Literally small-minded

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013 Posted in Irritations | No Comments »

Granted, playwright turned conservative-screed artist David Mamet lately comes across like that kid in philosophy class who just got hold of Atlas Shrugged and believes everyone should read it immediately. Still, he's not an idiot. Which is what makes Ta-Nehisi Coates's ...

Lessons from the news to come

Wednesday, September 12th, 2012 Posted in Irritations, Policy and Politics | 5 Comments »

In case you don't have time to follow the news for the next week, here's a summary: 1. Someone insulted Mohammed. 2. Otherwise intelligent and civilized ambassadors for the Religion of Peace murdered some people for being American (they'll get around to ...

Professorial logic

Monday, February 13th, 2012 Posted in Irritations | 1 Comment »

There are many plausible explanations for why men commit nearly all murders and start most wars. It could be that we're just hard-wired to smash skulls. Or perhaps it's that we've learned how much chicks dig a man in uniform. Or ...

On the Virtue of Hemlock

Sunday, February 5th, 2012 Posted in Irritations | No Comments »

In his recent Boston Review essay, philosophy professor Carlos Fraenkel manages the neat trick of advocating a sensible position -- that high-school students should be taught philosophy -- so ineptly that he ends up proving the opposite, namely, that while ...

Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!

Monday, December 20th, 2010 Posted in Irritations, Policy and Politics | 3 Comments »

Agents from the Federal Reserve have decided visible displays of Christian faith are verboten. At a private bank, no less. "Specifically, the feds believed, the symbols violated the discouragement clause of Regulation B of the bank regulations. According to the clause, ...

Christianity jumps the shark

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | 8 Comments »

Apple pulls the Manhattan Declaration app because of its stand against abortion and gay marriage, a LGBT publication manages to spin the stealth of its move into gay outrage, but in glimmer of a silver lining, it's the San Francisco Chronicle ...

Nanny fetches a switch

Thursday, November 11th, 2010 Posted in Irritations, Policy and Politics | 2 Comments »

How out of whack is a society when government officials need to come up with penalties for people who don't want to work? It used to be that not working carried its own penalty, in the form of an empty ...

The name game

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010 Posted in Irritations | 16 Comments »

I was just typing an email, and I mentioned someone my correspondent and I know as an acquaintance. We don't speak her name often, or type it out, and I suddenly realized I have no idea how to spell it. ...

I’m not free until you affirm me

Monday, November 1st, 2010 Posted in Irritations | 3 Comments »

Apparently the conviction that homosexuality is not just one of many acceptable lifestyles is considered grounds by some British officials to bar parents from caring for foster children. This from a gay rights activist opposing the couple in question: "Many Christian ...

For shame

Thursday, October 28th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | 1 Comment »

College students deploy public shame and ridicule to coerce classmates into contributing to their senior class gifts. Accidentally taking shame to an even higher level, a dean at Wesley College sends the names of failing students to the entire student ...

Gone to Pot

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | No Comments »

If the last post lifted your spirits about the goodness that resides in humanity, this will help bring your estimation back to the mean: "Many of the visitors to the tin-roofed shrine labeled POL POT CWMATION SITE in Anlong Veng are local men ...

Read the fine print, dear

Thursday, October 21st, 2010 Posted in Irritations, Theology | 1 Comment »

Another charming feature of the religion of peace. Perhaps this should be required reading for women entertaining the notion of converting.

It’s not just for pumpkin cake any more

Thursday, October 21st, 2010 Posted in Irritations | No Comments »

Time to put a padlock on the spice cabinet.

Bob Saget, creepy baby voyeur

Monday, October 18th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | 1 Comment »

Bob Saget has built himself a distinctly unfunny yet disappointingly robust entertainment career, from his straight-man persona on "Full House" and "America's Funniest Home Videos" to his -- by accounts I've heard from people unfortunate enough to have caught it -- ...

I guess there’s a reason they don’t call him “Jesse the brain”

Saturday, October 16th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | No Comments »

Well this is disturbing. If you can't count on a pro-wrestling politician to think clearly, then who can you trust? HT: Rick H.

Because they serve us, not the other way around

Saturday, October 16th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | No Comments »

The Nomad Lawyer recounts what happens when he stands on his right not to answer questions from border patrol officers as he returns home from China. An excerpt: "'Why were you in China?' asked the passport control officer, a woman with ...

Because your business empire won’t gather round you at your deathbed

Friday, October 15th, 2010 Posted in Irritations, The Art of Parenting | No Comments »

Carrie Lukas takes a former Planned Parenthood president to task for treating stay-at-home mothers as traitors to the cause of women's liberation: "Feldt may consider raising children “a necessary task” — much like taking out the trash or scrubbing the bathroom ...

It must be true; it was on the Internet

Friday, October 8th, 2010 Posted in Irritations, The Art of Parenting | 4 Comments »

It's how an ill-educated sophomore might construct an argument: load down your opponents with propositions they don't in fact hold (in the case of this idiotic essay attacking the two-parent family, that both parents should be white, that happy children should ...

I’m getting my B.A. in plumbing with a minor in sarcasm

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | 7 Comments »

Funny, because I was discussing with someone just the other day the oddity of spending four years earning a degree in journalism, rather than four years acquiring a substantive grounding in the humanities, and learning the craft of writing on ...

Two toddlers walk into a bar…

Saturday, October 2nd, 2010 Posted in Irritations | 5 Comments »

I'm not overly prudish. I can appreciate a form-fitting skirt, a cool glass of whiskey, Everclear turned up good and loud. I've even been known to drop an expletive or two. But one thing I cannot abide is this trend, ...

Good intentions

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | 4 Comments »

The University of Virginia has adopted a tough new policy that requires student criminals to self-report arrests. In other news, local fraternities are being nicely asked to send flower bouquets to every co-ed who finds herself taken advantage of on ...

The NCAA’s hypocrisy

Saturday, August 7th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | 1 Comment »

Here's a shocking bit of news: rather than go with calls for coaches to have their performance evaluations tied to the graduation rate of their players, the NCAA has opted for a metric that sounds valuable, but instead simply measures ...

Sample size matters

Friday, August 6th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | No Comments »

Spokesman for British retailer Tesco: "We do not think this skirt is inappropriate and neither do the parents we've talked to." Except, of course, the many parents who are so troubled by the hem-hiked mini-skirts you're marketing to nine year-olds that ...

Breathe easier?

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010 Posted in Irritations, Policy and Politics | 1 Comment »

I'm always leery of research by people who desperately, desperately want a certain answer. So when I hear shouts of joy over a new study running counter to previous studies in its conclusion that putting small children in daycare has ...

Friday, July 30th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | 3 Comments »

Children with head lice, says the American Academy of Pediatrics, should not be kept out of school. They're not a medical threat, say the experts. I wonder how quickly, if any school decides to adopt the AAP's more tolerant outlook, ...

Good work if you can get it

Friday, May 21st, 2010 Posted in Irritations | 3 Comments »

Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol has signed with a speaker's bureau, so she can share her life wisdom at a rate of $15,000 to $30,000 per speech. I think the last time a group wanted me to give them a speech ...

Careful, you might work yourself into a job

Friday, April 30th, 2010 Posted in Irritations, Policy and Politics | 1 Comment »

This is worth a chuckle: federal bureaucrats threatening to oversee internships in order to guarantee that they provide no benefit to employers who offer them. Because otherwise, you see, the employers would be unfairly gaining at the expense of the ...

It’s for the children

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | 4 Comments »

Looks like the Brits are going to require children to submit to full scans in airports. It was only a matter of time, given Islamofascist eagerness to render any sacrifice to a bloodthirsty Allah. Now that idiot women are easily ...

Couch potato world

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 Posted in Irritations | No Comments »

Reuters reports that we are closing the technology gap between rich and poor. That's right, no longer is it just privileged suburban kids developing fat tires and breathing problems, but kids from even the poorest countries. Let's not rest on our ...

Memo to the NCAA

Sunday, March 28th, 2010 Posted in Irritations, Judo Chops | 4 Comments »

Perhaps it's a new phenomenon, or perhaps I'm becoming more curmudgeonly, but it's gotten that I cannot abide watching the aftermath of NCAA basketball games. It's almost a certainty now that, in the event of a close game, at least ...