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JUST ASKING [Andrew Stuttaford] While we are on the subject of the EU and the Palestinians, here's a puzzle. The EU constantly proclaims its opposition to capital punishment (European countries will not extradite someone suspected of a capital crime to the US unless prosecutors agree to waive the death penalty). The EU is, however, a major financial backer of the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority has, of course, shown itself more than willing to impose the death penalty (and, for that matter, to refuse to intervene when prisoners in its jails are taken out and lynched). Perhaps Chris Patten would like to explain the inconsistency. Posted 6:25 PM | [Link] WAVING THE FLAG [Andrew Stuttaford] Here's a charming story from Holland about the wife of the man in charge of the Euro. Thanks to the Instapundit for pointing it out. Posted 5:50 PM | [Link] CAPTAIN NORDIC [Andrew Stuttaford] Instapundit reports that there have been complaints that Captain Euro is 'Nordic' propaganda. Well, if so, it hasn't worked. The Nordic region has proved strangely immune to the appeal of the EU's ever greater union. So far, both the Swedes and Danes have refused to exchange their Crowns for Euros. The Icelanders and Norwegians, meanwhile, have kept even more of a distance. They won't even join the EU, let alone the Euro. Finland is a part of the European currency area, but much of the explanation for that can be found in who its neighbor is. The Euro may be bad, but the Ruble is worse. Posted 5:19 PM | [Link] WHO'S THE BOSS?[Andrew Stuttaford] Blogger Dawn Eden tells of a remarkable incident at a trivia quiz in Manhattan earlier this week. One of the questions involved identifying a celebrity on the basis of his high-school yearbook photograph. Astonishingly, both teams thought that Bruce Springsteen's picture was, in fact, an image of the young William F. Buckley. As one of Dawn's readers points out, it's interesting to note that the two men never do seem to be seen together. Posted 4:33 PM | [Link] "THE ELEPHANT IN THE SACRISTY" [Stanley Kurtz] Mary Eberstadt has just published an extraordinary essay in The Weekly Standard on the role of homosexuality in the Church scandal. The piece, "The Elephant in the Sacristy," is somewhere in the vicinity of ten thousand words long, possibly a record for the Standard. Eberstadt's powerfully argued and carefully documented article, and the prominence given it by The Weekly Standard, promises to finally break the mainstream media's ban on acknowledgment the scandal's roots in an increasingly homosexual priesthood (although one should never underestimate the capacity of the American media to suppress politically incorrect truths). Eberstadt's piece is restrained in tone, letting the terrifying facts speak for themselves. Nonetheless, this remarkable article constitutes a clear and powerful challenge to those who have labored to turn discussion of the scandal away from homosexuality. One awaits their response to this bombshell with bated breath. Posted 9:19 AM | [Link] SAUDI PREACHING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] In a piece on the ACLU lawsuit against the airlines, a writer for the Saudi Arab News writes: If the cases fail, do we then unleash discrimination against Japanese-looking citizens in case they have come to sink naval battleships, the British in case they want New England back or even Native Americans on the grounds that they may wish to occupy their ancestral lands? It could only happen in America. Couldn’t it? Posted 9:03 AM | [Link] SEINFELD IN ISRAEL [Dave Kopel] Jerry Seinfeld is planning a special solidarity visit and performance in Israel this July, according to israelinsider. What a great way to show support for people on the front line of the war against Islamonazi terror. This of course brings to mind "The Letter" episode, in which an elderly couple disagrees about the meaning of a portrait of Kramer. Except that it sounds like they're the U.S. and Europe arguing about Yassir Arafat: Europe: "I sense great vulnerability, a man-child crying out for love, an innocent orphan in the post modern world." U.S.: "I see a parasite, a sexually depraved miscreant who is seeking only to gratify his basest and most immediate urges." Europe: "His struggle is man's struggle. He lifts my spirit." U.S.: "He is a loathsome, offensive brute - yet I can't look away." Europe: "He transcends time and space." U.S.: "He sickens me." Posted 8:56 AM | [Link] IN DA HOOD [James S. Robbins] "Like most gangs, our guyz like to wear a lot of ornaments and buy lavish furnishings for their cribs." Posted 8:53 AM | [Link] THE MAN [Robert A. George] I really have to calm down when I'm writing. I said in my original R. Kelly post that his latest album with Jay-Z "has been something of a plot." I, of course, meant to write that it was something of a "flop"! Considering his legal problems, maybe it's a plot, too! Just another example of The Man trying to keep us down... Posted 8:52 AM | [Link] BETTER DEAD THAN TED: [John J. Miller] Here's what Ted Kennedy says about how Bush's homeland-defense reorganization will affect the INS: "When you put an immigration agency in an agency whose mission is to fight terror, you're changing the whole focus of how we view immigration." Ted's being critical, by the way. Seems he forgot that this is the agency that approved a flight-school visa for Mohammad Atta six months after Atta flew into one of the twin towers. He also must have missed this report from the Center for Immigration Studies. Posted 4:39 AM | [Link] BAT CAT: [John J. Miller] Hey Rich, one of my cats caught a bat a few years ago. The thing was flying around our house, my wife was freaking out, and I was rolling up a magazine to start swatting when Clementine leaped a four or five feet into the air and pulled down the bat in flight. Posted 4:32 AM | [Link]
RE. R. KELLY [Robert A. George] Kathryn, one last thing on the R. Kelly front: I don't know what I meant by the "generational thing," considering I'm, gulp, older than you are. But since Caldwell's about the same age as me...what's his excuse? Posted 7:01 PM | [Link] COLD AS ICE(LAND) [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Iceland has banned Falun Gong practioners from entering the country. The reason: They don't want demonstrations when Jiang Zemin is in the country next week. Posted 6:58 PM | [Link] WEEPUBLICANS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Weeks ago, I asked for suggestion for Republican baby gifts, and a number of you e-mailed to ask me to report back. Since young Alex Aragon, who is now the proud owner of a plush Air-Force One (which, admittedly, his dad is probably enjoying more than son--Alex is less than two months old--at the moment), among other gifts only a political junkie could appreciate, is being baptized this weekend, it's about time I share the results. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation has a terrific gift shop (where Alex's Air Force One came from). And check out http://www.gopshoppe.com/cgi-bin/gop/weepublicans.html for bibs and other treasures. Neither one is limited to baby items, so if you need gifts from the right, there you are. Posted 6:25 PM | [Link] BUSH'S "WAG THE DOG"?! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The Media Research Council notes, in their daily briefing, that: Dan Rather was obsessed with applying nefarious motives to the timing of President Bush's prime time address. He led with it in prime time and on the CBS Evening News: "President Bush moved to take the spotlight away from the hearing" into FBI failures "and capture the headlines by suddenly asking for national television time tonight." MSNBC, CNN and NBC also raised the timing, but they at least treated it as a subject to be noted only after first examining the substance of and reaction to the proposal. Posted 6:02 PM | [Link] SPEAKING OF SQUIRREL CHASES [Rich Lowry] I should mention that my infamous cats have been living in suburban bliss with my parents for a while now. One of them has turned out to be quite the hunter--he doesn't just chase things (like some unnamed pets), but actually catches them. There is a sparrow or mouse every couple of days or so. But the other day was truly a banner occasion--he captured a dove, which my softie parents made him release, but I am proud nonetheless. Posted 5:28 PM | [Link] MORE HOUSTON [Rich Lowry] E-mail: "Living wage? What kind of proto-Marxists were you talking to anyway? Jonah should be grateful you haven't chained him to a weaving loom or sold him into sweat shop bondange in response to his tardy G-files. Besides, after his discourse on price and value, I am sure Jonah understands that he has to factor in his unpaid benefits (oh, I don't know, being able to disappear on a squirrel chase instead of cranking out essays for our cultural and intellectual benefit, and being able to pad such essays with references to stained couches to meet his word quotas)." Posted 5:26 PM | [Link] IF ONLY... [Rich Lowry] ...we could combine Ledeen's "faster, please" with Robbins's really scary gangland hand-signals, NRO would have this war won by now! Posted 5:18 PM | [Link] HAS KYOTO BEEN KILLED? [Jonathan Adler] Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced this week that the land down under will not ratify the Kyoto Protocol unless the United States does so as well. As Bush reaffirmed his opposition to the climate treaty this week, this means that the U.S. will not alone in rejecting the treaty. Posted 4:58 PM | [Link] JUGHEAD JEB [Roger Clegg] Florida Governor Jeb Bush today signed into law a bill that permits state-certified minority-owned companies, regardless of wealth, to request advance payments of up to 10 percent on contract awards. The idea is to increase working capital financing, but of course the better way to do that would be to make wealth the qualifying factor, not race or ethnicity. The bill is clearly unconstitutional, and it is very disappointing that the bill got to the governor’s desk, and that it got across it. Posted 4:03 PM | [Link] "FASTER, PLEASE" [James S. Robbins] I really like how Michael Ledeen puts "Faster, please" at the end of his articles -- his version of "Carthago delenda est!" Posted 4:03 PM | [Link] AGAINST IMPATIENCE [Ramesh Ponnuru] Patrick Ruffini has a nice rebuke to the folks who think that the Democrats could get to President Bush's right on the war in 2004. I think his analysis is basically right, with the caveat that ideological opportunism should not be underestimated. In 1992, Bill Clinton won over some neocons with his criticism of the first President Bush's coddling of dictators from Baghdad to Beijing. Posted 3:39 PM | [Link] DEFENDING R. KELLY IGNORANCE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Robert, I have gotten lots of e-mails like that today, as you can imagine. Had no idea how hip NRO readers were--man they are. Anyway, since it has been pointed out to me, yeah, I've heard the "Fly" song. (I do have younger sibs.) So it's probably not "a black thing." I am clueless in addressing the generational point--um, I'm pretty sure we fit in the same range, dude. Face it, you're just cooler than me. And, I guess, Caldwell. But you'll have to take the latter up with him. Posted 3:36 PM | [Link] SAY IT AIN'T SO, K-LO [Robert A. George] Kathryn, please don't make me say, "R. Kelly -- it's a black thing, you wouldn't understand!" Maybe it's partly a generational thing, too. Well, here's NRO's resident DJ Emeritus to the rescue. R. Kelly is a major R&B star. He's had several platinum albums (though his current one with Jay-Z has been something of a plot). His biggest hit, a few years ago, was "I Believe I Can Fly," which was actually an impressive neo-gospel ballad. It became de rigeur at proms and and other big high-school events. That makes his arrest that much more disturbing, considering the girl he is accused of being with is of high-school age. Whether she's under-18, of course, is the question. I believe he had a couple of previous brushes with the law that involved simulated sex on stage. You know, fun stuff like that. Posted 3:30 PM | [Link] AND JUST TO BE CLEAR.... [Jonah Goldberg] ...I realize that today's column was totally incoherent. Posted 3:12 PM | [Link] GO AHEAD, KNOCK IT OFF [Jonah Goldberg] I'm scheduled to be on Crossfire tonight with none other than Robert Conrad to debate celebrity activists who testify before Congress. If anybody has some good examples of ridiculous celebrities who've taken on pet issues or testified on the Hill please let me know. Posted 3:11 PM | [Link] SO..... [Jonah Goldberg] What was your answer? Posted 3:04 PM | [Link] SO I'M IN HOUSTON...: [Rich Lowry] ...giving one of my weighty defense of western civilization talks and at the end someone asks something along these lines, "Uh, Mr. Lowry, thanks so much for taking the time to come down to our fine city of Houston, and I enjoyed your remarks on the civilizational clash that will shape the world order for centuries to come...BUT why do you so stubbornly refuse to pay Jonah Goldberg a decent, living wage???" Posted 1:07 PM | [Link] THE ENEMY'S CODE [James S. Robbins] Those who check out the new movie Windtalkers about Navajo Marine radiomen in the Pacific may wonder why the same technique was not employed in Europe to confound German codebreakers. The answer is that before the war the Germans sent agents posing as anthropologists to study Native American languages in case we tried something like this. See here for the story. It's a good example of how disturbingly forward looking our enemies can be. Note that the Navajos were the only tribe not penetrated, thus the Germans could not share intelligence with the Japanese. Posted 11:10 AM | [Link] LOST WORLD [Andrew Stuttaford] Jonah, I'm crushed. How can I have missed this obvious classic? Too busy watching Angry Red Planet, I suppose... Posted 11:04 AM | [Link] HUNTINGTON VS. FUKUYAMA [Stanley Kurtz] In the wake of 9/11, what are we to make of the debate between Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama? Lots of people say that the war on terror has proven Huntington right and Fukuyama wrong. There is truth in that view, but it’s also too simple. My own detailed assessment of the Huntington-Fukuyama dispute, “The Future of History,” can be found in the latest issue of Policy Review. Agree or disagree with what I have to say, I think you’ll find that this piece is most thorough reassessment of the Fukuyama-Huntington controversy that’s been published since 9/11. And while you’re at it, check out the whole June issue of Policy Review, which features a major piece by Robert Kagan on America’s relations with Europe, and an “open letter” from Chester Finn to Harvard president Lawrence Summers. Posted 11:02 AM | [Link] MUST-SEE MOVIE [Mike Potemra] Martin Scorsese's My Voyage to Italy will air on the Turner Classic Movies channel tonight at 8. Strongly recommended for anyone who cares about the art of cinema. Posted 10:57 AM | [Link] VENUS NEEDS A PE....NEVERMIND [Jonah Goldberg] Andrew, I assume you do know that "Mars Needs Women" was a seminal -- or as the feminoids say, "ovular" -- classic bad sci-fi movie. The tagline: "They were looking for chicks....to go all the way!" Posted 10:33 AM | [Link] RE: MARS [Andrew Stuttaford] Jonah, surely that piece should have been called "Women are for Mars." Venus was so Twentieth Century. Posted 9:54 AM | [Link] FALKLANDS, AGAIN [Andrew Stuttaford] Ahead of today's England/Argentina World Cup game, some of the Argentinian team were suggesting that this could be a Falklands rematch. It turns out that it was. England has just won. Posted 9:44 AM | [Link] MEMO TO JOURNALISTS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Do not use the Onion as a source. Posted 9:39 AM | [Link] MORE TRAFFIC STUFF [Jonah Goldberg] For those of you who've been following the traffic spats, Jon Garthwaite over at Townhall sheds more light on the issue. Posted 9:34 AM | [Link] "DR D VIDER," GET IT? GET IT? [Jonah Goldberg] The chief villain in the story of Captain Euro is Dr. D Vider: "Ruthless speculator, curator and collector of ancient curiosities, DAVID VIDERIUS is a former financier. He is a multi-millionaire, used to making money no matter if it might involve the suffering of others. Banned and ostracised from the financial world for unprofessional conduct he managed to escape arrest despite his involvement in financial scandal." "....Dr D Vider will stop at nothing to get his hands on the most collectible rarities, even if they belong to others. He especially covets the STAR OF EUROPE, kept from him by CAPTAIN EURO at their very first encounter and now under guard by the TWELVE STARS EURO TEAM." We also learn that Dr D Vider has only one weakness. "His son and only family, Junior, helps him in his quest for power. His ambition for his son sometimes clouds his judgment." Could it be that the Euro-propagandists are trying to tell us that loyalty or ambition for your family are hallmarks of villainny and folly when these qualities are at loggerheads with the Almighty Euro? Posted 8:32 AM | [Link] EURO-MOCKERY'S HAPPY-HUNTING GROUNDS [Jonah Goldberg] I don't want to exaggerate. But this may be the best thing ever. I'm tempted to just drop this link like a ref dropping a hockey puck and let Stuttaford, Derbyshire and the rest have it. This is so rich, so pure, so unadulterated in its un-self-conscious buffoonery I'm at a loss to describe it. It is the home page for Captain Euro the Super-Hero of the European Union. Posted 8:25 AM | [Link] MARS NEEDS WOMEN! [Jonah Goldberg] Actually, women need Mars. At least that's what I argue in my syndicated column. Posted 8:13 AM | [Link] FBI PERFORMANCE LEAVES SOMETHING TO BE DESIRED [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Jonathan Turley says the agency is having problems finding prostitutes in New Orleans. Posted 7:48 AM | [Link] ATTA @ AG [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Mohammed Atta evidently (and oddly) tried to get a federal loan to buy a small plane, according to an ABC NEWS report last night. In a disturbing exchange, a loan officer claims that Atta tried to buy a image of Washington D.C. from her wall. It was a gift, so she refused, and, she says, Atta said something like: "How would America like it if another country destroyed that city and some of the monuments in it" like the cities in his country had been destroyed? Posted 7:41 AM | [Link] THANK YOU, CHRIS CALDWELL [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Also over at the Standard's site, I am delighted to learn that I am not the only one in the country who had no idea who R. Kelly was prior to his arrest this week. (And Chris Caldwell is much cooler than I am.) In fact, when I saw the Drudge link, I thought, "You mean, Ray Kelly, the NYC police commissioner, was arrested?" (He wasn't.) Posted 7:29 AM | [Link] PAUL=BEATLES? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Should Paul McCartney pass himself off as the Fab Four? Vic Matus over at the Weekly Standard's site has given this some thought. Posted 7:28 AM | [Link] BY THE WAY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] To an unprecedented extent, the White House website is user-friendly and immensely useful for citizens and researchers (and journalists). If you want to watch the president's speech last night, read his press briefing, read the book on homeland security--or just the executive summary, check it out. Here's the homeland-security page. Posted 5:35 AM | [Link] AN AMERICAN MISSIONARY IN THE PHILIPPINES... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...held hostage for over a year by Muslim terrorists has been killed. His wife was rescued. Posted 5:27 AM | [Link] HOMELAND NEWS: [John J. Miller] A smart snap analysis of the homeland security reorganization, from Tom Ricks of the Washington Post. Posted 5:07 AM | [Link]
SIGN OF THE TIMES... [Andrew Stuttaford] ...a classified ad in this week's New York Observer offering "anti-radiation" pills... Posted 10:19 PM | [Link] MYSTERY[Andrew Stuttaford] Another mystery in that Arab News article is the reference to unnamed 'Arab human rights activists'. I wonder who they could be. If they actually live in Arab countries it would be good to hear more from them. Posted 9:35 PM | [Link] VISA HYPOCRISY [Andrew Stuttaford] There's a predictable response to John Ashcroft's new immigration regulations from Saudi-based Arab News. Equally predictably, the newspaper does not mention 'Saudi' Arabia's infinitely more restrictive visa requirements (which were discussed in the Corner last week). We do hear, however, from a Bahraini banker who grumbles about being "singled out". No word from him, however, as to what he feels about his own country's rules. Since last year, Bahrain has "singled out" single women for special treatment. Unless they are traveling in a family group, such dangerous creatures are no longer eligible to be issued entry visas on arrival in Bahrain. Unlike single men, they are obliged to apply in advance. Posted 9:26 PM | [Link] GREAT MINDS... [Jonah Goldberg] According to Matt Drudge, CNN's Lou Dobbs agrees with me. Dobbs said tonight: "The government and media for the past nine months have called this a war against terror. So have we here. But terror is not the enemy. It is what the enemy wants to achieve. So on this broadcast, we are making a change... in the interests of clarity and honesty. The enemies in this war are radical Islamists who argue all non-believers in their faith must be killed. They are called Islamists. That's why we are abandoning the phrase, "War Against Terror". Let us be clear. This is not a war against Muslims or Islam. It is a war against Islamists and all who support them. If ever there were a time for clarity, it is now. We hope our new policy is a step in that direction." Compare that with a some of my columns. Yesterday's syndicated column, last April's Goldberg File and last April's syndicated column, "Stop the War on Terror." Posted 8:58 PM | [Link] CHECK IN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] To NRO in the ayem for reaction to Bush's speech and the restructuring. Posted 5:24 PM | [Link] MORE BUSH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] " So tonight, I ask the Congress to join me in creating a single permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission: securing the American homeland and protecting the American people." Posted 5:23 PM | [Link] A PREVIEW OF PRESIDENT BUSH TONIGHT [Kathryn Jean Lopez] " America is leading the civilized world in a titanic struggle against terror. Freedom and fear are at war--and freedom is winning." Posted 5:22 PM | [Link] LIVING THE DREAM [Ramesh Ponnuru] This guy named Cain Pence, inspired by Michael Barone, is trying to visit every congressional district in America. He's interned for both Michael and Robert Novak, so he can't be all bad. If you'd like to offer him encouragement (or maybe counseling), visit www.cainpence.com. Posted 4:56 PM | [Link] DON'T KNOW JACK [John Derbyshire] Blimey, I opened the floodgates with this one. Mexican cheese--with names! Who knew? Well, pretty much everybody but me, apparently. Please no more Mexican cheese emails. (And oh, last time I looked, Monterey was in California.) Posted 4:23 PM | [Link] MYSTERY SOLVED? [Jonah Goldberg] You heard it here first, but not last. Could it be that the pending Homeland Security reorganization explains why the Administration refused to let Tom Ridge testify under oath earlier this year? If he'd gone up to the Hill and had been asked a bunch of free-ranging questions about his job, he'd might have been forced to reveal this plan, which would have spoiled the scheme entirely. Posted 3:16 PM | [Link] BYLINE STRIKE [NRO Staff Writer] As a result of a labor dispute, most writers for the Washington Post are have not signed their work for the last two days. Does anyone have any idea what this accomplishes? I would think that the byline is more valuable to the writer than to the newspaper--let alone the reader. It's been my experience that most readers, even of an opinion journal like NR, pay little attention to bylines and have no idea who wrote which article. Only real insiders will say, "Hey, did you catch that Elizabeth Bumiller piece on the front page of the [New York] Times?" If I were a Post writer, I'd be worried that management would notice that none of the readers had noticed the strike. . . . And is this why there are no bylines in The Economist? Have its writers been on a byline strike for decades or something? Posted 2:58 PM | [Link] SNEAK ATTACKS [Jonah Goldberg] As Corner readers know by now, my wife has a new book out on the hideous and unnecessary consequences of Title IX. Various feminist groups legitimately hate it , presumably because the truth hurts. But what's less legitimate, though sometimes hilarious, are the partisan and mostly fraudulent "reader reviews" on Amazon.com. Apparently this sort of hackery happens all the time, though this is the first I'd heard of it. Most of the potshots are clearly from panicked activists. My favorite is still the review which informed me that my wife looks at the issue through "a distorted steamy mythopoetic psycho-sexual haze." I know it was meant to be nasty, but I kind of dig it, if you know what I mean. Posted 2:50 PM | [Link] TRIP TO THE PATENT OFFICE POSTPONED [John Derbyshire] My plan to get rich by marketing helium-filled bubble wrap has been, well, punctured by numerous readers. The size of weather balloons sort of gives the game away; you need an awful lot of helium to get any lift. Further, the helium molecule is a teensy tiny little thing & will leak through anything less shiny than mylar. Curses. That is only the second invention I have ever come up with. The first was luminous salt. (Haven't you ever been in a too-dark restaurant, salting your food, and wondering if you had over-salted it but been unable to tell? See?) Incidentally, one reader tells me that the Helium-packaging-to-save-postage ploy was actually, ah, floated by Lewis Carroll in Sylvie and Bruno. However, I did all the obvious searches on the text of that book (it's on www.gutenberg.net--what isn't?) and didn't come up with anything. Further information welcome. Posted 2:14 PM | [Link] CHILD PORN [Jonah Goldberg] If you want to know what last Friday's court decision on pornography, children and the web meant, this explanation by Eugene Volokh is extremely useful and straightforward. Posted 2:13 PM | [Link] GIRLS [Andrew Stuttaford] Some interesting research is published today in the Daily Telegraph. I pass it on without comment because I am a coward. Posted 1:59 PM | [Link] SCHADENFREUDE [Jonah Goldberg] This slide show features pictures of French fans watching their soccer team lose. I admit it's a specialized taste. Posted 1:58 PM | [Link] PARINGS [John Derbyshire] On cheese: There is one thing that has puzzled me since I started patronizing Mexican restaurants. All the food comes smothered in cheese; yet there is no Mexican cheese. We all know about Stilton and Double Gloucester, Brie and Camembert, Swiss and Jarlsberg. Now name a Mexican cheese. Go on, name one. Yet another reason to close the borders. Posted 1:57 PM | [Link] INFLATING THE HATING [Jonah Goldberg] The nasty name calling is filling up my email box (examples to be disclosed later). Alas, many are, er, too colorful for the Corner. I would like to point out that you need not only offer names for Saudis. Indeed, a reader reminds me that I'd already coined the phrase "whale-killing snow jockeys" for the Norwegians. And another reader reminds me of the Monty Python bigotry game show where they tried to come up with a name for the Belgians: Third place: The Sprouts Second place: The Phlegms First place: Miserable Fat Belgian Bastards Of course, this doesn't follow the Noun Gerund-Verb Noun Noun formula mentioned below. But it does help illustrate why I am such an anglophile. Posted 1:23 PM | [Link] ON WISCONSIN [John J. Miller] Jonah, your Euro-buddy Boris Johnson made one especially peculiar comment -- he called America "a cheese desert." I'm no cheese connoisseur, but I have heard of Wisconsin. To learn more about the land of the Cheeseheads, check out the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, the Wisconsin Cheese Specialty Institute Posted 11:33 AM | [Link] C.H.I.P.S. [Andrew Stuttaford] Speaking of Norwegians, there's grim news today out of Oslo. Reuters is reporting that the Norwegian 'Food Control Authority' has come out with a study backing up recent Swedish and British research on potentially carcinogenic crisps (that's "potato chips" to you, Jonah). Worried Norwegians are being urged by the Authority "not to fry food too hard." To get this into perspective, the problem the authority is referring to is thought to be responsible for 30 cases of cancer a year, out of a population of 4.5 million. Posted 11:27 AM | [Link] FEDERAL MOVEMENT [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From Ari Fleischer today: "Tonight -- I have just gotten off the phone with the bureau chiefs for the networks and others, and the President tonight will give an address to the nation. We have requested time from the networks. And in that address, the President will give an update on the war on terrorism. He will also announce the largest reorganization of the United States government since Harry Truman reorganized the government in 1947. And the purpose of this reorganization is to protect the homeland from terrorist attack." [Emphasis added.] Posted 11:24 AM | [Link] DANIEL PIPES BOOK [Mike Potemra] Just received an advance copy of his marvelous new book, Militant Islam Reaches America. Pipes understands-and explains extremely cogently-that the current struggle is not a "clash of civilizations" between Christendom and Islam, but a battle for the soul of Islam itself. Will a great global religion let itself be hijacked by violent militants? In the past, other great religions have indulged in--and subsequently overcome--similar temptations, so there is cause for hope. Pipes's book is scheduled to come out in September, but until then you can read his words of wisdom on his website, www.danielpipes.org Posted 11:15 AM | [Link] PRIVATIZE IT....PRIVATIZE IT... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Amtrak doesn't have the money to live past July, its new head says. Posted 11:09 AM | [Link] INFLATE THE HATE [Jonah Goldberg] In re the different names for surrender monkeys, a reader makes an interesting suggestion: "According to rules I have established in my own head, the correct label for Norwegians is, like all Scandinavians, "Porn Loving Drunken Fisheaters." FYI, my wife and I have developed several more variants of Cheese-eating Surrender Monkey for your use and enjoyment to include The Swiss as Clock Making Heidi Lovers.Well, I don't know if we need a full-blown contest, but if anyone has some particular good names along these lines I'm interested to hear 'em. Posted 10:59 AM | [Link] TAKE IT EASY MATE [Jonah Goldberg] Andrew, my Anglophilia could only be stronger if I smeared Marmite all over my body while complaining about the Irish. To prove it, I shall even tout Marmite for ya. Posted 10:49 AM | [Link] STAY TUNED... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] President is proposing a new Cabinet agency tonight, along with other restructuring. Posted 10:45 AM | [Link] THIS CANNOT STAND [Andrew Stuttaford] Also, Jonah, there's a certain "tone" to your examples of "British" prose. I call on you to call off this name calling. Posted 10:39 AM | [Link] REALLY? Jonah, "named" is "modern" English? The Oxford English Dictionary has a reference to this supposedly "new" usage dating from 1531. Posted 10:37 AM | [Link] TOUCHÉ, SORTA [Jonah Goldberg] A reader writes: "As an immigrant from England, I must defend its language - what about "A Man Called Horse" and Oscar Wilde was Irish anyway, so there." Fair enough on Wilde. But as for a "A Man Called Horse," that's a bit of a unique case because it is what the Indians called him (and he was British, no?). It was not his actual name. Sort of like in prison they called me "the white dude who cries like a bitch," but that actually wasn't my name. Posted 10:01 AM | [Link] DON'T LABEL MY FOOD [Jonathan Adler] The E.U. doesn't like biotech foods and wants to mandate various labels. This is a silly idea, as Greg Conko explains. Posted 9:17 AM | [Link] ONE LAST THING [Jonah Goldberg] I'm not an expert on British English, though I am a fan of it. Still, Mr. Johnson writes "a neo-conservative journalist called Jonah Goldberg" -- and this sounds very odd to my ear. "Called Jonah Goldberg"? Why not "named Jonah Goldberg"? In America, where modern English is spoken, alas, individual people are "named" and things or species are "called." For example, "there is a land famous for bad dentistry called 'England.'" There is a person famous for groping the bellboys named Oscar Wilde." Posted 9:16 AM | [Link] SURRENDER MONKEY ZOOLOGY [Jonah Goldberg] As for the substance of the article, I agree with Mr. Johnson that subsidies and tariffs are bad for everyone. But he does do America a disservice on the quality of our cheese products. American cheddar, for example, is far superior to Johnson’s beloved Stilton which tastes like death. Also, Johnson writes: "There is a good deal of anti-European feeling in America just now. To give you a flavour of the abuse, a neo-conservative journalist called Jonah Goldberg has attacked the French for being 'cheese-eating surrender monkeys'. I must admit that this made me laugh, at first. He may have a point about the French; but it is the epithet 'cheese-eating' that preoccupies me. Why should 'cheese-eating', in the mouth of an American, be an insult?" I haven't spent much time on this, but it seems to me that it’s not the cheese-eating per se that is the issue. Rather the cheese-eating is a qualifier employed to distinguish a particular sub-species of surrender monkey. The Norwegians, who surrendered faster than their cheese-eating cousins, might be dubbed the lutefish-slurping surrender monkeys (or surrender snow monkeys). But I will ponder this further. Posted 9:03 AM | [Link] CHEESE-EATING SURRENDER MONKEY UPDATE [Jonah Goldberg] I am being credited across the pond once again for the phrase"Cheese-eating surrender monkey." While I think it is fair to say that I've done more than anyone else to popularize this phrase in political circles I did not coin it. Groundskeeper Willie used the term in an episode of the Simpsons. Posted 8:51 AM | [Link] SHARING MY PROBLEM [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Instead of becoming a Dem, Gilman might get a White House appointment job. Posted 8:10 AM | [Link] BALANCE OF POWER [Kathryn Jean Lopez] My congressman, liberal Republican Ben Gilman--a 15-termer who is 79 years old--is threatening to switch parties. Posted 4:53 AM | [Link] MORE EVIDENCE THAT WE NEED TO LOOK HARDER AT OUR NORTHERN BORDERS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] "We are very generous and we are cosmopolitan. We take anybody who comes," said Joe Bissett, the former head of Canada's Immigration Service and a critic of the current Canadian policy on refugees. Posted 4:51 AM | [Link] THAT DIDN'T LAST LONG [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Since our last post....Arafat's compound was surrounded. Now it's not. Posted 4:48 AM | [Link]
THIS COULD BE VERY GOOD NEWS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] UPI says that U.S. is working on a post-Saddam gov't. Posted 5:45 PM | [Link] THE TMI "NON-EVENT" [Jonathan Adler] Some readers wonder why I characterized the Three Mile Island a "non-event." I certainly didn't mean to imply that there wasn't lots of hysteria -- there was -- or that it didn't cost money -- it did. My point is that the TMI experience was a partial meltdown without making people sick, polluting the environment, or creating rainbow-colored day bats. Posted 5:22 PM | [Link] LOTTA COFFEE IN BRAZIL [John Derbyshire] If people from Spanish-speaking backgrounds are "Hispanic," are people from Portuguese-speaking backgrounds -- e.g. the entire population of Brazil -- "Lusitanic"? Is this a U.S. census category? If not, should it be? [NB to NRO editors: I know, I've gone hyperactive. Book deadline looming, caffeine intake soaring, sorry.] Posted 5:19 PM | [Link] JUNK SCIENCE FROM THE NUKE NIKS' [Jonathan Adler] As I noted earlier today, I think the environmental and public-health arguments against nuclear power are vastly overstated. Indeed, most of the arguments could best be described with words unprintable on this site (other than in an unedited G-File). Thus, I find it very troubling to see that the nuclear power industry is cynically distributing shoddy environmental research to support the industry (as noted by Kathryn below). Specifically, I am referring to their apparent promotion of the American Lung Association "study" alleging that 142 million Americans breathe dirty air. Joel Schwartz of the Reason Public Policy Institute demolishes that claim here. It's certainly true that nuclear-power plants are emission free--and that's a good thing. But even without adding a new nuclear plant in twenty years, our air's been getting much, much cleaner. Posted 4:57 PM | [Link] WEIRD & OLD [John Derbyshire] No, not me. Reading Peter Plagens's review of Darin Strauss's novel The Real McCoy in the current Newsweek, I notice that he used the expression "the old weird America." I have seen this term used a couple of times to refer to the much more diverse U.S.A. of pre-1970, the U.S.A. that was full of strange local laws & customs and weird people, before the whole place got paved over with interstate highways, Macdonald's franchises and let's-all-sing-from-the-same-songbook ukases from the Feddle Gummint. I have the vague idea that the phrase "old weird America" originated with Bob Dylan, but can't remember why I believe this. Anybody know the true origin of this phrase? Posted 4:53 PM | [Link] RADIATION REMEDY [Andrew Stuttaford] Kathryn, on the subject of radiation, you will not be surprised to know that, with the usual excellent timing, I managed to be in Stockholm at exactly the same time as the luckless Swedes were discovering that something nasty had just blown in from Chernobyl. Listening to the radio in a taxi the next day, I heard the commentator repeatedly referring to 'jod tabletter'. "What does that mean?" I asked. "Iodine pills", replied the cab driver, "but if you don't know that by now, it's too late for you." Posted 4:52 PM | [Link] MORE LOSSES: [John J. Miller] An organization called Heritage Preservation has documented the cultural artifacts that were damaged or destroyed on September 11. Posted 4:12 PM | [Link] BETTER FRED THAN RED [John Derbyshire] If you have not yet read Fred Reed's column on profiling (and much else besides), drop what you're doing and read it right now. (But first warn coworkers you may be doubled over with laughter for a while.) Posted 4:06 PM | [Link] DO TAXES MAKE YOU FREE? [Ramesh Ponnuru] Tom Palmer has a terrific take-down of that idea, as advanced by Cass Sunstein and Stephen Holmes. Tom's main page has more on the related subject of property rights. Posted 4:05 PM | [Link] DEPT. OF HYSTERIA: [John J. Miller] The Department of Justice proposes to fingerprint people entering the United States from certain Arabic countries, and James Zogby of the Arab American Institute has grown positively unhinged: "We're becoming like the Soviet Union," he says in the New York Times. If anything, the proposal isn't strong enough because it doesn't affect Saudi Arabians. Posted 3:58 PM | [Link] WRONG [Jonah Goldberg] Mike - Buddy was a cute puppy too, and look what happened to him. And, according to PETA, that wasn't even the first time the Clinton's dog had an "accident." A literary fellow like you should know that if the sins of the father should not be visited upon the son, then the cuteness of the puppy should not be ascribed to its owner. Posted 3:49 PM | [Link] DERB BRAINWAVE[John Derbyshire] OK, listen up, you heard it here first. A friend in England asked me to get some "memory sticks" for his digital camera. The price is way better in the States, but they won't ship overseas for fear of scams. So I ordered the things, got them, and mailed them to him. They are tiny things, but came in a big box, most of which I suppose (no reason to open it) was bubble wrap. It didn't weigh much, airmail postage was next to nothing. At which point I had a BRAINWAVE. Someone should market bubble-wrap with the bubbles filled with helium. Then heavy packages would become light packages! And you'd save a ton of money on postage!! Has anyone thought of this? Am I a genius, or what? Is this patentable? Oops, gotta go--time to back-wash my Water-Pik. Posted 3:12 PM | [Link] CUTE [Mike Potemra] Check out this picture of Bill Clinton's adorable new pup--looking at this photo might give even hard-core anti-Clintonists like Jonah a reason to like the guy! Posted 2:10 PM | [Link] PAN HU [John Derbyshire] I am very glad to see Pan Hu's fine piece on NRO this morning. Pan is whatever is the opposite of a "red-diaper baby". His Dad is Hu Ping [NB: the family name is "Hu" & is written first in Chinese; Pan has Americanized his name, but his father hasn't] who has been making himself a nuisance to the Chinese Communists since the late 1970s, and is currently editor of the foremost dissident magazine over here, Beijing Spring. Pan grew up surrounded by dissidents and dissident talk, and knows the whole scene backwards, forwards, and sideways. His opinions about China are more thoughtful and better-founded than some of those you read in major newspapers. A welcome voice on NRO. Posted 1:57 PM | [Link] FREE TO PREFER [Ramesh Ponnuru] In a review of Glenn Loury's latest book, Libertarian legal scholar Richard Epstein defends racial preferences when voluntarily adopted by private institutions or even by public institutions (e.g., state universities) that are in competition with private ones. I'm sympathetic to his position, but for it to prevail would require the repeal of key provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Loury might warm to Epstein's defense of private affirmative action, but I doubt he'll accept the logical implication of that defense: that voluntary discrimination against blacks (and other groups) should be legal as well. Posted 1:14 PM | [Link] CALLING ON ALL NRO READERS!!! [Jonah Goldberg] Dear National Review Online fans, We at NRO don't usually pay attention to awards -- mostly because most are bogus and, besides, it takes too much time to fill out the applications. But the Webby Awards are real and there are no applications. The Washington Post is so eager to win, their site is running banner ads asking readers to vote for them. The suits would carve out my spleen with the blunt end of a stapler if I used banner space for that. But I can ask you here. Please vote for NRO. It takes like 30 seconds to register and you can check-off that you don't want spam from them. Once you're registered, there are several categories, "Print and Zines," "News," etc that apply to us. Use your own judgement. Spread the word. Don't run with scissors. You can register here. Thanks again. Posted 12:29 PM | [Link] SUM OF ALL FEARS [Mike Potemra] I just saw it last night and was very impressed. I don't usually find Tom Clancy productions congenial-I started reading one of his books, and found there were indeed (as I had been warned) too many acronyms and too much testosterone-but this film really captures the realities of crisis decision-making; it's more like "The Guns of August" than like a conventional action movie. Also-unlike most political thrillers-it's not morally simplistic. True, the villains are neo-Nazis; but they are just a device to set the film's plot in motion. Most of the movie has to do with how basically good people on all sides can get stuck making very bad choices, and how ingenuity can sometimes help them avoid the worst consequences. This is not a war movie--it's a peace movie; and very entertaining to boot. Posted 11:53 AM | [Link] TIMES v. POST [Jonah Goldberg] Sorry for my silence. I spent the morning getting my car serviced (not that you asked). While waiting, I did notice this great example how the data can say what you want. The New York Times headlines new census data: "Gains of 90's Did Not Lift All, Census Shows." The Washington Post's headline reads: '"90s Boom Had Broad Impact; 2000 Census Cites Income Growth Among Poor, Upper Middle Class" Posted 11:51 AM | [Link] THOSE PILLS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] 3) Lastly, on the subject of potassium iodide, it's worth noting what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated in December 2000 when it revised a section of its emergency preparedness regulations to require consideration of potassium iodide as a protective measure "to supplement sheltering and evacuation in the event of a severe nuclear power plant accident." The NRC stated, "The amendment should not be taken to imply that the NRC believes that the present generation of nuclear power plants is any less safe than previously thought. On the contrary, present indications are that nuclear power plant safety has been steadily improving." Posted 11:26 AM | [Link] THE AIR WE BREATHE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] 2) The American Lung Association just one month ago released a report revealing that the majority of Americans breathe unhealthy air. The report states that 142 million Americans, more than half of the country’s population, live in areas with excessive ozone levels. In March, a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that prolonged exposure to air polluted with tiny particles of soot significantly raises the risk of dying of lung cancer or other lung and heart diseases. Even if one wants to quibble with the Lung Association's numbers, the point still holds: People are hurt breathing dirty air. Nuclear power plants, including the Indian Point plant vital to metropolitan New York's electricity supplies, are by far the nation's leading electricity source that doesn't pollute the air. These plants are providing real, discernible health benefits today in contrast to the wild conjecture about the possible impact of terrorist attacks on power plants that in reality are the most well-protected facilities in the industrial infrastructure. Posted 11:25 AM | [Link] THE NUKE-POWER-NIKS SPEAK [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The good folks at the Nuclear Energy Institute e-mail with "some scientific facts to counter the conjecture concerning nuclear power plant safety and short-sighted suggestions to close Indian Point." ON SAFETY: 1) Due to the defense in depth design of nuclear power plants, including multiple and often-redundant safety systems, public health and safety was protected even when the partial core meltdown occurred at Three Mile Island in 1979. In the most extensive study done to date (an independent study spanning 13 years), the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health reported in April 2000 that "radioactivity released during the Three Mile Island accident ... does not appear to have caused an increase in cancer mortality among people living within a five-mile radius of the nuclear accident." (See http://www.upmc.edu/newsbureau). The Indian Point and Three Mile Island plants both have pressurized water reactor designs, by the way. Posted 11:24 AM | [Link] NOT SO SAFE [Dave Kopel] Mary Carpenter is the grandmother of two children who were murdered by an insane man with a pitchfork in Merced, California. In a letter to a state legislature considering a trigger-lock mandate, Mrs. Carpenter blames California's trigger-lock law for her grandchildren's death. The killer attacked while the eldest child in the family, a 14-year-old girl, was babysitting the younger three. Because the family's guns were locked in a safe, in accordance with California law, the teenager, who was trained with firearms and a very good shot, was unable to retrieve a gun to protect her siblings. As new research by John Lott details, so-called "safe storage" laws do in fact increase feelings of safety -- for violent criminals; such laws lead to more murder, rape, robbery, and assault. Posted 10:54 AM | [Link] FRENCH FRIES ARE NOT VEGETABLES [Kathryn Jean Lopez] McDonald's wishes they said that a long time ago. Posted 10:16 AM | [Link] BEATING THEM AT THEIR OWN GAME [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Wouldn't it be funny, if we won the World Cup? Posted 9:34 AM | [Link] COURT-MARTIAL TIME [Kathryn Jean Lopez] This air-force colonel may face one, for badmouthing the commander-in-chief. Posted 9:20 AM | [Link] COUNT THESE, TOO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] In the tally of bombings in Isreal, the bombs that are dismantled and bombers who are stopped before they can kill. Here's a bombing that would have been in Jerusalem. Posted 9:18 AM | [Link] FIRST KI PILLS, NEXT LIFEJACKETS? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From the Onion. Posted 8:56 AM | [Link] KNOW NUKES [Jonathan Adler] I am inclined to think that K-Lo is too worried about the risks of nuclear power. America's nuclear plants have never had a real problem. The worst incident--Three Mile Island--was a non-event. France, of all places, has lots of nukes and no real problems either. In fact, only the Soviets managed to screw up a nuclear-power plant. Be that as it may, I've yet to join the nuclear bandwagon because I think buying nuke power is a bad deal. As the Cato Institute's energy studs explained last year, nuclear power costs a bundle, and it only gets by when taxpayers subsidize it. If nuclear power can compete on its own, great. I, for one, don't expect to see that anytime soon. Posted 8:54 AM | [Link] CLIMATE FIGHT [Jonathan Adler] The Competitive Enterprise Institute is now suing to stop further dissemination of the Climate Action Report (aka "the report put by the bureaucracy"). CEI alleges the report doesn't comply with the Federal Data Quality Act. Posted 8:46 AM | [Link] COUNTDOWN TO DALLAS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Michael Kelly blasts the bishops' draft guidelines for dealing with abuse cases and allegations this morning, while the Boston Globe, no friend to Catholics, is basically content with what was released yesterday. Kelly makes some legitimate and important points--exactly the points many bishops are getting feedback on right now--but is a tad hot on the button. (Cardinal Law should be defrocked?) Posted 8:24 AM | [Link] RE: MEGIDDO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Yes, John. I thought it best not to mention that in the same breath as nuclear-terror attacks. Posted 8:17 AM | [Link] MEGIDDO: [John J. Miller] Kathryn, this latest suicide bombing took place in Megiddo, a town whose name is the root word for "armageddon." That word entered our language through Latin and Greek, which picked it up from the Hebrew har megiddon, which is a mountain region around Megiddo. In the Old Testament, a bunch of battles took place there. Posted 8:14 AM | [Link] PAYING HIS DUES: [John J. Miller] In the state of Washington, the public-school employees union is forcing one of its members--a part-time pastor--pay his union dues to the ACLU. The Evergreen Freedom Foundation has a full report. Posted 8:01 AM | [Link] IRRATIONAL FEARS...AND FEMALES [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A reader implores me--and the like-minded (that is, [she? Always she?] who is can intellectually buy the whole conservative nuke-power package, but doesn't get why we should bother fighting this battle the public will never buy (ESPECIALLY when the state is handing out pills in case of an attack on NYC's neighborhood plant))--to read William Tucker's case for nuclear power in The American Spectator. Posted 8:01 AM | [Link] GOT YOUR KI PILLS? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Susan Konig's plea to close the Indian Point nuclear-power plant (outside Manhattan), I confess, keeps sounding better and better to me. Posted 7:19 AM | [Link] DEMOCRACY'S DRINK [Kathryn Jean Lopez] It's beer. America's love/hate relationship, in the pages of American Heritage. Posted 4:54 AM | [Link] SUICIDE BOMBING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Again, in Israel. At least 16 dead. Posted 4:46 AM | [Link]
A DEFENSE OF CELIBACY…[Kathryn Jean Lopez] …in the oddest of places. [Spoiler alert:] Do not follow this link if you plan to see Spiderman or Attack of the Clones. Posted 6:04 PM | [Link] PC TESTING [Dave Kopel] Following the example of the New York Regents, I have revised Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech to make it suitable for use on the Regents Exam. Words in brackets have been removed from the original text, and replaced by the words in all caps. These revisions are necessary to follow the Regents policy of doing everything possible to avoid giving offense to persons who are offended by any mention of race, religion sex, geography, nationality, or controversial issues: Five score years ago, a great [American] PERSON, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of [Negro slaves] AGRICULTRAL AND HOUSEHOLD WORKERS who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. . . . . The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the [Negro] community must not lead us to distrust of all [white] people, for many of our [white brothers] RELATIVES, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny . . . We can never be satisfied as long as a [Negro in Mississippi] VOTER cannot vote and [a Negro in New York] ANOTHER VOTER believes he OR SHE has nothing for which to vote. . . .I have a dream that one day the [state of Alabama] PLACE, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where [little black boys and black girls] SMALL CHILDREN will be able to join hands with [little white boys and white girls] SMALL CHILDREN and walk together as sisters and brothers.. . . .we will be able to speed up that day when all [of God's] children, [black men and white men] ADULTS OF BOTH SEXES, [Jews and Gentiles] PEOPLE, [Protestants and Catholics] PERSONS, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old [Negro spiritual] SONG, "Free at last! free at last! thank [God Almighty] YOU, we are free at last!" Posted 6:02 PM | [Link] LITTLE HELP/FYI [Jonah Goldberg] I'm debating racial profiling tomorrow morning on CNN around 9:10 AM. The segment is going to center around these new ACLU lawsuits. Any brilliant insights or major revelations I should be aware of, please let me know. Posted 5:02 PM | [Link] WOMEN ARE BETTER... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...liars. Posted 4:32 PM | [Link] MORE FAIR-WEATHER FEDERALISTS [Jonathan Adler] The left has Fair-Weather Federalists of its own. Some are even shocked, shocked, that the legal arguments deployed to defend Oregon's assisted suicide ban could insulate state policies on restricting abortion. All too many on both sides of th aisle seem to say "Federalism for me, but not for thee." Posted 12:38 PM | [Link] BUSH KEEPS HIS COOL [Jonathan Adler] Whatever its conclusions, it looks unlikely that the Climate Action Report will influence Bush administration policy on global warming--and it certainly won't lead to an embrace of Kyoto. The AP reports that Bush is distancing himself from the EPA's analysis. Asked about it, Bush said he "read the report put out by the bureaucracy," reiterated his opposition to Kyoto. Posted 12:37 PM | [Link] EVEN MORE OVERHEATED [Jonathan Adler] Is the EPA's Climate Action Report illegal? The Competitive Enterprise Institute claims that the report relies upon a prior study--The National Assessment on Climate Change--that was officially withdrawn as part of a lawsuit settlement. Although the Bush Administration declared last September that the conclusions of the National Assessment were "not policy positions or official statements of the U.S. government," CEI alleges they still influenced the more latest report. Posted 12:36 PM | [Link] FAREED ZAKARIA'S TAKE [Ramesh Ponnuru] on the IndoPak situation. Posted 12:33 PM | [Link] TALKING BACK TO ESPN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] If you want to zap an email in protest of their Title IX lovefest, here's the ESPN programming feedback link. Posted 12:30 PM | [Link] "THIS WEEK" NEXT FALL [Jonah Goldberg] Apparently it's official, George Stephanopoulos is taking over ABC's "This Week." To be honest, I really don't have a problem with it. I didn't like Stephanopoulos for a long time but I think he's generally been fine, especially for a typically liberal journalist. In fact, it's better that his politics are well-established because it means he can't deny what he is. The sad news is that Cokie is splitting. I always thought the show failed because the ABC brass were too chicken to drop the insufferable Donaldson and give the show to Cokie Roberts outright. Shows like this virtually never work with two hosts, especially when one of them is Sam Donaldson. Posted 12:25 PM | [Link] CATENARY [John Derbyshire] Oh, for goodness sake! Now I'm getting people emailing in saying: "The chains of a suspension bridge do so make a catenary! They're hanging chains, aren't they?" I tagged that book review once before & went through the same thing--shoulda remembered. Now I have The Corner to vent on. OK, listen up. If you hold a chain by its ends and let it hang free, it forms a catenary (equation a hyperbolic cosine). However, if you hang a roadway off it, the weight of the road distorts it into a parabola (equation Y equals X squared). That's in the ideal, with a horizontal roadway and weightless cables. Actual suspension-bridge chains are further distorted slightly from the parabolic ideal, for reasons I, as an idealist, don't care about. Posted 12:07 PM | [Link] FEMINIST SPORTS PROPAGANDA [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The College Sports Council (good guys) notes that ESPN is allowing the Women's Sports Foundation, darling of the feminist Left, i.e. a highly partisan nonprofit, to produce a one-hour documentary on Title IX to air on the channel later this month. Maybe they'll let the Goldberg/Gavora household produce a second hour to balance the scales? Posted 11:00 AM | [Link] INDIA AND ISRAEL [Ramesh Ponnuru] Peter Beinart says the Right has a double standard, since it wants to restrain India's conduct of its war on Pakistani terrorism and seeks a political solution over Kashmir. His evidence is rather thin, consisting of a few pieces in NR and the Wall Street Journal--ignoring, say, Tunku Varadarajan's calls for an American alliance with India in the Journal, or Martin Sieff's piece to the same effect in NR (which was published, incidentally, about 3 years before Beinart's magazine ran a similar article). In any case, most conservatives aren't against political concessions by Israel: They just note that such concessions, while necessary, have not been sufficient to stop Palestinian terror. And conservatives want the administration to pressure the Pakistanis to stop the terror. So where's the inconsistency? Posted 10:44 AM | [Link] THE FACE OF PEACE AND MODERATION [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A mother facing execution in an Islamic court in Nigeria for having sex outside of marriage (she is divorced) will be allowed to live until her infant is weaned off her milk. Posted 10:05 AM | [Link] TURNS OUT... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ..the Taliban lied about civilian casualties. Posted 9:55 AM | [Link] KOPEL ON MEDIA [Dave Kopel] If your neighbor smokes cigarettes on his porch late at night, you should call the police because he may be running a meth lab--that's literally the message in a government-made propaganda video, currently running on government television stations in Colorado. My latest media analysis column discusses the video, as well as inflated obesity statistics, Mexican police, and army incursions in the the U.S., high-school dropouts, and the number of American Muslims. Posted 9:45 AM | [Link] LOOSE LIPS [Jonah Goldberg] "CIA creates super secret hit team to target terrorists abroad." Well, it was a secret. Posted 9:44 AM | [Link] DO MICHAEL JACKSON AND MR. PEANUT HAVE THE SAME PLASTIC SURGEON? [Jonah Goldberg] Judge for yourself. Posted 8:52 AM | [Link] NORTHERN EXPOSURE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Canada is a terrorist haven, John Berlau reports. Posted 8:30 AM | [Link] SOME DEFENSE [Robert A. George] Andrew, do you mean that you are surprised that the Saudis would not be to "Wa-happy" about the soccer team's effort? By the way, is it ironic or appropriate that a team that gives up eight goals gets a call from the country's defense minister!!! In a related note, Donald Rumsfeld just called the Colorado Avalanche following their unfortunate 7-0 showing in game seven of the Western Conference hockey playoffs. Posted 8:29 AM | [Link] HUMAN-RIGHTS ISSUE [Dave Kopel] An op-ed in the Jerusalem Post insists that the time has come for the West Bank and and Gaza to be liberated from Occupation. It is wrong that the Arab and Jewish people in those Occupied Territories continue to be victimized by "a cruel and heartless regime" which shows "little concern is shown for the lives of the innocent, as ruthless measures are employed with the aim of driving the residents from their homes, making them so miserable that they will have no choice but to leave." Accordingly, it is time for human-rights advocates around the world to demand the immediate end of the Palestinian Authority's criminal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Posted 8:27 AM | [Link] WORSE... [Jonah Goldberg] It's turned on C.S. Lewis! Posted 8:26 AM | [Link] A GLOBAL REBUKE [Melissa Seckora] Even Britain's lefty Guardian has turned on Michael Bellesiles. Posted 8:25 AM | [Link] BUT THIS IS MORE TYPICAL.... [Jonah Goldberg] "I think that on the Jell-O, Lowry needs to take a chill pill. It seems to me that you dish out your wisecracks fairly evenly all the way around, with the Jews coming in for their fair share, too. As an Italian-Irish who was raised Catholic, married a Jewish woman, and attend a Protestant church, I come in for abuse from you almost every day, and find it all very good natured." Posted 7:59 AM | [Link] NO REST FOR THE PROTESTANTS [Jonah Goldberg] Most Protestant readers seemed to understand exactly where I was coming from in yesterday's column. But a few won't let me off the hook. For example: "If you're going to make a career out of Protestant-bashing, why don't you get a job at a more appropriate outlet. Which is to say anywhere but National Review. You are certainly arrogant enough to work for the mass market media." Posted 7:52 AM | [Link] ABOUT TIME! [Jonah Goldberg] Someone has finally made the obvious argument that the real problem with the FBI are the ludicrous Church Committee era constraints on the FBI. Posted 7:44 AM | [Link] AMERICAN JIHAD CRUSADE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Those opposed to the "jihad" speaker at Harvard's commencement this weekend have a letter and petition up. (You needn't be a Harvard student or alum to sign the petition.) Posted 7:36 AM | [Link] DIONNE JOINS THE WAR ON FOOTBALL [Jonah Goldberg] Give E.J. Dionne credit for at least recognizing there's a problem with Title IX. Unfortunately, he buys into feminist myth-making which blames football for a quota regime system imposed at colleges that don't even have football teams. As I've noted here before, scores of men's wrestling, swimming, baseball and track teams have been shut down at schools which don't even have football teams -- without giving women a single additional opportunity to play sports. And yet feminists, and now Dionne, insist it's because of football. Posted 7:29 AM | [Link] ANOTHER WAY TO READ THE GFILE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Last two graphs of yesterday's Goldberg File in "Scoobyism": A number of people are positive rat I'm rong about re etymology of re word "snob." rey ray it comes rom re rench "sans nobilité," or without nobility. Others ray it comes rom re Latin "sine nobilitate." ry etymological rictionaries ray ris is rong, rand I'm going with rem. FrINAL WORD ris wasn't a particularly good corrections column, I know. re rore rifficult to rite ran rey reem, because rey require reading rads of rpurious rand/or endless riticisms. Which begs re question: Am I using "begs re question" correctly in ris rentence? No, wait, who cares. Rather, it raises re question: Why ro I ro rem in re first race? re answer is rimple — I rink it's important to rake it clear I take ry readers rore reriously ran rost pundits ro; rand ryself, less reriously. Also, rince every ringle one of rese columns is ritten in a few rours on re ray it's posted, I rink it's worthwhile to follow-up rom time to time. Ro, rease keep rending re corrections. You would relp re reatly like you rent rem to Gfilecorrections@aol.com or, like you can't ranage rat (apparently rost of you can't), rease put "corrections" in re rubject reader. rand, rey, like you rink "poop party" was funnier ran "pool party" — feel ree to rink I rote it on purpose. (courtesy of http://promo.warnerbros.com/scoobydoo/trans.html) Posted 6:50 AM | [Link] RISKY BUSINESS [Jonathan Adler] Smokers may be crazy, but they're not stupid. Posted 5:46 AM | [Link] WISE MEN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] When Norman Mineta is frisking a crippled nun, you can be sure Mark Steyn will be on the case, armed with a phrase or two from John Derbyshire. Posted 4:55 AM | [Link] MEMO TO THE WHITE HOUSE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A stinging list of sell-outs from Jim Glassman. Posted 4:40 AM | [Link]
BEHOLD.... [Jonah Goldberg] The Basset Hound. Posted 8:02 PM | [Link] LEAHY HYPOCRISY: [Lowry] Just did syndicated column on hypocrisy of congressional Dems criticizing FBI for not being aggressive enough in Moussaoui case, etc.--when they've always opposed any new authority for FBI. Here's Leahy, on Sept. 13 (!), lambasting proposed changes that would make the FBI's life easier in Moussaoui-like cases: "Maybe the Senate wants to just go ahead and adopt new abilities to wiretap our citizens. Maybe they want to adopt new abilities to go into people's computers. Maybe that will make us feel safer. Maybe. And maybe what the terrorists have done made us a little bit less safe. Maybe they have increased Big Brother in the country." Posted 5:25 PM | [Link] LEAHY KEEPS AFTER ESTRADA [Jonathan Adler] Having committed to a hearing for judicial nominee Miguel Estrada, it appears that Senator Leahy is trying to find an excuse to renege. As reported in the Legal Times, Leahy wants copies of internal memos written by Estrada when he worked in the Solicitor General's office. The Bush Administration is refusing to turn over the documents, and rightly so. "These documents are the essence of privileged communications," former Clinton Administration Justice Department official Randolph Moss told the Times. "The government can't turn them over without creating a terrible precedent." The Washington Post editorialized against Leahy's move last week. Indeed, the request is so outrageous, that the only person not in Leahy's employ the Legal Times could find to defend was quoted anonymously. Posted 5:16 PM | [Link] TEAM SPIRIT [Andrew Stuttaford] The Saudi defense minister has telephoned his country's hapless World Cup soccer players in the aftermath of their team's humiliating defeat on Saturday. According to news agency reports (AFP), the idea was to raise the players' "sagging spirits" ahead of the next game. The minister's words of encouragement included the following: 1. The players needed to "deploy more effort in the remaining matches." 2. The team's participation in the World Cup ought to "reflect a positive image of the people in the Saudi Kingdom." Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but, if the minister really wanted to cheer the boys up, couldn't he have managed to sound a little less, well, threatening? Posted 4:49 PM | [Link] GROETJES UIT HOLLAND: [Rod Dreher] Hello, hello from Holland, where I've been talking to a number of people and traveling all over, looking into how one of the world's most conservative countries before WW2 became its most liberal in scarcely more than a generation. Believe it or not, there are some bona fide conservatives left here, fighting the good fight -- and they wish American conservatives would quit writing the Continent off as lost to socialism, appeasement and irreligion. The folks I've met are tremendously impressive, and are taking on this liberal paradise like mission territory. Interestingly, most of them didn't care for Pim Fortuyn, who was a radical libertarian, but they absolutely cheer him for standing up to political correctness. He really did take risks in that regard. Several years ago, a politician was fined for saying Holland shouldn't have any more immigration; he broke the hate speech laws simply for saying the words, "Full is full." A top newspaper editor with whom I spoke this morning in Amsterdam told me that not long ago, he penned a humorous column about the prospect of women joining the Catholic priesthood. That earned him a letter of warning from a government ministry, warning him to be careful about making fun of women. I'm telling you, the whole country is run like Antioch College. More later. Posted 3:53 PM | [Link] FYI [Jonah Goldberg] My bride's appearance on Brit Hume's "Special Report" has been rescheduled for tonight. Not sure what time she'll be on though. Better watch the whole thing. Posted 3:15 PM | [Link] THE RETURN OF PASHTUN BUGGERY [John Derbyshire] No, Kathryn, I'm not going near this one. Nor am I going to make any jokes involving the British Army's 92nd Regiment of Foot, formerly known as "the Gay Gordons." The Pashtoons are a fine warrior race. What they do for R & R is none of our business. Posted 2:23 PM | [Link] NO GO FOR CEDAW [Dave Kopel] Some officials in the U.S. State Department, working with Senators Barbara Boxer and Joseph Biden, are pushing for immediate Senate ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). As usual for U.N. conventions, CEDAW carries an attractive name, but in fact is a program for restricting freedom and eliminating choice for women and familes. Patrick Fagan's excellent backgrounder for the Heritage Foundation details how CEDAW enforcers, in nations which have submitted to the CEDAW treaty, are working to restrict religious freedom, eliminate parental choice about sex education classes, discourage the celebration of Mothers Day, deconstruct the two-parent family, and most of all to make it legally, culturally, and economically burdensome for women to choose to stay home with their children. With truth-in-labeling, the Convention would be called "The Convention for the Gradual Replacement of Mothers by Government." Although CEDAW is pro-abortion, CEDAW and the bureaucrats who implement it are profoundly anti-choice on family issues, especially the choice of mothers to take care of their children personally. The Bush administration is reported to be deciding right now whether to endorse or oppose CEDAW ratification. The White House opinion line (202-456-1111) and Secretary of State Powell's e-mail service (secretary@state.gov) are counting input for or against CEDAW. Posted 2:18 PM | [Link] JOURNALISM, SHMOURNALISM [Jonah Goldberg] This makes a good point. Posted 1:15 PM | [Link] LIT UP [Andrew Stuttaford] Shocking news from Indonesia. The Jakarta Post is reporting that "the majority of smokers in the [Indonesian] capital continued to light up during World No Tobacco Day on Friday, saying that they did not know it was international no-smoking day...Five out of six people questioned about the no-tobacco day said that they were completely unaware of it." Of course, in the U.S. that day we were talking about little else. Posted 12:25 PM | [Link] THE RETURN OF PASHTUN BUGGERY [Jonah Goldberg] No, that's not the subtitle of my forthcoming memoir. It's a serious problem for the Royal Marines. according to the Scotsman. Some highlights: "It was hell," said Corporal Paul Richard, 20. "Every village we went into we got a group of men wearing make-up coming up, stroking our hair and cheeks and making kissing noises." An Arbroath marine, James Fletcher, said: "They were more terrifying than the al-Qaeda. One bloke who had painted toenails was offering to paint ours. They go about hand in hand, mincing around the village." "We were pretty shocked," Marine Fletcher said. "We discovered from the Afghan soldiers we had with us that a lot of men in this country have the same philosophy as ancient Greeks: ‘a woman for babies, a man for pleasure’." Posted 10:56 AM | [Link] ROTE [Andrew Stuttaford] Your bad, Kathryn, for not mentioning John's old piece on rote memorization. I guess you forgot about it. Posted 10:31 AM | [Link] OVERHEATED TIMES TWO [Jonathan Adler] A front-page New York Times story claims that the U.S. government has officially acknowledged the coming greenhouse apocalypse. Last week, the administration submitted the 2002 Climate Action Report to the United Nations. This report summarizes recent national and international syntheses of climate science, and describes some of the "likely" and "possible" impacts of increased emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate changes. As is to be expected from any document produced by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of State, the report accentuates the negative. (For a more balanced presentation of the science see here and here.) At the same time, however, the report time and again reiterates the uncertainty of climate science. The Times nonetheless opens its story by claiming the report "detail[s] specific and far-reaching effects that it says global warming will inflict on the American environment." Not quite. The report outlines some specific potential scenarios, but it carefully states all of its predictions in probabilistic terms and reiterates the National Academy of Sciences' conclusion that specific predictions about climate change are, as yet, impossible. More importantly, the report notes (and the Times acknowledges) that global warming is likely to increase agricultural and forest productivity and that insofar as some climate change is inevitable, current policies should embrace adaptive measures, not crash energy diets. There's no need to wait to see how the report will be spun. The Times was ready this morning with an editorial calling for congressional action to regulate greenhouse gases. No doubt Senator Jeffords will do his best to oblige. Posted 9:59 AM | [Link] HEMMINGS V. JEFFERSON [Jonah Goldberg] Very good piece on the Hemmings debate. Posted 9:44 AM | [Link] RE: ROTE [John Derbyshire] Nice to see Claudia Winkler defending rote memorization in The Weekly Standard, Kathryn; but I did it much better in NR last year. Posted 9:16 AM | [Link] AS FOR NORMAL PEOPLE [Jonah Goldberg] While this report is silent on the deterrence of normal people, there’s every reason to believe that more prisons and longer sentences have deterred non-criminals from becoming criminals. As the recently departed Ernest van den Haag noted in discussions of the death penalty, those who are the most successfully deterred by harsh punishment are not career criminals but those contemplating becoming a first-time criminal. Career criminals have made the leap and--ample evidence shows--are unlikely to give up the only life they've ever known. The question is whether or not people who've not yet become criminals might draw the rational conclusion that crime doesn't pay. The declining crime rate suggests this is going on. After all, if there were a limitless supply of criminals, for every one who went to jail another would take his place. That doesn't seem to have happened which is why Fox Buttefield has been able to write headlines which read "Prison Population Growing Although Crime Rate Drops." Posted 8:47 AM | [Link] MISSING THE POINT [Jonah Goldberg] The study behind Butterfield's report shows a modest increase in recidivism among released prisoners. And yet, Butterfield writes: "Criminologists generally agree that the prison-building binge of the last 25 years, in which the number of Americans incarcerated quadrupled to almost two million, has helped reduce the crime rate simply by keeping criminals off the streets. There has been more debate about whether longer sentences and the increase in the number of prisoners have also helped to deter people from committing crimes. The new report, some crime experts say, suggests that the answer is no." This is very misleading. He refers to "people" as if we're talking about the general population, when this study is about convicted hardened criminals. And, the main motive for building these prisons wasn’t to deter hardened criminals from being criminals. It was to deny hardened criminals the opportunity to commit more crimes. The fact these criminals continue to commit crimes when released does not necessarily suggest their sentences were too long, it implies they might have been too short. Posted 8:43 AM | [Link] LEGISLATING MORALITY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Nice piece (as always) on cloning from Nick Schulz at techcentralstation. Posted 8:42 AM | [Link] FOXY THINKING [Jonah Goldberg] Fox Butterfield of The New York Times will never, ever let go. The Times reporter has become something of a court jester in conservative circles for continually being genuinely shocked that criminals commit crimes when not in jail. The headlines often tell the tale. In August 2000, he wrote a story: "Number in Prison Grows Despite Crime Reduction." In 1998 he wrote "Prison Population Growing Although Crime Rate Drops." In 1997 he observed: "Crime Keeps On Falling, but Prisons Keep On Filling." This morning Butterfield does it again. In a story headlined "Study Shows Building Prisons Did Not Prevent Repeat Crimes," This is actually untrue and irrelevant at the same time. More prisons did prevent repeat crimes because they deprived lots of criminals the opportunity to commit repeat crimes. Posted 8:41 AM | [Link] ROTE’S BAD RAP [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Nice defense of memorization from Claudia Winkler on The Weekly Standard’s site. Posted 8:25 AM | [Link] MAKING IT OFFICIAL [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Arafat is considering giving Hamas a seat in new PA government. Wonder if that's enough to make us catch on. Posted 8:21 AM | [Link] SAUDIS DON'T WANNA COME 'ROUND HERE NO MORE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Andrew, quit harassing the Saudis. You're making them change travel plans. Posted 8:16 AM | [Link] BUILD A MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] No, seriously. ..and a synagogue, and a church. Posted 8:12 AM | [Link] THE NRA vs. THE CONSTITUTION [Jonathan Adler] The National Rifle Association is the latest group to join the right's Fair Weather Federalists. The NRA is one of the leading proponents of President Bush's "Project Safe Neighborhood." As the Cato Institute's Gene Healy documents in a new study, this program makes a mockery of limited and enumerated powers by turning gun possession by felons and other petty offenses into federal crimes. While the NRA is right about the Second Amendment, they're dead wrong about the Tenth (not to mention Article I, section 8). The supreme irony of this is that the leading federalism case--Lopez and Printz- both involved federal gun laws. Now the NRA is pushing the law in other direction. Posted 7:50 AM | [Link] BUCKINGHAM FLAMES [Andrew Stuttaford] There was a fire yesterday at Buckingham Palace. Some unkind folk are drawing attention to the fact that Ozzy Osbourne had been rehearsing there earlier in the day. Posted 7:18 AM | [Link] AMERICA'S OPPORTUNITY AND DUTY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] President Bush's West Point speech. Posted 6:22 AM | [Link] THE BLAME GAME: WHAT THE CIA KNEW [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Michael Isikoff's Newsweek report. Posted 6:13 AM | [Link]
DO I HAVE AN ADA CLAIM? [John J. Miller] At Dulles airport late last week, I stupidly forgot to take the knife off my keychain--when the security guy found it, he made me remove it (thankfully, my wife was still on the other side of the rope), and then I got a very thorough search--shoes and everything. They made me get rid of one of those tiny screwdrivers useful for fixing eyeglasses. I carry around pens that can do more damage, but for some reason this important little tool was viewed as a weapon. Doesn't this discriminate against people who are handicapped with less-than-perfect eyesight? The petty harassment of air travelers continues, even as the security folks keep on refusing to profile. Posted 6:25 PM | [Link] STUPIDITY IN PUBLIC EDUCATION (CTD) [Andrew Stuttaford] Thomas Bowdler is, it seems, alive and well. This is a story that makes me as mad as, well, heck. Posted 11:40 AM | [Link] WILL BUSH GET IT? [Andrew Stuttaford] There's a tremendous piece by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times today. It's worth reading in its entirety (not least for the comments on Pim Fortuyn), but here is the key passage: "The idea people who inspired the hijackers are religious leaders, pseudo-intellectuals, pundits and educators, primarily in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which continues to use its vast oil wealth to spread its austere and intolerant brand of Islam, Wahhabism.But here's the good news: These societies are not monoliths, and there are a lot of ordinary people, and officials, inside both who would like to see us pressing their leaders and religious authorities to teach tolerance, modernize Islam and stop financing those who won't. Too bad President Bush has shied away from this challenge." Indeed. Posted 11:25 AM | [Link] |
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