Lol, that's awesome. Put a smile on my face anyway. :)

The next time you have Steyn on the podcast, I would be really interested if you could ask him about his background and how he came to think the way he does. Was it a book? An experience? What made him the man he is today? For example, we learned that the great event that made Thomas Sowell was when he actually went to work for the government. What was Steyn's moment? I remember hearing a radio interview with him and the host asked him just that. Steyn danced around the subject and didn't answer. He's such a mystery in some ways, I'd be really curious to know.

Couldn't agree more. Your grandmother is a lucky woman, and you're lucky to have her.

I live in Vancouver and a ban on cell phones has been enacted here. What Fred says happens is exactly correct. Instead of preventing people from talking on phones, people just hide it out of eyesight, which makes it even more dangerous. The law of unintended consequences proven once again!

You get NO MONEY. I'm not sure where the stupid "jackpot" idea came from, but it just makes no sense. Free parking is just that, free parking. It's not "win the lottery" square.

I'd like to hear James Delingpole's take on this. As usually happens, the cuts that Cameron instituted were largely illusionary, whereas the tax hikes were very real.

I think this man is emblematic, much like the president himself, of the over-educated know nothing elites that currently run Washington. I don't think he has any idea that it is ultimately private industry which ultimately pays his salary and creates the prosperity that Americans have (until recently) become accustomed to. I would like to see more from Romney on regulation and what can be done to reign in guys like this. Oil production in the US was rising constantly till the EPA was created in 1970, after which it started to decline. Coincidence? I don't think so.

I don't think its author would weep. More likely his head would explode :)

Excellent post. When talking about rights many on the left seem to confuse (or don't understand) the differences between negative rights (basically the right to be left alone) vs positive rights (rights that force others to provide something).

I'm a little surprised about the focus groups who found the conservative side of the issue to be more appealing if they didn't even mention Obama's name. The only explanation I can think of for this is that most Americans are good hearted people, and they want the first black president to be a success on some level. They are still willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. However, I suspect that when the actual election starts, these same people will then really focus on the reality of Obama and his record. (side note: most Americans are not paying attention at this point. Shocking as it may seem, there are two America's. Political junkie America, made up of Ricochet readers and columnists, and the much larger real America whose focus is elsewhere) That's when his poll numbers will really crater. The reality and the hopeful dreams of the past are just too far apart.

I've read the books and seen the movie. I'd give the movie a 7 out of 10. The movie is very faithful to the book, maybe a little too faithful. Books aren't movies. Some of my issues with the movie are:

• shaky cam during action scenes
• Had some scenes showing Cato and his group and just how formidable they are. They were seen yelling and screaming as they hunted, which didn't make any sense. It took away a lot of the tension which should have been there. Also robbed Cato's change of heart at the end of any meaning.
• Didn't show that Katniss was playing for the camera's with her romance with Peeta
• I didn't imagine Peeta as a dwarf

I've longed suspected that Obama is in a far weaker position than his supporters in the mainstream media would have you believe. Many of his supporters still like the idea of Obama. However, that idea is bumping up against the reality. The enthusiasm isn't there, and the difficulty he's having raising money is an outlier of that.

Love it.

"In New York and California and many other places, sexual license is about the only thing you don't need a license for."

No one says it quite like Steyn!

I think you have a point. All of these games are about top down control, the idea that one person can guide whole cities or civilizations. However, this kind of thinking is what makes us human. As humans, we are constantly trying to discover relationships in order to understand the world around us. This is why we love coming up with models and theories for just about everything (not to mention enjoying games like Sim City). Where liberals and conservatives divide is that Liberals are willing to put a lot more faith in their theories and models than conservatives are. Conservatives really only trust things once they have been proven in the real world in all of it's complexity. This is why so many liberals believe in something like global warming, Sim City simulations of the real world, than conservatives do. These kind of games does encourage that kind of thinking.

On the other hand though, the game does look cool :)

Love it.

From what I can see, the right is doing fairly well on the abortion issue. How about gun control? I see few politicians campaigning for that one.