Fred Thompson: Success in Four Different Careers
Despite a recurrence of lymphoma, former Senator Fred Thompson kept working up until nearly the end of his life, which ended today at age 73. His last film, released just after Labor Day this year, was...
View ArticleMonday links
How to Tell the Temperature Using Crickets. Related: Predicting weather with bug sex.The world’s largest tin soldier collection.In the past five years, at least six Americans have been shot by bad dogs...
View ArticleRemembering President Ford
Today, I have a “Michigan Journal, Part I” — and this first installment focuses on Grand Rapids. Which means some comments on Gerald Ford. I would like to make another one, here in the Corner.I saw him...
View ArticleRichest Man in the World: ‘Representative Democracy Is a Problem.’
From the first Morning Jolt of the week:Richest Man in the World: “Representative Democracy Is a Problem.”Bill Gates is rapidly reaching supervillain status.When I sat down to hear his case a few weeks...
View ArticleScarborough Goes Off on Democrats Moderating GOP Debates: It’s ‘Insane’
Today, Morning Joe puts the shoe on the other foot, and gives a spot-on improv of how a Republican moderator would question Hillary et al on abortion and guns.
View ArticleThirty-Seven Minutes of Non-Candidate Talk at the Last Debate?
CNBC deserves every bit of criticism it’s getting for the questioners’ tone at the debate in Boulder, but a big reason why so many GOP candidates are so frustrated by the debates so far is the fact...
View ArticleNine Things that Caught My Eye Today (Nov. 2, 2015)
1. AP: Publisher and Two Secular Writers Hacked to Death in Bangladesh2. From an interview with a Serbian iconographer who painteda tribute to the 21 Coptic Christians beheaded byISIS earlier this...
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Jay Is Coming to New Mexico
Be there — “there” being Albuquerque. And as for the wheres, whens, and whys: Wednesday, November 4, at the Marriott Uptown, noon, to discuss his new acclaimed book, Children of Monsters: An Inquiry...
View ArticleThe Real Problem with Those Math and Reading Scores
Rick Hess and Jenn Hatfield wrote on NRO last week about how recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores are a “train wreck.” Their point that fourth- and eighth-grade scores had...
View ArticleJay Nordlinger Talks Children of Monsters with C-SPAN's Brian Lamb
Quite a coup. Deserved. And quite an hour of excellent television. Two of America’s great conversationalists meet and talk about Jay’s acclaimed new book. By the way, does Brian Lamb age?
View ArticleHillary Clinton, Suddenly Amenable to American Troops on the Ground in Syria
Here’s Hillary Clinton, saying in the Democratic debate that she “really, we don’t want American troops on the ground in Syria.”President Obama announced Friday that he had ordered several dozen...
View ArticleTrade, Text, and Timing
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.) and other anti-trade Democrats are criticizing the Obama administration for talking up the Trans-Pacific Partnership before the final text has been released.Michael...
View ArticleComprehensive Mistake
The Washington Post’s specific target in this editorial is Jeb Bush’s health-care plan, but its argument applies to Marco Rubio’s similar plan and indeed to any attempt to move health-care policy in a...
View ArticleAnti-Americanism Drives the British Media’s Distorted Portrayal of Guantanamo
The story of Shaker Aamer reveals a great deal about contemporary Britain. Forty-eight years old, he is a native of Saudi Arabia. In the mid-1990s he arrived in Britain, and met and married...
View Article'The Party of No'? Let's Test that Hypothesis
I saw a lot of this yesterday after Paul Ryan did the rounds on the Sunday shows:Because GOP strategy is “just say no” no matter what? https://t.co/WvbfWmamA3— Henry Blodget (@hblodget) November 1,...
View ArticleTo Boldly Go Where CBS Has Already Been Before
CBS is launching a new Star Trek franchise. Of course I’ll watch it, at least for a while, because I have to. But I’m pretty ambivalent about CBS’s take on “exploring the dramatic contemporary themes...
View ArticleCaptain Kirk
My latest Bookmonger podcast is with Bradley J. Birzer, author of Russell Kirk: American Conservative. We discuss the life and times of this longtime contributor to National Review, why he matters so...
View ArticleIs the House about to Reauthorize Ex-Im?
According to CQ, the House is considering taking on the Senate transportation bill with an Ex-Im revival attached to it. The bill passed in July.Multi-Year Highway Bill — The House expects to consider...
View ArticleRep. Murphy's Mental Health Bill Set for Markup
After months of delays, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health is set to mark up Pennsylvania congressman Tim Murphy’s Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (H.R. 2646) on Tuesday...
View ArticleGreat Moments in Nation-Building: The $43 Million Afghan Gas Station
I wish this report was surprising, but I fear it’s the tip of the waste/fraud/corruption iceberg:Somewhere in Sheberghan, a medium-sized Afghan city in the northern province of Jowzjan, lies a simple...
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