I'm getting to the point where I find articles like Joe Conason's "Mike Huckabee, the Constitution and Biblical Law" more amusing than a source of anger. His ultimate objective, of course, is to show that Mike Huckabee is a dangerous theonomist who would impose a theocracy if elected President. Such fear is based on the …
Design Flaw for the I-35 Bridge Collapse?
It's not too often that I make an engineering commentary on this site, but the characterisation of the NTSB's conclusion that a design flaw was the "critical factor" in the I-35 bridge failure in Minneapolis, MN, strikes me as a little misleading. (The NTSB's own announcement is here.) In its interim report, the FHWA went …
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The Role of Dr. Martin Luther King and the Democratic Primary
The flap over Hillary Clinton's remarks about the role of Dr. Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement can be seen as a tempest in a teapot, as so many discussions of race in this country are. But her idea that it was Lyndon Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Bill in 1964 speaks …
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Getting Past Uthman’s Edition
No one is going to produce proof that Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave three days after the Crucifixion, of course. Humankind will choose to believe or not that God revealed Himself in this fashion. But Islam stands at risk of a Da Vinci Code effect, for in Islam, God's self-revelation took the …
Hillary Clinton and Las Descamisadas
On a visit to Houston, my client was kind enough to take me to a very nice South American restaurant. One of the items on the menu was the pollo camisado, or literally the shirted chicken (the “shirt” consisted of plantain chips.) I joked that Juan Peron's favourite dish would have been pollo descamisado, or …
Back to the 2CV
In the novel The Ten Weeks, both the heroine and her father drive variations of the Citroen 2CV, the latter the original and the former the Dyane. This form of "basic transportation" helped many Europeans to have a car--with ecologically friendly gas mileage--of any kind in the years after the devastation of World War II. …
John Kerry endorses Obama. He better hope he’s right.
John Kerry's endorsement of Obama is based on one of three things: Conviction he's the best. Anticipation he'll get the nomination, and thus reward Kerry for his endorsement. Revenge against some offence the Clinton's committed (and there are many Democrats who have grievances against them.) It would be foolish to assume that Hillary is down …
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Thinkin’ About the New Day
The unpredictable state of the 2008 election means that every day is a new one, which makes "New Day," the title track to Cookin' Mama's dynamic album, a good anthem for these strange times (although the new day they sing about is vastly different than a political one) and our podcast this week. The whole …
Maybe She Took My Advice
Hillary Clinton's victory in New Hampshire is perhaps the result of the following: "I listened to you. And in the process, I found my own voice," Clinton told her victory rally. "Now, let's give America the kind of comeback New Hampshire has just given me." Or, put another way, she told the story like it …
Jaguar, Tata, and Role Reversal
One of the more interesting adventures my family business got itself into was my brother's two attempts to sell our pile driving equipment to an Indian shipyard. As he cruised the streets of Mumbai in the early 1980's, he inhaled the fumes of the Tata manufactured trucks, which were cleverly aimed at the level of …
Positive Infinity 