The Supreme Court has issued its ruling in the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago. The court found, in a 5-4 vote, that local and state authorities could not effectively ban handgun ownership. The ruling prompted Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein to exclaim that she is "extremely dismayed" because as a result of the ruling "common sense state and local gun laws across the country now will be subject to federal lawsuits."

While the ruling may make some progressives squirm, the decision handed down by the high court is not a clear-cut win for constitutionalists either, though it does, on balance, represent a victory for the right to keep and bear arms.

Frank Worsley, his muscles tensed and his face etched in grim determination, tossed uncomfortably in his sleep. In his mind surreal images tormented him. Giant blocks of ice tinged with a primordial blue jostled and bucked their way down Burlington Street, which was, in the dream, weirdly flooded. The monstrous floes of ice menaced Worsley, who, in the insidious grip of the dream, saw himself at the wheel of a great ship, desperately trying to navigate the dangerous waters that filled the street.

The dream persisted through the night, or so it seemed, and Worsley woke in an unsettled mood. A veteran sailor and officer of the merchant marine, he harbored many of the superstitions common among the men of his trade. Thinking the dream a peculiar portent, he quickly dressed and made his way to the same Burlington Street that, the night before, had been beset by phantasmagoric floes of ice.

The street, though, in the daylight, seemed in no way special. Despite the still vivid memory of the dream, the decidedly normal aspect of Burlington Street nearly convinced Worsley that he had wasted valuable time that would have been better spent on more useful pursuits. He was, in fact, just about to retrace his steps when his eyes lighted on a sign hung on a doorpost. The sign read, “Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition,” and it exerted an instant and inexorable pull. Under its spell, Worsley turned into the building with a conviction that, in some strange way, it held a special importance to him. Upon entering, he was greeted by a burly Irishman, whose steady, intent gaze and commanding demeanor immediately impressed. The man was Sir Ernest Shackleton, famed as an explorer and a veteran of previous expeditions to the Antarctic, including one with Captain Robert F. Scott.

Every age has its pessimists. The ’60s had Rachel Carson and her overblown manifesto Silent Spring, which foretold of the poisoning of the planet by man. The ’70s were influenced by the radical ideas of Paul Ehrlich, whose 1968 book The Population Bomb envisioned “hundreds of millions of people” starving to death in the next decade. Neither authors’ visions of disaster came true. Despite their spectacular failures, both Carson and Ehrlich remain heroes of apocalyptic leftists. Perhaps more stunning still is the fact that the enduring mythos of impending doom that they and others like them created retains its potency in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The myth of doom is a triumph of perception over reality.

Frank Miller’s graphic novel, 300, which appeared in theaters on March 9, 2007, put the climactic battle between the ancient Persians and the Spartans on the big screen with startling special effects. The film, now available on DVD, promised to be a heavily stylized visual bacchanalia to be sure, but, in its subject matter and its timing, it promised to convey a message both about our understanding of the ancient past and our understanding of current events. With regard to the ancient history, it gets a significant element completely wrong.

Anyone growing up in the 1970s and 1980s will remember the scare stories about forests denuded as a result of toxic acid rain. The most famous of those scare stories centered on the famous Adirondacks.

If the worst was to be believed, acid rain would eventually make Saranack, New York, look like the surface of the moon.

Over the years, the acid rain scare story was gradually supplanted by the all-encompassing fear of global warming. But even as recently as 2000, CNN was still reporting that the Adirondacks were in danger. On April 19 of that year, the news channel reported on its website: "A new federal study finds that acid rain still devastate lakes in the Adirondacks, 10 years after Congress amended the Clean Air Act to deal with the problem."

An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary on the threat posed by global warming, took home two Oscars at the recently held 79th annual Academy Awards. The Academy awarded the filmmakers with the Oscar for best documentary and gave another to singer and songwriter Melissa Etheridge for the song "I Need to Wake Up" that was used in the film.