columnist and author of the 'nanny state'

I had a chance to see P.J. O’Rourke speak at the Independence Institute’s 25th Anniversary dinner last month. It was a ton of fun so I thought I’d post the video. (Links via Peoples Press Collective.)

Here are a some recent columns on the EPA and Climategate.

Hide the decline . . . and more

Our way or … well, our way

We-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it-gate

A reason to be skeptical

Secularists submit!

Having mentioned Bill Kristol in my column today, I was reminded of a really cool copy of Oriana Fallacci’s The Rage and the Pride the Weekly Standard sent me after I reviewed the book for the magazine.

“Always love your country — but never trust your government!” If every journalist lived by Robert Novak’s credo, this nation would be a far more entertaining, enlightened and admirable place.

My weekend with the kids.

Instapundit posts on the recent scary* ABC News story — “Fear for Obama’s Safety Grows as Hate Groups Thrive on Racial Backlash” — and notes that “we didn’t see this kind of concern when people were saying the same kinds of things about Bush.”

I suspect that’s true. And it reminded me of the threat of eco-terrorism.

For nearly seven years, the nation has turned its terror focus on Al Qaeda and the hunt for Usama bin Laden. But there is a domestic terror threat that federal officials still consider priority No. 1 — eco-terrorism …

FBI estimates place damages from these attacks at well over $100 million. So far, no one has been killed.

It’s a problem that’s unlikely to go away.

If Rush Limbaugh “legitimizes people who are on the edge to go do something or say something,” as the ABC piece points out, couldn’t others make a strong case that people like Al Gore, or other global warming hyperalarmists, are legitimizing environmental extremists? After all, if you incessantly preach that humans are destroying the earth for our children with mansions, beef and gratuitous energy use, isn’t it our moral obligation to do something?

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*”The Paranoids Are Out to Get Me!” Jesse Walker at Reason has a great piece on the militia scares.