

Apparently teachers are just SO overworked.

Read it.

Obviously this guy has never run a business.

Read it.

Read it.

Not with the taxes that Obama will stick us with. Give us eight years of a tax-cutter President like Reagan, and maybe we can afford it.

Read it.

In case you can’t think of anything better to do while waiting for breakfast.

Read it.

Spring does not bring to mind apples, but with the start of the growing season a nonprofit group called Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT), which works with Slow Food, has declared this the year of the heirloom apple.

SWPL food you can believe in.

Read it.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters’ right to elect the candidates they want.

The decision, made by the same Justice official who ordered the dismissal of a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, has irritated other locals as well. They bristle at federal interference in this city of nearly 23,000 people, two-thirds of whom are black.

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

Read it.

Despite claims to the contrary, internal emails from the University of California, Irvine’s Muslim Student Union (MSU) show that the group orchestrated the repeated disruptions of a speech given on campus by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren February 8.

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

Read it.

Where can we get a blow-up Obama?

Read it.

And oh, the ring that would leave around the Mediterranean….

Read it.

We’re way too tolerant of this. Once it crosses into out-and-out lying, it’s no longer virtuous to be tolerant of it. And I’m sorry, once you’re protesting for your right to wear a tuxedo to the prom when you’re a girl, that’s not about being left alone to live your own life in a manner of your choosing. That’s about being a walking fucking billboard.

Read it.

You knew it had to happen.

Read it.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

At a senior center in Manchester Wednesday, one woman turned away when Hodes offered his outstretched hand for an introduction.

“I don’t want to shake your hand. You voted for health care, so just go,” snapped Carmen Guimond, as she refocused on her lunch of roast beef and mashed potatoes and waved him on.

When Hodes decided to stay at the table and launch a defense of what’s considered to be one of the more popular provisions of the law — closing the “doughnut hole,” a gap in prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients — she challenged him about whether he had read the entire bill and dismissed his explanation.

“Two hundred and forty dollars in the first year. That’s all it is,” she said, referring to the initial subsidy. “That’s not much.”

“And over time, by 2020, it closes the doughnut hole,” Hodes said.

“We’ll all be dead by then,” she deadpanned.

Read it. And the blog post it references.

This is an interesting topic that deserves more thought.

John Stossel turns over a rock.

Much government interference with our peaceful pursuits is based on junk science and junk economics. Politicians know a lot of stuff that isn’t so. So do reporters.

Let me count some of the ways.

Read it.

Don’t axe your Counts before they’ve chickened.

Read it.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

Warmly glowing gold,
What gives it that autumn hue?
Relativity.

Heh.

The house at 10512 Baldy Mountain Rd. in Sandpoint, Idaho, looks like just another vacant foreclosed home. Some appliances, a bathroom mirror and even the hot tub are missing. The dining room of the three-bedroom house has water damage.

But this isn’t your run-of-the-mill problem house. Call it an Extreme Foreclosure. The 3,678-square-foot McMansion is a product of the popular “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” reality television show. It isn’t the only “Extreme” home to fall on hard times.

Read it.

One would have thought that Prohibition had taught the country that such things merely lead to rampant crime and violence. Government in the modern world seems chiefly to serve as an illustration of the medieval concept of Invincible Ignorance.

Read it.

(1)  The man knows burgers; I like burgers.

Very persuasive.

Read it.

Looking back, one of the striking revelations of the past two years of recession is that the pattern of real-estate development and capital investment in America has been driven for two decades and more by a very peculiar system of finance — one that depends on an intricate infrastructure of speculative debt; one that is enabled by modern technology and wedded to abstraction and formula; and one that, it turns out, can only be maintained, in a pinch, by intervention from the state.

The modern mind broke down on account of its infatuation with abstraction. That mind is singularly susceptible to falsely imagining that ideas are more real than men. The power of the lapidary theory over the modern mind has been often remarked. The whole of the twentieth century was marked by calamitous wars driven by the imperial impulse of what Edmund Burke called “armed doctrines.” Armies, impelled by their doctrines, rolled over half the earth, leaving behind blood and smolders.

Read it.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

Check it out.

The Other McCain gives Conor Friedersdorf a well-deserved spanking.

The facts may be in dispute, but apparently no argument is permissible. Freidersdorf condemns Shaidle for “casual bigotry against Hispanics and blacks,” and condemns Steyn for “uncritically pass[ing] along” her views to readers of the Corner. This assumes that readers of the Corner lack the discernment to decide for themselves whether they agree or disagree with Shaidle. Must Steyn include a disclaimer with every link to Shaidle? “WARNING: This person may occasionally say things I do not endorse.”

Ann Althouse is scratching her head.

IN SHORT: It’s a medium size, medium weight device that has some use, but it’s a distant third in usefulness after the laptop and the iPhone.

Eric Raymond is scratching his head.

The Newton was a fascinating technology demonstration, but it sank almost without trace because nobody ever found a real use for it. It was too large to fit in a pocket and underpowered for replacing a real computer…like the iPad. And the thing that has me scratching my head, two days after the iPad announcement and knowing it has sold 300K copies in that time on the strength of Apple’s brand, is that I can’t find a real use for it either.

Read it.

I prefer magnetic holding strips, but if I used a knife block, this is the one I would use.

Read it.

Sister Mary Joseph. In the library. With a ruler.

Problem solved.

Read it.

Time to get ready for summer, Roy.

Read it.

Read it.

Anti-Semitism on North American college campuses has become so routine that most incidents merit little attention in the media. The nucleus of any confrontation is usually opposition to “Zionism”, and forms around a coalition of Leftists and Muslim supporters of “Palestine”. By their logic, all Jews must be overt or covert supporters of Israel, so opposing the Zionist entity typically segues into hatred of Jews in general, who are thus considered legitimate targets for protesters.

Onion. But true nevertheless.

Teach For America executive director Theo Anderson called ethnic-studies departments “a prime source of fodder.”

“Oh, I’d say we burn through a hundred or so ethnic-studies majors each year,” said Anderson, pointing to a series of charts showing the college-major breakdown of TFA corps members. “They tend to last a little longer than women’s studies majors and art-therapy students, but Cuellen got mashed to a pulp pretty quickly. It usually takes ethnic-studies majors another year to realize that they’re wasting their precious youth on a Sisyphean endeavor.”

Joe Wikert has seen the light.

It only took a couple of hours of iPad use to realize I’ll never touch my Kindle again.  Ever.  All my Kindle books are now on my iPad.  Do I mind that the iPad’s backlit display isn’t as easy on my eyes as the Kindle’s?  No.  I read off that iPad display for about 10 hours on Saturday and my eyes felt the same as they did the day before.

The iPad has certainly killed any desire on my part to own a Kindle.

Read it.

I thought that, too.

Read it.

He said that Mr Brown had not looked him or any other servicemen in the eye at a reception in Downing Street in November 2008.

Then in Westminster Abbey during the Remembrance Day service last November he said the Prime Minister was “fidgeting and moving” during the two minute silence.

“I’ve got head and back injuries that put me back in hospital in a lot of pain quite regularly, so if I could do it there’s no reason he couldn’t,” he said. “It was very rude.

What a guy.

Read it.

For people with nothing better to do with their time.

Read it.

Tiptoe through the TULIP.

Read it.

I’d vote for him.

Read it.

Be careful what you look for, you just might find it.

Read it.

Why Brits just can say ’49 pounds’ escapes me. But that’s a huge fargin rabbit.

Read it.

Geoffrey Pullum is mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it any more.

The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students’ grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it.

Read it.

Why is writing software not like engineering? The answer lies in a single fundamental difference with far-reaching ramifications: engineering is constrained by the real, physical world and software is not. While obvious, this is the crucial difference that explains why software development is harder to get right. The next few sections explore these ramifications.

Read it.

Our Flemish correspondent VH reported on Thursday about the silencing of Benno Barnard at the University of Antwerp. Dr. Barnard was about to give a lecture on the differences between Islam and Christianity, but loud shouting and threats from a crowd of young Muslims forced the cancellation of his talk.

Still waiting for an instance of a Muslim speaker having to cancel his talk because of shouting and threats from a crowd of young Christians or Jews.

Just sayin’.