Current Affairs

Maybe I've been wrong about global warming being the biggest scam on the planet. Could Molly Ivins, Al Gore and Time magazine ("Be Worried. Be Very Worried") all possibly be duped? At least Molly knows what needs to be done:

Those of you who observed the absurd, infantile "controversy" over the name of of a blog here in Fort Wayne might be interested in this amusing collection of intellectual-property claims. Among the silliest:

It's a lot easier to have a spontaneous outburst of righteous indignation when it's organized, eh? But those brilliant tacticians probably should have included a couple of additional instructions: 1. Ditch the Mexican flags, and, 2) Try to sound as if you at least halfway like the nation whose gates you are crashing. Big, big backlash from this. The already substantial majority of Americans who think we should be much tougher on illegal immigration is just going to grow.

I honestly do not mind that, with the release of "Basic Instinct 2," or whatever the heck it's called, there will be a lot more of Sharon Stone out there than I want to see. I'll just not go to the movie. (You can do, it, Leo, you know you can. Be strong. Don't give in!) But it's annoying, because harder to avoid, that there is more Sharon Stone out there than I want to hear.

You know the difference between a dog and a cat? If you die, your dog will shuffle and whine around the house for days until it almost starves to death. But once you stop breathing, your cat considers you food. I say that as a cat person, with two of those self-centered creatures in my house.

Much has been written about the profusion of profanity these days, and I've posted a few items about it here. This is merely the latest observation about today's Age of Profanity:

I just finished the wonderful "The Day the Cowboys Quit" by Elmer Kelton, a Western writer who has been around for a long time, but whose work I didn't discover until Louis L'Amour died and I had to find somebody I liked as well.

Nothing to say about this one. Draw your own conclusions.

Say what you will about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, if you ask him an honest question, you'll get an honest answer:

"It was a hand off the chin gesture that was meant to be dismissive," Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.

[. . .]

The sign he used in Boston is frequently used by Italians to express displeasure with someone -- from mild to deep irritation. It is done by cupping the hand under the chin and flicking the fingers like a backward wave.

Certainly it is barbaric by the civilized standards of today to condemn someone to death for converting from Islam to Christianity. It's symbolic of the whole struggle we're in today against the militant extremists who would turn the whole world into a theocracy of their design. But I think people like Howard and Blair, not to mention leaders in this country, need to be careful not to confuse two issues when they say things like: