For the next few days.
Sunday, March 17, 2024
Gaza's Suspicious Casualty Figures
"Recently, the Biden administration lent legitimacy to Hamas’ figure. When asked at a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week how many Palestinian women and children have been killed since Oct. 7, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the number was “over 25,000.” The Pentagon quickly clarified that the secretary “was citing an estimate from the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.” President Biden himself had earlier cited this figure, asserting that “too many, too many of the over 27,000 Palestinians killed in this conflict have been innocent civilians and children, including thousands of children.” The White House also explained that the president “was referring to publicly available data about the total number of casualties.”Here’s the problem with this data: The numbers are not real. That much is obvious to anyone who understands how naturally occurring numbers work. The casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters."
Russia's Presidential Election
Thursday, March 14, 2024
Patriarch Neophyte has reposed
RIP Paul Alexander
Paul Alexander has died at 78. You may be forgiven if you haven't heard of him. Neither had I until I stumbled on his obituary. On the surface, Mr. Alexander's life seems fairly ordinary. He went to college, then law school, was admitted to the bar and represented many clients, wrote a book, and in his later years became something of an internet personality. What sets him apart, was that he spent most of the last 72 years of his life living in an iron lung. He was completely paralyzed by polio at the age of six and could only move his head and speak. Mr. Alexander, who might well have had some justification for being bitter at the cruel hand that fate had dealt him, instead decided to make the best of the life he had. He became very good at memorization, vice taking notes, dictated a great deal, and learned to write with a pen taped to his nose with which he was able to type or tap a computer keyboard. At the time of his passing, he was active on social media with more than 300,000 followers.
Paul Alexander holds the record for the longest-lived survivor of polio who had to live in an iron lung and is believed to have been the second to last person still using one.
Memory eternal.
Hollywood's hypocritical (and dangerous) gun culture
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
A Catholic look at the Coptic Church's withdrawal from ecumenical dialogue
Sunday, March 10, 2024
Female Deacons? Just say "no."
There he goes again
Friday, March 08, 2024
When a Big Company Decides Your Skin Color is Problematic
Coptic Orthodox Church Synod Rejects Same-Sex Relations, Suspends Dialogue with Catholics
Wednesday, March 06, 2024
The last time this happened
Monday, March 04, 2024
Saturday, March 02, 2024
NY Times /Siena poll gives Trump 5pt lead
Friday, March 01, 2024
The U.S. national debt is rising by $1 trillion about every 100 days
The death of the Eisenhower-Reagan GOP
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
House Freedom Caucus on Mitch McConnell
Our thoughts are with our Democrat colleagues in the Senate on the retirement of their Co-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (D-Ukraine).
— House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) February 28, 2024
No need to wait till November… Senate Republicans should IMMEDIATELY elect a *Republican* Minority Leader.
My thoughts...
Michigan Fires a Warning Shot Across Biden's Bow
Trump Offers to Post $100 Million Bond While Appealing Civil Judgement
WANTED-
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
The 2024 presidential rankings
It's basically a beauty contest run by leftist academics. But FWIW, here it is. IMO they got the top three and the bottom two right. Everything in between I disagree with, in some cases pretty strongly. That said, I don't rank presidents in order. That's a bit too subjective for my taste. I grade them. Here is my list.
Grades
- A+ GOAT
- A Great
- A- Near Great
- B+ Very Good
- B Good
- B- Good(ish)
- C+ Above Average
- C Average
- C- Below Average
- D+ Poor
- D Bad
- D- Very Bad
- F Catastrophically Bad
- U Unrated
- George Washington: A
- John Adams: C
- Thomas Jefferson: B
- James Madison: C+
- James Monroe: B-
- John Q. Adams C-
- Andrew Jackson D+
- Martin Van Buren C-
- William H. Harrison: U (only in office for 1 month)
- John Tyler: C-
- James K. Polk: B+
- Zachary Taylor: C
- Millard Fillmore: D+
- Franklin Pierce: D
- James Buchannan: F
- Abraham Lincoln: A+
- Andrew Johnson: D-
- Ulysses S. Grant: B-
- Rutheford B. Hayes: C
- James Garfield: U (only in office 6 months and incapacitated for half that)
- Chester Arthur: C+
- Grover Cleveland: B-
- Benjamin Harrison: C
- Grover Cleveland: C+ (2nd term is rated slightly lower than 1st)
- William McKinley: B
- Theodore Roosevelt: A-
- William H. Taft: C+
- Woodrow Wilson: D
- Warren G Harding: C-
- Calvin Coolidge: B
- Herbert Hoover: D+
- Franklin D. Roosevelt: A (mostly on the basis of his war record)
- Harry Truman: B
- Dwight D. Eisenhower: A-
- John F. Kennedy: B-
- Lyndon B. Johnson: C+
- Richard Nixon: D+
- Gerald R. Ford: C
- Jimmy Carter: C-
- Ronald Reagan: A-
- George H. W. Bush: B
- William J. Clinton: C+ (the last fiscally sane president)
- George W. Bush: C-
- Barrack Obama: B-
- Donald J. Trump: F
- Joeseph R. Biden: U (incumbent but not looking too good for future rankings)
Life in the land of long ago
Haircut, a straight razor shave and a shoeshine (1942). With wartime inflation, I am betting that guy was not getting out of there for less than 50 cents. (See link for full sized image)
From here.