First Principles

From Instapundit, I learned on this wondrous day of the greatest culinary invention in the history of man:  The Turbaconducken.

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So in today’s News of the Weird, it turns out that when Attorney General Mukasey was briefly heckled at the Federalist Society’s annual convention, the heckler was none other than Washington State Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders.

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In this election, and in many debates I’ve had before and since, that political “moderation” is a self-evident virtue was and is often taken as, well, self-evident.  After all, “moderate” is a lot like “reasonable,” is it not?  And isn’t it the opposite of “extremist,” which no one wants to be? I have to admit […]

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Via Instapundit, I discovered a site called Genderanalyzer.  It uses some kind of AI to determine if your blog is written by a man or a woman.  I’m proud to say that First Principles came back 94% Manly. The funniest thing, though, was when I put in my friend’s site Manlyweb.com, “One Real Damn Manly […]

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One tool that always comes up in political discussions by nerds like me (and my great commenters) that attempt to define and pin down political philosophies is some kind of chart.  I tend not to like them, because I think they tend to do a poor job explaining the relationships between various philosophies.  But if […]

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As a brilliantly concise and colorful summation of my post below, I offer this via Big Bend Bikers: Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the entire economy of […]

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So how is it that the Left simultaneously believes the US Government is the root of All Bad Things (or at least in on the conspiracy), but wants them in charge of our auto industry, banks, and health care?  I think it boils down to a (wholly unearned) presumption of competence. Liberals think government is […]

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So it seems that one of President Obama’s first international military crises will be a repeat of one of our nation’s first menaces – piracy on the high seas.  How he deals with it will tell us much about the alleged steel in the spine of our mysterious new President-Elect.  There is, after all, a […]

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So Ted Stevens has lost his Senate seat in Alaska, bringing the Democrats that much closer to a veto-proof supermajority. Good.

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I was looking at some old comment threats from the Federalist Society Blog I contributed to frequently in law school.  One of the comments from an avowed libertarian caught my eye.  He said: [P]utting the Democrats in charge of one or both houses of congress can’t possibly make matters worse, with Bush in the presidency. […]

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This election could have been a lot worse for Republicans (and for conservatism) than it was.  The Senate is not filibuster proof.  The House didn’t flip as many seats as some feared.  Al Franken is still losing in Minnesota, preventing me from taking tons of guff by mere virtue of the fact that I went […]

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Other than being irritated by the fair-weather patriots (see my post below), the election of Obama has been somewhat of a relief to me.  I’ve been in a better mood, my obsessions and addictions to RCP and Drudge have been lifted (or at least have somewhat abated). It reminds me of an ROTC experience I […]

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A Rant.

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Well, this isn’t officially over, but as I sit here typing, it more or less is.  (Update: Oh, it’s official.  And this blog entry is officially as long as it’s going to be.) Congrats to the Democrats and to President-Elect Obama. Some random thought about this new era:

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I once believed that, while I didn’t like pretty much any of Barack Obama’s policies, that I would be glad if he was the nominee.  If he was elected, he seemed like a guy I could get behind, root for, and like.  A guy I’d be happy to be the loyal opposition to.  A guy […]

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Tonight we went to the second-to-last last stump speech of the McCain-Palin campaign, held here in Reno with the Alaska governor.  I went to the last one, too, but this one was different.  It was bigger, more serious, and more hopeful – no matter who wins tomorrow. When we arrived, there were thousands of people […]

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This was a fun meeting:

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Yesterday I was at a big Nevada Day party in Carson City.  Prominent among the attendees were Obama supporters sporting buttons, stickers, shirts, and even facepaint. Every time I saw one of them walked buy with a drink in their hand, I wanted to take it away and drink half. 

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There are three different things that can happen in the next four years that will make me happy as an American.  I hope for them in this order:

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