|
| |
 |
|
| |
 Saturday, February 23
|
| |
|
|
| |
DISCOUNTS FOR ARMED SHOPPERS [Kathryn J. Lopez]
A woman in a West Bank grocery store may have saved her life and those of other supermarket shoppers when she shot a man who had already set off one explosive, injuring one, and in the process of igniting another device.
Posted
8:50 PM | [Link]
|
| |
TALKING VERMIN [Andrew Stuttaford]
Nobel prizewinner V.S. Naipaul has come under fire for those comments at the literary festival in India noted in yesterday's Corner. The festival's organizers have now described him as "fantastically rude."
Today's London Daily Telegraph helpfully lists a few more insults from the great man.
On the Taliban: "Absolute vermin"
On the British Labour Party's dumbed-down attitude to culture: "It is terrible, this very plebiean culture, an aggressive plebeian culture that celebrates itself for being plebeian."
Yes, he is indeed "fantastically" rude.
Posted
3:45 PM | [Link]
|
| |
LOW I.Q. PI [Andrew Stuttaford]
Speaking of my glamorous Friday night, while still slumped on the sofa, I saw Politically Incorrect's fifth anniversary show, something so lame that it must have been transmitted under an ADA-driven quota arrangement. Only revelation (for me at least) was just how irritating Naomi Judd can be.
Posted
3:27 PM | [Link]
|
| |
ALLOW ME A MOMENT [Andrew Stuttaford]
No one ever gets sent from The Corner for grovelling to the sainted and all-powerful Lowry. Did you see Rich discussing Teddy Kennedy on O'Reilly last night? He took no prisoners. Much like the Chappaquiddick police, you might say.
Posted
2:54 PM | [Link]
|
| |
LAST WORD ON PRICE VERSUS VALUE? [Jonah Goldberg]
"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing."
-- Oscar Wilde
Posted
1:33 PM | [Link]
|
| |
DON'T COUNT ON IT, FAUD [Kathryn J. Lopez]
Saudi King Faud says: “The regrettable terrorist incidents of Sept. 11 will in no way affect our historic ties with the friendly American people, for whom we harbor amity and appreciation.” Regrettable? Try evil...despicable...unacceptable...Oh wait, sorry, I must have been thinking they were our allies. My bad.
Posted
11:11 AM | [Link]
|
| |
"THEY DID NOT TAKE MY SPIRIT" [Kathryn J. Lopez]
If you have not yet read Mrs. Pearl's statement, you should.
Posted
11:03 AM | [Link]
|
| |
GIRLS RULE [Kathryn J. Lopez]
If you can make your way through the alphas, betas, and gammas in this article from today’s Washington Post, you’ll see why while schools and theorists like to pick on boys and take away their masculinity, maybe it’s the poor girls who supposedly lack self-esteem who should be straightened out a wee bit.
Posted
10:40 AM | [Link]
|
| |
DOWN ON THE CORNER [Jonah Goldberg]
Cannot post for reasons beyond my ken. We're working on it.
Posted
10:39 AM | [Link]
|
| |
SOME SAY WHY NOT, I SAY WHY [Kathryn J. Lopez]
Three-year-old Zain Hashmi has a rare blood disorder which could eventually be fatal. So, the family is having a lab create a baby for them--they’ll reject some embryos and implant the one with the best genetic match. When the child is born, stem cells will be taken from the baby’s umbilical cord, which regenerate bone marrow, allowing for a close match for a bone-marrow transplant for Zain. There’s about an 80 percent chance of success. You heart goes out to the Hashmis and poor Zain, but, it’s important we remember that other lives are being created and destroyed in a lab and that this is no doubt only the beginning.
Posted
10:37 AM | [Link]
|
| |
MINETA WATCH [Andrew Stuttaford]
Stung, probably, by the realization that there is only so much open stupidity that the public will take, the hapless Norman Mineta's transportation department has now "clarified" its position on the so-called VIP lines at airports. The clarification is nothing of the sort. Separate lines will, apparently, be allowed, but they will all have to feed into the same machines. That's rather like operating express and regular checkout lines at a supermarket, and then insisting that all customers have to pay at the same cash register. Quite how this will work is anyone's guess (Mineta has, needless to say, dumped the problem that he created onto the airlines that he is meant to be helping) but it is quite possible that the resulting mess will produce a result that is vintage Mineta--unnecessary waiting time for the economically critical frequent flyers combined with maximum bad feeling in front of the security machines, as the different groups of travelers compete to take their turn.
I suspect that the transportation secretary doesn't get out much, but if he ever took the trouble to travel to London's Heathrow, he would find something called "fast track." Under this system (yes, they have separate machines) business travelers do get through security a little more rapidly and they do so without compromising safety. Heathrow is probably more secure than any airport supervised by Norman Mineta, but then, that doesn't say much.
Posted
10:12 AM | [Link]
|
| |
NAME GAME [Vladimir Stuttaford]
The IOC has done it again. Not content with sneering at the way in which the U.S. has hosted the Olympics, the IOC's self-important bureaucrats have now managed to insult yet another nuclear power. AFP is reporting that an IOC letter designed to soothe Russian President Putin's concerns over judging at the games didn't really do the trick. A name was to blame. The letter, you see, was addressed to "A. Putin."
A Kremlin aide was unimpressed:
"Before sending a letter to a head of state, it 's a good idea to check beforehand that his name is neither Anthony, nor Andrew, but Vladimir."
I've been rereading that quote. A lot. There's definitely a sneer in the way that the aide says, "Andrew."
Posted
8:21 AM | [Link]
|
| |
|
|
| |
Friday, February 22
|
| |
|
|
| |
PEARL, RIP: [Rich Lowry]
I know this is the kind of self-referential thing for which The Corner is already justly famous, but you really should read the brilliant, profound, and moving Ledeen and Shifflett pieces on Daniel Pearl.
Posted
11:20 PM | [Link]
|
| |
MAYBE STOCKS WAS THE WRONG EXAMPLE? [Jonah Goldberg]
I still stand by what I wrote. I think value has firmer objective grounding than price. To me "price" is purely determined by the market, what else could determine it? But value goes to intrinsic worth. Here's how I'm thinking about it. Say we have an ancient treasure chest. I know what it's in it, but I'm keeping it secret. Sotheby's is auctioning the chest, without divulging the contents. Potential buyers must bid blind or with less perfect knowledge than I have. I know for a fact there is $1 Million worth of gold in there (not antique coins or anything clever, just ingots). I will bid like gangbusters right up until the price reaches $1 million. Other bidders might not. The "winner" (sucker) pays $1.5 million. I knew the real value of the chest, was $1 million plus the cost of the chest (and minus fees etc), even though the price as determined by the market was $1.5 million.
This, it seems to me, is the crux of the advantage inside traders have over the normal members of the market. How this applies to the parties, in my analogy, is simple. I may know the right policy even if the party doesn't. Ergo, I think I'm still right.
Posted
10:11 PM | [Link]
|
| |
MORE P Vs. V [Jonah]
And this writer disagrees with me:
"There's no such thing as a "right", or objective, price. Something is worth to you what it is worth to you, based on you and your wants. The notion of an objective valuation is a Marxist one- the notion they use to say that low wages, high profits, etc, are "exploitative".
Prices might be based on incorrect data and poor judgement, but the nature
of "price" is such that you can't say anything has a "real value"."
Posted
10:02 PM | [Link]
|
| |
PRICE VERSUS VALUE CONT'D [Jonah Goldberg]
Interesting responses abound. Here's an economist who agrees with me:
Don't listen to your other economist reader. Your answer in The Corner was precisely correct. Markets don't produce "correct" prices anymore than evolution produces "correct" squirrels. All markets produce is "better" prices than any other set of institutions because they make better use of knowledge and have good incentive-compatibility. Evolution produces "better" squirrels because beneficial mutations are selected in and bad ones are selected out. They are hardly "correct" -
just "good enough."
Posted
9:59 PM | [Link]
|
| |
PRICE VERSUS VALUE [Jonah Goldberg]
One should never invite an economist to explain something, but I think this is interesting. In my column today (which I liked, even if so many of you didn't), I wrote:
"… I say a stock is worth $100 dollars.
Millions of other people and institutions think it is worth, $50, $76,
$23, $512…whatever. The market weighs all of these opinions and ends up valuing the stock at $200. I think that's wrong, but that's what the market came up with. The interesting thing is that the market could be wrong. The real value might be $100 or it might be a number that nobody had in mind. But the market comes up with the best price it can."
A reader responded:
"Isn't the market's price correct? Isn't that the very definition of
market pricing? It could be wrong for an instant, but doesn't it
correct itself immediately?"
Now, here’s how I see it. The markets are better than the government (certainly) or any individual expert the vast majority of the time. But that doesn’t mean the market is right, does it? Dot-com stocks were priced through the roof, but they weren’t of particularly high value. Isn’t that the whole point of the Enron debacle? Its real value was much lower than its market price.
Posted
6:07 PM | [Link]
|
| |
U.N. HYPOCRISY [Kathryn J. Lopez]
Despite advocating restrictive gun laws the world over, Kofi Annan's bodyguards are evidently illegally armed with automatic weapons.
Posted
5:56 PM | [Link]
|
| |
COOTIES IN CALI.[Kathryn J. Lopez]
A group of parents have filed suit against a public-school district in California for a series of gay- and cross-dressing themed plays, arguing the school should have at least asked for parental consent. The program that included the plays: "Cootie Shots: Theatrical Inoculations Against Bigotry." You can't make this stuff up.
Posted
5:39 PM | [Link]
|
| |
TRYING SAUDIS [Andrew Stuttaford]
The grotesquely vicious sermons of the Muslim cleric, Abdullah el-Faisal, have now led to his prosecution in Britain for "soliciting to commit murder."
In an attempt to justify what he has been saying, el-Faisal, the graduate of an Islamic university in Saudi Arabia, is now claiming that he "can only conclude that the Koran and the Saudi Arabian regime are on trial, since all [his] teachings are from the Koran and Saudi Arabia."
Since Islam is a religion of peace, such a statement must be heresy. Let us hope that el-Faisal will be told so. Since Saudi Arabia is our friend let us also hope that its government can confirm that el-Faisal’s allegedly murderous teachings were not on the syllabus of the Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University.
Posted
3:59 PM | [Link]
|
| |
NO B.S. FROM V.S. [Andrew Stuttaford]
The choice of V.S. Naipaul as the winner of this year's Nobel prize for literature looks increasingly inspired. The London Times is reporting his comments at a recent panel discussion in India "on colonialism and oppression". As the discussion began, Naipaul was quick to grumble that "Life is short. I can't listen to banalities. The great man then continued, "And this thing about colonialism, this thing about gender oppression, the very word oppression wearies me. I don't know why. I think it is because banality irritates me."
Now that the Mike Tyson has had to go elsewhere is there any chance that Las Vegas could host an encounter between Naipaul and the champion oppression-monger Edward Said? Or would it be too rough?
Posted
1:28 PM | [Link]
|
| |
IF YOU'RE INTERESTED [Jonah Goldberg]
Here's my latest syndicated column. It's on school choice.
Posted
11:29 AM | [Link]
|
| |
TALKING TRASH [Andrew Stuttaford]
Reading Carter's remarkable comments on North Korea's shopping paradise reminds me of all those leftish folk who, in 1970s Britain, liked to proclaim that "in real terms" the U.K. was less economically successful than East Germany. I remember making a brief visit to East Berlin, the supposed showcase of Communism, at that time. Even after a few hours it was very obvious that "in real terms" this claim was nonsense. Housing was a catastrophe, consumer choice was minimal and the food made London seem like Paris.
Posted
11:28 AM | [Link]
|
| |
More Carter [Jonah Goldberg]
Andrew, sorry, I forgot to mention that while President, (shortly before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan) Carter toasted the Shah as an "island of stability," because of the "love which your people give to you."
Here are a couple other things he said while President (all this comes from Josh Muravchik’s 1994 New Republic article "Carter’s Dictators"):
To the Stalinist Polish First Secretary Edward Gierek: "our concept of human rights is preserved in Poland ... much better than other European nations with which I'm familiar."
To Nicolae Ceaucescu: "Our goals are the same, to have a just system of economics and politics, to let the people of the world share in growth, in peace, in personal freedom and in the benefits to be derived from the proper utilization of natural resources. We believe in enhancing human rights. We believe that we should enhance, as independent nations, the freedom of our own people."
Posted
10:11 AM | [Link]
|
| |
CARTER’S SIMPLICITY [Jonah Goldberg]
Andrew, I might be able to shed some light on Carter’s use of the phrase "progress." You see, Carter (much like Jesse Jackson) has always had a soft spot for dictators and tyrants (they are easier to deal with than messy democracies, you know). As for progress in North Korea, in 1994, after starvation was already widespread in parts of the country, Carter visited the Stalinist redoubt to help assuage the tensions between the US and North Korea (Clinton hadn’t decided to subsidize their nuclear industry yet). Carter’s trip allowed him to "observe the North Koreans' psyche and their societal structure and the reverence with which they look upon their leader," Kim Il Sung. Carter found Sung to be "vigorous, intelligent, surprisingly well-informed about the technical issues and in charge of the decisions about this country." And North Korea was a Shangri-La, "people were very friendly and open." Pyongyang, is a "bustling city," where shoppers "pack the department stores," which seemed to Carter like the "Wal-Mart in Americus, Georgia." "They are really heavily into bright neon lights," he added. Well, Andrew, if you’d seen the lights on Dear Leader Way, you wouldn’t call North Korea evil either.
Posted
10:10 AM | [Link]
|
| |
CONDIT IS GOING TO HELL [Jonah Goldberg]
Maybe I missed this in the corner already, but did you guys here what Gary Condit said the other day?
"I think the fact that I would be in Washington, DC, I would be able to at least have some contact with law enforcement to see that they don't let the thing sort of die out, like they have a lot of other missing people in Washington, DC."
This is the greatest re-election strategy I’ve ever heard of, kill someone (yeah, yeah, I know: he might be innocent), then tell your constituents you need to be sent back to Washington to help with the case. Maybe ABC Sports should take OJ back -- the added exposure might help in the hunt for the real killers?
Posted
9:48 AM | [Link]
|
| |
VERY DISAPPOINTED [Jonah Goldberg]
I cannot believe that not a single reader gave me a heads-up that the "Glutton Bowl" was going to be on Fox last night. I almost missed the Jewel in the Crown of ingestion sports. If it weren’t for the diligence of a buddy of mine, I might have missed the speed-eating of cow brains, mayonnaise, Rocky-Mountain oysters, etc. My wife said we couldn’t watch the mayo-eating during dinner. Sigh. But didn't any of you guys know that I was an amateur in this sport? In high school, me and my friends ran a booth at a charity event called "We'll Eat Anything You Want if You Pay Us Enough." Now I find out there's an International Competitive Eating Association! Good thing I've been training.
Posted
9:36 AM | [Link]
|
| |
JUSTICE [Kathryn J. Lopez]
It seems Rick Lazio might be set to run to win his old Long Island congressional seat back. He, as you might recall, was the Republican who ran against then-First Lady HRC for Senate. No offense to Lazio, but shouldn't allowing Hillary Clinton to win be a career-ender?
Posted
8:44 AM | [Link]
|
| |
JUST LIKE A FRENCHMAN [Andrew Stuttaford]
The AP is reporting that Jimmy Carter has become the latest politician to criticize the use of the term "axis of evil." Borrowing an adjective from our friends the French, the former president is condemning the phrase as too "simplistic." He believes that it jeopardizes the "progress" made with North Korea, Iran, and Iraq in recent years. Progress? What progress?
Posted
8:34 AM | [Link]
|
| |
THE DOMENECHINATOR: [John J. Miller]
Former NR intern and all-around-good-guy Ben Domenech has started a blog site, and his entry on Virginia governor Mark Warner breaking his anti-tax pledge just a few weeks after taking office is a quality rant.
Posted
5:38 AM | [Link]
|
| |
HUGHES GOLD: [John J. Miller]
Figure skating may be a supremely subjective sport, but wasn't it obvious that Sarah Hughes was the finest skater in last night's finals? I was cheering for Michelle Kwan--thought she deserved gold four years ago, in fact--but the flawless and exciting Hughes performance was far and away the best of the night. She deserved to win. Also, the top four or five skaters were clearly in a different league from the rest of the field. Yes, there's tons of subjectivity in this sport, but the best really do tend to rise to the top.
Posted
5:34 AM | [Link]
|
| |
|
|
| |
Thursday, February 21
|
| |
|
|
| |
POWER IN NUMBERS [Kathryn J. Lopez]
Here’s an intimidating scene for you: NOW’s recent anti-Tyson (we’re with you girls, on this one) rally in D.C. Someone forget to call the protesters?
Posted
11:41 PM | [Link]
|
| |
NOT-SO-SMALL DETAIL [Kathryn J. Lopez] In the New York Times today, veteran Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse ids Robert Chanin, who argued against the Cleveland voucher program yesterday as "a lawyer for the Cleveland residents who successfully challenged the program in the lower federal courts." Never does she mention a well-known fact: He is general counsel for the National Education Association. Thanks to Chester Finn for pointing out.
Posted
4:25 PM | [Link]
|
| |
SUPREME SAVIORS: [John J. Miller]
Rich, this idea that the Supremes will make the campaign-finance bill legit contributes to the severe problem of the imperial judiciary by creating a false aura that the Justices alone provide the final word on all things having to do with the Constitution. They're expected to be the grownups in this whole process, cleaning up the big mess made by childish politicians who should know better. It grants them a prestige they don't really deserve as a co-equal branch of government.
Posted
4:10 PM | [Link]
|
| |
MOOSE BOSOM?: [Lowry]
Readers of The Corner aren't the only ones suffering from an excess of Moose. Lawmakers in Maine, according to The New York Times ("A County Has a Word for It. Problem Is, It's 'Moose.'", have decided to erase the word "squaw" from place names because it is offensive to Indians. So, one county is simply changing from "squaw" to "moose," so, for instance, Squaw's Bosom will become Moose Bosom. Problem is so many other things are already called moose. Explains one official: "There are already five Moose Ponds, two Moose Coves, two Moose Islands. What we don't want to do is be in a situation where we're adding a sixth or seventh Moose Pond to the list." Jonah, over to you...
Posted
3:48 PM | [Link]
|
| |
STRANGE: [Lowry]
Regarding Andrew Sullivan's pro-CFR bit, I'm mystified at how many smart people can thing it's a good idea for Bush to sign a bill, not just despite the fact that they think parts of it are unconstitutional, but because they think parts of it are unconstitutional. This reflects a real malady in our political culture: the idea that the Supreme Court is the only protector of the Constitution, and the responsibility of other branches of government is simply to throw legislation at it on the off-chance that it might stick. Congress, and certainly the president, should be more sober lawmakers, and more serious constitutional stewards, than that.
Posted
3:33 PM | [Link]
|
| |
SAUDI FAMILY VALUES [Andrew Stuttaford]
AP is reporting that during a raid in October of a Saudi aid office in Sarajevo, NATO officials found computer files containing street maps of Washington DC, pictures of past terrorist targets, and other potentially incriminating documentation. Six men were arrested and are, reportedly, now enjoying U.S. government hospitality in Cuba. The aid office was apparently set up by our friends the Saudis to help orphans, but there must be the suspicion that it was more interested in creating them.
Posted
2:03 PM | [Link]
|
| |
CYNICAL SULLIVAN: [John J. Miller]
Andrew Sullivan calls the campaign-finance bill unconstitional, but says President Bush should sign it anyway because those confounded "unconstitutional parts of the bill will almost certainly be voided by the Court." His argument for the bill--which he juxtaposes against an NR editorial he labels "hysterical"--is that the current system of campaign finance "has led to a profound cynicism about government." Could it be that presidents who sign bills they know to be unconstitutional--egged on by pundits who know it to be unconstitutional as well--also contributes to cynicism? Remember, Bush not only made a specific promise during his campaign to oppose this bill, but he also swore an oath to uphold the Constitution.
Posted
1:50 PM | [Link]
|
| |
NOT-SO SWIFT [Andrew Stuttaford]
Check out the editorial in the WSJ today on Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift's refusal to grant Gerald Amirault's appeal against his conviction for alleged child abuse back in the 1980s. Anyone who has followed the excellent series of articles on this case by Dorothy Rabinowitz will be deeply disturbed by this decision to uphold a verdict that makes the Salem witch trials look respectable. As is made clear in the editorial, Swift's shabby decision was probably connected to political alarm over the current (completely unrelated) pedophilia scandal involving priests in her state. It reveals the governor as a moral disgrace, who puts electoral expediency over her obligation to see that justice is done. Gov. Swift is unworthy of her office; she should be voted down this fall.
Posted
12:23 PM | [Link]
|
| |
HERE WE GO AGAIN: [Jonah Goldberg]
The Sierra Club is running ads depicting ANWR as an environmental holy land again. You can tell by the frequency of Joe Lieberman's press conferences, that he plans to run on the issue in his forthcoming presidential campaign. Now, the South Carolina-sized preserve is for the most part beautiful. But it ain't so hot where the oil is. I thought Corner readers might like to see some of the aerial pictures from my trip up there last Summer: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
If you like to see an explanation of what your looking at, check out this column from last Summer.
Posted
11:05 AM | [Link]
|
| |
WHEN IN CHINA [Kathryn J. Lopez] From today’s Washington Post: "Bush is staying in a hotel, and administration officials plan to follow measures similar to those they used at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Shanghai during the president's trip in October, setting up tents in the hotel rooms to keep paperwork out of the range of cameras and playing country music during sensitive conversations."
I’m picturing a patriotic medley prepared by an intern. Lee Greenwood marathon when it’s really sensitive. Gotta love Republicans.
Posted
10:30 AM | [Link]
|
| |
ABOUT DECEPTION [Kathryn J. Lopez]
What is deceptive advertising? It may depend on your definition. One woman whose baby was ultimately spared by a crisis-pregnancy center (which she is happy about) says she was mislead by a yellow-pages ad for a center that fell under the category "abortion alternatives." Clearly, this should not be considered deceptive advertising. And Eliot Spitzer is doing a disservice to women if he considers that as illegal or unethical. Again, however, if an ad says "abortions here" or the like, they are not playing fair. And it is wrong because it handicaps the centers that are doing God’s work within man’s rulebook.
While the NY and others come down on crisis-pregnancy centers, they might also consider abortion clinics--many of whose standards have been proven low, if not deadly. There are unenforced laws there, throughout the country, as tragic stories have shown. It’s bad enough the kids die, but they are often not the only ones physically injured, nevermind mentally.
Posted
8:58 AM | [Link]
|
| |
CRISIS FOR PREGNANCY CENTERS [Kathryn J. Lopez]
A piece on crisis-pregnancy centers in today’s Washington Post is distressing on a number of levels. First off, if some of the centers are guilty of deceptive advertising--i.e. telling women they provide abortions to get them in the door, then they should be prosecuted. But, that is not the case with many, if not most, of the crisis-pregnancy centers around the country which do exactly what they say--provide alternatives to abortion. In the Post piece Planned Parenthood’s Gloria Feldt attacks crisis-pregnancy centers, but she should embrace them generally. They do, after all, help make available to women the "choice" that her industry doesn't.
Posted
8:42 AM | [Link]
|
| |
THE FACE OF THE BLOODY VIP [Andrew Stuttaford]
In the interest of disclosure I should reveal that I have frequent-flyer status with a number of airlines. I availed myself of the Versailles-like splendor of the UAL "VIP" line at O'Hare on Wednesday afternoon (about a 20-minute wait, followed by, as is appropriate, full screening). Nevertheless, regardless of any inconvenience to me (which does not matter) this new move shows that, to make some PC point, Mineta is indifferent to the survival of the airlines (which does). Adding this extra, and malicious, delay for regular (usually business) travelers will push them away from short-haul flights and onto the roads, and that's a blow that the airlines could do without.
We should not be surprised. Mineta has already demonstrated that PC principle is more important to him than passengers' safety, so why should he care about the future of the airlines they fly in? What is a mystery is why this hopelessly inadequate man is still entrusted with a job in a supposedly competent administration.
Posted
7:54 AM | [Link]
|
| |
NORMAN’S WORK [Andrew Stuttaford]
The stupidity of the wretched Mineta has something of an Energizer Bunny quality about it. It just keeps on going. Reuters is reporting that the Feds have ordered that separate "VIP" security lines for frequent flyers should be eliminated. It is, in fact, not clear whether such a move is within the government's authority and it is worth noting that the order was given orally so as, presumably, to avoid too many awkward questions. So far as an explanation is concerned, the officials who spoke to Reuters could only come up with the sort of idiot egalitarianism that was meant to have gone out of fashion not too long after Woodstock. The reason for the change, they said, was "to make the overhaul of airport security equitable since it is now a federal function."
Posted
7:53 AM | [Link]
|
| |
BABEL ON: [John J. Miller]
A new study by UNESCO warns that half of the world's 6,000 languages are in danger of disappearing. It is hard not to feel some sense of loss when a unique product of human existence vanishes, but let's put things in perspective. It's not like these people aren't speaking anymore--they're simply abandoning obscure languages in favor of more common ones that will help them flourish in a globalized environment. Telling them they shouldn't do this is not much different from saying they shouldn't have running water, either; it confines them to a premodern world. If they want to speak a lingua franca, UNESCO bureaucrats in Paris shouldn't get in their way. The planet is not a cultural museum for the wine-and-cheese crowd. Professional anthropologists should make sure our actual museums and libraries contain extensive recordings of native speakers, but we should let these languages go.
Posted
5:53 AM | [Link]
|
| |
ANTI-ANTI-TERRORISM: [John J. Miller]
That wonderful letter signed by 60 academics in support of the war on terrorism is starting to generate some very silly responses. For those who make of a hobby of watching members of the Left do and say ridiculous things, this week's colloquy sponsored by the Chronicle of Higher Education is not to be missed. During the Cold War, we had to contend with the anti-anti-Communists. Today, we're seeing the emergence of the anti-anti-terrorists.
Posted
5:32 AM | [Link]
|
| |
|
|
| |
Wednesday, February 20
|
| |
|
|
| |
IT'S NOT JUST CATHOLICS: [Rod Dreher] The veteran cantor at Fifth Avenue's Temple Emanu-el, New York's best known Reform synagogue, was arrested today on charges of sexually abusing his nephew for years. Police say the child is so traumatized it took him two years to work up the courage to allow his parents to call authorities. The violent molestation allegedly began when the boy was three years old. Late local news reports tonight that the cantor's brothers have told police he molested them in childhood too.
Posted
11:21 PM | [Link]
|
| |
RIGHT ON, RIGHTER [Andrew Stuttaford]
As the horrors of 9/11 fade (at least for Europeans) from the headlines, there has been increasing criticism from across the Atlantic (most recently from Chris Patten, a failed British politician who is now the EU's foreign-affairs supremo) of America's supposedly simplistic conduct of the war against terrorism. It should be ignored. In a tremendous piece in today's London Times, Rosemary Righter becomes the latest pundit to point out that the Europeans' neglect of their own defense makes them feeble allies and presumptious critics. Her subtext: Europe should put up or shut up.
Posted
10:49 PM | [Link]
|
| |
PRETENSION U [Kathryn J. Lopez] Students at UCLA are upset that Laura Bush's name has been invited to be this year's commencement speaker, citing her "shallow credentials." (They should be lucky to have such fulfilling lives.) Sure she's no, say, Mumia (feel free to replace him with any other ridiculous commencement favorite)....
Posted
10:39 PM | [Link]
|
| |
JESSE DIRKHISING, MEET KEN TILLERY: [Rod Dreher]
Why didn't the media notice the racially-charged death of this man? You don't suppose it was skin prejudice, do you?
Posted
7:12 PM | [Link]
|
| |
YEAH, BUT…
Rich, good for Mushareff when he says, "Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race." But I would bet you the French would still surrender to 6 Fez-wearing old men in a Parisian minute (defined as the amount of time it takes Frenchman to turnover the refugees in his basement upon hearing a German accent).
Posted
5:23 PM | [Link]
|
| |
I’M SORRY! [Jonah]
Today’s G-File was interrupted by numerous distractions, financial, professional and canine (trying to bid on a house; trying to do some freelance work; trying to keep my dog happy so he doesn’t reformat my hard drive while I’m getting a cup of coffee). Anyway, the G-File is in Kathryn’s capable hands. The deadtree magazine is on a production deadline, but if she can get it posted today, she will. If she can’t it will be there first thing in the AM. Don't blame her because I filed late. Again, my apologies and please stop harassing me. It’s flattering and annoying at the same time – like having Barney Frank try to seduce you.
Posted
5:13 PM | [Link]
|
| |
DOES THE MOOSE…: [Rich Lowry]
..want to fix these budding “loopholes” that make his cherished bill a “sham”? From The Hill newspaper, “House Dems make plans to circumvent campaign reform.”
Posted
4:53 PM | [Link]
|
| |
CONSITUTIONAL COP-OUT: [Rich Lowry]
Another good e-mail: “It's interesting that Bush would consider shucking his sworn duty (the President is the only Constitutional officer that swears to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution" Art. II Sec. 1, whereas others swear only to "support" it. Art. VI). For the framers, this was the President's prime duty, to protect against legislative encroachment on the Constitution. The original, indispensable, G.W., as James Flexner points out in his biography, vetoed only two bills during 8 years in office. Both because he thought they were unconstitutional.”
Posted
4:51 PM | [Link]
|
| |
CHECK OUT... [Rich Lowry]
...this piece from the BBC, titled "Musharraf Berates the Muslim World." (Atta boy!) It recounts a speech in which Musharraf reportedly said: "Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race."
Posted
2:58 PM | [Link]
|
| |
KEEP THE PRINCESS HERE: [Rod Dreher]
A reader responds to the item I posted about the Saudi princess who wants to leave the U.S. before her trial for allegedly pushing her maid down the stairs: "I lived in the United Arab Emirates for six years. Abuse of maids was a very common story. In one case, the maid who was being raped knifed her attacker and in the process got sentenced to hang for it. Eventually, though, she was allowed to return home to the Philippines. They typically were ill treated were worked to the bone and paid little."
Posted
2:56 PM | [Link]
|
| |
ENFORCING THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL [Rich Lowry]
Excellent point by e-mail: “Bush's FEC appointees will be expected to enforce every line of this campaign-finance law, not simply the handful of provisions Bush actually does consider constitutional.
Likewise, Bush's Solicitor General will be expected to defend the entire law when it receives its inevitable SCOTUS review.
Just imagine for a moment the cries of "hypocrite!" that will arise from McCain, the Moose, the media and all the rest of the Left should Bush sign CFR but then fail to vigorously enforce and defend it.”
Posted
2:55 PM | [Link]
|
| |
THE MOOSE MAKES US GAG! [Rich Lowry]
Jonah, check it out. We know that The Moose thinks that the arguments for campaign-finance reform should apply to everyone except himself and his friends, so in honor of the latest NR cover we thought we would give him the gag treatment too, just so he knows how it feels!
Posted
2:03 PM | [Link]
|
| |
DOLLY & CLONING SEMANTICS [Kathryn J. Lopez] The “father” of famous cloned sheep, Ian Wilmut, once again speaks out against human cloning. Or so the press coverage suggests. He doesn’t want you to see your cloned daughter walking around, but he does call on science to get moving creating cloning embryos to be used in disease research. But that is human cloning, folks.
Posted
2:02 PM | [Link]
|
| |
HOW DUMB ARE THE TALIBAN? [Rich Lowry]
This from The Washington Post this morning: “Sometimes, the nature of the war made targeting easier. Many Afghan Taliban and Northern Alliance soldiers were friends who had found themselves drafted into opposing armies. They would communicate over rudimentary radios, sometimes taunting each other in the heart of battle. ‘Your bomb missed us,’ one would say, recalled members of Team 555. ‘Where did it land?’ Northern Alliance officer would respond with some coaching from the Americans. Five hundred meters to the north, would come the answer. Or 1,000 meters to the south. The combat controller would immediately recalculate the coordinates and pass them to the nearest aircraft, which could strike the target within minutes. Team 555 members said in a week, they killed many Taliban commanders this way and destroyed much of their communications network.”
Posted
1:37 PM | [Link]
|
| |
THE OTHER THING... [Rich Lowry]
...notable about that Post story is how American pilots would never hit a target they weren't convinced was actually of military value. These guys are not just fierce and effective, they are good.
Posted
1:26 PM | [Link]
|
| |
GOOD FOR THE GOP? [Rich Lowry]
Fred Barnes argues in the Wall Street Journal today that Republicans will be helped by the ban soft money. Maybe. But here's a smart e-mail detailing the numbers: "Over the last 10 years the Dems have gotten about 36% of their funds in soft money, the Rs about 27%. In 99-00, the Dems raised $245 million soft, about 47% of their total, and the Rs $249 million, about 37% of the total. However, through last June (end of year numbers will be out shortly) both parties raised about 54% in soft money, but the Rs raised $66 million and the Ds just $38 million. I suspect that was one reason why some of the Dems defected from Ney-Wynn over to Shays-Meehan."
Posted
1:24 PM | [Link]
|
| |
ANOTHER SATISFIED LISTENER… [Rich Lowry]
E-mail: “Your talk on NPR and writings on Iraq are so simplistic and arrogant it alarms me that you are editor for the National Review or any published work at all.”
Posted
1:19 PM | [Link]
|
| |
CARPERS: [John J. Miller]
I have just read what must be one of the most abrasive, most tendentious, and dumbest essays on September 11 yet to appear in print. It shows up in the March issue of Harper's, a magazine that one of these days I really should quit looking at. The author is John Edgar Wideman, and it's hard to know where to begin, because the essay is a thicket of narrative incoherence and moral confusion. So let's just pick a spot: "George Washington, inaugurated as America's first president only a few blocks from the ruins of the World Trade Center, would have been branded a terrorist if the word had been invented in 1775." Here's another bit of Wideman's wisdom: "To call these people [the Sept. 11 hijackers] terrorists or evil, even to maintain our absolute distinction between victims and perpetrators, exercises the blind, one-way gaze of power, perpetuates the reign of the irrational and supernatural, closes down the possibility that by speaking to one another we might formulate appropriate responses, even to the unthinkable." Top that, Susan Sontag!
Posted
11:15 AM | [Link]
|
| |
THERE WILL ALWAYS BE THE LAWSUIT [Kathryn J. Lopez] Families of WTC victims are suing Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Of course, if their lawyers are able to locate him to serve him a subpoena, perhaps the CIA should hire them.
Posted
11:06 AM | [Link]
|
| |
ANYWAY: [Rod Dreher] Anyway, I don't see where Scalia is wrong to say that Catholics whose opposition to the death penalty is so strong that they cannot in good conscience uphold the laws of this country should get off the bench. If a secular liberal wanted to legislate from the bench, he has no business there either. I'm strongly opposed to abortion rights, but if I were a judge, I would feel conscience-bound to interpret the laws as made, not as I wish them to be -- all the while praying that the Legislature would pass a pro-life law that would honestly pass constitutional muster. If we don't have judges like that, we couldn't function as a secular democracy. That, it seems to me, is all Scalia was saying.
Posted
10:33 AM | [Link]
|
| |
ANSWERING ANDREW, PART 2: [Rod Dreher] So the Catechism leaves a loophole, one that it seems very unlikely that this pope, or any pope, will be able to close. I think Scalia and many other solid Catholics, like Notre Dame's Ralph McInerny, stand on fairly solid ground when they dissent from John Paul's particular ahistorical view on the death penalty. That said, I myself reluctantly came to the conclusion last year that capital punishment is wrong -- not necessarily in principle, but in practice. The DNA-test exonerations of convicted murderers, and the substantial accusations of corruption in an Oklahoma crime lab, frightened me about the prospect of innocent men being put to death. Even if one grants that most who receive the death penalty are guilty as charged, the thought of executing an innocent caused John Paul's "Gospel of Life" thinking on capital punishment to hit me with new clarity and moral force.
Posted
10:29 AM | [Link]
|
| |
ANSWERING ANDREW: [Rod Dreher] We didn't make a big deal over the Scalia remarks because they didn't, on second look, seem like such a big deal to us. But here are some further thoughts from someone -- me -- who is a reluctant opponent of capital punishment. It is simply untrue that the Catholic Church is as morally absolutist on the death penalty as it is about the immorality of abortion or, say, sex outside of marriage. As Avery Cardinal Dulles points out in this excellent First Things essay, Scripture and Tradition have a very long history of supporting capital punishment, and the Pope cannot overturn that teaching. And contrary to what Andrew and many others apparently believe, the Catechism does not do that. Writes Cardinal Dulles: "In light of [Scripture and Tradition], seems safe to conclude that the death penalty is not in itself a violation of the right to life. The real issue for Catholics is to determine the circumstances under which that penalty ought to be applied. It is appropriate, I contend, when it is necessary to achieve the purposes of punishment, and when it does not have disproportionate evil effects. I say 'necessary' because I am of the opinion that killing should be avoided if the purposes of punishment can be obtained by bloodless means."
Posted
10:23 AM | [Link]
|
| |
WAS I TOO OFFENSIVE? [Jonah Goldberg ]
A reader responds to my playfull jibe at Robert Reich:
"The midget allusion was out of line, even for this forum. It diminishes you, and it gives people an excuse to label good conservative opinions (I agree with the underlying premise about Hollywood being full of self-righteous, self-important, self-promoters who shouldn't be allowed to play with sharp ideas) as "hating" and a sign of occupying the lower moral ground."
I disagree about how bad it was. In fact, I've used the phrase "world's tallest midget" in all sorts of contexts. Maybe so close to Reich it crossed the line, but I don't see it. Nevertheless, in the future I will be on my toes -- like Mickey Rooney at a urinal -- about such things.
Posted
10:08 AM | [Link]
|
| |
THE GRINDER ACCEPTS THE BALONEY [Jonah Goldberg]
It turns out that Robert Reich is the hottest thing in Hollywood. Isn't being the smartest person in tinsel town the equivalent of being the world's tallest midget?
Posted
9:26 AM | [Link]
|
| |
ROSIE'S A LESBIAN [Jonah Goldberg]
Apparently Rosie O'Donnell's going to admit she plays for the other team. No shocker there. But when is she going to confess that she's actually an angry muppet?
Posted
9:11 AM | [Link]
|
| |
ON SCALIA [Kathryn J. Lopez] AndrewSullivan.com complains that NR hasn’t taken up the Scalia death-penalty controversy. Oh, but we have, right here in The Corner. A bunch of us killed the better part of the afternoon, as I recall, the day the news broke. It’s all here. And, truth is, the “scandal” isn’t half as dramatic as Sullivan makes it out to be.
Posted
8:23 AM | [Link]
|
| |
|
|
| |
Tuesday, February 19
|
| |
|
|
| |
ABSTINENCE AT BERKELEY [Kathryn J. Lopez] It's official. Berkeley has pulled the plug on their sex-ed practicum.
Posted
11:07 PM | [Link]
|
| |
FATHER FUGITIVE: [Rod Dreher] Today in Connecticut, Fr. Oscar Pelaez was arraigned on 150 counts of oral copulation and sodomy with a minor. His alleged victim was a 14-year-old boy when their purported relationship began in 1995. The Catholic priest was sought by California authorities as a "fugitive from justice." Why? Because when Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., was told about the sordid affair in November, he sent the alleged pederast not to the police, but to a Connecticut treatment center. Bishop Blaire says the fact that the alleged victim is no longer a minor played into his decision not to call the cops. Right.
Posted
8:30 PM | [Link]
|
| |
POOR WITTLE PWINCESS: [Rod Dreher] Oh, my heart just bleeds for the Saudi princess charged in Florida with a felony for allegedly pushing her maid down a flight of stairs, among other things. Now she's begging to be allowed to go home to celebrate an Islamic holiday with her family. The state quite rightly opposes this, saying they'll never see the Princess again if she is allowed to leave. Fret nyet, my pet, I'm sure they have lovely mosques in Orlando. And by the way, readers, did you see the news today that convicted trustafarian terrorist Lori Berenson has lost her final appeal, and will stay in her Peruvian jail for a good long time? Good.
Posted
8:21 PM | [Link]
|
| |
Berkeley V. Bob Jones [Jonah Goldberg]
After reading the story about the Berkeley class's gay strip-club excursion (See "A Berkeley Education" posted below), a couple of readers suggested that I provide a link to the piece I wrote a while back defending Bob Jones University.. It seems oddly appropriate.
Posted
6:02 PM | [Link]
|
| |
WHO IS HISPANIC? [John J. Miller]
Kathryn, you are so not with it, disclaiming Hispanic membership. Haven't you ever heard of the one-drop theory? It's amazing how the modern-day multiculturalists draw from that old racist canard--the idea that if you have even a single drop of African blood in your veins, you are wholly black (i.e., corrupted, subhuman, etc.).
Posted
3:24 PM | [Link]
|
| |
PACIFIC PURGES [Jonah Goldberg]
I hope you guys saw that the national "news" staff of Pacifica Radio has been canned. Pacifica is the radio network that makes NPR sound like Rush Limbaugh. They’re not entirely dead yet, but they’re struggling mightily. Isn’t it funny how the organizations which claim to "speak for the people" can’t attract enough actual people to keep the lights on?
Posted
1:28 PM | [Link]
|
| |
MOVE OVER TOM RIDGE [Kathryn J. Lopez]
A cleaning woman in Tajikistan accidentally defuses a bomb. There’s a whole list of jobs she’d be a blessing in over here.
Posted
1:23 PM | [Link]
|
| |
SENORA, I FEEL YOUR PAIN [Kathryn J. Lopez] The Gavora problem has long been a Lopez problem. Why are you in intermediate Spanish?, a dear college adviser asked, thinking I was taking the easy way out of requirements. Doesn’t your father speak Spanish at home?, another asked. My madre, I had to explain, is of 200-proof Irish ancestry, my padre part Irish roots, and part Castilian Spaniard ancestry--thus the name. None of my Lopezes have ever spoken Spanish successfully, although some have tried. None of this matters, except, that I, too, have been victimized by the diversity culture. Made to feel like a stale piece of Wonder Bread for barely passing Spanish. They’d tease me with the promise of “national Hispanic scholar” awards and scholarships, but then cast me aside when they realized I simply wasn’t a bean to be counted. So, Jessica, ride this one. A free meal here and there at la Casa Blanca. A Nexis hit. Enjoy it--until you are found out.
Posted
12:53 PM | [Link]
|
| |
WHODUNNIT [Kathryn J. Lopez] Stanley, We must point out to Corner readers who may not have noticed: the sex-course nonsense comes from the precious women’s-studies department at Berkeley.
Posted
12:06 PM | [Link]
|
| |
A BERKELEY EDUCATION [Stanley Kurtz]
Check out the controversy over a U.C. Berkeley course in male sexuality, just suspended after reports that a class was taken to watch an instructor have sex on stage at a gay strip club. There was also supposed to have been an orgy at which students took anonymous photos of their genitalia, and then played a game trying to match the photo up to the owner. Exactly what happened is still not clear. Some reports say that the strip club in question was gay, others simply call it a strip club. I’ve also seen denials that actual sex took place. But the course was suspended when the instructor failed to show up and offer explanations to a university official. You can read coverage in Berkeley’s Daily Cal here and the New York Post has an op-ed on the scandal.
Posted
11:59 AM | [Link]
|
| |
NEWSBABES [Kathryn J. Lopez] Rod, Women, as Gloria has always told me, are not objects for your entertainment. Now, get back to work. And, quiet, Don Rumsfeld's on.
Posted
11:35 AM | [Link]
|
| |
MY WIFE, THE SENORITA [Jonah Goldberg]
My wife, the sultry second-generation American with a Slovakian immigrant dad and an Irish-American mom just made the White House’s official list of Hispanic appointees! Corner readers will recall that she’s been getting harangued to show up for Hispanic orientation, presumably because her last name is Gavora (does that really sound Hispanic?). There’s nothing wrong with being Hispanic, of course, but you’d think the bean-counters would be able to discern the different varieties of bean a bit better (otherwise they could miss Whoopi Goldberg entirely). Maybe, we can get a special minority-only home loan!
Posted
11:30 AM | [Link]
|
| |
WHICH END OF THE MOOSE SUIT DOES DAVE GERGEN GET? [Jonah Goldberg]
Rich, I'm simply coming around to the position that "reformers" are just liberal Republicans. I know this isn’t a new insight. But if you read the Moosetoday, he simply sounds like David Gergen praising Sen. Edwards. In much the same way the Gergenites "grew" in office, the "reformers" are growing out of office. The more you listen to McCain oppose tax cuts, grow silent on abortion and the rest it becomes harder and harder to see him – or his acolytes – as anything more than people who want to be seen as "reasonable Republicans" by the media. Again, nothing new here. Just finding it harder to even grasp the contrary argument. Also, the Moose is still silent.
Posted
11:23 AM | [Link]
|
| |
UH-OH BACK ATCHA: [Rod Dreher] Oh no, Rich, you're busted! Marriage only exacerbates things. I tend to get whacked for admiring comments I make about newsbabes. Just last night, I foolishly complimented the, um, exemplary professionalism of NBC's Campbell Brown, who was on the air doing a live shot from Japan. Bad move. Baaaad move. I'm only grateful the Trouble and Strife is not strong enough to lift our black-iron skillet over her head.
Posted
10:50 AM | [Link]
|
| |
WILL THE KNIFE: [Rich Lowry]
When did the intellectual case for campaign-finance reform die? I would say March 2001, when George F. Will wrote an amazing barrage of columns against it, the very model of informed, honest, bare-knuckled political argument. (I've just been looking over them for a piece.)
Posted
10:16 AM | [Link]
|
| |
BAN OP-EDS! [Rich Lowry]
The Washington Post had a fascinating article about Ralph Reed on Sunday, demonstrating how corporations buy lobbying campaigns that include op-eds and letters to the editor. Does The Moose want to ban those too?
Posted
10:15 AM | [Link]
|
| |
UH-OH [Rich Lowry]
My girlfriend often e-mails me a "quotation of day," a Bible verse, a nifty phrase, something inspiring--whatever. Today's was this:
"Hoping my girlfriend doesn't find out about my secret crush on Condi Rice. It's a good thing I live in New York so I can better resist the temptation to hang around the East Gate with flowers!"
--Rich Lowry, response to Valentine's Day pundit survey in "The Hotline," 2-14-02
"If you've read my Geneva stuff on NRO, you know I have a crush on Geneva-guru Ruth Wedgwood. You can find a bunch of her excellent Geneva stuff here."
--Rich Lowry, The Corner, 2-11-02
Of course, those were "crushes" only in the most notional sense, and I can't quite express my regret at even having used the word even in that extremely attenuated sense, when I have such a beautiful, clever, charming girlfriend.
Posted
10:07 AM | [Link]
|
| |
THE BOSTON HORROR, CONT'D: [Rod Dreher] Why this hasn't become more of a national story I'll never know. The sickening news continues to roll out of the Archdiocese of Boston, and it's absolutely chilling to Catholic parents anywhere. Today's Globe tells how a serial pedophile priest named Paul Mahan got away with it, even years after Cardinal Law's supposedly tough 1993 reforms, in the wake of the Fr. Porter disaster. The Globe's website publishes a graphic that includes portions of an actual deposition in which a Church official admits that a psychiatric evaluation found Fr. Mahan "untreatable" -- and yet all the Church did in response was to tell him about his low marks! Force yourself to read this story, if only to protect your own kids. It's important to grasp the degree of danger that the malicious indifference of Cardinal Law and Church authorities put the children of Boston in. Catholic parents everywhere have to ask: could this happen to my children?
Posted
8:54 AM | [Link]
|
| |
ALL-PURPOSE SCAPEGOAT [Kathryn J. Lopez] I’m listening to C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on my computer and a caller just blamed the Georgia crematory horror on money in politics. This is why we need campaign-finance reform. Of course.
Posted
8:54 AM | [Link]
|
| |
SO GOES THE COALITION [Andrew Stuttaford] Global instability is increasing. The Daily Telegraph is reporting that British troops launched an amphibious attack on Spain at the weekend. This was no D-Day, however. John Bull's invading army was held at bay by two Spanish policemen. London is now claiming that the whole thing was a mistake. The soldiers, it was claimed, had meant to land at Gibraltar. Poor map-reading and "bad weather" was to blame. British troops confused by bad weather?
Posted
7:36 AM | [Link]
|
| |
YATES'S DEFENSE [Kathryn J. Lopez] Everyone who is making excuses for Andrea Yates should have to listen to the testimony in her trial. The reports from the police on the scene who found her kids dead in bed and the youngest, Noah, still floating, drowned, in the bathtub. Was she sick? Clearly. But that's no excuse for the systematic murder (and huntdown) of each of your children. I don't want to consider the implications for us--a culture that has so devalued motherhood already--if she is found "not guilty."
Posted
6:04 AM | [Link]
|
| |
SAUDI JUSTICE [Kathryn J. Lopez] For adultery with his sister-in-law, a Saudi man is sentenced to six years in jail and 4,750 lashes.The woman gets six months and 65 lashes (apparently, for being raped). Imagine if we tried that at Gitmo.
Posted
5:48 AM | [Link]
|
| |
DON'T TRY THIS AT THE MOSQUE [Andrew Stuttaford] Rod, It would be interesting to know if the Upton priest is proposing to visit any local Muslim congregations in order to "teach them about Christianity."
Posted
5:43 AM | [Link]
|
| |
TIME WARP: [John J. Miller]
It's starting to feel like September 10 again, with all this hard-news focus on figure skating--i.e., round-the-clock obsession with something ultimately trivial. Today's New York Times describes a proposal to revamp figure skating's scoring system. The president of the International Skating Union believes there will be less corruption if there are fourteen judges at each performance, with a computer randomly picking seven of their scores, throwing out the rest, and nobody knowing whose scores were chosen and whose were trashed. I'm agnostic on this particular recommendation, even though it strikes me as peculiar. (Is this how the BCS rankings work?) But isn't it time, as they say, to move on from figure skating?
Posted
5:34 AM | [Link]
|
| |
AND O.J. IS INNOCENT, TOO: [Rod Dreher] According to a President's Day poll, African-Americans "overwhelmingly" choose Bill Clinton as America's greatest president ever. Abraham Lincoln defeated the Confederate apartheid regime, saved the Union and freed the slaves. Freed the slaves, for crying out loud! If only Honest Abe had allowed himself to be fellated by an intern in the Oval Office, had perjured himself, and been impeached, he might have won. Remember when Ward Connerly told Republicans in 2000 they'd be better off ceasing the self-abasement and sellout of their moral principles in a futile effort to win the black vote? Let this be a reminder of what the man was talking about.
Posted
12:25 AM | [Link]
|
| |
|
|
| |
Monday, February 18
|
| |
|
|
| |
JAPAN: APOCALYPSE SOON?: [Rod Dreher]
While we've all been paying attention to financial catastrophes at Enron and Argentina, Japan is quietly becoming a black hole that could suck the whole world into economic depression. Chilling stuff, this. Read about it at Forbes.com.
Posted
12:54 PM | [Link]
|
| |
VOX POPULI, VOX DEI: [Rod Dreher] Here's great news from John McMenamon, a vigilant NRO reader living in the People's Republic of Massachusetts. Remember the ecumenical prayer I told you about last week, the one written by the Catholic priest in Upton, Mass., who recognized Muhammad in the text as an authentic messenger of God? Well, John attends this priest's parish. He wrote to say that the priest is planning to bring in a Muslim cleric during Lent to teach the congregation about Islam. Writes John: "That's all well and good, but you know what? We're not the ones who need to be preached to about how we're all God's children and we need to love one another," the reader writes. "The fanatical Muslim population are the ones who need the preaching." John also reports that a "peace and justice" nun is coming in to give a lecture. "I'm not going to be in much of a mood to listen to someone preach high and mighty to me about how I need to forgive and love. You're preaching to the choir, Sister -- tell it to those who need to hear that message. I'm also not going to be in much of a mood to listen to any talk on how this war is wrong and is an act of 'violence,' 'hatred,' 'fear,''ignorance,' 'revenge' - I believe that message is actually immoral." The Corner's correspondent in Upton promises to keep us updated -- especially on the promise his pastor made to NRO to teach about Muslim persecution of Christians.
Posted
12:10 PM | [Link]
|
| |
QUICK, SOMEONE GIVE THIS GUY A SHOW [Kathryn J. Lopez] CNN, unfortunately, pulled the plug on one of its smarter shows, Greenfield at Large. Jeff Greenfield remains a CNN analyst, but he no longer owns his own half hour. The last show aired Friday. When you think of all the others who have shows….maybe a lift will do?
Posted
11:59 AM | [Link]
|
| |
SHORT-ATTENTION-SPAN THEATER [Kathryn J. Lopez] Whatever became of the Hollywood Stars-and-Stripes mode? (Evidently while studios airlifted copies of Shrek to aircraft carriers post-911, they never responded to requests for VCRs for viewing them.)
Posted
11:35 AM | [Link]
|
| |
BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO [Kathryn J. Lopez] Especially when your husband (and father of your children) used to be a she.
Posted
9:45 AM | [Link]
|
| |
CAMP CLASSIC [John Derbyshire] Yodok, the camp mentioned in the piece John J. Miller posted on Saturday about that North Korean defector, is described in detail in Kang Chol-hwan's book Aquariums of Pyongyang. Yodok is not so much a camp as a sort of vast reservation, with camps of varying degrees of strictness contained within it. Kang was in Yodok 1977-87, before the real famines started. He was 9 years old when arrested. What conditions must be like there now does not bear thinking about. For sheer evil, the Kim regime in North Korea takes some beating. It is almost superfluous to speak of "camps" in the case of North Korea: The whole place is a camp. Recall the old USSR joke: Q--"How many political prisoners are there in the USSR?" A--"About 240 million."
For my own prescriptions on dealing with North Korea, see. (which for some reason-- N. Korean sabotage?--didn't make it into the archives).
Posted
9:42 AM | [Link]
|
| |
(TARDY) RECCOMENDED READING [Jonah Goldberg ]
I’ve spent much of the weekend reading about immigration, including Pat Buchanan’s new book (more on that later). If you need a good primer on where the arguments on immigration are, I’d actually recommend a liberal academic’s two-part essay in a radical lefty mag. Christopher Jencks is that rarest of birds a trustworthy liberal academic. He goes where the numbers take him (his little book on the homeless was an excellent bit of debunking of liberal hysteria). Anyway, last Fall he wrote two very long essays for the New York Review of Books. His conclusions are on the pessimistic side both for the benefits of immigration and the possibility of fixing the problems. These "Who Should Get In?" essays aren’t perfect (or short), but they aren’t polemical either: Part 1, Part 2.
Posted
9:21 AM | [Link]
|
| |
NO G-FILE TODAY [Jonah Goldberg]
Three reasons:
1. It's President's Day.
2. I have to write a piece for another publication (details to come).
3. I am trying to buy a house (details to come). However, if anyone out there wants to give me a sub-prime interest rate on a large mortgage, I will write him or her a personal G-File every Christmas (or Hanuka, or Kwanzaa) every year in perpetuity. Anyway, I might have a Tuesday G-File tomorrow. And, I will be posting to the Corner throughout the day.
Posted
8:52 AM | [Link]
|
| |
THE ORIGINAL GEORGE W. [John J. Miller]
Had a chance this weekend to watch an advance tape of "Rediscovering George Washington," a documentary hosted by NR's Richard Brookhiser and based on his excellent book Founding Father. I think it will air on PBS in a few months, and it's very good. A few years ago, Brookhiser had the inspired idea of writing what he calls "moral biographies." Founding Father isn't a retelling of Washington's life; it's a meditation on what made Washington great. Readers of it won't come away knowing every detail of the man's day-to-day existence, but they will gain an understanding of how he accomplished so much and what made him different from other great leaders in history. The documenatry does an outstanding job of taking the best parts of the book and augmenting them. My favorite scene takes place at Ferry Farm, in Fredericksburg, Va., where Washington lived between his sixth and sixteenth years (and where he allegedly chopped down the cherry tree.) There's an old story about Washington throwing a rock across the Rappahannock River, which is fairly wide there. So Brookhiser assembles a group of baseball players from the local high school and gives them a bucket of rocks. Can they do it? As movie reviewers like to say, I won't give away the ending. But Brookhiser lets them try and then makes a really nifty point on what it tells us about Washington. Brookhiser also has books on Alexander Hamilton and the John Adams family (don't miss K Lo's interview with him). I hope he turns all his books into documentaries.
Posted
5:40 AM | [Link]
|
| |
|
|
| |
Sunday, February 17
|
| |
|
|
| |
POW!: [John J. Miller]
A nice put down of France's wimpy foreign minister, by none other than Colin Powell.
Posted
7:01 AM | [Link]
|
|
 |
|
|
|