Current Affairs

Gosh, this is a shock:

The study found that between 2001 and 2003, homeless people died at the rate of 2,192 per 100,000 people. This figure is twice the death rate of normal adults in New York City.

Inch by inch, our zone of privacy shrinks:

Mayor Daley on Monday embraced a radical plan to require every licensed Chicago business open more than 12 hours a day to install indoor and outdoor cameras.

[...]

Like some of the troops in Iraq, I've also felt the coverage of Bob Woodfruff's wounding just a tad excessive:

"The point that is currently being made (is that) that press folks are more important than mere military folks," a senior military officer told UPI Tuesday.

Just what we've all been waiting to see -- a prosecutor in a bondage mask.

Here's the complete text of the president's State of the Union speech.

There were two distinct parts of the speech -- foreign policy and America's place in the world, and domestic policy. On the first part, an A+. On the second part, a B-. Overall, he didn't sound like a president down in the polls, and I'd guess this will move his numbers up.

Just in case you doubted that everybody's getting into blogging these days:

From death row in Baltimore Vernon Lee Evans doles out philosophy and advice to the curious, confused and lonely around the world on a unique blog, but his blogging days are numbered with the approach of his execution early next month.

I wasn't that thrilled with my efforts at live-blogging the governor's State of the State address. Commenting on something that's still in progress leads to short, shallow posts lacking a lot of insight, and it's hard to pay attention to what someone is saying right now when you're reacting to and typing about what he said a minute ago. So for the president's State of the Union speech tonight, I'll do it a little differently. I'll watch the whole thing, then post a lengthy reaction to the entire speech. If you want to weigh in, I'll try to have it up within a half-hour of his finish.

We can never declare the end of history -- the resolution of one conflict (such as communism vs. capitalism) usually signals but an interlude before the next struggle (like the one we're now in between modernism and reactionary fundamentalism). Unfortunately, the political philosopher who most understood this has himself been misunderstood.

One more reason to find a new home for the United Nations:

The U.N. has a plan to make every Miss America Pageant contestant happy by bringing about "world peace."

All it will take, says the draft of a visionary proposal by the U.N. Development Program, is to getting rid of all the pesky nations of the world.

Fort Wayne Indiana etc., a new blog in town, sounds off about the Allen County Public Library spending more than $500,000 for new chairs on a one-bid contract. Among the 1,860 Herman Miller-brand chairs are 110 chairs for staff from the Herman Miller Aeron line at a cost of $560.74 each. Not only does a review of those chairs suggest they might be a tad overpriced, but " . . .