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OUT EAST [Andrew Stuttaford]
Early1980: Scroll back to a moment twenty-four years ago in Brussels, Belgium. I’m on a university field trip to NATO headquarters. Someone asks whether there is any hope of rolling back communism.
An official laughs. Dumb question.
Summer 1988, just over a year before the fall of the Wall: on a train rolling through Poland on its way to Warsaw. “You’re American?” “English.” Smiles, handshakes, out come the beers, and then the toasting starts. “Thatcher. Reagan. Thatcher. Reagan.” Hours later we all pour out onto the railway platform.
And no, it’s no longer a dumb question.
Thank you, President Reagan.
Posted at 11:37 PM
REAGAN TESTIMONIALS [KJL]
In a change of policy, if you send me something about Reagan, I'll use your name unless you note otherwise.
Posted at 11:24 PM
THE WALL [Andrew Stuttaford]
“As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: "This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality." Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.”
And then this:
“And I would like, before I close, to say one word. I have read, and I have been questioned since I've been here about certain demonstrations against my coming. And I would like to say just one thing, and to those who demonstrate so. I wonder if they have ever asked themselves that if they should have the kind of government they apparently seek, no one would ever be able to do what they're doing again.”
Posted at 11:22 PM
MRS T [Andrew Stuttaford]
“In a heartfelt statement last night, Thatcher said [Reagan] had been one of her 'closest political and dearest friends', and would be missed by millions of people who now lived in freedom thanks to his administration: 'Ronald Reagan had a higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty, and he did it without a shot being fired…'To have achieved so much against such odds and with such humour and humanity made Ronald Reagan a truly great American hero.”
Posted at 11:05 PM
CNN WARNS [KJL]
Bill Schneider just did a segment which ending with a warning to conservatives: Don't politicize Reagan or you will pay. He gave the example of Paul Wellstone's funeral. If Bush tries to use Reagan, he might pay, too. Was anyone actually thinking Ronald Reagan's funeral would become a Bush rally? I'm not even sure why it was brought up. It's not like RR was in the middle of a campaign now and W. is taking over. It's not like he's been actively on the political scene since, basically, he left office. So odd.
Posted at 11:04 PM
REMEMBERING REAGAN IN DALLAS [Rod Dreher]
Meg Quinn just called to say she's getting up a gathering of NRO fans tomorrow here in Dallas to share appreciation of Ronald Reagan. Folks are convening at a fine pub called The Old Monk (2847 North Henderson, just off North Central Expressway) around five. Meg says bring your memories -- and she suggests that the NRO faithful in other cities do similar get-togethers.
Posted at 10:19 PM
"THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SAW THEIR ENTIRE COUNTRY IN THAT ONE MAN" [KJL]
George Will on Reagan right now, on Larry King. No other president in my lifetime, including my beloved W., you can say that of, I don't think.
Posted at 09:57 PM
OUR PRESIDENT [KJL]
An e-mail I just got, one of more than a few. We'll be posting testimonials during the week:
I don't know why I'm writing you this, other than the fact that I can't get a hold of anyone close to me that I can talk about the effect of Reagan's death with. I guess it's the feeling of friendship which evolves when one follows the career of public figures whom he admires. You guys and gals don't know me from Adam, but I feel I know NRO somewhat, so I wanted to share my feelings on this bittersweet day (I say bittersweet because, as sad as this day may be, in the touched-on "Irish wake" manner, there is a great celebration and remembrance of Reagan's life, which can't help but bring a smile to my face while tears are rolling down my cheeks).
Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States of America for the majority of and the most important formative part of my childhood. Born in 1976, I was just old enough to have real memories by the time he came to the Office. He was President from the time I was four until I was twelve, and I can honestly say I don't remember first hand a single speech, a single act, a single specific event that he was involved in. I was too young for specifics. What I do remember was knowing that I was a child in the United States of America, and that Ronald Reagan was my President. I remember from my earliest days knowing great joy and pride that I was a child in the United States of America, and even then I knew that in part he was to be credited. I remember seeing snipets of speeches and events and viewing the man with awe. At the time, the awe was mainly for the Office, not the man. In the fifteen years I've lived since he left office, I've come to replace my awe of President Ronald Reagan with an even greater awe of the man Ronald Reagan.
"It's morning again in America". How beautiful a turn of phrase that is. And it was true. We had wakened from a dark night of scandal, malaise, and distrust to re-elect and re-affirm a man with strength, character, vision, and faith. A man who knew the battles he wanted to fight, and would compromise outside these battles but fight to the end when he knew he was right. A man who conveyed his joy and love and faith in our country to the rest of us, who looked up and understood that we *were* the "shining city on the hill". That we should stand up and rejoice, for we were Americans, and we should thank God that this was true. That we had hard times and hard battles ahead of us, but we should never, ever, lose sight of the simple fact that America is the "last, best hope for mankind" and worth all the praise and love we can shower upon this great nation.
Reagan made us see this. He made us proud again to be Americans. With his quick, wry wit, his personal warmth, his strength of character, and his unshakable faith in the ideals of America he changed our world for the better. I offer my solemn prayer that he now rests in the hands of the Creator, comforted by the knowledge that the country he loved so much offers love to his memory, condolences to his family, and eternal gratitude for his vision and determination.
May he rest in peace.
Brian Mulhall
Posted at 09:46 PM
AMERICA'S GANDALF [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Jonah,This will perhaps sound cheesy, but I've always thought of Reagan as America's Gandalf. If you read the Silmarillion--and pay careful attention to passages about Gandalf in LOTR--you learn that Gandalf is a figure sent to bring hope, encouragement, and wisdom to Middle Earth as it faced it's Great Enemy:
“Other evils may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule." --Tolkien, LOTR (Bk. V, Ch. 9, p. 190).
"They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits -- not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty." -- Ronald Reagan
I was about 11 years old when Ronald Reagan took office and I will never forget the enthusiasm, the courage, the childlike joy that he conveyed to, and surely instilled in, my heart.
Best wishes to you & your family,
[Name withheld]
Posted at 09:16 PM
WINNING FOR THE GIPPER [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
I'm a 26-year-old former Marine, and I like to think of myself as a reasonably tough guy, yet I've found myself blubbering, off-and-on, since I first read of President Reagan's death on the Corner. I think it's hitting me especially hard because Reagan was one of my first heroes. I wrote off the news of his troubles yesterday, because it seemed like the same stuff that's been said for the past ten years. Ironically, that made it a bigger shock when the end finally came.
I looked up the text of the "Win one for the Gipper" speech and I've read it a couple of times. Well, cliche as it may be, right now it seems like the team is up against it, and the breaks are beating the boys. Hopefully in November, we can win one more for the Gipper. I'm pretty sure I know where he'll be then, and I know he'll be happy.
BTW, I also prefer the Fox News Irish Wake coverage as well, if you're taking a survey.
Thanks for your time,
Posted at 09:14 PM
SLATE'S FIRST INSTINCT [Jonah Goldberg]
So classy. So Tim Noah.
I really don't mind or object to negative appraisals from liberal journalists on the ocassion of Reagan's death. I just think it says a lot that the only thing thing they can muster is this, without anything else. (See link below).
Posted at 09:12 PM
THE SUBSTANCE OF THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR [Steve Hayward]
Jon Adler's fitting remarks about the priority of the substance over the style of Reagan's message is right on the money, and at the risk of annoying my publisher, I can't resist passing along the passage that closes the first chapter of my next book on Reagan, which gilds Jonathan's point:
Reagan did not mind being called “the Great Communicator,” so long as it was understood that, for him, what he was communicating outweighed how well or badly he did it. Lincoln, too, could have been known also as “the Great Communicator” but for the fact that the aim of his words became the deed of the nation, thereby bestowing on him the higher title, the Great Emancipator. Reagan was too modest to have claimed for himself the title that the substance of his words and deeds point to—the Great Liberator. Yet that is the legacy he ultimately deserves.
Posted at 09:06 PM
RE: IRISH WAKES [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Dear Jonah,A bit of perspective on the Irish wake approach. I still remember from
my late brother-in-law's funeral what the priest said about mourning.
My brother in law had fought a 10 year battle against a brain tumor. In
those 10 years he managed to get an MBA, a college teaching position,
and father a child with my sister (something that many in both families
still consider a miracle). The priest said that the grief was for us,
because Dan's pain was over, and he was in a better place. We grieve
for ourselves, for the separation from a soul we love, but we shouldn't
be afraid to laugh and joke as we remembered Dan and celebrated his
life. The wake is a celebration of the departed soul's life, and a
farewell party. The mourning, that is for our loss.
Posted at 08:57 PM
REAGAN & D-DAY [John Hood]
I happened to be out on an errand and listening to NPR when I heard about the death of President Reagan. I then had to suffer through some 10 minutes of an interview with former reporter and Reagan "biographer" Haynes Johnson, who found ways to sneer at the Reagan legacy without being, as was suggested, "tasteless." It was tasteful, but clearly critical. I did find it powerful to think about the fact that Reagan's passing was just hours before the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of D-Day. In 1975, Reagan wrote this in one of his radio commentaries (thanks to Reagan, In His Own Hand for the text): The leaders of [the WWII generation] saw the growing menace and talked of it but reacted to the growing military might of Germany with anguished passiveness. Will it be said of today's world leaders as it was of the pre-WWII leaders:"They were better at surviving the catastrophe than they were at preventing it"? Reagan was writing about those unwilling to confront and if possible roll back the Soviet menace. He might as well have been talking about certain timid politicians during today's war for Western survival.
Posted at 08:48 PM
SLATE DOESN’T HOLD BACK [KJL]
Our weblord Aaron Bailey points out to me the overwhelming negativity on Slate right now. Not only is there one Reagan piece by Tim Noah and headlined on their homepage with the text "The Man Who Ruined Republicans, but the rest of their features are "Why Smarty Jones isn't the World's Fastest Horse," "How Letterman Became a Sap," and "Any Schmo Can Win the World Series of Poker.”
And they say conservatives are mean-spirited.
Posted at 08:43 PM
TO ACT [Peter Robinson]
Terry Teachout's estimate of Reagan as an actor--that he was good--reminds me of a couple of conversations I had with Ed Meese and Lyn Nofziger. They agreed that there were only two sure ways of making Reagan angry: To overbook him, forcing him to keep people waiting (Ed told me that as governor Reagan once grew so angry that the staff had forced him to keep a series of people waiting that he took off his reading glasses and whipped them across the room) and to call him a B actor. "Anytime he heard he'd been called a B actor," Lyn told me, "he'd start listing all the great stars he'd worked with. He was proud of that career."
Posted at 08:18 PM
ACK [KJL]
The White House press release spelled Reagan the dreaded REGAN!
Posted at 08:07 PM
RE: IRISH FUNERAL [KJL]
Sad to say goodbye, yes. But it has to be a relief in some very many ways for his family. This poor man, who lived such a wonderful, full life, spent the last years not able to communicate with the ones he loved most. This titan of history unable to remember his own memories and make anymore.
Posted at 07:52 PM
"HOPE OF FREEDOM IS UNIVERSAL" [KJL]
George W. Bush on Reagan
Posted at 07:41 PM
DANA ROHRABACHER [KJL]
on Reagan. Rep. Rohrabacher worked as RR's campaign press secretary and then worked with Peter as a Reagan speechwriter in the White House: "Reagan is gone, but his legacy remains: he left us a safer and more prosperous America, in a world where hundreds of millions of people are now living in freedom who otherwise would have been suffering under tyranny and oppression.
"He made us proud to be Americans once again."
Posted at 07:26 PM
TOM DELAY ON REAGAN [KJL]
A press release: "Like all heroes, Ronald Reagan's greatness was an extension of his goodness and billions of people around the world owe their freedom to both. He will be missed, but his words and deeds belong to the ages now, where they will be loved and honored as long as men yearn to be free.
"Ronald Reagan marshaled free men everywhere to their victory over communist oppression. He led America out of weakness and malaise to heights of strength and prosperity never before witnessed by any nation in history."
Posted at 07:15 PM
REAGAN REVIEWED [Terry Teachout]
Reagan was proud of his Hollywood career, and would surely have wanted it remembered and mentioned today. It happens that I saw Kings Row for the first time a couple of months ago. The movie itself is more or less preposterous, a whole field full of stale corn, but I marveled at the late-romantic beauties of the Erich Wolfgang Korngold score-more Straussian than Strauss-and I was no less surprised to discover that Reagan was a damned good actor. The only Reagan movie I'd ever seen was Bedtime for Bonzo, not exactly a fair test of his skills, but he was definitely up to the challenge of the demanding part he played in Kings Row. (In case you've forgotten, it's the one where he wakes up, sees that his legs have been amputated, and shrieks "Where's the rest of me?")
Just to confirm my first impressions, I looked up Otis Ferguson's 1941 New Republic review of the film, and found that it refers in passing to "Ronald Reagan, who is good and no surprise." Obviously Ferguson, the best American film critic of his generation, took Reagan's gifts for granted-surely the finest kind of tribute.
Posted at 07:11 PM
JOHN KERRY'S STATEMENT [Jonah Goldberg]
Without comment:
For Immediate Release
June 5, 2004
Statement from Senator John Kerry on the Death of Ronald ReaganBoston, MA - Senator John Kerry released the following statement today:
"Ronald Reagan's love of country was infectious. Even when he was breaking Democrats hearts, he did so with a smile and in the spirit of honest and open debate. Despite the disagreements, he lived by that noble ideal that at 5pm we weren't Democrats or Republicans, we were Americans and friends. President Reagan and Tip O'Neill fought hard and honorably on many issues, and sat down together to happily swap jokes and the stories of their lives. The differences were real, but because of the way President Reagan led, he taught us that there is a big difference between strong beliefs and bitter partisanship.
"He was the voice of America in good times and in grief. When we lost the brave astronauts in the Challenger tragedy, he reminded us that, 'Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue.'
"Now, his own journey has ended-a long and storied trip that spanned most of the American century-and shaped one of the greatest victories of freedom. Today in the face of new challenges, his example reminds us that we must move forward with optimism and resolve. He was our oldest president, but he made America young again.
"Our prayers are with his family, and the wife he loved in a way all the world could see. And to the end, she loved him with courage and complete devotion. She helped all of us better understand the cruel disease that took him away before it took his life, and what we must do to prevent and cure it.
"Teresa and I and our family extend our deepest sympathies to Nancy Reagan and the Reagan family. Today, from California to Maine - 'from sea to shining sea' - Americans will bow their heads in prayer and gratitude that President Reagan left such an indelible stamp on the nation he loved."
Posted at 07:05 PM
REAGAN [John Derbyshire]
One thing about Ronald Reagan that struck me time and again was his obvious, visceral loathing of communism. For him it wasn't just a difference of opinion about economics or governance: he saw through the whole thing to its essentially anti-human nature. And this was at a time, we all too easily forget, when plenty of people in the West -- I think a majority of the intellectual classes even as late as the 1980s -- didn't mind communism at all, thought in fact that it was just the ticket, if perhaps not for the USA, at least for poor counties like Nicaragua. Reagan had the firmest, clearest, truest moral compass of any modern President. May he rest in peace.
Posted at 07:03 PM
FROM THE USS RONALD REAGAN [KJL]
An e-mail live from the USS Reagan:
The Captain announced President Reagan's death about three minutes after I saw the headline on Drudge, then the Corner. It was the shortest time the Captain has ever spent on the 1MC (the intraship speaker system). He just said what a great President he was and a great man. I sincerely hope there will be a memorial service out here in the next couple of days.He adds, BTW, "Kathryn, the intranet on the Reagan is nicknamed the 'Gippernet.'"
I began my military life under Reagan as a cadet at the Air Force Academy. Then I served most of my active duty time under Bill Clinton. How happy I am to be on the inaugural voyage of the USS Ronald Reagan.
Posted at 06:53 PM
NOT A TRAGIC DEATH [Jonah Goldberg]
Taking off the media criticism hat, I think I prefer the Irish wake approach. Of course it's sad -- for want of a much better word -- that Reagan has died, but that's not because this was an untimely death in the grand scheme of things. He lived to be 93. He lived to see and, more important, helped to achieve the sweeping of Communism into the dustbin of history. His disease was obviously tragic, but he lived a full and glorious life full of more accomplishment than legions of us would be glad to share collectively.
Posted at 06:50 PM
FOX VS. CNN [Jonah Goldberg]
I'm flipping between Fox and CNN and it's really very interesting in a media criticism sense how CNN is treating this as somber news. There's lots of information being imparted to the public, lots of Wolfe Blitzer saying "tell me about how close to death Reagan came when during the assasination attempt..." or some such. There's nothing wrong, and lots that's right with this sort of coverage. At Fox, however, it's more like an Irish wake. Everyone's telling funny, and sometimes slightly barbed but good natured, stories about the Gipper. Draw what conclusions you like.
Posted at 06:43 PM
A THOUSAND HOLOGRAPHS [Terry Teachout]
From the terryteachout.com archive, some reflections on Reagan the letter-writer.
Posted at 06:43 PM
MORE SOURCES [Jonah Goldberg]
The AP's chronology of the Gipper's life.
Posted at 06:37 PM
PRIMARY SOURCES [Jonah Goldberg ]
Reagan's Goldwater stump speech.
Posted at 06:26 PM
LICHNOST [Andrew Stuttaford]
From Dutch by Edmund Morris:
“Many years later, I asked Gorbachev the question that tantalized me that morning: what he saw when he looked up into Ronald Reagan’s eyes.
“Sunshine and clear sky. We shook hands like friends. He said something, I don’t know what. But at once I felt him to be a very authentic human being.”
“Authentic? What word is that in Russian?” I asked the interpreter. He was startled to be addressed directly, and shot Gorbachev a nervous look.
“Lichnost. It is a very difficult word to translate because it means ‘personality’ in English. Or ‘figure,’ but in the dignified Italian sense, figura. But in Russian its meaning is much bigger than in these languages: a lichnost man is someone of great strength of character who rings true, all the way through to his body and soul. He is authentic, he has…”
“Kalibr,” said Gorbachev, who had been listening intently. He is so intuitive that he can follow dialogue without vocabulary.
“I know what kalibr is, Mr. President, “ I said. “We have the same word in our language.”
R.I.P.
Posted at 06:26 PM
RE: NPR [Jonah Goldberg]
By the way, from what I heard, NPR's coverage was very tasteful if at times awkward in that the hosts of the special coverage seemed awkward in searching for language to describe his legacy in relatively uncritical terms.
Posted at 06:23 PM
LOU CANNON'S OBITUARY [Ramesh Ponnuru]
is up at the Washington Post, and worth reading.
Posted at 06:21 PM
I HEARD IT ON NPR... [Jonah Goldberg]
...driving to the market with my baby in the back seat blurbling and giggling at the windshield wipers (I think) at 5:30ish. That will be my answer to her when she's old enough to ask where I was when I heard Ronald Reagan died.
Posted at 06:20 PM
REAGAN THE PROPHET [Terry Teachout]
Here's a Reagan quote you may not know.
Posted at 06:19 PM
"THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR" COMMUNICATED SUBSTANCE [Jonathan H. Adler]
Most media retrospectives on President Reagan will emphasize that he was the "great communicator," but pay little attention to the message he communicated. Yes, Reagan was effective on television and before an audience. Yes, he conveyed optimism to his audience. But he also communicated an extremely powerful, and substantive, message. Throughout his career he ephasized freedom and faith, the deense of free enterprise and opposition to communism. Unlike many contemporary leaders, he united the broad conservative movement behind a coherent and principled agenda. Yes, he was the "great comunicator," but he also communicated a message the country needed -- and wanted -- to hear.
Posted at 06:14 PM
THE OAK-WALLED CATHEDRAL [Peter Robinson]
When I interviewed Judge William P. Clark [as I was working on my book, How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life, from which this passage is drawn], I found myself wanting to ask not about Reagan’s policies but about his interior life. What had Clark, the man who was probably closer to the President than anyone outside the Reagan family, seen in the chief executive that would have been hidden from an ordinary member of the staff such as a speechwriter like me? The private, inner Reagan—what had he been like?
“He was a man of prayer,” Clark said.
Reagan’s favorite setting for prayer? The outdoors. “He didn’t need a church to pray in,” Clark explained. “He referred to his ranch as an open cathedral with oak trees for walls.” On trail rides, Clark and Reagan would often recitethe famous praer of St. Francis of Assisi that opens, “Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.” “Sometimes,” Clark said, “the President would look around and say, ‘What a wonderful place for prayer.’ And sometimes he’d just look up at the sky and say, ‘Glory to God.’”
Journal entry, May 2001: Ever since my talk with Judge Clark, I’ve found, a picture keeps coming to mind. Ronald Reagan is on horseback, riding along the exposed ridge at the southwestern corner of his ranch. When he reaches the high point where the helicopter pad once stood, he reins in his mount. He gazes up at the enormous vault of the sky. He feels the rushing wind against his face. He looks east, following the shape of the land as it tumbles down and away, spreading to form the green bowl of the Santa Ynez Valley. Then he shifts in his saddle to look west, taking in the endless, dazzling ocean, the Channel Islands misty in the distance. And then he whispers, “Glory to God.”
Posted at 06:08 PM
"SLIPPED THE SURLY BONDS OF EARTH" [KJL]
Reagan's Challenger speech, the kind that gets to the heart of him, and us. One of many
Posted at 05:45 PM
WHERE ARE THE NETWORKS? [Tim Graham]
A president has died, and ABC and Fox are up. Here in Washington, CBS and NBC are running sports. These are the same networks that blocked out an entire Saturday when John F. Kennedy Jr. vanished. This is just ridiculous.
Posted at 05:30 PM
"ETERNAL OPTIMISM" [KJL]
From Paul Kengor: "It is telling that in that brief letter to the American people, Ronald Reagan mentioned God and faith four times. 'When the Lord calls me home,' he wrote, 'will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future.'" Read the rest here.
Posted at 05:22 PM
THE NEXT WEEK [KJL]
What an amazing week it should be. Of tribute, of celebration of a life, of a leader. As I understand it, Reagan will lie in state in Sacramento, then at the Capitol. Then there will be a memorial service at the National Cathedral, after which RR will be flown back to California for a sunset interment at the RR Library.
Posted at 05:12 PM
AMBASSADOR DANFORTH? [Jonathan H. Adler]
President Bush has chosen former Senator John Danforth as the new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (replacing John Negroponte). Am I alone in finding this a particularly uninspiring choice?
Posted at 05:05 PM
RIP [KJL]
Ronald Reagan has died.
Posted at 04:57 PM
WHAT THE....? [KJL]
This appears in the opening of a theatre review in The Village Voice:
Republicans don't believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet. Human beings, who have imaginations, can see a recipe for disaster in the making; Republicans, whose goal in life is to profit from disaster and who don't give a hoot about human beings, either can't or won't. Which is why I personally think they should be exterminated before they cause any more harm.
Posted at 03:15 PM
RE: BILL CLINTON FOR VEEP [KJL]
The other point many readers always bring up when the issue comes up when the media gets bored: (From an e-mail) "Bill Clinton is ineligible to be elected to the office of president, but being a natural-born citizen a resident for over 14 years, and over 35, he is arguably "eligible to the office." If he ran as vice-president, and for some reason succeeded the president because of death or disability, he would not have been elected to more than 2 terms.
"The 12th amendment would have to be read 'no person constitutionally ineligible to to be elected to the office of president....' to prohibit him from being a vice-presidential candidate.
"There are undoubtedly counter-arguments, but the 12th amendment does not readily resolve the question (though it's a pretty safe bet this is a hypothetical discussion)."
Posted at 03:10 PM
LIARS [Andrew Stuttaford]
If, as we are reportedly told, there is such a strong case against passive smoking why do those who trumpet its dangers feel it necessary to tell so many lies? Here’s a spokeswoman for the UK’s Royal College of Nursing:
“…there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke.”
Just think about that statement, just for a second, and you know it’s not true. That’s a pity, I always thought you could rely on nurses for straight talk. It seems not.
Posted at 02:48 PM
1916 [Andrew Stuttaford]
More bleak news from the House of Romanov, oh sorry, the House of Saud. Do we, I wonder, have a plan B?
Posted at 02:41 PM
JOYCE RUMSFELD, MODEL POLITICAL WIFE [KJL]
Posted at 01:28 PM
MEDIA MUTTERS [Tim Graham]
For those of you pondering whether David Brock and his goofy "Media Matters" campaign tool matter, note that CNN did a whole story promoting their campaign to censor Rush Limbaugh off the Armed Forces Radio Network. Can you imagine how they would have reacted if an MRC had demanded the removal of NPR from Armed Forces Radio because it was too demoralizing to troops?
PS: Their Web site is hot and heavy defending George Soros from conservative attack this week. They know who butters their panini.
Posted at 11:42 AM
D-DAY IN FRANCE [Denis Boyles]
A reader has pointed out that not all press coverage of D-Day is cynical. Ouest-France has an editorial that is very frank in its appreciation of the American sacrifices made in Normandy and elsewhere. The editorial appeared too late for me to include, or i would have. Sad to say, Ouest-France obviously draws most of its circulation from outside Paris and the Ile de France, where the press is far more influential--and decidedly less charitable.
Posted at 11:33 AM
MUST BE SWEEPS WEEKEND [KJL]
At a quick glance, MSNBC right now looks like deja vu to the Iraq ground war. Barry McCaffrey, Stormin' Norman, and another armchair general in an armchair, are talking with Lester Holt. McCaffery and Holt are playing with toy models, reenacting the storming of Normandy. Though it has the feel of reporters climbing in an in-studio spider hole as a Saddam-capture prop, I'm not, actually, all negative. This is probably the best history lesson a lot of people who might happen to flip on MSNBC irght now has gotten on D-Day--recently, or, sadly, ever.
Posted at 11:22 AM
AVAILABLE [John Derbyshire]
As I recall, the principal functions of the Vice President are attending funerals in picturesque foreign cities, and taking people out to dinner. (Calvin Coolidge, on this latter aspect of the job: "Gotta eat somewhere.")
If John Kerry's really desperate, I'm available... though apparently it would require a minor Constitutional amendment.
Posted at 10:59 AM
"PRE-VIABILITY PROCEDURE" [KJL]
The New York Times editorial on the San Francisco partial-birth abortion is full of holes, the two most glaring, from a quick scan: the word "pre-viability" to describe what the partial-birth-abortion ban prohibits (my computer so doesn't have the "so-called partial-birth abortion" macro). (Click here if you need a visual of what the ban bans--WARNING: graphically disturbing, one of those images that remain/innocence eraser.) The second is the contention that partial-birth abortion is some invention that close to no one does. The Planned Parenthood stats machines, the Alan Guttmacher Institute has said otherwise. So has a prominent abortion supporter (Ron Fitsimmons, National Coalition of Abortion Providers).
Posted at 10:39 AM
(BILL) CLINTON DOESN'T WORK [KJL]
As many readers--not all of them Clinton haters, I might add!--point out:
CNN:The Rev Al is always available.
"While federal law prohibits a person from seeking a third presidential term, the Constitution does not specify whether or not a former commander in chief can become vice president."
U.S. Constitution, 12th Amendment:
"But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."
Posted at 10:29 AM
SMART RATINGS PLOY [KJL]
CNBC hires al Sharpton
Posted at 10:26 AM
RE: REAGAN COVERAGE [KJL]
I really hope every AP story, when he does pass on, does not include a commercial for embryonic-stem-cell research, like this one does. He deserves more than that. The issue deserves more than that, as the issue is about life and death itself.
This gets me thinking though, about our lack of articulate spokesman on the life issue. They're out there. Stem cells is slightly harder, because most people don't get the science on its face. But it extends to abortion too. There are many women who are actually out there and willing witnesses, well-rounded, beautiful who've made sacrifices for human life and would do it all over again even if it put them within an inch of their lives--but none of them are household names or, to put it crassly, in your face about it, in a loving way. In a Michael J. Fox, Superman, or Nancy Reagan, you have a person whose story breaks your heart. I really don't know how one "wins" to use the wrong word again, the stem-cell debate without conveying that same genuine sense of pain and love of life. Of course, with stem cells you have the added difficulty that most people just don't understand what the issues are, mostly because the reporters who are covering the issue, for the most part, don't understand themselves, or else are just mimicking talking points.
Posted at 09:57 AM
RE: REAGAN [KJL]
That buzz was overwelming in our parts yesterday, too. God bless his poor family, watching him for all these years, unable to communicate--and all families in similar situations. So heartbreaking.
Posted at 09:45 AM
END OF REAGAN [John J. Miller]
The Reagan death rumors are buzzing again. Seems like every six or eight months I hear that he's only got a few days left. One of these times, of course, the rumors will be true and he'll really be gone.
Posted at 09:23 AM
Friday, June 04, 2004
DEFINITE SIGN THE MEDIA IS BORED WITH KERRY [KJL]
Bill Clinton makes veep list.
Posted at 09:54 PM
FOREIGNERS SUBJECT TO AMERICAN LAW FOR ACTIONS OVERSEAS [Andy McCarthy]
There's a lot to be said for Jonah's very practical answer, but the more legalistic response is that foreigners are answerable to U.S. law for various crimes committed overseas against what Congress, subject to the (pretty tiny) limitations of the Constitution, deems are American interests. The easiest examples are probably terrorist acts which target American persons or property. Mohammed Daoud al-`Owhali, for example, bombed the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. He was a Saudi pretending to be a Yemeni whose crime (and arrest) took place in Kenya, who had never set foot in the U.S., and whose only connection to the U.S. was to have attacked that American installation. He was surrendered by Kenya to the U.S., convicted of various U.S. terrorism crimes, and is serving a life sentence (having convinced the jury not to impose the death penalty).
Most matters of national security concern, like espionage, are analogous. They involve U.S. assets -- in the case of espionage, not persons or defense facilities but information that is vital to U.S. national security. Consequently, it presents no Constitutional problem for Congress to write laws that reach such conduct committed outside U.S. territory. Similarly, drug traffickers who participate in exporting drugs to the U.S. (e.g., Noriega) or laundering drug money (or other known criminal proceeds) from the U.S. are chargeable under American law. Foreign companies who trade on our exchanges can be reached if they commit a fraud overseas that has American consequences.
Usually, the more interesting problem -- as Jonah suggests -- is getting your hands on the bad guy. Other countries are not always crazy about the elastic reach of our laws. So sometimes they will refuse to extradite. Or they will extradite with conditions (e.g., the European countries generally won't turn over even terrorists unless we agree not to seek the death penalty; the head of the Sicilian Mafia -- who was the lead defendant in the famous Pizza Connection case in the 1980's -- faced a limit of 30 years in jail because he was captured in Spain, where the maximum penalty for any drug crime was 30 years, and Spain would not extradite unless we promised to honor that cap).
The other thing foreign countries will sometimes do to thwart us is charge under their own laws the defendants we want them to extradite to the U.S.. At first blush, this sounds like it would be helpful to U.S. law enforcement, but it is decidedly not. This is because most European countries (a) have far more lenient penalties than we do and (b) adhere to the double jeopardy principle of "ne bis in idem" -- which essentially means they will not extradite for any U.S. crime in which any part of the evidence involves something they've already charged themselves. Thus, for example, a Dutch CEO who commits a securities violation for which he might be looking at 20 or more years in the U.S. but only a year or so in the Netherlands benefits greatly from being charged there. Ditto the Germans who participated in the 9/11 attacks and whose maximum sentence, under German law, was 15 years even though their conduct involved 3000 homicides.
Posted at 09:32 PM
BAKSHEESH [Rod Dreher]
The United States has agreed to pay Egypt $300 million for causing "regional unrest" by attacking Iraq. The cost of doing business with some of our "allies" in the Arab world is nauseating.
Posted at 09:26 PM
WHOM THE GODS WISH TO DESTROY, THEY FIRST CONFUSE [John Derbyshire]
Bill Walsh sets me straight: "Derb---Eris is the goddess of discord. Erato is the muse of lyric poetry."
Posted at 09:22 PM
QUOTAS AT WAL-MART [Roger Clegg]
According to an Associated Press story today Wal-Mart Stores Inc., “facing lawsuits for alleged gender bias and unfair treatment of workers, will cut top executives’ bonuses if the company does not meet its diversity goals.” The article says that the pay cuts will be made “if the company does not promote women and minorities in proportion to the number that apply for management positions.” It then quotes company chief executive Lee Scott: “If 50 percent of the people applying for the job of store manager are women, we will work to make sure that 50 percent of the people receiving those jobs are women.”
Better fire your general counsel, Mr. Scott. Hiring to meet racial and gender quotas violates the civil rights laws just as much as the other alleged behavior you are so panicked to address. If 50 percent of the most qualified applicants are women, then 50 percent of those you hire should be women; but if the number is 100 percent, you should hire 100 percent—and if it’s 0 percent, then it should be 0 percent.
In other words, just forget about the numbers and hire the best people, okay?
Posted at 09:17 PM
JIHAD SUMMER CAMP [Rod Dreher]
You probably heard that last Friday, federal agents raided the northern Virginia offices of the World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY), one of those Wahhabi charities we know and love. The folks at the Investigative Project sent me pages from a songbook from WAMY's summer camp for Muslim kids. Here's an excerpt of a campfire tune prescribed for the little rascals:
Bring back the glory to its lions
And restore the zeal to its soldiers
Flatten evil in its cradle
And unsheath the swords
And don't be concerned here with difficulties.
Ask the kuffaar [infidels]: who repelled their tyrants?
And ask the mushrikeen [infidels]: who terrified their supporters?
...Ask the blood which reddened the face of the earth
[snip] Alas, we have forgotten our position here (now)
And we've abandoned the shariah and our role
Error has built in our territory whatever it has
And it has built nothing but weakness and ruin.
And it has built nothing but weakness and ruin.
And we nurture nothing but desires and falsehoods!
Hail! Hail! O sacrificing soldiers!
To us! To us! So we may defend the flag
On this Day of Jihad, are you miserly with your blood?!
And has life become dearer to you? And staying behind sweeter?
Is staying in this world of torment more pleasing to us?...
We're a long way from "Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda," habibi.
Posted at 09:16 PM
RE: TIANANMEN MASSACRE [John Derbyshire]
With all proper respect to the martyrs of June 4, 1989, I cannor forbear pointing out that the best *fictional* account of those events is in Volume 3 of my mega-novel FIRE FROM THE SUN.
Posted at 08:12 PM
A PATRIOT IN THE IVORY TOWER [Peter Robinson ]
NR’s own Bruce Bartlett, economist extraordinaire, sends along the following note:
I am doing a review of Jagdish Bhagwati's new book [In Defense of Globalization: and looked up his bio. Despite the fact that he and his wife are both Columbia professors and the fact that his daughter graduated with a degree in English from Yale, he notes in his bio that his daughter is now a lieutenant in the U.S. Marines. Based on education and parentage, it's hard to imagine a more unlikely person to join the Marines. Also, given the prevailing winds in academia (especially in New York), it's touching to see this fact listed in his official university bio. Might be worth mentioning [in The Corner].It is indeed worth mentioning. As also that Professor Bhagwati is learned, humane, wry, and amusing, as I discovered when I chaired a debate on Uncommon Knowledge between Bhagwati and the protectionist Walden Bello. To look over the transcript or to watch the show in streaming video, click here.
Posted at 08:11 PM
RE: WHY DO I KEEP UP MY SUBSCRIPTION TO THE NY REVIEW OF BOOKS? [John Derbyshire]
Look, a periodical that runs the following box ad in its PERSONALS columns can't be all bad. (This is from p.74 of the current, June 24, issue.)
"Let Erato be Your Matchmaker! [Hang on a minute here: Wasn't Erato the Goddess of Discord?---JD]
"Write your personal ad in any of the following poetic forms and receive deeply discounted rates and a FREE NYR reply box!
"Clerihew $125
"Limerick or Cinquain $135
"Triolet $180
"Sonnet $225
"Villanelle $250
"All poems will be printed in the August 12 Summer issue. The deadline for materials and payment is June 28. For more information contact Kristen Radecki at (212) 293-1630 or
Always up for a poetic challenge, and naturally going for the highest-scoring category, I offer the following villanelle to George Bush in the kiss-up style perfected by that great (but pre-villanelle) poet Q. Horatius Flaccus.
--- A Villanelle for George W. Bush ---
This is no petty struggle that you're in.
And we know you're the right man for these days.
You stood up to the challenge, and you'll win.
Don't bother with the media and their spin;
There's nothing you can do to win their praise.
This is no petty struggle that you're in.
Don't let the insults get under your skin.
You're not the type who from a true course strays.
You stood up to the challenge, and you'll win.
The squawking of the fools at the U.N.
Means nothing; they care only for what pays.
This is no petty struggle that you're in.
The people of this country won't give in.
We'll back you -- never mind what Chirac says.
You stood up to the challenge, and you'll win.
The folly of your critics will be seen
When History all this in the balance weighs;
This is no petty struggle that we're in --
We stood up to the challenge, and we'll win!
Posted at 08:04 PM
RE: MORE CHALABI'S CRIME [Jonah Goldberg]
Question: "...under what circumstances is a foreign national subject to American criminal law when acting in a foreign country?"
Possible answer: "When we catch him?"
Posted at 04:00 PM
MORE CHALABI'S CRIME [Rich Lowry]
Hey Andy, thanks for that post. Very informative. If the anti-Chalabi allegations sound fishy to you, they sound fishy to me. Meanwhile, here's a question from a reader.
Email: "Just read McCarthy's update, but under what circumstances is a foreign national subject to American criminal law when acting in a foreign country?"
Posted at 03:25 PM
TRYING HARD [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Andrew Sullivan is making a big deal out of one of our NRO contributors' description of Roger Simon's social views as "lean[ing] hard to the left," since these views--pro-same-sex marriage, pro-choice, etc.--are not all that far left. He finds the characterization "disturbing." He is too easily disturbed. Simon himself, in the quote to which the description is a preface, calls his own social views "very liberal." Sullivan even quotes that remark. Maybe our contributor was simply paraphrasing what Simon himself said. And maybe Sullivan should lay off.
Posted at 01:17 PM
U.S.S. JUMMY CARTER [Steve Hayward]
The U.S.S. Jimmy Carter attack submarine will be commissioned in Groton, Connecticut this weekend. Here's a thought experiment: What would the submarine's weapons systems look like if Jimmy himself had built them? Rolled-up copies of his Nobel Peace Prize speech in the torpedo tubes? Anti-killer-rabbit canoe paddles? "Malaise" sleeping powder? Peanut-firing gattling guns?
Let's just hope the sailors don't have to drink Billy Beer.
Posted at 01:09 PM
CHALABI & CLASSIFIED INFO [Andy McCarthy]
Saw Rich's Corner post. I should note preliminarily that if I were a prosecutor on the case I would be very skeptical about what's been reported because the story sounds fishy to me. But on the straight legal question Rich asked, I think Bob Baer is wrong.
The crime of disclosure of classified information is defined by Title 18 U.S. Code Section 798. In pertinent part, it says "Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information--(1) concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government; or . . . (3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government . . . [s]hall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both." (Italics mine.)
As thus defined, being an American citizen is not an element of the offense. That makes some sense--this crime is very close to treason, and if committed by an American could in a variety of factual scenarios be treason, so requiring American citizenship might be duplicative of treason.
Anyway, the crime can be committed by anyone (i.e., "whoever") committing the actionable conduct. The statute says the person must act both "knowingly" and "willfully"--which essentially means he must (a) be aware that the information is sensitive information about ciphers, codes, communication intelligence, etc., and (b) that he must do the proscribed act on purpose and aware of the wrongfulness of his action (i.e., not by mistake). The statute broadly defines a range of proscribed activity, and giving the sensitive information to the Iranian Intelligence Service knowing it is to the benefit of Iran and the detriment of the U.S. easily fits within the parameters.
Under Title 18 U.S. Code Section 3239, the trial venue for a violation of Section 798 committed outside U.S. territory would either be the District of Columbia or "any other district authorized by law." Generally, this means either D.C. or the first district in which the defendant touches ground upon entering the U.S. (E.g., the terrorists who were extradited for trial here in the 1990s were usually flown into the Westchester county airport--Westchester is in the Southern District of New York, so Manhattan was the proper venue for trial).
Posted at 12:37 PM
RE: ON A POINT OF HYGIENE [John Derbyshire]
There are some doors man was never meant to open -- not with just-washed hands, anyway. Vast e-mail bag on this, with answers all over the place. Some samples:
[From Paul Evans, who teaches bacteriology] You are correct. ... Zip up, and back away cautiously, is epidemiologically sufficient.
[From Dave Ouzounian] I always heard, John, that you could tell what a person really valued by watching when he washed his hands. For example, I wash before handling my irreplaceable LP records. Along those lines, the joke I once heard was that an Englishman washed after Number 1, and the French washed before.
[From Anon.] Derb---I cannot focus on whether it is better to wash before or after going to the bathroom because I sit here at my desk seething with rage -- make that inchoate rage -- over the Abu Ghraib atrocities.
[Likewise] I'm not a physician, I'm an economist, but I worked in the public health field for ten years in Indiana and Minnesota, and I can tell you I wash my hands about five times as often now as I did before I started hanging around with doctors all day.
[From several]
Posted at 12:19 PM
TOUCHE! [Rich Lowry]
E-mail about my column today:
"Subject: Can congress and the media resign too?
If this would include yourself as part of the media...I could support this suggestion!"
Posted at 11:37 AM
CHALABI'S CRIME? [Rich Lowry]
Just curious--if Chalabi, a foreign national, was told intelligence information by a drunken US official and then passed it to the Iranians, did he commit a crime? Is that espionage? Josh Marshall has been saying Chalabi should be arrested forewith (and held as an enemy combatant?). But I believe I saw Bob Baer the other night saying that, if the circumstances as they have been reported are accurate, Chalabi wouldn't have broken any law. Who is right?
Posted at 11:29 AM
NOMINATE A NEW DIRECTOR [Rich Lowry]
The CW is that Bush will not nominate a new CIA director to avoid a nomination fight. This seems foolish to me. If the Dems want to block a new CIA director in the midst of the war on terror, Bush should be eager to have that fight.
Posted at 11:20 AM
HELP--PROVING THE NEGATIVE [Rich Lowry]
This is kind of trying to prove a negative, but it has become a Democratic trope that families have had to hold bake sales to buy body armor, etc. for the troops in Iraq. Is anyone aware of such a bake sale actually taking place in your area? If so please let me know. Thanks.
Posted at 11:19 AM
NEA AXED [John J. Miller]
A House submcommittee has rejected a group of White House spending initiatives, including an $18-million funding increase for the National Endowment for the Arts. That's the good news. The bad news, mentioned in this Washington Post story, is that the NEA will now try a different legislative path and try to tack its new money onto a "natural resources" bill. Because, of course, government-funded art is an important natural resource.
Posted at 11:10 AM
QUASI RACISM: MARSHALL'S DEFENSE [Jonah Goldberg]
Several readers have points along these lines:
Jonah - I would like to point out in Josh Marshall's defense that he never call's the idea racist, and does concede that it is true ("That's true of course. But what's the point exactly?").His concluding sentence:
"nestled down deep in this argument is some sort of perhaps unconscious
notion that the Dems are just hopelessly sucking wind ..."is changed by Nick Confessore to:
"the equivalent of saying "the Dems are just hopelessly sucking wind
among real voters and thus have to resort to padding their totals with
blacks.""which seems a little unfair to me. In fact, it appears that Josh
Marshall's take on the issue ("well duh, of course Democrats are
dependent on Blacks") is totally different than Nick Confessore's take
("it is racist for a conservative to use the word Black"). Perhaps I am
being too generous to liberals, but this looks more like a case of one
idiot liberal saying something stupid than a general liberal problem.
Posted at 11:08 AM
QUASI-RACIST POLITICAL ANALYSIS [Jonah Goldberg]
A couple of months ago, there was some rightfully ticked-off chatter in the blogosphere regarding the stupid and quasi-racist notion that, quote, if it weren't for the black vote, the Democrats would be nowhere. (The clearest example of this came a couple of years ago from CNN analyst Bill Schneider, who explained on-air that Democrats were so "dependent" on the black vote that without them, the 1992 and 1996 elections would have been nail-biters and George W. Bush would have won an overwhelming electoral victory over Al Gore.) Josh Marshall nicely paraphrased this as the equivalent of saying "the Dems are just hopelessly sucking wind among real voters and thus have to resort to padding their totals with blacks." It's a dumb thought experiment in the sense that, of course if you strip either party of a big voting constituency, they would be less competitive. And it's quasi-racist in the implication that African-Americans somehow don't or shouldn't count.
I just don't get how it is "quasi-racist" to point out or discuss the fact that the Democratic Party is heavily dependent on black votes. Seriously, I just don't get it. Nothing in what Confessore or Marshall writes really backs that up. Are the Washington Post, National Journal, New Republic, New York Times et al all "quasi-racist" because they've run numerous pieces on the role of the black vote in the Democratic Party? Or are only conservatives who point this out "quasi-racists"? (Of course Bill Schneider is hardly a conservative).
How many blacks have I heard say that the Democratic Party has a "plantation mentality" toward blacks, are they all racists too?
The same week that Julian Bond delivers a speeech clearly intended -- as usual -- to scaremonger blacks away from even considering staying home or -- shudder -- voting for the opposition, Confessore tells us it's quasi racist to even note the central role of blacks to the Democratic Parties electoral strategy? I don't recall conservatives ever calling the Tapped crowd religious bigots merely for noting the GOP's reliance on the religious right. Nor do I recall charges of sexism being bandied about when the "gender gap" was a major issue.
Maybe the more logical and less knee-jerk interpretation of the "Dems rely on blacks" analysis has to do with the fact that, as a group, blacks are way to the left of the "vital center" of American politics and so in order to appeal to them, never mind energize them, the Democratic Party needs to adopt positions it might otherwise not? Or maybe it's a way of pointing out that the Democrats have a problem with non-black voters?
The charitable interpretation is that this is nonsense. The uncharitable interpretation is that this is another example of liberals deciding that inconvenient facts should be swept under the rug with charges of racism against those who bring them to light, or that white liberals are somehow empowered to to decide what is or isn't racist. Or both.
Posted at 10:25 AM
RE: MR. JUNE [John Derbyshire]
Readers admiring my totally buff, exquisitely cut physique, are asking me for diet tips to help them attain the same state of bodacious muscularity. Well, here's one for starters.
Posted at 09:41 AM
ON A POINT OF HYGIENE [John Derbyshire]
I guess this is sort of a bleg addressed to readers with a medical, bacteriological, or epidemiological training. This morning's New York Post carried an item -- it's on page 3, but I can't find it in the online edition -- about a survey of people using public rest rooms. Apparently 20 percent of men don't bother to wash their hands with soap after using the facilities. Women are more punctilious; only 7.4 percent skip the hand wash.
Now, I have been thinking for years, and occasionally arguing the point with friends (you know, when the stock of conversational topics gets really low) that this entire business of washing the hands after number one is dumb. (Number two I have no argument with.) Under modern standards of personal hygiene, and especially in a place like New York City, the average American, at an average moment in an average day, has way more germs on his hands than he has on any body part that has been safely tucked away under layers of clothing since the morning shower. The sensible thing, therefore, would be to wash the hands before touching other body parts. Am I wrong?
Posted at 09:34 AM
CLINTONS' MAN VS. KERRY'S MAN [KJL]
It's no happy family over at the DNC.
Posted at 09:01 AM
248,000 NEW JOBS IN MAY [KJL]
If I had a dollar for every person who knows someone close to them who is unemployed who blames Bush for killing the economy/keeping them out of jobs...well, I could create a few new jobs. A lot of someones out there are getting jobs. May the increase continue. For the benefit of the individuals looking for work, for the economy (thus benefitting more people looking for work), and for the future of civilization (i.e. the reelection of George W. Bush).
Posted at 08:47 AM
RE: MR. JUNE [John Derbyshire]
Kathryn: This centerfold idea is really taking off. Can we talk to the suits? An enthusiastic reader who is also a photographer showed up last night & we tried some shots. See here. Come on, this could be a winner.
Posted at 08:00 AM
CURBED KERRY ENTHUSIASM [Tim Graham]
The Washington Post today mildly notes that lefties are throwing their "Take Back America" conference in D.C., and once again, we learn they're not wild about Kerry, they just hate Bush:
"The biggest applause lines invariably involved Bush. Kerry rarely got mentioned. He's a presumption but not an preoccupation. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton dropped his name once, and got polite applause, but zero whoops and hollers. She got a louder response when she said electronic voting machines should include a paper trail.
"Dean explicitly endorsed Kerry several times, each time to warm applause, but he incited a bigger jolt of emotion when he criticized Democrats for not standing up to the president..."
Notice where one of the conference organizers says he has a whole agenda for Kerry that he's not talking about...yet. The media won't tell voters this year that Kerry's base would play a large role in his presidency, and the first thing they will force him to do from their radical agenda is withdraw, withdraw, withdraw from Iraq.
Posted at 07:58 AM
THE CORNER GETS RESULTS [Rod Dreher]
Y'all remember a while back I posted a notice in The Corner asking for conservative journalists interested in working as a metro columnist for a large daily newspaper to send me their contact info, and I'd forward them on to the right people at this unnamed newspaper? Well, just this week, I received the following message from David Harsanyi, the new conservative metro columnist for the Denver Post: I just wanted to thank you for forwarding my resume to the Denver Post a couple of months ago. From the e-mail address, you might have guessed that I got the job. It's a great opportunity and a great city. I really appreciate your help. It also illustrates the effectiveness of The Corner as a job board for conservatives."
Look for David's columns at denverpost.com starting on Monday. Hey you Colorado conservatives, once David's work appears, be sure to write to the Post and thank them for recognizing the diversity of their readership by hiring a conservative. Newspaper editors hear from conservatives all the time when they do something wrong. It's all the more important that conservatives let editors know when they do something right. So to speak.
Posted at 07:52 AM
RE: MR. JUNE [John Derbyshire]
Kathryn: What's going on? I'm getting furious e-mails from NR suits saying that since I offered to do the centerfold thing, people have been canceling their subscriptions in droves. I don't see the connection. Kathryn? Hello?
Posted at 07:50 AM
WHY DO I KEEP UP MY SUBSCRIPTION TO THE NY REVIEW OF BOOKS? [John Derbyshire]
Because in among all the hate-Bush, hate-Sharon, hate-God boilerplate are really good pieces like Daniel Mendelsohn's funny, erudite and persuasive trashing of the movie TROY in the latest (June 24) issue.
Posted at 07:47 AM
RE: MARSHALL'S "RATIO OF FIRE" [John Derbyshire]
I have stumbled into a hot controversy here. 30+ e-mails about S.L.A. Marshall and his "ratio of fire." All of them seem very well-informed, and they are all over the place on how much of a fraud Marshall was. Nobody thinks he was totally honest, but the degree to which he was dishonest, and his results (or "results") misleading, is much debated. If I had a couple of days to give over to this, I'd build up an informed opinion. As it is, I leave it with you and Mr. Google.
Posted at 07:45 AM
LUNACY AT BERKELEY (SURPRISE, SURPRISE? [Peter Robinson ]
From Debra Saunders's column in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle:
A GROUP of students at the University of California's Boalt Hall School of Law circulated a petition last week calling on law professor John Yoo to "repudiate" a 2002 memo he had written when he worked for the Bush Justice Department or "resign" his academic post. The memo advised that the Geneva conventions did not apply to al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. Oddly, the petition writers claimed that their attempt to drive Yoo from academia did not "constitute an attack on academic freedom."
Posted at 07:44 AM
RE: BOWDLERIZED [Steve Hayward]
Sorry, Jonah, I don't have the book, but I had a similar experience on a large scale. A large batch of the paperback edition of my first book, Churchill on Leadership (recently reissued by Gramercy Press, plug, plug), came with the last 30 pages from a diet book instead of the last 30 pages of my book. Dieting instructions really didn't go with Churchill very well, needless to say.
Posted at 07:40 AM
Thursday, June 03, 2004
WHERE'S WALDO [Tim Graham]
In response to the Pew poll showing the usual liberal majority in the press corps: "We should acknowledge that maybe the biggest problem is that most of us think too much alike and come from the same backgrounds," says David Yarnold, editor of the opinion pages at The (San Jose) Mercury News. "Find the pro-lifers in a newsroom. That's harder than finding Waldo."
Posted at 10:55 PM
POPE WILL GET PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM [KJL]
Posted at 08:36 PM
MR. JUNE [John Derbyshire]
Kathryn: Did National Review ever consider a centerfold? I'm up for it...
Posted at 08:25 PM
MARSHALL'S "RATIO OF FIRE" [John Derbyshire]
A number of readers have noted that S.L.A. Marshall's "ratio of fire" statistics, quoted by me quoting a previous reader e-mail, are, to say the least of it, deeply suspect. See here for an American heritage article debunking Marshall. (The article seems to have been optically scanned & has a lot of typos.)
Posted at 08:20 PM
STARS COME OUT FOR KERRY [Jack Fowler]
Next week lefty artists and actors will be hosting fundraising “galas” for John Kerry in LA and New York .
It’s the usual suspects doing their usual quadrennial political thing. Below are some of the stars involved with the shindigs – as a public service to NRO readers I’ve provided the movie for which each is most famous (to me anyway) Warren Beatty Ishtar
Barbra Streisand Yentl
Neil Diamond The Jazz Singer
Ben Affleck Gigli
Chevy Chase Cops and Robbersons
Ted Danson Pontiac Moon
Mary Sttenburgen Clifford
Robin Williams Patch Adams
Rhea Perlman Carpool
Danny DeVito Jack the Bear
Whoopi Goldberg More Dogs than Bones
Willie Nelson Where the Hell’s that Gold?!!?
Bette Midler Hocus Pocus
Leonardo DiCaprio The Beach
Robert DeNiro The Fan
Richard Gere King David
Dustin Hoffman Ishtar
Hope Lange I Am the Cheese
Annette Benning What Planet Are You From?
Jon Bon Jovi Destination Anywhere
Posted at 08:18 PM
BE STILL MY HEART [John Derbyshire]
She Whom I May Not Name is on terrific form today
Posted at 08:15 PM
MORE "CONTRADICTIONS" [KJL]
I made a snide remark earlier based on a reporter's comment that Kerry doesn't like to have to deal with issues as they come up. That strikes me as distinct from the president saying that he avoids spending time reading the papers and watching TV news. He, uh, has people who tell him things, in some cases (I hope) before they are in the newspaper. He doesn't need to read the NYTimes spin himself. And, I would expect Kerry, unless a narcissit, would do similarly. Heck, don't many people rely on bloggers nowadays to filter news for them? If you have a staff, and a busy schedule...my observation re Kerry--and it was not a particularly deep one--the strategy now is to almost ignore what is going on in the world, stick to the schedule. Spout your innanities on foreign policy. (Have you been reading the Kerry Spot on NRO?) That's it, but that's different.
No more non-mea culpas today. No more misspelled words either. Adios.
Posted at 07:56 PM
RE: ALMA MATERS [KJL]
I'm a hypocrite, some have e-mailed, for not wanting individual students to be punished by school staff for having "the wrong views" (which, in my case, was wanting the school to acknowledge it was Catholic more openly.) while encouraging the same school to not give its imprimater to a group that publicly advocates a position in direct contradiction to the school's Catholic identity. Those are two different things, the latter an issue specific to religious schools, and a big issue on Catholic campuses right now.
Posted at 07:49 PM
THE INJUNS? [Rich Lowry]
We oppose PC in Indian-related sports names here in The Corner, but the Injuns? Check this out.
“AM 1400 also airs Bartlesville Injuns baseball games and select Warrior and Braves games throughout the summer.”
Posted at 07:38 PM
HE MUST HAVE BEEN RAISED BY CATS [Jonah Goldberg ]
A dog disgraces his kind by eating his owner in feline fashion.
Posted at 05:47 PM
GOUCHER, ASHAMED OF JONAH [KJL]
Weren't you on their board? It must have been the George centerfold you did....
Posted at 05:02 PM
RE: ALMA MATERS [KJL]
Jonha, my college (Catholic U) used to be totally ashamed of me--and actually made my life a bit difficult while I was there--a tale I should tell in full some day, not because it was me, but because it's a damned shame any student is threatened by adults empoyed by an institution of higher education because of the "wrong views." Anyway, mercifully, things are better there now. Witness: They would never have disapproved of a group that happens to support abortion when I was there--but they just rejected a NAACP chapter for that reason. Their new president (a few years now), Fr. O'Connell, has been a Godsend. (And, that actually is a story I need to write...feel free to e-mail me if you have any insights or stories from there.)
Posted at 05:00 PM
BOWDLERIZED? [Jonah Goldberg]
I just bought -- via Amazon -- Richard Wolin's The Seduction of Unreason. But one of the main chapters I wanted to read is simply, um, missing. Like it goes from page 150 to page 185. Does anyone else have a copy? I mean what a monumental screw-up it'd be if this happened to all of the books. It'd be especially hilarious if the reviewers hadn't noticed. Or does Amazon simply want to make my life a bit harder?
Posted at 04:51 PM
THE HISTORY BOYS [Jonah Goldberg]
Two great op-eds by two of my -- and everyone's -- favorite historians. John Keegan in the (London) Telegraph and Paul Johnson in the Wall Street Journal.
Posted at 04:40 PM
AND YES... [Jonah Goldberg]
I think I'm very cool, in a geeky way, that Tim Minear wrote me. If my interview for the Return of the King DVD doesn't make the cut, this will probably count as the highwater mark of my geeky-coolness.
Posted at 04:30 PM
ALMA MATERS [Jonah Goldberg]
Kathryn - I'm jealous. Both my high school and college seem deeply ashamed of me (but not so ashamed as to hold off asking for money). Actually, in terms of Goucher I know some folks are deeply ashamed of me. Oh well.
Posted at 04:23 PM
HILLARY ON US, I GUESS [KJL]
From the Soros event today Byron wrote about (see homepage):
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), who introduced Soros to a rousing ovation, hailed the billionaire as the left's answer to wealthy Republican contributors.
"George Soros is using his considerable success in our free market, in our democracy, to make sure that his opinions are heard in the marketplace of ideas. That is within the American tradition," Clinton said. "You will hear a steady drumbeat about 'what right does this very successful man have to use his resources to try to create political movement and action.' Well, I'll tell you, he has the same right as all the people on the right have had."
Clinton then referred to her famous line about the "vast right-wing conspiracy," which has been mentioned frequently throughout the first two days of the conference.
"That didn't happen by accident," Clinton said of the conservative movement. "It happened because people with a very particular point of view ... came together, literally starting 50 years ago. They created think tanks, they created endowed professorships, they set up other media outlets, on and on and on."
She added: "They very slowly but surely started to change American politics. And you've got to give them credit; they've done a good job. They got themselves a president and a vice president and lots of other people who march to their drumbeat."
Posted at 04:19 PM
HOW WEIRD IS THIS? [Jonah Goldberg]
I just finished writing my syndicated column on Buffy and Angel and I just posted that stuff about how emails get into the Corner and I get the following email from a former producer of Angel:
Jonah, I note sadly and with great dejection that my e-mail to you of 5/21 has gone unread. I whine. And I reproduce it for you here (it was regarding your musing that "Angel" might have some, um, afterlife):> Yes, Jonah, you're wrong. There's no plan nor hope that another network is gonna pick up "Angel." David went blonde and James shaved his head. Wow. Must really be The End. And I speak with some inside info, having written and produced "Angel" for four years with Joss, along with several fantabulous episodes of "Firefly." (though I wasn't on "Angel" this last season, as I was busy getting cancelled all over again on Fox with "Wonderfalls.")
Joss ended "Angel" the way he did because "fighting the good fight" and how "there is no big win" was always the mission statement of "Angel." The fight goes on. It's a series of battles, small and large. And a series of series cancellations if you happen to be on Fox on Friday nights, I might add. But I digress. And if the finale seemed rushed, it's probably because every episode of every season is rushed. <
That said, I wanted to chime in on the Vamps-Shouldn't-Photograph thing. Mostly because I'm supposed to be writing and this seemed like time better spent. Anyway! I notice that a reader wrote to you:
"It has been established within the Whedon-verse that you can photograph a
vampire. On an episode of ANGEL, Cordelia and Angel are looking at an old
photo with Angel in it. Cordy remarks, "So vampires DO photograph. The just
don't photograph WELL."The scene was actually between Cordy and Wesley. Yes, I'm a geek, but I also wrote that scene and that line. I tried to explain this seeming problem in an earlier episode by having Angel explain re: why he turns up on film: "It's not physics, it's metaphysics." Sadly, that line was cut (shot, but cut) because the episode was nine minutes over in its first assemblage. So I suppose that doesn't count.
However we were not inconsistent: In fact, Angel could not be photographed before we wrote that he'd show up on film. (Hey, if it works for some pols, should work for a TV writer who's just tryin' to spin a yarn, yes?)
Your devoted --
Tim Minear
Posted at 04:14 PM
THE WAY OUR READERS THINK [KJL]
You know an NRO reader when you hear (this, from an email): "See if you can’t get Ledeen to break out the old ouijia board as to who will be the next DCI. Everyone is wondering 'What would (James) Jesus (Angleton) do?'"
Posted at 04:12 PM
A LOYAL CAMPER [KJL]
Tenet seems to be returning the Bush loyalty...for now.
Posted at 04:10 PM
LIFE IN AMERICA, 2004 [KJL]
From Peggy Noonan: "If you smoke a cigarette on a beach in modern America you are harming the innocent. If you have a baby scraped from your womb, you are protecting your freedom. If you sell a pack of cigarettes to a 12-year-old boy you can be jailed, fined and sent to Guantanamo Bay with the other killers. If you sell a pack of contraceptives to a 12 year old boy in modern America you are socially responsible citizen."
Posted at 04:07 PM
WHAT A WAY TO RUN [KJL]
Candy Crowley on CNN on the Kerry campaign not wanting to talk much about Tenet: the candidate "doesn't like to interrupt his campaign flow with the unwanted distraction of news." Hope he would plan to run a White House differently.
Of course, let us pray he never gets that chance to demonstrate whether or not he will...
Posted at 04:06 PM
WHERE I WAS [KJL]
with a remarkable group of well-rounded, well-versed, articulate high-school seniors (Dominican Academy, my alma mater). ...I had to wear shades... Congratulations to them and best wishes to all graduating this year. May you be blessed with a lifetime subscription to National Review...!
Posted at 04:02 PM
HOW ABOUT SCHWARZENEGGER? [Jonah Goldberg]
Oh I know he's not qualified to run the CIA and he's the GOP's most popular Governor and all that. But, come on. How cool would that be for all the juvenile reasons?
Posted at 04:02 PM
OH... [Jonah Goldberg]
And here was Kentucky Jason's original email:
Ok, here goes. As was revealed to us in The Matrix Reloaded, many controls were included in the programming of the Matrix to keep humans from rejecting the program. Naturally, a bunch of scared little humans won't put up much of a resistance, so vampires, John Kerry and other scary beings were introduced to keep the population in line. Of course, the vampire population became very difficult to control, what with their drinking, smoking, and consumption of non-FDA approved blood. These habits greatly corrupted numerous subroutines and generated random bugs such as the failure of a vampire to appear invisible on camera. The Anya-Spike incident you mention is one example of this, as well as of the degradation evident in so many vampires and demons. Many humans have unwittingly engaged in amorous activities with such creatures inside the Matrix. Disgust over this causes those who have been freed to be especially careful in who they shack up with, many times confining their sexual experience to members of their own subculture, as small as it may be. This, of course, preserves racial distinctions longer than they would otherwise stick around. Sure, this practice may sound a little irrational, but you're not hard-core unless you live hard-core!
Posted at 03:59 PM
MY EMAIL POLICIES [Jonah Goldberg]
Jason in Kentucky writes:
Just curious. How do you pick which emails you post on the Corner? The primary reason I read the corner is your excursions into weighty issues of pop culture (and you can tell K-Lo). I crafted what I felt was a fairly humorous response to your Buffy/School of Rock/Matix posts this morning. However, you have only posted a handful of rather lame explanations. I'm not saying you had to post my email, but you can't bring up such fascinating questions and then ignore them the rest of the day! I need some closure!!!
Me: I have no hard and fast rules. My decisions are based on a mixture of timliness, merit and mood. If you reply a day late to a Corner conversation, odds are you won't make it because we've moved on (alas, this also goes for email I haven't opened until the next day). Or, if you repeat what's already been said -- even if you say it better -- I probably won't post it. I don't post names without explicit permission and even then I usually don't for deeply complex reasons having to do with editorial considerations and the lunar tides. I'm also not a huge fan of having multiple responses between readers, largely because it requires me to be the traffic cop. Remember, lots of Corner readers only come once a day and lots of them come 20 times a day. That's a hard audience to please. All emails with cash attached to the underside get posted.
Posted at 03:51 PM
FOLLOW-UP ON KILLING [John Derbyshire]
"Derb---The rest of the 'battle hardened' post was fine, but US Army historian S.L.A. Marshall was misrepresented. He found that only fifteen-to-twenty-five percent of riflemen take aimed shots at the enemy - not simply in their FIRST firefight; EVER. Most casualties are and always have been inflicted by a small minority of soldiers who, while not necessarilly braver or otherwise more fit than their comrades, are capable of deliberate killing (not 'pointing in the general direction and squeezing the trigger'.) Col. Grossman, US Army Special Forces and a psychology prof, wrote a book called 'On Killing' which explores this issue in greater detail. The Krauts had comparable numbers of 'shooters'; figures are also comparable across history, though I suspect higher in less modern societies where killing animals for food was more personally accomplished. Have a fine afternoon."
Thank you, Sir. I am indeed going to have a fine afternoon this sunny day, watching the late events in my boy's Field Day -- culminating in the tug of war.
Before heading out, though, just a note on that adjective "battle-hardened." It reminds me of one of the old "Beachcomber" columns in the London Daily Express. "Beachcomber" (real name J.B. Morton) wrote a satirical column populated entirely by fantasy people out of his own imagination, rather like the later "Peter Simple" column in the Daily Telegraph. One of these imaginary people was a choleric old retired military man. In one column, this old soldier wrote in: "Dear Sir, I must protest at your recent description of me as 'battle-scared.' Surely this is a misprint. I should be grateful if you would publish a correction." Beachcomber obliged, noting that the term he had intended to use was "bottle-scarred"...
Posted at 03:48 PM
NEXT TENET [John J. Miller]
When a job like the one at the CIA opens up, I run through a list of potentially suitable Democrats who come from states with Republican governors--thinking, Machiavelli style, that maybe there's a chance to boost the GOP's Senate majority by one member. John Breaux of Louisiana often comes up in these experiments. Couldn't President Bush have made him ambassador to France a while back? At any rate, here's a list of Senate Intelligence Committee members. Evan Bayh may pass the first test (potentially suitable Democrat) but not the second one (Republican governor). Then there's Barbara Mikulski, who passes the second test but not the first one. Oh well.
Posted at 03:41 PM
WHERE IS EVERYBODY? [Jonah Goldberg]
Posted at 03:20 PM
ETERNAL VERITIES (AN OCASSIONAL SERIES) [Jonah Goldberg]
O.J. Simpson's still guilty of murder. No link, no news, just still true.
Posted at 01:40 PM
BIONIC PITCHERS [Jonah Goldberg]
Nietzsche meets Steve Austin (not the wrestler).
Posted at 01:23 PM
MORE RIEBLING ON TENET [KJL]
Posted at 01:00 PM
RE: THE LEDEEN IDEA [KJL]
Can we launch a campaign?
Posted at 12:54 PM
POD PEOPLE HAVE TAKEN OVER DERB [John Derbyshire]
Enraged reader: "'You guess this is right?' Hooey! Children learn individual competitiveness and sportsmanship EARLY, not late.
"Damn right a child gets upset when he loses to another child. And maybe discouraged, too. And then the grown-ups teach them how to take those emotions and turn them to a positive end -- training harder and working harder next time to WIN. And, to accept defeat gracefully instead of sulking."
"You've caved to the PC Nanny State!"
Put it down to heat stroke, Sir -- and that inborn British deference to authority figures...
Posted at 12:50 PM
POSSIBLE TENET REPLACEMENTS [Mark Riebling ]
My shortlist: those who have shown the most awareness that our whole philosophy of intelligence is all wrong. Former National Security Council staffer and Defense Department offiicial Keneth deGraffenried.
Former Senate Intelligence staffer Angelo Codevilla.
Former Under-Secretary of Defense and Center for Security Policy president Frank Gafney.
Posted at 12:40 PM
D-DAY--THE MORAL AUDIT [John Derbyshire]
Some wise words from a reader on my post yesterday about D-Day:
"Dear Mr. Derbyshire---In your Corner post, yesterday, you quote your Irish friend saying: 'The late Alan Clark was quite good in his book also. He made the obvious (but still controversial) point that, wherever the German Army met the Anglo-American forces in anything like equal numbers, they wiped the floor with them. You have to hand it to the Krauts: they were beaten by superior numbers in the end.'
"He, and you, should not make too much of this; 'battle hardened' is a real and tangible quality. By D-Day, the Germans had it in spades while the Anglo-American forces, especially the mass-conscript American forces, were many tens of thousands of men who, until the very moment of their first engagement with the Germans, had never aimed a gun at another human being.
"'Battle hardened' means you do not make a fiasco of unloading supply ships, as one American general did when his forces landed in North Africa, and that the bullets you receive fit the gun you are carrying. It means that when a sentry on the Maginot Line makes a phone call, there is a responsible person on the other end to receive it. It means you can make a phone call, unlike the Americans in Granada. One can go on, and on. All these seemingly simple logistical abilities decay in peace-time and get renovated only in the heat of battle.
"Above all, 'battle hardened' is the willingness of one man to kill the other man, a willingness quickly acquired---if you survive your first engagement, but otherwise a very rare and unnatural capacity in normal men. S.L.A. Marshall documented that fully one quarter of American soldiers in their first fire fights, even though they were trained and armed and knew they had the sanction of their countrymen, could not return fire even while the enemy was trying to kill them.
"Finally, please remember it was only about two years from the time American forces first engaged the main German armies in Europe until final victory in May 1945. This is a fraction of the time the Germans had to sort out their physical and spiritual battle operations. I think it fair to say that, on the whole, the Anglo-American forces acquitted themselves as well as any and better than most."
It sounds right, and fortifies the point I made in my May Diary last week, about the benefit to the USA of having a military well experienced in organizing and fighting a hot war.
Posted at 12:34 PM
ANOTHER THOUGHT [KJL]
Insidery email: "my guess is that while Rudy and Goss will be floated, the darkhorse should be/will be William Schneider (the good one, not the AEI/CNN [one]). He's a hard core conservative, solid on issues and was under consideration during transition when it was unclear if Tenet would stay on in the new administration."
Posted at 12:31 PM
CORRECTION [John Derbyshire]
The pronunciation I gave for "Kirkcudbrightshire" -- "keer-coo-bree-shuh" -- was of course the English pronunciation. In Lallans it is "keerrr-coo-bree-shyerrr." Sorry about that.
Posted at 12:29 PM
WHO NEXT? [KJL]
A military guy emails: I've heard Porter Goss' name bandied about and that would seem to make sense because he's former CIA. But, more often than not, Congressmen and Senators flop in high-profile executive positions (for recent manifestations of that phenomenon, please see the example of Les Aspin at DoD). They usually have little, if any, executive experience. Moreover, after being in the comfortable position of telling people how wrong they are/were and, thanks to their 20/20 hindsight, triumphantly pointing out all sorts of couldas and shouldas, they find the experience of being subjected to Congressional oversight to be a tad uncomfortable.
Mayor Guiliani has the bulldog reputation, plus executive experience and "turnaround" experience, too. Plus, his rep as a "house cleaner" would give Bush's image as a serious war president a much needed boost. Bring on, Rudy!
Posted at 12:28 PM
FIELD DAY [John Derbyshire]
Spent this morning (& shall return this afternoon) at 3rd-grader's school field day. Lovely sunny day, kids having fun, lawn chairs on the grass. All team relay events, nothing with a trace of individual competitiveness. I grumbled about this to a teacher, blaming it on the evil, Satan-inspired "self-esteem" movement. She: "Not really. At this age, a kid will just get upset and discouraged if he loses against another kids." I guess this is right.
The adults present were, of course, all seething with inchoate rage over the Abu Ghraib atrocities...
Posted at 12:22 PM
QUESTION RE TENET FOR INTEL-ORIENTED [KJL]
Is there a case for making McCain DCI? Besides the political one?
Posted at 12:16 PM
GOOD NEWS: SISTANI ENDORSES INTERIM GOVERNMENT [Rich Lowry]
Posted at 12:13 PM
APROPOS LES BOTTES [John Derbyshire]
Having your microwave over your range is a really, really, dumb, stupid idea. Micraowaves are for heating up pizza slices & cold cups of coffee, not for cooking. Heat from the range plays havoc with electric components and plastic fascia. Dumb, dumb, stupid. Whose idea was it?
Posted at 12:08 PM
RE: PENNYWISE [John Derbyshire]
Peter: I think your reader's entropy theory is superb. Pennies also serve an educational purpose, though. I have one of those battery-powered gadgets -- you buy them from Staples -- that sorts your spare change for you. I wrap the coins when the stacks are full, then save them. At Chinese New Year, as a family tradition, I take them down to the bank and cash them in, for an average deposit slip of around $120. The kids are kept aware of all this. From it they learn the very useful lesson that many a mickle maks a muckle
Here is a penny story. The eccentric American psychologist W.H. Sheldon (he popularized the terms "ectomorph," "mesomorph," "endomorph") was also an expert on early American pennies, and wrote the definitive work on them. To help with this book, the American Numismatic Society gave Sheldon access to its collections. Long afterwards, when Sheldon was dead, the curators of these collections noticed that Sheldon had taken particularly valuable specimens for his own collection, substituting inferior specimens of the same coins. I believe he did the same thing with another collection.
On your earlier question -- how did the British people let their govt get away with currency conversion? -- I offer the following explanations.
(1) The British are more deferential to authority than Americans are -- the legacy of centuries under a confident landed aristocracy. When told to do something they don't like, they will do it, venting their unhappiness by grumbling and slacking. Americans, in the same situation, would be much more likely to organize against the authorities, or just refuse orders. We Americans are a difficult and rebellious people -- long may we remain so! It is for this reason that the post-1960s loosening of social bonds and de-legitimization of authority has had much more devastating effects in Britain -- see any article by Theodore Dalrymple -- than here. (2) The late 1960s-early 1970s were the high tide of postwar British collectivism (do a Google on "Butlin's Holiday Camps"). British govts got away with all sorts of atrocities. Even worse than the decimal currency business was the "rationalization" of the ancient British county system, in which domains like Rutland and Middlesex disappeared altogether, and fine old Scottish counties like Kirkcudbrightshire (pronounced "keer-coo-bree-shuh") disappeared into monstrosities named -- I am not making this up -- "Central," "Borders," and "Highland." This was too much even for the British to swallow, and some of it was reversed in 1998.
Posted at 12:06 PM
SOROS SAYS ABU GHRAIB=9/11 [KJL]
Posted at 11:42 AM
I AM SURPRISED [KJL]
have only been casually listening to CNN, but don't think I've heard Rudy's name for DCI yet. We taking bets on who. Just heard someone suggest on one of the talking head venues that the job be left open--I can't see that though. Going into an election during war? Bush wouldn't leave that empty or with an "acting."
Posted at 11:40 AM
IT PROBABLY WON'T HAPPEN.... [Jonah Goldberg]
But it'd be pretty cool if Bush nominated Michael Ledeen for DCI -- if only to watch various heads explode around town.
Posted at 11:18 AM
TENET'S TELL ALL [KJL]
Good point from Jonah's Military Guy (Jonah lets us share):
Well, unless the new Director of the CIA is a total idiot, there is no way a documented tell-all will make it in time for the election.
Anything Tenet wants to write about his tenure as Director will have to be vetted and approved by the CIA or Tenet will [head to] Leavenworth.
That process takes time - and, unless the President were to direct that it be expedited (with GWB, possible, he's really got an excessive loyalty gene) it couldn't get through the review process in time.
Posted at 11:10 AM
FOR THE RECORD [KJL]
Michael Ledeen called for George Tenet's resignation on September 11, 2001.
Posted at 10:59 AM
THOUGHT RE TENET [KJL]
Last week, Al Gore near-tearfully asked for his resignation. I can picture it all now. The Tenet press conference with Howard Dean's group and MoveOn were he announces that Bush is a failed leader. The October surprise book where he blames everything wrong with intel on W., Condi & the Pentagon.
In truth, I really can't imagine he could (except if he was asked to leave, which is very possible--probably likely?--though it is very belated). President Bush has been ridiculously (and ill-advisedly) loyal to him. But, if he did, it probably couldn't hurt the Anybody But Bush Kerry campaign, even if it comes from arguably (is it though?) Bush's worst Cabinet member.
Posted at 10:55 AM
I DID NOT KNOW THAT.... [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader (more on vampires):
Jonah, Let me add a bit of tradition, if I can, to the whole vampire/photographs/mirrors issue in hope of clarifying things. The traditional folklore reason why vampires can't be seen in mirrors or photographed comes down to the same rational: their image cannot be held in silver. Why this is so (again, speaking of folklore) is that, in recompense for the injury to silver's reputation due to the 30 pieces of silver paid to Judas to betray Jesus, God gave the metal power against evil and all manner of unnatural creatures. Hence the power against vampires, hence the mirror/photograph thing. Wacky? Sure. But so is a lot of folklore. Along those lines, it is therefore entirely logical that they show up on digital media, where no silver is involved.
Posted at 10:53 AM
SEIPP ON DOWD [Ramesh Ponnuru]
"You know, I think if you survived Normandy or Iwo Jima you deserve better in your old age than to be clucked over by a condescending Maureen Dowd. But maybe that's just me."
Posted at 10:42 AM
RE: TENET [KJL]
A few years too late.
Posted at 10:40 AM
BREAKING NEWS [Jonah Goldberg]
George Tenet has resigned. All over the tube. Bush has accepted the resignation.
Posted at 10:35 AM
FILMING VAMPIRES [Jonah Goldberg]
Detailed geek-mail is pouring in. Here's the best so far:
Jonah,If you recall, back in season two, Spike had one of his minions videotaping Buffy dusting a vamp to study her fighting style. So, "Entropy" was not the first instance of it.
One techie-BTVS fan explains:
"Light entering a video camera lens falls upon a CCD (charge coupled device) which outputs an encoded electrical signal to the tape recording part and
miniature TV view-finder. A vampire probably cannot be seen through the viewfinder of an SLR camera, as a small mirror is used to direct light until the shutter is snapped."Thus, the videocamera is not "properly" a mirror or a reflection.
Glad to be of service on such a matter of utmost importance.
And...
Jonah,Although this is irrelevant geekery, in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer-Angel universe, vampires can be photographed. Note that Angel shows up on camera
footage in the series Angel in several instances (including the series premiere) and that Spike videotapes Buffy fighting vampires in some episode in
the second season.The logic behind this is that vampires don't show up in mirrors. However, modern video cameras do not use mirrors. Therefore, the "vampires don't show up in mirrors" doesn't necessarily apply. Some extend the "no images in mirrors" rule to assume that they cannot create "artificial" images (this perhaps has to do with the idea of some native types that photographs steal/image a person's soul, and vampires, of course, have no soul). But there's no technical reason why this must be so.
Like I said, unimportant geekery.
Brendan
And...
I'm such a geek...It has been established within the Whedon-verse that you can photograph a
vampire. On an episode of ANGEL, Cordelia and Angel are looking at an old
photo with Angel in it. Cordy remarks, "So vampires DO photograph. The just
don't photograph WELL."God, I'm a geek.
Jeff
And...
Jonah,I think the reason for Spike's history-defying ability to be filmed can be explained, circuitously, through one of the Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" specials. Xena, Warrior Princess (Lucy Lawless) is at a comic store, being grilled by nerds. One of them asks about an apparent flub he saw in one episode. Says Lucy: "Uh, yeah, well whenever you notice something like that.. a wizard did it!" As Buffy creator Joss Whedon has told interviewers he was a fan of Xena, we can assume that show's logic may be transposed here.
That episode of Buffy is on the new Season Six DVD set, too. Tons of extras - well worth getting.
ME: While I do respect that the Whedonverse is more consistent on this point than I realized, I basically don't buy the video-but-not-film thesis as far as the science goes (And, as several folks have pointed out, Angel has had his picture taken with film). But believable science is not the lodestar of the genre. Anyway, out of deference to my colleagues I won't be cluttering the Corner with too much more of this stuff....today.
Posted at 10:22 AM
RUSSIAN GAME [Jonah Goldberg ]
Gives you dollars for killing Americans.
Posted at 10:01 AM
ALSO... [Jonah Goldberg]
Having recently watched Matrix Revolutions, how come there are so many distinct races in the "real world"? If humanity repeatedly replaces itself by breeding a new population from a small number of humans, you would think that there would be a lot more intermarriage and, hence, a lot more Tiger Woods types.
Okay, I'm done now.
Posted at 09:57 AM
ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOTE [Jonah Goldberg]
Two pop culture things have been bothering me.
1) The "Hardcore" song from "School of Rock" has been stuck in my head for two days and I can't get rid of it. Yes, I watched it again because it's so, so good.
2) Second I caught a re-run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer the other day. I'd seen it before because, obviously, I've seen all of them. But I just realized that the scene where Spike is caught canoodling with Anya on the table at the magic shop has a big flaw. The nerd-trio broadcast it on their web cams. But vampires cannot be photographed. So how come everyone could watch?
I now return you to our regularly scheduled Cornering.
Posted at 09:52 AM
COUNTRY FOLK [Jonah Goldberg]
Lots and lots and lots of email along these lines. It's all anecdotal, but they are anecdotes from, roughly, the demographic we're talking about. The one theme it seems to underscore is that this election really is about Bush:
Dear Jonah,After spending the holiday weekend well outside the Beltway with my not exactly country, but close to it family, I can tell you a few things about what is going on in supposedly blue state PA. First of all, almost everyone I talked to outside the family is planning to vote for Bush (within the family it's a given.) This includes a neighbor who is an elected Democrat in the local government, so it is not a totally slanted sample of opinion. Second, almost everyone echoes the theme of your previous e-mails. The "declining support" for Bush is just a reaction to what they see as him giving in too much to the diplomats and Democrats. It does NOT translate in any way into support for Kerry. Most people I talked to thought that the media and the Democrats were creating a self fulfilling prophecy in Iraq by eroding the public support and portraying it as an unmitigated disaster. The hostility toward the media was surprisingly intense. More than one friend stated that they pretty much ignore media reports on Iraq now.
As for polling and the margin of error, I do know something about statistics, and I've always found those error bars interesting. What they represent is called sampling error, or the random errors associated with any statistical sampling problem. Polls never deal with what in any statistical analysis is the real problem, systematic errors. Systematic errors are the result of sampling bias, or to put it simply, assuming that your skewed sample is representative of the population as a whole.
And...
Mr. Goldberg- I realize my sample size is even smaller and more error prone than the Greenberg sample, but I just finished camping with 8 of these so called 'country folk. Around the fire one night, talk eventually turned to politics. I cringed because these 8 are long time friends of mine, and their political views frequently oppose mine. On the topic of George W. Bush, however, 7 support him and plan to vote for him, one opposed him and did not plan to vote this fall. Also, there was consensus that he was being treated unfairly by the media. There was also consensus that we have not been forceful enough in Iraq. All were fairly unfazed by Abu Ghraib. Looking forward to the return of the G-File. Keep up the good work.
Posted at 09:47 AM
FRESH AIR [John J. Miller]
Another example of good environmental news that probably won't receive much media attention: Pollution in North America is going down.
Posted at 08:40 AM
GREENBERG'S SAMPLE [Jonah Goldberg]
A friend of mine (and NRO's) writes:
"In 2000, 63 percent of Country Folk backed Bush. Yet today, only 58 percent support him"This is totally statistically insignificant. You can't break down
numbers inside a poll this way and presume that the poll maintains its
margin-of-error rules. The inside sample is simply too small. As a
result, you cannot argue from this that the Country Folk have turned on
Bush at all. It's wishful thinking on Greenberg's and Lizza's parts.
Posted at 08:34 AM
COUNTRY FOLK & ABU GHRAIB [Jonah Goldberg]
It's barely 8:30 and I've already gotten a half dozen emails from self-described "country folk" who all say that what's ticked them off about Abu Ghraib and Iraq is the non-stop apologizing and the unwillingness to crush the insurgents. Here's one:
Jonah,I reckon I qualify as country folk -- at the school I teach at, cheerleaders belong to the FFA (Future Farmers of America). Bit brothers come to school on leave from the Marine Corps in their uniforms to eat lunch iwth little brothers and sisters.
$2 a gallon gas is rough. The immigration thing was not a good idea. But the apologizing thing on the prison has just set people off. You don't put suspected terrorists in prison, you shoot them while they resist arrest. There was a week or so last winter when we were getting body counts -- listing how many Iraqs got killed that week. The media had their panties in a wad over this, until they found out that reporting it pushed up Bush's poll numbers, and they stopped.
At current casualty rates, by the year 2040, HALF as many US servicemen would have been killed in Iraq as died in Vietnam; as many World War II veterans will die between midnight and noon TODAY as there have been US servicemen killed in action in the past YEAR!
And here's (part of) another:
the country folk are getting annoyed at Bush because they want to see MORE power, not less in the war. They want Fallujah flattened, they DON"T want diplomacy.And if anyone thinks those 'country folk' ... are going to NOT vote for President Bush if it looks close at all...they're nuts.
Posted at 08:32 AM
COUNTRY FOLK, ANOTHER VIEW [Jonah Goldberg ]
Ryan Lizza reports on some new findings by Stan Greenberg. Among them is the finding that Bush is down among those he calls "Country Folk" -- i.e. rural voters. Here's the nut graf:
These rural voters, referred to as "Country Folk," represent 21 percent of the electorate. In 2000, 63 percent of Country Folk backed Bush. Yet today, only 58 percent support him and only 51 percent want to continue in Bush's direction; 47 percent want to go in a "significantly different direction." An overall drop of 5 points in the Republican presidential vote among these voters may not seem like a major shift, but in a country at parity it could provide the margin of victory. This impact is amplified by where the Country Folk live: they are concentrated in the battleground states, like Iowa, Missouri, Louisiana, New Hampshire and Minnesota.
Andrew Sullivan looks at this and writes:
My own hunch is that these voters do not like a massive increase in government spending, a huge jump in public debt, and a post-war policy in Iraq that seemed blindsided by reality. But here's my other belief, and it's about Abu Ghraib. The images from that prison shamed America in deep and inchoate ways.
Our own Bruce Bartlett looks at similar poll data -- though not, it seems Greenberg's -- and concludes it must be Bush's apostasy on campaign finance "reform," Medicare, trade, the NEA etc.
Meanwhile Greenberg's conclusion which Lizza passes along uncritically is "that to win these voters back, Bush's only option may be to start emphasizing culture war issues like gay marriage and abortion. That's a trend to keep an eye on."
I have a more hopeful reading of all of this. If in fact a significant amount of Bush's slippage is among white, rural voters in battleground states maybe it's like, um, the economy, stupid? None of these guys are stupid of course, but none of them mention the economy either, which is odd given its pride of place as political motivators. I'm pretty sure the economy's rebound hasn't been reflected in most polls, particularly in some key battleground states. At least that's what a pollster-analyst type was telling me the other day. It always takes time for people to realize the economy is going great guns. This might be particularly true in rural areas where the industrial sector takes longer to pick-up than the economy as a whole and job-retraining takes some time to pay-off.
In other words, Bush's slippage -- among rural conservatives -- might not be because of Abu Ghraib or campaign finance "reform" but because of bread-and-butter issues. The Abu Ghraib theory doesn't wash with me simply because rural conservatives are the folks most likely to rally around the flag and the president during a scandal like this. That's what happened during My Lai, after all. And while Abu Ghraib or Bruce's list of small-government transgressions may explain some conservative slippage over all, I'm not sure they get to the heart of rural voters.
One other issue that might, however, is the course of the war. Everything I hear -- mostly from whining NPR stories -- is that rural whites are "over-represented" in the military. This means that rural conservatives are more likely to know or rely on someone in the military. As reservists and the like continue to have their deployments extended at the same moment the war is being (unfairly) cast as a disaster you could see how a drop of 5% among rural conservatives would make sense, particularly among wives and small employers left holding the bag for men overseas. Indeed, I wish Greenberg's data broke out Bush's slippage among country-folk women (It's 6:30 in the morning and I read through it very quickly and couldn't find it). But Greenberg does say that Bush has a bigger problem with older women who believe he should concentrate more on the economy.
In short, the conventional wisdom has always been that if the economy was going good (and seen to be going good) and Iraq was seen as a success (however that's defined) by election day Bush would win. If not, he would lose. It seems to me the conventional wisdom is still right and, this week at least, that seems like cause for optimism.
Posted at 07:20 AM
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
DOUBLE FEATURE [Tim Graham]
World magazine interviews WFB and George W. Bush in the same issue. Best Bush quote, about journalists: "Short-term history will be written by people who didn't particularly want me to be president to begin with."
Posted at 11:12 PM
G-FILE CLARIFICATION [Jonah Goldberg]
When I said the G-File is coming soonish, I meant I will start writing NRO-exclusive columns (AKA Goldberg Files) again soon, by which I meant by mid-June. What you folks have been reading in the "G-Spot" (my one "G-Spot" pun per five year interval) have been syndicated columns.
Posted at 09:26 PM
PLANTY PALLISER SPEAKS [Peter Robinson]
From John Podhoretz, who reads everything: "Decimal coinage was an issue in England dating back to the 1860s. How do I know? Because Plantagenet Palliser, the remarkable figure at the center of Trollope's Palliser novels, is obsessed with it -- and nearly gets it through Parliament before his prime ministership is torpedoed."
Hmm. Perhaps Wilson and Heath were able to put through the new, decimalized currency with such ease in 1971 because Britons had long ago come to see the old system of pounds, shillings and pence as cumbersome. And if this is so, then the decimalization of the currency in 1971 has no implications for the adoption or rejection of the European constitution today.
From the penny to Trollope to the European constitution. Only in The Corner.
Derb?
Posted at 08:51 PM
JUSTICE MOORE'S LAST STAND? [Jonathan H. Adler]
The Alabama Republican primaries were something of a referendum of former state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, who cam to fame for installing -- and then refusing to remove -- a monument to the Ten Commandments in the state Supreme Court building. Moore endorsed several candidates for various offices in Tuesday's primaries, with decidedly mixed results. SA's Michael DeBow blogs the outcomes here and here.
Posted at 08:30 PM
I RECANT [Peter Robinson]
From my mailbag, the most compelling defense of the penny I’ve seen all day:
A penny is to money as entropy is to thermodynamics. When you spend money, you get some useful work (the stuff you bought), some useful left over energy (large change), and some energy lost to entropy (pennies). Sure, if you get enough pennies together, you can make most of them useful, but some will always be lost to the pavement, cracks between the cushions, and not having quite enough to fill a roll of pennies.Why must I endure the cursed copper? Because we live in a fallen world, ever so slowly dissolving into disorder. The explanation is elegant, thoroughly conservative, and theologically sound (what is the source of entropy if not original sin?)
Just as you can't get rid of entropy in thermodynamics, I don't think you'll ever be able to get rid of fiscal entropy; the most you can do is turn nickels into the new unit of entropy.
Ladies and gentlemen, consider my objection to the penny hereby withdrawn.
Posted at 08:21 PM
THE KINDER AND GENTLER ST. JAMES [Peter Robinson]
From a reader:
Peter,
Funny you should mention that the pilgrimage [Jenna Bush's pilgrimmage, now taking place in Spain] might be viewed as "insensitive." The Church officials in Santiago de Compostela have already begun removing from the cathedral the history of St James as the Moor-slayer….Here's the BBC's account [previously linked to in The Corner]:
"A statue in a Spanish cathedral showing St James slicing the heads off Moorish invaders is to be removed to avoid causing offence to Muslims.
"Cathedral authorities in the pilgrim city of Santiago de Compostela, on Spain's north west coast, plan to move the statue to the museum.
"Among the reasons for the move is to avoid upsetting the 'sensitivities of other ethnic groups.'
"The statue of St James "the Moor-slayer" is expected to be replaced by one depicting the calmer image of St James "the Pilgrim", by the same 18th century artist, Jose Gambino."
So, if anyone criticizes her, all Jenna has to do is emphasize "St. James's kinder side."
Keep up the great work.
Posted at 08:19 PM
CURRENCIES & CONSTITUTIONS: A QUERY FOR THE DERB [Peter Robinson]
Derb, how did the British government do it? I mean, for the mere, half-humorous suggestion that we in the United States get rid of the penny that I posted this morning, I've found my inbox piled high with emails taking heated objection, and you can be sure that no politician of any standing will even touch the subject. But back in 1971 the British government simply blotted out pence, shillings, guineas, and crowns, replacing then ancient currency with a new-fangled, decimalized system that was (and is) essentially...French. (Come to think of it, the French themselves had to stage a revolution before they could replace their own ancient and idiosyncratic currency of livres with a new, decimalized system.) How did the Labour government of Harold Wilson (if I'm recalling the sequence of prime ministers correctly) get away with it? Why didn't the nation rise up in protest? And--my underlying question--what does the currency coup of 1971 suggest about the willingness and ability of the current Labour government to jam the European constitution down the British throat one way or the other?
Posted at 05:49 PM
MORE PENNY THOUGHTS [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Dear Jonah:First, all those who favor the abolition of the penny need only demonstrate
their conviction by telling all cashiers to "keep the change" with respect
to pennies. That is, after all, the inevitable result of aboloshing the
penny: merchants (and the IRS) will simply round all prices up to the
"nearest nickel". The rest of us "precision and accuracy freaks" will
continue to insist on getting change to the penny, thank you very much.
This approach is both "rational" and "libertarian", although Libertarians
seem to think that is redundant.Second, there are practical difficulties. Eliminating the penny, the "coin
of lowest face value", is by definition a vain pursuit. The "nickel" would
simply become the "next penny". Furthermore, if you thought that the "Y2K"
problem was costly, try rewriting all the world's financial software, and
alter the existing data, to round off to the "nearest nickel". Then again,
why just the penny? Why not make the ten dollar bill the smallest unit of
currency? That ought to empty our overloaded piggy banks even faster, no?
Or satisfy the ultra-rationalists and have a committee of mathematical
economists establish some sort of "cube-root of pi-squared over two" as the
basic unit of currency? Or some other nonsensical Jacobin scheme like tying
it to the distance between the North Pole and the Equator? It may not be
bad to have a small-valued coin, perhaps analogous to the reason that it is
good that Planck's constant is a very small number.Third, regarding the absurd attempt to pretend that rationalism has anything
at all to do with currency... What could possibly be more irrational than
currency? Currency has "value" only because an entire population displays a
degree of credulity that, upon reflection, would scandalize the most
ardently religious mind.Rationalism is irrational. Reason is the slave of Passion.
R. Timmins, NYC
Posted at 04:58 PM
MICHAEL O’HANLON THINKS KERRY IS DOING GREAT! [Rich Lowry]
NBC Nightly News aired a segment on Kerry’s nuclear speech yesterday. It noted that some experts think nuclear terrorism is “a shrewd campaign focus.” And for evidence it quoted Michael O’Hanlon saying, “A broad issue of nuclear safety is actually more important than Iraq for long-term American well-being.” O’Hanlon, according to NBC, is a “foreign policy expert.” He’s that, but he is also a Kerry advisor, part of the Kerry “brain trust” on foreign policy, according to at least one report. This is a little like quoting Condi Rice as a neutral source about how great Bush’s speech at the Air Force Academy was today. Pretty outrageous. Tim Graham, over to you.
Posted at 04:22 PM
RE: MY TWO CENTS WORTH [John Derbyshire]
Peter: The coin that was got rid of by Mrs. Thatcher 20 years ago was not a half-penny, it was a half-p. It was created at the same time as the rest of the wretched decimal coinage in Britain, in 1971, and had no existence prior to that.
Once the decision had been made to stick with the pound as the basic unit of the new currency, the problem arose that the smallest unit in the new system -- the "new penny," universally referred to as the "p" (pronounced "pee") -- would be worth 2.4 of the old penny, and even 1.2 of the old halfpenny (pronounced "ha'penny"). The decision was made, therefore, to bring in the new system with a half-p, worth 1.2 old pennies. It proved to be a nuisance, though; banks dropped it, rounding everything to the p (up or down, according to their own advantage); and after a few years it was scrapped. Nobody missed it because nobody liked it, and Mrs. Thatcher did the right thing.
The right thing, but not the Right thing -- that would have been to junk the horrible Euro-ist decimal system altogether and restore pounds, shillings, and pence.
To the end of his life -- he died in 1984 -- my father clung to the old names, referring to one pound fifty p as "thirty bob."
(The "thirty-seven and a half guineas" in my previous posting did not survive translation to the web. It would have been 39 pounds 7 shillings and sixpence.)
Posted at 04:06 PM
"VERY GOOD AT CHESS" [Andrew Stuttaford]
The voters of Estonia know what they have to do.
Posted at 04:01 PM
POPPA TO THE MINT [Peter Robinson]
If I may, Jonah, your father has always struck me as underappreciated—not by his family, of course, but by the world. Every time he opens his mouth (or sends you an email) he says something pertinent, wise, and wry. I’ve only met him a couple of times, but each time we were in a roomful of interesting people, and it was always he who said the most interesting things.
Now I’ve have an idea: Sidney Goldberg for Director of the U.S. Mint. Poppa Goldberg could abolish the penny, place millions of half dollars into circulation, devise a one dollar coin on which Susan B. Anthony is smiling, not frowning, and use the position as a plaform from which to shower good sense on us all.
George W. Bush, are you listening?
Posted at 04:00 PM
RE: THE GODDESS POMONA SMILES [Jack Fowler]
The thrones and dominations and the Blessed Mother cannot be happy tonight with the Los Angeles county seal foolishness. But despair not – we shall prevail against the gates of Hell, and the ACLU! Anyway, from losangelesalmanac.com, here’s the story of how LA got its name (and how it’s really named after Mary!).
Where Did the Name Los Angeles Come From? The name Los Angeles is Spanish for The Angels. There is much more to this name, however. On Wednesday, August 2, 1769, Father Juan Crespi, a Franciscan priest accompanying the first European land expedition through California, led by Captain Fernando Rivera Y Moncado, described in his journal a "beautiful river from the northwest" located at "34 degrees 10 minutes." They named the river Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de la Porciúncula. In the Franciscan calendar, August 2 was the day of the celebration of the feast of the Perdono at the tiny Assisi chapel of St. Francis of Assisi. Early in St. Francis’ life, the Benedictines had given him this tiny chapel for his use near Assisi. The chapel, ruined and in need of repair, was located on what the Italians called a porziuncola or "very small parcel of land." Painted on the wall behind the altar was a fresco of the Virgin Mary surrounded by angels. Now contained within a Basilica, the chapel was named Saint Mary of the Angels at the Little Portion. The newly discovered "beautiful river" was named in honor of this celebration and this chapel. In 1781, a new settlement was established along that river. The settlement came to be known as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula or The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels of the Little Portion although its official name was simply El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles.
Posted at 03:57 PM
OH, NO. BAN THE HO-HO [Tim Graham]
In response to Time's hype this week of an "obesity crisis" and ABC's worries about an "obesity epidemic" (how does the fatness virus spread?), MRC has a new special report today on the "supersized bias" against that alleged pestilence of people who make us Oreos, Big Macs, Nacho Cheese Doritos, and other social evils. Too many news reports place the blame for obesity on food makers, not the excesses of food intakers.
Posted at 03:42 PM
PENTAGON LEADS THE WAY [Peter Robinson ]
From a reader:
When I was stationed in Germany 1986-1992, the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (the BX and PX folks) did not use pennies - prices were rounded to the nearest nickel. As I recall the military finance offices did not use pennies either, but I didn't go to a US finance office very often (most all of my transactions were in Guilders or Deutsch Marks) I believe the no-penny policy had been in use for years, and was told it was to save on the cost of hauling the pennies across the pond from CONUS. Found same policy in place when I was stationed in Saudi Arabia in 1997-98, and another arab country more recently.
Posted at 03:39 PM
TRUDGING TO COMPOSTELLA [Peter Robinson ]
Good to see Jenna Bush making the ancient pilgrimmage to Santiago de Compostella (see K-Lo’s posting below), which was, with Rome and Jerusalem, one of the three most important destinations for pilgrims throughout the Middle Ages. There is, however, a catch--at least for the politically correct.
St. James was believed to have interceded in the reconquista, helping Spaniards free the Iberian peninsula from the Moors. St. James of Compostella was also known as Santiago Matamoros, or St. James the moor-slayer.
To the first reader who spots a liberal complaining about the “insensitivity” of Jenna’s pilgrimage, a jar of pennies.
Posted at 03:35 PM
RAY BRADBURY HATES MICHAEL MOORE [Jonah Goldberg]
Kind of interesting. Though I think there are a lot better reasons to hate Michael Moore.
Posted at 03:00 PM
BOOK BLEG [Jonah Goldberg]
I've been trying to nail down a little something and it's driving me nuts. During the 1920s and early 1930s it was something of a mantra-cliché to say "we planned in war" in response to critics of economic planning. I think it was George Soule who at least popularized the phrase, but that's more a hunch at this point. Anybody know where I can find out for sure one way or the other?
Posted at 02:50 PM
NUTRI-GRUEL PACKAGING [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader: "Don't forget, Jonah, that Nutri-gruel packages will be printed exclusively in Esperanto!"
Posted at 02:28 PM
RE: COIN REFORM [Jonah Goldberg]
Yes! And maybe some day we can make a nutritious gruel which provides all of the vitamins, proteins and minerals we require to live! No more inefficient supermarkets, bistros and the like. Goodbye time-consuming group meals. We will be able to simply suck on our feeding tubes once a day. Nutri-gruel® might even come in two super-efficient flavors, vanilla chalk and choco-chalk.
Posted at 02:13 PM
COIN REFORM [Ramesh Ponnuru]
A rationalist email: "I agree with Safire. Keeping the penny around today makes as much sense as using a coin worth one-thousandth of a dollar 100 years ago. It would make our coin system much simpler to have two coins only: the dime, which would still be worth one-tenth of a dollar and a half dollar coin (the size of a quarter). No more pennies, nickels, or quarters. Everything would round to a tenth of a dollar instead of a hundredth. What costs less than 10 cents these days that could not be sold as two for a dime?"
Posted at 01:59 PM
THE GODDESS POMONA SMILES [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Los Angeles County has given in to the ACLU and agreed to remove the cross from its seal. Maybe they can cover it with blue tape. No word on how long the county will be allowed to keep its name.
Posted at 01:55 PM
TIMEWASTER: BUSH SHOOTOUT [Jonah Goldberg]
W. shoots terrorists invading the White House.
Posted at 01:45 PM
FROZEN MAMMOTHS [Rich Lowry]
Here is an e-mail from Iain Murray on the topic:
"Rich,
This is an old staple of Velikovsky-type catastrophists (as well as flood literalists) and belongs more in the "pseudoscience" than "junk science" categories. Fewer than 50 of these frozen animals have been found and most were decayed or injured in some way or another. The famous Berezovka mammoth, for instance, was covered in mud which then froze, not ice. It was essentially mummified, as virtually all of these were.
Flash-freezing isn't needed to preserve vegetative matter like that supposedly found in stomachs, by the way. Skeletons have been found with vegetation located where the stomach would have been.
And if the odd mammoth succumbed to a global flash-freeze, what happened to all the other, more numerous species? There's a Far Side cartoon with a neanderthal caught in an outhouse, frozen in a glacier. That should have happened at least once...
There's more on the subject here."
Posted at 01:36 PM
THE DELIGHT THAT IS COINSTAR [Peter Robinson]
From a reader:
are you familiar with the delight that is CoinStar?Yes, I am familiar with CoinStar, a company, as it happens, that was founded by a friend of mine at Stanford business school, Jens Molbak. But--with apologies to Jens--why should I pay anybody nine percent to rid me of my cursed coppers? CoinStar is indeed a delight, but only in the way that calamine lotion is a delight. If we could do away with pennies and avoid poison ivy, we could get along quite happily without either.
mine is in the local supermarket where you lug all your coins, pour 'em in the slot and it gives you a voucher that the cash register lady will cash for you (minus of course the 9 cents/dollar that CoinStar takes).
but the process is exhilarating for some reason, the clink of the coins, watching your total rise.
search out the CoinStar! i promise it'll be worth it!
Posted at 01:33 PM
SPIRIT OF AMERICA [Jonah Goldberg ]
My friend Kerry Dupont, who's doing yeoman work for Iraq and our troops, is going to work for them. Give a gander here. if you get a chance.
Posted at 01:23 PM
JENNA BUSH [KJL]
Some Secret Service Agent is wishing she went to a beach instead.
Posted at 01:21 PM
CURRENCY CONSERVATISM [Mark Krikorian]
As Rick points out, Safire's attack on the penny is part of a broader rationalist assault on the currency, including the recent redesigns of paper money and attempts to abolish the $1 bill by providing dollar coins that no one wants. I'm told there was fierce debate within the Treasury Department when the redesign of paper money was being considered, with the enforcement people prevailing in their desire for wholesale changes to the look of the bills (new pictures of Franklin and Lincoln, for instance, moving the portraits off-center, changing the back of the $10 bill, adding color to the $20 bill, etc.) in an attempt to stay ahead of counterfeiters. The other side -- the "conservative" argument -- was, and is, that the value of currency derives almost exclusively from the impression of stability and predictability that people get from it, and that radical changes in the appearance of paper money (or frequent changes to the coinage in order to satisfy collectors) undermines the public's confidence in the otherwise-worthless tokens we call currency.
Posted at 01:17 PM
RE: DAY AFTER TOMORROW [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Just wanted to chime in that the exact reaction in SF to those scenes was experienced here in Atlanta as well. And it's all that my fellow white-bread movie-goers were talking about on the way out. A very odd experience, indeed...
Posted at 01:13 PM
THANKS, BUT... [Rod Dreher]
Thanks to everyone from all over writing with nice things to say about my Dallas Morning News column yesterday, in which I took the news media for task for not giving Americans a complete picture of what's happening in Iraq. Y'all make terrific points, and it's gratifying to hear from you. But why not write the same things as a Letter to the Editor, where all readers of the print edition of the paper can read what you have to say? Drop a (short) letter to: letterstoeditor(at)dallasnews.com. Be sure to include your city and daytime phone number for the letters editor to verify authorship. (And if you didn't like the column, by all means let our letters editor know; we publish all kinds of letters).
Posted at 01:06 PM
MY TWO CENTS [Peter Robinson ]
I am a man who wishes to pass through this life unencumbered. Which means? That the coffee mugs, jars, and plastic cups overflowing with pennies that now litter my office and bedroom fill me with a sense of dread and oppression—of possessions to which I am shackled.
Offer nickels, dimes, or quarters to the attendant at the drugstore or grocery, and his eyes will glow with comradeship and pleasure. “Change? Thanks, man. We could always use some more.” But offer him pennies and he will only scowl. Nobody wants them—not even my kids.
While I was studying at Oxford 20 years ago, the British decided to remove the half-penny from circulation. (Killing the half-penny was quite different from killing the guinea. One was annoying and useless, the other—and here I wish to agree very explicitly with Derb—was a thing of idiosyncrasy and beauty.) By my calculation, the American penny is worth less today than the half-penny was worth back then. So let’s do what needs to be done.
If Margaret Thatcher could summon the courage, so can we.
Posted at 12:59 PM
DAY AFTER TOMORROW [Jonah Goldberg]
I haven't seen it. Don't know if I will. But Rich's posts reminded me of this email I got the other day:
[I saw Day After Tomorrow] last night, and I wonder if you've had any other readers who've experienced the same thing I did, in terms of a bizarre audience reaction to certain scenes. At least, the audience reaction seemed bizarre to me, but maybe I'm the odd man out, here in San Francisco.Here's the thing: At one point, the movie's TV newscasters are showing footage of how Mexico has shut the border to Americans, and there are scenes of desperate American refugees wading across the Rio Grande to enter Mexico illegally. Later on, the newscaster says that Mexico has allowed the U.S. to set up refugee camps in return for forgiveness of Mexico's foreign debt, and still later a chastened, wised-up Vice President grovelingly thanks Mexico and all the other nations of "what we used to call the Third World" for generously accepting American refugees. All this stuff, especially the illegals-wading-across-the-Rio-Grande footage … Well, when this movies comes out in Mexico City theaters, as I'm sure it will, I'm sure these scenes will provoke a lot of joyous hooting and howling and pumping of fists in the air, and all that's perfectly understandable -- in Mexico. But let me tell you, it's weird and kind of disturbing to sit in an American theater, surrounded by an American audience, and to hear these scenes greeted with clapping and cheering and screams of delight. I hasten to add that I looked around before and after the movie, and I'm not an ethnologist, but it didn't look like there was a particularly large percentage of Latinos in the audience, even by San Francisco standards. Most of the audience seemed pretty white-bread by my guesstimate. My reluctant, creeped-out conclusion is that there are just an awful lot of San Franciscans who look at these scenes of desperate American refugees fleeing to Mexico and think: Yeah! Yeah! At last the Americans get what's coming to 'em! That'll teach 'em! That'll show the bastards!
I don't know what country my fellow San Franciscans think they're citizens of, but emotionally at least, it's apparently not the U.S.
Bob Pryor (Feel free to use my name. And if the position of "your movie guy" is vacant, consider this a job app. [When IS Lowry giving you that raise?])
Posted at 12:37 PM
DAY AFTER TOMORROW [Rich Lowry]
I agree with these sentiments in an email about my column on the movie:
"These things come to mind about the movie:
How dumb is it that they argue over which books to burn, but never think of burning the library furniture?
Why are audience members so gleeful to see the US brought low, to see us escaping to Mexico, to see us need aid from other countries? Some people laughed so hard at those scenes (as well as the ones with the VP) I think they were trying to let those around them know they got the "joke" or "irony" or whatever it was supposed to be (Manhattan audience, BTW). Are they totally ignorant of how much aid the US has supplied to much of the world for years?
Also, I confess to finding myself stuck in 9/11. I couldn't watch LA be destroyed w/o weeping. It's far too soon."
Posted at 12:28 PM
MORE DAY AFTER [Rich Lowry]
I didn’t know this.
Email:
“Enjoyed the column, but there is one thing you should know - maybe as a follow-on.
The book that inspired the movie is The Coming Global Superstorm, by Art Bell and the Communion alien visitor guy - forget his name, too lazy to look it up.
They have explicitly disavowed the premise of the movie, that global warming will cause an ice age. Their view is that there are global fluctuations that happen, and we may be overdue for a series of superstorms and a subsequent ice age, but that is something that happens from time to time. The movie maker, Emmerich, added the global warming stuff.
I didn't read their book - they are kind of nutty guys - but I heard them being interviewed on the radio.”
Posted at 12:24 PM
SO WHY DID MAMMOTHS FREEZE WITH FOOD IN THEIR MOUTHS? [Rich Lowry]
Email:
“Interestingly enough, some of the most incredible parts of the movie are also the most well-documented. The main example that comes to mind is the minus 150 deg downdraft that freezes stuff in such a hurry. I can recall 30 yrs ago in grade school being told about mammoths so frequently being found standing up in the melting glaciers, intact, with essentially fresh vegetation in their stomachs. To my knowlege, no African or Asian elephants have ever been reported as found dead while remaining in an upright position. Nor are they ever found intact, unless they are recovered within a very few hours of death.”
ME: Does anyone know if there’s actually anything to this?
Posted at 12:22 PM
A REALLY GOOD TIME WITH AHMAD CHALABI [Rich Lowry]
I still don’t know what to make of the allegations of spying against Ahmad Chalabi (there is one strong reason to disbelieve the allegations--the CIA has been wrong about pretty much everything having to do with Iraq up to this point). But this is my favorite detail from the front page New York Times story on the allegation that Chalabi told the Iranians we had broken their secret code—the American who supposedly told Chalabi this information was drunk when he let it slip! Also of interest is another detail. Chalabi defenders have argued that there was no way an Iranian official in Baghdad, told that the U.S. had broken Iran’s communications code, would send a message to Tehran explaining the code had been broken in the same code that had been broken. But, according to the Times, this odd behavior might be explained by the fact that the Iranian didn’t believe Chalabi. So maybe the Iranian government trusts Chalabi as little as the U.S. government does—more coalition-building from the former Iraqi exile.
Posted at 12:16 PM
PUTIN PLAYS CHESS OVER KYOTO [Jonathan H. Adler]
Iain Murray analyzes Vladimir Putin's alleged capitulation on Kyoto, against the advice of his key advisor, to win European backing for Russia's entry into the WTO. (Links via The Commons.)
Posted at 12:04 PM
A DERSHOWITZ PUZZLE [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Posted at 11:44 AM
THE BADGERS ARE BACK [ Jonah Goldberg ]
And they are playing for England in the World Cup! Warning: More addictive loud music that will annoy cube-mates.
Posted at 11:40 AM
STRONG ON DEFENSE [ Jonah Goldberg]
In order to dispel the notion that he's weak on defense, John Kerry has proposed a new class of aircraft carrier to replace the bulky, slow-moving behemoths we have today with a more nimble rapid response ship, representing the sort of conflcts he envisions in the future. Here's a picture of the prototype.
Posted at 11:23 AM
SOUTH DAKOTA DISPATCH [Jonathan H. Adler]
While I was in South Dakota, it seemed clear Democratic candidate Stephanie Herseth would win the special election for the House seat vacated by Republican Bill Janklow. Interestingly enough, Herseth supports many conservative positions. She supported the war in Iraq, wants to make most (but not all) of the Bush tax cuts permanent, and backs a constitutional amendment on gay marriage, thus narrowing the differences between herself and Republican candidate Larry Diedrich. Yet on other issues, most notably abortion, she is well to the left of South Dakota voters. Now Democrats will spin her victory as an augur of the fall elections, while Republican-leaning analysts will stress many of her conservative views, suggesting Dems can only win states like South Dakota as Bush-lite.
Posted at 11:22 AM
STRAIGHT DOPE, CTD. [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Matthew Hoy has more.
Posted at 10:59 AM
SOUTH DAKOTA DEMS [Jonathan H. Adler]
Renting a car over the weekend at the Sioux Falls airport, I witnessed a representative of the state Democractic party returning several cars used for campaign activities over the previous few days. Some of the vehicles being returned were adorned with Dem-candidate bumper stickers. These weren't simply taped on or otherwise attached to the rented vehicles, but peeled and stuck onto windows and other parts. In my experience, such stickers can be quite difficult to remove, so unless these specific stickers were of some easily-removed variety, their adhesion to the rented vehicles exhibits an appalling lack of regard for Hertz's private property. It's one thing to leave garbage in the back seat of a rented vehicle, but quite another to leave it damaged or otherwise in such a condition that it can only be returned to a rentable condition with substantial effort -- especially where, as here, it was clearly a deliberate choice. I hope the S.D. Dems are charged for it.
(I fully recognize that GOP campaign workers may well be guilty of similar actions. If so, it would be equally offensive, but I didn't witness it.)
Posted at 10:46 AM
THE BUCK STOPS PFAW [Jonathan H. Adler]
People for the American Way has released a new report suggesting the reelection of President Bush will extinguish freedom in the United States. Specifically, the PFAW report claims that were there a majority of Supreme Court justices who agree with Justices Scalia and Thomas (and Bush said he would try and appoint justices in that mold), it would "endanger our rights and freedoms." This is the standard scare story advanced by leftist opponents of conservative judicial appointments, but does it hold up to scrutiny? Not quite, according to Stuart Buck. On his blog, Buck demonstrates that PFAW misinterprets -- or misrepresents -- the views of Justices Thomas and Scalia and largely ignores instances in which their jurisprudence would expand "our rights and freedoms."
Posted at 10:43 AM
MORE PENNIES [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Also, if we had a policy of sensible and modest deflation, over time the penny would regain its value.
Posted at 10:41 AM
FORMER SOVIET ENGINEERS [ Jonah Goldberg ]
Are breeding their own answer to Michael Moore . Should be ready soon.
Posted at 10:27 AM
POPPA ON THE FOUR BITS COIN [Jonah Goldberg]
From part of an email from Poppa G:
"...how about getting some half-dollar pieces back into circulation? I haven't seen a half dollar in many years, and I sometimes ask cashiers if they ever see one and the answer is no. It would be a very useful coin, although vending machines might have to be rejiggered to accept them. I'd say the priorities are 1) reintroduction of half dollar, 2) world peace."
Posted at 10:23 AM
PENNIES [Rick Brookhiser]
All the way with John and Jonah.
1. Britain's decision to abolish its traditional coinage was grotesque. Did anyone at the time point out that one of the features of Airstrip One in 1984 is decimal coinage?
2. The other shoe, waiting to drop on this issue, is the abolition of the dollar bill and its substitution by a coin. The copper industry wants this, having lost pennies to zinc. What an act of historical lobotomy--losing Lincoln and Washington in one fell swoop.
Posted at 10:14 AM
RE: SAFIRE & PENNIES & THE G-FILE [Jonah Goldberg]
Derb - I'm with you. In fact, ever since you offered a small post about how the Royal Mail was more important as a symbol of nationhood than as a government service -- or something to that effect -- I've been re-pondering my views on a whole bunch things along those lines. A community and tradition is often formed in the little things and the conservative who is forced to provide unbridled rationality in every defense of tradition has already ceded too much ground. Save the little things, save the penny!
As for Safire, some readers have taken a contrary view to my contra-contrarian contrarianism. I smell a bigger piece here on Safire, contrarianism and The Jews. Okay maybe not the Jews, but that would help it sell. How about Safire, contrarianism and what the maid saw? Anyway, as the G-File will be coming back soonish (that's right you heard it here first), stay tuned.
Posted at 09:59 AM
ABORTION COVERAGE [Tim Graham]
K-Lo, I'm glad you ran the NRLC statement yesterday, because I'm not seeing it much in the liberal press accounts, with the exception of the Washington Post. They all rely on Planned Parenthood as the plaintiff, and then some shift to a White House statement or the Justice Department. On CNN radio last night, they ran audio of Gloria Feldt talking about "women's health," and then dismissed the pro-life side with a little summary of their own, no audio. Very typical. One report suggested a controversial ban on a procedure was overturned, but that's backwards. Look at the polls, reporters, if you're going to use the adjective "controversial." Most Americans oppose partial-birth abortion, and so did most of Congress. Reporters should write the ban on a very controversial procedure was overturned.
Posted at 09:44 AM
MY TWO CENTS' WORTH [John Derbyshire]
Jonah: I found Safire's case not only unconvincing, but unbecoming for a conservative. One of the things that made me a Tory was the wanton, unforgivable destruction of the old British pounds-shillings-pence system by Labour governments in the late 1960s. (The actual changeover was in 1971, when Ted Heath's managerialist-bureaucratist wing of the Tory Party was in power, but all the planning and legislation was done by Labour, starting in 1965.) The old system was a thing of elegance and antiquity, with all kinds of curlicues, wrinkles and anomalies to hold one's interest and challenge one's arithmetical powers. What was 37? guineas? Why were so many fees set at 6s. 8d.? Which Britsh coin was called "half a dollar," and why? What was a florin?) I mourn it still. If ever there was a time for conservatives to stand firmly athwart History crying "Stop!" it is now. Save the penny!
Posted at 09:34 AM
SAFIRE'S SCHTICK [Jonah Goldberg ]
William Safire calls for the abolition of the penny. He begins:
WASHINGTON — Because my staunch support of the war in Iraq has generated such overwhelming reader enthusiasm, it's time to re-establish my contrarian credentials. (Besides, I need a break.) Here's a crusade sure to infuriate the vast majority of penny-pinching traditionalists:The time has come to abolish the outdated, almost worthless, bothersome and wasteful penny. Even President Lincoln, who distrusted the notion of paper money because he thought he would have to sign each greenback, would be ashamed to have his face on this specious specie.
Now I don't care if he wants to get rid of the penny. I'm against it, I guess. But what drives me nuts is Safire's repeated invocation of "contrarianism" for contrarianism's sake. I like contrarianism. I live to think of myself as a contrarian to one extent or another. But taking a contrary position simply and solely because it is contrarian is not a thoughtful position, it is an annoying pose. For years, Safire has boasted that he takes certain positions solely because others do not. That's silly.
Posted at 08:53 AM
MATRIX REVOLUTIONS [Jonah Goldberg]
I watched it on pay-per-view over the weekend, in part because I was so baffled by the fact it disappeared without a ripple when it was in the theaters. Sorry, but it really struck me as the sort of thing that happens when filmmakers stop trying to be filmmakers and start believing they're religious gurus of some kind. Lots of interesting things, but the story fell apart and the characters were almost deliberately unlikable. It's a new age techno Pilgrim's Progress.
Posted at 08:36 AM
MISSED OPPORTUNITY [John J. Miller]
In South Dakota's special House election yesterday, Democrat Stephanie Herseth defeated Republican Larry Diedrich, 51 percent to 49 percent. Less than 3,000 votes separated them. They will almost certainly square off again in November, but Herseth will have the advantage of incumbency. Perhaps Diedrich will preveail, especially with Bush on the top of the ticket. Still, it would have been very nice to see him win yesterday and go into the fall with a leg up. The president campaigned to prop up a teetering Arlen Specter in April; couldn't he have visited South Dakota to help pull Diedrich over the line? This is a contest that shouldn't have slipped away.
Posted at 06:17 AM
FOR WORD NUTS [John J. Miller]
What's the longest one-syllable word? What words contain all five vowels in alphabetical order? What's the longest word with no repeated letters? Cool English language trivia here.
Posted at 05:53 AM
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
THE TRUTH SEEPS OUT [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
I've always defended cats -- animals act how they act, and it's not fair to hold it against them because it's not like they can engage in self help and change. But this afternoon I broke my toe tripping over my damn cat. The look of satisfaction she had on her face afterward is indescribable.
Posted at 08:36 PM
SPENDING CUTS [Jonah Goldberg]
Ramesh -- Agreed. This is why I had no problem with the idea of spending more money for Welfare reform. If it costs more money to teach a man to fish than to buy him a fish every day, it's still worth teaching him to fish. Or something like that.
Posted at 08:27 PM
RICH RADIO [KJL]
Rich Lowry will be a guest on Bill Bennett's Morning in America radio show Wednesday, 7:30 a.m. (Eastern)--now in 78 cities, and on the web at www.bennettmornings.com.
Posted at 08:02 PM
"CLEAR CHOICE" [KJL]
W. campaign on the partial-birth-abortion ruling.
Posted at 07:57 PM
SPENDING CUTS [Ramesh Ponnuru]
I agree that they are a very important long-term goal for conservatives--I'd have to think some more before saying they were more important than tax cuts. But what is more important than a dollar figure for spending cuts is a reduction in the number of improper domestic functions the federal government serves. I would much rather eliminate a bunch of small-dollar federal programs than have across-the-board budget cuts that were larger in dollar size but left every program intact; I'd much rather get rid of programs than "abolish" Cabinet departments by sending the programs within them other places, which is what the Gingrich Republicans were mostly trying to do; and under the right circumstances I would have no objection to massive increases in federal spending. (Say, for example, we were fighting World War II.)
Posted at 06:41 PM
YOUR TAX DOLLARS HARD AT WORK [Tim Graham]
You can't satirize NPR. Today's online promo for "Fresh Air with Terry Gross" (airing on 300-plus stations) begins with this: "South African satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys. He's described himself as a middle-aged fat bald Afrikaner Jewish drag queen from Cape Town..."
Posted at 05:57 PM
RE: BUDGET RULES [Jonah Goldberg ]
Ramesh - I agree with you (and the various readers who've made similar points). I even agree with much of what Kevin Drum says, even though most of his readers apparently think I'm the dumber than a bag of rocks. See the comments section). I guess the point of my post was essentially that pro-tax-cutting conservatives shouldn't back off the ambition to cut spending too. And in politics the only way to do something is start out by saying you want to do it.
Rather than your hypothetical $700 billion in tax cuts and spending cuts, I would much rather $350 in tax cuts and $350 in spending cuts (Preferably not haircut trims across the board but honest-to-goodness ending of programs and agencies). In fact, I'd rather $50 billion in tax cuts and $650 billion in spending cuts.
In other words, I think spending cuts are not only more important than tax cuts (now that the economy is going good) but because spending cuts are harder to get and so we should get them whenever we can, even at the expense of tax cuts.
I certainly don't believe the Republican Senators championing the pay-as-you-go proposal sincerely want cuts in either taxes or spending. But the rhetorical divide between the two sides is infuriating since limited government requires both. Newt Gingrich may have had his flaws, but I would at least prefer a Republican leadership that made denouncing big government a rhetorical priority. The problem with a Republican Party defined by compassionate conservatism (particularly during an election year) is that it buys into the assumptions of liberals about what defines "compassion" -- and liberals define (political) compassion by the growth of government programs, entitlements etc.
Posted at 05:49 PM
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE [KJL]
President Bush wound up giving a full-fledged press conference this morning in the Rose Garden
Posted at 05:34 PM
THE STRAIGHT DOPE [Ramesh Ponnuru]
tackles a persistent myth about deaths from illegal abortions. I wonder what the 1972 figure on deaths from legal abortions was.
Posted at 05:05 PM
BUDGET RULES [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Jonah: I agree with you that if we were choosing between, say, a $700 billion tax cut and $700 billion in spending cuts on the one hand, and the tax cut alone on the other, the better option is to have both. But would a rule requiring that tax cuts be offset by spending cuts be more likely to result in both spending cuts and tax cuts, or in no tax cuts at all? And if the choice were tax cuts without spending cuts on the one hand and neither tax cuts nor spending cuts on the other, which is better? There are rational theories for answering that question either way. Most of the time, I'd be inclined to take the tax cut. Certainly I think the tax cuts of 1981, 2001, and 2003, none of which were fully offset by simultaneously enacted legislation, were worth having. (I doubt any of them could have passed with such offsets.) I don't think tax cuts should be held hostage to spending cuts. Among other things, that rule would trap Republicans in their pre-Reagan role as tax collectors for the welfare state. Another point worth mentioning: Previous budget rules have required tax cuts to be offset by cuts in entitlement spending (or increases in other taxes), not cuts in discretionary spending--which raises the bar against tax cuts pretty high.
Posted at 04:59 PM
BACK FROM A LONG WEEKEND [Ramesh Ponnuru]
So let me tie up a few loose ends. First, I see that Jonah has mentioned Walter Olson's response to my post on Virginia and same-sex civil unions. Justin Katz has written a response to Olson. Katz, incidentally, is a smart social conservative blogger who, judging from some of his recent posts, could use some tip-jar visits from fans.
Second, I don't know if anyone noted that Peter Schramm had finished up our conversation about David Brooks, Iraq, and the Declaration of Independence. One last comment from me: I think that Schramm may, in his initial complaint about me, been responding to something other conservatives have been saying. President Bush has said on a number of occasions that he rejects the view that Arabs are unfit for democracy and liberty, a view he holds to be cynical, condescending, and--though he does not quite say this--racist. Many conservatives, especially George Will, have strongly criticized the president for making this comment, accusing him of inventing a strawman and attributing character defects to opponents of his policies. I think both Bush and his conservative critics have legitimate points here. On the one hand, it is possible to embrace a kind of cultural determinism that excuses tyranny: The Arabs love being tortured and poison-gassed, it's their culture. On the other, it is clearly not the case that all people, whatever their culture and history, are immediately ready for republican government. There has got to be a large middle space here. Anyway: When I criticized Brooks, who was making a Bushian point, without distancing myself from conservative critics who make the same sort of criticism I was making, Schramm may have assumed that I am closer to them than I am.
Posted at 04:40 PM
SURPRISE, SURPRISE [Rod Dreher]
I've been getting great e-mails all day from around the country over my DMN column whacking the media for ignoring the good news out of Iraq. One of my correspondents was Mark Tapscott at the Heritage Foundation, who sends along results of a Gallup poll released today. The poll surveyed the confidence Americans had in their institutions. The military got the highest rating, with 75 percent of those polled expressing a "great deal" of confidence, while only five percent saying they had "very little or none" in the military. Compare that with TV news, in which 30 percent of respondents report a "great deal" of confidence, and a nearly equal number reporting "very little or none." It's not much better for newspapers: 30 percent have a "great deal" of confidence, while 25 percent have "very little or none."
The U.S. military, then, is the most popular institution in America. The news media are among the least popular. And of course, this will be ignored in newsrooms, which have an uncanny ability to ignore handwriting on the wall when it tells them things they don't want to hear.
Posted at 04:35 PM
THANKS FOR THE PALM/BLACKBERRY INFO… [Rich Lowry]
I should be set.
Posted at 04:26 PM
PONNURU V. SCHRAMM [Jonah Goldberg]
Alas, I was in London for the exchange between Ramesh and Peter Schramm over David Brooks' reading of the Declaration. See here and here.
Maybe I should let sleeping dogs lie (Cosmo: I've killed a billion squirrels on five continents!).
But it seems to me that they're both sort of right. Ramesh's objection that the Declaration most certainly does not say that we can all function as citizens in a democratic society seems absolutely correct to me. I don't think the founders believed that the tribes in Borneo were ready for a constitutional republic quite yet (and if they did, they were wrong). Meanwhile, I think Schramm is correct to say that the founders believed we were all endowed with the right to self-government by the Creator.
Now both of these guys know this stuff far better than me, but it seems to me that being endowed by your creator with a right to something does not mean that you're automatically capable of exercising that right responsibly. We may be endowed from birth with the right to self government but we do not allow babies and children to vote (similarly, I could swear reading something by Jefferson where he said that Indians and blacks might someday be able to vote). We may be born with the right to own property but we recognize -- to varying degrees -- the community's interest in assuring that such property will be used responsibly. I cannot run my own uranium enrichment facility in my basement. So if the right is universal but its application and exercise is contingent upon other variables, I think one can close the chasm between Schramm and Ponnuru.
Posted at 04:19 PM
THE LATEST FROM ABU GHRAIB [Rich Lowry]
The Washington Post has another big story about Abu Ghraib. There are some disturbing indications that the abuse might have been more widespread than was first thought, but on the other hand, in important respects, the military’s case that the sickest acts were the work of a few MPs seems to be holding up. Here is a crucial paragraph:
“Some of the photographs support the theory that MPs sought to humiliate prisoners for entertainment. The infamous shots show a naked human pyramid, a hooded man standing on a box and detainees forced to masturbate—acts that apparently were staged to punish prisoners or amuse guards, not specifically to coerce confessions for military intelligence (MI).”
In only one of the pictures that has led to criminal charges are military intelligence personnel present. That is the picture of three naked Iraqi men shackled together. But it is important to note that that abuse apparently had nothing to do with interrogation: The men were being punished for allegedly raping a teenage boy at the prison.
Posted at 03:59 PM
HELP-TRANSFERRING DATA [Rich Lowry]
Would anyone out there know how to get data from my old Palm Pilot to my new Blackberry? Between carrying my Costanza-sized wallet, my cell phone, my Palm Pilot, and my Blackberry, I’m running out of pockets and room on my belt. Any help would be appreciated.
Posted at 03:58 PM
BASEBALL IN TAMPA [Rich Lowry]
I caught two Yankees-Devil Rays games at Tropicana Field this weekend. What a concrete monstrosity! My girlfriend said it was like watching a game in a shopping mall. But on the upside, it’s easy to get good seats that are close to the field and it’s generally very quiet, so there’s a kind of intimacy that makes you feel close to the game. I’m pretty sure Yankee fans outnumbered Devil Rays fans at both games. At the second game, I saw in the row in front of me Williams, Jeter, Rodriguez, Rodriguez, Rodriguez, and Mattingly jerseys in that order. My humble suggestion: Build a real open-air ballpark somewhere looking out on the water.
Posted at 03:57 PM
D-DAY: THE MORAL AUDIT [John Derbyshire]
Brilliant piece by Irish writer Kevin Myers in the Sunday Telegraph here.
Commenting on this piece, another friend (an Irishman) sent me the following thoughts:
"The official version of the Normandy campaign was never keen on dwelling on the misbehaviour of allied troops, (quite a lot of local women were raped) or the appalling civilian casualties, most of which were completely unnecessary. I used to go on hols quite regularly to Normandy, and got the definite impression that the Brits and Americans were not terribly popular there, largely due to the numbers of people that the allies managed to kill in 1944. I am sure you know about Douglas-Hume's court martial, and the destruction of Le Havre: the frogs' widely held theory was that it was deliberately destroyed so as to remove a potential rival to Southampton for the transatlantic trade: but that's the French for you. I was in a town called (I think) Eu, which was virtually erased, with massive civilian dead on the night of June 5th 1944 by heavy bombers, in the mistaken belief that there were SS tanks stationed there.
"Have you read Max Hastings 'Overlord'? He made the point that many of the British squaddies were veterans of the 1940 debacle, and probably disliked the French far more than they disliked the Germans. There were several incidents when Norman civilians who came out to strip dead bodies of their watches, wallets etc were unceremoniously put up against a wall and shot by NCOs.
"The late Alan Clark was quite good in his book also. He made the obvious (but still controversial) point that, wherever the German Army met the Anglo-American forces in anything like equal numbers, they wiped the floor with them. You have to hand it to the Krauts: they were beaten by superior numbers in the end.
"Hastings also makes the point that the French peasantry had to a large extent reached a modus vivendi with the Germans: the regular soldiers were actually not that unpopular in many districts. The resistance was largely a myth in many areas, and as they were frequently Communist dominated, not always wildly popular where they did operate. I read an amazing statistic recently that there were 250,000 babies born to French women from German soldiers in 1940-1944: by now there must be about a million French people descended from such liaisons. I remember a holiday I spent in Normandy once when I commented to an aged rustic local about all the tall, strapping blond blue eyed kids in the local village school: I said that this showed the Normans' Viking blood: he replied rather cynically that there had been a German barracks up the road during the war."
Posted at 03:47 PM
CATS V DOGS [Jonah Goldberg]
I was just talking to Rich on the phone -- so 20th century!-- and he said something to the effect of "I hope you noted the central role dogs played in the worst public relations disaster of the last hundred years." He was referring to the role our canine comrades played at Abu Ghraib prison in terrorizing the inmates. You'd never see cats taking part in something like that, he said.
Of course Lowry's right. But that's not because of the higher ethical or moral standards of cats -- they will eat their own owners if they get hungry enough, after all. It's because cats simply cannot be trusted to do the heavy and sometimes dirty work required in the war on terror. Should the Islamo-fascists win, the dogs will no doubt be rounded-up. But the cats will accomodate their new overlords with the ease that Kent Brockman welcomed his new giant ant masters (that's a Simpsons reference btw).
Posted at 03:41 PM
NRLC ON THE RULING [KJL]
Statement by National Right to Life on Injunction Against Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act
WASHINGTON (June 1, 2004) -- What follows is a comment from the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) in Washington, D.C., regarding a development in the legal proceedings related to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which was signed into law by President Bush last November. The Bush Administration is currently defending the law against three separate legal challenges in three different federal district courts.
Today's development occurred in a lawsuit against the law brought by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) in the federal district court in San Francisco. U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton issued a permanent injunction against enforcement of the ban with respect to the groups that filed that lawsuit. This would apply primarily to affiliates of the PPFA.
Judge Hamilton found that the federal ban on partial-birth abortion ran contrary to U.S. Supreme Court rulings, especially Stenberg v. Carhart, handed down in 2000. In Stenberg, five Supreme Court justices said that Roe v. Wade required states to allow an abortionist to perform a partial-birth abortion essentially whenever he sees fit.
"Judge Hamilton's deep personal hostility to the law has been evident throughout the judicial proceedings, and is evident in many passages in her 117-page injunction," said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. "Other district and appellate judges also will be heard from during the months ahead. It is the U.S. Supreme Court that will ultimately decide whether our elected representatives can ban the practice of mostly delivering a living premature infant and then puncturing her skull. A one-vote shift on the Supreme Court would allow the ban on partial-birth abortions to be upheld."
The National Right to Life Committee maintains the most comprehensive collection of documentation on partial-birth abortion available anywhere on the Internet, at [here.]
For a good primer on what the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act does and does not do, and on other disputed issues pertaining to partial-birth abortion, see the memo "Partial-Birth Abortion: Misconceptions and Realities," here.
A collection of key documents pertinent to medical issues surrounding partial-birth abortion are posted here.
Although Congress justified the ban in part its finding that the partial-birth abortion method would cause excruciating pain to the partly born infant, Judge Hamilton dismissed this factor as "irrelevant," saying that even if it is true it also would apply to dismemberment of the fetus at the same stages. On May 20, Senator Sam Brownback (R-Ks.) and Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) introduced the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. This bill would require that abortions provide women seeking any type of abortion past 20 weeks with certain information regarding the capacity of their unborn children to experience pain and regarding the availability of pain-reducing drugs. For more information on the bill and on the issue of fetal pain, see ....
Posted at 03:36 PM
TREE HOUSE -- READERS RESPOND [John Derbyshire]
Reader A: "A $1000 tree house! I mean, I know you were spending a lot of time at the Orange Store, but for heaven's sake. the essence of a tree house is to be created with scrap lumber, salvaged bolts, and the bent nails that you had to pound straight again. If it doesn't end up looking like a place that would give an OSHA inspector a cerebral aneurism, you've missed the essence of the thing. Growing up, our tree houses were bare, half-rotten platforms 45 feet up, swaying in the windy rain, slick with moss and mildew, and significantly lacking in any safety features. A good tree house teaches courage and sangfroid, it does. Or maybe my parents were just trying to kill me. Hmmm."
I grew up that way too, Sir. I don't think it was so much that our parents were trying to kill us as that a person can only worry about so many things. Our parents had a lot of stuff to worry about: polio, the recent memory of TB (there was a sanatorium across the fields from our house), another recent memory of bombs falling from the sky, and much else -- not least, the problem of making a decent living, which was much harder then than now. Kids falling out of trees just didn't rank very high on the worry list. I was a chronic climber; fell out of every tree in Delapre Woods, and once came within an ace of hanging myself by trying to climb the household drain pipe using rope. (I'd been reading a book about mountaineering.) Nowadays we have different things to worry about. Most of them involve lawyers.
Reader B: "Congratulations on the completion of the tree-house. Your comment about the amount you spent on nails reminded me of Thoreau's account of the construction costs of his shack at Walden Pond. He spent $28.125 in all; $3.90 of that was for nails. I'm just about positive that my edition at home includes a footnote indicating that early archeologists exploring the site found quite a few bent nails, suggesting that Thoreau was a lot more talented with the pen than with the hammer. I leave the comparisons of Thoreau and Derbyshire to others, though I do wonder if you will use the tree-house (once the kids tire of it) as a place of periodic retreat where you can gain a little perspective on life in the 'burbs. I also wonder what $28.125 would be in 2004 dollars?"
Well, the Inflation Calculator here says that the $28.125 Thoreau spent in 1845 would have been worth $522.07 in 2002. Which means one of the following things: (1) The Walden Pond residence was only about half as habitable as my tree house; (2) Thoreau used very inferior materials; or (3) Home Depot is overcharging disgracefully. On the other hand, his $3.90 for nails would have got you $72.39 in 2002, so I am way ahead on the nails.
Posted at 02:51 PM
CHINA DESCENDS INTO MADNESS [John Derbyshire]
Posted at 02:42 PM
RE: THE CONNECTION [KJL]
Andy McCarthy gives a nice overview of some of the evidence Hayes presents in his piece today on NRO. I read The Connection over the weekend and it is basically the briefing book you wish the White House would issue. Like, the evidence is there, so present it already, and often!
Posted at 02:35 PM
PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S PRESS RELEASE [KJL]
on the ruling is here.
Posted at 02:28 PM
NICE! [Jonah Goldberg]
Hayes' Amazon sales rank has been cut in half since my post. I'm sure that I am not solely responsible (Instapundit links too), but I will most assuredly take all credit the next time I see him.
By the way, Hayes is a former NRO contributor.
Posted at 02:17 PM
THAT PBA RULING [KJL]
Here's the AP storyhere. Another source confirms first read: "applies 'only' to those associated with PPFA and the city of SF."
Posted at 02:09 PM
RE: POST SLAVE SYNDROME [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
As a criminal defense attorney, I occasionally go to trial with a pretty weak case. I have to argue something and I go with my strongest defense. If my best defense is something that may sound very silly, then I will try to convince the jury to accept a theory that sounds silly. If the best I have to work with is Post-Slave Syndrome, or the Twinkie Defense, or Gay Panic Disorder, then my client is probably in trouble. But if my client wants to exercise his right to a trial, then it is my job to find some sort of defense. Since I live in a conservative area, it is not likely that I will try a Post-Slave Syndrome case. But if I were picking my juries from an area where politicians were ready to blame slavery for most of the ills of society, it might be my best case sometime. In weapons cases, I have certainly tried to push the right political buttons about guys in dark suits trying to take all of our guns away. It doesn't tell us much about society that some desperate lawyer pulls a new trick out of his hat. If that trick works, then it is deserving of some attention.
Posted at 01:40 PM
THE CONNECTION [Jonah Goldberg ]
My friend, ocassional poker buddy and the instigator of several pranks against yours truly, has finally come out with his book: The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. I've had a few verbal briefings and I look forward to reading it. Hayes claims to have the goods on the real connections between al Qaeda and Saddam. If what I've heard so far pans out, it could shred the conventional wisdom. You should all buy it like it's the last vial of penicillin in wartime Paris and you're a doughboy with a case of the clap. Or something like that.
Posted at 01:20 PM
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? [Rod Dreher]
That's the question I ask in my Dallas Morning News piece this morning. That headline runs under a photograph of a US soldier standing in an Iraqi classroom. The answer, which is in the next headline, is this: "It's the only one like it we could find." It seems that we went looking for wire service photos of U.S. soldiers in Iraq doing good things to help the Iraqi people. There's no shortage of good news to report from the rebuilding, though little of that news seems to make it into the American news media. Our photo department did a search of the wire archives for the past month to six weeks, and found only one photo that fit our broad description. The photo desk said that if these photos aren't being shot in Iraq, it's because there's no demand for them from papers and magazines back home. This doesn't necessarily tell us that there's a problem of media bias against the war. It's extremely dangerous to be in Iraq covering the war right now, and newspapers are going to send their photographers and reporters to the bigger news events of the day (e.g., battles, gunfights). Few papers are going to risk the lives of their journalists to cover a school opening. But schools are opening, and Americans are not getting the full picture.
Posted at 01:15 PM
KSM WANTED 20 APARTMENT BUILDING BLOWN UP VIA NATURAL GAS SIMULTANEOUSLY [KJL]
in NY, D.C. and/or Florida. This, from DOJ news conference right now on Jose Padilla's jihad assignment. Update: Here's the run-down.
Posted at 01:10 PM
PBA NEWS [KJL]
Source informs and explains: "The San Francisco Court just granted a permanent injunction against the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. The injunction covers the plaintiffs in this case, and is not a national injunction covering other parties. This is not a surprise as the judge made it consistently clear that she was ideologically opposed to the ban on Partial-Birth Abortion."
Posted at 12:24 PM
THE KERRY INTERN STORY [Jonah Goldberg ]
This certainly sounds like a definitive rebuttal. Shorter summary here. I certainly thought the story was true at first, but unless there's other evidence, I think Polier deserves some apologies. Plus, I like it when people turn the tables on the press.
Posted at 12:21 PM
ONE MORE THING... [John J. Miller]
...about those government-funded arts journalists. Do you think they'll dare to criticize the NEA? Ever?
Posted at 12:17 PM
I.F. STONE A SOVIET SPY? [Jonah Goldberg]
I keep hearing from readers saying that Stone was exposed as a Soviet agent with the release of the Venona files. I'm certainly open to the idea, but the last time I looked it into this a few years ago it was still an open question and I haven't seen anything which settles it for good. I recall Bob Novak had a good column trying to make the case but didn't quite seal the deal and I know Ann Coulter mentions it in her book, but if there's actually new evidence I don't know about feel free to send it my way.
Posted at 12:14 PM
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK [John J. Miller]
The latest news from the Bush administration: “The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) today announced it will establish three NEA Arts Journalism Institutes that will focus on improving arts criticism in classical music, opera, theater and dance.” Cost: $1 million. You may recall that the White House has asked Congress to increase NEA funding by 15 percent. Earlier this year, First Lady Laura Bush proudly called it “the largest annual increase in more than 20 years.” Gosh, I’d just been thinking how great it would be if the government did something about the state of American dance criticism.
Posted at 12:07 PM
DUELISTS [John J. Miller]
I'm debating The New Republic's Michael Crowley this week on Kerry's veep choice, at opinionduel.com. My initial comment has just been posted; I argue that Kerry's best choice is Dick Gephardt. Crowley will counter sometime this afternoon.
Posted at 10:56 AM
RE: BUDGET BATTLE [Jonah Goldberg]
From a well-placed Hill guy:
Off the record, I think what many GOPers up here are upset about is the chasm between the rhetoric and the actions of those Republican Senators who voted for “pay/go” rules. Just a few weeks ago, the same Senators who said that we needed to “pay for tax cuts” voted to waive those same budget rules for spending in order to increase spending on unemployment benefits. Do as they say not as they do I suppose.
Posted at 10:46 AM
WHY NOT "BOTH AND"? [Jonah Goldberg ]
As a matter of prudence and preference, I tend not to write about congressional budget fights, but I must say I find myself with a surprising amount of sympathy for the "wets" in the Senate. The argument among GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate is over a "pay-as-you-go" proposal which would require any new tax cuts to be accompanied with corresponding cuts in spending or increases in taxes so as to be "deficit neutral." Here's how the LA Times (reg req'd) describes the debate:
A small but powerful faction of Senate Republicans is insisting that the fiscal 2005 budget include rules that require any future tax cuts to be offset so their effect on the deficit would be neutralized; that would mean either cutting spending or raising taxes in other areas. The proposal would strike at the core of President Bush's domestic agenda if he is reelected by making it much more difficult to cut taxes.But House Republican leaders have vehemently opposed the pay-as-you-go requirement as an affront to their party's credo that, when it comes to taxes, the lower the better. They have kept the requirement out of the budget resolution passed by the House — and have openly questioned the loyalty of Republicans who disagree.
"It is a fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party: Is it a party about deficit reduction or a party about tax cuts?" said Stanley Collender, a budget expert at Financial Dynamics, a business communications firm in Washington.
Me:I suspect the Times is being more than a bit sensational. And normally I am always for cutting taxes, whenever, wherever and however we can get them. But, as I suspect most conservatives are, I am also in favor of cutting spending wherever, (almost) wherever and however I can. So while I think the logic of "pay-as-you-go" is deeply flawed and I do not embrace it, what's wrong with cutting a deal that "pays" for taxcuts with more spending cuts? I say "more spending cuts" as if there have been any spending cuts. And there haven't been. I can think of several cabinet agenices I would heave over the side in order to "pay" for tax cuts. If the only politically feasible way to get tax cuts is to agree to spending cuts, I say "Wahoo!"
Why have a silly battle to define the "heart and soul" of the GOP as either tax cuts or spending cuts? Why not define it as both tax cuts and spending cuts? You need both to be the party of limited govenment, don't you?
Posted at 10:23 AM
WILL YOU BE OUTLAWED? [KJL]
Just looking into the future, seeing the next Kyoto treaty...
Posted at 10:14 AM
MICHAEL MOORE -- AN INSPIRATION TO CAPITALISTS EVERYWHERE [John Derbyshire]
I enjoyed this item, from the "Letters" column of this morning's Wall Street Journal:
Heading: "Do as He Does, Not as He Says"
"A job is a human right? A living wage is a human right? In response to the May 19 feature "Moore of the Same," let us pay less attention to what Michael Moore utters, or displays in his films, than to how he actually has conducted his life. Here is a man who was down and out in a Michigan town that was down and out, reeling from the domestic auto industry's 1980s retrenchment. Did Michael Moore whine and mew to the government, railing that a job is a human right? Did he protest on the street, demanding a living wage?
"Indeed not. Mr. Moore got off his (ample) derriere, employed his personal energy and creativity, and founded his own film company. He made a successful documentary-style movie about the situation in Flint -- "Roger and Me" -- reaping critical praise and surprising commercial success.
"Building on this achievement, with absolutely no assistance from taxpayers, Mr. Moore expanded his operations and made additional films and TV shows. Eventually he concocted a film that garnered an Academy Award.
"Michael Moore in action is an exemplary entrepreneur and free-market capitalist, a sterling example of the American way. He independently produces a commodity that people purchase voluntarily, everyone going away happy from the trade. He operates not with funds confiscated from the citizenry, but with money generated by pleasing his customers.
"If everyone in the world would follow the principles underlying Mr. Moore's actual behavior, and completely ignore his inane nitwit clacking, our planet would run in greased grooves and prosperity would be universal.
"J. Reynolds
"Houston, Texas"
Posted at 09:57 AM
VICTORY IS OURS [Jonah Goldberg ]
E.J. Dionne delcares a "conservative crack up" today. The phrase has a fine pedigree going back years. In 1997 the Weekly Standard ran a big cover story/symposium on the possibility of a new "conservative crack-up." That same year, for almost entirely different reasons Michael Lind -- the man with his finger on the pulse of dead theories -- surmised his own "conservative crack-up."
Before that Bob Tyrell wrote "The Conservative Crack Up" which coined the phrase and in which the author claimed that conservatism started circling the drain after Robert Bork's defeat. Before that, some folks like Joseph Sobran and Sam Francis claimed conservatism swallowed hemlock with the election of Ronald Reagan.
This is not to say that things are going peachy, but whenever I hear about conservative crack-ups I tend to become more optimistic about conservatism's chances.
Posted at 09:56 AM
VACATION REPORT [John Derbyshire]
OK, getting back up to speed here after a relaxing weekend. Saturday: Reading, shopping, friends over for dinner. Sunday: Down to Jones Beach to watch the Blue Angels (US Navy fliers aerobatics team) -- sensational. Then family movie rental -- Tom Hanks in CASTAWAY -- v. good. Monday: Finished jigsaw puzzle with Nellie, put up flagpole on tree house.
Did I meet my Memorial Day target for finishing the tree house? Sure did: it's finished. The grand opening party was rained out, though. Adding up receipts, I am amazed to see I spent over $1,000 on the darn thing.
Now (sigh) I'll read the newspapers.
Posted at 09:51 AM
MARRIAGE IN NOVEMBER [Stanley Kurtz]
Do you live in Arkansas, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, or Oregon? If so, you should know that there are efforts in your states to place constitutional amendments defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman on the November ballot. I haven’t had time to study either the language of these amendments, or the political situation in these states. But Marriage Watch (well worth checking out if you want to follow this issue) has put up a website containing information on the ballot initiatives in these five states. Go there and decide for yourself whether you want to help put these measures on your state’s November ballot.
Posted at 09:50 AM
STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPID [Jonah Goldberg ]
Post-traumatic slave syndrome forces man to kill own son. Or so his lawyer claims:
HILLSBORO -- A Portland lawyer says suffering by African Americans at the hands of slave owners is to blame in the death of a 2-year-old Beaverton boy.Randall Vogt is offering the untested theory, called post traumatic slave syndrome, in his defense of Isaac Cortez Bynum, who is charged with murder by abuse in the June 30 death of his son, Ryshawn Lamar Bynum. Vogt says he will argue -- "in a general way" -- that masters beat slaves, so Bynum was justified in beating his son.
The slave theory is the work of Joy DeGruy-Leary, an assistant professor in the Portland State University Graduate School of Social Work. It is not listed by psychiatrists or the courts as an accepted disorder, and some experts said they had never heard of it.
DeGruy-Leary testified this month in Washington County Circuit Court that African Americans today are affected by past centuries of U.S. slavery because the original slaves were never treated for the trauma of losing their homes; seeing relatives whipped, raped and killed; and being subjugated by whites.
Posted at 09:22 AM
HILL EROSION [John J. Miller]
Republican Larry Diedrich expects to lose today's special House election in South Dakota, against Democrat Stephanie Herseth, says The Hill.
Posted at 09:08 AM
IN MEMORIUM [John J. Miller]
There's something appropriate about the woman said to be the last living Confederate widow dying on Memorial Day. Read Alberta Martin's strange story here. At the age of 21, she wed an 81-year-old veteran; they were married four years before he died. They had one child. Then Martin married her dead husband's grandson. She was still receiving money from Alabama's Confederate Widows Pension Fun. She'll be buried on June 12, next to her husband (the first one, I presume).
Posted at 09:05 AM
FREEDOM FIGHTERS VS. AMERICANS [Tim Graham]
From his perch as the Washington Post's "Magazine Reader," Peter Carlson is once again busier promoting liberalism than reviewing magazines. You can tell the tone of today's article by the headline: "Embedded with the Resistance: Iraqi 'Terrorists' Tell Their Story in Harper's." The Post has no use for the word "enemy" and like to put "terrorist" in quotes. We learn that young Mohammed is inspired by Mel Gibson's "Braveheart" in that "The people in the movie want freedom and so do we." Yeah, Americans hate freedom, Mohammed. Give me a break. You can see the Harper's take on whose side is more objectionable on the reproduction of the Harper's cover. The Mohammed article is titled "Beyond Fallujah: A Year with the Iraqi Resistance." Underneath that is the headline "Ignoble Liars: Leo Strauss, George Bush, and the Philosophy of Mass Deception." Puffing up the fanatics attacking our soldiers in Iraq as "freedom fighters" is a pretty good example of mass deception...
Posted at 08:44 AM
NO MCRI [John J. Miller]
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative has been cancelled, at least for this year. "Because of internal disorganization, internal discord, legal decisions, and [campaign founder] Ward Connerly's health problems, there was some rough sledding for a while," said state rep Leon Drolet, in the Detroit Free Press. Supporters say they'll try to get on the ballot in 2006. I hope they do--but failing to make it this year is a big setback, given the momentum they should have had following the Supreme Court's lousy decisions in the University of Michigan race-preference cases. Unfortunately, a lot of Michigan Republicans are probably patting themselves on the back for helping quash the initiative--you know, for making sure a "divisive" measure didn't reach the ballot, because race preferences "bring us together" or somesuch nonsense. (See my article here on GOP opposition to MCRI.) As it happens, polls have indicated that voters probably would have approved MCRI. Michigan conservatives should bear this in mind and extract promises from gubernatorial candidates that they'll support MCRI in 2006.
Posted at 08:20 AM
KERRY'S "OTHER WOMAN," HALLIBURTON & MORE [KJL]
Go to the Kerry Spot.
Posted at 08:15 AM
KERRY STAFF LIES TO REPORTERS? [Tim Graham]
Washington Times reporter Donald Lambro notes today that certain hard-core Deaniacs are steering clear of Kerry in pursuit of a real white-flag-waver. "We met with him and his staff last week and noticed afterwards that his staff said that Iraq was not discussed, when of course it was," Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said. "What I make of that is that he is very insecure about the issue because he wants the peace vote and the war vote."
Posted at 07:34 AM
IRAQ GETS AN INTERIM PRESIDENT [KJL]
Yawer named. Joins Allawi, named prime minister last week.
Posted at 07:06 AM
Monday, May 31, 2004
YOU GOTTA READ PHIL MUSHNICK! [Jack Fowler]
I don't read the Times (ever!), but I do read the New York Post every day, not merely because it is super entertaining, but because it's home to one of America's best columnists (aside from Rich Lowry!) - Phil Mushnick. His beat is sports and the media, and he is a dead-on, sharp-eyed, pull-no-punches social critic. He also writes a column in the Post's weekly TV supplement, and his piece yesterday on the harsh reaction to Bill Cosby's speech criticizing black values is a must-read, especially for Mushnick's take on Black Entertainment TV channel - he calls BET "likely the most racist, federally licensed enterprise in the United States," knocks it for "targeting a black audience that it plays for fools and worse," and finds it "woefully incongruous that black social activists have so quietly indulged BET, yet Bill Cosby takes heat for telling important truths." You go Phil!
Posted at 09:16 PM
RE: IKE [KJL]
John J., I had the same reaction to the end scene. Will be curious if a segment of our readers will have a different one.
Posted at 04:40 PM
ARCHIBALD COX AND ROE [Jack Fowler]
Watergate aside, there's always been more than a bit of admiration for the late Archibald Cox from pro-lifers, as he was one of the few left-of-center legal scholars who publicly trashed the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v Wade decision for concocting a bogus "right" to abortion on demand. In is 1976 book, The Role of the Supreme Court, Cox wrote that the Roe ruling (authored by Nixon appointee Harry Blackmun) "fails even to consider what I would suppose to be the most important compelling interest of the State in prohibiting abortion: the interest in maintaining that respect for the paramount sanctity of human life which has always been at the centre of Western civilization, not merely by guarding life itself, however defined, but by safeguarding the penumbra, whether at the beginning, through some overwhelming disability of mind or body, or at death." Later in the book, Cox wrote: "The failure to confront the issue in principled terms leaves the opinion to read like a set of hospital rules and regulations, whose validity is good enough this week but will be destroyed with new statistics upon the medical risks of child-birth and abortion or new advances in providing for the separate existence of a foetus. . . . Neither historian, nor layman, nor lawyer will be persuaded that all the prescriptions of Justice Blackmun are part of the Constitution." True then, and truer still now. R.I.P.
Posted at 04:30 PM
SHALES ON IKE [John J. Miller]
K Lo: You're right about Shales being in the critical minority. On Friday, when I was reviewing the reviews of Ike, I discovered that just about everybody enjoyed the movie--and even those who didn't thought Selleck played the title role well. My own take, contra Shales, is that cast is exceptionally good; in addition to Selleck, the characters of Gen. Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle are very well done. I'm not completely uncritical: The first scene, an extended discussion between Ike and Churchill, felt stilted. Also, the final scene felt anti-climactic; I would have had Selleck describing the results of D-Day over pictures of GIs hitting the beaches. But these are very small complaints. I found the film relentlessly interesting and recommend it highly to fans of WW2 movies. Tonight on A&E at 8 pm, repeating at 10 pm.
Posted at 03:34 PM
I LIKE IKE [KJL]
Watched Lionel Chetwynd's Ike, starring Tom Selleck last week in preview. I recommend it (it airs tonight on A&E); don't let Tom Shales discourage you (do note, as John Miller does in his interview with Selleck, the Post view is not universal).
Posted at 03:05 PM
ANIMALS! [Andrew Stuttaford]
It’s not only apes that are fond of the bottle. Thanks to the readers that highlighted this outrage:
”FOUR wild elephants who ran amok after getting drunk on rice beer were electrocuted in India's northeastern state of Meghalaya when they brought down power lines, an official said Tuesday. The herd went on the rampage on Sunday night after storming into villages and drinking from open casks of beer in a remote area in Meghalaya's West Garo Hills district. "The elephants after getting high on rice beer, went berserk and started dashing against an electric pole," the forest official said.”
Something must be done.
Posted at 01:33 PM
DESECRATION [Andrew Stuttaford]
Desecrating the dead was, we were told, not Islamic. Here’s al Qaeda’s response.
Posted at 01:31 PM
BLOG WATCHING [Jonah Goldberg ]
Dan Drezner's blog survey is up. the Corner does okay. But I suspect Drezner will be inundated with methodological objections. Still, it's interesting stuff.
Posted at 01:29 PM
SUPERSIZE THIS [Andrew Stuttaford]
Blogger Radley Balko has more on Morgan Spurlock, creator of Super Size Me.
Posted at 01:19 PM
TED TURNER [Andrew Stuttaford]
Maddening guy, I know, but then there’s Turner Classic Movies, probably the best channel on TV. As I write this, it’s showing Battle of Britain, and on Friday I sat transfixed by an orgy of noir: Phantom Lady, Crime by Night and Kid Glove Killer, all terrific and, none of the last three, alas, on DVD.
So, thanks Ted…
Posted at 12:33 PM
JUNILISTAN [Andrew Stuttaford]
Here’s news from the Guardian of encouraging developments in Sweden, the formation of a euroskeptic 'party' to fight the upcoming European elections in Sweden. Now, generally speaking, Swedish opposition to further european integration tends to come from the left, not the right (and I suspect that’s the case here), but what is striking about this development is the way that it is a response to the failure of any mainstream party in Sweden to reflect popular concern over the ever more overbearing directorate in Brussels. This isn't only the case in Sweden, so if Junilistan does well, a helpful precedent could be set.
Are any Swedes out there checking into the Corner (well, I know there’s at least one – Swedish Journalist Guy)? If so, a vote for Junilistan looks like a pretty good idea to me.
Posted at 12:28 PM
'PRINCE' NAYEF [Andrew Stuttaford]
Here's a good piece in the Guardian on the security failures in ‘Saudi’ Arabia. The writer goes on to note that in any “sensibly-run” country there would be considerable public debate over the future of ‘Prince’ Nayef, the regime’s interior minister. ‘Saudi’ Arabia, however, is not a sensibly-run country:
”Prince Nayef has run the interior ministry for almost 30 years, on supposedly Islamic principles which include extracting confessions through torture and executing people for numerous offences other than murder - such as witchcraft, adultery, sodomy, highway robbery, sabotage, apostasy (renunciation of Islam) and "corruption on earth". One of the results of this, as the kingdom's ambassador to Britain noted in a TV interview yesterday, is that Saudi Arabia has very little "normal" crime. Well, it is reassuring to know that your wallet is safe, even if there is a chance of being randomly shot dead when you stop at the next traffic lights.
”Although it is always best to take what politicians say with a pinch of salt, Prince Nayef is notorious for making statements that are either silly or unreliable. He initially claimed that Saudi militants were not involved in the September 11 attacks on the United States, blaming the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and/or Zionists instead. He also tends to say one thing to Saudis and the opposite to foreigners. Announcements from his ministry regarding arrests often turn out to be wrong or contradictory.
”The problem is not just the way Prince Nayef runs his ministry. As much as anyone in the kingdom, he is responsible for creating and perpetuating a climate in which Islamic militancy can flourish, for suppressing liberal voices that could play a vital role in challenging extremism. He is also in charge of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice (the dreaded religious police) which, in the midst of the most serious security challenge the kingdom has ever faced, spends its time monitoring the length of people's sleeves and the hairstyles of Saudi youths. By any standards, it is time for him to go. “
Indeed it is.
Posted at 11:43 AM
THE KERRY SPOT [KJL]
is at work today. Read here and bookmark.
Posted at 11:41 AM
WASHINGTON POST VS. CHRIS MATTHEWS [Tim Graham]
In Sunday’s Washington Post, obituary writer Bart Barnes gets a rare shot at the front page to celebrate the life of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, perhaps to recycle the newspaper’s usual self-serving historical take on the villainy of Watergate. Read once again how the heroes who brought Richard Nixon down were not to be questioned for their ideological motivations, unless you wanted to be known as paranoid. Barnes offered a wistful rerun of the so-called “Saturday Night Massacre,” when the special prosecutor was fired and liberals were wildly talking about “coup d’etat.” From a pro-Cox biography, Barnes quotes Elliott Richardson – who resigned rather than fire Cox – declaring that “Nixon’s most damaging misjudgment was his underestimation of Cox’s ability to communicate the strength of his integrity.” Well, it’s a lot easier to communicate your integrity when the media love you and boost you.
But it you have a copy of the Chris Matthews book “Kennedy and Nixon” (to be precise, pages 326-328), you get a different picture, one that makes you wonder how many barns of hay a Republican James Carville type could have made out of this partisan prosecutor: a Muskie candidate for delegate to the 1972 Democratic convention. A solicitor general under JFK. A chief of speechwriting for Kennedy’s presidential campaign. After describing the stunned reaction of Nixon aides and their gallows humor, Matthews added:
“Cox’s swearing-in ceremony was no laughing matter. Among the invited guests were Ethel Kennedy, widow of the man the new prosecutor had once served, and Ted Kennedy...As Cox filled his staff with veterans of Bob Kennedy’s Justice Department and of his 1968 presidential candidacy, the worst fears were confirmed. Of the eleven senior counsels Cox hired, seven had been associated with either Jack, Bobby, or Teddy. The Watergate prosecution was going to be a Kennedy operation.”
Even Cox himself thought the press (including the Post) was buttering up his side of the Watergate divide. In Victor Lasky’s “It Didn’t Start with Watergate” (page 355), we learn Cox said: “Indeed, they’ve treated me much better than I deserve.”
Posted at 11:36 AM
OVERLAWYERED V RAMESH [Jonah Goldberg ]
More on Virginia's gay law.
Posted at 11:31 AM
THAT PEW POLL [Tim Graham]
In U.S. News, John Leo analyzes the latest poll showing liberals dominate the "objective" press corps.
Posted at 11:30 AM
RUSH IN TIME [Tim Graham]
Time's Ten Questions interview with Rush Limbaugh is here. I'm sure Rush will be fairly pleased with how he was edited here. But I'd still take issue with the idea that it's "controversial" that reporters were rooting for Donovan McNabb. That's about as obvious as stating that reporters are rooting for John Kerry.
Posted at 11:29 AM
MEMORIAL DAY [KJL]
As I'm sure you already guessed, we won't be posting new articles to NRO today, back up as usual tomorrow. Our gratitude to all those who gave their lives to defend our nation...to all those who have served, are serving, and their families. We are in your debt.
Posted at 11:26 AM
MEMORIAL DAY [Andrew Stuttaford]
Rich Relations by David Reynolds, a book about the US presence in Britain during World War 2 includes this reminiscence from Bob Sheehan, an American lieutenant on his way to his embarkation point in England for the Normandy landings. His convoy has stopped before a row of houses:
“Here a group of men, women and children all stood watching the never-ending columns of tanks and trucks…they waved now and then, but truth to tell, they were waved out. Overcome by the awesome sight of this enormous cavalcade, they just stood still. We somehow became aware of their anxiety and feeling for us. It was as if we had assumed the object of all their hopes and fears for the coming struggle.
”Then from the house to our left emerged a mother-figure with bowls of strawberries and cream. She handed them to me and gave a gulpy kiss to my forehead. “Good luck,” she said. “Come back safe.”
”The rest of the onlookers were then galvanized into action. Figures hurried down to waiting vehicles and the crews were invited to come in for a hurried wash and, in some cases, shave. Yet others brought out tea and lemonade. There was a kind of togetherness that I had never seen before. A sharing of spirit. It was no longer them and us. We were family and danger was afoot.”
It still is, and we still are.
On September, 14th, 2001 I found myself in Union Square, New York City. The square had been turned into a makeshift memorial park, filled with candles, banners, posters and, everywhere, those terrible, tragic fliers each asking for some information, anything on those, some still prayed, even then, three days after mass murder, were simply the ‘missing’. Towards the southern end of the square, there was a large Union Jack, surrounded too by candles. Across the flag someone had written this:
”Just like D-Day. America & Britain stand together. Brothers-in-arms to rid the world of evil. God bless America.”
We were family and danger was afoot.
Posted at 11:23 AM
CONSERVATIVE SEX [Jonah Goldberg ]
Posted at 10:44 AM
WHERE'S GEORGE? [John J. Miller]
President Bush found time to campaign for Arlen Specter in a GOP primary last month. So why hasn't he gone to South Dakota to help Larry Diedrich, the Republican candidate in tomorrow's special election for the state's single seat in the House of Representatives? Democrat Stephanie Herseth is said to be leading in the polls, but South Dakota is Bush country--the president might rally the base and push Diedrich to victory. (The special election is to replace Bill Janklow, the Republican who just went to prison for vehicular manslaughter.) If Herseth prevails, it would mark the second time in a row Democrats have triumphed in one of these House special elections--something that Republicans had been very good at doing in the 1990s. That's a disturbing trend. A Herseth win also would bode poorly for John Thune's challenge to Tom Daschle--polls show a close race, with Daschle consistently under 50-percent and Thune just a couple of points behind. Most important, however, is the fact that South Dakota's House seat is an incubator for greater things because it's bascially a statewide election. Successful candidates are well positioned to run for the Senate or governor later on. So if someday we're scratching our heads and wondering why South Dakota keeps sending Sen. Herseth back to Washington, at least we should know how it got started.
Posted at 07:06 AM
Sunday, May 30, 2004
SUDAN [Andrew Stuttaford]
I wonder how this story is being covered in the Arab press, so conscious now of human rights in the wake of Abu Ghraib.
Posted at 04:27 PM
JUNK POLITICS [Andrew Stuttaford]
The war against the ‘obesity’ epidemic continues in all its absurdity over in the UK. The Daily Telegraph has some wise words on the topic. Unlike in the UK, calorie consumption in the US has increased, but the more general observations certainly apply to the debate over here:
”That many Britons could do with losing weight is obvious to anyone who spends five minutes on a High Street. Nevertheless, it is wrong for the Government to target food manufacturers. If our food is high in sugar and saturated fat, it is only because the food industry is doing what the Government - with our money - pays it to do. Under the Common Agricultural Policy, farmers are paid generous subsidies to produce milk, butter and sugar beet. Fruit and vegetable farmers, by contrast, receive nothing. The British taxpayer is paying twice over: once to grow fattening food and again to be told not to eat it.
”The tone of the select committee's report wrongly suggests that fatness is a particular ailment of modern Britain…In fact, Britons are eating less than they used to. According to a study by the Royal College of General Practitioners, the food intake of the average Briton has declined by 750 calories a day over the past 30 years. The reason we are getting fatter is that we are doing less manual work and taking less exercise: we are burning off 800 fewer calories a day than we were in the early 1970s. For the decline in physical activity, especially among children, the Government has to take some of the blame. It has continued to allow school playing fields to be sold to developers and has introduced health and safety legislation which makes it more difficult for outdoor adventure courses to operate.
”To accuse the food industry of promoting child obesity is to distract attention from these issues. But there is also a cultural reason why the manufacturers of crisps, chocolate bars and fizzy drinks get blamed for promoting obesity: they represent everything which the Left dislikes about globalisation. The main difference between the British diet now and that of 30 years ago is not that we eat more sugar and fat, as a visit to an old-fashioned greasy spoon will remind anyone; it is that we eat more branded foods. Wotsits are damned not just because, when eaten in excess, they make people fat but because they are produced by a multinational company and are marketed around the world in standardised form.
”While the availability of many forms of junk food has certainly increased over the past generation, so too have the opportunities to eat well. Whereas the greengrocer of 30 years ago offered a limited range of yellowing cauliflower and frozen peas, today's supermarket brims with fresh fruit and vegetables from all over the world. Thanks to the globalised food industry, it is possible now to buy leaner meat than 30 years ago, to buy olive oil as well as butter, skimmed milk as well as full cream. Moreover, food manufacturers now offer hugely detailed nutritional information, including calorie counts, on their packets: something which they never used to do.
”Clearly, not all Britons are making wise decisions about what they eat, but to lay the charge of promoting obesity at the door of the food industry is the easy way out. Those who get fat have themselves to blame above anyone else.”
Posted at 04:22 PM
SPREADING THE POISON [Andrew Stuttaford]
Interesting story in the Sunday Telegraph on the curriculum of the Saudi-funded ‘King’ Fahd Academy in London.
“Former teachers and parents have come forward to criticise the academy's religious teachings for instilling "hostility to the outsider". They also claim that there is discrimination against female pupils. The school was opened 19 years ago for the offspring of Saudi diplomats in London. Since then, many children of British Muslims have joined the school. In 2002, only 37 per cent of the 738 pupils were of Saudi origin.”
The school’s pupils included the children of the extremist Muslim ‘cleric’ now facing extradition to the US on terrorism charges. Clearly he was happy with the syllabus.
”Originally the British and the Saudi curricula were taught side by side. Five years ago, however, the Saudi Arabian government ordered the school to phase out British lessons and to teach Saudi-style classes. The school is segregated and younger boys and girls are now taught different courses, to comply with Saudi education policy, which states that a girl's education should "enable her to be a successful housewife, an exemplary wife and a good mother" or prepare her for work which is "suitable to her disposition as a woman". Girls at the academy do barely any physical education and the only type of technology they will learn is "home technology".
“Dr Mai Yamani, a research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had two daughters at the school, but removed them when she became uncomfortable about the education they were receiving…"The books they taught the girls from kept going on about idolatry and sin and how to avoid it. It was about the fires of hell, torture in the grave and how to make sure that your ways are not those of the infidel.
”A senior teacher at the school, who asked not to be named, admitted, however, that girls did not receive the full curriculum. "Girls will not have as much PE and they will be taught home technology, rather than any other type of technology. "The Saudi-type teaching is more didactic, with a lot of rote learning and factual stuff."
“Factual stuff.” Really?
All schools in the UK are subject to inspection. The Sunday Telegraph report includes comments from a spokesman for the Department of Education that, "It is anticipated that King Fahd will next be inspected in 2006. Of course, if we are made aware of concerns about any independent school we would consider bringing forward an inspection."
Well, they’ve got the concerns now. They should inspect the school and, in all probability, close it down.
Posted at 04:21 PM
THE POWER OF PRAYER? [Andrew Stuttaford]
Perhaps not. At least not in this case.
Posted at 04:13 PM
APEING OUR SINS [Andrew Stuttaford]
Does the Guardian (the Observer is its sister paper) ever do any research? I’m as much in favor as anyone in preserving the Great Apes (the very real prospect of their extinction in the wild is horrifying), but the row in Britain over the use of chimps in ads to discourage overdoing it in the pub is absurd. Mind you, that’s not going to stop the left chipping in with a few dumb comments of its own.
So here’s the Observer:
“In reality, humans are the only species on the planet that regularly goes on booze-fuelled binges, trashes bars and falls over. For apes, indulgence is a leaf filled with termites, a bed made of ferns and twigs, and a good scratch.”
Well no, actually. I don’t know if apes have any bars as such (I suspect not, although there is this), but they certainly enjoy a ‘drink’. It’s well documented that chimps will eat rotting fruit to get the high from their fermenting juices. And then, there’s this terrifying story from, ahem, Modern Drunkard magazine:
”UGANDA—Beer-emboldened chimpanzees in western Uganda are randomly attacking humans encroaching on their territory. After mounting successful raids on illegal brewing operations in forested river valleys and getting drunk on the country beer, the boozy chimps are increasingly attacking and sometimes killing local villagers, especially children, parks officials say. The report added that when the raiding chimps are chased they get frightened and counterattack — especially if they’ve been drinking. “When chimps come across the local brew, they drink it, become drunk and in that state any encounter with people means an attack,” says a Uganda Wildlife Authority report.”
The fact of the matter is that, with the exception of the peaceable (and unsuccessful) Bonobo, chimps, like humans, are a very rough crowd indeed. To try and turn them into noble savages proves nothing other than the self-loathing that inspires so many of the animal rights crowd.
Posted at 04:10 PM
FORGETTING D-DAY [Andrew Stuttaford]
A civilization that forgets its history has little to look forward to. It’s a familiar refrain, but the way in which history is taught in too many schools these days is a tragedy, not least in that it deprives so many children not only of their past, but of so many wonderful stories and, yes, some pretty useful lessons. Given that, it’s depressing to read that, sixty years after D-Day, disturbingly large numbers of British children have little idea of what happened on June 6th, 1944.
One interesting footnote to this story is the child who scored 100 percent on a recent D-Day test did so thanks to having played a computer game. That’s worth noting by all those who spend so much time decrying the intrusion of modern technology into childhood.
Posted at 01:14 PM
THE CHEAT [Andrew Stuttaford]
One of the reasons that the EU has so little credibility with its ‘citizens’ is the manner in which those who run it make clear that they have so little respect for their own rules. Whether, to take some recent examples, it’s members of the European Parliament fiddling their expenses, whether it’s the corruption within the Commission, or whether it’s the way in which France and Germany have (quite rightly, incidentally) decided to ignore the rules of the Growth and Stability Pact that underpins the Euro, the message is clear. This is a ‘union’ run solely by and for the continent’s political elite.
There’s no better example of this than Romano Prodi, the EU’s shrill, sleazy and incompetent ‘president’. Under the provisions of the EU Treaty its commissioners (the union’s top officials) are required to “refrain from any action incompatible with their duties”, yet despite this Prodi has been actively campaigning in Italy against Berlusconi ahead of the forthcoming European elections. Now, it is true that there is a ‘code of conduct’ that allows commissioners to participate in national politics, but what Prodi (the president, remember, not just an ‘ordinary’ commissioner) is doing goes far beyond what was envisaged by this.
Writing for UPI (link not available), Gareth Harding notes that for Prodi “to be actively engaged in national party politics while earning $200,000 a year to represent all Europe with impartiality smacks of double standards.” Indeed it does, but Prodi shows no sign of doing the decent thing, and resigning. Of course he doesn’t. For Prodi, rules are to be bent and to be fudged.
Under these circumstances it’s no surprise to see that this incorrigibly dishonest figure is now trying to arrange an end-run around the fact that a number of EU countries are inconveniently insisting on holding referenda on the EU ‘Constitution’. On paper, one no vote is enough to sink this awful document, and that’s how it should be in a union of sovereign states. Prodi now wants to stage a single pan-EU referendum instead (this would be unconstitutional in Germany, but never mind), designed to create the political momentum to override the awkward national veto he had previously agreed to. In other words, the guy cannot stop trying to cheat.
Prodi is a disgrace to Europe and a disgrace to Italy. He shouldn’t resign. He should be fired.
Posted at 12:36 PM
SADDAM'S PISTOL IS AT 1600 PENN. AVE. [KJL]
Posted at 11:03 AM
NANCY PELOSI [KJL]
Was she actually crying on Meet the Press this morning?
Posted at 10:50 AM
ON THE RADIO [KJL]
Andy McCarthy will be chatting with Steve Malsberg on WABC (NYC) radio at 11am EST.
Posted at 10:48 AM
KSA HOSTAGE SITUATION OVER [KJL]
Posted at 10:07 AM
I WAS WRONG [Jonah Goldberg]
Moore didn't lie about having Berg footage.
Posted at 08:52 AM