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Reading – Part Three – The Michener Conundrum

October 18, 2022 by TonyfromOz

By Anton Lang ~ I started to write about one of the big pleasures in my life, reading novels, back in May, and after two parts of what was going to be a series, I let it slip, but I have come back to it now to add this new part to that Series. This […]

Reading – Part Two – The Formative Years

May 12, 2022 by TonyfromOz

By Anton Lang ~ Sometime in the mid 1990s my Mum gave me an old hard cover novel, that I recognised straight away. It was a copy of Charles Dickens A Tale Of Two Cities. The dust cover had long ago frayed and torn, and was no longer on the red hard cover. I was […]

Reading – Part One – Resurgence In Reading Fiction. Huh! Did It Ever Go Away?

May 5, 2022 by TonyfromOz

By Anton Lang ~ Sometimes, life’s little pleasures go mostly unrecognised for the real pleasure that they do give, until three or four related things coalesce at around the same time, and you wonder about the supposed coincidence of it, and from that, you then think a little more in depth about it, enough to […]

Bjorn Lōmborg’s New Book Says Climate Panic Is A “False Alarm”

August 13, 2020 by PA Pundits - International

By Duggan Flanakin ~ “Skeptical environmentalist” and creator of the Copenhagen Consensus Bjorn Lōmborg has a new book, False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet. Lōmborg contends that there are far better ways to build a healthy, prosperous future than the panicked efforts led by […]

The Self-Congratulation In Banned Books Week

October 6, 2019 by PA Pundits - International

By Brent Bozell and Tim Graham ~ Washington Post book critic Ron Charles made a confession the other day. “I banned a book,” he wrote. “Or at least I helped get it banned, which makes Banned Books Week a little awkward for me this year. Like celebrating Arbor Day by cutting down a tree.” The […]

Book Review: “Peak Plastic” By Jack Buffington

March 24, 2019 by PA Pundits - International

By Peter Murphy ~ “Plastics… There’s a great future in plastics.” So said “Mr. McGuire” to Dustin Hoffman’s character, Ben Braddock, in The Graduate. Indeed, Mr. McGuire was prescient. In more than half a century since he gave his succinct advice, plastic products have become ubiquitous and cheap thanks to a super-efficient global supply chain […]

Western Values Defended

August 14, 2016 by PA Pundits - International

By Edward Cline ~ Olivia Pierson’s Western Values Defended: A Primer, is just what its title says it is, a primer for those unread in what those values are that need to be upheld and defended. It is a short book, just a general survey of the Western values that are rooted in ancient Greece […]

‘Real Excellence’? NPR Honors Anniversary Of Atheist ‘Dark Materials’ Trilogy For Kids

September 28, 2015 by PA Pundits - International

By Tim Graham ~ On Saturday, NPR’s Weekend Edition celebrated atheist author Philip Pullman and the His Dark Materials trilogy he wrote for middle-schoolers, a sort of anti-Narnia series. Anchor Scott Simon celebrated the 20th anniversary of the first book in this trilogy and interviewed Pullman as he sat a BBC studio in Oxford, hinting […]

Leaving The Church Of Environmentalism

May 28, 2015 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ In March 2009 while the Environmental Protection Agency was rushing to fulfill a presidential campaign pledge to document that carbon dioxide (CO2) and five other greenhouse gases endangered public health and the environment, a longtime employee, Alan Carlin, put out a 93-page report challenging the science being cited and the drift […]

Stupefying Generations Of Americans

May 20, 2015 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ I used the verb “stupefying” to describe a long process in our nation’s schools that has produced several generations of Americans, dumbed down and resulting in more than half who are functionally illiterate, nor can do math, and, as a recent headline reported “Student’s Results in Social Studies Stagnate.” “U.S. middle-school […]

Could You Spot A Potential School Shooter?

April 24, 2015 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ In April 1999, we were all stunned by the news that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had attacked and killed students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and, more recently, in December 2012, that Adam Lanza, after killing his mother at home, then massacred twenty-six staff and students at Sandy […]

We’re ALL Out Of Africa

April 15, 2015 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ I think if we were honest enough to admit it, we are all bigoted in some way. Our gender or religion doesn’t really qualify us as superior to anyone else, but we tend to fall back on these identities and, consciously or not, assume they give us a reason to feel […]

Diet, Gain Weight, Diet, Gain Weight

March 31, 2015 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ My Mother taught gourmet cooking, haute cuisine, for three decades in the local adult schools, first just to women and later with courses just for men as they too wanted to learn how to make succulent dishes, delicious sauces, and to bake as well. She also wrote a cookbook, “Cooking with […]

Remembering Selma, But Ignoring Black Violence

March 10, 2015 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ The pat answer for black complaints about events these days is “white racism.” One rarely, if ever, reads or hears anything about black racism, but if you ask, many blacks will acknowledge it. As the 50th anniversary of the Selma, Alabama confrontation was recalled, there was little mention of a multitude […]

Arthur Upfield Novels Available For Electronic Devices

October 31, 2014 by TonyfromOz

All 29 of the Bony Novels are now available on iTunes at the following link. https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/arthur-w.-upfield/id341926170?mt=11 All 29 titles are now also available via the Google Play store, which is available on Android at the following link. https://play.google.com/store/search?q=arthur%20w.%20upfield&c=books There are also dedicated Android apps available for both Kindle and Kobo on the Google Play store, […]

War As A Fact Of Life

September 3, 2014 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ Younger generations can be forgiven if all they know of war is what they have learned in school or seen dramatized on film and television. For most Americans, the Civil War, the two World Wars, and the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam are events that occurred “a long time ago.” For […]

Big Fat Lies About Fat

August 22, 2014 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ Americans are obsessed with fat; either with eating it or being it. We’ve been told that we’re too fat and we’re told that eating fat is bad for you. Being fat is your own business. You’ll feel better if you lose a few pounds, but you will enjoy your next meal […]

Fifty Years Later, Being Black In America

June 24, 2014 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ Fifty years ago, 1964, the civil rights movement that had begun in the 1950s achieved its goal with the Civil Rights Act and a year later with the Voting Rights Act. A remarkable book, “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed”, by Jason L. Riley, […]

Can The Tea Party Take Over The GOP?

June 5, 2014 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ “Republicans never, ever win the presidency unless they nationalize the election by campaigning on a conservative agenda—drawing a sharp contrast between the Democrat worldview and the conservative worldview.” That’s Richard A. Viguerie offering his insight and advice in his new book, “Takeover” ($27.95, WMD Books) and, if you have been wondering […]

Blueprint For Tyranny

January 15, 2014 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ There are lots of Americans who, after the first five years of living under the governance of Barack Hussein Obama, have concluded that, among his most notable characteristics, he is an incompetent, a pathological liar, a Marxist, and, fearful as the prospect is, a potential dictator who will not leave office […]

There’s Nothing New About A Deeply Divided Nation

November 1, 2013 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ The polls and the pundits tell us that the people of the United States of America are deeply divided politically and they’re right. A bit of history helps to understand this. The former colonies that later became the states when they accepted a federal form of government were always divided, along […]

Predicting America’s Future

October 23, 2013 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ One of the great parlor games of pundits, politicians, journalists, and just about everyone else is predicting the future. There’s a wonderful book, “The Experts Speak”, that is filled, page after page, with predictions and pronouncements by people of presumed wisdom and knowledge, all of which turned out to be often […]

Am I A Jew?

August 16, 2013 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ Life is often a series of coincidences and it happened that I had just finished reading “Am I a Jew?” by Theodore Ross when I tuned into the local PBS beg-a-thon featuring two documentaries about being Jewish in America. If you live in the New York City, tri-state area you are […]

A Devine Look At America

July 23, 2013 by PA Pundits - International

By Alan Caruba ~ For a few years I was a regular contributor to Conservative Battleline on the website of the American Conservative Union (ACU) Foundation, edited by a fellow I knew only as Don Devine. He was always unfailingly supportive and liked my commentaries. What I didn’t know was that Don was Dr. Donald […]