African Official: Please Stop With the Aid Already, You’re Killing Us…

In Der Spiegel, a Kenyan economist named James Shikwati attempts the Herculean task of explaining economics to a journalist. Shikwati: … for God’s sake, please just stop. SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty. Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If… Read More African Official: Please Stop With the Aid Already, You’re Killing Us…

7 Jan 20137 Jan 2013 AndrewLeave a comment

Thoreau Merits a Response

Civil Disobedience was a quick read, and provocative, if also strangely tedious, and occasionally downright whiny. So provocative, in fact, that I feel an essay coming on. I’m thinking long form, semi-fisking, rather like the opening chapters of John Locke’s First Treatise on Government. Check this space for further details.

4 Jan 20134 Jan 2013 AndrewLeave a comment

Leviathan and Civil Disobedience

Jeff Goldstein makes things nice and sparkling clear, like a good intentionalist should: Either you are a constitutionalist or you aren’t. If you aren’t, then in the most important ways you are anti-American. As such, you are my enemy — and a person looking to enslave me, my children, and those who matter most to me.… Read More Leviathan and Civil Disobedience

3 Jan 2013 Andrew2 Comments

Captain White Just Rearranged the Hell Out of Those Deck Chairs.

Which is to say, “There are too many metaphors here applicable to the Senate’s 89-8 passage of a “fiscal cliff” bill in the middle of the night (around 2 a.m. this morning).” Read the Whole Thing, because it’s kind of bracing to realize just how well and truly screwed we are. Via Other McCain.

1 Jan 20131 Jan 2013 AndrewLeave a comment

Little-Known Facts About Aaron Burr

Early Advocate of women’s education and abolition. Presided over the Senate’s first impeachment trial, that of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase. Even Burr’s enemies’ praised his conduct of the trial. One Senator wrote that Burr had presided with “the impartiality of an angel and the rigor of a devil.” Had it in his head that… Read More Little-Known Facts About Aaron Burr

31 Dec 2012 AndrewLeave a comment

I did it Again.

I changed the theme. I liked Esquire; I really did. The look was the best one I’ve had. But the functionality was nil. All the widgets got stuffed to the footer. I wanted to display my business more prominently. So, after clicking idly around, I settled on Grid Focus. Sure, it’s kind of newspapery, but… Read More I did it Again.

28 Dec 2012 AndrewLeave a comment

David Gregory Confronts White Privilege

By embodying it… Too good to pass up, as they say. As is the pretzel logic of those grasping to give Gregory a pass. If you start wondering why journalists seem to have some kind of a pass to break the law, and what constitutes a “journalist,” and even what distinguishes them from “swine,” you… Read More David Gregory Confronts White Privilege

27 Dec 201228 Dec 2012 AndrewLeave a comment

Piers Morgan, Freedom Fries, and Other Jokes That Progs Don’t Get

Right now there’s apparently a White House Petition to get CNN jawflapper Piers Morgan deported to the that happy realm whence he came. Something to do with his flubbering commentary on Newton and the 2nd Amendment. I haven’t read it, and I certainly haven’t signed it. Because punishing idiotic speech is not what we do… Read More Piers Morgan, Freedom Fries, and Other Jokes That Progs Don’t Get

26 Dec 20126 Oct 2014 AndrewLeave a comment

Good King Wenceslaus: The Untold Story

We’ve all heard the tune, even sung it absent-mindedly on this, the Feast of Stephen. And many of us have wondered: who in the sam-scratch is King Wenceslaus? There’s no King of England with that name, not even the old Anglo-Saxon kings who didn’t put handy numerals after their name to know which one they… Read More Good King Wenceslaus: The Untold Story

26 Dec 2012 AndrewLeave a comment

Greg Gutfeld Wins at Life

I received The Joy of Hate for Christmas yesterday, and devoured it in a day. It’s a quick read, and most of it tells me something I learned long ago: that “tolerance” is a rhetorical slight-of-hand whereby progressives grant themselves a license to demonize, terrorize and condemn. So to the extent that it didn’t reveal anything… Read More Greg Gutfeld Wins at Life

25 Dec 2012 Andrew2 Comments