ninme

• Well, the new Narnia is a very good movie. Then there’s the stuff (cough the bits where it starts to drag /cough) they made up out of whole cloth. Why do they have to do that? The full hour of battle scenes afterwards wasn’t enough?

• Reepicheep: I admit. I teared up a little at [...]

Categories: Entertainment

NRO – Killing Her Softly<br/> Hillary Clinton and the contradictions of the West. By Mark Steyn

Sex-selective abortion is a fact of life in India, where the gender ratio has declined to 1,000 boys to 900 girls nationally, and as low as 1,000 boys to 300 girls in some Punjabi cities. In China, the state-enforced [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

Welcome to the modern publishing industry.

Btw this:

This in an industry that, just like newspapers, appears to be dying a slow death at the hands of new media, print-on-demand, and other modern technologies, and is desperate for books that can add substantial numbers to the bottom line.

Should read:

This in an industry that, [...]

Categories: Politics

Repeating his warning…

SPOILER ALERT: TO THE FIVE OF YOU OUT THERE WHO HAVE NOT FINISHED READING THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA AND DON’T WANT CERTAIN CRITICAL PLOT POINTS OF THE FINAL BOOK GIVEN AWAY, CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED.

Okay then. So, the thing with Susan never bothered me that much. Not enough to pull a Philip [...]

Categories: Art and Literature

Wheat & Weeds – We’re All Agreed Then

Categories: People and Current Events

Times Online – Outrage as French judge annuls Muslim marriage over bride’s virginity lie

President Sarkozy’s party called today for a change in French law after a judge annulled the marriage of a young Muslim couple because the bride was not the virgin that she claimed to be. … The case, [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

I was going to link to a bunch of background stuff that’s been popping up all week, but, meh, I don’t think I will.

Telegraph – Right or wrong, the Bishop of Rochester named our ills, by George Pitcher

He is also doing what bishops can and should do, and what politicians don’t and won’t [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

In and among this morning’s Gerard Baker, “Britain, the new banana republic“:

At least, I suppose, we don’t have to worry about a military coup. The repeated privations and humiliations visited upon Britain’s Armed Forces have reduced them to a state where they couldn’t overthrow a statue.

So then I turn to the Telegraph’s comment [...]

Categories: War and Peace

The Times – Hostages: a year in captivity<br/> It is time to speak out on the plight of Britain’s hostages in Iraq

It has been a year since a group of armed Iraqis, disguised as police, burst into the Finance Ministry in Baghdad and seized five Britons. Little was known of the kidnappers, who called [...]

Categories: War and Peace

Huh.

Telegraph Blogs – France’s third child policy, by John Doust

It works like this: every adult has an income allowance, as in the UK, on which no tax is payable. Two people living together will have two allowances that can be combined if one is not working. Have one child and they gain an [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

BBC News Magazine – What is karma?

Sharon Stone claims the earthquake in China is the result of bad karma for its treatment of Tibetans. Is her definition – “when you are not nice, bad things happen to you” – correct?

You know, I’ve been thinking about this. Since her principal hang-up with the Chinese [...]

Categories: Science and Nature

The Times – Churches must be ‘entertainment’ too<br/> If clairvoyants must have warning signs, why not faith healers and others places of worship? By Matthew Parris

Another example of careless jurisprudence this week: on Monday a new law came into force requiring fortune-tellers, clairvoyants, astrologers and mediums to stipulate explicitly that their services are for [...]

Categories: Politics

Good heavens.

Times Online – China asks Japanese military for help with earthquake

Revulsion at Japan’s wartime past — particularly the Imperial Army’s atrocities in China — continues to play an explosive role in Asian politics. Relations between Tokyo and Beijing have been improving, and China has already welcomed teams of Japanese medical experts to [...]

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

The Times – James Bond: the movies are not enough<br/> After the huge commercial dominance of the 007 movies, the novel is fighting back, by Andrew Lycett (author of the biography Ian Fleming)

Everyone has an opinion on whether Sean Connery is a better onscreen 007 than Roger Moore. But few people can expatiate on [...]

Categories: Art and Literature

The OC Register – Mark Steyn: Your car can’t run on Congress’ hot air

I was watching the Big Oil execs testifying before Congress. That was my first mistake. If memory serves, there was lesbian mud wrestling over on Channel 137, and on the whole that’s less rigged. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz knew the [...]

Categories: Politics