Blogging By Numbers in Tent City!!

I have writer's block...again. It's a seasonal thing, I believe, with no accurate causation I can trace with any reliability. Maybe it's because my only source for news over the past few days was CNN, which has been proven by scientists to drastically reduce brain function.

I'm leaving for Boston in less than 24 hours, so I thought should throw something up before I go to quench the insatiable thirst of all the good folks who take the time out of their cyber day to visit this blog. I love Boston. It's an absolutely magical city where the past has a palpable presence. The Museum of Fine Art, Paul Revere's house, The Fairmont Copley Plaza...great spots. The only drawback would be the astronomical cost of living and the Draconian state taxes. I hear Ted Kennedy stops by each house before 9am and shakes everyone upside-down by the pant legs to snatch up loose change.

Speaking of shaking it up, it's blogging by numbers time!!

1 - Fellow canuck David Frum seems to have gone off the reservation, causing his former colleagues at NRO to launch some blistering attacks at him. Over on National Review's The Corner, Andy McCarthy had this to say about Frum's recent criticism of Rush Limbaugh;

"Well, well, well, David has arrived! From nowhere to Newsweek in a nanosecond, and now, the pièce de résistance: swapping yarns with Chris Matthews about Rush Limbaugh's "race problem." (Kerry Picket has the blow-by-blow, here.)

The ring-master cracked his whip, the sea lion flopped around with the race-ball on his nose, and everyone oohed and ahhed..... Then Matthews decreed, "Well, you know what I said when I came out here, David. You have changed your life with this article. You will be the man that shot Liberty Valance. You will be the guy that took on Rush Limbaugh." Congratulations. He must be very proud.

Ouch. Is all this outrage warranted? Frum has always been a somewhat left of center Giuliani conservative, and it's not surprising that he would say something outside of the accepted vernacular. I strongly disagree with lots of things David has said as of late, but the venomous response from McCarthy sounds like the stuff of a long standing grudge.

2 - My buddy Jonah Goldberg over at NRO has been robbed by that dim-witted liberal for hire, Bill Maher. In 2001, Goldberg coined the phrase "spending money like a pimp with a week to live" . As of late, Maher has been passing off the quip as his own. As Jonah later commented; "...it's not like every phrase I've ever uttered originated with me either — but pointing out Maher's unoriginality is modestly enjoyable."

3 - "Tent cities" are not, as CNN would have you believe, the result of economic woes suffered by the newly homeless lower middle class. Tent cities have, and will continue to be, the habitat of choice among hobos and vagrants in any fiscal climate. CNN is disingenuous to assert that these are the last refuge of ordinary people driven to extraordinary measures.

4 - I will not be live blogging from Boston, so I'm not even going to try to give the impression that there's a slim chance that it might happen.

5 - Tent city must really smell.

6 - Have a great weekend and let the sounds of Stewie Griffin take you coasting into Friday.

Cordially

Joe