All That Is Necessary

Month: December 2009

  • Christmas Attack Was an Act of War, But It’s Being Treated Like a Crime

    After allegedly telling investigators “there are more just like me who will strike soon,” Captain Underpants apparently has been allowed to lawyer up and stop talking. In the Wall Street Journal, former Justice Department official Victoria Toensing explains why this is madness: Abdulmutallab is in effect in possession of a ticking bomb, but we cannot […]

  • Honeymoon-Over Watch: He’s Lost MoDo

    MoDoIf we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?

  • Oh, That Nigerian Terrorist… Oopsie-Doopsie!

    So the latest terrorist is being interrogated, but why should we believe anything he says?  His pants literally were on fire! We can laugh because the terrorist botched the job, but it could have been very unfunny.  And while I’ve always been skeptical of the idea that intelligence agencies “should have known” about 9/11 in […]

  • Health Care Debate Involves First Principles: Capitalism vs. Command Economy

    The battle cry of the left is that "health care should be a right, not a privilege." This is brilliant framing — it sneakily implies that the right believes health care should be a privilege. The problem, of course, is that no health care system can provide every treatment for every person for every malady.

  • Threat Level? Color Me Annoyed

    The plane landed safely, a happy Christmas Day ending to an apparent attempt to bring down an aircraft in flight.  It’s a good reminder that wherever we are, we potentially have enemies among us.  I was glad to hear that the nearby passengers apparently helped subdue the would-be terrorist. So off to bed — but […]

  • A Disgraceful Vote for “Reform” in the Middle of the Night

    The final vote is now scheduled for 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve, when the Web Goddess and I will be dining with friends at their home and preparing for church. As with Porkulus, the Democrats are pushing for action now now now now now because they know that the more people learn about the bill, the less popular it will be.

  • Civil Rights, and the Intersection of Race and Sexual Orientation

    Not long after the Presidential election last year, the Web Goddess and I had dinner with four of our closest friends, who happen to be a black couple and a lesbian couple. There was exactly one McCain voter in the room.

  • Gitmo, Politics and Unintended Consequences

    The good people of Thomson, Illinois, are eager for the jobs that would be created if the Obama administration moves some of the prisoners held at Guantanamo to the Thomson Correctional Center. Ironically, the detainees themselves seem to want to stay put in Gitmo, where they get ample exercise under the Caribbean sun.

  • “For I Was a Stranger, and You Took Me In”

    For more than 20 years my church has been a part of the Interfaith Hospitality Network, which provides temporary shelter for homeless families. Last week I had a chance to meet and talk with some of our IHN guests.

  • Channeling His Inner Neocon: Did the Nobel Speech Launch the Obama Doctrine?

    I may have been too quick to sneer yesterday at President Obama’s appearance in Oslo. He used his acceptance speech to issue a ringing declaration of American exceptionalism (although he would not use that term).