Michael Totten has an interesting interview with an Israeli about Lebanon and Israeli politics.
An Open Letter To The Pope
From Catholic Ed Morrissey:
If Islam is ever to peacefully co-exist with other faiths in the manner that Christendom finally learned how to do, then it has to start abiding questions and criticisms without resorting to violence. Islam has to learn to persuade and to attract people through reason, not through forced conversions and coexistence through violent supremacy. Muslim leaders around the world still believe that our faith can only exist at their sufferance, and any question of their doctrinal beliefs has to be met with violence or demands for apologies, not with rhetoric, facts, and reason.
I’ve heard no denunciations from any Muslim of the forced conversions of the Fox News reporters a couple weeks ago. If anyone is aware of any, please let me know.
Overhyped
That’s what Keith Cowing says that Anousheh Ansari’s flight is being.
I agree. It’s great that she’s flying, and I hope that it provides useful inspiration, but Space Adventures has gone overboard. I’ll be much more interested in what she does with her money and time when she gets back, in terms of helping private enterprise.
She’s No Oriana
The Anchoress compares La Fallaci and Rosie O’Donnell:
So great is my respect for Fallaci, that to mention Rosie O
She’s No Oriana
The Anchoress compares La Fallaci and Rosie O’Donnell:
So great is my respect for Fallaci, that to mention Rosie O
She’s No Oriana
The Anchoress compares La Fallaci and Rosie O’Donnell:
So great is my respect for Fallaci, that to mention Rosie O
Oh, Well
At least there’s one good football team in Michigan. Maybe the Wolverines should have played Chicago today. The Lions are already down 17-zip in the first half.
[Update with three minutes to go in the game]
Down 34-7. Hey, they can still come back. They only need one touchdown every forty-give seconds.
And the Tigers are losing to the Orioles in the bottom of the eighth, with Minnesota winning. so their lead in the Central Division will be down to one game. Looks like they’re going to blow it, and they may not even make it as a wild card.
Glad we at least have the Wolverines today.
[Update a little after 4 PM EDT]
Hey, they Tigers have tied it up at eight each in the bottom of the eighth. Maybe they can pull it out.
[Update at 4:30]
They’re in extra innings. Unfortunately, in the top of the tenth, the Twins have a man on second with nobody out. A single would bring in the go-ahead run.
[Couple minutes later]
Crap. The Tigers’ bull pen is letting them down. Two runs in, bases loaded, with only one out. They’re going to have to have a heck of an inning at the bottom of the tenth to recover.
[Update]
Sigh. You know, maybe it’s just as well. The way they’ve been playing for the last few weeks, they’d never make it through the playoffs anyway.
A Sad Age
Victor Davis Hanson has thoughts on Oriana Fallaci and the Pope.
Housing Prices: Chicken Little vs. Pollyanna
Chicken Little
“The sky is falling”
- We want a housing crisis so the Republicans won’t get re-elected
- Housing price rises moderating
- Overhang of variable rate loans from boom
- Middle income wages stagnant in real terms
- Evidence of flipping in hot markets suggesting bubble
Pollyanna
“what a perfectly lovely, lovely house! How awfully glad you must be you’re so rich!”
- No capital gains taxes
- Thick mortgage backed securities market
- Fewer new buyers chasing money
- Falling real estate commissions
- Rising incomes
- Changing commuting patterns
- “breathtaking profit”
- Active Federal Reserve Board
- Industry sensitive to interest rates
- Rising population
- Middle income wages rising in money terms
- Median age rising
- Family size falling
- Rise in ownership of 2nd homes
- Rise in telecommuting
- Home entertainment such as video games eclipsing movies
- Capitalization and standardization of home building industry (e.g. Toll Brothers)
A moderation in an accellerator suggests just a slow-down in the rate of growth of housing prices to me, but don’t listen to me–I just cashed out a 40% capital gain in my last house tax free and locked in a super low rate from a private equity mortgage lender and didn’t use a real estate agent to buy and used a cut commission agent to sell. Clearly I’m a Pollyanna.
Nonviolence
How could the “Religion of Peace™” be against what the Pope said?
Glenn Reynolds explains.