“The legislation is like this: some boats are sinking, so rather than bailing those boats out, you blow up the dam and drain the whole lake,” says economist John Cochrane in this article on the fact economists don’t quite buy the idea of a coming financial armageddon.

Scientists are conducting genetic studies again. They are examining patterns in mice genes. “What this suggests to us is that the Norwegian Vikings were taking these mice around and they were taking a particular genetic type,” leading to an understanding of how men migrated in the early world. Real men, you know–viking men.

What a week to leave town, spend my days in a Viking camp, and (presumably) get my news mostly second-hand!

Next year, when I go to Høstfest in Minot, I expect I’ll share the roads with thousands of refugee Minnesotans, all their earthly possessions jammed into and strapped onto the tops of their Priuses. They’ll abandon this state once the high taxes and the economic downturn drive what’s left of the jobs out, and head west to North Dakota, where a favorable industrial environment will spark a sudden boom. Thugs will be stationed at the border to keep the “Minnies” out.

I’ll have a legitimate entry authorization from the Høstfest Committee, of course. Maybe I’ll never come back, though.

I commented, on Phil’s post below about historical naming practices in Europe, on a passage I recalled from an old book I own. I’ve found the passage now. It’s from Our Roving Bible by Lawrence E. Nelson, published by Abingdon-Cokesbury in 1945, long out of print. It’s a book on the influence of the Bible on English-speaking culture. My mother gave me her copy sometime in the mid-60s. I have no idea how she came to acquire it in the first place. Looking at it now, I’m amazed that I read it in high school, since I’m pretty sure I didn’t understand ¾ of it. Continue reading Why not Minot? →

We’re celebrating Banned Books Week here on BwB. For the readers at home, the word “banned” means complained about at any time during the life of the book by anyone, especially conservatives or The Religious. The American Library Association reminds us that “closing books shuts our ideas.”

Yes, you can nod your head on that cue.

But lest you feel smug in your cozy little home, we must remind you that the book you put down to check up on this blog is likely to be a banned book. You too have been effected, wounded, struck by the enemy of knowledge and clean-living–namely your local librarian.

The American Thinker describes the tyranny of the American library system and the fact that 99% of all books are banned even as we read this.

When you choose what books go into a library, you are also choosing what books will not go into that library, since you simply can’t fit them all in. So why are librarians considered the one and only ones who can make such decisions? Concerned citizens can’t. Parents of children who use the school library can’t. The mayor, or any other elected official, can’t. Not ever. No way. No how. That’s censorship. But librarians not only do it, they do it every day. It’s considered their job.

The real question is not which books should be stocked and not stocked at your local library, but who decides.

It’s the start of Banned Books Week, kids, and the candidate of the future has joined in the fun. Apparently, Obama supports censorship. In Missouri, the Obama campaign has asked state officials “to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading television ad during the presidential campaign.” Now, who could argue with this. I mean everyone agrees on what “misleading” is in any given situation. (via View from the Foothills)

Paul Newman has died of cancer at age 83. (HT: Terry Teachout)

I’ve been listening to people on talk radio for a couple days now, discussing the market bailout bill being discussed in Washington.

I’ve come to the solid conviction that I don’t understand it at all, and have no idea who’s right.

I think I vaguely comprehend the problem, and how the situation came to be. But what may be the right way to deal with it I cannot fathom, any more than I grasp quantum physics or pop music.



Apropos of Phil’s post below on the movie Fireproof, here’s a link that was sent to me, to Ted Baehr’s Movie Guide webcast, where they interview Kirk Cameron about the film. I share it primarily because the interviewer, Gail Nordskog, is the wife of my new publisher. (I suspect, due to the nature of the URL, that this link will change to a newer webcast before too long. So if you’re reading this a few days from now, you may get a different program.)



Do any of you know anything about the new Billy Graham movie? This isn’t a movie by Billy Graham (i.e., World Wide Pictures), but a movie about Billy Graham. I watched the trailer (someplace), and I find it intriguing. But it seems too good to be true. Continue reading Markets and movies →

I’ve seen a lot of comments on the blogosphere about Saturday Night Live making a joke about incest in the Palin family.

Tasteless? Yes. A cause for conservative outrage? Not so much.

Hugh Hewitt played the audio of the entire skit last night, and in fact, taken in context, it was a piece that could have been written by clever Republicans (there are a few, I’ve heard). The skit involved an editor sending a group of reporters to Alaska expressly to find dirt on Gov. Palin, and the reporters’ questions (including the incest one) were actually meant as examples of how out of touch the reporters were, how prejudiced against anyone living outside the liberal coasts.

The big laugh was when the editor informed the group that there was no Thai take-out in Alaska, and half of the reporters backed out.

It would be better to get outraged about issues that have some substance. There are plenty of those out there.

Outside, it was like summer in Minneapolis today. Just beautiful. Air conditioning weather.

But it is winter in my head.

My first cold of the year has arrived, with its entourage in tow.

I’m getting tired of this. Last winter, if I recall correctly, consisted entirely for me of a very long bout of flu, bookended on either side by unusually long colds.

I’m losing my faith in zinc tablets.

I’m beginning to suspect that zinc tablets are like the secret police of a particularly inept military dictatorship. They manage to beat down the resistance, but they cannot wipe it out. It waits, and organizes, and grows in strength in the shadows, until it bursts forth with volcanic violence in terrorism and revenge and blood in the streets.

It is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It’s the beginning of the beginning of Cold Season.

… traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. [The study] also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.