A Second Hand Conjecture

Hugo Chavez travels a bit further down the road to his ultimate destination - Supreme Dictator of Venezuela - with the help of his wholly-owned subsidiary,the “National Assembly”:
Venezuela’s Congress on Wednesday granted President Hugo Chavez powers to rule by decree for 18 months as he tries to force through nationalizations key to his self-styled leftist […]

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I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.
-Joe Biden
Did he really say he is the first such African-American?
Michael may be right about this ending his candidacy, but I am not sure.
Let me give him the benefit […]

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Well, in a de facto sense at least:
Mr. Biden is equally skeptical [as he is of Sen. Clinton’s chances of being elected]—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a […]

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Less than 24 hours after telling Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki “Go forward. We are all with you.”, and with rapidity that would make even Janus blush, U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, returned home to declare “What is happening in Iraq is chaos.”:
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has just returned from […]

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I think we, as semi-disenfranchised, Americans have a prime opportunity in the current debate over the perceived need for further benchmarks for our efforts in Iraq.
What is desired in this debate from some quarters are, timelines, goals, and the consequences of missing those goals.
I think that is an excellent idea, and we should start with […]

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As I have stated many times, I have many concerns about our current President and his expansive view of Presidential power. I have also said that this is nothing new, and that I have seen no evidence that the Democratic party is better. In fact, if our President sees too much power in his own […]

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Just a few updates on the story from December of a suspected Playstation thief who was killed during a raid to arrest the suspect.

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And why do we need more of it?
What am I talking about, progress reports and benchmarks for our efforts in Iraq.
Instapundit pointed me over to bizzyblog who has comments on Boehner’s interview with Hugh Hewitt.
It seems Boehner has a proposal to require a report to Congress every 30 days about the progress of our efforts […]

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The recent hullabaloo over the New York Times (NYT) cracking down on its ace war reporter, as covered by Lance below, raised the issue of whether the paper would issue similar admonishments to a reporter expressing an opinion that was more in line with the NYT editorial page. Specifically, would the NYT reader’s representative, […]

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From my e-mail bag I found this amusing, though the problem of establishing title in Louisiana is real, I am sure the story is apocryphal:

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Found this today over at the National Review with some important things to say about how Milton accomplished what he did. A lesson we should all take to heart in our quest for accomplishing change in our government.

But now to an important question for Milton Friedman Day: How’d he do it?
The quick answer is […]

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I like this quote from KC Johnson on the performance of the major media versus that of the college media, in this case specifically the Duke Chronicle, from a post of Jim Lindgren’s:
In fact, compare the Chronicle’s coverage to that of the New York Times on this case, but remove the mastheads from the two […]

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SEN. COLLINS: Finally, I have to comment on your answer to my very dear friend, Senator Lieberman, about the impact of a passage of a resolution and whether that would — I believe the words were “demonstrate to the enemy that the American people are divided.”
General, the American people are not divided in support of […]

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Update: Michael has a nice post that looks at another incident to get a better gauge of what the Times past behavior has been. I clarify what bothers me a bit in the comments.
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This story from Newsbusters is somewhat amusing in a perverse sense. The New York Times and other media organizations reporters express opinions […]

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California and Chicago both declared today “Milton Friedman Day.” And PBS is going to air his biography, “The Power of Choice” tonight.
Friedman’s impact on history isn’t limited to economic prosperity. Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, explains Friedman’s legacy: “It was explaining the relationship between economic freedom and all our other civil freedoms. […]

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Finally, someone in a position of some influence saying what many on the “not-left” side of the aisle have been saying since before the disastrous November elections. Now, if only Republicans would listen, and change their errant ways, the Republican Party might see some gain in support from its historical “co-belligerents,” the Libertarians.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/27/AR2007012701171_pf.html
At a […]

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Update: Back from my weekend vacation I find that McQ sees this issue similarly.
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General Petraeus has been confirmed 81-0. In a world of political conviction this wouldn’t have been the result.
As I pointed out in my open letter, (and this post will make more sense if you have read it) the upcoming resolution expressing disapproval […]

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I have said fairly frequently on this blog that it makes more sense to pay attention to those whom we disagree with who actually have something on the ball and to try and take on their arguments as they intended to make them rather than on the basis of what is easiest to attack. That […]

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To our Senators,
I have a brother who has been in Iraq and will probably soon be there again. We understand your indecision about the increased commitment of troops to Iraq. We do support making the commitment, but we understand if you do not.
We do not however understand the possibility that you will vote in […]

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Over at QandO while reading the commenters having a jolly time making fun of Jimmy Carter, Tom Scott chose to rise up to defend the former President:
Yeah, and you laughed at him when he was attacked by a rabbit. Well now former President Carter is vindicated.
No need to click through, the video is […]

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With the passage Wednesday of a Senate resolution rebuking the President’s planned “surge,” and the recent revelation that more than one fifth of Americans want that plan to fail, I couldn’t help but recall these inspiring words:
In all of history, I know of no war, aggressive or defensive, that was won by a nation that […]

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Update:Don Surber has a reaction and the Wall Street Journal weighs in as well.
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An argument has been going around that we should not be holding the Democrats accountable for standing in the way of reform because the Republicans failed to do much about it when they were in the majority. It seems to me that […]

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The fight to raise the minimum wage is about to become a rout. Of course, as we noted earlier that fight doesn’t include American Samoa, and we still have no way to know exactly why. Actually, what I should say is that the explanation is incoherent.

Let us go over a few of the facts, or […]

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All in all a competent speech. I like the ideas on health care overall which was the high point for me on the domestic policy side.
On the war in Iraq he laid out his argument better than he has in recent months. Outside of that I pretty much hate the State of the Union speech […]

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I haven’t weighed in on the Duke rape scandal primarily because it’s been handled quite thoroughly elsewhere. However, today I read (via Insty) what can only be described as a model of supreme self-deception and insipid anlalysis:

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I haven’t addressed D’Souza’s new book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, though Robby asked me to long before it was even out. I have meant to, but at this point it seems a bit superfluous. It has been dissected and critiqued so extensively that I can’t imagine as […]

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The expansion of the influence of virtual worlds continues. From Blake Hounshell, formerly known on the internet as Praktike:
Reuters will conduct a series of interviews with artists, politicians and executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland next week, in front of a live Second Life audience.
Reuters Bureau Chief Adam Pasick will talk with […]

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I don’t know what to make of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. On one hand he is one of the architects of the Islamic Republic, one time designated heir to Khomeini, a supporter of the seizing of our embassy at the dawn of the Revolution and still claims to believe in the Guardianship of the […]

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Speaking of pumped, I should be, but I am less excited by the thought of Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age coming to the Sci-fi channel.
However, having George Clooney behind it means maybe it will get the funding it deserves and we can avoid some of the issues I have with the Sci-fi Channel adaptations of […]

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Hat tip: Stephen Bainbridge
It is being turned into an HBO series!
The series will begin with the 1996 first book, “A Game of Thrones,”
and the intention is for each novel (they average 1,000 pages each) to
fuel a season’s worth of episodes. Martin has nearly finished the fifth
installment, but won’t complete the seven-book cycle until 2011.
…..
“They tried […]

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