We were treated this week to yet another Star-Trekky report by NASA scientists about other planets in the universe that “contain all of the elements we need for life.” But I’ve always felt that this quest for signs of life in the universe was fraught with the misguided notion that the solar system revolves, not… Read more.
Archives for August 2009
Ex-con Michael Vick returns to the NFL
Two years ago today, when Michael Vick copped a plea to charges stemming from his dog-fighting operation, I wrote that six months in prison and a $250,000 fine would be a fair sentence. I reasoned that, if he did any time at all, he would forfeit at least one season’s pay on his NFL contract,… Read more.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics, is dead
Given the iconic legacies of her older brothers JFK and RFK, and the political career of her younger brother Sen Edward M. Kennedy, it would have been understandable if Eunice Shriver Kennedy shied away from public service. And, had it not been for the mental retardation of one of her sisters, she might have. For… Read more.
Usain Bolt: an even faster fastest man on the planet
Yesterday, a year to the day after he shattered the world record in the 100m at the Beijing Olympics, Usain Bolt of Jamaica did it again in even more impressive fashion at the Track and Field World Championships in Berlin. The race was billed as a showdown between bolt and Tyson Gay of the United… Read more.
Town Hall meetings show that far too many Americans are just like the boisterous fools who appear on Jerry Springer…
But it’s a testament to his charisma and influence that, despite exhortations by talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh to disrupt them, President Obama’s Town Hall meetings all come off like airings of the ‘Oprah Winfrey Show’. Read more.
Banning marital rape in The Bahamas
I am heartened that the government of The Bahamas has finally proposed legislation to ban marital rape. After all, according to a 2006 United Nations report, marital rape is already a crime in over 104 countries, including Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago; not to mention being a crime under international law. Yet this proposed… Read more.
Congolese student causes Hillary to snap
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is nearing the end of an 11-day, 7-country tour of Africa. And all indications are that she is performing admirably, reinforcing the Obama doctrine of good governance as a precondition for US aid and direct investments. Unfortunately, the earlier part of her tour was upstaged by her husband’s simultaneous… Read more.
Suu Kyi becoming the Nelson Mandela of Myanmar?
In recent years, Myanmar has made news in the West for all the wrong reasons. Most notorious in this respect was when the military junta, which now rules this country, brutally cracked down on Buddhist monks who were leading protests for democratic freedoms, and then again when it inhumanely refused international aid for victims of… Read more.
UPDATE: Congressman Jefferson convicted; faces Madoff-like sentence
‘The FBI not only caught Democrat William Jefferson on videotape accepting marked bills under his dinner table at the Ritz Hotel, but later found those bills stored amongst $90,000 similar bills in the freezer of his Washington, DC townhouse.’ This is how I expressed my cynicism about and consternation over the fact that – despite… Read more.
Calling for British heads to roll in TCI
I received a surprising number of e-mails over the weekend from people accusing me, among other things, of being a “British stooge [for] giving Governor Tauwhare and other British officials a pass while calling for our Premier and his government ministers to be prosecuted.” Evidently they derived fodder for their accusations from two commentaries that… Read more.