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POSTCARD FROM SEATTLE: [Rod Dreher] My left-coast friend Phil went today to the Solstice Parade and Pageant, which he describes as "Seattle's most popular (and as far as I know, only) religious celebration." Marchers paraded dressed as pagan religious figures and suchlike. Writes Phil, "So one group of marchers caused me a moment's puzzlement; they didn't seem to fit the context. They didn't look like demi-divinities or nature spirits. After a couple of beats, I figured it out. The marchers were men and women dressed as birth control. The men were dressed as condoms, and women dressed as cervical caps and diaphragms. At the center, amid banners depicting paleolithic Venus figures, was a medicine ball meant to be an ovum. Men dressed as sperm tried to attack it, only to be beaten off by heroic women wielding rubber barriers, which they brandished fiercely to great applause." Phil ended his missive thus: "I am not making this up. I have proof; I took pictures." Posted 5:40 PM | [Link] SPOUSAL UPDATE [Jonah Goldberg] My lovely bride will be on Book TV today around 2:20 PM EST and on a live "townhall" on women's sports tonight at 9:00 PM on ESPN. She's in Harftord today for the ESPN thing. Cosmo and I are in the new house waiting for the cable guy. Ah the glamour. Posted 9:48 AM | [Link] MORE DECLARING WAR [Jonah Goldberg] Eugene Volkh has a very helpful post on understanding why we don't need a Declaration of War to fight a war. Deal with it. Posted 9:33 AM | [Link] DON'T KNOW MUCH: [John J. Miller] A new national test says that American kids don't know much about geography, with only one in four high school seniors gaining proficiency in the subject. Maybe I'm a pessimist, but the Washington Post article describing the results actually encourages me. It says that 14 percent of seniors don't know that earthquakes are measured on the Richter scale and 16 percent couldn't find the Mississippi River on the map of the U.S. I would have predicted much worse. Posted 4:31 AM | [Link]
ONE MORE REASON TO HATE THE FRENCH: [Rod Dreher] A best-selling book claims that September 11 was all a right-wing plot. This conspiracy theory is so absurd that even the left-wing French newspapers are condemning it. But the book has been a best-seller for weeks now. By the by, I recently learned how to say "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" in Dutch: kaasetende capitulatie-apen. So says a Dutch reader, who suggest a shortcut way to say the same thing: Fransen (the French). Posted 11:12 PM | [Link] DECLARING WAR [Jonah Goldberg] Rich, sorry for the delay in not following-up to your post to Padilla and the lack of a Declaration of War. I've been dealing with the same thing all week. I'd like a formal declaration too. But two more points should be made. 1) The authorization of the "use of forth" is, according to Joe Biden no less, constitutionally sufficient as a declaration of war. I don't know why Democrats don't just get some cajones and declare war if they're willing to argue that such an authorization is indistinguishable from a DoW. But there you have it. 2) I like asking these people who say Bush can't do jack without a Declaration of War, what they think would/should have happened if some Viet Cong agents had infilitrated America during the Vietnam War and blew up some bridges and shopping malls. Would they say "give 'em a civilian trial!" because we didn't declare a war in Vietnam? Maybe they would, but that only makes them consistent, not right. Posted 5:09 PM | [Link] SPEAKING OF K-MAN: [John J. Miller] Oral arguments in the Kennewick Man case were presented a year ago, and the judge still hasn't issued a decision. Just this week, though, he promised one by Labor Day. This is probably good news for the plaintiffs--i.e., the scientists who want to study these fascinating old bones--because a careful and well-reasoned decision would aim to limit the awful excesses of the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act. But that's only a guess. The future of American prehistory hangs in the balance. Posted 3:57 PM | [Link] REMAINS OF THE DAY: [John J. Miller] Indian tribes scream bloody murder when scientists want to study ancient bones, such as the Kennewick Man remains. But they won't let anything stand in the way of building a bingo parlor--not even an prehistoric Indian mound on the Alabama Historical Commission's list of "places in peril." Read about it here. Posted 3:13 PM | [Link] HALF EMPTY: [John J. Miller] Coming soon: A movie about Stephen Glass, the New Republic's celebrated fiction writer. Posted 3:05 PM | [Link] SAUDI EVASION [Andrew Stuttaford] There's a disturbing, and tragic story out of 'Saudi' Arabia today. Authorities in the 'Kingdom' are claiming that the British banker murdered in Riyadh yesterday was killed as a result of a feud between "illegal expatriate alcohol traders'. As is also suggested here, this explanation doesn't seem credible. It's much more likely that the killing was the work of Islamic extremists, something that the Saudis will not be quick to admit. Conceding the existence of rising levels of domestic terrorism would represent a very public reminder that the current Saudi regime is almost certainly doomed, and that Washington's current 'alliance' with the House of Saud is, therefore, as pointless as it is pernicious. Posted 1:06 PM | [Link] NOTHING TO DECLARE: [Rich Lowry] E-mail: “The United States has not actually declared war since the declaration of war against the Axis powers in 1941. Korea and Iraq were officially responses to UN Security Council Resolutions. The Vietnam War was never "declared", hence the War Powers Act. The Congressional resolution that stopped short of a declaration of war in response to the 9/11 attack empowered the President of the United States to take necessary means to retalitate, but did not outright use the word "war". One reason was against who? War is typically something states do between each other or within each other and not something states do on multinational organizations. When cornered about the lack of an outright declaration, the talking points were that "Constitutionally, it means the same thing." (Sen. Joseph Biden). Of course, the lack of a declaration makes the whole Geneva Convention issue all that much easier. You don't have Prisoners of War if there is no war.” Posted 10:27 AM | [Link] TWO BASEBALL E-MAILS: [Rich Lowry] On Coors: "Wouldn't it be easier (less to remember) to just increase the size and weight of the baseballs used at Coors to compensate for the lack of atmospheric pressure? Then again, maybe the ball would need to be so large that switching to kickball is the only solution? That would please the soccer fans amongst us." On Castillo's streak: "I understand the need to milk every possible angle out of every possible story, but Luis Castillo `ties Benito Santiago's record for a Latin player' (ESPN.com front page) is just plain offensive." Posted 10:26 AM | [Link] TOWARD BASEBALL AT COORS FIELD: [Rich Lowry] Here are a couple of new grounds rules to make what is played at Coors Field a little closer to something that would be universally recognized as baseball: balls hit over fence count as doubles, unless they are hit into the upper-deck, in which case they are triples; hitters strike out after two strikes; bases moved 100-feet apart; games last 7 innings. Implement all those, and maybe we would get some good old-fashioned 8-6 games there. Posted 9:47 AM | [Link] MOREOVER…: [Rich Lowry] The murky nature of this war is not the Bush administration’s fault. If our enemies would put on uniforms and carry weapons openly things would be much, much cleaner. Instead, they wear civilian clothes and fly here on civilian planes. Bush’s critics would just prefer to ignore this fact—as long as you don’t wear a uniform and fly United, you’re not only not an “unlawful combatant,” you’re not a combatant at all. Therefore, Padilla should be treated as a domestic criminal case, with all the attendant legal protections. I wish the critics would at least openly admit the logical consequence of their position in this case--there’s been no crime, the evidence probably hasn’t been gathered in keeping with all the rules of the U.S. criminal justice system, and, therefore, Padilla, sooner rather than later, should be let go. Posted 9:46 AM | [Link] HELLO???: [Rich Lowry] I can’t believe how many conservatives are writing me about my Padilla piece triumphantly pointing out that Congress hasn’t declared war ergo we are not at war. It would indeed be a huge step forward in legal and moral clarity if Congress would declare war. But a declaration is not necessary for a state of belligerency to exist. Witness the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Afghanistan. Posted 9:44 AM | [Link] MEANT TO DO THIS YESTERDAY [Jonah Goldberg] My buddy Tevi Troy's book, Intellectuals and the American Presidency , was reviewed in Wall Street Journal yesterday. You need to be registered, but here's the link. Posted 7:34 AM | [Link] GOOD NEWS ON STEM CELLS: [John J. Miller] There's new evidence to suggest that adult stem cells may prove as useful to scientific research as embryonic ones. If true, it would mean embryos don't have to be destroyed in order to tap the medical benefits of stem-cell work--a genuine blessing. It would also render the debate over cloning, at least in its current form, largely moot. This is a welcome development for everybody, and for pro-lifers especially--to say nothing of the embryos slated for membership in a caste of human life marked for destruction. Posted 6:59 AM | [Link]
GLOBAL WARMING? [Andrew Stuttaford] Here's an excellent article from the London Spectator that Christie Whitman might want to read. Posted 6:04 PM | [Link] MAKE IT SO [Andrew Stuttaford] Jonah, Kathryn has said that none of your references may be to Star Trek. Posted 5:55 PM | [Link] AT LAST [Andrew Stuttaford] How good to see a reference to American football on the Corner. That is the correct (and patriotic) name for that strangest of games. The word "football" by itself refers, of course, to the sport known to US moms as "soccer". The word "winner" will, I hope, describe the English and American football teams tomorrow. Posted 5:51 PM | [Link] YES, IT"S TRUE... [Jonah Goldberg] The iatrogenic government reference was to the Moynihan essay -- who says all of my references have to be to the Simpsons and Star Trek? Posted 5:43 PM | [Link] NOT AN AMERICAN SCHOLAR [Andrew Stuttaford] Melissa, Monyihan, eh? Who knew? Everybody, it would seem, other than me. Posted 5:34 PM | [Link] THE WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE, WOULDN'T IT? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Without CNN everywhere. Posted 5:27 PM | [Link] ON RICH'S EARLIER SPORTS TALK [Robert A. George] Rich, It's obviously (American) football, which is why I'm bumbed that the Yankees' Nick Johnson missed the extra point yesterday. I had the Bombers and 10 1/2. Posted 5:18 PM | [Link] IATROGENIC [Melissa Seckora] For anyone who didn't know, occassional NRO contributor Noah Pollak points out that Jonah's reference to "iatrogenic" government comes from Daniel Patrick Monyihan's "Iatrogenic Government" essay in The American Scholar. Posted 5:14 PM | [Link] MORE COORS MADNESS: [Lowry] Rookies just scored 8 runs in 6th. Rookies 10, Yankees 8. Posted 4:41 PM | [Link] BURN THE BARN [Ramesh Ponnuru] Citizens against Government Waste is putting a spotlight on a recent project of Sen. Jim Jeffords ("I.," Vt.): He's trying to get $25 million for "Historic Barn Preservation." Surely his Republican colleagues can think of more pressing uses for the money? Posted 4:38 PM | [Link] PRESIDENTIAL MEDALS OF FREEDOM [Ramesh Ponnuru] The list: Peter Drucker, Irving Kristol, Placido Domingo, Hank Aaron, Gordon Moore, Mr. Rogers, Nancy Reagan, the late Katharine Graham, and Dr. D. A. Henderson. Posted 4:37 PM | [Link] EXECUTING THE RETARDED [Jonah Goldberg] The Supreme Court has just ruled that executing the retarded is unconstitutional. I will reserve judgement on the ruling until I've read more about it. In the meantime, though, I hope that the liberals who cheer this ruling comprehend their hypocrisy when it comes to the retarded. From "LA Law" to "I Am Sam" Hollywood has been celebrating the social equality of the mentally handicapped to the cheers of op-ed page liberals. In "I Am Sam" (a movie I refused to see) the moral of the story according to its promoters and reviewers is that "Love is all you need" to be a parent. Skills, judgement, wisdom: these things are incidental to parenthood if you love your child. Never mind that this message directly contradicts every single teen mother parenting class in the country, what is infuriating is the double-standard which says that the mentally handicapped deserve as many of the benefits society can give them but none of the responsibilities. Theoretically, I am amendable to the argument that the (sufficiently) retarded cannot be executed. But, if you're competent enough to have a child, vote and drive you're competent to be held accountable for murder. In short, before I respect your view on capital punishment for the retarded, I need to know where you'd come outy if Sean Penn slaughtered his daughter at the end of "I Am Sam" -- should he be executed or excused? Posted 4:24 PM | [Link] JAY ASKS: [Rod Dreher] In his latest Impromptus column, my colleague, Reiki master and canon lawyer Jay Nordlinger asks: "And, by the way, if the Palestinians have 'no hope,' why doesn’t Jordan — which controlled that sliver of land, until yet another Arab war of annihilation against Israel — step up to the plate, with money, hospitality, and other things?" I'm sure Jay's question is rhetorical, meant to point out the hypocrisy of the Jordanians. Who can possibly blame King Abdullah for not wanting to take in the benighted denizens of Arafatistan? His father, the late King Hussein, had to forcibly throw the PLO out in 1970 after they tried to take over his country. Abdullah well knows what kind of cutthroat brigands the Israelis have to deal with, even if he lacks the courage (or the foolishness, depending on your point of view) to say so publicly. Posted 3:23 PM | [Link] BEST NEWS I'VE HEARD ALL WEEK: [Rod Dreher] This fall, Miramax is going to film A Confederacy of Dunces, one of the great unmade movies of our time. Let joy be unconfined! Whatever Harvey Weinstein is doing at this very moment, if he's not on the phone begging the great Philip Seymour Hoffman to play Ignatius, he's not serving mankind. And when he's finished with that, he'd better book Chris Rock to play Jones. Posted 1:47 PM | [Link] OUR FRIENDS [Andrew Stuttaford] CNN is reporting that intercepts from September 10th apparently reveal Al-Qaeda terrorists tipping off colleagues in Saudi Arabia that major attacks were imminent against the United States. Just another reminder of why the Saudis' refusal to enter into full cooperation with the war on terrorism shows their 'kingdom' for what it is - an enemy state. Posted 12:55 PM | [Link] EXACTLY [Andrew Stuttaford] Jonah, yes, that's right, of course. Compliments, by the way, on "iatrogenic". What a word! Posted 12:47 PM | [Link] HEALTH NAZIS [Jonah Goldberg] Andrew, you make a fair point. However, I don't think the tubby guy had the Nazi's iatrogenic government in mind when he made the comparison. And, besides, even if he did, the hard working men and women of Southwest Airlines don't give a damn about this guy's health problems and they certainly don't want to use the power of the State to make him eat more bran and less jerky (mmmm jerky). I know you know this, but it's worth pointing out just in case someone out there doesn't. Posted 12:27 PM | [Link] 20-10: [Rich Lowry] Is it baseball or football that they play at Coors Field? Posted 12:05 PM | [Link] TALES FROM A REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION [Andrew Stuttaford] The IRS is reintroducing random audits. Posted 11:28 AM | [Link] A DEPRESSING SURVEY [Ramesh Ponnuru] We have some work to do. Posted 11:11 AM | [Link] COMMUNISTS [Andrew Stuttaford] The recent election victory by Hungary's Left was widely hailed by the EU establishment as a victory for 'moderation', 'Europe' and all those other good things. Unfortunately, the new Socialist prime minister has now been forced to admit that he worked for the Hungarian secret police back in the late 1970s. Apparently he was unable to confess to this somewhat embarrassing employment history before the election owing to an "oath of secrecy" (to Brezhnev?). Naturally, the PM has no intention of resigning, and naturally the EU's moralists will have nothing to say about it. Posted 11:00 AM | [Link] NAZIS [Andrew Stuttaford] Jonah, much as your pursuit of ridiculous 'Nazi' comparisons needs doing, you may not have chosen the best place to start. So far at least as their master race was concerned, the Nazis were exactly the sort of, ahem, 'health Nazis' who might have tried to penalize the overweight (at least once Goering had retired). There's a great book on this subject: "The Nazi War on Cancer" by Robert Proctor. Posted 10:54 AM | [Link] I LIKE IT [Jonah Goldberg] Apparently there's something called Godwin's Law which holds that the longer a usenet discussion goes on the more likely it is that someone will mention Hitler and hence automatically lose the argument. Posted 10:47 AM | [Link] NAZI HUNTING [Jonah Goldberg] I've decided to make it an on-going practice to collect examples of people misusing and abusing Nazi comparisons. Today's entry comes to us from USA Today, in an article about how very overweight people get charged for extra seats if they use them. One passenger tells the newspaper he may not fly on Southwest Airlines ever again because they tried to charge him for two seats. "Not if they force me to buy another seat, not if they make a freak show out of it like they did the other day,'' he says. ''This is not too much different than the Nazis.'' Not "too much different than the Nazis." A private airline trying to charge for costs it has incurred due to the extra demands of a customer's girth is "not too much different than the Nazis." Yes, now that I think of it, I seem to recall that one of the chief charges at Nuremberg was that the Gestapo was charging fat guys an extra schilling for every extra inch their butts took up on the beer hall benches. Posted 9:52 AM | [Link] JONATHAN LAST LIKES MY WIFE [Jonah Goldberg] Nice take on Title IX perfidy Posted 9:06 AM | [Link] WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED? [Jonah Goldberg] The guy who hates Catholics, the Pope and Christianity also might not like Jews. Posted 9:03 AM | [Link] OFF KEYES [Jonah Goldberg] MSNBC is dropping Alan Keyes is Making Sense, because while he may have been making sense no one was watching. I think Keyes is an interesting and brilliant guy, though a bit of an oddball. From the beginning I thought the show was doomed. My guess is that the producers figured Alan Keyes is such a great talker and did so well during the GOP presidential "debates" that he would be great as a host. The problem is that despite all of the hype, he's not a great debater. He's a great speech-maker, and there is a huge difference between the two. During the primaries, whenever he was asked about the details of Medicare or Social Security or gun control, he turned the question around into an opening for a broad, open-ended and philosophical diatribe on first principles. That's fine with me, I like that sort of thing from Presidential contenders. But it's not the sort of thing that works well in a TV host. Keyes' show is/was unwatchable because he doesn't shut up and doesn't engage guests on their own terms. He constantly changes the questions to ones he can answer himself and blather on about. He makes Chris Matthews look disciplined. I wish him luck, but I won't miss the show. Posted 8:51 AM | [Link] ANGLICAN SCHISM?: [Rod Dreher] The incoming Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the worldwide Anglican communion, favors ordaining sexually active homosexuals, which he in fact has knowingly done. Evangelicals and other traditionalists within the Anglican church are outraged, and are saying that this may be the thing that finally forces the Anglicans into a formal schism. Posted 8:38 AM | [Link] WHAT WOULD GLORIA DO? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Bizarre piece in the Washington Post about claims of rampant sexual harrassment in the Virginia statehouse. Kisses, looks, gropes. But then, of course if it is only one....remember the one-free grope rule Clinton gave rise to. Posted 7:13 AM | [Link] SCHOLAR SPILLS THE BEANS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] "The dialogue is not proceeding well because of the two-facedness of most Muslim interlocutors on the one hand and the gullibility of well-meaning Western idealists on the other," said Bassam Tibi, in an interview with United Press International. Posted 6:57 AM | [Link] KRAMER! [John J. Miller] An excellent article by the irrepressible Martin Kramer on the continuing debasement of Middle Eastern studies programs and professors. From the piece: "Middle Eastern studies have been in deep crisis for years. The field has been decimated by the impact of Edward Said's post-colonialism and cut off from the American mainstream by the influx into faculty ranks of ideological radicals and activist immigrants. The most outlandish theories have flourished in this hothouse. Shelves have filled with works exalting the democratic potential of Islamist movements, even those that use terrorism. An entire cottage industry of wishful thinking has grown up around "civil society," even though the region remains in the thrall of authoritarian regimes. The professors, absorbed by their own faddish theories, were as surprised as anyone by September 11, and even more surprised than most officials, terrorism experts, and investigative journalists." Posted 5:34 AM | [Link] DON't CALL IT SUICIDE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Today's Washington Post has a lead editorial titled "More Palestinian Suicide." If it were only just suicide--of so-called martyrs and of the Palestinian-statehood cause. But it's not. Besides stalling their political cause, terrorists take the lives of innocent civilian Israelis each time. It's murder, plain and simple. Posted 4:33 AM | [Link]
CRIMINAL PROCEDURE [Andrew Stuttaford] Today's New York Times is running a story on the continuing controversy over the UN's international 'court'. It looks like the administration is (quite rightly) toughening its stance. Together with reports that the US is preparing a doctrine of more aggressive preemptive defense, this has, apparently, "intensified complaints that the United States perceives two sets of rules in the world, one for itself, and one for everybody else". Well, at least so far as submission to the jurisdiction of the international 'court' is concerned, I suppose that it is true that the US believes that a set of "special rules" does apply to its citizens. It's called the Constitution. Posted 5:57 PM | [Link] VACATION FROM REALITY? [Andrew Stuttaford] Is protecting the tourist industry really more important than protection against terrorism? That certainly seems to be the message from those now objecting to the government's plan to eliminate the automatic approval for a six-month stay currently given to tourists visiting this country. Quite reasonably, the administration is now proposing that immigration inspectors should use more discretion: tourists should only be allowed in for the time required for their trip, up to a maximum of six months. Judging by this report, this mild proposal is too draconian for Jeb Bush and other vacation company flacks. Ignoring his brother's complaints will be a good sign that our Minetaphile President is more serious about domestic security than often seems to be the case. Posted 5:33 PM | [Link] THE WARNING OUR GOVERNMENT DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE: [Rod Dreher] The estimable Anne Wilson has lots of good stuff on her site. Here's one of them: a link to a State Dept. warning to American women, telling them to be extremely careful about marrying Saudi men. It's ought to be titled, "ABANDON HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE." The American Muslim Council was offended by the warning, and asked the government to take it down. The State Department, naturally, caved. But you should still read this shocking document. Posted 4:00 PM | [Link] CAL THOMAS: BAN THE WAHHABI CHAPLAINS: [Rod Dreher] Cal Thomas, quoting Prison Fellowship head Chuck Colson, makes a case for banning Wahhabi chaplains from US prisons. Posted 3:49 PM | [Link] HARWELL THE ALL-STAR: [John J. Miller] I promise to quit with the self-indulgent Detroit sports posts soon (go Wings!), but Rob Parker of the Detroit News has a great idea: Because the Tigers are such a crummy baseball team this year, they shouldn't send a player to the All-Star Game in July--they should send Ernie Harwell, the 84-year-old fellow who's been calling their games on the radio for decades. Fox could allow him to do an inning of play-by-play on television. Harwell did one for TBS last night, during the Tigers' 6-0 victory over the Braves. He looked and sounded fantastic, and even treated viewers to a classic Ernie-ism: "He stood there like a house by the side of the road" (a called third strike). Harwell retires at the end of this season, and the whole country should have a chance to hear the greatest voice in baseball. Posted 3:28 PM | [Link] VIVA SPEEDY! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Speedy Gonzalez is returning to the Cartoon Network, thanks to viewer outcry. The network had previously deemed the mouse offensive to Hispanics. Posted 3:19 PM | [Link] A NEW APARTHEID? [John J. Miller] An interesting LA Times piece on racial preferences in South Africa. It includes this quote by a supporter of legalized discrimination: "Corporations in this country had an opportunity to institute affirmative action the right way, and it is fair to say they failed dismally. ... Now they must be made to change." Granted, South African whites don't exactly stand tall on the moral pedestal here, but this smacks of "eye-for-an-eye" justice. Posted 2:56 PM | [Link] K-LO WONDER DRUG DISCOVERED!: [Rod Dreher] Look, Kathryn, with this little pill, you'll never have to leave the office again. Posted 2:34 PM | [Link] NOT IN LYNNE CHENEY'S CLOSET [Andrew Stuttaford] Seen on a tee-shirt in Park Avenue: "F*** my family, I'm off to live with the Osbournes" Posted 11:47 AM | [Link] SOCIALLY LIBERAL, INTELLECTUALLY CONFUSED [Jonah Goldberg] Folks, my point below wasn't that it's logically or philsophically impossible to be socially liberal and fiscally conservative. In a sense that's what libertarians are, and they are nothing if not consistent. My point was that most of the people who brag about being socially liberal and fiscally conservative are difference-splitters and people-pleasers with no coherent world view of their own. I am sure there are some brilliant and rational people out there who are, in fact socially liberal and fiscally conservative. But in my experience the people who tout their "indpendent" philosophy as some sort of ingenious synthesis are quite often simply shallow thinkers trying to be non-conformists on the cheap. It's similar to the people who think splitting the Congress and the Presidency between Republicans and Democrats is a check-and-balance tactic the founders would have approved of. It's not, by the way. And -- oh yeah -- I've got many McCain supporters chiefly in mind when I say these things. Posted 11:33 AM | [Link] TOO MUCH SEX [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Does it really need to be on Nickelodeon, after SpongeBob Squarepants, and at school (i.e. this survey of 10-year-olds a group of parents have filed suit over)? Posted 10:47 AM | [Link] A MOTHER'S EVIL JOY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] MEMRI has an interview up translated from London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat with a mother of suicide bomber Muhammad Farhat: "I prayed from the depths of my heart that Allah would cause the success of his operation. I asked Allah to give me 10 [Israelis] for Muhammad, and Allah granted my request and Muhammad made his dream come true, killing 10 Israeli settlers and soldiers. Our God honored him even more, in that there were many Israelis wounded." "When the operation was over, the media broadcast the news. Then Muhammad's brother came to me and informed me of his martyrdom. I began to cry, 'Allah is the greatest,' and prayed and thanked Allah for the success of the operation. I began to utter cries of joy and we declared that we were happy. The young people began to fire into the air out of joy over the success of the operation, as this is what we had hoped for him." "After the martyrdom [operation], my heart was peaceful about Muhammad. I encouraged all my sons to die a martyr's death, and I wish this even for myself. After all this, I prepared myself to receive the body of my son, the pure shahid, in order to look upon him one last time and accept the well-wishers who [came] to us in large numbers and participated in our joy over Muhammad's martyrdom..." Posted 9:25 AM | [Link] DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU… [Jonah Goldberg] Jesse Ventura says he won’t run for reelection. I’m overjoyed. As I noted in the magazine a couple years ago, I’m not a big fan of "Jesse the Governor" (I did like him in Predator though). He represented two political trends I despise. First, he was a populist of the worst sort – the unthinking kind. Second he was popularizer of the cop out: "I’m socially liberal but fiscally conservative." I have never had much respect for this position nor those who brag about holding it. It’s always struck me as a way of saying "I don’t want to argue with anybody, especially my wife." And, lastly, he was historically ignorant which only fed his outsized ego. "I'm kind of like Che Guevara," he said yesterday as if he was much more important than he was. "I lead the revolution, but at some point I turn it over to someone else." Posted 8:25 AM | [Link] THE DEATH OF BLOGGER? [Jonah Goldberg] I wonder: is anyone worried that Blogger may be killed by genericide? Genericide is the term used by intellectual property lawyers and business types to describe the loss of trademark status. Aspirin was once a Bayer product, now it is the generic name for the drug. DuPont lost Cellophane™ to cellophane and the Otis elevator company once had the exclusive rights to the word Escalator™ -- but no more. Uncle Milton Industries, according to a Washington Post article from last year, still retains the sole right to manufacture Ant Farms. Everybody else can call them "formicariums" or the "the kitchen at Arby’s." Indeed, I believe that heroin, zipper, granola, yo-yo and linoleum were all proper nouns once too. Xerox™, Kleeenex™ and Band Aid ™ spend millions every year protecting their brand names because, according to trademark law, if you don’t actively protect your intellectual property you lose it when it becomes a generic phrase. Which brings me to Blogger. Right now millions of people use blogger as a lower case adjective, verb and noun. I blog, you blog, he/she blogs. That was a bloggish column. Who’s Glenn Reynolds? Oh he’s a leading blogger. Etc. If this keeps up, Pyra Labs – the owner of Blogger – could win the "Blogger Revolution" and go broke at the same time. Posted 8:22 AM | [Link] THANKS FOR THE CONSISTENCY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Steve Hayes on Ted Turner: Still crazy after all these years. Posted 6:10 AM | [Link] BACK TO PRE-RUDY DAYS IN NEW YORK? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] John Podhoretz issues a warning to NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg. Posted 4:46 AM | [Link] NORMAN, BE CAREFUL WHO YOU TICK OFF [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From today's "Reliable Source": Passengers on a weather-delayed United Airlines flight Friday afternoon from Washington to Chicago were fuming at Sen. Ben Nelson after the Nebraska Democrat asked to get off instead of wait, prompting the airline staff to order everyone else off, too, for another security check. Yesterday a United spokesman told us that Nelson's fellow passengers should have been allowed to stay aboard, and Nelson's communications director, David DiMartino, said his boss was unfairly singled out by United staff as the cause of everyone's inconvenience. "I think United owes the senator an apology," he said. Posted 4:32 AM | [Link]
INTERNATIONAL 'COURT' [Andrew Stuttaford] Also in today's Financial Times, there is a story about how the US is pushing for a UN resolution to exempt all UN peacekeepers from prosecution by the new International Criminal 'Court'. The FT's writer goes on to note that "Washington's attempt is part of its drive to remove all its citizens from the court's jurisdiction". Last time I looked, no US citizens are subject to this kangaroo court's 'jurisdiction', but this report suggests that there may be some confusion on this subject. The administration needs to make something very clear: any attempt to arrest American nationals by officers of this 'court' will be regarded as a hostile act. More specifically, the US should explain that failure to pass the proposed exemption in the UN will entail immediate US withdrawal from all UN peacekeeping operations. The FT indicates that such a threat is being made, but "behind closed doors". Why the secrecy? The threat should be public and explicit, and if that just happens to weaken the authority of the ICC that will be just fine. Posted 5:57 PM | [Link] VICHY OF EVIL [Andrew Stuttaford] The Financial Times is reporting that EU foreign ministers are looking to launch formal trade ties with the Iranian dictatorship. So far, so predictable. More interesting, however, is the fact that, at the prompting of EU 'external relations' commissioner Chris Patten, (yes, him again) negotiations will take place under a procedure that bypasses the need to secure parliamentary approval in the EU's member-states with all the embarrassing, and very public, questions about human rights that this might entail. The FT quotes an "EU official" as saying that "ratification can take as long as five years. This way we can do it quicker." Ah yes, democracy can be so inconvenient. Posted 5:29 PM | [Link] UNWELCOME VISITOR [Andrew Stuttaford] Rich, maybe it is a naive question, but why exactly is Wahhabi ideologue Shaikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Turki being given a visa to visit this country? Posted 5:07 PM | [Link] IN THE MEANTIME... [Jonah Goldberg] I have to do a piece for the mag on the war on fatty foods. If anybody's got some good insights, anecdotes or defenses of super-sized food, send 'em to JonahNRO@aol.com. Sorry, I can't make that address an active link for reasons so profoundly pathetic I cannot divulge them here. Posted 4:53 PM | [Link] I CONFESS... [Jonah Goldberg] I misread the teleportation story. I have three excuses. One, I am exhausted. Two, the "scrall" at the bottom of the screen on (I think) CNN said it was an atom. And three, I really wanted to say "Up and Atom!" Because that is what Radioactive Man always says -- except when he gets scalded by acid while wearing supposedly protective eyewear. Then he says, "My eyes...the goggles, they do nothing!" Anyway, I promise, tomorrow nothing but phat G-files and spot-on Corner posts. Posted 4:51 PM | [Link] CHERIE'S GAFFE: [Rod Dreher] Cherie Blair, wife of the British PM, has caused a row with comments interpreted as sympathetic to suicide bombers. "As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up, you are never going to make progress," Mrs. Blair said, hours after the latest suicide bombing. She was later forced to backtrack, but this seems like a classic case of the Kinsleyesque "gaffe": when a public figure inadvertently says what he or she is really thinking. Posted 4:27 PM | [Link] CANCEL THAT LUNCH, BOB: [Rod Dreher] Hamas has taken responsibility for today's suicide bombing in Jerusalem, which killed 19. Who said, at a rally two years ago outside the White House, "We are all supporters of Hamas. Allahu Akbar!"? None other than Abdurahman Alamoudi, longtime executive director of the American Muslim Council, a group FBI director Robert Mueller is scheduled to lunch with on June 28. The AMC is riddled with terrorist sympathizers, as Daniel Pipes reveals. Why do American government officials who know perfectly well what kind of people these are persist on treating them like reasonable, respectable members of the American mainstream? Posted 4:22 PM | [Link] I DON”T KNOW… [Rich Lowry] …if this idea is workable, but Thomas Holsinger is on to an important problem. Why were we arguing about whether or not to search Moussaoui, an illegal, in the first place? "This leaves, however, the unspeakable elephant of immigrant alien surveillance and control sitting in Homeland Security's waiting room. With rare exceptions, citizens aren't our foreign terrorism threat. Resident aliens - legal and illegal - are the threat and no one, not even General Odom, has addressed this defect in the Homeland Security Department's organization. The Supreme Court long ago ruled that resident aliens are entitled to the same constitutional protections as citizens. This was done for expedient reasons - letting police and prosecutors deny constitutional protections to aliens imperiled the same protections for citizens. But "[t]he Constitution is not a suicide pact." The lives of citizens are now directly threatened by resident aliens, while the constitutional rights of citizens are imperiled by security measures created to protect against resident aliens. The law must change to reflect these developments. The new Department of Homeland Security would be more effective, without harming citizen rights, if aliens lack full constitutional protection, for offenses committable only by aliens, which it has exclusive jurisdiction to prosecute. State and local police, the FBI, and state and Justice Department prosecutors, would have to give aliens full constitutional rights during investigation and prosecution of ordinary offenses, as citizens can be charged with those too. But Homeland Security law enforcement officers and prosecutors wouldn't have to do so for offenses under laws which apply only to aliens." Posted 3:46 PM | [Link] ERIC ALTERMAN DOESN’T KNOW [Ramesh Ponnuru] How to spell the names of “black fire-breathing right-wingers”: It’s Niger Innis and Deroy Murdock. Alterman also repeats a story about Ann Coulter: She allegedly said to a disabled Vietnam vet, on the air, that “People like you caused us to lose that war.” Here’s what she wrote in a letter to Talk about the alleged incident: “I’ve got the tape, I never said that. . . . The point at issue was [the vet’s] particular argument against the U.S. military protecting itself with land mines. Portraying our troops in Vietnam as a bunch of Three Stooges incompetents, he claimed that the leading cause of casualties to Americans in Vietnam was stepping on their own land mines. (Americans stepping on their own land mines is not close to the leading cause of casualties in Vietnam.) I made the obvious response: ‘no wonder you guys lost.’” And she didn’t know the guy was disabled. Posted 3:40 PM | [Link] BEAM ME UP [Jonah Goldberg] The Aussies have taken a small step toward getting me into Starfleet Academy. They've managed to teleport an atom. Up and atom, I always say. Posted 2:56 PM | [Link] KRISTOF’S CASE FOR CEDAW: [Ramesh Ponnuru] According to the Times columnist, President Bush doesn’t think much of the world’s women because he opposes the convention. Kristof presents one piece of evidence that CEDAW actually does anything for the world’s women: In Pakistan, it’s kept women who’ve gotten pregnant as a result of rape from being stoned to death. Why this is an argument for America’s ratifying the convention—since such horrific denials of women’s rights do not happen here and since Pakistan, on Kristof’s account, didn’t need our ratification to stop the stonings—is unclear. So is Kristof’s source for the claim. Pakistan ratified CEDAW in 1996. It owed the UN a report on its compliance efforts in 1997. It’s five years late and counting. But we’re supposed to believe that while Pakistan has not even done the paperwork required by the convention, it is changing its laws to comply. In Afghanistan, another country that has ratified the convention, American troops seem to have done rather more than it to help women. Posted 2:46 PM | [Link] FESSIO FREED[Stanley Kurtz] Good news. Father Joseph Fessio, the courageous Catholic traditionalist who had been reassigned to the Jesuit equivalent of Siberia for championing traditional Catholic education, has been brought back from exile. Fessio has been invited to serve as the chancellor of Ave Maria University of Florida, and he has been permitted to accept the appointment. Ave Maria University is one of the most promising initiatives in Catholic higher education, and many Catholics see the spread of traditional education at universities like Ave Maria in Michigan and Florida, and Campion College in San Francisco as a major response to the Church’s current crisis. The many protests against Father Fessio’s exile have surely had an effect, and the Jesuits are to be commended for listening to the voice of the faithful. I hope to have more on this in the coming days. Posted 2:31 PM | [Link] WEALTHY CHINESE BUCK ONE-CHILD LAW [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Posted 11:43 AM | [Link] MORE GOOD STUFF FROM UPI: [Rich Lowry] Analysis: Al Qaeda's privileged sanctuary by Arnaud de Borchgrave 6/17/2002: “Is Pakistan taking Afghanistan's place as the new fulcrum of transnational terrorism? Intelligence sources in Washington, London, Paris, and Rome agree that al Qaida's underground network in Pakistan is functioning with the complicity of the clergy and intelligence services….” Posted 11:18 AM | [Link] SCORE ONE FOR AMTRAK: [Rod Dreher] I asked in a previous blog how many plane crashes there had been since 9/11, and said I hadn't been able to think of any. Reader Jason McCrory of Austin, Texas, writes, "There was that slight matter of the Queens crash, you know, just a few miles from where you live." Oh yeah. That one. Posted 11:15 AM | [Link] THE PROBLEM WITH PREEMPTION: [Rich Lowry] I don’t buy all the criticisms of preemption in this WashPost op-ed, but there is something to this: "Operationally, the best time to launch a preemptive strike is early in a country's nuclear, biological or chemical program. The closer a country gets to having a real weapons capability, the harder it will work to protect that capability -- hiding, protecting or dispersing its arsenal. This means that the more threatening a weapons program becomes, the less vulnerable it may be to attack... Yet, the earlier a president wants to launch a first strike, the more difficult it will be politically. Absent credible evidence or widespread public perception of an imminent attack against us, preemptive strikes would likely bring international condemnation." Posted 11:14 AM | [Link] THROWING OUT THE BABY WITH THE BEEF BOURGUIGNON: [Rod Dreher] Amy Welborn and her husband went out to celebrate their wedding anniversary, and took their baby Joseph along for the dinner. Someone criticized her for not getting a sitter, and she responds by saying that Joseph is the center of their life, the fruit of the very marriage they're celebrating, so they wanted to have him along. Boy, can I relate. My wife and I usually take our son, who's nearly three, out with us to dinner, even though some concerned friends think we don't reserve enough time for "us." But Amy's right: our son is "us"; we do not in the least feel burdened by his presence at dinner (as long as he's behaving himself), because we are a family, and children are pretty much the point of marriage. Right? Posted 11:13 AM | [Link] HANDCUFFING THE FBI: [Rich Lowry] In this NYTimes op-ed today, there is an excellent statement of why the FBI shouldn’t have to operate by the strict rules of our criminal justice system: "Further, the counterintelligence wing has long been needlessly hobbled by rules of criminal procedure used in trial courts. Its cases rarely make it to trial; the purpose of its investigations is to gain intelligence that can be used to fight national enemies. Yet this wing's agents are bound by rules that would apply if they were preparing a case for trial: Miranda warnings for detainees, disclosure of confidential informants, disclosure of payments to sources. Some exceptions can be made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but getting approval has been difficult, and overly cautious practices are ingrained in F.B.I. counterintelligence agents." I discuss this at length in my piece in the current NR. I’m not sold, however, on the idea of splitting up the FBI. I think the relationships the FBI has with local law enforcement can be helpful in the nitty-gritty of some of these counter-terrorism cases. Posted 11:06 AM | [Link] CHICAGO PAYOFF: [Rod Dreher] The Chicago Sun-Times reports that police raiding the house of a former Catholic priest have found, along with massive amounts of child pornography, evidence that the Chicago Archdiocese paid him $200,000, apparently to leave the priesthood after a number of child-molestation complaints. Posted 10:40 AM | [Link] 3 Moves = 1 FIRE [Jonah Goldberg] I'm back baby! I feel like Ernest Shackleton after yesterday's move. After I figure out where I put my bottle of "medicine" I'll be an e-fool. Cheers, JG Posted 10:27 AM | [Link] CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVES AND ISLAMISTS, II: [Ramesh Ponnuru] Sullivan thinks that the joint opposition of Christian conservatives and Islamists to the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women proves that the former find the latter’s “repression of women something to admire and aspire to” and that President Bush, in also opposing it, is “pandering” to “extremist[s].” The Prospect appears to consider such opposition per se “theocrat[ic].” Now the Prospect may very well not like Jeane Kirkpatrick or Christina Hoff Sommers, who testified against CEDAW last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But they’re not theocrats, and to suggest that they “admire” the treatment of women in Islamist countries would be a slander. Reasonable people can oppose CEDAW for all sorts of reasons—especially people who (like Sullivan) have some anti-abortion impulses or (like Instapundit) libertarian ones. See here and here for some of these reasons. Posted 10:23 AM | [Link] CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVES AND ISLAMISTS: [Ramesh Ponnuru] The Washington Post reported yesterday that they’ve been working together at the United Nations to “to halt the expansion of sexual and political protections and rights for gays, women and children.” (Post reporter Colum Lynch writes that this alliance “coalesced during the past year,” although in truth it has existed for several years.) It’s a morally troubling alliance, and I’m sympathetic to the criticisms being made of the Christian groups by Andrew Sullivan, Instapundit, and the American Prospect. But some of these worthies, perhaps reacting to Lynch’s anodyne description of the treaties to which the Christian conservatives (and Islamists) object, have taken their criticism too far. Posted 10:19 AM | [Link] ARIZ CAMP-FIN LAW LOSES IN COURT: [Rich Lowry] E-mail: "I thought that you might like to know that a major part of the Clean Elections Act was struck down today by the Arizona Court of Appeals. Sen. McCain is the official spokesmodel for the Clean Elections Institute which started running ads to showcase the Clean Elections Act as a nationwide model for publicly financed campaigns. McCain-Feingold also requires the GAO to issue a report on Arizona's effort." Read about it here. Posted 10:10 AM | [Link] FROM SAUDI INFORMATION AGENCY (E-MAIL) : [Rich Lowry] “(Washington) June 18, 2002 The Saudi Interior Ministry freed 160 Saudi men arrested few months ago after returning from Afghanistan, according to Al-Hayat Saudi Daily Monday. Al-Hayat quoted a Saudi security official saying the men were arrested upon their return form Afghanistan where they were involved in military operations against the Northern Alliance and US forces. The source told Al-Hayat the men didn’t engage in any activity threatening the security of Saudi Arabia or other countries. The men returned mostly through Iran, who handed dozens of Saudis to the interior ministry through Madina airport in January. Several Saudi government airplanes secretly transported all Saudis arrested in Iran. 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11 were Saudis. On another front, senior Wahhabi cleric, Shaikh AbdulMohsen Al-Turki will be arriving in the United States late June to participate in several activities designed to repair the image of the official religious institution, which follows Wahhabi understanding of Islam. He will be visiting Washington, New York and other cities. The cleric heads the World Muslim League which accuses Jews of creating Shia Islam to undermined “true Islam.” Federal authority raided the offices of the WML and its associated organization World Assembly of Muslim Youth earlier this year on suspicions of terrorist links. Both are official organizations, operate with government funds, and headed by government officials. Al-Turki was Minister of Islamic Affairs and headed the main Wahhabi university in the country, which has a branch in Fairfax, Virginia. The Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America offers tuition free diplomas to more than 400 U.S. students.” Posted 9:59 AM | [Link] THE HANDS-FREE CELL-PHONE PROBLEM [Kathryn Jean Lopez] "Hands-free cell phones -- hate them. It's now impossible to tell which New Yorkers are talking to themselves on the street and which ones are talking to their offices." --Joe Bob Briggs Posted 9:50 AM | [Link] MANITOBA MATH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] "Rufus is a pimp for three girls. If the price is $65 per trick, how many tricks per day must each girl turn to support Rufus' $800 per day crack habit?" "Hector knocked up three girls in his gang. There are 27 girls in his gang. What is the exact percentage of the girls in the gang that Hector knocked up?" Kids in a school in Canada found these word problems on a recent test. Parents were none too happy, as you can imagine. Posted 9:18 AM | [Link] NO WONDER THE TIMES SUPPORTS WELFARE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The paper 's new NYC office will be purchased at far below market value, with taxpayers footing much of the property-tax bill. (Thanks, as always, to Nick Schulz of techcentralstation.com for sending the link.) Posted 9:14 AM | [Link] SHIP OF TERRORISTS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Al Qaeda boat may be somewhere off the coast of California, headed toward Los Angeles, according to a Gertz report. Posted 7:57 AM | [Link] YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...I look forward to when Jonah is settled into his new house, too. Posted 7:54 AM | [Link] "THERE ARE MANY CHILDREN IN TURKEY WHO WILL BE BEATEN TONIGHT" [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Police have established an escort-protection service for children in Turkey...who are headed home from school with bad grades. Posted 7:44 AM | [Link] ANYTHING FOR A VOTE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The Social Democrats in Germany are using hot-red (the party's color) condoms as fundraisers. Posted 7:34 AM | [Link] EVERY TOURIST'S A WINNER [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Israel's tourism ministry is rewarding tourists who brave the threat of suicide bombings to visit their country. Posted 7:32 AM | [Link] CLEAN OUT YOUR BAG BEFORE YOU HEAD HOME [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Supreme Court rules on bus and train searches. Posted 7:28 AM | [Link] FAT CHANCE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Zacarias Moussaoui, representing himself, wants to be released. Posted 4:38 AM | [Link] ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER BOMBING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] 18 dead, 50 wounded in bus bombing in Jerusalem. Posted 4:35 AM | [Link] CAN MAUREEN DOWD READ SLIDES? [Ramesh Ponnuru] In her latest column, Dowd writes about a Power Point presentation on the White House's strategy for 2002: "The Rove doctrine is simple in the extreme: 'Maintain Base.' The base he lists sounds like a lyric from 'Oklahoma!'--'Farmers, Ranchers, Coal & Steel.'" Actually, the slide clearly presents the "base," "farmers," "ranchers," and "coal & steel" as separate groups. It's a minor mistake, to be sure. But as Miss Dowd sniggers that the White House needs to be "more sophisticated," it seems like fair game. Posted 4:31 AM | [Link]
MY INNER BILL DONOHUE: [Rod Dreher] On the miserable Amtrak-cursing journey home, I made friends with two generally pleasant women, one older, one about my age. We made small talk, and when I told them I was a writer, the younger one, who happened to be Jewish (I could tell by the nametag on her luggage) asked me what I'd been working on lately. Told her I'd just come from covering the bishops' conference in Dallas. Are you Catholic? she asked. Yes, I said. "Well, I have a big problem with the Catholic Church, and the way it tells women what to do with their bodies," she snapped. And I'm thinking, Who the freak asked you?! But of course I didn't say anything, because I'm cursed by Southern Boy Politeness, when I really wish I had an inner Bill Donohue to get back in these people's faces. The other lady, a very nice Methodist, told me later, apropos of nothing, that she had a problem "with the way some of the Vatican's policies oppress women in the Third World." This has happened to me before, always from feminists. Can you imagine the rudeness of meeting someone then feeling free to critique their religion? "Oh, you're Jewish? I have a big problem with the Jews and the way they... ." "You know, the problem with you Methodists is that... ." Posted 10:10 PM | [Link] TRAIN IN VAIN: [Rod Dreher] I had to go to Washington today to give a talk. I bought a ticket for the 11 a.m. Acela Express train ... which left at 11:40. The 6 p.m. Acela return trip was cancelled after we sat unmoving in the station for almost half an hour. The conductor said there was a derailment ahead, and instructed us to go back inside and get refunds on our tickets. At the ticket counter, the clerk took my name and address, and said Amtrak would mail me a refund "within four to six weeks." Great. I took the very pleasant Delta Shuttle home, thinking the whole time that it's no wonder Amtrak is going under. Think how many passenger plane crashes there have been in the U.S. since September 11. I can't think of any at all. Now, think how many derailments there have been. Three come to mind right away. Posted 10:01 PM | [Link] MORE ON THE CZECHS [Andrew Stuttaford] Somewhat belatedly, I've now read Sunday's New York Times account of the Czech parliamentary elections, elections in which nearly 20 percent of Czechs voted for the Communist Party, a fact that did not even merit a sub-headline. The relatively high support for the party of the old dictatorship is described as follows: "Voters also showed a surprising nostalgia for the security of the Communist era." "Security"? Well, I suppose there may be some truth in that, but it is a bit like referring to German neo-nazis from the early 1950s as being a benign bunch hankering after the days of full employment and new autobahnen. Posted 6:09 PM | [Link] MARTYR WEAR [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Evidently martyr necklaces are all the rage for Palestinians...a replacement for Pokemon. Posted 5:28 PM | [Link] E-MAIL: [Rich Lowry] "I've been watching the Corner all day-¯when are you going to respond to Konig's attack? The Mets, after all, are a team with Roberto Alomar and Armando Benitez." I hate to admit that Konig has a point--Estes came up with a nifty compromise, by throwing at, and missing, Clemens. But I don't think Clemens' athletic intensity--especially back in the 2000 Subway (World) Series, when the Mets couldn't even be bothered to run the bases--makes him "evil." Posted 4:18 PM | [Link] WENT TO…: [Rich Lowry] …the U.S. Open on Saturday. I know nothing about golf, but have now gone to the Masters (about which I wrote a couple of spectacularly ill-informed web pieces) and this. Golf is tough to watch in person, especially when you have to traipse through so much muck and grime as Bethpage had Saturday. Plus, it was cloudy so it was hard to pick up the ball against the cloud cover. We would be sitting or standing there and all of sudden a ball would plop down out of nowhere. I was vaguely rooting for someone to challenge Tiger—to no avail, of course. Posted 3:51 PM | [Link] LAST NOTE ON HOUSTON: [Rich Lowry] NRO readers from Houston were offended by a Houston-bashing San Antonio e-mail I posted last week. I forgot to mention in those postings that I have an important connection to Houston—namely, I’m a Houston Oilers fan (I use the present tense because Tennessee is still “Houston” to me). When I decided I would hate the local, over-hyped Washington Redskins growing up, I decided to root for the Oilers, in the “Luv Ya Blue” era of Bum Phillips, Earl Campbell, and Dan Pastarini (whose name I’m probably mis-spelling). I suffered through both “Ice Bowl” championship games against Pittsburgh, and that awful loss to the Bills in the playoffs during the “run-and-shoot” years. The downfall of the Oilers is that they couldn’t play outdoors. Posted 3:50 PM | [Link] I WAS…: [Rich Lowry] …wrong about Safire. He didn’t write the “end of the world as we know it” column about the Padilla detention—instead, our friend Jonathan Foreman did. Posted 3:48 PM | [Link] MOWBRAY…: [Rich Lowry] …is doing O’Reilly tonight on Saudi visas. Posted 3:12 PM | [Link] HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE A PARTNER! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Arafat whines. Posted 1:32 PM | [Link] GOOD NEWS FROM FRANCE [Stanley Kurtz] The New York Times has an extraordinary story today on the rout of the French Left, the defeat of the extreme Right, and the triumph of the Center-Right coalition led by Jacques Chirac. It’s hard to imagine better news than this, or more important. Maybe that’s why the Times has hidden it below the fold on page four. This was obviously a front-page story. Posted 12:37 PM | [Link] KRAMER'S TOWER [Stanley Kurtz] Martin Kramer’s extraordinary book, Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America is perhaps the most important critique of America’s leftist academy since Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. Unlike Bloom’s book, Kramer’s work is a case study of the corruption of a single discipline, but one of first importance for America’s national security. The story of the failure of American Middle East Studies, and of its takeover by the most egregiously misguided and ideologically driven brand of scholarship, gives stark testimony to the way in which academic political correctness harms America. I’ve referred to Kramer’s book in my own work on the misuse of (Title VI) federal funds by scholars, and in my accounts of outrageous scholarly boycotts against worthy government efforts like the National Security Education Program. Now Martin Kramer has established a website devoted to Ivory Towers on Sand, and to the controversies it has generated. Posted 12:13 PM | [Link] IMPEACH EARL WARREN'S FRIENDS [Ramesh Ponnuru] Charles Lane has a piece in the Washington Post on Justice Anthony Kennedy, who's devoted to the Constitution but not, you know, extremist about it. He is willing to strike down laws based "not only on constitutional text or formal legal rules, but also on general constitutional values--such as the liberty of pregnant women, the equality of gays and the 'dignity' of states." (Note that, at best, only one of these things can be considered "constitutional values" in any sense, even a "general" one, with a straight face; I'd argue that none of them are.) Lane reports that Earl Warren was a family friend of the Kennedys when Kennedy was growing up. Posted 11:08 AM | [Link] AND WHAT THE KIDS ARE WATCHING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Most TV kids have dads in the picture, though a bulk of them don't live with both parents, according to a new Parents Television Council study. Posted 10:49 AM | [Link] WHO'S WATCHING THE KIDS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] More problems revealed about Florida state child-welfare workers: having a criminal recorder is not disqualifer. Posted 10:36 AM | [Link] WHY LISTEN TO SAID AT ALL? [Ramesh Ponnuru] Said's piece begins with a curious passage complaining that reporters assume that he has something valuable to say about Islamic terrorism, "even though I have spent the last fifty years in the United States, forty of them as a professor of English and comparative literature, and have always been outspokenly secular in my views. . . . What could I know about the crazed fanatics who committed suicide in the slaughter of innocents? And why indeed was there this extraordinary assumption that from my university office I had some special insight into the smoldering twin towers?" Said's purpose here is, of course, to play the race card. But why not take him at his word? What insight does he, indeed, possess? Posted 10:30 AM | [Link] SAID VS. LEWIS [Ramesh Ponnuru] Edward Said has a tedious attack on Bernard Lewis's latest book in the July Harper's (it's not online). Lewis is "an energetically self-repeating and self-winding British academic" who in the '70s "was quickly drafted [by whom?] into service as a Cold Warrior, applying his traditional Orientalist training to larger and larger questions, which had as their immediate aim an ideological portrait of 'Islam' and the Arabs that suited dominant imperial and pro-Zionist strands in U.S. foreign policy." Lewis is an "anachronism." He "tirelessly pounds out polemical tracts." He "seems unaffected by new ideas or insights, even though among most Middle East experts his work has been both bypassed and discredited by the many recent advances in knowledge about particular forms of Islamic experience." "One can almost hear him saying, over a gin and tonic, 'You know, old chap, those wogs never really got it right, did they?' But it's really worse than that." As far as I can tell, Said makes one point against Lewis that might possibly have merit: that the latter underestimates the Islamic world's interest in Western art music. Otherwise, Said's criticism consists of name-calling and bragging about his dominance among those aforementioned "Middle East experts." So much the worse for them. Posted 10:29 AM | [Link] SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FAILINGS [Andrew Stuttaford] There are signs, at last, that Germany's center-right may be prepared to stop allowing the country's left to dictate the terms of debate in the upcoming election. At a convention in Frankfurt today, CDU leader Angela Merkel has indicated that immigration control will be a central issue in the campaign. Meanwhile, former CDU Chancellor Kohl has re-entered the political fray with an attack on the willingness of Germany's governing Social Democrats to form local coalitions with the PDS, the allegedly "reformed" heirs of the party that built the Berlin Wall. Compromised by a corruption scandal, Kohl is no great moral example, to say the least, but on this issue he is absolutely correct. The failure of the Social Democrats to face the implications of their embrace of a party with its roots in the country's totalitarian past is a disgrace. It shows a lack of historical sensitivity that ought to be inconceivable in the country of the Nuremburg trials, but I guess I am, as the French would say, just being "simplistic." Posted 9:29 AM | [Link] GOOD NEWS FOR MARRIAGE [Stanley Kurtz] The Alliance for Marriage reports that a recent Fox News Poll has found that 76% of Americans support a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. This extraordinary level of support stands in stark contrast to the mainstream media’s reluctance even to acknowledge the existence of the Federal Marriage Amendment, which has now been introduced in Congress. That this survey was taken by Fox News is obviously the exception that proves the rule. We’ll see whether big media’s biased and one-sided propaganda machine is able to overcome the clear desire of the American people. Posted 8:44 AM | [Link] ANGLO SHOWINGS [Andrew Stuttaford] Kathryn, I know you are not that interested in football ("soccer"), but you should be pleased to hear that the U.S. has just made its way through to the World Cup quarter-finals. Great result. I'm glad to say that England is also in the quarter-finals following a magnificent 3-0 victory over Denmark on Saturday. I watched this on a large screen in Norway surrounded by a crowd of Danes (it's a long story), but lived. Go Anglosphere! Posted 8:43 AM | [Link] MOVING TO SUBURBIA [Jonah Goldberg] This city kid is moving into the first house of his entire life today. Therefore there will be no G-File today--maybe one tomorrow. Posted 7:11 AM | [Link] MIKE BERAN ON THE KENNEDYS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] His piece from the Journal last week on the Skakel trial is finally online. See it here. Posted 4:39 AM | [Link] A FEDERAL EMPLOYEE STARTED IT [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The biggest fire in Colorado's history, was started by an employee of the U.S. Forest Service. Posted 4:37 AM | [Link] BILL GERTZ SAYS... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...the FBI is getting serious about terrorism. Posted 4:27 AM | [Link]
JIHAD IN FLA: [Rich Lowry] From Time mag piece on Padilla: "And so Padilla began a 10-year odyssey, moving ever closer to radical elements within Islam. In South Florida, as many as 60,000 Muslims attend two dozen mosques and religious sites, spanning the spectrum of ideology. A subculture of extremism has taken hold in certain pockets. "Hamas and Hizballah have a wide network here," says a prominent Islamic community leader. "We have been taking a nap on this issue for far too long. These are people who are convinced that the West is evil and America is 'Darul Harb,'" the Place of War. The community leader, who requested anonymity, describes a growing radicalized cadre of mostly Middle Eastern men who aggressively recruit young Muslims. These men often drive BMWs and Mercedes and lure followers with money, he says." Posted 9:44 PM | [Link] JAILHOUSE JIHAD [Andrew Stuttaford] Both the alleged shoe-bomber and the suspected dirty bomber seem to have converted to Islam in jail. We don't know yet whether this was where they also encountered Islamic extremism, but, in this connection, a Corner reader has referred me to an interesting piece (from December last year) by Sebastian Rotella in the LA Times . It includes some discussion about the situation in French prisons. It is difficult (at least for me) to link, but here's an extract: "In prisons, Islamists try to convert North Africans, sub-Saharan Africans and native Frenchmen alike. In a recent first-person account in the newspaper Le Monde, an inmate of Algerian descent described Taliban-style jailhouse rules. Extremists demand that fellow inmates wear long pants in the exercise yard because shorts offend their faith. They change channels if Jews appear on television and distribute anti-Jewish literature. "You are our brother, look at the way France put you in prison, that's why you should fight with us," one jailhouse recruiter told the author. An imprisoned terrorist lectured the author-inmate on avoiding Coca-Cola and other infidel food products and gave him a seminar on urban warfare: how to fashion a crude mine out of rifle cartridges, a fuse with a cigarette, a detonator with a battery-powered alarm clock. A baby-faced Frenchman told of learning combat techniques in Afghanistan, then attacking a tank with a rocket launcher near Kabul in the 1990s". Posted 5:40 PM | [Link] BAD CZECHS [Andrew Stuttaford] The Czech Republic's (largely unrepentant) Communist party has won around 18 percent of the vote in the country's parliamentary elections. That's about the same percentage as Le Pen managed to secure in the first round of the French presidential elections, an event that sent the EU's elite into a frenzy of condemnation. There's nothing likable about Le Pen, but at least he has never actually operated a dictatorship. The same is not true of the Czech Communists. It will be interesting to hear what Brussels (the Czechs are slated to join the European Union in 2004) has to say about this result. A muted reaction will be further confirmation of the fact that when it comes to extremists of the left, different rules apply and moral judgment from Europe's governing class seems, somehow, always to be suspended. Posted 4:36 PM | [Link] HUNCH: [Rich Lowry] I wouldn't be surprised if Bill Safire writes a column tomorrow about the Padilla detention that uses the word "dictator," "dictatorship," or "dictatorial." If the idea of military tribunals for non-citizen al Qaeda leaders outraged him, this one should produce op-ed apoplexy. SPEAKING...: [Rich Lowry] ...of Padilla. One of the points of the Padilla detention is to be better able to interrogate him (the prospect of sitting in a military jail for 20 years might loosen his tongue). The WashPost front-page story today about three al Qaeda operatives caught in Morocco reminds us just how important interrogation is--a guy in Gitmo provided the information that led Moroccan intelligence to the al Qaeda plot (which involved bombing NATO ships in the Strait of Gibraltar). Posted 3:40 PM | [Link] |
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