Friday miscellaneous (11/1)

Yesterday was Halloween, and today is All Saint's Day. What better way to note the occasion than with photographs of ghosts.

In case you needed another reason to not drive in DC, the sister of a friend of mine was pulled over and ended up with $905 in traffic fines. That's a lot of kittens.

I was at a bookstore last week and found a book that the author describes as the “imagined embrace between Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran and Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind.” Now I really want to read it.

This is a fascinating article examining one of the issues facing the pro-life culture:

I think the actual problem here, I think the reason people continue to defend abortion is because, essentially, of existential terror: fear of what will happen when something unexpected, uninvited, unplanned bursts into our lives demanding action. I think that is a crippling psychological problem that doesn’t even rise to the level of morality, that we can’t just tell people to suck up and get over.

We may not know why the chicken crossed the road, but at least he can do it safely.

When the Navy needed a captain for it's new destroyer, it turned to none other than Captain James Kirk. And speaking of ships, Blackbeard's cannons are being recovered.

And this is for those thinking that Thomas Kinkade paintings are lacking a little ... something. 

Vision Forum Ministries President Doug Philips announced yesterday that he is resigning his position.

Have you ever wondered what the Civil War would look like if covered by today's media? Sample:

NEW BATTLEGROUND POLL: Lincoln’s negatives are “through the roof” in Va., N.C., S.C., Ga., Miss., Ala., Louisiana, Ark., Tenn.  PLAY-BOOK TRUTH BOMB: Lincoln is not going to improve these numbers if he refuses to press the flesh. A playbooker telegraphs: “I don’t know what happened to the gregarious guy we saw in 1860. Jeff Davis hasn’t been invited to the White House for cocktails once since Abe became president!”

And speaking of presidential negatives, Obamacare is resulting on lots of people seeing their existing policies be canceled and the White House knew this would happen. This is more than just not being competently run. When the left-leaning Slate begins paragraphs with "When healthcare.gov launched with the fanfare and success of a North Korean missile..." you know there's a problem.

And on the political front, a new book indicates that President Obama seriously considered dropping Joe Biden from the 2012 re-election ticket.

Also speaking of presidential negatives, Bush's aren't quite as bad as they used to be.

In appalling news to Sriracha lovers everywhere, the factory could be closed.

This week The Atlantic ran an article on why homeschooling is such a good thing: "The final question is what sort of educational system is likely to produce the best results in the long run, or to be more specific, what system is best suited to evolving in advantageous ways. I'd bet on the diversified system, the one where there are always competitors with different models to measure public schools against."

And finally, because this week is election week here in Virginia.