Defending the 12th century since the 14th; blogging since the 21st.

Catholicism, Conservatism, the Middle Ages, Opera, and Historical and Literary Objets d'Art blogged by a suburban dad who teaches law and writes stuff.


"Very fun." -- J. Bottum, Editor, FIRST THINGS

"Too modest" -- Elinor Dashwood

"Perhaps the wisest man on the Web" -- Henry Dieterich

"Hat tip: me (but really Cacciaguida)" -- Diana Feygin, Editor, THE YALE FREE PRESS

"You are my sire. You give me confidence to speak. You raise my heart so high that I am no more I." -- Dante

"Fabulous!"-- Warlock D.J. Prod of Didsbury

Who was Cacciaguida? See Dante's PARADISO, Cantos XV, XVI, & XVII.


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LOST: Ok, with the special 2-hour, socks-off-knocking, island-moving season-four finale coming up, I thought I'd aggregate some of the better fan sites and blogs for you -- and remember, it's never too late to get LOST.

Entertainment Weekly's LOST site

Dharma* Secret's Lost-n-Found

Sledgeweb's Lost...Stuff

The Washington Post's LOST site

The Tail Section

*The "Dharma Initiative" was a dodgy commercial/scientific enterprise that put down roots on the island long before the Losties' plane crashed. Most of the original DI people were massacred by a faction led by the manipulative Ben Linus, who claims -- and the claim has yet to be proved untrue -- that the island is ruled by a mysterious personage called Jacob.

We have yet to see Jacob, but an episode or two ago, the long-dead Dr. Christian Shepherd, father of one of the princpal Losties, appeared and claimed to be able to speak for Jacob.

All this while agents of Ben's archenemy, billionaire Charles Widmore, are moving in to kill him. These agents probably plan to kill everyone else on the island -- the Losties, and Ben's friends, whom the Losties call "the Others" -- yet these agents' freighter and helicopter represent the best chance for all to get off the island.

We already know that six of them will do so, and will become famous for it (and rich, b/c of the airline's settlement with them), and that Ben will too, but in secret. We do not yet know the fate of the rest. And we all want to know why dear sweet Claire, mother of the baby whom we know heroic ex-criminal Kate will raise as her own, was hanging out with Dr. Shepherd Sr. in "Jacob"'s shack, sans baby, and apparently joining him in claiming to speak for "Jacob."

ETA:
* Letterman's Top Ten Signs You're Obsessed with Lost, read by Jorge Garcia (who plays Hurley) (best is #9, imo)
* Lost Bingo card for tonight. Works as drinking game too, of course.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:02 PM

 
Life imitates The Secret History
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:14 PM

 
Stupendous Thatcher: Peggy Noonan's piece about how Hillary's "I'm losing b/c people hate women" spiel is "prissy" and "sissy" is getting the extensive play it deserves. I just want to blog up my own personal favorite part -- you see, one can't address this subject without comparing Hillary to her betters among women who have been leaders:

She went to Oxford on scholarship, worked as a chemist, entered politics, rose, became another first and only, succeeding not only in a man's world but in a class system in which they knew how to take care of ambitious little grocer's daughters from Grantham. She was to a degree an outsider within her own party, so she remade it. She lived for ideas as her colleagues lived for comfort and complaint. The Tories those days managed loss. She wanted to stop it; she wanted gain. Just before she became prime minister, the Soviets, thinking they were deftly stigmatizing an upstart, labeled her the Iron Lady. She seized the insult and wore it like a hat. This was Thatcher, stupendous Thatcher, now the baroness.

posted by Cacciaguida at 10:35 PM

 
I guess most of you have seen this by now...


posted by Cacciaguida at 9:44 PM

 
Doug Feith on the Bush's rhetorical blunder -- viz., shifting from national security to promoting democracy as the primary aim of the war, and from a non-terror-sponsoring Iraq to a "democratic" Iraq as the definition of success. According to Feith, the pre-2003 all-party consensus that Saddam's Iraq was teeming with WMD was part of, but not the whole of, the national security rationale, and promoting democracy was never more than a desirable downstream side-goal.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:34 PM

 
McCain has appointed Arthur "A.B." Culvahouse to head up his VP search committee. Because of Culvahouse's connections to several Republicans who aren't exactly movement conservatives, some readers may question this choice.

Fwiw, when "A.B." was White House Counsel (this was, of course, during the time of The President), lawyers in that office of undoubted movementosity thought very highly of "A.B." Just thought you should know.
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:10 PM

 
First Dinosaur Footprints Found on Arabian Peninsula. Or, as they call it in Saudi Arabia -- a sign of progress.
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:55 PM

 
In Britain, MPs vote for human-animal embryos. Excerpts from the linked article:

An attempt by critics of embryo research, led by the senior Conservative Edward Leigh, to ban the technique was defeated by 336 votes to 176, as many Tory MPs on the front and backbenches sided with the Government plans.

A number of Labour MPs, among them many Catholics, lined up alongside the majority of Conservatives seeking to block the move.

Labour’s Dr Ian Gibson, a member of the Stem Cell Foundation, urged MPs not to limit scientific advances by over-regulating.

He said: "The reason we do science is we have a hunch, an idea. We want to make sure that we can take science on.

But the respected former Labour minister Sir Gerald Kaufman demanded: "How far do you go? Where do you stop? What are the limits and what are the boundaries?

"If you permit the creation of hybrid embryos now what will you seek to permit next time, even if you have no idea where it will lead."

PM Gordon Brown and Tory Leader David Cameron both backed hybrid embryos (i.e. they voted nay, against the amendment restricting such research). However:

[T]he All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, which spearheaded the opposition to hybrid embryos, vowed to fight on throughout the Bill's remaining stages.

The majority of the shadow cabinet - including shadow foreign secretary William Hague and shadow home secretary David Davis - also backed the ban. [Emphasis added]

And a vote on abortion is coming up tonight, on whether to lower the legal limit from its present 24-week mark.

The All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:13 AM

 
U.S. Military Apologizes for Soldier Using Quran for Target Practice

Yeah, knock it off -- that's my job.

But seriously, Army-boy: if you're going to act like an idiot, could you not do it "in a predominantly Sunni area west of Baghdad" while those words match a description of where my Marine, Jonathan Lee, currently is? Thank you.

Btw, the officer who issued the apology is one Col. Bill Buckner. Really. Hey, don't apologize -- Mookie had it beat anyway!!
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:36 PM

 
The Walsingham Project
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:22 PM

 
Forbes: HP's EDS Bid Peeves Investors. Yes, but Peeves's ED Bit Amuses HP.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:28 PM

 
Apologetics: Hagee apologizes.
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:28 PM

 
Sudan Severs Ties


posted by Cacciaguida at 4:28 PM

 
Spells Cast at Anti-Marine Rally in California

Members of the anti-war group Code Pink gathered Friday with a cauldron of flowers outside a controversial Marine Corps Recruiting Center in Berkeley, Calif., to use witchcraft to rally against the Iraq war....

"Ironically, it's actually helped us by putting our name out. We're now well-known. And people know who we are, and where we are, and they come in to talk to us about enlisting. They've gotten us the publicity that we could've never afforded to pay for ourselves," [Capt. John Paul] Wheatcroft told FOXNews.com.

"Just in the last three weeks, 10 people came in looking to apply, looking to become Marine officers, and that's much higher than normal," he said....

A spokesman for the International Confederation of Wizards was unable to stop laughing by press-time.
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:36 PM

 
William Earl Lynd executed... Earl Wesley Berry set for execution... I must speak out: Does every Caucasian male on America's death rows have three names, of which "Earl" is one? And if so, why? Is "Earl" an aggravating factor under prevailing death-penalty jurisprudence? Does it prejudice juries? Is it malpractice for defense counsel in capital cases not to make their "Earl" defendants change their names? Or are these defendants given the name at sentencing? At death-row in-take? Or is is that death-penalty states are the states where all Caucasian males have "Earl" somewhere in their names, so it don't matter no-how?
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:00 PM

 
McCain on judicial appointments. Of note:

Later in the day, he announced the formation of a conservative-leaning Justice Advisory Committee, which he said will counsel him on judicial appointments if he wins the presidency. The group, which will be chaired by former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), is a Who's Who of prominent conservative legal minds, with members including Princeton University professor Robert George and Rachel Brand, former assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Policy.

But don't take my word for it. ABC reports:

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor responded to McCain in a written statement.

"The Straight Talk Express took another sharp right turn today as John McCain promised his conservative base four more years of out-of-touch judges that would threaten a woman’s right to choose, gut the campaign finance reform that bears his own name, and trample the rights and interests of the American people," the statement said.

So rally 'round, everyone!

posted by Cacciaguida at 10:37 PM

 
Say, is it true Sarah Jessica Parker is going to play Eight Belles in the movie?
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:37 PM