Wrong, wrong, wrong on sun screens
Heavens to Helios!
Most everything I believed about sun screens is wrong, according to the Environmental Working Group’s report on same. The EWG report found many of the makers’ claims specious, and even more troubling, some of the products’ ingredients dangerous.
So here’s something new to worry about over the Memorial Day weekend.
Tags: cosmetics, environment
Canada gets immigration right
My new column goes into how Canada minimizes illegal immigration despite having a mostly unguarded border with the United States.
TO FIX IMMIGRATION, LOOK NORTH
Tags: Canada, immigration, Mexico, politics
Woe is Jarhead
Small wonder Old Jarhead is tired. Self-pity can wear a man out.
I imagine Robert A. Hall won’t be too tired to collect his Medicare benefits, if he isn’t already.
Tags: politics, right wing
Ban the burqa
Belgium has banned the burqa, the face-hiding head-to-toe veil common in parts of the Muslim world. French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to follow suit. What’s a libertarian to think, especially when burqa-wearing is often forced upon women by their men?
The always witty but this time wrong columnist Steve Chapman defends the burqa, or rather, a woman’s right to wear one for whatever reason. He writes that outlawing the burqa “trades one form of compulsion (you must wear this) for another (you may not wear this).”
Not quite. “You may not wear this” leaves a lot more freedom than “you must wear this.” The Parisian options include everything from a tiny tube dress covering just the essentials to long granny dresses and hair-covering turbans.
In this country, Chapman says, modestly dressed Amish women and skimpily clad females who disapprove of each other’s wardrobes can look the other way. No doubt they do. But at least they have a face to look away from. An Amish woman walking the Champs Elysees would evoke curiosity but not discomfort.
Chapman’s worst argument is that, heck, very few Muslim women in the West wear the burqa, anyway. In France, it’s less than 2,000 out of 5 million Muslims.
It would follow that if only 11 out of 8 million New Yorkers venture into the streets of Manhattan stark raving naked, there’s not much of a problem. Police trying to maintain order might disagree.
What about security? Chapman holds that sunglasses and ski masks are also put to sinister uses by “camera-shy bank robbers.” With all due respect, I don’t think a bank guard need admit an individual wearing a ski mask.
Every society gets to make its own rules for conduct, which includes dress. Some cultures require covered heads. Some require uncovered faces. We don’t have to approve, but we have to respect. That’s what real toleration is about.
Souder, Blumenthal, Rand
I express wonderment at the rookie mistakes of Mark Souder, Richard Blumenthal and Paul Rand:
WHAT WERE THEY (POLITICIANS) THINKING?
So much for my theory….
So much for my theory that with his military record and Linda McMahon’s sharp edged ways in generally polite Connecticut, Rob Simmons would be back in the race for the Republican nomination to replace retiring Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd. I would be wrong.
Perhaps I should chalk it up to wishful thinking.
Money has trumped talent, experience and the sort of Yankee sensibilities that used to send Republicans from New England to DC.
For all his recent troubles, state Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal still leads in the polls. For Blumenthal, it would seem things are looking only up from here, and he won’t lack for money, either.
Tags: Connecticut, Democrats, politics, Republicans
Andrew Breitbart still not interesting
I spent about a quarter hour reading The New Yorker profile of Andrew Breitbart in the hope of learning why I should find him interesting. Breitbart is another gargoyle of the right — perhaps less coherent and more exhibitionist than average.
Alas, the mystery of his significance endures.
That was 15 minutes that I’ll never get back.
Tags: media, politics, right wing
Superb Tuesday
My take on the Tuesday primaries and the special election in the late John Murtha’s Pennsylvania district: The right people won.
Blumenthal, McMahon, Simmons: Now a 3-way fight
Super Tuesday was obviously not super for Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal. He had to give a press conference explaining his lie about having served in Vietnam, an untruth that The New York Times reported with a 76-trombone band.
Though it was very bad day for the Blumenthal senatorial campaign, these events may not have answered his leading Republican foe’s prayers, either. Republican Linda McMahon’s staff had bragged about feeding the information to The Times. Finding the dirt and delivering it to a news source is fully expected. Bragging about delivering this humiliating blow is more troublesome in a state that fancies itself the land of civility.
And McMahon already suffers a civility deficit. She made a fortune as the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, a business that tolerated steroids, naughty language, sex and violence — and marketed to children. That experience may have given her an idea of normal somewhat different than that held in Fairfield County’s suburbs. In Connecticut, Republicans are nice.
Furthermore, McMahon has lost some of her own fights with the truth. As The Hartford Courant reported, she gave several answers to an official questionnaire that were less than — shall we say? —forthcoming.
The potential winner here is actually McMahon’s likely Republican rival, Rob Simmons. The former congressman from New London is both a gentleman and a genuine Vietnam War veteran with two Bronze Stars.
He’s also better qualified for the job than McMahon — if anyone cares.
Tags: Connecticut, politics, Senate
Taxpayers still suckers on mortgage lending
My latest column discusses the taxpayers’ enduring role as “suckers of last resort” on mortgage lending. Read TAXPAYERS AND HOUSING NEED A DIVORCE.
It also addresses dangerous political pandering on the subject of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, while noting their outrageous deal as private profit-making companies enjoying “implicit” government guarantees on their mortgage-backed securities. The government has since taken over the companies.
“Submitted for your approval,” as Rod Serling used to say before each episode of Twighlight Zone. Here is a chart from The Washington Post showing just how closely Fannie Mae’s reported income matched the targets executives set to receive maximum bonuses.
Tags: housing, taxpayers, Wall Street
