Best Mayor Ever?

If only because he banned the word “diversity” from his city.

Filed under: Anglosphere, Current Events, Politics

John Adams

Got HBO’s movie on John Adams in the mail today. It’s excellent, and highly recommended.

Filed under: America, Anglosphere, Boston, Democracy, Entertainment, Europe, History, Massachusetts, Movies

Morality and Authority

Peter Hitchens blogs about “Atheism, stabbings and the uselessness of centre-left politics.”

Very interesting.

Filed under: Anglosphere, Current Events, End of the World, Europe, Guns, Hippies, Politics, Religion, The West

Mitt Romney

Endorses Mike Huckabee?!

And my eyes have crossed…

Filed under: America, Anglosphere, Current Events, Election 2008, Huckabee, Politics, Romney

The Editors on National Review Online

Endorse Mitt Romney for POTUS.

But doesn’t he have some questions to answer still?

(P.S.: I would have loved to been a fly on the wall at that editorial meeting!)

Filed under: America, Anglosphere, Current Events, Election 2008, Massachusetts, Politics, Romney

Human-animal embryo study wins approval in the UK

It’s a brave new world across the pond:

Plans to allow British scientists to create human-animal embryos are expected to be approved tomorrow by the government’s fertility regulator. The Human Fertilisation [sic] and Embryology Authority published its long-awaited public consultation on the controversial research yesterday, revealing that a majority of people were “at ease” with scientists creating the hybrid embryos.

According to the article, the researchers want to do this in order to get stem cells, which will heal untold millions with their magical incredible abilities.

Two things occur to me:

1. Have these scientists not seen a single science-fiction movie? Mark my words: in six months, the United Kingdom will be overrun with animal-human zombies bent on world domination. You heard it here first!

2. It’s been my understanding that stem cells theoretically can heal and cure people; that is, there hasn’t been any conclusive proof that stem cells can actually help people. Is this still true, or am I misinformed/uninformed?

Of course, whatever the answer to number 2 might be, scientists are still developing embryos only to destroy them to further their research. And the culture of death marches on…

UPDATE: This guy gets it:

But Dr David King, who works for research watchdog Human Genetics Alert, said: “We are not a pro-life group but creating embryos purely for the purpose of research turns the embryo into nothing more than a research tool and a source of raw biological material for experiments.”

Filed under: Anglosphere, Current Events, Health Care, Hippies, Politics, Pro-Life, Science, Zombies

Scouts Celebrate 100th Anniversary

Thanks, Lord Baden-Powell.

Filed under: America, Anglosphere, Boy Scouts, Current Events, Education, History, Holidays, Manliness

Poor and starving? Not so much

Across the pond, another myth about the poor is proven false:

But a survey of 3,500 people on low incomes found that the food they were eating, although not particularly healthy, was similar to the general population.

Also 80% said they shopped mainly at a large supermarket and most had good cooking and food storage facilities at home.

Around 91% of women and 64% of men in the study claimed to be able to “cook from basic ingredients”.

Food prices are down by about 15% since 2000, apparently; darn that capitalism!

Filed under: Anglosphere, Current Events, Economics, Politics

Let’s do it!

The Anchoress: IMPEACH BUSH!

Seriously, I’d like to see it!

Filed under: America, Anglosphere, Current Events, Politics

To be or not to be?

Apparently, not to be, as schools cease to teach Shakespeare. Well, let’s be honest, he’s not that important, right? He’s only the most important author in the English language.

Filed under: Anglosphere, Current Events, Education, Politics, The West

June 27th

PM Tony Blair’s last day in office.

Filed under: Anglosphere, Current Events, Politics

Video: Bush’s royal gaffe

The Daily Mail (UK) has an article suggesting that when Pres. Bush misspoke, HRM Elizabeth II gave him a “frosty glare.” Of course, they prove this by showing two photos clearly taken at different times (the Queen and the President seem to switch sides between the two pictures).

Watching the video, I think we can file this under “Non-scandal of the Week.” She didn’t even look like she was paying attention.

Filed under: America, Anglosphere, Current Events, Funny, Politics

Oxford’s Preposterous Proposition

Jonah Goldberg recently crossed the pond to argue at the Oxford Union. They asked him to defend the creation of America, which he does admirably. A highly amusing reading, if I may so.

Filed under: America, Anglosphere, Current Events, Politics

Sticks & Stones

FRED DALTON THOMPSON has some thoughts on popularity.

Filed under: America, Anglosphere, Current Events, Election 2008, Fred D. Thompson, Politics

The Fred Thompson Report

FRED DALTON THOMPSON has his own blog.

Filed under: America, Anglosphere, Current Events, Election 2008, Fred D. Thompson, Politics

The abortion rebellion

NHS doctors in the UK are increasingly refusing to perform abortions on moral grounds. Is there life in England yet?

(NHS = The UK’s socialized health care system.)

Filed under: Anglosphere, Catholic, Current Events, Politics, Pro-Life, Religion

Shakespeare’s Catholic Code

Was Shakespeare a Catholic? Maybe:

For centuries, though, Catholics, however unscholarly, have had an unwitting advantage over many Shakespearean critics. They possess part of the key to a forgotten form of coded writing familiar to the dissident intelligentsia of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Acquaintance with Catholic idiom, history, and liturgy offers a glimpse of something momentous hidden beneath the familiar words, encouraging an alert reader to look beyond the familiar fabric of the work and discover a second layer below. Once detected, the concealed dimension is so distinct and coherent that there is no danger of reading in a subjective meaning.

Interesting.

Filed under: Anglosphere, Books, Catholic

Vampires in Canada?

And I thought all we had to worry about from the Great White North (eh?) was Socialists and Quebecois!

No word yet on the Canadian living dead.

Filed under: Anglosphere, Current Events, End of the World, Zombies

London is the world capital of the 21st century… says New York

New York, the magazine that is. Is this really true? I find it a bit hard to believe, but then again I have about zero pop-cultural knowledge.

Filed under: Anglosphere, Current Events, Politics

The Fourth Great Assault on the Anglosphere

Stephen Bainbridge:

Roberts’ focus is the core Anglosphere; i.e., the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. During the 20th Century, the Anglosphere faced four great challenges. Three have been successfully seen off, with the Anglosphere triumphant: Prussian Militarism in World War I, Fascism in World War II, and Communism in the Cold War. The fourth assault arrived on 9/11 when the true menace of Islamic terrorism was finally brought home to the cultural and financial center of the modern Anglosphere.

Bainbridge, by the way, is reviewing the book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900.

Filed under: America, Anglosphere, Books, Current Events, Politics

Young Blair’s obscene gesture

This is news? A young guy makes a lewd hand gesture while hanging out with friends? So what? Am I missing something?

And by the way, what is it about 1970’s British young men that is so scary? All those guys in the picture on the sight look like they come out of any number of seventies films set in Britain.

Filed under: Anglosphere, Current Events, Politics

A World Without America

Filed under: America, Anglosphere, Current Events, Democracy, Politics

Scaremongers

Cardinal George Pell (Archdiocese of Sydney, Australia) challenges the global warming prophets of doom.

Have I ever said how much I like Australia?

Filed under: Anglosphere, Catholic, Current Events, End of the World, Politics

The English-speaking century

Three-cheers for the Anglosphere:

In the past one hundred years, four successive political movements—Prussian militarism, German Nazism, Japanese imperialism, and international Communism— mounted military campaigns to conquer Europe, Asia, and the world. Had any of them prevailed, it would have been a profound loss for civilization as we know it. Yet over the course of these bids for power, a coalition headed first by Britain and then by the United States emerged not just to oppose but to destroy them utterly.

From the long perspective of human affairs, these victories must stand as among the most remarkable of the past three millennia. They were as decisive for world history as the victories of the ancient Greeks over Persia, of Rome over Carthage, and of the Franks over the Umayyad Caliphate.

Read the whole thing.

Filed under: America, Anglosphere, History, Politics, The West

Australian Prime Minister Blasts Obama’s Iraq Policy

John Howard rules: “If I were running Al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory, not only for Obama but also for the Democrats.”

Filed under: Anglosphere, Axis of Evil, Current Events, Politics, Terrorism