Dana R Pico's blog
Posted at 12:07pm on Jul. 7, 2008 The rewards of hard work, of doing the right thing
By Dana R Pico
As my younger daughter and I were driving to pick up a wireless receiver for her new computer yesterday, we got into a discussion concerning achievement. She had asked me why, if Adolf Hitler hated Jews so much, he didn't just draft them all into the Wehrmacht, and send them to fight the Red Army. As it happens, I'm currently reading Mein Kampf¹, so I did have some answers for her.
Posted in Culture — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 8:15pm on Jun. 27, 2008 Two editorials from The New York Times
By Dana R Pico
Thanks to Brian, I saw this editorial from The New York Times:
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Lock and Load
Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year — on the job, walking to school, at the shopping mall. The Supreme Court on Thursday all but ensured that even more Americans will die senselessly with its wrongheaded and dangerous ruling striking down key parts of the District of Columbia’s gun-control law.
Posted in Law — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 2:24pm on Nov. 16, 2007 Dennis Kucinich: the advocate of surrender
By Dana R Pico
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) has a slogan from the late president, "Peace through Strength" as part of its ship's banner. Mr Reagan was almost certainly not the originator of the phrase, but it is inextricably identified with him, from his early campaigns through his eight great years as our president.
The Reagan years were characterized by more than just his "morning in America" phrase, but in his deliberate policy, successfully implemented, to stop and then roll back Soviet expansionism. When he entered office, the USSR was putting longer ranged Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles in place to target Europe, had a new proxy communist government in Nicaragua, was making strides in Namibia, had invaded and occupied Afghanistan, and had conned the weak-willed President Carter to agree to the lop-sided (in the Soviet's favor) second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, or SALT II.
Posted in 2008 — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 12:20pm on Nov. 12, 2007 The Democratic Congress and fiscal discipline
By Dana R Pico
My friends on the left will certainly hate the source, but Karl Rove nails it!
- A Failure to Lead
By Karl Rove
The Wall Street Journal,November 9, 2007; Page A19
This week is the one-year anniversary of Democrats winning Congress. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid probably aren't in a celebrating mood. The goodwill they enjoyed after their victory is gone. Their bright campaign promises are unfulfilled. Democratic leadership is in disarray. And Congress's approval rating has fallen to its lowest point in history.
Posted in Taxes — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 3:01pm on Nov. 5, 2007 Why Philadelphia Police Offcer Charles Cassidy is dead
By Dana R Pico
The Philadelphia Police Department has identified the man they believe murdered Officer Charles "Chuck" Cassidy last Wednesday, and a warrant for his arrest has been issued. The Philadelphia Inquirer naturally had a couple of stories on the warrant, including the suspect's prior record.
- A drug record, but no violence¹
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Posted at 12:29pm on Nov. 1, 2007 Reality frays the edges of paranoid fantasies
By Dana R Pico
When I first started reading this article from Amanda Marcotte, I assumed that she thought that Mike Huckabee had more of a shot at the Republican presidential nomination than most people believe. But the further I got into it, the more I became convinced: she's going off the deep end.
Posted at 7:41am on Oct. 23, 2007 But it's just a little tax increase, really just a few cents more!
By Dana R Pico
There were a couple of articles, on the same theme, on two of the sites on my blogroll. First from Dave Fourputt on the very much neglected Liberal Quicksand site:
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Governor Jennifer Granholm explanation of Michigan’s tax increases
Dave Fourputt
October 16th, 2007
As a follow-up to this post about Michigan’s latest round of tax increases I would like to share the response I received to my email to Governor Jennifer Granholm. In a nutshell I simply asked for advice on how “working families” were supposed to come up with the cash to pay for these tax increases. I know that the idea that the money people earn is actually theirs is totally absurd to the Communists over at Liberal Avenger and “cut-n-paste” Stram so I do not expect them to grasp the point of this post.
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Posted at 2:19pm on Oct. 17, 2007 A teachable moment?
By Dana R Pico
Robert Fles is the head of the upper school at Chestnut Hill Academy, in Philadelphia, and he wrote an opinion piece in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, about the right kinds of stories for boys to hear, about the types of things they should be taught. And he's both absolutely right, and absolutely wrong.
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The right kind of stories for boys¹
Posted in Culture — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:49am on Oct. 16, 2007 I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you
By Dana R Pico
If you had heard that the federal government mandated increased efficiency standards for washing machines, requiring that new machines use 21% less energy, you'd probably think that was a good thing, right? Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore would be telling us how actions like this would reduce electricity consumption and our terrible carbon footprint.
Well, one of my drivers, who reads Consumer Reports almost religiously, clued me in on this article:
Posted in Energy — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 2:30pm on Oct. 10, 2007 But, but, but, I thought that WalMart was supposed to be evil!
By Dana R Pico
Maybe the Nobel Peace Prize former Vice President Al Gore is supposedly going to win ought to go to WalMart instead. After all, Mr Gore only talks about saving the environment (spewing copious amounts of greenhouse gasses in the process), while it looks like that evil ol' WalMart is actually doing something about it. :)
Posted in Liberals — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 5:35pm on Oct. 7, 2007 Uhhh, guys, can you find the time to get your actual work done before you start playing like spoiled children?
By Dana R Pico
Noting Blubonnet's comment about how horrid the Senate was in condemning MoveOn.org's over-the-top "General Betray Us" ad in The New York Times, I'd cite Rovin's article, The Silencing of the Lions. Rovin noted the action of the Политбюро San Francisco Board of Supervisors¹ in condemning Michael Savage's attacks on illegal immigration as "hate speech:"
Posted in Miscellanea — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 12:45pm on Oct. 5, 2007 Putting himself ahead of his party and his constituents
By Dana R Pico
Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), convicted of misdemeanor disorderly conduct for soliciting a same-sex quickie in a public restroom, said that he would resign his seat on September 30th, if his guilty plea wasn't reversed. Yesterday the judge refused to vacate the guilty plea, and today Mr Craig is breaking his word, and, apparently, staying in the Senate.
This article from the Associated Press says that his Republican colleagues in the Senate have:
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Posted at 7:42am on Oct. 4, 2007 But how can this be?
By Dana R Pico
Our friends on the left have been touting a statistical survey, from which the number of 1.2 million Iraqi civilian casualties due to the war was projected.
The war has lasted for some 1,660 days now. To have "achieved" 1,200,000 Iraqi civilian deaths would require an average of 722.89 such deaths per day. That's well above the required civilian casualty level needed to have justified the Lancet numbers.
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Posted at 7:24am on Oct. 4, 2007 Is Jimmy Carter an idiot, or just plain stupid?
By Dana R Pico
While reviewing former President Carter's book, Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid, I was stunned to read a passage in it where Mr Carter completely disregarded security while trying to jog through part of Jerusalem.
While on this visit to Jerusalem, I also had a personal taste of how Israeli-Palestinian relationships had changed since my earlier tours. As usual, I got up quite early and began a jog around the old city, in East Jerusalem and beyond — an intriguing route of ancient sites and steep hills. I was accompanied by an American Secret Service agent and two young Israeli soldiers, who insisted on leading the way. We proceeded from our hotel to the Jaffa Gate, then turned north around the outside of the ancient walls. As we were running eastward alongside the Jerico road, I saw a group of elderly Arab men sitting by the curb, reading their newspapers. The sidewalk was almost empty and wide enough for us to pass easily, but one of the soldiers cut to the right and knocked all of the newspapers back into the faces of the startled readers. Some of the papers fluttered to the ground. I stopped to apologize to the old men, but they could not understand me. Then I told the soldiers either to let me run alone or not to treat anyone else in a belligerent manner. They reluctantly agreed, insisting that one could never tell what was being hidden behind newspapers. This was a sharp demonstration of our different perspectives.¹
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Posted at 7:06pm on Sep. 3, 2007 The path to totalitarianism is paved with good intentions
By Dana R Pico
Sister Toldjah has a small article on her former Senator, John Edwards, supposedly one of the first tier of candidates for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination:
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John Edwards: If I give you “free” healthcare, you better use it
The Associated Press reports:
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