Today's Washington Post front page Koran story with the provocative headline: Pentagon Confirms Koran Incidents 'Mishandling' Cases Preceded Guidelines Established in 2003 Oh! Confirmation of Koran de toilette? No, not exactly. He said most of the 13 cases involved accidental or inadvertent touching of the Koran by guards and interrogators -- such as someone bumping […]
Today's question open for discussion: Should a newspaper correct an obvious, yet trivial error in a letter to the editor? Or just let it slide? The La Mesa Police Department should get a decimal meter before we all become hearing impaired! I'll help pay for one. Decimal meter? That's a gadget that shows you where […]
I first used PGP -- Pretty Good Privacy -- back in the '90s when I was living in Washington State. I was getting a hand with my taxes from Hoystory the Elder (who had worked as a tax preparer in a previous life) and didn't feel at all comfortable e-mailing many of the things that […]
Unlike The New York Times' decision to charge $50 a year for access to their editorial page and columnists, The Wall Street Journal's Internet subscription is woth every dime for pieces like this one. Before Sept. 11, 2001, when federal law-enforcement officials asked FedEx Corp. for help, the company had its limits. It wouldn't provide […]
P.J. O'Rourke's got a plan I think just about everyone can get behind. THE GREATEST PLEASURE OF RUNNING a country (although no politician will admit it) is getting to tax people. We Republicans decry exactions and imposts and espouse minimal outlay by the sovereign power. But we control all three branches of government. This won't […]
Sen. George Voinovich's voice is breaking up, he's on the verge of tears, over the possibility of John Bolton becoming U.N. ambassador. Givest thou me a break. What the h-e-double hockeysticks was going through voters minds in Ohio when they elected this guy? Someone buy Voinovich this shirt -- it might serve as some sort […]
You haven't heard much hand-wringing (sorry for the mixed metaphor) from the American press lately over the possiblity that the Iraqis would follow their Shiite brethren in Iran in choosing some sort of Islamic theocracy. Why? Because popularly elected governments (even in America you paranoid liberals) don't go for theocracy. Ministry of Interior in Iraq […]
The Supreme Court's senior justice told a meeting of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association that it's right for the Supreme Court to consider foreign courts views when interpreting the United States Constitution. Justice John Paul Stevens -- and the other justices who have shown themselves to susceptible to peer pressure -- shouldn't be sitting on […]
Let me start out by saying that I'm a male chauvinist pig. I'm opposed to women serving as infantrymen or front-line Marines or even fighter pilots. By and large, women are less physically capable of the demands of a combat environment. There are exceptions, of course, but until the military insists on uniform physical standards, […]
This should be the plan for the next few days in the Senate: Get Priscilla Owen, William Pryor and Janice Rogers Brown confirmed. Get John Bolton confirmed to the post of U.N. Ambassador. Then start bringing up the other judges to test the Senate's 14 moderates. Will they be filibustered too? Will they be voted […]