Steve Osborne, a retired lieutenant with the New York City Police Department, turns in a depressing yet predictable op-ed for the New York Times. It is a measure of restraint, but only a measure, that Lt. Osborne does not go nearly as far as Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, who notoriously announced…
Author: Alan Vanneman
George F. Will, right on target
How many times have I made fun of George F. Will? I’m not sure, and I won’t take it back, but his latest column, on the U.S.A.’s out of control incarceration machine, the Department of Education’s oppressive puritanism, the civil forfeiture racket, and much, much more, is superb. Rock on, Georgie!
The New York Times orders fainting couches for Muslims
Politicos Dylan Byers has the story: NYT executive editor Dean Baquet won’t publish Charlie Hebedo cartoons because they might hurt the feelings of Muslims. NYT public editor Margaret Sullivan passes along a quote from Dean: “We have a standard that is long held and that serves us well: that there is a line between gratuitous…
Daniel Larison is confused
The mills of God grind exceeding slow but exceeding fine. Mine grind exceeding slow. A decade or two ago in blog years, the American Conservative’s Daniel Larison, writing in a post labeled “George Will and ‘Cuba Derangement Syndrome’,”1 proclaimed himself mystified by Georgie’s “strange conclusion” regarding a dispute between Ky. Sen. Rand Paul and Fl….
Fanatical Muslim terrorists resent being caricatured as fanatical Muslim terrorists
2014-2015 is definitely shaping up as “The Great Death to Comedy Winter.” The basic premise of both the North Koreans and the Muslim terrorists is that no one can say vicious, funny things about them because they only say vicious, unfunny things about us. This leaves the Obama Administration in the awkward position of saying…
Libertarian Rag attacks Obamacare for applying free market principles to health care
“Reason” magazine is in fact one of my favorite sites, and I urge all 17 of my readers to check it out, but sometimes one’s schadenfreude can run ahead of one’s “reason.” Here, Reasonette Robby Soave chuckles over the plight of Harvard profs who suddenly discover that, thanks to their man Obama, they have to…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. “Lemme put this way, kid: diehard Freudians die hard. Just keep your head down and keep talking.” “Don’t worry, kid. If they nick you, the session’s on me.” “Okay, so how does this make you feel?” “So what did your boyfriend say when you told him your analyst told you you were…
Just This Once—“In Walked Bud”
Steve Seifert, saxophone; Chad Scheer, bass; Sam Negri, keys; Donnie Frank, drums. Posted by Donnie Frank
Kevin D. Williamson, kind of an asshole
I’m sometimes tempted to consider National Review “roving correspondent” Kevin D. Williamson a “thoughtful conservative,” but then sometimes Kev, as in his Jan. 1 “2015 Non-predictions”, thinks like this: “The Iranians will almost certainly continue pursuing nuclear weapons, and the United States will almost certainly continue doing nothing very credible to dissuade them. It won’t…
New York City cops, fearing, not for their lives, but for their jobs
For more than twenty years, ever since the latter part of David Dinkins’ administration in the early nineties, crime has been declining in New York City. With fewer and fewer real criminals to catch, the New York City Police Department was starting to get nervous. Can things be “too quiet”? You bet your ass! The…