PJ Media

Eliot Spitzer at the Personal Democracy Forum

New York State Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer was the keynote speaker at last Monday’s Personal Democracy Forum in New York City. His subject: the digital divide. Introduction: Forum founder Andrew Rasiej. This is the first of a series of exclusive PJ Media podcasts from the PDF.

%%AUDIO=shows/personaldemocracyforum/20060515-PJM-PDF-EliotSpitzerKeynoteAddress.mp3|PJ Media at the Personal Democracy Forum – Podcast #1 – PJ Media … Stop by throughout the day for the best in blogging and opinion%%

Podcast on the Shangri-La Diet

a href=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/750/48/1600/shangrila.jpg”img style=”float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;” src=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/750/48/320/shangrila.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”" //abr /Do you ever groan when a new diet book comes into vogue and people are talking about how little fat or sugar they are eating? Sounds pretty boring. Today, we are talking with Dr. Seth Roberts, the author of a href=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=as2path=ASIN/0399153640tag=wwwviolentkicomcamp=1789creative=9325″The Shangri-La Diet,/aimg src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwviolentkicoml=as2o=1a=0399153640″ width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”" style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” / who actually tells you to drink sugar water and eat olive oil in order to lose weight. Sound impossible? Not so, says Dr. Roberts, a psychology professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Listen to Dr. Roberts tell us about his self-experimentation with his own diet and how he and many others in the blogosphere have lost the weight for good. Hey, I guess we all need all the inspiration we can get with bathing suit season around the corner. You can even join a forum with Dr. Roberts a href=”http://boards.sethroberts.net/”here/a to discuss the diet and to get support.br /br /a href=”http://podcasts.instapundit.com/ShangriLaDietShow051706.mp3″Tune in here/a (no iPod needed) to listen to the podcast or a href=”http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=116559643s=143441″subscribe via iTunes./a You can listen to other podcasts at our podcast archive a href=”http://instapundit.com/archives/cat_podcasts.php”here/a.br /br /Please leave comments or suggestions below.

A Good Diet

Glenn and the Doc interview Seth Roberts, author of The Shangri-La Diet: The No-Hunger, Eat Anything Weight Loss Plan. Isn’t everyone on this diet?

Pork-casting

It’s the first Porkbusters podcast, with Glenn Reynolds, N.Z. Bear and House Majority leader John Boehner.

Helicopter Parents

I took a href=”http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12746612/site/newsweek/”a quiz at emNewsweek/em /a to see if I was a “helicopter parent.” Okay, so my kid is seven years away from college but I already know that I am not and will never be, a helicopter parent (I hope!). The emNewsweek/em article described the process of boomer parents letting go of their children. I warn you, a href=”http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12778684/site/newsweek/”it doesn’t sound pretty:/abr /br /blockquoteMost boomers don’t want to be “helicopter parents,” hovering so long that their offspring never get a chance to grow up. Well versed in the psychological literature, they know that letting go is a gradual process that should begin when toddlers take their first steps without a parental hand to steady them. And hovering is certainly not a new phenomenon; both Gen. Douglas MacArthur and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had mothers who moved to be near them when they went to college. But with cell phones and e-mail available 24/7, the temptation to check in is huge. Some boomer parents hang on, propelled by love (of course) and insecurity about how the world will treat their children. After years of supervising homework, they think nothing of editing the papers their college students have e-mailed them. A few even buy textbooks and follow the course syllabi. Later they’re polishing student résumés and calling in favors to get summer internships. Alarmed by these intrusions into what should be a period of increasing independence, colleges around the country have set up parent-liaison offices to limit angry phone calls to professors and deans. Parent orientations, usually held alongside the student sessions, teach how to step aside./blockquotebr /br /I will never understand these parents who hover over their children like this. Is it just one more selfish boomer characteristic that they feel their child is an extension of themselves and they try to live vicariously through them, or is it the fear that the kid will come home to live in the parent’s basement if they do not succeed? Either way, wouldn’t it be best to teach one’s child independence and how to care for themselves? I thought that is what good parenting was about. Apparently, good parenting to some boomers is to extend adolescence to the age of 30-35 and then complain when Johnny or Jane moves home because they never learned to make it on their own. Truthfully, I would rather have a young adult who could care for themselves and had no college education (or attended a state school) than I would one who went to Harvard and then used me as a crutch the rest of his or her life.br /br /Update: Some a href=”http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=051706C”thoughts from Glenn /a(Instapundit) on why parents are having so few kids to “hover around.”

Hope Chelsea’s Not Working too Hard in the Sweatshop

Wow, Hillary Clinton makes one of the first true remarks of her political career and then she a href=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12591415/”takes it back and apologizes/a. I guess she needs every vote she can get come 2008.

Blog Week in Review, May 12, 2006

Egyptian blogger jailed … weblogs and the campaign of ’06 … Ahmadinejad’s “love letter” to Bush in this week’s Blog Week in Review. Panelists: Glenn Reynolds, Tammy Bruce, Eric Umansky. Moderator: Austin Bay.

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You can play above or download here. Subscription available at iTunes.

Guitarcast

Ed Driscoll’s latest podcast features an interview with Nacho Ba√±os, the author of a book about the Fender Telecaster electric guitar that Ed liked so much.

Happy Mother’s Day and Other Rambling Thoughts

I hope all the moms out there are having a great Mother’s Day weekend. We are having a mother’s day brunch for our families-there will be six moms here, including me, so it should be fun. Lord knows, my mother deserves something for having had five kids–four of us before the age of 25 (I am in the middle). My siblings and I each have one child–I guess none of us could stand the thought of having two kids who would fight with each other and create chaos the way we did. I often think that the number of kids that people have is correlated with the size of their original family, in addition to how well that family managed with it’s size. br /br /For example, I know a woman who was an only child and had children later in life but was determined to have two children so that the first would not be an only child like she was. Apparently, she and her mother had a very symbiotic relationship and this woman felt that another child was needed to keep that smothering bond from rearing its ugly head in her new family. I, on the other hand, was always afraid to recapitulate my early years where noise was endless and uncontrollable, and privacy nonexistent. Of course, many people who come from larger families see their childhood as idyllic and go on to have large families themselves, like one law professor from a family of six who went on to have seven children. All the more power to those like her! br /br /Anyone else notice that the size and function or dysfunction of the family you were born into shaped how large or small your current family is?

Israellycool Podcast

Israellycool talks it up. The topics: “latest British boycott attempts, Gorilla news, Buffet, buffalo, McDonalds, and the latest celebrities to grace our shores.”

Medtees in the News and Study on Men and Guns

ABC Chicago has a href=”http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=communityid=4160533″a story and video /aabout Dr. Wes Fisher, an electrophysiologist and a href=”http://www.drwes.blogspot.com/”blogger/a, and his wife, Diane, a clinical psychologist, who run a href=”http://www.cafepress.com/medtees/616561″Medtees.com/a. Dr. Fisher was the star of our a href=”http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2006/03/heart-health-podcast-your-health.html”Cardiology podcast /awhich is one of our most popular. The Fishers’ a href=”http://www.cafepress.com/medtees”site/a displays and sells various t-shirts that help patients feel better about their illnesses and can bring some laughter to a bad situation. I know they helped me.br /br /Oh, and a href=”http://drwes.blogspot.com/2006/05/man-bashing-science-with-agenda.html”check out this post /aby Dr. Wes in which he makes fun of a “scientific” study on men and aggression from (who else?) the emNew York Times/em. The title of the study says it all–”a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/health/09guns.html?_r=2oref=loginoref=slogin”In Men, Trigger-Happy May be a Hormonal Impulse/a.” br /br /blockquoteHandling a gun stirs a hormonal reaction in men that primes them for aggression, new research suggests.br /br /Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., enrolled 30 male students in what they described as a taste study. The researchers took saliva samples from the students and measured testosterone levels.br /br /….The “taste sensitivity” phase of the experiment was in fact intended to measure aggressive impulses. After the writing assignment, the young men were asked to rate the taste of a drink, a cup of water with a drop of hot sauce in it. They were then told to prepare a drink for the next person in the experiment, adding as much hot sauce as they liked./blockquoteAnd this aggression is bad how? If you handle a gun to ward off an intruder, isn’t the willingness to be aggressive necessary? The researchers found that those men who handled a gun later added more hot sauce in a drink for the next person who was going to do the experiment. After they found out the aim of the experiment, the subjects were found to be disappointed when the next student was not going to drink this wicked brew. Frankly, I would be disappointed that I was not serving it up to the anti-gun lobbyists who cooked up this little trigger-happy experiment.br /br /Update: Jonah Goldberg has more on this a href=”http://author.nationalreview.com/latest/?q=MjE5NQ==”aggressive absurdity/a.

‘The prototype jihadist’

Atlas Shrugs interviews Andrew Bostom, author of The Legacy of Jihad. “Here is a man, a professor of medicine at Brown, that has made the study of Islam and Jihad a life’s work. A life’s work………..the depth and breadth of his knowledge makes ominous the prospect of a peaceful, diplomatic solution.”

Podcast with Ken Mehlman and Michael Barone

Articles such asa href=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12729893/” this one /amake it sound like Conservatives are fleeing the Republican Party in droves. However, some are just disenchanted with the GOP and want to know how the party will address their concerns. Today, we are talking with Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_National_Committee”Republican National Committee /a and a href=”http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneblog/home.htm”Michael Barone/a, Senior writer for emUS News World Report/em and principal coauthor of a href=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=as2path=ASIN/0892341122tag=wwwviolentkicomcamp=1789creative=9325″emThe Almanac of American Politics/em./aimg src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwviolentkicoml=as2o=1a=0892341122″ width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”" style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” / Chairman Mehlman discusses what the GOP is trying to do to keep the constituents happy and touches on topics of immigration and spending. We then turn to political expert, Michael Barone, for a discussion of the possibility of a third party in the 2008 Presidential election–he thought Oprah might have a chance! I sure hope not. br /br /You can listen to the podcast by a href=”http://podcasts.instapundit.com/MehlmanBaroneShow051106.mp3″clicking here/a or a href=”http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=116559643s=143441″subscribe via iTunes./a You can listen to our previous podcasts at the podcast archive a href=”http://instapundit.com/archives/cat_podcasts.php”here,/a and there’s a dialup version a href=”http://www.instapundit.com/extra_archives/2006_02.php#028499″here./abr /br /As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

Instapundit and the Doc speak

The Glenn and Helen Show featuring RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman and columnist Michael Barone is up and ripe for the listening.

Carnival of Homeschooling

The 19th week of the Carnival of Homeschooling is up at the a href=”http://whyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2006/05/carnival-of-homeschooling-week-19.html”Why HomeSchool Blog/a. I like the post by a href=”http://shesright.blogspot.com/2006/05/why-i-hate-nea-no-not-strike.html”She’s Right /a in which she talks about her disdain for the a href=”http://www.nea.org/espcolumns/dv040220.html”NEA/a.

White Guilt

I have a a href=”http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=050906B”column up at TCS /a about the new book, emWhite Guilt/em, by Shelby Steele. Here is an excerpt:br /br /blockquoteWhile listening to the radio recently, I heard the writer Christopher Hitchens’ riveting description of Shelby Steele’s new book a href=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=as2path=ASIN/0060578629tag=wwwviolentkicomcamp=1789creative=9325″emWhite Guilt : How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era/em./aimg src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwviolentkicoml=as2o=1a=0060578629″ width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”" style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” / I promptly ordered it and have not been disappointed.br /br /emWhite Guilt /emis a powerful essay that (as George Will says in the cover blurb) “braids family memories with an acute understanding of national policies.” Will says Steele “demonstrates what went wrong when whites for their reasons and blacks for theirs, embraced the idea that white guilt explains blacks’ problems and can be the basis of polices for ameliorating them.” br /br /But what happens when our national policies are derived from white guilt and black anger rather than the universal principles that free societies aspire to — freedom for the individual, rights for all individuals, equality under the law, equality of opportunity, and an inherent right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?”/blockquotebr /br /a href=”http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=050906B”Read the whole thing./a

Dave, at a href=”http://thecrisper.com/index.php/category/nutrition/”The Crisper Blog/a, thinks french fries should a href=”http://thecrisper.com/index.php/2006/05/08/coming-soon-a-ban-on-fries/#more-226″remain legal/a.br /br /Update: I see a href=”http://www.slashfood.com/2006/04/06/proposed-senate-bill-for-banning-french-fries-in-schools/”here /a that there is talk of banning french fries in schools. Do you think we could get them to ban the fruit pies and candy the schools manipulate our kids into selling every year to raise funds? I sure hope so, because I am tired of my kid looking pathetic and sad that she did not win a party in class because of her poor ability to sell this artery clogging fare endorsed by her principal. Why is it okay to be selling expensive fattening pies “for the good of the school” when it is not okay to provide cheap fattening fries “for the good of the children?” Who do the schools think are buying these fattening pies and candy? Uhhh…could it be the same parents who will serve it to the same kids who are not supposed to be eating this type of food at school? What kind of hypocritical message does this send to kids?

Carnival of the Insanities

The a href=”http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2006/05/carnival-of-insanities.html”Carnival of the Insanities /ais up at Dr. Sanity’s blog. She filed a href=”http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2006/04/men-living-longer-women-hardest-hit.html”one of my posts /a under Breaking Medical News, stating that “men are living longer and the opposite gender will just have to suffer!”

Regulating French Fries?

So it appears there are health nuts, freaks, nanny state suck-ups–I mean advocates–who want toa href=”http://www.slate.com/id/2139941/” ban french fries and trans fat /afrom emgrown/em adults. Should we even be having this conversation?br /br /Update: Instead of just regulating french fries, maybe the government should also force all of those who are overweight to read Berkeley psychologist, Seth Roberts’ new book, a href=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=as2path=ASIN/0399153640tag=wwwviolentkicomcamp=1789creative=9325″The Shangri-La Diet/aimg src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwviolentkicoml=as2o=1a=0399153640″ width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”" style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” / and follow it. I read the book this morning and apparently, all you do is eat one or two tablespoons of Extra Light Olive Oil and some sugar water daily to control the body’s set point and lose weight. {Note: I am not saying that Roberts’ plan does not work–it might be great, probably is–I liked the book very much–but I use it as an example of a current popular diet that if successful, could be the next step in government regulation}. br /br /If the government can regulate trans fat, can they also regulate weight loss for the overweight? If so, how do I get a piece of the action? Can I write a diet solution and force others to follow my plan and buy my products and books? If so, where do I sign up? Because, of course, my needs and desire to see only slim productive citizens should take precedence over free choice and personal responsibility–or so, some misguided health nuts think.br /br /The bottom line is, once we start on the slippery slope of regulating what people can consume based on how good it is for them, there is no telling how far we can go in deciding that free will, in and of itself, is bad for people.

Blog Week in Review, May 4, 2006

“Plagiarize. Let no one else’s work evade your eyes…” as Tom Lehrer sang – or was it The Great Lobachevsky? In any case, from the hallowed halls of Harvard (Kaavya Viswanathan) to the boardrooms of the LA Times (Michael Hiltzik), plagiarism and linguistic masquerades have been at the top of the blogs this week. Our panel – Glenn Reynolds, Tammy Bruce, Eric Umansky, with moderator Austin Bay – takes on this subject, plus Darfur and the immigration demonstrations in this week’s Blog Week in Review. To play …

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A podcast interview with Bill Roggio

PJM’s Sydney editor Richard Fernandez has an exclusive interview with Bill Roggio of The Counterterrorist Blog (2 min. 1 sec.; 1.9 Mb); they talk about Roggio’s plan to travel to Afghanistan and embed with the troops fighting the Taliban, the situation in the area, and much more.

Knowledge-based economy

Ed Driscoll interviews Alvin Toffler, co-author (with his wife, Heidi) of Revolutionary Wealth.

Rant and Roil

Pamela of Atlas Shrugs V-logs for the masses!

The Instapod and the Instapodess – new installment

In their latest podcast, Glenn and Helen talk with Joe Meigs on alternative fuels and Henry Copeland about the blogads survey.

Podcast on Alternative Fuels and Blog Advertising

a href=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=as2path=ASIN/B00005N7SAtag=wwwviolentkicomcamp=1789creative=9325″iPopular Mechanics/i/aimg src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwviolentkicoml=as2o=1a=B00005N7SA” width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”" style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;”/ editor Jim Meigs joins us again for a discussion of a recent a href=”http://www.popularmechanics.com/”emPM/em article/a on alternative fuels. He talks about the pros and cons of ethanol, methanol, hydrogen and biodiesel fuels. Will our reliance on Middle East oil soon be obsolete?br /br /We also hear from Henry Copeland of a href=”http://www.blogads.com/”Blogads.com,/awho tells us about his recent a href=”http://www.blogads.com/survey/blog_reader_surveys_overview.html”demographic survey /aon blog readers. I found out some interesting tidbits about the kinds of people who read blogs and why. He also discusses the future of blog advertising as well as the future of advertising on podcasts. If you run a blog, read blogs or want to advertise on blogs, take a listen.br /br /You can a href=”http://podcasts.instapundit.com/CopelandMeigsShow050206.mp3″listen to the podcast here/a (no iPod necessary) or subscribe a href=”http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=116559643s=143441″via iTunes./a You can find previous podcasts a href=”http://instapundit.com/archives/cat_podcasts.php”here/a and there’s a low-fi version for dialup available a href=”http://www.instapundit.com/extra_archives/2006_02.php#028499″here./abr /br /As always, leave any comments and suggestions below.