Michael Yon explains what he meant earlier, in a must-read photo essay.
Hitting Back
I didn’t note it yesterday but April 18 is another anniversary of a blow for freedom. It was the sixty-fourth anniversary of the Doolittle raid on Tokyo.
What George Lucas Should Have Done
“OM” over at sci.space.history has a more plausible way for Anakin to turn (long thread–search the phrase “ROTS had its good points”).
A Once-Great Nation
Dr. Dalrymple has a depressing essay on the current state of Britain:
One definition of decadence is the concentration on the gratifyingly imaginary to the disregard of the disconcertingly real. No one who knows Britain could doubt that it has very serious problems
Personal Spaceflight
Jeff Foust has started up (yet another) new blog on personal spaceflight. He’s come up with a very creative and descriptive name for it–Personal Spaceflight.
Bookmark it. I’ll be adding it to the blogroll.
Schism
One more post before I get on the plane. This post over at Hit’n’Run, in which Jesse Walker hits Instapundit, looks more like a Kos post in the comments section than what I used to expect from a magazine called “Reason” (to which we continue to subscribe).
Much has been made of how the war has split the Dems, and the war has split the Republicans, but it’s really splintered the libertarians. I used to consider myself one (and in most ways that I consider important, still do). I suspect that Glenn does as well. But as Ronald Reagan once said about the Democrats, “I didn’t leave the party–the party left me.”
[Update, from LA]
Well, that set off a lively debate, though not as much as yesterday’s post.
[Update on Thursday morning]
In response to it looking Kossian, Jesse Walker emails:
That’s because it got linked by Atrios and a bunch of his readers came over. The comment thread is basically a bunch of visitors from InstaPundit arguing with a bunch of visitors from Eschaton — and complaining that the commenters at Hit & Run are nuts.
Hey, some of the Hit & Run regulars are nuts. But they aren’t that crazy. Most of them sat out that particular debate.
Fair enough. But many of the comments here are about deeper concerns with the direction of the magazine, to which it might behoove both Mssrs. Walker and Gillespie give at least some consideration. The post seems to have struck a chord, both in comments, and in some emails that I’ve gotten.
Off To CA
I’m waiting for a flight at Fort Lauderdale. The airport now has free wireless in the terminal. I’ll be flying into LA today, then driving to Phoenix tomorrow for the conference. Probably not much posting today, but I’ll check in tonight. Hope to see some of y’all in sunny Arizona.
By The Numbers
Anyone still fantasizing that this is a conservative administration should note this particular appointment of a woman who wants to set up quotas for men and women in math and science classes.
At least they put the kibosh on it. For now.
Honoring The Dead
I’d forgotten that April 19th was the anniversary of more than one revolution. Sixty-three years ago tomorrow, the doomed Jews in the Warsaw ghetto rose up against their Nazi oppressors. Unfortunately, their revolution wasn’t successful, but at least they took many of the barbarians with them, and it once again displays the folly of disarming the citizenry.
Bubble Popped?
Maybe.
Housing starts are down, more than expected.
Just anecdotally, we’ve had several houses on our street for sale for months, and they’re not moving. One house down the street was on the market for almost seven hundred thousand last fall. It’s now for sale by the owner. He had marked it down to six something. Yesterday I noticed that the sign said “price reduced” and the flyer no long had a price.
I also noted that Zillow has dropped its estimate of our house in east Boca Raton over the past few months, by about ten percent.