Readers, I apologize for my slow posting lately. I've been hunkering down to work on my upcoming book, How Bill O'Reilly Saved Christmas. But I'm popping my head up briefly to announce my first piece of press, a blog article at the Washington Post. Check it out to see me answer probing questions like "What is the single most resilient myth you will crush in the book?", "How will conservatives react to your analysis?", "Is it true that you once saved the nation of Liechtenstein from an army of Ann Coulter clones?" [Read more]

After their slam dunk with anti-tax kamikaze Andrew Joseph Stack, liberals hoped to rack up more political points with another right-wing act of terror. When the news broke of a gunman loose in Washington, breathless liberal bloggers and political email spammers burst into action.

According to blog enthusiast cheneyMUSTdie, who subscribes to over 1500 blogs and frequently posts the same comment on each of them: "OMG TEH WINGNUTS ARE KILLING AGAIN!!! THIS IS AWESOME!!!!!!"

The first sign that liberal hopes would go unfulfilled was the target of the attack. The gunman had attempted a frontal assault on the Pentagon, an atypical choice among right-wing terrorists.

According to Dr. Hannibal Venkman, Professor of Psycho-Politics at Georgetown University, [Read more]

What is the most persecuted demographic in the nation? It's not the blacks, the Jews, or the Hispanics, and certainly not the gays. One victim stands out in the gruesome annals of discrimination: the Beauty Queen.

The latest sacrifice to the bottomless hunger of the gay liberal hate monster is Miss Beverly Hills, Lauren Ashley. Ashley simply quoted an innocent line from the Bible:

If man lies with mankind as he would lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them. [Read more]

This morning, I emailed everyone I know to try to sell them Viagra. Ex-bosses, ex-friends, ex-random-people-that-I-met-once-in-a-cafe, and ex-girlfriends (who really don't want to hear from me, let alone buy Viagra from me).

Sorry.

I didn't mean to. In fact, I don't remember doing it. But the incriminating evidence is sitting in my Yahoo "Sent Mail" folder. Six emails sent collectively to everyone in my contacts list between 10:09 and 10:10 am. All hocking Viagra.

How could this have happened? After several hours of research and several more hours of head scratching, not including a quick lunch break, three bathroom trips (#1, #1, #2), and half-an-hour to figure out how to change my email password, I've narrowed it down to five possibilities: [Read more]

I've been trying to write this follow-up post for some time. It's long and personal--only for those who are curious about what happened to me since April.

Last spring, I wrote about leaving. Professionally unfulfilled and socially disconnected, I agonized over whether to flee my adopted home of New York City...

My ship has been quietly slipping from the harbor these past two years. I can't stay out here in the open sea. Shall I tack back to port or sail on? Even the idea of leaving makes me miss the city, but I cannot even remember my last New York moment. [Read more]

Dear Mr. Alexander, [Read more]

A conservative "civil liberties" group has challenged the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act. The Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center is suing U.S. government on behalf of three pastors and the president of the American Family Association of Michigan. The suit alleges that the law violates the plaintiffs' freedom of speech and freedom of religion under the First Amendment, the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment, Federal jurisdiction constraints of the 10th Amendment, and, for good measure, the Constitution's Commerce Clause. That's three Amendments and one Clause, which is an awful lot of unconstitutionality for one bill. [Read more]

The media's focus on Justice Samuel Alito's head shaking dissent during President Obama's State of the Union address has overshadowed many other breaches of decorum from both sides of the aisle. State of the Union expert Dr. Isabel Strong called the reaction to Obama's speech "the most indecorous since President William Henry Harrison's infamous 'the state of the union is phlegmatic' speech of 1843." [Read more]

The Tea Party, a potent collection of dyspeptic right-wing populist groups, was on the verge of national conquest. Having defeated a Republican candidate in a New York House election and a Democratic candidate in the Massachusetts Senate election, it seemed that there was no stopping this crew of tax-rejecting, socialist-hating, health-care-not-wanting defenders of the Constitution and all that is good in America. [Read more]

Yesterday's Massachusetts' election affects me personally. I'm self-employed and have a cheap health plan. Within the first few months of beginning a new plan, I'm already involved in a dispute with the provider, Golden Rule, a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare. My health plan, I recently discovered, doesn't cover preventive care in the first three months. I don't know why they have this restriction. It would not be a big deal except that no one told me about it, not when I signed up and not when I called to confirm that my physician was in network. I learned of the restriction only when I received the bill for my annual check up, which happened to come two-weeks before the three-month limit. But I'm sure that it's written in my contract somewhere. [Read more]

Last Thursday, I received a phone call from my friend, Lily, a San Francisco native halfway through her kindergarten year. In truth, we are more than friends. We married in an unofficial ceremony during the summer of 2008, and over a few brief hours of marital bliss and several cups of imaginary tea, we were blessed with four or five children, one of whom resembled a furry red monster. But alas, the marriage could not survive the age and geographical distances. We drifted apart. Lily claims not to remember the wedding, and the kids are stuffed in a box somewhere. [Read more]

In the wake of resignations by Democratic Senators Chris Dodd and Byron Dorgan, Democrats may be taking some shortsighted solace in the prospect of a brewing conservative civil war between the Republican Party establishment and the revolting Teabaggers, no pun intended. The differences between the warring camps are not ideological - the G.O.P. long ago purged its dissenting moderates - but attitudinal. [Read more]

God issued an unusual apology on Monday for failing to stop Senate Democrats from cutting off a Republican filibuster of the health care bill. In a brief press statement, God acknowledged underestimating Democrats' resolve and promised a thorough review His divine intercession policies. [Read more]

When I was twelve years old, my father took a sabbatical in London, and our family moved from quiet, middle class Iowa City to London's buzzing if somewhat downtrodden Camden neighborhood. I enrolled in a "state school" called J.F.S. (Brits confusingly call their private academies "public schools".) I would walk to school by myself past the gloomy "estates" (housing projects) and the jumbled little shops of Kentish Town, shyly self-conscious in my blue blazer, gray sweater, and striped blue-and-gold tie. [Read more]

Orrin Hatch--Utah's longest serving senator in history, former presidential candidate, proud member of the Finance Committee, the subcommittees on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure and Taxation and IRS Oversight, the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, as well as the Joint Committee on Taxation--can now add another feather to his well-befeathered hat: Hanukkah lyricist.

You may be surprised to learn that in addition to his senatorial duties and occasional cameos on major motion pictures, the 75-year-old Republican senator is also a songwriter. From his profile page at LDS Music: [Read more]

Demonstrating the brilliance of direct democracy, the Swiss people declared their nation to be a minaret-free zone. One cannot help but admire the simplicity of Swiss thinking. They did not bother with definitions or rationales. There was no legal gobbledygook, no extended rationales, no conscience-driven caveats. They simply voted to amend their constitution with the inspirational words, "The building of minarets is prohibited."

True, it might have been more fitting to insert the words into Article 15: Freedom of Faith and Conscience rather than Article 72: Church and State, but that's a quibble. The important thing is that there will be no more dangerous minarets in Switzerland. [Read more]

In yesterday's NYT, NASA-affiliated scientist William S. Marshall, wondered why no one seems to care about NASA's discovery of water on the moon.

Almost as surprising as NASA’s announcement is the lack of attention it has received. Thirty years ago, a development like this would have been heralded as one of humanity’s greatest discoveries.

Marshall hypothesized that astronomers were disappointed because they couldn't see the impact plume and that the rest of us were too distracted by problems on Earth.

Marshall should stick to astrophysics. [Read more]

Friday, November 20, 2009. 145 evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed the "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience," in which they declared their shared opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Though only hours old, the declaration has already been declared "historic" by those whose job it is to designate historic declarations. Several reasons were cited for the historic designation of the declaration: [Read more]

Six months ago, I wrote a column decrying President Obama's compulsive bowing before foreign leaders and monarchs. After my editorial onslaught, the administration appeared to take note, and I thought that the matter resolved.

But now, as reported in the headline of the ever relevant Drudge Report, Obama is back to his old bowing games, shaming the nation with his obsessive genuflection. Here he is with Japan's Emperor Akihito, bowing almost to the ground like a shogun-era peasant before a guy whose dad bombed Pearl Harbor. Then he followed up the deep bow by jigglin' his noggin' like a drunken bobble-head to the Empress. These people don't even have an economy anymore! [Read more]

GQ Magazine's editors believe they know why Lou Dobbs left CNN: persecution. [Read more]