John Hinderaker at Powerline has a couple of posts here and here about New Hampshire’s state motto, ‘Live Free or Die’. An excerpt: When I lived in New Hampshire, I enjoyed the perennial battles over the state’s motto, “Live Free Or Die.” It was on New Hampshire license plates then, and still is. The motto [...]

Sydney’s conservative Cardinal Pell has been questioned by a group of liberal Roman Catholics for repeatedly asserting that individual conscience is not primary in moral decision making. They say that his position is in conflict with Catholic doctrine and have asked the Vatican for a ruling on the matter. I was quite surprised because I [...]

My Northern Hemisphere readers will forgive me my response to the recent 100 degree weather.

Just a routine Monday except I had to drain the fuel tank on the car because I had used the wrong kind of epoxy putty to fix the hole – the kind that dissolves in what Aussies call petrol and Yanks call gasoline. The problem was that it was about 100 degrees in English and [...]

This post� by Michael J Totten about Erbil in Northern Iraq really impressed me because it told such a positive story about Iraq in stark contrast to the general portrayal of an uncontrollable insurgency and failure in the MSM.� To be fair I wanted to see if and how the MSM had reported the story [...]

Mohammed at Iraq the Model� has some insight into the maneuvering to form the Iraqi government. The UIA (United Iraqi Alliance) is the Shia religious party and has the most seats. Its the party Grand Ayatolla Sistani endorsed in the January 05 elections but not the recent December 05 ones. I’m not sure his endorsement [...]

Here is an example of the kind of criticism of the Bush administration I would like to see more often. At the end of this post Terrorism Unveiled quotes Fareed Zakaria: Recent months have only highlighted that promoting democracy and promoting liberty in the Middle East are separate projects. Both have their place. But the [...]

Most people have heard of the eight year $415 million study of 49,000 women that found low fat diet had no effect. The Times has a good, detailed article on the study here. My favorite passages: We are not going to reverse any of the chronic diseases in this country by changing the composition of [...]

I have had little interest in commenting on the Muslim cartoon controversy because I felt that even though important principles are involved it was like getting tangled in a disagreement between teen age boys who want to kill each other over some triviality. It seems to me that there has been a conspicuous lack of [...]

In a wide ranging interview� with Mark Steyn on Hugh Hewitt’s Radio Blogger the topic of Hillary comes up. Steyn takes crystal clear positions and I often agree with him, but I don’t agree with this take on Hillary: …when people talk about Hillary Clinton’s qualities, as they do in the Washington Post and the [...]