Signs of Hope

How about a Secular Islam Summit? One of the speakers is Wafa Sultan herself.

FBI: Criminals ignore gun laws

This keen grasp of the obvious has been buried – until now.

Granted, 40 is not a very big number. But the results are just a tad lopsided:

The existence of the report was first discovered by self defense civil rights activists in January 2007 when it was mentioned in a law enforcement newsletter. According to the December 28, 2006 issue of Force Science News, the FBI research focused on 40 incidents involving assaults or deadly attacks on police officers, in which all but one of the guns involved had been obtained illegally, and none were obtained from gun shows.

Ad Baculum Redux

Michael Crichton is truly a treasure, even if all of his books aren’t that good. If you beleve in the Goracle, you won’t want to read this.

Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out.

This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms.

I don’t mean global warming. I’m talking about another theory, which rose to prominence a century ago.

You should studiously avoid reading this (PDF file), and this would bother you quite a bit.

And you probably won’t want to watch this, either.

I’m trying to teach my daughter that, no matter what the topic, if someone’s argument sounds like it’s trying to scare her, she should doubt it.

Evil Book Watch

Speaking of giving a good dressing down, Orson Scott Card gives Steve Berry quite the spanking.

Let me tell you about an audiobook that I hated.

I didn’t hate it because it was badly written — it was mediocre in the way that mediocre thrillers usually are, and that means it would ordinarily have been tolerable.

No, the reason I stopped listening to Steve Berry’s The Alexandria Link is that this book is evil.

I don’t mean it’s about evil. I don’t even mean that it is evil-porn, like those horror books whose authors are pervertedly devoted to thinking up cool ways to torture and kill people.

I mean that this book, to the degree that it is read by people ignorant of history (i.e., practically everybody), will move us closer to a future in which our society permits or even approves of the murder of Jews and the destruction of the state of Israel.

Yet another great find on LGF, which is quickly becoming one of the most essential blogs around.

Hooray for our side

In her report from CPAC, Michell Malkin takes Ann Coulter to task.

With a single word, Coulter sullied the hard work of hundreds of CPAC participants and exhibitors and tarred the collective reputation of thousands of CPAC attendees. At a reception for college students held by the Young America’s Foundation, I lambasted the substitution of stupid slurs for persuasion– be it “faggot” from a conservative or “gook” from a liberal–and urged the young people there to conduct themselves at all times with dignity in their ideological battles on and off campus.

I made something else explicitly clear: Not all of us treat the communication of conservative ideals and ideas as 24/7 performance art. You can and should use humor to convey your message. You can enlighten and entertain–without becoming a tired old schtick. You can joke without becoming

Points all well-taken. It’s worth noting that when someone on the Left says something stupid and offensive, the typical reaction is to circle the wagons. Or get them a job blogging for Edwards. When someone on the Right does, the heavy artillery comes from our own camp.

It was stupid of Screamin’ Dean to insist that all the Republican candidates “apologize” for Coulter’s remark, for no other reason than they didn’t make the remark. But the political reality is that they had to say something about it. That was Coulter’s fault. It was even more stupid of her to have made it. Why? She’s smarter than Dean. She also gets held to a higher standard than Dean, because she’s not (supposed to be) a raving lunatic.

Don’t get me wrong: I love a good polemic, especially from a polemicist who looks that hot in a miniskirt. I’ve been a fan of Coulter’s for years.

She should apologize. But not to the Breck Girl, and not to Mr. Yeaaaargh. To us.