National novel writing month is less than a week away! If you’re interested in writing and need an excuse to flex your creative muscles, check it out. The challenge is simple: 50,000 words in 30 days. Quality be damned! I encourage everyone who is interested to jump in with both feet. [...]

Janus delivers the long answer for how one defines a conservative.

What is a conservative? It’s a deceptively simple question. Its made complicated by the long history of conservative philosophy in America, the fact that American conservatism is different from the conservatism found in other countries, the many strains of conservatism, the self-conflicting nature of trying to balance mutually exclusive aspects of our inalienable rights, and the fact that conservative minds disagree with one another all the time. The short answer is that there is no one face of conservative ideology.

I grew up in the big city most of my life. I was fortunate that my parents decided to enroll me in the Boy Scouts, so I was one of the lucky kids who got to get away from the skyline a couple days a month and get out into the country. When I wasn’t distracted by the hysterics of thirty pre-teen kids with minimal adult supervision, I occasionally looked up into the sky and got to see actual stars. Not the usual one or two peaking through the street lights, but true, majestic, beautiful, breathtaking, all encompassing stars.

I usually don’t just blindly link to news items. I figure that if you’re interested in the story and aware enough to be a part of the blogging arena, you’ve probably already seen it — but this is a story that’s been floating around since Tuesday and I haven’t seen it even mentioned anywhere [...]