All posts by Rand Simberg

Isadore The Cowboy

Will Warren has a wonderful new poem up in honor of a fatuously stupid commentary by FAIR, on how we can no longer handle immigration in this country because we’re running out of room.

We?ve all heard tell of Isadore the Cowboy,
Who drove them dogies all across the range;
For Jews, the urban places were a killjoy:
They all became proud members of the Grange.

What’s particularly ironic about this is that the Great Plains are actually emptying–states like Nebraska and the Dakotas are declining in population, and the average age is dramatically increasing as young people leave and head for the cities. After settling a frontier a century ago, we’re now abandoning it.

It might be a good place to move in libertarian-bent people to start up new communities, if we had a federal government that would follow the Constitution…

I’m OK, My Website’s OK. You’re Pretty Cool, Too

For those who, like Perry de Havilland, thought that my post about Blogdom attacks was an excuse for my not posting–sorry for the confusion. I was simply expressing general concern.

I myself don’t use blogger, and have had no technical difficulties at all. (I’m obviously not important enough to be attacked.)

I was simply busy over the weekend, and in addition, was undergoing a (temporary?) shortage of pith and wit.

I’m OK, My Website’s OK. You’re Pretty Cool, Too

For those who, like Perry de Havilland, thought that my post about Blogdom attacks was an excuse for my not posting–sorry for the confusion. I was simply expressing general concern.

I myself don’t use blogger, and have had no technical difficulties at all. (I’m obviously not important enough to be attacked.)

I was simply busy over the weekend, and in addition, was undergoing a (temporary?) shortage of pith and wit.

I’m OK, My Website’s OK. You’re Pretty Cool, Too

For those who, like Perry de Havilland, thought that my post about Blogdom attacks was an excuse for my not posting–sorry for the confusion. I was simply expressing general concern.

I myself don’t use blogger, and have had no technical difficulties at all. (I’m obviously not important enough to be attacked.)

I was simply busy over the weekend, and in addition, was undergoing a (temporary?) shortage of pith and wit.

Our Friends The Europeans

Lord Robertson says that NATO can’t be expected to support any US war on the axis of evil unless we can prove that they had something to do with 911. Gee, what happened to the war on terrorism? You know, the one that was supposed to put an end to terrorists with global reach?

Apparently, in NATO’s formulation, we’re not allowed to preempt attacks on our soil. We can only retaliate after they’ve occurred. By this logic, we could have done nothing about Al Qaeda in Afghanistan prior to September 11–we had to wait until they actually carried out the attack. Their stated intent to do so, and their previous attacks on our assets (including the first one on the WTC) were insufficient.

Europe had better understand that we are now going to do everything within our power to prevent any future attacks like the ones that occurred in September. In all three cases in the “axis of evil,” we are dealing with nations with whom we’ve either been actively at war (Korea and the Gulf War), or who have engaged in acts of war upon us (Iran, when they took and kept the hostages for over a year) to which we didn’t properly respond.

It was our failure to deal with them properly at the time that resulted in what happened in September, by building a reputation of weakness and vacillation on our part. All three countries represent unfinished business, business for which we were previously unwilling to pay the necessary price to see it through to the end.

Now we are more than willing to finish–with or without our NATO “allies.”

A Farewell To Legs

Well, they just took away one of the reasons to watch the winter Olympics. No more female limbs akimbo or crotch shots in the ice skating competition.

We’ve certainly come a long way from when the games used to be played in the nude. Of course, I wouldn’t have been particularly interested, since it was all guys then…