Category Archive

“In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion. If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth.” — Jill Abramson, new executive editor of the New York Times Of course, that quote was too provocative to remain in the New York Times’ story about Abramson’s appointment. So like a good disposer of inconvenient facts, the paper flushed …

This should be continually kept in mind: President Obama said he’s working on gun control “under the radar,” according to Jim and Sarah Brady, who visited the president on the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Brady was severely wounded in the attack and the couple have become gun control advocates. The more recent assassination attempt on …

An initiative to restrict public employee pension benefits has entered circulation. From the press release from Secretary of State Debra Bowen: MODIFIES PUBLIC EMPLOYEE PENSION BENEFITS. ELIMINATES AUTHORITY TO SET PUBLIC EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT BENEFITS BY CONTRACT OR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Sets retirement age at 62 for persons who are or will be public employees. Limits pensions to 60 …

Paul S. Knoepfler is a prominent stem cell researcher at UC Davis. He also writes a blog about stem cell research in which his gives his frank opinions about the field and its critics. Too frank, he says, for some people, who are pressuring him to drop his blog. That alarms me, because I’ve found Knoepfler and his blog a …

I encountered this mixed message at the American Museum of Natural Hstory in New York City.  Click the link below to see the clash of messages:

Popular blogger Ann Althouse suddenly lost her blog on Google’s Blogger platform. There’s  been no explanation and no help from Google. Indeed, one of Google’s (presumably non-employee) blog liaisons, pseudonymed nitecruzr, has been taunting Althouse. Althouse’s blog has now been restored — without its years of content. On her blog, Althouse wonders if her coverage of the Wisconsin protests (which …

Separation of church and state is a cornerstone of American freedom. Yet a disturbing group of religious activists seek to blend politics and religion. It’s an unhealthy blend, tainting both politics and religion with an air of fanaticism that would have horrified Thomas Jefferson. I saw such a manifestation of this disturbing religious intrusion into politics this week in Manchester, …

The BATF’s anti-illegal-gun program has accomplished the opposite of its mission, reports Fox News: It is the closest thing to a smoking gun congressional investigators have in their probe of Project Gunrunner — a program that was intended to stop the flow of guns to criminals in Mexico but instead allowed those guns to be smuggled to Mexico instead. An …

Manchester, New Hampshire, to be precise, where I’m visiting maternal relatives. My mom had six sisters, so there’s a ton of relations here. I’m staying with my uncle Bill and aunt Shirley. If you’re reading this, hi! New Hampshire, of course, grabs the national spotlight once every four years with its first-in-the-nation presidential primary. Candidates have already begun their cicada-like …

According to global warming climate change theory, sea levels are supposed to be rising at an accelerating rate across the planet. However, measurements in San Diego and other coastal areas of the United States recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show no such trend. San Diego’s sea level trend has remained stable for a century. That news doesn’t …

If you can’t guess what this is all about, click here.

Retail water districts would pay a new tax under proposed state legislation to fund water-related supply, environmental and recreation projects. The size of the tax has yet to be calculated, but it would be significant. A hearing is scheduled May 4 for the bill, Senate Bill 34, in the California Senate’s Governance and Finance committee. Since the bill would impose …

The news just might put an end to the absurd-sounding birther claims that Obama wasn’t born in the United States. Or perhaps not — there’s already doubt the document is the one birthers have been asking for. Conservative blogger Patterico — not a birther — explains why: “I’m not sure this is the long form. This looks to be simply …

From my article at the North County Times: Local members of Congress back biotech, pharma regulatory reform LA JOLLA —- Biotech and pharmaceutical business leaders asking for more responsive government regulation got a sympathetic hearing from four local members of Congress at a forum Thursday. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee forum was convened by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista. …

Here’s another example of a reporter carefully sanitizing a left-leaning group as non-partisan. The link goes to an innuendo-filled article in the Christian Science Monitor about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election by CSM reporter Mark Guarino. Conservative David Prosser surged ahead in the vote count after 14,000 ballots were added to the state totals. The article begins with the darkly …

My colleague Mark Walker has the story. On Friday, Bardella, 27, acknowledged during an exclusive interview with the North County Times that what he did was a mistake. His former boss, a Republican from Vista and chairman of the powerful House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was right to let him go for the transgression, Bardella said. “I did …

I just got this press release from the Libertarian party, and am reproducing nearly all of it verbatim. Money quote: “It’s a spending bill that will result in discretionary spending of $1.356 trillion this year. That’s higher than last year’s $1.349 trillion. When did higher spending become a cut?” Calling a budget a spending cut when it’s lower than an …

A Washington Post story on the Japanese nuclear disaster perfectly illustrates how bias can be inserted into a story, simply by not disclosing pertinent information. Reporter Jia Lynn Yang quoted someone she presents as an expert on nuclear power, who opined that the industry is “on the rocks” in the United States. The expert, Peter Bradford, is only identified as …