Author: Tom Van Dyke

Tom Van Dyke, businessman, musician, bon vivant and game-show champ (The Joker's Wild, and Win Ben Stein's Money), knows lots of stuff, although not quite everything yet. A past inactive to The American Spectator Online, the late great Reform Club blog, and currently on religion and the American Founding at American Creation, TVD continues to write on matters of both great and small importance from his ranch type style tract house high on a hill above Los Angeles.
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Tom Van Dyke

/// November 24, 2012

Today is White Saturday: #ShopSmall

Who knew? Small Business Saturday, November 24th, 2012. Patronize the Mom & Pop shops, tweeteth Drew Brees. Sponsored by American Express, we kid you not. $25 cashback for AmEx cardholders. Capitalist monster American Express...

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Tom Van Dyke

/// November 24, 2012

The Amazing TV Remote Dead Battery Trick

Wifely just did it & reminded meself: Open the battery compartment, spin ’em around a bit in place. Voila. Works over and over agin. It’ll buy you a week or a month or a...

23

Tom Van Dyke

/// October 18, 2012

Gang Green

The Green Party is so irrelevant, they can’t even get arrested, as they say. Heh–sure they can.

176

Tom Van Dyke

/// October 11, 2012

Bubbly Joe Biden vs. Attila the Republican

It’s just not fair. Our sassy and vivacious Vice President is about to get smushed by his younger, smarter, wittier, more able, more fit, more handsome, more charismatic, more knowledgeable, more prepared, more everythingish...

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Tom Van Dyke

/// September 11, 2012

Sweden: Conservatopia

HT: Via faithful commenter and occasional guest poster Ward Smith, the provocative Executive Summary of a paper by Nima Sanandaji, who according to his bio is a Swedish author “with a Kurdish Iranian background.”...

Tom Van Dyke

/// August 29, 2012

But I Trust the News

Via HuffPo: Yahoo News’ Washington bureau chief David Chalian was fired on Wednesday after a hot-mic incident during an online broadcast from the GOP convention in Tampa. … During the broadcast, Chalian can be...

104

Tom Van Dyke

/// August 11, 2012

Paul Ryan?

Paul Ryan. The most serious cat in Washington.

151

Tom Van Dyke

/// July 17, 2012

What Are Governments For, Anyway?

Anybody familiar with “The Lonely Crowd” [1950]? I’m not, but it seems relevant. Consider this a bleg—it was one of those pop socio-philosophical phenomena that came out of nowhere to sell a million-plus copies...

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Tom Van Dyke

/// July 12, 2012

Surprise Veep Pick?

Drudge: ROMNEY NARROWS VP CHOICES; SURPRISE NAME EMERGES AS FRONTRUNNER UPDATE: Condi?!!

91

Tom Van Dyke

/// June 19, 2012

He Needed Killin’

Grand jury returns no charges. SHINER, Texas (HuffPo/AP) — Hearing his 5-year-old daughter crying from behind a barn, a father ran and discovered the unthinkable: A man molesting her. The father pulled the man...

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Tom Van Dyke

/// June 8, 2012

Peter Van Dyck–“Conservative” Artist?

[From an earlier version @ LoOG’s Dutch Courage sub-blog.] To me, these days, any artist whose work has a resemblance to its actual real-life subject is “conservative,” so too any artist whose sense of...

123

Tom Van Dyke

/// May 29, 2012

The Evangelical War on Mormonism That Wasn’t

[Promoted by request from the Dutch Courage sub-blog.] A rather odd–or underreasoned–op-ed from Harvard prof Noah Feldman is making the rounds, that Mitt Romney’s candidacy is Mormonism’s ticket to American Protestant acceptance. That’s a...

80

Tom Van Dyke

/// May 24, 2012

Libertarianism in a Nutshell

I fancy meself a South Park Republican, no prig he, more likely to laugh at the ineptness of somebody trying to offend than to be offended. A Piss Christ or a Virgin Mary made...

237

Tom Van Dyke

/// May 8, 2012

Another Country Club Republican Bites the Dust

This time it’s Sen. Dick Lugar [R-IN] getting the Tea Party ax in the primary. Dick Lugar is the type of Republican who Democrats love although seldom actually vote for. If you’ve got a...

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Ten Second News

From the Daily Mail: Mexico and Colombia may have their first coronavirus cases
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From the Daily Mail: Mexico and Colombia may have their first coronavirus cases
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From the Daily Mail:

Mexico and Colombia may have their first coronavirus cases as the contagious illness that has killed 17 spreads from China to at least 531 people around the world

  • Mexican and Colombian officials are investigating their countriess first possible case of the new coronavirus
  • In Mexico, the patients is on the northern border state of Tamaulipa, which borders Texas
  • The Colombian case concerns a 19-year-old Chinese citizen, who traveled to Bogotá from Turkey
  • As of Wednesday, 531 worldwide have caught the viral illness and 17 have died 
  • Cases have been confirmed in Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the US, which reported its first patient, a man in his 30s in Washington state, on Tuesday
  • One person in Australia is reportedly in isolation and may have the virus  

 

(Featured image is coronavirus, from the Science Photo Library.)

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Terry Jones, Founding Monty Python Member, Passes at Age 77
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Terry Jones, Founding Monty Python Member, Passes at Age 77
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From the BBC:

Monty Python star Terry Jones has died at the age of 77, four years after being diagnosed with dementia.

A statement from his family said: "We have all lost a kind, funny, warm, creative and truly loving man."

(Featured image is Terry Jones, taken by Myung Jung Kim/PA Wire URN:49759970 (Press Association via AP Images)).

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Impeachement Day 2: Now That The Rules Are Settled
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Impeachement Day 2: Now That The Rules Are Settled
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Day one done, day two kicks off at 1PM EST. Let's Talk about it..

CBS NewsCBS NewsCBS News:

With a marathon day of debate on the rules of President Trump's impeachment trial now behind them, the Senate will gather at 1 p.m. Wednesday to hear opening arguments from the House's impeachment managers.

The Senate approved the parameters for the impeachment trial in the early morning hours Wednesday after Democrats were roundly rejected in their efforts to subpoena witnesses and documents before opening arguments are finished.

Increasingly restless senators sat silently over the 13-hour session as House impeachment managers and White House lawyers debated 11 amendments to the resolution introduced by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell setting the rules for the trial, all of which failed, and all but one in party-line votes. McConnell's resolution was adopted in another party-line vote of 53-47.

A particularly bitter exchange in the early morning hours prompted a stern rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial.

Live feed can be found here.

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Impeachment Day One: Pack a Lunch, Gonna Be Here a While
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Impeachment Day One: Pack a Lunch, Gonna Be Here a While
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The Impeachment trial of President Donald Trump is underway in the Senate:

The first day of President Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate is officially underway, just the third time a president has faced removal from office in U.S. history.

The proceedings began with debate over the rules of the trial. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican and an ally of the president, unveiled a resolution laying out the procedures on Monday.

The resolution delays votes on whether to call witnesses or admit new evidence until after opening arguments by House impeachment managers, who act as prosecutors in the case, and the president's defense team. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, blasted McConnell for delaying votes on witnesses and said he planned to offer several amendments to allow witnesses before opening arguments.

A simple majority of senators — 51 votes— is needed to approve the resolution and other motions. There are 53 Republicans in the Senate, and 47 Democrats, including two independents.

Live updates and feed can be found here.

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MLK Day
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MLK Day
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For this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, The New Yorker compiled various pieces on the man and his legacy in their Sunday Reading:

This week, Americans will be celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. In 1965, Renata Adler published a report in The New Yorker on King’s march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, writing about the participants’ experiences along the way and describing King’s calm and steady presence. At one point, King approached an old man with a cane and asked if he would join them. “I’ll walk one step anyway,” the old man said. “Because I know for every one step I’ll take you’ll take two.” This weekend, we’re bringing you a selection of pieces about King’s legacy and the significance of the upcoming holiday. In “The Hours Before ‘I Have a Dream,’ ” from 1963, Calvin Trillin joins the March on Washington and writes about the events leading up to King’s famous speech. In “When I Met Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Charlayne Hunter-Gault, who became one of the first black students to integrate the University of Georgia, in 1961, recounts how her meeting with the civil-rights leader that year inspired her. In “The Mission,” David Levering Lewis examines the complicated political alliance between King and President Lyndon Johnson. Finally, in “Martin Luther King Day with Trump,” Jelani Cobb explores how the holiday has taken on a new meaning in our current political climate. We hope that you find these pieces as fascinating—and inspiring—as we do.

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