Monthly Archives: July 2008

Our estimation of what kind of president either John McCain or Barack Obama would make remains unchanged. McCain will be a terrible president. Obama will be catastrophic. In the face of catastrophe, we can live with terrible. So here at … Continue reading →

When I go to public events, whether they are hearings, speeches, presentations, etc., I always pay a lot of attention to the crowd. The crowd that attended last night’s public hearing before the town planning board on the Crossroads project … Continue reading →

The combination is obviously a bad one to begin with. But I think SUNY New Paltz’s lawyer president Steven Poskanzer goes above and beyond the best of his limited abilities to work that unfortunate combo to the detriment of both … Continue reading →

The political divisions in the United States have produced a bizarre system of escalating tensions between left and right that can arguably be traced as far back in history as the first and second presidential terms of George Washington. That … Continue reading →

I’m referring to the latest apples are oranges fertilizer discharge from Buchanan. I find it incredible and bizarre, for starters. I thought about cleaning out my garage today, after a couple of fine craftsmen were in there installing a new … Continue reading →

It’s over at the Spectator site, and I recommend it, mainly because, frankly, it so mirrors my own experience. Here’s the question Henry asks after recounting a letter he got from an old friend: Tell me, do conservatives ever anathematize … Continue reading →

John Cullinan gets right to the heart of Obama’s speech in Germany yesterday: Wagner’s music is actually better than it sounds, Mark Twain liked to joke. The same can’t be said for Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign speech Thursday in Berlin. … Continue reading →

Today is the fortieth anniversary of the issuance of Humanae Vitae, the encyclical by Pope Paul VI that warned about the consequences of artificial birth control and was laughed off in unison around the world. Joseph Bottom takes a look … Continue reading →

Short or convenient memories will not recall that the Crossroads project was enthusiastically embraced by town supervisor Boss Hokanson. One might expect that said enthusiasm is now out the back door and down the memory hole as culture conscious New … Continue reading →

Well, that’s one speechwriter who will be out on the street tomorrow, or should be. Flat. Pulpy. Strangely uninformed. Generating no more than light, polite applause from the German audience, which he lost a quarter of the way through. It … Continue reading →

Mark Judge serves it cold to New York Times columnist David Carr: So here we are ten years later and David Carr, who is now a columnist for the New York Times, has produced…a recovery memoir. If the market for … Continue reading →

If I told you that a gang would extort a half billion dollars from a small community over the next ten years and that the people who lived in that community would vote to hand over the money, you would … Continue reading →

That astute chronicler of American politics, Michael Barone, suggests that this presidential election cycle is like the Carter-Ford race in 1976. McQ has found another analysis that says it is like Carter-Reagan in 1980, with Obama in the Reagan role. … Continue reading →

The Nancy Pelosi-Harry Reid Congress has just hit the all-time low approval for any Congress in the Gallup poll: [T]he 14% approval rating is extraordinary. Approval of Congress has fallen below 20% only six times in the 34 years Gallup … Continue reading →

The year was 1968, and the sexual revolution was underway, most formidably accelerated by the birth control pill. What did it mean? Pope Paul VI, and no doubt most of his counselors, saw quite clearly what it was and what … Continue reading →

First, it strikes me that the usual type I see still carrying the hard-copy of the thing around here in New Paltz are members of a category that I call the squirrel men. (With apologies to all non-squirrel men who … Continue reading →