Author Archives: Ray
Best First Sentence Contest
The Journal Pulp is offering a $100.00 cash prize for the following: Best first sentence for a novel about a lovely librarian who secretly burns the books she loves because she wants no one else to read them. You got the stuff? Submit your work here: http://journalpulp.com/2013/03/21/best-first-sentence-2/
Putting the Cock Back in Cocktail (Part 4): Whiskey
Whiskey — or whisky, if you prefer — is a distilled spirit that’s usually made from corn, rye, barley, wheat, or, very often, a cross combination of some or all those. Whiskey is almost always aged in wooden casks which almost always consist of charred white oak. The word “whiskey” is an anglicized version of…
Strident Gun-Control Advocate And Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein Thinks It’s ‘Legal To Hunt Humans’
What’s that, you say? No intelligent person would ever utter that? Well, don’t watch this: (Hat tip Doug Powers via Michelle Malkin) “The time has come, America, to step up and ban these weapons,” Feinstein said. “The other very important part of this bill is to ban large capacity ammunition feeding devices — those that…
Kevin
My name is Kevin. I’m Kevin Mathew Haas. My last name does not rhyme with moss. It does not rhyme with floss. To say so makes me cross. Many regard me as the motherfucking boss. I enjoy a little of the sauce. In fact, my last name — Haas — rhymes with gauze. (This should…
Love, And Be Silent (Happy Valentine’s Day!)
The man named Valentinus (which comes from the Latin valens, meaning “powerful, brave, valiant”) was a martyred Christian of ancient Rome, about whom virtually nothing is known. His name does not appear in the earliest redaction of Christian martyrs (354 AD), and it was Pope Gelasius who first included Valentinus — or Saint Valentine, as…
ObamaCare: The Resistance Endures
Michael Cannon is Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies and an indefatigable crusader against socialized medicine. Recently, he wrote an excellent article concerning the continuing resistance against ObamaCare, the need to maintain that resistance, and the relative success of that resistance so far: Former Romney adviser Avik Roy now advises conservatives “to accept the…
Happy Birthday, Lord Byron: 225-years-old
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, who later changed it to George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, English poet, towering personality, and leading figure in the Romantic movement, was born January 22, 1788. “A man of genius whose heart is perverted,” William Wordsworth called Lord Bryon. “The most vulgar-minded genius that ever produced a great…
James Buchanan: RIP
James M. Buchanan, economist and Nobel Prize winner, died Wednesday, January 9th, 2013. He was 93. He was also among the most important economists of the 20th century: “A founder and profound contributor to the discipline of public choice, the branch of economics that examines how governments actually make policies. Prior to his work, many…
Happy Birthday, David Bowie
Best mugshot ever? David Bowie is one of my absolute favorite musicians. Today he turned 66-years-old, and in honor of the occasion, after a full decade of silence, he released a new single called “Where Are We Now?” Happy Birthday, David Bowie!
Christmas
Syncretism: a term that means the combining or reconciling of opposing practices and principles. It’s most commonly used in a religious or philosophical context, and as with Easter, Christmas too is syncretic in its origins: a pagan celebration whose provenance long predates Christ’s birth but which eventually made its way into the Christian mainstream. As…
Are Mass Shootings Becoming More Common In The United States?
Are mass shootings becoming more common in the United States? The short answer is No, though you’d never guess it by listening to the mainstream media. Jesse Walker has written a good article on the subject: As the AP pointed out this weekend: [T]hose who study mass shootings say they are not becoming more common.…
View Of A Pig
This was written by the late Ted Hughes, most famous, I think, for being the husband of Sylvia Plath: The pig lay on a barrow dead. It weighed, they said, as much as three men. Its eyes closed, pink white eyelashes. Its trotters stuck straight out. Such weight and thick pink bulk Set in death…
Who Won The 2012 Election?
Who won the election? The Government won. In this case, it was the left-wing government. Here is a small sampling of the things that Barack Obama supporters backed — please own it — in backing Barack Obama: Barack Obama recently welcomed the election of the first Islamist president in Egypt’s history. This is a man…
Zombies Geared Up For Halloween (And The Election)
These are some of the most frightening zombies you’ll ever see: Obama Zombies
Gin, The Martinez, And The Origins Of The Martini
In hell, said Randal Jarell, Americans tell each other how to make a martini. A martini — “the elixir of quietude” as E.B. White described it — consists of gin and vermouth. The ingredients are chilled and then strained into a cocktail glass. That, at any rate, is the original martini, though vodka is now,…