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Posted 3:04 PM | [Link]

A GLIMPSE OF THE ASYLUM [Andrew Stuttaford]
Columbia University produces a guide to facilities, resources and student services. In a section entitled "Religious Activities and Services", readers learn that the Earl Hall Center is home to a large number of different student groups from different faiths. Fair enough: it's a diverse campus, but judging from a description of what the chaplain is up to, that diversity only goes so far.

"Chaplain Jewelnel Davis is concerned with strengthening coherence and unity at Columbia. She focuses on a nexus of issues including spirituality, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual identity, gender, social justice and community service."

It may be a little paranoid to say so, but set out like that, the only 'coherence and unity' I see is the lockstep of the campus left (OK, scrap the 'coherence'). Let's hope I'm wrong. Next time this booklet is produced why not add a few more "issues" to that "nexus". It might help reassure the skeptical. How about low taxation, second amendment rights, personal responsibility and the need for a strong military? They would fit in nicely between "social justice" and "community service".

After all diversity is as 'diversity' does.
Posted 1:46 PM | [Link]

BITTER CUP [Andrew Stuttaford]
Nurse Bloomberg may be a sanctimonious crank (whose sanctimonious crankiness over cigarettes in bars has now found some support over at the often cranky and frequently sanctimonious New Yorker), but politicians of his sort only get their chance from an electorate perennially disposed to extend the reach of government into everyday life.

There's an example of that going on over in Berkeley, California at the moment. This autumn electors in that university town will be asked to support a law that would prohibit cafes from selling politically-incorrect coffee. According to a recent report in the Economist "only coffees...certified as organic, fair-trade or shade-grown could be sold." Dispensing regular coffee will be punishable by a $100 fine or a sentence of up to six months in jail. Yes, that's right, you can mop up the coffee you just spilled. You read that right: under this law an individual could be imprisoned for having the temerity to brew what some bigots consider to be the 'wrong' cup of Joe.

There's a word for the 3,000 people who voted to put this on the ballot paper.

Fascists.
Posted 1:01 PM | [Link]

HEADLINE OF THE WEEK [Andrew Stuttaford]
From the New York Observer: "Cuomo Folds, Plans to Hold McCall's Coat."

Perfect.
Posted 12:25 PM | [Link]

CONSPIRACY THEORIES [Andrew Stuttaford]
No, no, Kathryn: the Trilateral Commission shot JR (or was I only dreaming?) and the Illuminati are rumored to be the hidden force behind Dr. Pepper - America's most sinister soda.
Posted 12:20 PM | [Link]

FOX SAYS AMERICA HAS CHANGED [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
But the world certainly hasn’t. Here’s the Arab League taking the side of the bad guy.
Posted 11:59 AM | [Link]

OR, ANDREW[Kathryn Jean Lopez]
It could always be the Illuminati or Trilateral Commission behind it.
Posted 11:52 AM | [Link]

JONAH, YOUR CANADIAN FRIENDS... [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
...sending small planes our way.
Posted 11:51 AM | [Link]

HATFILL EXPLAINED [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
David Tell has a very good run-down of what we know about the anthrax "person of interest," what we don't know--and that we shouldn't know any of this--in this week's Weekly Standard. It's here.
Posted 11:45 AM | [Link]

A WARNING MISSED?[Andrew Stuttaford]
Here's an intriguing story from today's Independent. The explanation, I think, 'warning fatigue'.
Posted 11:40 AM | [Link]

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Friday, September 6

MUST-SEE MOVIE: [Rod Dreher] I used to be a professional movie critic. In the trade, the phrase "crowd-pleaser" was almost always a term of disparagement. Now that I'm a regular paying customer, I have a new appreciation for crowd-pleasing movies. And My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a crowd-pleaser in the best sense of the word. It's completely forgettable, and completely wonderful. It made Mrs. D. and me very happy indeed. Go see it.
Posted 11:49 PM | [Link]

HAPPY JEWISH NEW YEAR: Local news here in NYC tonight shows concrete barriers and heavy security around Temple Emanu-el for the start of the Jewish New Year. Congregants are being trained on how to spot the kind of people who might blow them up. This is America today. Thanks, Islam!
Posted 11:10 PM | [Link]

ART FORMS [John Derbyshire]
Jonah: You couldn't have left that till I'd digested my dinner? Eeeeuuw.
Posted 7:49 PM | [Link]

AL QAEDA OWNS UP [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Posted 7:16 PM | [Link]

OUTRAGE [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Jonah, your Canadians are actually requiring Saudis get visas before they head to there.
Posted 7:06 PM | [Link]

PUNISHMENT? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Jonah, you just did Derb's work for him. He will bring it up in Monday's NRODT editorial meeting at NRHTQRS.
Posted 7:04 PM | [Link]

TOTALLY NORMAL ART. [Jonah Goldberg]
Not for the squeamish or those who don't want to laugh out loud. [Rated PG-13] Derb, consider this punishment for mocking my Canada exposé.

Posted 6:49 PM | [Link]

GET READY [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Things are heating up in Iraq.
Posted 5:22 PM | [Link]

WE'LL BE GETTING A LOT OF THIS AGAIN... [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Posted 4:54 PM | [Link]

THE WAGES OF MISMATCHING [Roger Clegg]
Yesterday the Pew Hispanic Center released a study, Latinos in Higher Education: Many Enroll, Too Few Graduate, by Richard Fry. Its title summarizes its thesis. But one obvious possible reason for the gap between admissions and graduation rates is not discussed: What if, as a result of ethnic preferences (a.k.a. affirmative action), many Latinos are admitted to schools where they are likely to fail, because they are less academically prepared than other students? To be sure, a series of studies by the Center for Equal Opportunity indicates that, while Latinos frequently are given preferences, they are generally less than those given African Americans, and the Pew study also indicates that a high percentage of Latinos attend colleges that have essentially open enrollment (and, therefore, award no preferences on the basis of race or ethnicity). Still, it is likely that part of the admissions/graduation gap is a result of “affirmative action” policies that ultimately hurt their supposed beneficiaries. Better to graduate from a good school than flunk out of a great one.
Posted 3:51 PM | [Link]

CAIR SPINS [Sarah Maserati]
On Monday, CAIR, the Muslim activist group and apologist for Islamism, will announce a "year-long campaign . . . [that] involves the community sponsored distribution of books, videos and audio cassettes about Islam and Muslims to some 16,000 public libraries nationwide." Of course, in CAIR-fashion, it's not as unobjectionable as it sounds. Americans should know more about Islam, but not the bowdlerized, PC version that CAIR is going to serve up. Take one of the recommended reading picks by Georgetown's John Esposito: It concludes that "Islam and most Islamic movements are not necessarily anti-Western, anti-American, or anti-democratic. . . . they do not necessarily threaten American interests." Another book discusses the experiences of African-Muslim slaves brought to the U.S. How about modern-day slavery in Muslim countries? Will CAIR explain why there are no functioning democracies in the Islamic world? Only when honest Muslim groups are able to point to both the good and bad in the Muslim world, past and present, will we know that we're on our way out of the mess we're in now.
Posted 3:37 PM | [Link]

FINALLY: [Rich Lowry]
I would love to hear one thing that our allies are supposedly going to stop doing on the war on terror—according to the Scowcroft argument—if we go into Iraq. Will, say, the French (one of our most troublesome allies) suddenly stop arresting Islamic radicals? Unlikely, considering that they were taking the Islamic terrorist threat seriously before we were (blowing up French subways, as Islamists did in the mid-1990s, brought out the “inner Ashcroft” in the French).
Posted 3:28 PM | [Link]

SPEAKING OF TEMPORIZING…: [Rich Lowry]
…I hope everyone noticed that, according to the NYTimes today, UN inspectors “said it would take about a year to complete work to determine whether Iraq was developing prohibited weapons, and then only if Iraq cooperated fully.” A year! And that’s under ideal circumstances! This makes it obvious that inspections are a perfect way to jerk us around. Admit them for six months or so, then begin cat-and-mouse games, and when we get really, really angry, admit them again, then start cat-and-mouse games again. And I guess while all this happens we’re supposed to have 200,000 troops just sitting, waiting outside Iraq to see whether Hans Blix gets to go where he wants on any given day. Absurd. As George Shultz points out, we’ve been here before. Now, is the time for decision. If Democrats oppose war, great, let them stand up and be counted. But please spare us the ridiculous charade of another inspection regime.
Posted 3:27 PM | [Link]

GEORGE SHULTZ NAILS IT: [Rich Lowry]
His Wash Post piece today may be the single best short case for war with Iraq that I have read. Don’t read it once, read it twice. It’s a real intellectual hammer-blow against the Iraq temporizers.
Posted 3:25 PM | [Link]

BE PREPARED [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Andrew is resting up for the weekend's usual Stuttaford Corner.
Posted 1:53 PM | [Link]

BAD COUNSEL [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Trauma counselling gets bad grades.
Posted 1:52 PM | [Link]

BIN LADEN REJECTED [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
This German couple's getting no respect for the name they want for their baby.
Posted 1:17 PM | [Link]

HELL FREEZES OVER: [Rod Dreher] ...and the spirit of Pim Fortuyn lives on. This news from Holland is as surprising as it is welcome.
Posted 12:55 PM | [Link]

TOO BAD... [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
...these California kids can't vote. Remarkable photo of a REPUBLICAN. Folks in Calif. report that most of the press, though, conveniently missed Simon's school day.
Posted 12:44 PM | [Link]

HEY JONAH... [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
...that was a good one. Still on the floor.
Posted 12:32 PM | [Link]

STAND BY YOUR CANADA MAN [Jonah Goldberg]
A reader warns:
On 9/11, when no one knew whether there were any other planes under the control of apocalyptic terrorists, the Canadians allowed our planes into their airspace to land safely. They jointly help us manage our air defenses. Their sacrifice in the 1943 raid in France paved the way for D-Day, in which they also played a major role (capturing one of the five beaches). They are our most important ally, dwarfing even England. Please don't go picking a fight.
Posted 12:15 PM | [Link]

EMAIL FROM POPPA GOLDBERG [Jonah Goldberg]
I saw your Corner entry asking if the Iraqi no-fly zone is an act of war. It might have some relationship to the "pacific blockade," a concept of the 19th century under which ships could be blocked from a port without firing a shot (an act of war) -- but firing a shot if the intruding ships refused to stop. (This had relevance during the Cuban missile crisis.) The thing is a "pacific blockade" has to be enforced and effective for it to pass muster with international law. (Remember you once suggested that it would be fun for, say, Denmark to declare war against, say, Malaysia, and not "follow through"?) In other words, the U.S. couldn't declare a "pacific blockade" against Cuba and then just randomly allow some ships to dock at Havana but not others. At least this is how I remember the concept.
Posted 12:10 PM | [Link]

JUST YOU WAIT.... [Jonah Goldberg]
Once I'm done with the Canada story, I'm going to blow the the lid on the saltwater taffy business. I will name names!
Posted 12:06 PM | [Link]

JUST WONDERING [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Do any NYC firefighters or cops read The Corner?
Posted 12:04 PM | [Link]

BATED BREATH [John Derbyshire]
Jonah: I can't wait for the Canada piece. You will express me a copy, won't you?
Posted 12:03 PM | [Link]

MORE CANADIAN BLEGGING [Jonah Goldberg]
Right now, I'm particularly interested in what the seriously ideological press thinks about Canada. Is there a hardcore lefty view (other than the socialist health care envy?) of our neighbors to the North? Have any Paleocon writers written at length about the Canucks? What about the Euroweenies? Has their been a French opus which asks "Why Can't America be More Like Canada?" Lemme know if you know. Thanks.
Posted 11:54 AM | [Link]

POTOMAC FEVER [Jonathan Adler]
The West Nile virus infection count continues to rise. Now come reports of malaria in Northern Virginia. Of course, regulatory controls on pesticides, wetlands restoration and other environmental policies would have no more to do with this than they did with wildfires in the West.

Posted 10:59 AM | [Link]

JONAH AND THE MAN: THE SYNDICATED COLUMN [Jonah Goldberg]
I decided, fyi, to use my South Dakotan "incident" as a peg for my syndicated column.

Posted 10:47 AM | [Link]

RAVIN' IN NEW HAVEN! [Jonah Goldberg]
A while back, my friend Mike Lynch (of Reason mag) and I debated each other for the America's Future Foundation. The topic was "Why Are Libertarians Always Wrong When they Disagree with Conservatives?" Actually that might not have been the exact title, but you get the point. Apparently, among a small ghetto of conservative and libertoid youth, that debate has taken on mytho-poetic status. Why? I have no idea, partly because I drank so much beer over the course of our epic battle that I woke up with "Von Mises Rocks!" written in lipstick on my chest and found an inflatable Ayn Rand doll in my bathtub (just kidding). Anyway, we're going to try to recreate the magic once again up at this trade school in New Haven known to some of you as "Yale." The Yale Federalist Society is going to raise the roof for some old fashioned, Frank Meyer style fusionist rock 'em sock 'em on Wednesday, September 17 at 7:30. I have no more details than that. But when I do, I will post them.
Posted 10:41 AM | [Link]

ANOTHER BELLESILES? [Stanley Kurtz]
There's a fascinating account about what may be another history scandal in the making over at John Rosenberg's blog, Discriminations. Rosenberg reports on an expose by Johns Hopkins history professor, Michael P. Johnson. In an academic article, soon to be followed by a book, Johnson argues that one of the most important slave revolts in American history never really happened. What historians commonly treat as a nearly successful plot to burn down the city of Charleston and escape to Haiti was in fact, Johnson claims, the invention of a corrupt Southern court out to railroad a bunch of innocent slaves. Johnson charges historians with ignoring key evidence from archives in order to further a romanticized portrait of slaves in rebellion. In this sense, the case puts one in mind of the Bellesiles scandal. This one may take some time to sort out, but it definitely makes for interesting reading.
Posted 10:37 AM | [Link]

YOU THINK YOUR JOB IS HARD? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Imagine being Robert Mugabe's spin doctor.
Posted 5:39 AM | [Link]

LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND RETIRED: [Rod Dreher] Keep this crap up, and we'll all become Bolsheviks before it's over. Jack Welch was paid nearly $17 million in his last year alone at General Electric -- and he still expects his old firm to pick up his check at Jean-Georges! Vulgarian.
Posted 1:26 AM | [Link]

AGAIN, I LOVE PEGGY NOONAN: [Rod Dreher] One year later, she considers what has changed.
Posted 1:08 AM | [Link]

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Thursday, September 5

AGAIN, I LOVE MARK STEYN [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Some good news admist a somber anniversary.
Posted 7:44 PM | [Link]

SINCE WE'RE BLEGGING [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I'm looking for gals involved in high-school and college softball for a woman's sports piece I'm working on. (No, you have not mistakenly reached the Village Voice personals.) Please e-mail me here with the word softball in the subject line. Thanks.
Posted 6:52 PM | [Link]

K-LO: [Rod Dreher] ...resembles that remark about the editrix. Rich has a new intern guy in helping him out on a project, and until the National Labor Relations Board inspector that Cruella de Lopez's behavior earned us last year intervened, she had the intern sharpening the stiletto points on her Manolo Blahniks -- with dental floss! This kind of stuff goes on every day here.
Posted 6:41 PM | [Link]

BUT SERIOUSLY... [Jonah Goldberg]I am going to do a piece for the mag on the Canadians. That's right the Canadians. It will be the most exciting article ever on the Canadians which is sort of like saying many of the things below. Regardless, if there's anything I need to read, see, do -- within reason -- I'm eager for your suggestions, especially from honest to goodness Canadians. But please put something aalong the lines of those "#$%^& Canadians!" in the subject header.
Posted 6:38 PM | [Link]

THE BEST: [Rod Dreher] ... ballerina in Galveston.
Posted 6:37 PM | [Link]

JONAH... [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
...geez, Dreher's gonna come after you for beating him to that one!
Posted 6:33 PM | [Link]

THE MEANEST... [Jonah Goldberg]
...Executive Editrix on the web
Posted 6:30 PM | [Link]

THE COOLEST... [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
...guy in The Corner.
Posted 6:16 PM | [Link]

THE STRAIGHTEST... [Jonah Goldberg]
...Oscar party in Provincetown.
Posted 6:14 PM | [Link]

THE MOST... [Jonah Goldberg]
...hygienic hooker in East St. Louis.
Posted 6:12 PM | [Link]

THE BEST [John Derbyshire]
...dentist in Dublin?
Posted 5:24 PM | [Link]

RICH.... [Jonah Goldberg]
"The best studio apartment in Zimbabwe...."? I like it. Sort of like saying, "The best Octoberfest in Orlando."
Posted 4:05 PM | [Link]

READ LILEKS TODAY: [Rod Dreher] Just do it. And remember this child, and what Muslim fundamentalists did to her on September 11.
Posted 4:04 PM | [Link]

JONAH: [Rich Lowry]
You’re absolutely right. Here’s another thought. If we have to make a “final offer” to Saddam, I would begin with this sentiment for the 1998 Wash Post edit I posted yesterday: “Having defeated Iraq's army, the United States chose to accept, in place of Saddam Hussein's total surrender and relinquishing of power, his pledge to disarm. His failure after all these years to honor that pledge gives the United Nations every right to reconsider its merciful cease-fire terms." Exactly (well, except for the UN part). Let’s then reconsider the cease fire deal (since Saddam has repudiated it), and give Saddam one, last offer to avoid war: if he hands over power to a transitional government, we will give him exile and the best studio apartment in Zimbabwe, no questions asked.
Posted 3:56 PM | [Link]

MORE STRAY IRAQ THOUGHTS [Jonah Goldberg]
Rich, on your second point. I agree entirely. But one might add that we've been "nation-building" in Iraq too. Indeed, one of the arguments against attacking Iraq has been that "Kurdish Iraq" is so happy with its mini-state -- which is protected and propped up by our military, specifically our no-fly zone.

And speaking of that no-fly zone, isn't that an act of war? I'm no legal scholar, but I always thought embargos and bombings were what people do during wars. Well, we've been bombing and enforcing sanctions in Iraq for years. So the question isn't one of "should we go in or not?" or "should we go to war" -- we're in, we're at war. It's just low intensity. The question is do we extract ourselves without solving the root problems or do we extract ourselves only after we fix them? Joe Biden keeps saying that pere Bush was right not to go into Baghdad because US troops would have had to stay for five years. Well, it's eleven years later and we're still bombing. By Biden's calculations we could have been done with this whole thing in 1996 and maybe we'd have a friendly, prospering Iraq by now.
Posted 3:27 PM | [Link]

STRAY IRAQ THOUGHTS: [Rich Lowry]

--We now are told how perilous it is for the U.S. to be involved in occupying and re-building nations. But we’ve been doing it for a decade or so in Bosnia and Kosovo, and I’m at a loss to see the disastrous results. I was always skeptical of having U.S. troops as part of those missions, but only because our military has more strategically important things to do—like invade Iraq.

--We are now told it would be disastrous for the U.S. to engage in an imperial effort to shape the geo-politics of Middle East and prop up an allied regime in Iraq. But we’ve already been playing this quasi-imperial role and propping up (supposedly) allied regimes for years—it just happens the regimes we’ve chosen to prop up are Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

--We are told we must make a case that the Iraqi threat is “imminent.” But the idea is to deal with this problem before the threat is imminent. Once Saddam has nukes that are deliverable to the U.S. (e.g., an imminent threat), it’s too late. Since no one—not even Brent Scowcroft—is proposing that we wait until Saddam has a nuke and a long-range ICBM to deliver it with, everyone seems to be in favor of some form of preemption. Scowcroft and Co. just want to preempt 2-10 years from now when Saddam inevitably gets his nuke. So, the question is really now or later, and now—when our power is at its height, and the nuke-less Saddam’s at a low ebb—clearly makes the most sense.
Posted 3:14 PM | [Link]

WHERE'S THE WHITE HOUSE? [Jonathan Adler]
As anticipated, Justice Priscilla Owen went down to defeat today on a party line vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The vote may have been inevitable, but I wonder what would have happened had the White House turned up the heat. Sure, the White House was more aggressive than with the Pickering nomination, but in the last several days, they did next to nothing. While the President is understandably preoccupied -- there's that little Iraq matter to deal with -- others don't have an excuse. Owen's nomination was an afterthought at Ari Flesicher's press briefing yesterday, and there was little visible effort from the White House Counsel's office. The latter may have been particularly significant, as Alberto Gonzales' alleged criticisms of Justice Owen when the two served together on the Texas Supreme Court has been a primary talking point of her opponents. I believe that the relative silence on the Owen nomination in the last several days sent a message to Democrats that this was a nomination they could safely oppose.
Posted 2:46 PM | [Link]

FOR MY PALEO FRIENDS: [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Just kidding.
Posted 1:50 PM | [Link]

ROOTS: [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Yes, Jonah, I was born and raised in Kansas City. But my first loyalty is of course to Israel.
Posted 1:48 PM | [Link]

RE: GUILTY SOUTHERN WHITE BOYS: [Rod Dreher] I haven't yet seen that discussion on the blogs, but permit me a word, as someone who ran screaming into the arms of liberalism as a younger man. It's all about race, at least at first. When a conscientious white Southerner comes to understand what exactly was done to black people in his town, state and region, with the sanction of the law and well within living memory, he cannot believe it. Or more precisely, he believes it, and it makes him sick. He feels infested by it, and wants desperately to separate himself from it. The impulse, then, is to adopt a Manichaean view of Southern culture, and align oneself with liberals, who were correct on civil rights, and adopt their "progressive" program wholesale. This typically results in a shame-filled rejection of one's Southern culture and heritage, especially in front of the goyim (which is to say, educated Yankees). Never underestimate the Southern intellectual's insecurity around his non-Southern "betters." For many of us, getting older and wiser brings us to an appreciation of the complexities of human nature, and a more nuanced and benevolent view of the South and its heritage. But I would imagine for many of those men of Bill Moyers' generation, who grew up in a very different South than I did, it is impossible to separate their idea of the South, and its conservatism, from the racial cruelties they lived through, and saw firsthand. I find them often sanctimonious and off-putting, but I find it hard to judge these men, because I'm not sure I would have turned out much different if I had grown up seeing my people subjecting black folks to Jim Crow and much worse, and justifying it by sickening appeals to conservative faith in Tradition and the Bible.
Posted 1:41 PM | [Link]

GUILTY SOUTHERN WHITE BOYS [Jonah Goldberg]
Fascinating discussion about Southern male liberals going on in the blogger corridor of Kaus Files, Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan and Virginia Postrel (I'm too lazy to add links to all of those, but Kaus and Reynolds have all the links). Personally, I think Glenn Reynolds has it right when he says GSWBs are the product of both over-compensation and self-righteousness. I find that the impenetrable force-field of smugness which surrounds so many Southern liberals -- think of Bill Moyers, for example -- can actually serve as a GetSmartian cone of silence which makes it impossible for me to hear anything they have to say.

But as I am not a Southerner and most of the Southerners I do know personally are conservatives or libertoids, maybe this is a better topic left to Lowry (Virginia) and Dreher (Louisiana) or even Ponnuru (who's from some border state where they really killed each other during the Civil War).

(And yes, by the way, I am quite proud of the phrase "GetSmartian cone of silence").
Posted 11:59 AM | [Link]

BEAMING BASS [Andrew Stuttaford]
If reports are true, Lance Bass may not be shot into space after all. All is not lost however. Compassionate conservative Ted Nugent has come up with a counter-offer.
Posted 11:48 AM | [Link]

OWEN UNPLUGGED [Jonathan Adler]
A live feed of he Judiciary Committee's vote on Justice is Owen is available here. (Link courtesy of Howard Bashman). At the moment I'm writing, one of my home state senators is setting Senator Feinstein straight.
Posted 11:14 AM | [Link]

SPEAKING OF THIS MORNING'S W POST OP-ED PAGE [Jonah Goldberg]
Kathryn, true story:
This morning on the couch (yes that couch) I said to the Missus, "You read Eliot Cohen this morning?"
She replied, "No, why?"
"He's really excellent."
"Whaaaaaaat! Are you on crack?"
"What do you mean?" I asked. She leaned over and looked at the page and said "Oh Eliot Cohen. I thought you meant Richard Cohen."
"Oh. I understand," I said.
Posted 10:56 AM | [Link]

REMARKABLE [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
That Reuters has not changed the caption on this photo since OpinionJournal highlighted it yesterday. Below a shot of Ground Zero: "Recovery and debris removal work continues at the site of the World Trade Center known as "ground zero" in New York, March 25, 2002. Human rights around the world have been a casualty of the U.S. "war on terror" since September 11. "
Posted 10:43 AM | [Link]

STUFF DREAMS ARE MADE OF [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Jonah, kids dream of that kind of billing! Okay...in some, admittedly limited, circles.
Posted 10:11 AM | [Link]

THE CARTER FOG [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Jonah, I nearly missed the Cohen piece, because the large "CARTER" on the Post homepage to designate Jimmy Carter's latest ramble, with nothing but "Scholar" below it to ID Cohen scared me away from their editorial page today.
Posted 10:10 AM | [Link]

I’VE ARRIVED [Jonah Goldberg]
A letter from Pat Buchanan to the editors of the New Republic in the current issue:

To the editors:

While I appreciate the gracious welcome Franklin Foer gave our as-yet-unpublished magazine, let me dissent from his conclusion that we "could not have chosen a worse time to start a journal of the isolationist right" ("Home Bound," July 22). This is precisely the right time; for there is, as Foer writes, an absolute conformity of thought at National Review, The Weekly Standard, and Commentary--and among the pundits who pass for conservatives at The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. They are all free-trade-and-open-borders Democrats; like you, they relish the prospect of the coming Pax Americana and "cakewalk" to Baghdad--after which we shall tutor the Muslims in democracy and go nightsticking recalcitrant regimes according to a priority list drawn up for us by Bibi Netanyahu. Why is this the right time for our magazine? Because there is a void and a need. No one else in this city says what we say: that neoconservatism is a counterfeit. It is not conservatism at all but a hybrid of Wilsonian-FDR globalism and Rockefeller Republicanism. Free trade, interventionism, empire, eternal alliances, foreign aid, moral imperialism--these are not conservative traditions but the antithesis of those traditions. As for neocons who bray that we "won the culture war," they deceive themselves and the rest of us. And because neoconservatism has no deep roots in our history or in America's heart, the American people will repudiate it when they learn that the price is permanent war, lengthening casualty lists, ever-expanding government, and endless bailouts of bankrupt regimes in the name of Global Democracy. Do you seriously believe that conservatism is now wholly encompassed by Norman Podhoretz, Jonah Goldberg, Ramesh Ponnuru, Rich Lowry, our virtuous Teletubby William Bennett, Charles Krauthammer, and the Kristols, pere et fils?

If President George W. Bush and his War Cabinet decide to go warlord-hunting and nation-building in Afghanistan and send 250,000 U.S. troops up the bloody road to Baghdad--while subcontracting Mideast policy out to Ariel Sharon--they will put the United States on the wrong side of tribalism, nationalism, and faith in a vast region of one billion people and end up in the history books alongside Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, and Dean Rusk. We intend to say so, and, if we're the only ones, fine. We believe we are right, but, then, we're all going to find out fairly soon.

Patrick J. Buchanan
Co-Editor
The American Conservative

Now, I admit that I haven't followed this too closely, but it seems fairly clear that the couple helped their brother in a bombing attack. I'm against collective punishment too. But aren't these guys simply plain old fashioned accomplices?
Posted 9:23 AM | [Link]

CHICKEN HAWK DEBUNKING CONT'D [Jonah Goldberg]
Eliot Cohen has a very good piece (better than mine was) debunking the chicken hawk "argument."
Posted 9:14 AM | [Link]

I KNOW, I KNOW... [Jonah Goldberg]
Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians, Dachau by the Americans. I typed quicker than I thought in yesterday's column. My point remains intact though.
Posted 9:08 AM | [Link]

ISRAELI POLICE DOES IT AGAIN [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Find a bomb before it kills.
Posted 9:02 AM | [Link]

BREAKING NEWS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
The daughters of parents who forbid co-ed sleepovers tend not to become pregnant unwed teens. Sorry, just anticipating an AP headline a year or two in the future.
Posted 8:53 AM | [Link]

RIGHT, ARM [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Good news about the White House on arming pilots.
Posted 6:48 AM | [Link]

THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO "DUH" [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Girls close to their moms tend not to have unmarried teen sex.
Posted 6:46 AM | [Link]

ENGLAND'S BISHOPS ARE ALL WET: [Rod Dreher] England's top Roman Catholic and Anglican bishops have denounced the coming war with Iraq. Not that anybody in that post-Christian nation pays attention to anything the Church says, but still, this is worth noting. Do note in this story that the only bishop to say that a pre-emptive strike on Saddam is morally justified if he has weapons of mass destruction is the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, the Pakistani-born Anglican Bishop of Rochester. Unlike Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor or Archbishop Carey, Dr. Nazir-Ali has actually had to live with Muslims. What a pity he wasn't named the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
Posted 1:33 AM | [Link]

	Archive E-mail Comments Send to a Friend Version

Wednesday, September 4

RE CO-ED SLEEPOVERS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
The ahead-of-the-curve Michelle Malkin was onto the trend way before the AP--in Nov. 2000.
Posted 11:23 PM | [Link]

THINK LONG-TERM, DERB: [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Assuming your working life began more than five years ago, you'd still be ahead having invested in an index fund. And there's every reason to expect the markets will be up from where they are now by the time you retire (which will, I hope, be many years from now). In the interim you'll get dividends. Social Security isn't nearly as good a deal.
Posted 9:16 PM | [Link]

NO, I DON'T HAVE HAY FEVER [John Derbyshire]
Ramesh (who else?): Dunno about privatization of social security. If the market doesn't do something good soon, nationalization of private pension plans will be a vote-winner. I speak as one who has just done the monthly add-up of my funds... with a box of Kleenex close by.
Posted 5:58 PM | [Link]

WE GET NO RESPECT [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Jonah, Eric Alterman left us off his list of bookmarked blogs, too. That had to be an oversight.
Posted 5:39 PM | [Link]

DE-STRUCTION OR CON-STRUCTION?: [Rod Dreher] Is this a photograph of the remains of one of the Twin Towers -- or an Episcopal cathedral in western Michigan?
Posted 4:47 PM | [Link]

WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL FROM 1998: [Rich Lowry]
"Iraq's Defiance"
SADDAM HUSSEIN now has taken the final step in breaking his promises of cooperation with the United Nations. He had for three months been blocking surprise inspections by U.N. arms experts trying to ferret out his clandestine nuclear- biological- and chemical-weapons programs. Now he has said he will block even the regular, announced visits by U.N. monitors whose work had been continuing. Absent a response from the Clinton administration and the United Nations, nothing now will impede Saddam Hussein's ambitions to maintain and rebuild the weapons of mass destruction he promised to give up. Secretary of Defense William Cohen said that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan "should be concerned because his credibility and that of the Security Council is on the line." Mr. Annan's spokesman immediately sought to deflect the responsibility. The squabbling was unseemly and discouraging. In fact, Mr. Annan's credibility is on the line, but President Clinton's is more so. It was Mr. Clinton who sent Mr. Annan to Baghdad last February to defuse a similar crisis; it was Mr. Clinton who promised a military response if Saddam Hussein violated the agreement Mr. Annan negotiated; and it was Mr. Clinton who failed to respond when Iraq shredded the pact in August. No wonder Iraq's vice president can say, "Iraq does not fear the threat of the United States because it has been threatening Iraq for the past eight years."
The United States must respond with force if Iraq does not allow U.N. teams
-- passive monitors and surprise inspectors alike -- to resume their work. It should respond as part of a U.N.-backed alliance if possible, alone if necessary. Its bombing campaign should not be symbolic but designed to destroy as much of Saddam Hussein's capability to make and use weapons of mass destruction as possible. Yes, even such a serious military effort might end with Saddam Hussein still in and U.N. inspectors still out. That is why a serious strategy to deal with Iraq must include a willingness to bomb more than once, if Saddam Hussein again tries to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction.
A serious strategy also must include support for Iraqis seeking to replace Saddam Hussein's criminal regime with something more democratic and less bellicose. Mr. Clinton, in signing the Iraq Liberation Act on Saturday, vowed support for such a transformation and said, "The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership."
This is not a matter of the United States and other countries meddling without right in Iraq's internal affairs. Iraq began this by invading Kuwait. The United Nations authorized a U.S.-led military campaign to reverse that aggression. Having defeated Iraq's army, the United States chose to accept, in place of Saddam Hussein's total surrender and relinquishing of power, his pledge to disarm. His failure after all these years to honor that pledge gives the United Nations every right to reconsider its merciful cease-fire terms."
Posted 4:44 PM | [Link]

NIGGARDLY: [Rich Lowry]
Posted 4:43 PM | [Link]

GIMME THAT SOFT-SERVE RELIGION: [Rod Dreher] OK, the Carvel Community Church is the last one for a while, if I'm going to get my other work finished.
Posted 4:12 PM | [Link]

WHEN IS A CHURCH NOT A CHURCH?: [Rod Dreher] I can't explain why this Lutheran megachurch looks like a shopping mall. So the FAQ on the church's website does it for me: "Joy hired David A. Price Associates, an architectural firm out of Irvine, CA, to build a church that doesn't look like a church. This complements our desire for 'unchurched' people to feel welcome and comfortable when they come to church. Joy is committed to removing barriers, not building them." This is too, too rich: Americans won't go to church unless they can trick themselves into thinking they're shopping.
Posted 4:01 PM | [Link]

FROM THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU BRASILIA: [Rod Dreher] God dropped his ice cream cone, and some Brazilians got a cathedral.
Posted 3:50 PM | [Link]

OUR LADY OF CHERNOBYL: [Rod Dreher] Here's a church that produces nuclear power in its steeple!
Posted 3:25 PM | [Link]

MINETA FAVORS PROFILING (SORT OF) [Rich Lowry]
From The Washington Post: Mineta said the profiling will be based on behavior, not race or ethnic characteristics. "People are saying, 'Mineta's against profiling.' That's not the case at all," Mineta said in a recent interview, suggesting that he understands the need for profiling because he was once an Army intelligence officer based in Korea. "This is the foundation for the aviation security system."
Posted 3:24 PM | [Link]

SABATO'S CRYSTAL BALL: [Ramesh Ponnuru]
The UVa's quotable poly sci guy has a run-down of this fall's races online. He does not go out on a limb to predict the outcome of the most-watched Senate races (MO, MN, SD, AR, NH). One thing that leaps out at me from his summary of the governors' races: There are at least two states (TN and KS) in which tax-hiking Republican incumbents are causing major difficulties for the Republican candidates who want to succeed them. Arguably, there are three such states, but the Illinois governor is causing way more than just tax problems for his would-be successor.
Posted 3:23 PM | [Link]

UGLIEST ONE YET!: [Rod Dreher] A snow-white 18-wheeler tumbled off the interstate in Iowa City; lo, they stuck a cross on it and made it a Catholic church! (Keep sending 'em to rdreher@nationalreview.com) -- and while you're at it, you might consider buying Michael Rose's Ugly As Sin, which is about how church architecture got so bad, and the splendiferous tome by James Lileks, The Gallery of Regrettable Food, which inspired today's little ugly-church diversion. (Check out the sample pages on the Amazon link -- you really won't believe it!)
Posted 3:21 PM | [Link]

I LOVE YOU ALL DEARLY... [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
...and welcome your emails anytime, about anything, but please send your ugly-church emails to Rod at this address.
Posted 3:10 PM | [Link]

JONAH, MAYBE WE SHOULD SEND YOU BACK TO THE AIRPORTS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Posted 3:00 PM | [Link]

REGRETTABLE CHURCHES: SPECIAL ANGLICAN EDITION: [Rod Dreher] Disproving the stereotype that Episcopalians have unfailingly good taste are this unfortunate church, and this one. The interior of this Chicago parish says ... something, but I'm not sure it's in the language of the Book of Common Prayer. Meanwhile, the Episcopal cathedral in Peoria is the perfect place for a Midwestern re-enactment of the "rave mass" celebrated by the kooky San Francisco Episcopal Cathedral a few years ago. For genuinely heartbreaking visual evidence of what modernist terrorists can do to a parish's church, see these before and after images. Finally, the Luftwaffe demolished England's medieval Coventry cathedral; this 'impressively modern' grotesquerie was erected in its place (scroll down a bit for photos comparing what was there to what is now there). It is unclear whether the German might be persuaded to return, but while we wait, it's worth contemplating the two images to disabuse yourself of the idea of progress.
Posted 2:39 PM | [Link]

ZIMBABWE CENTRAL [Dave Kopel]
My newest media analysis column for the Rocky Mountain News reports on the failure of most American newspapers to cover the incipient genocide in Zimbabwe. If you want to stay informed on daily events in Zimbabwe, check out Zimbabwe News, which offers a daily e-mail news summary. For background on the genocide, my NRO article from last year details how the disarmament of the people of Zimbabwe has paved the way for mass murder by Mugabe's government.
Posted 1:45 PM | [Link]

POWELL HECKLED [Andrew Stuttaford]
The Guardian has a report on the heckling of Colin Powell in Johannesburg. It turns out that, amongst other matters, the hecklers were enraged by Powell's criticism of Mugabe and, specifically, the Secretary of State's suggestion that much of the responsibility for Zimbabwe's food crisis lies, in fact, with its dictator. Poor Colin Powell. No one had told him that he was addressing a gathering of fascists.
Posted 1:43 PM | [Link]

TRIUMPHALISM? [Mike Potemra]
Non-Catholics might be tempted to think of Saward's comment as a manifestation of Catholic triumphalism, but I think his general point has a deeper validity, and indeed applies to all religions. The adherents and the ministers of every religion in history have committed horrible crimes. But while deploring the evil acts, we must continue to cherish the religions, as ways in which God has reached-and continues to reach-the human heart.
Posted 1:42 PM | [Link]

LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS! [Mike Potemra]
Theologian John Saward, in his book The Way of the Lamb: The Spirit of Childhood and the End of the Age, offers a helpful way of looking at the current clergy sex scandals: "The saints love the church-the historical, visible Roman Catholic Church, not just some ideal Church-because, for all the blemishes of her earthly form, she is the beloved Bride of Christ, teaching His truth and communicating His grace. The shortcomings of the clergy do not depress them; it simply drives them to more fervent prayers and penance. They strike their own, not their brothers', breasts." (The book was published in 1999, long before the current scandals broke.)
Posted 1:42 PM | [Link]

BETTER OFF WITH THE GUILDER [Andrew Stuttaford]
A recent poll in Holland reveals that, approximately eight months after Euro coins and bills were introduced,
98 percent of the Dutch would rather have their Guilders back.
Posted 1:10 PM | [Link]

CUTTING OFF YOUR NOSE TO SPITE YOUR FACE [Andrew Stuttaford]
Namibia's president, the loutish Sam Nujoma, is upset by the sanctions that the EU has imposed on the Mugabe regime.
He is suggesting that the African Union retaliate with economic sanctions of its own on Europe.
The continent that needs to be worried by remarks like that is Africa, not Europe.
Posted 1:09 PM | [Link]

REGRETTABLE CHURCHES: THE FIRST WAVE: [Rod Dreher] Heaven help us! The giant spiders from space have finally come to impose a terrible judgment on St. Arachnophobia's. Meanwhile, an abandoned drive-in movie screen finds new life as a church. And look, a steeple and an overhang seem to have been dislodged from elsewhere by a tornado, and deposited by the hand of fate atop a giant storage crate for hay.
Posted 12:41 PM | [Link]

YYY? [Andrew Stuttaford]
Went to Vin Diesel's XXX last night. Hated it. Could this mean - at last - that my adolescence is coming to an end?

Posted 12:23 PM | [Link]

RE: "TO CRAWFISH": [Rod Dreher] So glad you asked, Andrew. As any Louisianian knows, crawfish, which look like mini-lobsters, move through the water by flicking their lower torsos. Though they can crawl forward on land, this tail-flick business means the mudbugs have to move backward when pootling around in the bayou. Ergo, to "crawfish" is to back out of something, usually with haste.
Posted 12:20 PM | [Link]

"IT'S A WAR, STUPID" FILES [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
This one goes in there. And, by the way, I completely missed the newsreporting on the money the Palestinians pay the families of the victims of suicide bombers. If you find the link, please let me know.
Posted 11:48 AM | [Link]

FISHING FOR AN EXPLANATION [Andrew Stuttaford]
Verb of the day: to "crawfish": the wonderfully evocative--if slightly mysterious--turn of phrase just used by George Bush to describe Saddam Hussein's behavior over his armory.
Ill-educated Brit that I am, I've never seen this word used as a verb before, but I guess that it describes scuttling around. Rod, any chance of a more precise translation?
Posted 11:15 AM | [Link]

CLOWN PORN WARNING! [Jonah Goldberg]
Apparently some people's Google settings are calibrated differently. If yours is set for no-filtering you will get lots of pictures, some of them quite unpleasant. If your preferences are set for moderate filtering, you will get my picture, which may be unpleasant but less so than some of the others. My apologies for any ickiness you may have experienced.
Posted 11:04 AM | [Link]

CO-ED SLEEPOVERS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Evidently they are gaining in popularity. My first question was, "Do these kids have parents?" They do, of course, but they are just older kids who "go along" with the co-ed slumber parties, as if they have no choice in the matter. Some of the comments in this AP story are LOL funny: As if that a coed sleepover is inviting trouble is some kind of breakthrough discovery. Yes, Derb, more dimwitted therapists and parents for you.
Posted 10:46 AM | [Link]

DEFIANT NORMALITY [John Derbyshire]
Among the responses to my "Defiant Normality" piece yesterday was one of those e-mails that stick in the mind. The reader, who wants to remain anonymous, said this: "I am a big believer in what George MacDonald Fraser terms 'bashing on regardless.' I came by it early and honestly, when I was 8 years old and my mother was killed in a traffic accident. She died on a Friday, we buried her Monday morning, and my father had us back at school on Monday afternoon. My teachers and neighbors were shocked at my father's seeming heartlessness, but he was completely correct in what he did. Having me mope around the house would not make anything better, but sending me back to study Plymouth Rock and the multiplication tables with my pals was the best thing possible." I say that reader's father was a wise man. This, however, seems to have happened around 40 years ago. Nowadays the lad would be shuffled off into a 12-step "grief counseling" program, with dimwitted "therapists" sticking their fingers in the wound to keep it open, and filling his head with victimological drivel to poison the rest of his life with.
Posted 10:45 AM | [Link]

TO AND ‘FRO [Roger Clegg]
Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening has announced he will finance a radio spot suggesting that long-time antagonist William Donald Schaefer, who is running for reelection as state comptroller, is a bigot. The script for the commercial asserts that Schaefer has “refer[ed] to … blacks as ‘Afros.’” Actually, the ad appears to be a reference to the time Schaefer used the term “Afro-Americans” at a Board of Public Works meeting. Then-Treasurer Richard N. Dixon rebuked Schaefer there because, he said, the correct term is “African American.”
Well. The term “Afro-American” would appear to be perfectly respectable. Indeed, Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson, in his book The Ordeal of Integration, uses it and finds it more appropriate than either “black” or “African American.” Anyway, it is not “Afros,” and Glendening should be ashamed of his race-baiting.
Posted 10:45 AM | [Link]

THE WRONG EDITORIAL WRITER [Jonathan Adler]
It was to be expected that the New York Times would oppose the confirmation of Justice Priscilla Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. But was it too much to ask that the editorial not contain so many blatant distortions of her record? Apparently so.
Posted 9:51 AM | [Link]

SHOULD I BE CONCERNED? [Jonah Goldberg]
If you search the Google image database for the phrase "clown porn," my picture is the only result. And before you ask, I was notified to this fact by a reader.
Posted 9:49 AM | [Link]

DANGEROUS FRANCE [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Check this out, from the Washington Post's piece on smallpox. Thompson is HHS Sec't Tommy Thompson.
Smallpox was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980, and only the United States and Russia are known to hold small quantities of the virus. But many experts fear that a rogue nation or a terrorist group could acquire it.
"We can speculate, and people are [speculating] that North Korea and Iraq [have] it and possibly Iran and France," Thompson said in an interview. "And with that information, there's no question we have to be concerned about it and, therefore, we're getting prepared, especially if there is a war with Iraq."
Israel, for example, recently expanded its smallpox vaccinations, citing concerns that Iraq could launch a biological weapons attack on that country if the United States struck Iraq.
Posted 9:40 AM | [Link]

REGRETTABLE CHURCHES: [Rod Dreher] I have moved beyond being disgusted by the monstrous carbuncle that is the new Catholic cathedral in Los Angeles, and I'm trying to be amused. In that spirit, I'd like to ask Corner readers who are as grumpy as I am about modern church architecture to send along links to images of Regrettable Churches, so we can, in the spirit of I.J. Reilly, make fun of their lack of proper theology and geometry. I'll start with a sub-Martian Florida excrescence highlighted by Amy Welborn on her blogsite: check it out here and here. I do believe Luke Skywalker was an altar boy here. On the parish school, it seems that the poor little Catholic chirren are having to study in an abandoned petroleum storage tank. Regarding the church itself, "I wish I were an Oscar Mayer zig-gu-raaat..."
Posted 9:38 AM | [Link]

IRAQI OCCUPATION [Jonah Goldberg]
The always outstanding James Webb has an interesting piece in today's Washington Post. Webb is taking up the cause of the unnamed generals in the Pentagon we keep hearing about. Webb's case is serious and thoughtful. He warns that "a long-term occupation of Iraq would beyond doubt require an adjustment of force levels elsewhere, and could eventually diminish American influence in other parts of the world." Also, he and his allies in the Pentagon fear that a war with Iraq will bleed resources from the war on terrorism. My main objection to this complaint is that it repeatedly distorts the arguments of the folks Webb dismisses as "the neoconservatives." The pro-invasion argument is that war will change the global and regional dynamic, much as it did in 1991. For example, Webb et al. suggest that a victory in the region would do nothing to dissuade terrorist elements and efforts in a dozen different countries. But some of us believe that a victory over Baghdad would make the fight on terrorism easier because the regimes in the region would -- as they did in 1991 -- respect and fear us all the more. This could translate into everything from a toning down of anti-American rhetoric in the Arab media to the relatively rapid regime change in Iran to a real solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Obviously, nothing is for certain. But the Webb position, it seems to me, is the more static analysis. He assumes no benefit from victory, no positive political fallout whatsoever. That's how military guys are supposed to think, but that doesn't mean they're always right.
Posted 9:10 AM | [Link]

THAT'S OKAY [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Jonah, I'll only be worried when you surrender the bigger battles.
Posted 9:09 AM | [Link]

RE INQUIRING MINDS [Jonah Goldberg]
I can understand the confusion. But the sad fact is that while we try to be more than a mere blog here in the Corner, everyone else thinks that's exactly what we are. I suppose I should have stood athwart blogdom yelling stop. I have failed.
Posted 8:47 AM | [Link]

PIM PROGRESS [Andrew Stuttaford]
European news agencies are reporting that a woman has been arrested in connection with the murder of Pim Fortuyn. According to DPA "a spokesman would not confirm" that the woman is the girlfriend of the man charged in the assassination. She reportedly faces charges of planning arson or a bomb attack.
Could this be more evidence that the killing was as much ideological as it was the act of a single deranged personality?
Posted 8:41 AM | [Link]

YOU DON'T SAY [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
FBI NOW considers July 4 El-Al Counter shooting at LAX a terrorist act.
Posted 8:25 AM | [Link]

INQUIRING MINDS WANNA KNOW, JONAH [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
From a reader: "I was shocked, SHOCKED, to find that Jonah objected to the Corner not being listed among recommended blog sites. As Jonah has stated before, we don't know what the Corner is, but it is surely not a BLOG."
Posted 8:11 AM | [Link]

INSTRUCTIVE [Andrew Stuttaford]
Colin Powell addressed the "Earth Summit" and was heckled. Robert Mugabe was greeted by cheers. That tells you all that you need to know about this grotesque carnival and the delegates who are attending it.
Posted 7:57 AM | [Link]

MORNING HAS BROKEN [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Boy, do thing change. Boy Toy Madonna, who now tones down the sex in her work, tells Vanity Fair: "I'm not particularly fond of kissing strange men -- contrary to popular belief."
Posted 7:53 AM | [Link]

ANDREW SULLIVAN LIKES US, AFTER ALL [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Jonah, Andrew kindly posted a "correction" later on in the day yesterday, to his favorite blogosphere locales. It's here. He notes, "I'll take this correction to mean that after a beneficent start to the new season, I'll try and avoid being nice in future. I'm clearly not cut out for it." Looks like he does nice just fine.
Especially since he also links to THE MAN, LEDEEN, who, he's encouraging everyone to read via his book club. As he should. If you are only going to read one book on the war, Ledeen's War Against the Terror Masters should be it.
Posted 5:50 AM | [Link]

LEDEEN IS EVERYWHERE [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
His Journal piece is here.
Posted 5:38 AM | [Link]

	Archive E-mail Comments Send to a Friend Version

Tuesday, September 3

THE ANTI-WAR LIBERTARIANS: [Ramesh Ponnuru]
The latest effort from the Independent Institute. It's almost entirely an exercise in name-calling: President Bush is a callow idiot and the hawks are all cowards. I guess this means we're winning the debate.
Posted 11:07 PM | [Link]

ATTENTION MIDLAND, TEXAS: BRING ME THE HIPPY RIGHT-WINGERS: [Rod Dreher] Remember that article I did on crunchy conservatives, the Birkenstocked Burkeans? One of the very best letters I received was from a crunchy-con mom in Midland, Texas, who told the most wonderful story about the crunchy-Christian life she and her family lead in Dubya's hometown. I can't find it in my files, and I need to talk to her for an article. Ma'am, if you're reading this, e-mail me. And if you live in Midland and know this terrific family, whose name I've forgotten, go over and tell them to e-mail me. They sure aren't going to be busy watching TV.
Posted 6:16 PM | [Link]

GREAT NEWS... [Jonah Goldberg]
Lingua Franca, one of my all-time favorite magazines, may be rising from the grave. I'm not sure it's good news that they're consulting with the New York Review of Books, but if that's what it takes....so be it. Seriously, there's no punchline here. I'm just excited by the return of this hyper-insider, egg-heady mag.
Posted 6:13 PM | [Link]

THE WORLD-HISTORICAL EQUIVALENT OF RUNNING WITH SCISSORS? [Jonah Goldberg]
Chirac is backing a worldwide tax on wealth generated by globalization.

Posted 5:22 PM | [Link]

RE: BYE-BYE BOY CUOMO [John Derbyshire]
Yet another illustration that hard-left white liberals have a tough row to hoe in Democratic primaries.
Posted 4:18 PM | [Link]

BYE-BYE BOY CUOMO: [Rod Dreher] So Andrew Cuomo has quit the race for the Democratic nomination in the New York governor's race. We are all in mourning over here high above Lexington Avenue.
Posted 3:43 PM | [Link]

BY THE WAY... [Jonah Goldberg]
Don't the faltering campaigns of Reno and Cuomo (and Reich to a lesser extent) demonstrate that the much-vaunted Clinton "coat tails" are a fantasy? Sure, Richardson and Rahm Emmanuel are going strong, but nobody is crediting Clinton with their success.
Posted 3:35 PM | [Link]

OW [Jonah Goldberg]
That hurt my brain. I better get back to killing it with beer.
Posted 3:24 PM | [Link]

THE MONKEY'S MOTHER [John Derbyshire]
My "August Diary" on Friday included a brainteaser: "The Monkey's Mother." A lot of readers tackled it. About half of those reporting in got it right. Some tackled it and gave up, and these people were not always polite in their e-mails (which had an odd tendency to refer to parts of the monkey's anatomy, and aspects of his relationship with his mother, that were not mentioned at all in the puzzle).
Here is a worked solution. First I have written out the problem again, with the sentences numbered for reference.
THE MONKEY'S MOTHER
-------------------
<1> A rope hangs over a pulley.
<2> On one end is a weight.
<3> Balanced on the other end is a monkey of equal weight.
<4> The rope weighs 4oz. per foot.
<5> The age of the monkey and the age of its mother together equal 4 years.
<6> The weight of the monkey is as many pounds as its mother is years old.
<7> The mother is twice as old as the monkey was when the mother was half as old as the monkey will be when the monkey is three times as old as the mother was when the mother was three times as old as the monkey.
<8> The weight of the weight plus the weight of the rope is half as much again as the difference between twice the weight of the weight and the weight of the monkey.
<9> How long is the rope?

SOLUTION
--------
Suppose the rope is L feet long. There go 16 oz. to the pound, so by <4> the rope weighs 0.25L lbs. Sentence <8> is almost pure bluff. You don't notice this because your attention was scrambled from reading <7>. From <3> you know that the weight of the weight IS EQUAL TO the weight of the monkey, so you can freely substitute the one for the other. Calling the weight of the weight W,
sentence <8> boils down to: W + 0.25L = 1.5W. Rearranging: L=2W.
Now tackle <7>, using D for the difference in ages. (Which, of course, never changes. You will NEVER catch up with your older sister!) The trick is to work backwards from the end of the sentence.
---"When the mother was three times as old as the monkey" can only mean: "When Mom was 1.5D and Junior was 0.5D."
---"When the monkey is three times as old as the mother was..." therefore means: "When Junior is 4.5D."
---"When the mother was half as old as the monkey will be..." therefore means: "When Mom was 2.25D."
---At that point in time, Junior was of course 1.25D.
---"The mother is twice as old as the monkey was..." therefore means: "Mom is currently 2.5D."
---It follows that Junior is currently 1.5D.
---Since, from <5>, these have to add up to 4, D must be 1.
---And from <6>, W is 2.5 lbs.
---In my analysis of <8> up above, I showed that L=2W. Therefore L=5.
Posted 3:12 PM | [Link]

FINAL WORD IN COMIC BOOK NOSTALGIA [Jonah Goldberg]
This site is for hardcore nostalgists only. It collects ads from old comic books. Click on the "100 pc. Toy Soldier Set" and prepare yourself for the memory rush.

Posted 2:45 PM | [Link]

EXCELLENT PIECE... [Jonah Goldberg]
By Tom Bray on the anti-Arab backlash that never was.

Posted 1:42 PM | [Link]

BUSTED! [Jonah Goldberg]
Excellent sleuthing of this outrageous petition -- I keep linking to -- by a reader:

I can prove that signature No. 507 is not Mr. Buckley's. There is no such word as "alright". The proper form is "all right". Mr. Buckley would never make such a mistake, as I have known since my misguided liberal days back in the late 1960s.

	Archive E-mail Comments Send to a Friend Version

"Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom...of the press..."

Posted 8:04 PM | [Link]

DIPLOMACY [Andrew Stuttaford]
Rod, did you get UN approval before liberating the Skaggerak?
Posted 7:46 PM | [Link]

RE: THE REAL REASON FOR THE SILENCE: [Rod Dreher] Harrumph! I was not today, nor have I ever, nor will I ever, watch a Star Trek marathon. Now, if Discovery ran a marathon of specials devoted to Demon-Possessed Celebrity Nazi Bigfoots and the Venemous Shark-Eating Snakes Who Fornicate With Them, you'd have to winch me away from the television. As it happened, I left the remote in the capable hands of Mrs. D., and slogged through the rain up the street to play the first game of Diplomacy I've been able to rustle up in years. I taught my buddy Santo how to play. England-France-Russia (well, ultimately England) beat the fezzes off of Germany-Austria/Hungary-Turkey (ultimately, Turkey), I'll have you know. The glorious liberation of Skaggerak and Helgoland Bight from the maritime tyranny of the Kaiser's foul barques was a moment.
Posted 7:42 PM | [Link]

TRAILER-PARK TRASHING [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Rod, I passed by a TV during an Anna Nicole commercial today and the voiceover said something like " She does mean for it to be funny, it just is." Just like those poor people who'll be transplanted to 90210.
Posted 7:08 PM | [Link]

THE REAL REASON FOR THE SILENCE [KJL]
From a reader: "I take it everyone is watching the Star Trek marathon on the sci-fi channel today."
Posted 7:02 PM | [Link]

SO SORRY [KJL]
We conveniently had technical problems over the last 24 hours (the reason for the delayed posts). Sorry for anyone going through Corner withdrawal.
Posted 6:55 PM | [Link]

MARTHA, MARTHA, MARTHA!: [Rod Dreher] Under Michael Kelly's editorship, The Atlantic Monthly is fast becoming the best magazine of its kind in the country. Each issue gets better and better. Here's a devastating essay, mainly a review of Christopher Byron's recent book bashing Martha Stewart. Reviewer Caitlin Flanagan points out that those who set out to destroy Martha Stewart end up pointing out how much there is about her to admire. Flanagan doesn't much care for Martha -- "the most unpleasant person on television" -- but she gets her, and gives the ol' gal her due. This is really a great read.
Posted 11:10 AM | [Link]

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Sunday, September 1

OLD NICK BARRED FROM THE NICK [Andrew Stuttaford]
Tough times for Satan in a Kentucky jail ('The nick' is British slang for jail - I just couldn't resist writing that headline).
Posted 3:31 PM | [Link]

BIAS WATCH [Andrew Stuttaford]
There's an article in today's New York Times on how the gun industry is gaining immunity against lawsuits. Apparently the latest stage in this process is a bill working its way through the House of Representatives. With pursed lips and furrowed brow, the gray lady notes that "no other industry has such blanket protection".

Well, of course. With the exception of tobacco, which is now a lost cause, no other industry needs it.
Posted 3:21 PM | [Link]

HISTORY SAVED [Andrew Stuttaford]
In a rare moment of sanity, the federal judiciary has ordered the government to let scientists study the bones of Kennewick Man. These embarrassing remains add further strength to the case that the 'Native Americans' were not the first in the New World after all. Best guess: old Kennewick came from somewhere in Polynesia, although some trekkies look at his reconstructed features and cling optimistically to the notion that this country was first settled by Jean-Luc Picard. The Clinton administration had ordered the remains returned to the local Indian tribes who had claimed them on the basis of 'local tradition'.

The New York Times quotes a spokeswoman for the Justice Department as saying that the government "would review the ruling before commenting."

Well, that's a process that should take five minutes. Free the bones.
Posted 2:21 PM | [Link]

HISTORY TRASHED, AGAIN [Andrew Stuttaford]
Ah well, Kathryn, you should have checked out a recent BBC poll on the greatest 100 Britons of all time. Amongst those who made the cut: Julie Andrews, David Beckham (a soccer player, who has today announced that his newly born son will be called Romeo), Boy George, David Bowie, Guy Fawkes (a traitor), King Arthur (who may not actually have existed), Freddie Mercury, three of the Beatles and the Satanist Aleister Crowley.

Omissions include Byron, Keats, Adam Smith, Marlborough, Pitt the Elder, Disraeli, Gladstone, JS Mill, John Locke, George Orwell and Ringo Starr.

Anyone can disagree as to the composition of such a list, but it's difficult not to see the BBC poll as the consequence of chronically short memories and the malign influence of a history syllabus long since reduced to multiculturalist pap, PC preaching and cheap sentimentalism.

The NEA would approve.
Posted 1:53 PM | [Link]

LIKE A LIBERATED AFGHAN... [Jonah Goldberg]
...I'm gonna shave my beard now. If I didn't have to do CNN on Sundays I'd probably never shave or comb my hair. That's the downside of working out of the house.
Posted 11:54 AM | [Link]

WELL... [Jonah Golderg]
Kathryn, can you prove that WFB didn't sign the petition?
Posted 11:51 AM | [Link]

POWELL ON HIS WAY OUT? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Posted 11:39 AM | [Link]

OKAY, SO MAYBE THE BRITS STILL HAVE PRIORITY ISSUES [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Princess Di’s death more significant than WWII.
Posted 11:39 AM | [Link]

STONES: RIPOFF ARTISTS: [Rod Dreher] The wholly irrelevant Rolling Stones will kick off yet another tour on Tuesday. This needed to be said. Essayist Neal Pollack talks about what a complete ripoff it is to go to a Rolling Stones concert these days. Now, at one time the Stones used to be the best rock band in the world, but they haven't made any music worth listening to since Tattoo You, which was what, 1981? It so happens that Let It Bleed, Beggars Banquet, Exile on Main Street and Sticky Fingers are among my all-time favorite albums, so when I, like Pollack, first got the opportunity to see the Stones live (on their Steel Wheels tour), I was beyond excited, even though the album stunk to high heaven. I couldn't believe how crummy the show was, and for all the reasons Pollack points out. Good on him. I last saw the Stones at RFK, on the Voodoo Lounge tour, and I swore I wasn't going to waste another penny on those elderly cynics.
Posted 12:10 AM | [Link]