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THEODORE DALRYMPLE ON THE WAY WE LIVE NOW [John Derbyshire]
If there were a Nobel Prize for common sense, I would nominate Theodore
Dalrymple. See this interview with him in the Australian magazine Policy.
Posted 6:49 PM | [Link]
MARMITE: A DISCLAIMER [Andrew Stuttaford]
In view of the recent food litigation I thought that it might be wise to disclose that Marmite's ingredients are listed as "Yeast Extract, Salt, Vegetable Extract, Niacin, Thiamin, Spice Extracts, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Celery Extract [and] Vitamin B12". I have absolutely no idea what these items could do to someone who consumes them (although one unfortunate reader has complained about a "lingering unpleasant taste"). Eat Marmite at your own risk. I accept no responsibility.
Posted 4:12 PM | [Link]
THOUGHT FOR FOOD [Andrew Stuttaford]
Laughable though the fat suit is, a glance at this report from ABC shows that this issue is not going away anytime soon. Most revealing is the way in which the government's "nutrition education spending" (tiny) is contrasted with the food industry's advertising budget (massive). The assumption, of course, is that these are the only sources of information on what we should be eating, something which, as a quick visit to any bookstore will quickly demonstrate, is quite obviously nonsense. There is absolutely no need for Uncle Sam (let alone the trial lawyers) to get involved in this matter. Americans wanting advice on healthy food have innumerable places to turn.
Hell, they can even have a word with Rod Dreher.
Posted 4:01 PM | [Link]
SELF-RESPECT TO GO [Andrew Stuttaford]
One of the more repulsive aspects of the fast food lawsuit is the degree of self-abasement it implies on the part of the plaintiff. The case is a proclamation of stupidity and a confession of weak will. Effectively, the courts are being asked to believe either that the plaintiff did not understand the risks of eating too much or that his willpower had been turned to mush by Ronald McDonald.
Oh yes, I suppose that it could also have been a 'combo' of both. Supersized, doubtless.
Posted 3:18 PM | [Link]
BURGER HELL [Andrew Stuttaford]
I'd been wanting to say something insensitive about that grotesque lawsuit against four fast food chains, but blogger Cold Fury got there first.
Posted 2:42 PM | [Link]
NOT SO ILLOGICAL [Andrew Stuttaford]
Jonah, you've got a point there which means, I guess, that I have pointed ears. The rot, though, had clearly set in by the Picard era.
Posted 2:14 PM | [Link]
NOT EVERYONE IN BLUE AMERICA IS AT COCKTAIL PARTIES [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I saw a bunch of firemen watching the Yankee game and listening to a couple of young guys play country and oldies at the always-lively bar at the 42nd-street bus terminal in NYC the other night. They were mixed in with the middle-class white-collar types just waiting out the hour between the bus they just missed and the next one that would take them to their families in the 'burban cape cod with the barbecue they couldn't wait to use after playing catch with the kids on Saturday. Waiting on a bus line the other night, one elderly man told some really bad but sweet jokes to a Brit. guy he asked a question of (does this bus go to ___?). The elderly man's wife looked on in embarrassment (she has clearly seen her husband do this before). A young very-pregnant woman saw this and took a break from reading the latest Robert Ludlum paperback to make the wife more comfortable. Soon half the bus line--of what would otherwise be unhappy, overworked, underpaid New Yorkers waiting for a 30-minutes late bus, were joking around with this old guy (who turned out to be a vet). There may not be as many stars in the sky 20 miles outside the Big Apple as in La., but it works for a lot of good, hard-working, patriotic Americans. Not too far from where I am in the burbs, a group of guys in uniform were just welcomed back with fanfare from their stint in Afghanistan. Go down to the Irish bar down the road, and you ain't gonna find any Bush bashing. A lot of blue American has a lot more in common with da folks in La. then your reddies might think, Rod.
Posted 11:18 AM | [Link]
SOME STANDARD [James S. Robbins]
From an AP report from today's Washington Post: The caller identified himself as the spokesman or interpreter for Osama bin Laden, the head of an international terror organization believed responsible for the Sept. 11 bombings in New York and Washington and other attacks.
Believed responsible? Imagine if AP brought this standard to the sports page:
"The Orioles have allegedly defeated the Red Sox 9-2 in a game said to have been played last night. Tony Batista is believed responsible for a home run in the seventh inning."
Posted 10:53 AM | [Link]
HAIL THE UFP [Jonah Goldberg]
Andrew - Going by the original Trek and the original Trek alone, I absolutely like the UFP. It is actually the perfect model for how the UN should work. America -- read the humans -- are the moral spine of the Federation. They provide the ethos and the manpower and organize the international -- or galactic -- order. The Enterprise, run by humans, was the flagship of the UFP fleet. Sure, the Vulcans -- read the British -- chime in every now and then about their superior intellect etc., but that's okay because we're on the same team and in some cases the Vulcans are superior. What's not to like?
Posted 9:15 AM | [Link]
A GOOD NIGHT IN RED AMERICA: [Rod Dreher] We're down in rural south Louisiana visiting my family. About an hour ago, my wife, son and I came back from a barbecue at my sister's place across the way. My brother-in-law, a Baton Rouge fireman, invited some of his National Guard buddies and their wives over. What a great bunch of guys. You hear things you just don't hear at a New York cocktail party: "You want to aim this thing? I've got a fine Israeli Army surplus scope to go on it" ... "In Natchitoches Parish, you go in somebody's house and see five guns on the wall, you know they've got 15 of 'em under the bed" ... "He said to me, 'Well, I figure a man can stand damn near anything if he's got a chew of tobacco in his mouth" ... "My dog's named Merle, after Merle Haggard" ... "One of these days, the Republicans have got to grow some b-lls" ... "My dad quit preaching fulltime to take a job with the Southern Baptist Convention. Mama's cancer f**ked him up pretty bad, so I'm grateful that God led him to where he is now." We sat around the carport drinking ice-cold longnecks, listening to a talented guy named Adam play his guitar and sing country music. Willie, Waylon, Johnny Cash, David Allan Coe, et alia. Man, it was the most fun we've had in ages. Adam was wearing an NYPD cap, and I asked him how come a guy from the deep South wears a thing like that (this region not being known for looking kindly upon New York and all its pomps and works). He looked me square in the eye and said, "Patriotism." We could have stayed all night, but it got to be way past our three-year-old's bedtime, so we said goodbye and walked back across the field to my mom and dad's place. On the way, our sleepy little boy, his head on his daddy's shoulder, looked up and, seeing things he can't see in the night sky over his hometown, said, "Look, the stars are following us!" Yep, as a matter of fact, they are.
Posted 1:31 AM | [Link]
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GOOD NEWS FOR PLUTO: [John J. Miller]
The Senate has decided to fund a mission to Pluto--now the House must do the same. Here's the Planetary Society's update, and here's what Space.com says.
Posted 8:26 PM | [Link]
U TREK [Andrew Stuttaford]
Good heavens, Jonah, you like the idea of the United Federation of Planets?
Posted 7:20 PM | [Link]
MOUSSAOUI MAY BE "INNOCENT" CONT'D [Jonah Goldberg]
A number of readers have made the point that Moussaoui didn't need to know the details of 9/11 to still be guilty and eligible for the death penalty. Here's a succinct explanation:
By law a conspirator who enters a conspiracy is charged with culpability for all the acts that flow from that whether he knows of them before hand or not. Moreover, under felony-murder principles and law if you enter a deal to rob a liquor store and your partner kills the clerk you are on the hook for murder. Moussoui did not have to participate or agree to blow up the world trade center. The fact that he agreed to enter a conspiracy to hijack the planes or injure the U.S. would be enough for the death penalty given the actions of his co-conspirators.
Posted 6:55 PM | [Link]
THE D-MAN'S RIGHT [Jonah Goldberg]
Dave, you're right. I hadn't thought about whether or not the rule holds in all historical periods. The UN once showed promise in a United Federation of Planets sort of way (hey, it's the weekend). But I'd be curious if you could cite someone today who loves the UN and America with equal passion.
Posted 6:45 PM | [Link]
REPELLENT? [Andrew Stuttaford]
The folks over at Arab News seem strangely unimpressed by James Taranto's commentary on the Wall Street Journal's 'Best of the Web'. Amongst Mr. Taranto's
supposed offenses is a tendency to describe John Pilger (a repellent London-based journalist) as, er, "repellent". Of course, being repellent doesn't always make someone wrong. To take one example, in a piece dated May 27, 2002, Pilger refers to the "appalling human rights record" of Saudi Arabia, a country he describes as "the spiritual home of Al-Qaeda" run by "the most extreme Islamic regime on earth". I don't agree with much of what Mr. Pilger has to say, but that description of the Saudis' gargoyle tyranny seems spot on.
I wonder what they think of it at Arab News.
Posted 6:21 PM | [Link]
WHAT SHE SAID: [Rod Dreher] The best thing I've seen written so far about this depressing national review panel selected by the Catholic bishops comes, unsurprisingly, from Amy Welborn. Scroll down a bit on her blog to read it.
Posted 5:35 PM | [Link]
A FEW EXCEPTIONS TO THE G-MAN'S RULE [Dave Kopel]
According to Goldberg's General Rule on Patriotism, "The more negative your view of America, the more positive your view of the United Nations." But there are some extremely exceptions to that rule: Eleanor Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and most other post-WWII Northern Democrats. They were all deeply patriotic Americans, even as they entertained doomed hopes for the U.N.'s role in building a peaceful world.
Posted 5:05 PM | [Link]
SAUDI PEACE PLAN? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Posted 4:51 PM | [Link]
ISLAMIC GAMES [John Derbyshire]
Fun & games for the kiddies (scroll down & check out the last one).
Posted 4:36 PM | [Link]
CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED [Mike Potemra]
But doesn’t that amount to an aristocracy? That depends on the character of the people. As our friend Ramesh Ponnuru pointed out in a recent NR article, the judges are-if they transgress to an intolerable degree--removable by the public. Here’s a thought-experiment: What would happen if terrorists put LSD in the Supreme Court’s water supply, and the Court started doing things like, say, striking down the law of gravity? The President and the leaders of Congress would agree to emergency fast-track impeachments of the current Justices, and work on appointing new ones. The Court would be transformed 100 percent virtually overnight--and that would be perfectly constitutional. So why has this never happened? Because the people have, for better or worse, believed that the judges are doing okay in general, and it’s better to leave them. There is a limit to how far away from public opinion the judges can go, and that limit is, finally, set by the people, not by the judges themselves.
Posted 4:21 PM | [Link]
BUT ISN’T LAW ABOUT PEOPLE? [Mike Potemra]
Some will ask. Isn’t it bad for law to be considered in terms of bloodless abstractions, when it affects people-and even (argument-clincher ahead) “the children”? My answer to this is that when the Founders decided to create a mixed, republican form of government-as opposed to a pure plebiscitary democracy-they did so for good reasons. They knew that public passions, left unchecked, can do a great deal of harm; so they created a system in which some institutions that are only indirectly accountable to the people have a role in shaping the law.
Posted 4:20 PM | [Link]
SCALIA IS RIGHT [Mike Potemra] ...on the question of whether the Supreme Court should be televised, according to a terrific piece by Jeffrey Rosen in The New Republic (unfortunately, not online). Rosen writes: “Since the television audience has a short attention span, Scalia argues, melodramatic snippets of oral arguments will be played on the evening news, reducing the legal issues in each case to banal human dramas and giving a misleading impression of the stakes in each case.” Rosen’s article is, in part, a review of a couple of recent network TV dramas about the court, and he concludes that “network television has just proven [Scalia] right.”
Posted 4:20 PM | [Link]
NO, NO...ABSOLUTELY [Jonah Goldberg]
I'm sure a cat could do this too.
Posted 4:17 PM | [Link]
IS IT ME? [Jonah Goldberg]
Or does this sound awfully convenient?
From today's Hotline:
Detroit News' Brand-Williams reports that Rep. David Bonior's (D) "campaign office was discovered vandalized with a racial slur Thursday" 7/25, "hours after he said he supports reparations to African Americans for their ancestors' slavery." Bonior: "My family and staff are very angry over this deplorable act. It's not going to stop us from believing what we believe." "The spray painted message" was "scrawled on the door of Bonior's campaign office" with an American Nazi Party flier and "indicated the writer favored" AG Jennifer Granholm (D) for gov. Granholm "was outraged" and "called Bonior to offer her sentiments." Granholm: "I became furious. The support of the American Nazi Party is something I certainly have not sought" (7/26).
It's probably completely legit and above-board, but suffice it to say there's nothing like being attacked by Nazis to make you look good among Democratic primary voters. But hey, I'm a deeply cynical person.
Posted 4:14 PM | [Link]
OF COURSE... [Jonah Goldberg]
it's a small price to pay for such a good cause.
Posted 4:03 PM | [Link]
SPEAKING OF DIRECT MAIL... [Jonah Goldberg]
In today's G-File I playfully suggested that people should write "This is for Jonah" on their subscription checks to National Review. Gregg Fanselau of Denver tells me that his copy of NR comes to "Give A. Bigfatraisetojonah."
"So now," he laments, "entities including the Heritage Foundation are sending out mail (I can mail you proof) that says, for all the USPS to see, Give A. Bigfatraisetojonah."
Posted 4:01 PM | [Link]
SO.... [Jonah Goldberg]
Cosmo and I are walking down the trail in the park. I'm talking to the fair Jessica on my cell phone about what we should have for dinner. Suddenly, it starts pouring. I tell Jessica, "Oh no. It's starting to rain really hard."
She says, "Oh dear. Well, now that he's out maybe he won't care that much about getting wet."
I reply, "Yeah, Jess. That's fine. But actually I was worried about me getting wet."
"Oh," she said.
Posted 3:57 PM | [Link]
STILL MORE DIRECT MAIL [Andrew Stuttaford]
Kathryn, I regularly receive missives from "National Review" magazine asking for money. Unbelievably, these letters are addressed to "Andrew Stuttaford."
Posted 3:28 PM | [Link]
A TAD AWKWARD [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I wish I could believe the awkwardness of this was just the translation: "Pregnant with nine fetuses."
Posted 3:00 PM | [Link]
ADVENTURES IN DIRECT MAIL [Julie Crane]
Here's another good one: Earlier this week, the New York office of NR received a letter from Larry Klayman at Judicial Watch addressed to: "Mr. National Buckley, Jr." Judicial Watch, as Amicus Curiae, wants to advise federal, circuit, appellate, and state courts (not to mention the Supremes) that Mr. National Buckley, Jr. "is paying for excessive litigation . . . and is at personal risk of being the victim of legal abuse." Could someone in the DC office let them know that it's "Mr. National F. Buckley, Jr."
Posted 2:41 PM | [Link]
TURNED TABLE [Andrew Stuttaford]
Kathryn, I am shocked, shocked by that post. In an age scarred by the scourge of binge drinking, it was an act of total irresponsibility.
Posted 2:36 PM | [Link]
A WORLD OF BEERS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Another shameless attempt to get the guys back in my corner. (It's a good piece, though, by a good guy, Geoffrey Morris.)
Posted 2:20 PM | [Link]
NOT EVERYONE BUYS BILL MOYERS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Good news from Steve Hayes.
Posted 2:10 PM | [Link]
IT PAYS TO BE MCCAIN [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
The Arizona senator is hosting the second episode of Saturday Night Live this coming season.
Posted 2:07 PM | [Link]
MAIL FROM HRC [Melissa Seckora]
We've got to win the 2002 elections because--for the causes we believe in and the people we care about--these are the elections we must not lose," writes Senator Clinton in her HILLPAC fundraising letter addressed to "National Review." Looks like stakes are so high for Dems in 2002 that they're even turning to members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy for cash.
Posted 2:05 PM | [Link]
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT! [Jonah Goldberg]
My long, jingoistic G-File on patriotism and the UN is in Kathryn's capable hands. I must now away to Battery Kemble Park with my trusty hound. He didn't get to go out much this morning because of the rain and now Cosmo must vent his frustration on the tree rats and other vermin.
Posted 1:40 PM | [Link]
FREE AT LAST? [Jonathan Adler]
The Bush administration paid a high price, but they might actually get some judges through the Senate.
Posted 12:15 PM | [Link]
SAN FRAN JUDGES OFFICIALLY DISTANCE THEMSELVES FROM THE BOY SCOUTS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Put that one in your "no, everything has not changed since Sept. 11" file.
Posted 11:59 AM | [Link]
FRIDAY AROUND THE CORNER [James S. Robbins]
Kat, you should know that Friday is an optional work day in Washington.
Posted 10:32 AM | [Link]
FYI... [Jonah Goldberg]
My syndicated column on the Sarbanes bill.
Posted 10:19 AM | [Link]
MOUSSAOUI MAY BE "INNOCENT" [Jonah Goldberg]
I don't understand why nobody's pointing this out. Surely it's an obvious possibility to the prosecutors. Osama Bin Laden was seen on video explaining that many of the 9/11 hijackers didn't know they were going to be on a suicide mission.
In other words they were patsies, cannon fodder, Jihadi worker bees etc. These types of people, by definition, must be expendable. Moussaoui, an addle-brained loser, fits the bill perfectly. It makes total sense to me that he wasn't in on the big picture of 9/11. Would you trust this buffoon to keep a secret? So technically, maybe he really wasn't part of the specific 9/11 conspiracy. But he was surely part of a conspiracy of of some kind -- whether he was told, like some of the other hijackers, that they would be simply hijacking and kidnapping or whether he was simply told to "be ready" for a mission. After all, he surely didn't think he was going to flight school to be a pilot in Al Quaeda Airlines. To me, this seems like just another reason for military commissions. Moussaoui joined the equivalent of an Islamic SS. Maybe he doesn't deserve the death penalty, but after watching the recent spectacle he certainly shouldn't be held to a run-of-the-mill standards of criminal evidence.
Posted 10:05 AM | [Link]
ACTUALLY.... [Jonah Goldberg]
That tremor many of you felt in the DC area was me taking a nasty fall while on my way to buy some half and half for our morning coffee. Smacked the dickens out of my knee. But, bleeding and double-visioned though I may be, I am reporting for work. Why? Because I can't afford not to.
Posted 9:51 AM | [Link]
JONAH JUST PHONED IN [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
He picked up an AC on the street that someone had thrown out, tried to plug it in, and the power on his Commodore 64 (circa 1984) went out. He'll try and see if someone who earns a living wage will let him use a computer...otherwise our devoted Jonah will beg on the street for change to use an Internet cafe in Anacostia, where he lives. If you see him, be kind.
Posted 9:47 AM | [Link]
OKAY, I'M GOING BACK TO SLEEP [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Looks like it's vacation day in The Corner, dudes. Inquiring minds wanna know what the couch is saying.
Posted 9:43 AM | [Link]
IT'S NOT JUST BILL [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Andrew, Sore Loserman is blasting the greedy GOP, too.
Posted 9:41 AM | [Link]
READER ADVICE [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
"If I were you, I'd give Jonah a big assignment so he will spend more time avoiding it by posting naughty videos on The Corner. Then you'll have company this morning!"
Posted 9:33 AM | [Link]
MAYBE PIUS XII WASN’T SO BAD, AFTERALL [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Maybe even a hero?
Posted 9:29 AM | [Link]
WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Ivies at war.
Posted 9:24 AM | [Link]
THAT DECAPITATED GUY... [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
...also had a fake passport. A new INS strategy? Get DHS on this?
Posted 9:12 AM | [Link]
MAYBE OUR WAR ON DRUGS ISN'T AS OUT OF CONTROL AS WE THOUGHT [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
In Saudi Arabia, this Pakistani got beheaded for heroin smuggling. John Walters, do not call your office.
Posted 9:09 AM | [Link]
BRAT LACK [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Andrew, Jonah, I just realized there's been no Rob Lowe bashing in The Corner. Aren't we mean-spirited? Come on!
Posted 9:07 AM | [Link]
AMERICANS CAN'T BE "NICE" TO MUSLIMS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
How Arab News interprets the debate over an inappropriate State Department webpage.
Posted 9:05 AM | [Link]
I LIKED IT BETTER WHEN SHE JUST ASKED ANNOYING QUESTIONS AND PRETENDED TO BE AN OBJECTIVE JOURNALIST [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Helen Thomas, woman, whines about Bush failing the world's women.
Posted 9:02 AM | [Link]
SADDAM LOOKING FOR NUKE STEEL [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Bill Gertz reports.
Posted 8:34 AM | [Link]
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WHOOPS [Andrew Stuttaford]
Bill Clinton seems set on blaming the GOP for the current crop of corporate, er, difficulties. Under the circumstances then it is, perhaps, a little unfortunate that one of the four 'partners' named on the website for his 'presidential center' (posted on the Corner earlier today) is Global Crossing, a company that has had quite a few problems of its own.
Thanks to an observant reader for pointing this out.
Posted 11:24 PM | [Link]
BEER FOR GIRLY BOYS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Posted 7:18 PM | [Link]
AUSTRALIANS TOLD TO LEAVE IRAQ [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Posted 6:24 PM | [Link]
THE DEMOCRATIC MASCOT IS A DONKEY RIGHT? [Jonah Goldberg] [Not suitable for people who are made uncomfortable by words that rhyme with "Enus"]
Andrew, I don't know why but that reminds me of this.
Posted 6:12 PM | [Link]
AMERICA'S GREATEST, ER... [Andrew Stuttaford] {not suitable for all Corner readers]
Jonah, this may get many people thinking about moving to Britain.
Posted 6:06 PM | [Link]
BRITAIN'S GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT [Jonah Goldberg]
Andrew, I love Lady Thatcher, but this has got me thinking about emigrating to Britain.
Posted 5:43 PM | [Link]
OUR READERS ARE ON TO YOU, JONAH [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
This, and many like them rolling into my in-box: "Jonah's avoiding finishing some assignment again, isn't he?"
Posted 5:30 PM | [Link]
LADY LIBERTY [Andrew Stuttaford] {suitable for all Corner readers}
The United States has the Statue of Liberty as its beacon to the world. Britain, it seems, has, well, another formidable lady.
Posted 5:28 PM | [Link]
THE COUCH HAS SPOKEN [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Dude, that was a remarkable post. Hidden talents are revealed daily here on The Corner.
Posted 5:26 PM | [Link]
BUT MAMA, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT AXE! [Jonah Goldberg]
Apparently Kathryn is not alone in bemoaning the "smut" of the "Axe" link below. My apologies, I thought it was PG-13 at most. But my couch just penned the following in my defense:
Who's the geek who loves dogs
That's a posting machine on all the blogs?
Axe!
Ya damn right!
Who is the man of the right that would risk his neck
For his site?
Axe!
Can you dig it?
Who's the cat that won't cop out
When there's liberals all about?
Axe!
Right On!
They say this cat Axe is a bad mother
SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
I'm talkin' 'bout Axe.
THEN WE CAN DIG IT!
He's a complicated man
But no one understands him but his woman
NRO'S AXE!
Posted 5:19 PM | [Link]
HEY, FOOTBALL-PLAYER COLLEAGUE OF MINE [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Next time, a not-appropriate-for-all-Corner-readers warning goes with posts like that, k, Axe?
Posted 4:45 PM | [Link]
THIS IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY CUSACK 2004 [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
"I don't want to be involved in anything that's jingoistic or sensationalistic...People in Hollywood don't think about the moral ramifications of what they do. They're trying to make a buck, and they continually whitewash history. A movie like Top Gun drives up army enlistments because people think they're going to get to fly jets and meet Kelly McGillis, when in reality, they're going to be chipping paint off an aircraft carrier." --Premiere magazine, June 1990
Posted 3:49 PM | [Link]
I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW I PLAYED FOOTBALL IN HIGH SCHOOL.... [Jonah Goldberg]
They called me Axe.
(If you can't play this, don't blame me -- or tell me about it -- there's nothing I can do.).
Posted 3:11 PM | [Link]
IT'S NOT JUST THE HOMICIDE [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Israeli doctors point out the other dangers of homicide/suicice bombings: the biological weapon factor. The dirty fragments can mean disease for those who survive attacks.
Posted 2:33 PM | [Link]
KIDS TODAY... [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
...are looking to draft John Cusack for president.
Posted 2:25 PM | [Link]
RAVE NONSENSE [Dave Kopel]
One of the reasons the federal government failed to prevent the September 11 attacks was because federal law enforcement was so overburdened with enforcing federal laws that are properly the concerns of state and local governments. Such laws include child support, drug possession, and gun possession. Now Senator Joseph Biden is leading the charge to make things even worse, with his so-called "RAVE Act" which would, essentially, create a federal law against producing music concerts attended by young people. If you produce a concert and someone uses drugs at the concert, you go to federal prison. Glenn Reynolds's column for TechCentral Station suggests this is a very bad idea.
Posted 11:47 AM | [Link]
NOT JUST THE SAT [Stanley Kurtz]
Erin O’Connor has been making a very important and very disturbing argument about recent changes in the GRE’s, the test that students take in order to get into graduate school–especially in the humanities and social sciences. While we’ve all been focusing on the changes to the SAT test, the GRE has substituted opinion essays for multiple-choice questions. The danger here is that these opinion essays will be used to screen out conservatives. O’Connor does a frighteningly good job of showing that this is exactly what will happen. The suggested essay topics are obviously a series of ideological litmus tests meant to establish a students anti-capitalist, and social constructionist credentials. This is an absolutely disastrous development. The academy is now totally in the grip of the left. Our only hope is a rebellion by disgruntled students. But now, future generations of graduate students will be ideologically screened and purified, even before entry. It doesn’t get any worse than this.
Posted 11:44 AM | [Link]
MEMO TO SELF: BE NICE TO THE ALPACA... [Jonah Goldberg]
Read the last sentence.
Posted 11:42 AM | [Link]
DEMOCRACY DEVELOPMENT, U.N.-STYLE [Melissa Seckora]
Today the United Nations is releasing a new report on human development that details how new democracies are losing ground because they are not meeting the needs of the people. Interesting little tidbits include the U.N.'s desire to initiate campaign- finance reform. But check out Chapter 3, page 68, about how greedy corporations impact policies by "supporting certain nominees for official appointments and influencing the judiciary through briefing seminars." Did the U.N. bring in Patrick Leahy as an expert consultant?
Posted 11:42 AM | [Link]
CHECK OUT... [Jonah Goldberg]
This picture at Lucianne.com and tell me that Spence Abraham doesn't look like he's actually an alien wearing a loose-fitting rubber Spence-mask. He appears to be concerned that it might fall off before he gets a chance to suck Bush's brains out the back of his head. Meanwhile, Ridge looks like he's thinking "whatever the President says, once these cameras leave the room, you know I will kill you."
Posted 11:32 AM | [Link]
NURSE! NURSE! THIS MAN NEEDS HIS MEDICATION [Jonah Goldberg]
A reader is on to me:
I find it deeply ironic--or should it be disturbing?--that your so-called "inactivist" manifesto, which I have read here on the morning of July 25 and which appears to have been posted yesterday on the 24th, carries the date, beneath the title at the top of the page, of July 27. In your inactivist frenzy, you seem to have been working so hard that you are now a full two days ahead of yourself, or, indeed, any of us. Just a joke? Or something more? One could do a very nice Straussian reading of the significance of this date and of how it clearly undermines the whole (apparent) argument of your piece.
We inactivists are on to you.
Posted 11:24 AM | [Link]
UNFPA [Ramesh Ponnuru]
My understanding, Rod, is that the Bush administration is not refusing all funds to it; it's just cutting funds equal to what it spends in China, as a protest to its alleged participation in China's forced-abortion policy.
Posted 11:07 AM | [Link]
CONSERVATIVES V. ASHCROFT DEBUNKED [Jonah Goldberg]
Kudos to Jonathan Last for the first thorough debunking.
Posted 10:13 AM | [Link]
SPINE-REPLACEMENT SURGERY SUCCESSFUL [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Joe Lieberman & co. are getting some grief from the GOP, at last, for not calling ex-Clintonite, Robert Rubin, now head of Citigroup to tesify--a suggestion Mark Levin made on this site earlier this week.
Posted 9:41 AM | [Link]
WASHINGTON POST USES 26-LETTER WORD [John Derbyshire]
"The new archbishop has also argued for 'disestablishment,' that is, ending the church's status as the official national church, headed by the British monarch. For this, he has drawn the wrath of antidisestablishmentarians, those who advocate maintaining the official status." Washington Post, 7/24/02
Posted 9:37 AM | [Link]
IDIOTS [John Derbyshire]
I'd like to distance myself from this discussion. I may be a girly-boy, but I'm no idiot.
Posted 8:47 AM | [Link]
RE IDIOTS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Andrew, because only idiots would work for below a living wage, right Jonah?! (YAF kids who Rich is speaking to tonight take note!)
Posted 8:19 AM | [Link]
THE SECRET [Andrew Stuttaford]
Kathryn, you should tell our Canadian fan that it's the money. Ha ha ha ha....
Posted 8:17 AM | [Link]
A STRONG ENDORSEMENT [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
This, from the top of the e-mail box this morning: "How did you ever manage to get so many idiots together writing for one magazine?" The writer is from Canada. Just thought you should know.
Posted 7:34 AM | [Link]
PLAYING FAVS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
In case anyone had any doubt who the New York Times loves and hates from the Bush Cabinet: check out today's Powell puff piece vs. yesterday's Ashcroft attack. (Also note: today they've got this great shot of Powell looking cool and in control on the front page of the politics section of their website, on his own. Yesterday, it was Ashcroft in a line of angry-looking white men. )
Posted 7:10 AM | [Link]
SCANDAL IN PERU: [Rod Dreher] A fact-finding commission in Peru has determined that the government of disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori forcibly sterilized 200,000 (!) poor women as part of a population control plan. This human-rights horror was partially paid for by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which the Bush Administration is refusing to fund. The story is much more gruesome than the BBC report to which I've linked tells you. My friend David Morrison served as a Catholic human rights investigator in Peru a few years ago, and risked his life going into remote, mountainous peasant villages to find out what kind of atrocities government doctors had carried out against poor women and their families. I'll never forget the stomach-churning stories he told me in person about what he found. Perhaps David will post some details on his blog later today. If you scroll way down, you can see a brief thing he's already written about the Peruvian scandal.
Posted 3:04 AM | [Link]
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MATTHEWS HAS MALARIA [Jonathan Adler]
The MSNBC host apparently contracted the disease on a trip to Africa and the Middle East. Let's pray that Mathews has a speedy recovery -- and that he'll join the rank opposing a global ban on DDT, the most effective tool for malaria prevention in developing nations.
Posted 8:14 PM | [Link]
BTW [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
The G-File is up. And if it weren't about inactivism, it might have gone up earlier.
Posted 6:15 PM | [Link]
RUMMY, OUR "HOMELAND" MAN [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
If that story's true, RP, it's just one more point toward proving how bad and redundant this DHS idea is....
Posted 6:14 PM | [Link]
THEIR CRUNCH HAS BITE: [Rod Dreher] A reader says he's found "the ultimate crunchyservative site."
Posted 5:57 PM | [Link]
WHAT'S TO APOLOGIZE FOR?: [Rod Dreher] Surfing the news channels, I caught the Israeli consul general based here in New York saying something that sounded suspiciously like an apology for killing the family of that vicious Hamas chieftain in the Gaza missile strike. I don't get it. It's a pity that innocent children died, but it's their father's fault. The sheikh headed a terrorist organization that had declared war on Israel, and murdered Israeli civilians. The Israelis had every right to nail the SOB when they had him in their sights, and good on them for not worrying what the Belgians or The New York Times might think. If he didn't want his family killed, he should have stayed away from home. I'm sure I'm not the first one to say this, but if the United States discovers Osama bin Laden's hideaway, we should blow it to kingdom come, and let responsibility for the innocent dead shacked up with him be on his head.
Posted 5:54 PM | [Link]
RUMSFELD TO LEAVE DoD?: [Ramesh Ponnuru]
The Hill says he might become head of the Homeland Security Department, with Paul Wolfowitz replacing him. Seems implausible--and undesirable. Besides, as far as I'm concerned Rumsfeld's already in charge of keeping the homeland secure.
Posted 5:45 PM | [Link]
AMERICA IS BACK! [Mike Potemra]
Okay, okay, we have a long way to go--but it's a start.
Posted 4:09 PM | [Link]
WOOD FOR THE TREES [Andrew Stuttaford]
AP is reporting that a California wild fire is threatening some of the country's sequoias, those extraordinary giant redwoods that can live for thousands of years but may, it seems, have difficulty in surviving the environmentalist movement. The danger is worse than usual because of the considerable amount of underbrush that has accumulated. And why is this? Well, efforts to remove much of the debris have, apparently, been thwarted in the courts. A district ranger is quoted as telling AP that "every other project we've tried to do, the environmentalists have filed a lawsuit."
Yet again.
Thanks to blogger Craig Schamp for highlighting this story.
Posted 2:53 PM | [Link]
ANOTHER REASON: [Rod Dreher] A Toronto reader writes: "One of the non-cited reasons (by your article this morning, and other news stories) for lower attendance at World Youth Day was the late decision by the Vatican to schedule trips to Mexico and Guatemala as part of hemispheric travel. I'm assuming that organizers are avoiding, at all costs, the perception of blaming the Vatican. Friends of mine who have been involved with the organization tell me that significant numbers of registrations from Latin America ... began to be withdrawn at the time the Latin American visits were announced (springtime, I think), and the rate of registration slowed as well."
Posted 1:43 PM | [Link]
MAYBE I PICKED THE WRONG WEEK TO STOP CHEWING KHAT.... [Jonah Goldberg]
...But I don't even understand why this TIPS thing is so controversial. People should call the government when they see someone sketchy sniffing around a chemical plant or a reservoir, right? As I understand it, the TIPS program let's people know who to call. This is the end of the world? I just don't get it.
Posted 1:37 PM | [Link]
RE TIPS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Rich, I'm far from outraged by TIPS, though I'm skeptical, as I imagine you are, too, to some extent. But David Grann's piece in The New Republic a week or so ago about the truck driver in New Jersey who tried to report--with great difficultly--legitimately creepy behavior involving his highly expolosive cargo is probably another strong case FOR the program. (It's not online, unfortunately.)
Posted 1:27 PM | [Link]
THEN AGAIN…: [Rich Lowry]
Maybe I’m not the best one to consult on civil-liberty issues, since I’m a lonely defender of the dreaded TIPS program. Here’s how I open my syndicated column on it:
“Mohamed Atta showed up in Johnelle Byrant's office in the spring of 2000 seeking a government loan from the agriculture department employee.
During the interview, Atta mentioned Osama bin Laden, threatened to slit Byrant's throat, and talked about Washington, D.C. being blown up.
In response, Bryant didn't call any government hotlines, didn't make any stereotypical assumptions about Atta, didn't look at him crosswise or otherwise make him feel the least bit uncomfortable.
She did, simply, nothing. That should qualify her for the ACLU's annual "Inertia in Response to Suspicious Behavior" Award.
Thanks partly to her exemplary respect for Atta’s privacy, the lead Sept. 11 hi-jacker continued his plot with his "civil liberties" firmly intact. Hurrah!”
Posted 1:04 PM | [Link]
MAYBE IT'S A MISTRANSLATION... [Jonah Goldberg]
But I thought the whole point about "self-martyrdom" was that you merely sacrificed your life. After all, your soul gets all those virgins (or white raisins, depending on the translation) and the big widescreen TV. If you blow yourself up to get a better life in the hereafter is it a sacrifice at all?
Posted 1:01 PM | [Link]
FROM MEMRI.ORG, AN INTERVIEW W/ THE LATE SHEHADEH: [Rich Lowry]
Q: "How do you account for the stream of youths [coming] to join the ranks of perpetrators of martyrdom operations? And does this attest to [mental] health or to escape from the frustration and disappointment among the Palestinians?"
Sh'hadeh: "The stream of youths [who seek to] attain martyrdom shows [mental] health and the awareness of Palestinian society, and is not a mistake or an escape from a situation of despair or frustration. Many people come to Jihad, and they are willing to lay down their souls - which is the most precious thing a man has. There is a vast difference between someone who sacrifices money or an offering and someone who sacrifices his soul for the sake of Allah to bring happiness to the nation, and to remove its torment and distress. Nevertheless, we cannot provide everyone with a martyrdom operation because the targets are limited and the enemy positions we want to reach are highly fortified. If some of the youths do not follow the military apparatus's instructions, and [set out on operations on their own] without being linked officially to this apparatus, this proves that the [entire] nation has become a nation of Jihad on the threshold of liberation, and that it rejects humiliation and submission."
Posted 12:54 PM | [Link]
BUT THE TIMES HAS AN AGENDA [Mike Potemra]
Of course. And this is the other thing that's notable about the Times story: a totally gratuitous cheap shot at Ashcroft's religion. The article says: "Mr. Ashcroft is highly formal and does not fit easily into the president's more bantering style. In addition, Mr. Bush is very much from the business wing of the Republican Party while Mr. Ashcroft is more typical of social-issue Republicans who sit in the front pew of the church on Sunday." Ashcroft can't be a sincere, devout man, as far as the Times is concerned; he must be a pseudo-pious showoff thumping his chest in the front row. Anybody who worked in the Senate for many years, as I did, and was fortunate enough to see Ashcroft in action can testify that he's a terrific guy-principled, intelligent, and no phony. The Times can dismiss me as just another fundie boob for saying so-but that's the Times's problem.
Posted 12:53 PM | [Link]
RICH IS CORRECT [Mike Potemra]
When he says that Paul Weyrich's comment is paranoid and inaccurate: Ashcroft-it should go without saying--has no interest in spying on conservatives. But in general, religious conservatives are right to be concerned when the power of the federal government is increased. Just try to imagine, for example, what a John Kerry or Al Gore administration could do to pro-lifers, in the name of anti-terrorism: "Hmmm, it seems there was a clinic bombing in 1999, which is TERRORISM, and one of the TERRORISTS who did it knew one of the guys in the pro-life church group, so the pro-life church group is connected to TERRORISM, and therefore must be a bunch of TERRORISTS so go get 'em, Janet Reno!" Who's going to stand up for the pro-lifers then? The New York Times? Noam Chomsky? Dream on.
Posted 12:53 PM | [Link]
BASHING ASHCROFT [Mike Potemra]
The Times article on conservatives bashing Ashcroft is notable for two reasons. First, it points up something I have been dismayed by for many months now-that the loudest voices raising concern about the erosion of civil liberties in the war on terrorism have been coming from the left. That, in my view, is not as it should be. All Americans-not just lefties or libertarians-should be concerned about civil liberties and vigilant in their defense.
Posted 12:52 PM | [Link]
I KNOW! [Jonah Goldberg]
I missed it at first, but saw it when I reread the piece after I posted the Grover thing. Here's my theory. The short version goes like this: Weyrich has lost his mind. The slightly longer version goes like this: Weyrich, who claimed he was going to abandon politics and the mainstream culture a few years ago, has been rejuvinated by cultivating a small ghetto of right-wing anti-Statists on the web. These folks are often very smart, but there's also a disturbing strain of paranoia running through this virtual "community." I think Weyrich's been drinking the cool-aid with these guys. His assertion is so delirious, so batty and unsound on so many levels it makes it very difficult to take him seriously about anything. If, that is, he hasn't been misquoted somehow.
Posted 12:51 PM | [Link]
JONAH, THIS IS THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS QUOTE IN THAT ASHCROFT PIECE: [Rich Lowry]
Paul Weyrich: “there is suddenly a great concern that what was passed in the wake of 9-11 were things that had little to do with catching terrorists but a lot to do with increasing the strength of government to infiltrate and spy on conservative organizations."
Really? It was all a ruse to monitor conservatives? What a joke.
Posted 12:32 PM | [Link]
FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT [Stanley Kurtz]
The Center For Individual Rights (CIR) has just won an important victory against campus political correctness in a hilarious case involving a professor who put up a satirical poster featuring General Custer calling out troops to fight the Sioux. Professor Jon Willand, it seems, has a habit of saying provocative things in class. His students have a habit of hauling him up on charges of insensitivity. When Professor Willand told his class that Pocahontas used to “somersault naked through Jamestown,” he was threatened with suspension and slapped with a set of draconian speech restrictions. Even if he was being satirical and provocative, Professor Willand still had a right to speak. But for the record, it turns out that, according to her official Jamestown website, Pocahontas did in fact have a habit of somersaulting naked through Jamestown. This victory, won when the college capitulated before trial, sends an important message to administrators throughout the country. But CIR’s most important work is the famous Gratz v. Bollinger, a case against affirmative action at the University of Michigan that will almost surely be taken someday soon by the Supreme Court. This case is far and away our best hope of bringing down affirmative action. But victory, while very possible, is anything but assured. The press, the academy, and the civil-rights establishment have all lined up against Gratz and the Center for Individual Rights. CIR needs money to win this battle--the most realistic chance we have of finally ending affirmative action. To help the Center for Individual Rights win this fight, you can contribute here.
Posted 12:31 PM | [Link]
ANOTHER BIKER E-MAIL: [Rich Lowry]
“F--- you and your bombastic rhetoric. Love and kisses, Steve. PS: This is in reference to your awesome article Patriots in Leather. Wanna wrestle?”
Uh, no.
Posted 12:27 PM | [Link]
YES, YES [Andrew Stuttaford]
John, mmmmm, that Marmite drink is, as you say, delicious, and, as we emerge from the Clinton-Rubin bubble, appropriately frugal. In the Stuttaford household we then smash up the jars and use the pieces as jagged but crudely effective cutlery.
Posted 12:27 PM | [Link]
MONGOLS GET BAD RAP???: [Rich Lowry]
I'm now in the middle of a biker dispute, thanks to that motorcycling column last week. Here's an e-mail from a Mongol who thinks I tilted in favor of the Hell's Angels: "The Mongols are not a criminal enterprise on two wheels, nor are we a gang. We are a brotherhood that just wants to ride. I know that people like yourself would never understand this, remember they [the Hell Angels] are the ones that rushed into the hotel shooting guns that night and left their bikes running!"
Posted 12:26 PM | [Link]
NORQUIST, THE EXPERT [Jonah Goldberg]
More annoying is the author's use of Grover Norquist as the anchor expert for his piece. Norquist says of Ashcroft, "His religious base is now quite troubled by what he's done." He adds, "If there hadn't been this big-government problem, Ashcroft would have been talked about as the Bush successor. Instead, the talk is that `too bad we pushed for him.'"
I am sure there are some religious conservatives out there who are troubled by some of DOJ's measures. Indeed, the Times quotes some of them. But come on, it's hardly a groundswell from what I can tell. More to the point, Grover Norquist has been going to great lengths to "reach out to" and often apologize for various Muslim American groups. And he's a principled libertarian who's troubled by any increase of any government power. When you put these two things together, it's hardly surprising he's going to say Ashcroft has gone too far. It doesn't mean Grover's not sincere, or even right (he's not), but he's hardly the disinterested commentator the Times makes him out to be. And yes, my wife works for the AG so maybe I'm not a disinterested commentator either (but you can be sure the Times wouldn't quote me without mentioning that).
Posted 12:19 PM | [Link]
ASHCROFT IN THE CROSSHAIRS [Jonah Goldberg]
There's a big hit piece in the Times on the AG. The basic thesis is that conservatives are starting to worry that Ashcroft is too much of a "big government" guy and media hog. There are legitimate criticisms on both scores, even though I disagree with most. But the Times seems sincerely shocked that conservatives can be civil libertarians (this is why, recall, Bob Barr went from being a knuckle-dragging neanderthal conservative during impeachment to being a "libertarian" during the war on terrorism).
Posted 12:10 PM | [Link]
AVERT YOUR EYES, CHILDREN [Rod Dreher]
This one is classic. USA Today analyzed a database of 1,200 cases of reported sex abuse by Catholic priests, and discovered that 85 percent of the victims are males. Might this tell us something about the presence of predatory homosexuals among the Catholic clergy? Why, no, whatever gave you that idea? Reporter Janet Kornblum mentions homosexuality in exactly one clause, and that ("While some have blamed homosexuality...") was to set up the rest of the story, which consisted of 12 paragraphs offering several reasons to explain the numbers, each one having nothing to do with homosexuality. I'm all for investigating all possible reasons to explain the data, but this reporter's attempt to avoid what is by far the most obvious conclusion is almost pathological.
Posted 11:58 AM | [Link]
PAUL WEISS, DEAD AT 101 [Mike Potemra]
One of America's greatest philosophers has died. Paul Weiss was William F. Buckley Jr.'s professor at Yale in the 1940s, and my professor at Catholic University in the 1980s. He was a good man, and a great guru for those in pursuit of truth and beauty. R.I.P.
Posted 11:31 AM | [Link]
CODE WHAT NOW?! [Andrew Stuttaford]
The Department of Homeland Security has reacted to the news that a large asteroid is headed in our direction. Tom Ridge would like you all to buy umbrellas.
Posted 11:18 AM | [Link]
EDIBLE ART [Andrew Stuttaford]
Kathryn, a conservative Karen Finley? Covered, presumably, in chocolate-wrappers.
Posted 11:13 AM | [Link]
HARSH! [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I thought I have been mean to dear Jonah in the past on issues like deadlines and Star Trek, but Instapundit wins that contest today: check it out.
Posted 10:40 AM | [Link]
HAVE YOU NOTICED. . . : [Ramesh Ponnuru]
that every day Dick Gephardt has spoken lately, the market has tanked?
Posted 9:58 AM | [Link]
ONWARD CHRISTIAN PACIFISTS [John Derbyshire]
The new Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking about the War on Terror: "Dr Williams, who was arrested in the 1980s during a CND [=Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament] demonstration, has described the conflict in Afghanistan as 'embarrassing' and 'morally tainted,' and said that the proposed war against Iraq would be 'illegal and immoral'."
Posted 9:02 AM | [Link]
WELL, THEY'LL NEVER PICK POCKETS AGAIN [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Some Saudi justice to go with your morning Marmite drink: Amputate the arms of pickpockets.
Posted 8:56 AM | [Link]
WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF MARMITE, WHO ONLY MARMITE KNOW? [John Derbyshire]
Andrew: Finished a 4 oz. jar of Marmite with my breakfast toast. You know what comes next: Fill the Marmite jar with boiling water. Leave for 15-20 minutes until the hot water has dissolved all that last residue of Marmite that I couldn't scrape out of the jar. Pour solution into coffee mug & top up with more hot water. A delicious hot drink. Mmmmmm!
Posted 8:53 AM | [Link]
SEE-YA THERE? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
It's official, Rod, CPAC's a big tent, as I suspected (they've even had Sam Donaldson, I think they can handle Hilton Kramer Jr....even if they've banned us, Jonah). I'm told by the gods of CPAC that potential vendor artsy types can e-mail CPAC at acu@conservative.org and anyone else can register for next year's event here.
Posted 8:49 AM | [Link]
CONSERVATIVES NOT AFRAID TO KNOCK KIRK CAMERON'S ACTING [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
A friend and colleague emailed me a little while ago: Did NRO really run a piece titled Do Fake Boobs Go to Heaven? It came up at lunch yesterday and no one believed me. Am I dreaming?
Oh yes we did--it was Rod's evisceration of the terrible Left Behind movie. Rod Dreher knows culture!
Posted 7:06 AM | [Link]
INCREDIBLE STORY... [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
...about this abducted 7-year-old girl who got herself back home.
Posted 5:59 AM | [Link]
SOME PEOPLE AREN'T HAPPY... [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
..that Bill McGowan got a National Press Club award for his book Coloring the News.
Posted 5:57 AM | [Link]
SEE-PAC [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Rod, no offense to CPAC, but ever since they didn't invite Jonah last year I've seriously doubted their judgment. Seriously though, I agree that conservatives should be pro-beauty and art and all, but, like with the granola conservative thing, I think they already are, (albeit professionally to a lesser extent, obviously) it's just that most people actually go to CPAC for the policy papers on the flat tax (and NEA outrages!) and free copies of NR and the Standard. Do you really want to be inundated with the work of the conservative Karen Finley there?
Posted 5:52 AM | [Link]
CHRIS MATTHEWS HAS MALARIA: [Rod Dreher] So says USA Today, which reports that the political chat-show screamer is in the hospital and "often delirious." How can they tell? (Seriously, get well Chris.)
Posted 4:30 AM | [Link]
WHILE WE'RE AT IT: [Rod Dreher] There's something else about that Andrew Sullivan AIDS column I mentioned earlier that bears scrutiny. Commenting on a recently released study showing that an enormous number of young gay men who test HIV positive were previously unaware of their infection, Sullivan speculates that their insouciance may have to do with "knowing that if they do get HIV, treatments are available, the time the virus takes to make people sick can be up to ten years, and that treatment regiments in any case are now recommended only after the virus has already made a dent on the immune system. So they put off finding something out, and hope they'll get away with it. And the truth is: many of them will get away with it. By the time they really need treatment in ten years' time, medicine might have come up with far better treatments than we have today." Notice what's missing? There's not a word there about the moral responsibility these men will bear for infecting their sexual partners with a killer virus, nor their guilt before society for their role in keeping the epidemic raging. Kind of tells you something about the author's real agenda, doesn't it?
Posted 4:22 AM | [Link]
ANDREW SULLIVAN COMPLAINS: [Rod Dreher] ...that Mary Eberstadt and I haven't rushed to condemn the new movie Tadpole, which features a 15-year-old boy having an affair with an older woman. He claims our being "utterly mute" on the movie reveals "our real agenda." Oh dear, another snit. This may come as a shock to Andrew, but until I read the review last night in The New Yorker, the movie didn't show up on my radar. Perhaps he has time to read the movie mags while summering in Provincetown, but that's not a luxury all of us can afford. I don't think I've seen a single movie since spring. I'm not in the habit of condemning movies I haven't seen, but in general, I can agree with the new Archbishop of Canterbury that the sexualization of young people in the popular media is wicked, and to be resisted. Next question?
Posted 4:11 AM | [Link]
CONSERVATIVES AND BEAUTY: [Rod Dreher] When conservatives complain about liberal bias in the media, I tell them it's true, but one way to combat it would be for more conservatives to go to journalism school than business school. A Corner reader makes a similar point about conservatives and the arts. He wants to know where are the Hilton Kramers of tomorrow: "One of the most disheartening things about my trip to C-PAC two years ago was the complete lack of information, booths or books that dealt with aesthetic issues. Sure, I could get all the Heritage Foundation missile system reports and Free Republic pins I wanted. But where were the upstart conservative literary journals? Where were the poetry reviews with the conservative outlook? Where was the next I'll Take My Stand? Nowhere to be found amidst all the complimentary copies of The Weekly Standard and the booths proffering direct-mail fundraising services. It's almost as if we conservatives purposefully concern ourselves with arguing the merits of a capital gains tax instead of trying to understand and explain why Evelyn Waugh is a better writer -- in every sense of the word -- than Toni Morrison. ... [A]s conservatives, we would do well to remember that one of Edmund Burke's earliest publications was a treatise on aesthetics, and inquiry into the nature of the sublime; and we should be mindful of his vigorous rejoinder when Bolingbroke claimed that 'nature was man's nature': [Burke replied] 'Art is man's nature.'"
Posted 12:41 AM | [Link]
HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN: [Rod Dreher] Harvey Weinstein pays Tina Brown a million dollars to go away.
Posted 12:18 AM | [Link]
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GORED [Andrew Stuttaford]
Here's more on Tippergate from American University's newspaper, the Eagle. Thanks to a reader at AU for sending this in.
Posted 10:55 PM | [Link]
ELLIPTICAL CORRECTION: [John J. Miller]
I feel as dim as the sun must look from the ninth planet. Several readers noticed a stupid mistake in my Pluto column today: Pluto isn't the only planet with an elliptical orbit, as I wrongly stated--they all have elliptical orbits. Duh. What I meant to say is that Pluto's orbit is by far the most inclined (i.e. its orbit is the most tilted relative to the ecliptic plane). Thanks to those who pointed out my error. One more thing: Here's a petition organized by the Planetary Society to support space exploration.
Posted 10:17 PM | [Link]
IN MY INBOX [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 9:29 PM
To: Kathryn Lopez
Subject: Group Hug...
Where were you today?
You were gone from the Corner and the boys all got in a tiff. I was waiting for the, "Well my dad can beat
up your dad," retorts. I think you should make Jonah, Rod, and Mike do a group hug or something tomorrow.
and before you say something... yes, it IS your responsibility to keep those boys playing nicely.
Posted 9:34 PM | [Link]
DOUBLE STANDARDS [Andrew Stuttaford]
Rowan Williams, the man who will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury, has reportedly now announced that he has no regrets over his arrest some twenty years ago at a demonstration on an American airbase during the 1980s.
This is the same Rowan Williams who denounces plans to invade Iraq as "illegal".
Hypocrite.
Posted 7:36 PM | [Link]
I'M NOT POSITIVE BUT... [Jonah Goldberg]
I would guess if telemarketers annoy John Miller this must make him insane with bloodlust.
Posted 6:35 PM | [Link]
ALAS, UNTRUE: [Rod Dreher] Andrew Sullivan writes: HIV-positive men no longer have the terror of contracting HIV hanging over their heads, they often get steroids to help their testosterone-loss and so look beefier and healthier than even HIV-negative men, and they can even have condom-free sex with one another." [Emphasis mine]. There's just one problem: It's not true.
Posted 5:06 PM | [Link]
GREEN CAT FIGHT [Jonathan Adler]
Once again, major environmental activist groups are under assault from animal-rights organizations. PETA is apparently upset that WWF, NRDC, and other green groups support the EPA's plan to use animal testing to help identify whether various chemical compounds pose risks to human health. They've even set up a website highlighting the environmental groups they believe are off the reservation. PETA is correct that the value of such tests is often overstated -- a chemical that kills a mouse might not kill a kid, and vice-versa -- but their blanket opposition to animal testing is quite misanthropic. Still, cat fights of this sort are amusing to observe.
Posted 3:47 PM | [Link]
GREENS AGAINST WIND POWER [Jonathan Adler]
National environmental organizations like to praise the wonders of wind power as an alternative to fossil fuels. But just try sighting a wind farm and grassroots green groups will fight you every step of the way. The most recent green campaign against wind is in Pennsylvania. Sometimes it seems that the only energy source some environmental groups will accept are those that are not used.
Posted 3:46 PM | [Link]
ANTHRAX ON MY HOUSE [Melissa Seckora]
I just got back from the Heritage Foundation. Their pointman on nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare, Dexter Ingram, a former Navy flight officer, took me through the Consequences Assessment Tool Set (CATS)--the Defense Department software used to examine the fallout of potential terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. Here's the scenario he ran: 200 kg of military-grade anthrax is dropped from an airplane on my house in upper northwest Washington at around 2:30 today. With the temperature at 95 degrees, the humidity rate at 43 percent, and the wind at SSW13, the anthrax would spread as far as New Jersey. Based on an estimate of 1997 census data, within 24 hours, over 1,500,000 people would be effected by the spread in one way or another--hundreds of thousands would in fact die. I wonder if I'll be sleeping well at my house tonight...
Posted 3:43 PM | [Link]
THE NEW ARCHBISHOP OF CANT [John Derbyshire]
erbury. (That, by the way, is a technical device known to us wordsmiths as "tmesis," pronounced "tmesis.") In a conversation with an NR colleague yesterday--an Episcopalian, like myself--we agreed that since Dr. Williams apparently believes in God and is unwilling to officiate at homosexual marriage services, considering the current state of the Anglican clergy and episcopate, we should thank God for small mercies.
Posted 3:18 PM | [Link]
AMERICA'S NEXT GREAT MAYOR?: [Rod Dreher] Ray Nagin took office as mayor of New Orleans in May. Previously a business executive, he's the first mayor who comes to office with no ties to the city's political establishment, with its famously loose morals. Now the city's voters are starting to see what their new mayor is made of. Mayor Nagin, a Democrat, has also installed a new police chief who is bringing Giuliani-style, quality-of-life policing to the French Quarter. If this crusading reform mayor can clean up both the French Quarter and City Hall, and win the confidence of cynical New Orleanians in their city's government, this brand-new politician has a brilliant future ahead of him. If not, he'll end up like Buddy Roemer, the outsider who won the Louisiana statehouse in 1987 on a wave of voter disgust with corruption, but who was ultimately done in by the system. Nagin's one to watch.
Posted 3:14 PM | [Link]
DE GUSTIBUS: [Rod Dreher] We've all got other work to do today, Jonah, so I won't belabor this thread. I just wanted to register a modified dissent from your view that conservatism is "silent on matters of personal taste." It's true that morality is not in play when a man decides he prefers coffee to tea or Camembert to Cheddar, but it would be a mistake to say that aesthetics, in general, are not properly manners of concern for conservatives. My beef is that too many conservatives look upon all aesthetic questions as unimportant, subordinating them to morality (e.g., the person who believes the artistically dismal "Left Behind" movie is a fine work of cinema, solely because they approve of its moral and religious message), or casting them all as questions of personal taste, about which one cannot dispute (e.g., those readers who have written to call me a snot-nosed elitist who hates the free market, simply because I think the way we have designed our suburbs is ugly and inhuman and destructive of community). Art and architecture express a vision of what humanity is, and have the power to shape society, and indeed souls. These are not matters of indifference to conservatives, or should not be, anyway. OK, now I gotta go finish a piece for K-Lo.
Posted 2:31 PM | [Link]
CHAIM POTOK, DEAD AT 73 [Mike Potemra]
His novels depicting the conflict between secularism and religious tradition within Judaism were very entertaining popular fictions. R.I.P.
Posted 2:29 PM | [Link]
68.1: [Ramesh Ponnuru]
That's the percentage of likely voters who agree that younger workers should have "the choice to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes they pay through individual accounts similar to 401(k)s or IRA plans." According to a Zogby poll for the Cato Institute, 82.8 percent of 18-29-year-olds support the idea, as do 54.5 percent of seniors. Respondents were also asked with which of the following two statements they most agreed: "The Enron scandal shows the dangers of the stock market and why we must maintain Social Security as it is and not allow individuals to invest their payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts," or "The Enron scandal proves that people need more choice and more control over their retirement savings, including allowing workers the option to invest part of their Social Security taxes in a personal retirement account." Only 29.0 percent picked the first statement, while 63.6 percent picked the second.
Posted 2:08 PM | [Link]
EXCUSE ME [James S. Robbins]
Guys, the Boneheads prefer to be referred to as the Cranially Augmented. Let's at least try to be inclusive.
Posted 1:24 PM | [Link]
. . . EVEN TOWARD BONEHEADS [Mike Potemra]
I couldn't agree more with Jonah's point that the problem Rod and I were pointing to has to do with boneheadism, not conservatism. But I don't want to be misunderstood, and tarred as a knee-jerk anti-boneheadist: While I deplore boneheadism as a phenomenon, and rue its generally negative consequences for society, I don't want to isolate, marginalize, and condemn individual boneheads--or, to use the correct phrase, "persons of boneheadism."
Posted 1:06 PM | [Link]
NO ANIMOSITY HERE . . . [Mike Potemra]
Our friend Jonah has misstated a key fact: I have no animosity toward "labels," which is after all just another way of saying "words." I like words, and even use them occasionally. But when advocates--Left, Right, whatever--use words, it's often important to ask what they mean by them, and then ask to what extent their application of the words is correct.
Posted 1:05 PM | [Link]
ROD: I HEAR YOU [Jonah Goldberg]
Rod, fair enough. My point wasn't to call you a phony, but iconoclasm can be an ideology of it's own. I've written too much about how conservatism, originally defined, is the negation of ideology to disagree with you. I do not like it when people transport their ideologies into every nook and cranny of their lives. Conservatism is largely -- though not entirely -- silent on matters of personal taste. Still I would add one thing. When you write "The boneheaded conservative thing to do is to say, "Aaaugh! Turn away children! He's a liberal!" I agree with you, to a point. But it's worth emphasizing that your complaint is with boneheadedness not conservatism. Boneheaded liberals say "Aaaugh! Turn away children! He's a conservative!" all the time. I think this touches on Mike's animosity toward labels. If you think a label tells you everything about somebody, the new archbishop included, you're a bonehead. But that doesn't mean the label tells you nothing.
(Can anyone tell that I don't want to write my syndicated column today?)
Posted 12:25 PM | [Link]
JUST TRYING TO HELP [James S. Robbins]
Rod, there's a nice little article on the history of claret here. The author recommends a 1994 Chateau Larose-Trintaudon Haut-Medoc. The article was written in 1997, and since then the 1994 vintage has increased in price, but it's still in the mid-$20 range. The perfect after for a Sonic double-meat No. 1.
Posted 12:23 PM | [Link]
ROWAN'S NO LAUGH-IN [Andrew Stuttaford]
Mike, the Times article on Williams changed my (already low) opinion of the man in one respect. Before, I thought that he was a conventionally PC clergyman. Now, I think that he is a conventionally PC - and self-importantly ascetic - clergyman. The words 'whitewashed sepulcher' rather come to mind. Yes, here and there Williams may come up with a few opinions that happen to coincide with a conservative view, but I wouldn't make too much of that. Even his attack on Disney needs to be understood for what it is. "Disney" is often used by European 'intellectuals' as a handy shorthand for the American culture that they so disdain. I doubt that Williams' attack on Disney has very much to do with protecting 'the children' (dread phrase). Much more likely, he wants to demonstrate, yet again, his anti-American credentials. Oh yes, he likes The Simpsons, but only, I suspect, because he has read somewhere that the show is 'subversive'.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Times piece is the revelation that Williams is opposed to school league tables. Apparently he likes to claim that they destroy the right of parents to choose a good education for their children. The opposite, of course, is true. League tables give parents the opportunity to make an informed choice, a choice that Williams does not want them to have.
Well, what more can one expect from a man who is a caricature of an arrogant - and bone-headed - prelate.
Posted 12:14 PM | [Link]
LABELS DO MATTER [Jonah Goldberg]
Mike, I'm sorry, but whenever I hear people go on about how labels are silly or when they imply that labels are simply crutches for the intellectually lazy or superficial (that is your point about Crossfire, right?) I usually find people who are simply uncomfortable with being labeled themselves. I flatly reject the assertion that labels are somehow at odds with intelligent thinking and a willingness to understand ideas and the people who hold them (Crossfire might be, but that's another conversation).
Tell me: which labels, exactly, are useless for greater understanding? Are "Left" and "Right" useless? How about "conservative" and "liberal." "Pro-life" means something right? Is it silly to call National Review a conservative magazine? Is it know-nothing to say that the Nation is left-wing? Is the trinity a Christian idea? Or is Christianity just some label? Words have meanings and so do labels. Indeed, your two responding posts brim with labels "Stalinist," "left-wing," etc. If I call a Stalinist a "Stalinist" does it make him less of one if he says "Oh I don't believe in labels"? You poo-poo the word "radical" here but I don't think I need to go into Lexis-Nexis to learn that you've probably used it hundreds of times. Surely you believe it has a meaning too?
My point is not that labels are always 100% accurate, but they are more often than not very helpful. Still, if you want to make an argument that NPR cannot be trusted to use the word "radical" properly we can have that argument and you might even be right. But to say that simply because some people misuse a word that therefor the word has no meaning is to essentially believe that words have no meaning at all. And, by the way, for you to pretend that NPR's use of the word "radical" tells you "zero" about the man and could imply everything from biblical literalism to Stalinism to vegetarianism is precisely the sort of debating tactic they use on Crossfire.
Posted 12:06 PM | [Link]
RE: OKAY MIKE, BUT: [Rod Dreher] Jonah, I didn't (or didn't intend to) "celebrate" [my] crunchiness as being anti-ideological." I merely drew attention to the fact that I recently realized many of the things I like are typically associated with the cultural left, even though at least some of those things appeal to me for conservative reasons. I also mentioned homeschooling (which I support) as something I assumed was a right-wing thing, but that I learned here in NYC, it's a left-wing thing. The point, and it's a somewhat banal one, is that our conventional understanding of Left and Right doesn't account for the eclectic views of quite a large number of people. My email from conservatives since that article appeared suggests that this is a phenomenon that gets people's emotions going. I've mentioned all the so-called crunchy-rightists who've written in to say (for example) that they're organic-gardening Second Amendment absolutists, and so forth. But I've also received some angry mail from conservatives who say that people like me are really liberals in disguise -- and they make all kinds of laughably stereotypical assumptions about me and my background. These folks seem to think I'm sitting in a Park Avenue aerie I've bought with my massive NR salary, sharing claret with members of the Ripon Society and the Pataki administration, toasting Nelson Rockefeller, of blessed memory. It's too, too funny. Anyway, when you detect "a slight whiff of iconoclasm for iconoclasm's sake" in my postings, it seems to me you're imputing phoniness to sincerely held conservative views. IOW, one can't possibly believe these things or live this way because one wants to; one only does so epater les republicains. Regarding the incoming Abp. of Canterbury, everything I've read makes him sound like a dreadful choice from a traditionalist point of view -- even though he's right about the sexualization of children in our culture. The principled conservative thing to do is to say, "Yes, Archbishop, you're right about that, and we can work together on this issue." The boneheaded conservative thing to do is to say, "Aaaugh! Turn away children! He's a liberal!"
Posted 11:48 AM | [Link]
NOT LIKELY [Mike Potemra]
By all accounts, Williams is a far-left-winger politically, and I believe those accounts. But he also wrote, in 1982, a lovely book about the Resurrection in which he showed a willingness to stand up to P.C. lefty bullying, especially on the race issue. He pointed out that "the human world is not one of clearly distinguishable bodies of oppressors and victims, those who inflict damage and those who bear it." This, it seems to me, is a fundamental-or "radical," if you will--rebuke to the left-wing culture of victimization in which white males are demonized. Oh, but I forgot: Radicals are bad. Silly me!
Posted 11:34 AM | [Link]
LABELS ARE FUN! [Mike Potemra]
And very useful, too, if you need a couple of syllables to outshout some lefty kook on Crossfire. But when your purposes are different--when you are trying to understand something, and not just "win" a "debate"--you can try a different strategy. You can inquire, for example, into what the person actually believes and try to figure out what parts of it might be true. When NPR calls Williams a "radical," that tells me zero about his thought: Does it mean he believes the Bible literally? That he is a vegetarian? That he is a Stalinist? People call me a radical because I think the capital-gains tax should be abolished outright. Does Williams share this view?
Posted 11:33 AM | [Link]
OKAY MIKE BUT... [Jonah Goldberg]
Isn't it possible that the right-wing view of the new archbishop of Canterbury might legitimately congeal into the opinion that he is a deep P.C. leftist? I read the piece you linked to and while I certainly agree with some of his points about the sexualization of children and the encroachment of consumerism on childhood, I'm still at a bit of a loss to understand how he is un-P.C. or, for that matter, un-Left. Do PC leftists normally love kiddy beauty pageants and Barbie dolls? Ralph Nader makes these points about children being turned into consumers all the time. I tend to agree. But Nader and, I think, the new archbishop make these points from a decidedly lefty anti-corporate perspective. I know you and Rod are on this big kick to celebrate the anti-dogmatic strains in conservative thought and I am sure Michael Oakschott is smiling down on your efforts. But, again, these half-slaps at reigning wisdom on the Right often sound a bit dogmatic to me as well. When Rod celebrates his crunchiness as being anti-ideological there's a slight whiff of iconoclasm for iconoclasm's sake coming off the Corner. So this guy is smart and has some legitimate concerns. Okay. But there are lots of PC lefties, shallow and deep, who aren't 100% wrong about everything. I hardly think that means we can't call them P.C. lefties. Labels are useful. And so when National Public Radio calls this guy a "radical" I'm inclined to take their word for it.
Posted 10:47 AM | [Link]
MUST HAVE BEEN GERMAN WOLVES [Jonah Goldberg]
Posted 10:33 AM | [Link]
THE NEW ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY [Mike Potemra]
Before the right-wing view on the new archbishop of Canterbury--i.e., that he is nothing more than a shallow P.C. leftist--congeals into unassailable dogma, readers should check out this story. He raises some decidedly non-P.C., non-fashionable concerns that are shared by many conservative Christians here in America-for example, about "the premature sexualisation of children in a consumer society."
Posted 10:26 AM | [Link]
RE SOYLENT GREEN [Jonah Goldberg]
Andrew, re your post, all I can say is "Larry Hagman is peeeeeeeople! It's people!"
Posted 9:42 AM | [Link]
BLOG OF SHAME [Andrew Stuttaford]
Jim, an inactivist approach to reading links had meant that I hadn't realized you had already posted that Washington Post story from American U. Apologies. My bad, but the Gores are badder.
Posted 9:25 AM | [Link]
HOWARD'S ENDS: [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Vermont governor Howard Dean is being described as the Jimmy Carter of 2004. Patrick Ruffini argues that the comparison ought to be disconcerting for Democrats, as come-from-nowhere presidential candidates generally have no plan for winning a general election or governing.
Posted 8:51 AM | [Link]
ARMEY V. ARI [Kate O'Beirne]
Last Friday, Dick Armey dared to suggest postponing the end-of-the-year congressional deadline for examining all checked bags on airlines. The ridiculous mandate is of the "let's tell pigs to fly" variety because the technology simply doesn't exist to be able to pull this off in the time allowed. Airports will spend millions to accommodate soon-to-be-obsolete equipment--much of which has an extremely high false-positive rate which means thousands of new federal employees will examine "suspicious" bags by hand. Presumably, the same kind of employees who missed 25 percent of weapons in carry-on luggage in a recent test. The administration knows this as well as Dick Armey does, but when asked whether it backs the rational postponement, Ari Fleischer pulled that irritating detached-from-policy thing that characterizes the Bush White House. Ari explained that it is a congressional deadline, so its up to Congress to change it or not, and asserted that Norm Mineta can and will meet the mandate. No he can't, and he won't--and he shouldn't try.
Posted 7:54 AM | [Link]
YOU'RE RIGHT, RAMESH [Robert A. George]
Agree with you 100% on the Steve Earle song. This actually reminds me of the flap last year over the Bruce Springsteen song, "American Skin." It was inspired by the Diallo shooting. The New York cops assumed that it was an anti-cop song, when a close reading of the lyrics actually showed a remarkable amount of nuance (reading one verse very closely and you understoond that Springsteen was putting himself in the shoes of a cop who had made a horrible mistake). Earle's lyrics, "We came to fight the jihad, our hearts were pure and strong. We filled the air with our prayers and we prayed for our martyrdom. Allah has some other plans, a secret not revealed." certainly leave more than enough room for irony. In the unlikely case that Earle is being totally serious and pro-Lindh, so what? Sorry, but I've never been to muster enough outrage over explicit or seditious rap or rock lyrics (the banality of 85% of them aside).
Posted 7:01 AM | [Link]
AXIS OF EVIL: THE PREQUEL [John J. Miller]
A mass grave is found in the old Soviet Union.
Posted 5:11 AM | [Link]
SOYLENT GREEN [Andrew Stuttaford]
I hate to, er, resurrect the Ted Williams controversy, but last weekend's London Sunday Times ran a story noting that actor Larry Hagman has an altogether more altruistic approach when it comes to deciding what to do when his time is up.
"When I die I want my friends to eat me. I want to be fed through a wood chipper, then be spread over a wheat field, then have a cake baked from the crop for all my pals to lunch on."
What J.R. would have made of this is anyone's guess.
Posted 12:24 AM | [Link]
GORE'S LAW [Andrew Stuttaford]
Here's a squalid little story from the Washington Post (thanks - again - to Instapundit) about a student-journalist who had the effrontery to videotape a speech by Tipper Gore. For his pains, he's being punished by his university. That's bad enough. Worse still is the reaction of Tipper Gore, who has, apparently, bravely declined to intervene in the matter. A Gore staffer is quoted as saying that the whole affair was "clearly a matter between the university and the student." Some readers will recall that Mrs. Gore was briefly famous for taking photographs of the crowds she encountered during the 1992 and 1996 election campaigns. Let's hope she asked their permission.
No word either of any reaction from Al Gore, who lectured on journalism during his bearded phase last year. Presumably the First Amendment was not on the syllabus.
Posted 12:12 AM | [Link]
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MOSAIC MASALA: [Rod Dreher] In India, a so-called lost tribe of Israel has been genetically linked to the High Priest Aaron, making them quite possibly the "purest of the pure" among Jews today. Amazing.
Posted 11:30 PM | [Link]
AWARD WINNER: [John J. Miller]
Congratulations to Bill McGowan for taking home a National Press Club Award tonight for his excellent book Coloring the News. Here's the NR review.
Posted 10:50 PM | [Link]
MORE NONSENSE Andrew Stuttaford]
Perhaps I'm biased, but this looks to be a disgraceful story (thanks to Instapundit for pointing it out). Could this be the same agency that issued visas to two of the hijackers--six months after 9/11?
Posted 5:18 PM | [Link]
WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE? NOT HERE: [Ramesh Ponnuru]
I know Steve Earle is a tedious left-winger--I went to a concert of his a couple years back, and although I enjoyed it, it wasn't because of his instruction on the subjects of global hunger, the death penalty, the drug war, abortion, and Bush v. Gore--but I'm not outraged by the song he's just written about John Walker Lindh (or whatever his name is). I haven't seen all the lyrics--and neither have most of the critics--but it looks like an attempt to enter Lindh's head rather than an endorsement of its contents.
Posted 4:57 PM | [Link]
RE: MCNUGGETS [Andrew Stuttaford]
Ah, Rod, you have overlooked the romance and mystery of the McNuggets experience, the moment of introspection and wonder after that first bite, the thrilling uncertainty of not knowing what it was that one has just eaten. It is not a pleasure for everyone, I'll admit, but for those of us who grew up in a country where the main burger chain was named Wimpy (most misleadingly, actually: in the good old days only the tough went in, only the toughest got out) it's something to savor.
As for fast food down South, I'm not familiar with Sonic, but do you know Krystal? A few of their burgers will put an end to all your troubles.
Posted 4:53 PM | [Link]
RE: MCNUGGETS: [Rod Dreher] So the Marmite-licking Stuttaford is a McNuggets fan, eh? Would he care to explain to me the difference between Chicken McNuggets and battered, deep-fried erasers? I've been trying to figure that out for years. By the by, a Texas correspondent reminds me of the best fast-food joint of all: Sonic. I don't know that they have Sonics up in Yankeeland, but every time Mrs. Dreher and I visit fambly in Texas or Louisiana, we cannot pass one by without stopping. The double-meat No. 1 (hold the onions) is very heaven, and Mrs. Dreher's liquid intake during those sojourns subsists largely of Route 44 cherry limeade by the bucket. Granola shmamola, gimme my Tater Tots.
Posted 3:49 PM | [Link]
SORRY, GENE: [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Saw Eugene Volokh last week, who brought a terrible USA Today poll to my attention. He said he would post it on his site, and I said I'd post a link to it. Then I forgot about it. . . until now.
Posted 3:24 PM | [Link]
RE: MCDONALD's [James S. Robbins]
Guys, slamming McDonald's is a perfectly acceptable conservative thing to do. I refer you to my May 22 piece in which I discuss my decades-long boycott of McD for its support of left-wing causes. This is a matter of principle, not taste or utility. And I'm suspicious about what part of the chicken the "McNugget" comes from...
Posted 3:23 PM | [Link]
DEATH IN THE KINGDOM [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, owner of War Emblem--the Kentucky Derby winner--and owner of the often-cited (at least here) London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper and the English-language Saudi daily the Arab News is dead of a heart attack at age 44. He was the nephew of King Fahd.
Posted 3:22 PM | [Link]
ON TV [Stanley Kurtz]
I’m going to be interviewed tomorrow morning at 7:50 AM ET (don’t know if it’s on delay in the rest of the country) on the FOX News Channel’s morning show, Fox and Friends, about my battle with Stanford professor Joel Beinin.
Posted 2:46 PM | [Link]
SOME POINTERS [James S. Robbins]
Jonah, when you are addressing the YAFers, please note this latest free speech atrocity at American U. Suggestion to activists: next time use a hidden camera, regardless of whether it is a public event. A trip to the Spy Museum might yield some ideas.
Posted 2:18 PM | [Link]
HILL STREET GREEN [Andrew Stuttaford]
The police force in Kew Gardens, London has been issued with an 'environmentally-friendly' patrol car.
The result: "despondence, disillusionment and ridicule".
More details here.
Posted 2:01 PM | [Link]
MENU MAVEN [Andrew Stuttaford]
Hey, Rod, have you tried Chicken McNuggets? They are really good...
Posted 1:55 PM | [Link]
DID I MENTION.... [Jonah Goldberg]
That Rich is also insightful and wise beyond his years?
Posted 1:52 PM | [Link]
K-LO SMELLS OF ELDERBERRIES: [Rod Dreher] Oh, La Lopez is indeed a cruel mistress. Let me set the record straight: I take a backseat to no one in my loathing of McDonald's. However, it must be said that that comes from a pro-Burger King bias more than anything else. Burger King grills its burgers; Mickey D's fries them. Plus, you eat a McDonald's burger, the taste stays in your mouth all day. Who needs that? The superiority of McDonald's fries does not compensate for the crumminess of their burgers. Then there's Wendy's, whose burgers and fries are floppy, but I digress...
Posted 1:36 PM | [Link]
SHUT UP AND DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLD [Andrew Stuttaford]
The New York Times is reporting that the UN's World Health Organization is attempting to ban cigarette ads worldwide. Message from the UN to the world's consumers : you are too stupid to make up your own minds.
There is, apparently, bureaucratic indignation that the tobacco companies "have been working behind the scenes" to weaken this negotiating process. Well, duh. The cigarette companies have been banned from attending the negotiations, so where else are they expected to make their case?
Posted 1:33 PM | [Link]
SHOULDN'T THEY BE STUDYING OR SOMETHING? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Following from Stanley's piece today on the anti-American Middle East Studies Association attack on their critics--namely studs like Martin Kramer, Daniel Pipes, and Stanley Kurtz--here's a look at some of what these academics have been up to since Sept. 11: What business do they have protesting Ashcroft fingerprinting proposals?
Posted 1:26 PM | [Link]
BAD IDEA [Dave Kopel]
Using the military for domestic law enforcement, as Tom Ridge and Joseph Biden are now proposing, is a terrible idea. Biden was part of the Congresses which have used the drug was as a pretext to repeatedly gut the Posse Comitatus Act (which forbids use of the military in domestic law enforcement). As I detail in a chapter of a Cato Institute book, the immense drug-war loopholes in the Posse Comitatus Act have led directly to the deaths of many innocents who had nothing to do with drugs. This is because soldiers are warriors, not peace officers. Soldiers are trained to destroy an enemy quickly and ruthlessly; this training is precisely the opposite of training for peace officers, who are supposed to minimize the use of force and to scrupulously respect constitutional safeguards. Biden is now claiming that the Posse Comitatus Act currently bars soldiers from shooting at terrorists who are about to use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. This claim is extremely dubious, because the Act simply forbids the military from being used for law enforcement; the Act does not forbid the military from being used for military purposes -- such as killing enemy invaders. When Japanese planes started bombing Pearl Harbor, nobody asserted that the Posse Comitatus Act prevented the Army and Navy from shooting at the Japanese planes; nor could anyone credibly claim that the Posse Comitatus Act would have barred the Army and Navy from shooting down Japanese planes while they were flying over Oahu on the way to Pearl Harbor. Notably, no one today is claiming that the Posse Comitatus Act forbids the use of an F-16 to shoot down a hijacked commercial airliner. Quite plainly, nothing in the Posse Comitatus Act today forbids the American military to kill enemy guerillas and irregulars who have entered American territory. The best anti-terrorism changes in the Posse Comitatus Act would be to repeal all of the drug-war loopholes which were created in the 1980s. By relieving the military from the non-military job of marijuana interdiction, Congress would instantly make more resources available for a genuinely military job: terrorist destruction.
Posted 1:20 PM | [Link]
AN EDITOR’S CYNICISM: [Rich Lowry]
Any normal person would be extremely flattered by Jonah’s outlandishly nice post earlier. But I’m an editor before I’m a normal person, so my reaction was simply, “Oh, s---, Jonah’s magazine piece is going to be really, really late today.”
Posted 1:14 PM | [Link]
HATING BRITS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Andrew, Derb, evidently nobody wants British tourists.
Posted 12:50 PM | [Link]
ALSO... [Jonah Goldberg]
I assume you read the caption for the Clinton trailer/presidential library. No, it doesn't say "if this library's a-rockin' don't come a knockin'." It does say, however: "This perspective view from the southwest represents the site as a landscape of plazas and gardens and the building as the "Seventh Bridge," which enters into a dialogue with the six bridges and actively engages the river." This really is the perfect Clintonian synthesis: a giant monument to tackiness justified by some New Agey gobbledygook about "dialogue."
Posted 10:26 AM | [Link]
INACTIVISM, CONT'D [Jonah Goldberg]
I've got to finish a piece for the mag and write today's G-File so this is my last post in the Corner for a little while. Also, I haven't finished wading through the "inactivist" email. But I thought I'd share this one from Poppa Goldberg:
The avatar (or cynosure) of inactivism should be Oblomov, "hero" of the classic Russian novel of the same name (1859) by Ivan Goncharov. This is from "The Reader's Encyclopedia" (Crowell): "The hero, Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a Russian landowner living in St. Petersburg, is the embodiment of physical and mental laziness. His chief activities are indulging in reveries while lying on his couch and occasionally quarreling with his gloomy, coarse servant Zakhar. Oblomov's robe and slippers, his almost constant apparel, become part of his apparel in the course of the book." And so on. Oblomov became a metaphor for the inactivism and sloth of the Russian aristocracy and his name produced the word "oblomovshchina," a way of life for the immensely rich but ineffective and passive Russian aristocracy. He was a good man, but no match for the "new men" who were going to improve Russia. Actually, he's not a good role model because he was such a total dropout when Russia needed aristocrats who would engage themselves in modernizing the country.
Posted 9:56 AM | [Link]
FYI [Jonah Goldberg]
Tomorrow I will be making my annual peregrination to the YAF National Conservative Student Conference. My talk was on C-Span last year and might be this year (C-Span hasn't decided). Lowry's the dinner speaker again, but that's only because he's smarter, more powerful and better-looking than me. In fact, his only identifiable fault is his inexplicable thriftiness.
Posted 9:28 AM | [Link]
AGAIN… [Jonah Goldberg]
Enron collapsed, according to Democrats, because it was too cozy with the administration. Ken Lay gave money to Bush, the administration was full of oilmen etc. Well, doesn’t Worldcom’s bankruptcy suggest that maybe none of that had anything to do with it? And, perhaps, just perhaps, the Democrats never knew what they were talking about when it came to Enron or anything else? It’s probably too late for Republicans to fight back effectively, but I do wish they would stop crying "me too" on every absurd Democratic proposal. Republicans will never win in a who-hates-corporations-more contest.
Posted 9:16 AM | [Link]
WILL SOMEONE TELL THE DEMOCRATS? [Jonah Goldberg]
Fascinating article in yesterday’s New York Times reports that more health care isn’t necessarily better health care.
Posted 9:15 AM | [Link]
HOW FITTING [Jonah Goldberg]
The Clinton library will actually look like a trailer.
Posted 9:14 AM | [Link]
MORE EVIL FROM THE AXIS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
A defector says Iran bombed a Jewish community center in Argentina eight years ago that killed 85 people and then paid Argentina's president at the time, Carlos Saúl Menem, $10 million to cover it up.
Posted 8:18 AM | [Link]
BTW [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Andrew (and Jonah!), a certain self-described "crunchy conservative" (who recently referred to a Corner-nik's mother as a rodent!) was recently overheard in another heresy: Ridiculing McDonalds' in the NRNY real-time world HDQTRS last week. (Are no left-right food stances sacred?)
Posted 8:11 AM | [Link]
CITIZEN-CORPS OVERREACTION [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Posted 7:36 AM | [Link]
AFGHAN-STABILITY WATCH [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Hamid Karzai has dismissed his Afghan security detail; he's now guarded by American soldiers.
Posted 7:31 AM | [Link]
SURPRISE! [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
WorldCom has filed for bankruptcy.
Posted 7:28 AM | [Link]
FORGIVE ME, ANDREW [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I was without power, along with many other New York City and suburb residents, for parts of the weekend, so my Corner reading was not what it should have been. And, anyway, I did sorta assume that all your weekend posts were about salad cream and such. So I missed that you already posted the Arab News-Visa Express thing!
Posted 7:02 AM | [Link]
STILL... [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Arab News gets around to defending Visa Express--and despite State Dept. claims to the contrary, it reports that word of the program's death hasn't made it to the kingdom.
Posted 5:29 AM | [Link]
JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER: [Rod Dreher] Ever heard of him? He belongs on your crunchy-right reading list. He wrote a terrific book a few years ago called The Geography of Nowhere, which was a brilliant rant against the ugliness of suburbia, and an explanation of how it got to be that way. One of the book's major themes was that the dehumanizing housing developments that sprung up across America after WW2 didn't have to turn out like that. The chief culprits, in Kunstler's view, are developers' greed and the Modernist mindset. Here, from his website, is an excerpt from an essay he published in the (conservative) American Enterprise this past January. It's called "It's About Truth and Beauty, Stupid": "My personal sense is that the Modernist racket is utterly played out. Its funeral took place last week in the collapse of those twin banal megaliths at the World Trade Center. We are entering an age of global strife and national austerity in which truth and beauty will be necessary survival toold. We've had enough cultural pranks and party tricks to last ten generations, anyway. Only a nation as culturally obese as America was in the second half of the 20th century could afford to discount truth and beauty down to practically zero, and soon their value will once again be manifest as we struggle to invest with meaning lives lived much closer to the bone." I have no idea where Kunstler comes from politically, but that's spoken like a true Birkenstocked Burkean.
Posted 1:21 AM | [Link]
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FEEDING FRENZY [Andrew Stuttaford]
There's a story in the London Sunday Times today about the cost of sending the British delegation to the pompously named Earth Summit (on 'sustainable development' ) in South Africa next month. This follows an earlier controversy about the money spent on attending the 'pre-summit' summit in, er, Bali. At least eight ministers from Britain will be attending the South African event backed up (naturally!) by more than 100 aides. The total cost of this jaunt will be over $1.2 million. According to the report, the delegation's most senior members "will be housed in five-star hotels with its senior members being ferried the few hundred yards to the conference halls in air-conditioned limousines".
It's a shabby story and it highlights another reason that bureaucrats are so keen on the new international criminal 'court'.
It's another trough to feed at.
Posted 10:22 PM | [Link]
GONE TO POT [Andrew Stuttaford]
Britain's normally rather repressive Labour government recently took some half-hearted steps in the direction of a commonsense drugs policy with the announcement that it was planning to reclassify cannabis in such a way as to reduce the penalties for simple possession (although a prison sentence does remain a theoretical, if remote, possibility). To say that there are problems with this 'tolerated, but illegal' approach is, to put it mildly, an understatement, not least because it will put the police in an impossible position. They will be reviled if they prosecute, and they will be despised if they don't. Either way, respect for the rule of law will dwindle still further. Labour's 'solution' will almost certainly fail. More muddle, doubtless, to follow.
Meanwhile, the increasingly laughable Tories continue to show why they are in opposition. Their remedy for pot's popularity? Yet more big government. The London Sunday Telegraph (I'm having trouble linking, but scroll down the main news index and you should find the story) is reporting that the Conservatives will be calling for a new hard-line policy to be taken against dope smokers. Their inspiration? Socialist Sweden. But don't worry, the Tories haven't entirely lost touch with their traditionalist roots.
They are, it seems, going to ask the Queen to lend a hand.
Posted 4:26 PM | [Link]
TWEEDLEDEE [Andrew Stuttaford]
The Library of Congress runs a series on its website known as "Today in History". A reader writes in to draw attention to the entry for July 17th, the anniversary of the opening shots of the Spanish civil war. Now, it is not, of course, possible to summarize the whole of such a complex conflict in a few paragraphs, but to gloss over the Soviet 'contribution' to that terrible conflict is to make a nonsense of history. The Spanish civil war was very far from being the simple morality play of conventional establishment wisdom and the librarians of congress need, clearly, to catch up on their reading.
There are two books they might want to start with. In a sense, they both come from the left. The first, of course, is Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and the second is Spain Betrayed (a fascinating trawl through the Soviet archives edited by Ronald Radosh, Mary Habeck and Grigory Sevostianov).
Posted 2:21 PM | [Link]
TWEEDLEDUM [Andrew Stuttaford]
Here's a piece from yesterday's London Independent about a hotel that caters for the followers of a fallen German dictatorship. The article is far from uncritical, but the overall tone is of a certain bleak amusement. Inconceivable, you might think, but, no, these former totalitarians are Communists and that, apparently, makes a difference.
Posted 1:50 PM | [Link]
VISA MESS [Andrew Stuttaford]
Saudi-based Arab News has a piece this morning on the Visa Express scandal. According to the paper, both a local travel agency and courier service claim to be "still using" the program. The US embassy in Riyadh is also quoted - as saying that the program "is still in effect, but will be restructured."
Arab News goes on to note that the story in DC is somewhat different:
"In Washington, however, State Department spokeswoman Jo-Anne Prokopowicz said "Visa Express" had been ended as a direct result of persistent erroneous news reports that claimed applications received through the program were not thoroughly evaluated and had allowed terrorists to enter the United States.
"We are taking this action because, despite repeated clarifications by the department that every visa is reviewed and adjudicated by an American consular officer, erroneous media reports have created a false perception that threatens to undermine public confidence," she told AFP."
Erroneous? False?
Posted 1:33 PM | [Link]
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?: [Rod Dreher] Bad economic news all around in the Times this morning. Quotes: "Thanks to Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing and Tyco, confidence in corporate executives and the validity of their companies' earnings is gone. ... According to Thomas McManus, chief United States strategist at Banc of America Securities in New York, $6.7 trillion has been lost in stocks since the peak in March 2000. ... 'My feeling is the stock market is telling us something about the economy,' said James Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis. 'That the economy if going to be really bad for the rest of the year. I also think what it's telling us is the consumer is going to get close to capitulation in the second half.' ... With the stock market plunging the other day and surveys depicting Americans as increasingly worried about the way the Bush administration is dealing with the economy and corporate fraud, Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, the administration's main voice on economic issues, was in Kyrgyzstan. ... In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the end of his Africa trip in May, Mr. O'Neill bridled at questions about his effectiveness. 'If people don't like what I'm doing, I don't give a damn,' he asserted. ... '[O'Neill] has everybody's strong confidence,' the [senior White House] official said. 'The fact that he's traveling in a difficult week in the markets is unexceptional. He needs to perform all the duties of the secretary of the treasury, not just sit at his desk focusing on the markets on his screen.'" Oh, really? Somewhere, James "It's the Economy, Stupid" Carville is having a very good Sunday morning.
Posted 12:16 PM | [Link]