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DOUBLE STANDARDS [Andrew Stuttaford] EU leaders are indignant at George Bush's suggestion that he would rather not work with a Palestine run by Arafat. This is, they claim, interfering in the Palestinians' right to choose their own leadership. Well, it's an argument, I suppose, but it's rather difficult to reconcile with the EU response to Austria's elections two years ago. These elections (which were, incidentally, infinitely more democratic than anything ever seen in the Palestinian Authority) led to the formation of a government that many EU politicians found unacceptably right-wing. The EU's response? Sanctions. Posted 9:02 PM | [Link] CHEEKY (2) [Andrew Stuttaford] It seems pretty obvious that Al Gore plans on resuming the class war so rudely interrupted at the last election. Seen in that light, his choice of a new house makes surprising reading. The New York Times reports that the former vice president has just bought a new home in Belle Meade "just outside Nashville". Those bland words conceal a great deal: Belle Meade is, in fact, by far the ritziest neighborhood in the Nashville area. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it's just not the most convincing base for an attack on the wealthy. Posted 8:39 PM | [Link] INSENSITIVITY [Andrew Stuttaford] After reading the post about a British theater company that changed the name of The Hunchback of Notre Dame lest it give any 'offense', a reader writes with a new concern: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Posted 8:28 PM | [Link] TALES FROM THE CHENEY ADMINISTRATION [Andrew Stuttaford] The Corner doesn't seem to have any. Well, it was only two hours... Posted 8:23 PM | [Link] PHEW[Kathryn Jean Lopez] Jon, the silence from Rich made quite clear he had no intention of bailing you out. Jonah and I might have tried, but together we probably couldn't come up with the cash. Although there's aways the web-a-thon option...I bet NRO readers would come through for you. Posted 7:31 AM | [Link] I'M NOT IN JAIL [Jonathan Adler] No, I've never been to Hawaii, let alone run for governor. Nor am I a trendy New York potter. (For the record, I spent Friday at a conference on the law of fisheries.) Sorry to disappoint. Posted 7:29 AM | [Link]
JUST THE PRESCRIPTION [Andrew Stuttaford] I've just seen TV pictures of a ranting, gesticulating, sweaty and spitting Dick Gephardt. He was shouting something about more federal spending on prescription drugs. In his own way the poor fellow made a good case. For tranquilizers. Posted 6:46 PM | [Link] CHEEKY [Andrew Stuttaford] Al Gore is blaming the Bush administration for the current crop of corporate scandals. This is nonsense, of course. These troubles had been brewing for quite a while. Their origins can be found in the bubble years of the late 1990s. In other words, back to the time when Al Gore was Vice President. Posted 6:12 PM | [Link] OVERLOAD [John Derbyshire] Will everybody please stop emailing me to tell me I should keep a clopen mind? Thank you. Posted 5:13 PM | [Link] HUNCHBACK PORN [John Derbyshire] If it's outrage they're after, they could try reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Sado-necro-pornography. Posted 5:12 PM | [Link] A MONKEY WRITES [Kathryn Jean Lopez] "With a whole hour to play with, he'd win a war with France." Posted 4:23 PM | [Link] THE G-15 [Andrew Stuttaford] Kathryn, that's easy. He would give himself a pay rise, make William Shatner a national monument, and declare war on France. Posted 4:07 PM | [Link] I WANNA BE SEDATED [Kathryn Jean Lopez] What I want to know is what Jonah would do if he were acting president for, say, an hour. Posted 3:42 PM | [Link] WOULD THAT ALL SENIORS THOUGHT LIKE THIS: [Rich Lowry] E-mail: “I suspect that you get hate mail from the organized senior left (e.g. the AARP shills), that no one among the unorganized senior rationals bothers to refute. I am a senior. Between my wife and I we spend $400 a month, give or take, on prescription drugs - not because we are sick but because we hope to avoid becoming sick. These days, health care for the elderly has become more and more preventive - and drugs (often expensive drugs) are the vehicle with which prevention is achieved. And I do not want the government paying for my drug therapy! Because when the government decides what they will pay for, I am precluded from other therapies that the government hasn't approved. My health care is a matter between me and my doctor. If Medicare covers some or all of it, fine. If Medicare covers none of it, also fine. But do not, repeat DO NOT, allow the government to tell me what kind of medical care I should be able to purchase for myself. If I spend $1,200 a year on dining out, or $1.000 a year on entertainment, and that stretches my prescription drug budget, then I will cut back on the eating out and the entertainment. But that is my choice, not the government's. And the people who send you hate mail on this matter are; 1) not sensible seniors (if, indeed they are seniors at all), and 2) lobbyists, pursuing a political agenda (as the AARP has done for years) which bears no relationship to what seniors really think. Oh! And if Congress thinks that it can buy my vote by passing some sort of drug attachment to Medicare, think again. I will vote against my Congressman if he supports it.” Posted 3:32 PM | [Link] TOO MUCH INFORMATION [Kathryn Jean Lopez] I know we are at war...and I know people want to know--and probably should--if Dick Cheney is acting president for 15 minutes or whatever it's going to be, but I really don't want to hear the president talk about his colon. Posted 3:07 PM | [Link] THE G-FILE IS IN, COSMO & I ARE HEADING OUT... [Jonah Goldberg] Today's G-File is quite old school, if by old school you mean very long, dismissive of democracy, and containing movie references. I encourage all readers to bombard the home office if there are egregious typos in it requiring amelioration. I must away to Battery Kemble park with my trusted canine sidekick. We hunt squirrels and collect cans to augment the "living wage" provided by Lowry. Posted 2:16 PM | [Link] SORRY, RICH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Gotta make a living. That monthly payment of government surplus cheese only goes so far. High-school kids are only the beginning of the phalanx of advocates Jonah and I will get on our side before long. After raises, we'll use our army to take over the world. Posted 1:56 PM | [Link] I’VE GOTTEN…: [Rich Lowry] …used to the badgering, planted questions about Jonah’s salary when I give speeches, but last week’s talk to high schoolers at Young America Foundation’s excellent conference was a little different. I paraphrase the question: “Uh, yeah, um, Mr. Lowry, I dig what you said about changing the geo-political order in the Middle East and how that will inaugurate a new epoch in World History and stuff, but why do you so stubbornly refuse to pay Jonah Goldberg and Kathryn Jean Lopez decent, living wages?” Et tu, Kathryn??? Posted 1:52 PM | [Link] ANOTHER POST LIE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Maybe the Washington Post piece on Title IX was just lifted off a Women's Law Center press release. Here's another whopper: "Last January, the National Wrestling Coaches Association and other groups filed suit, asking a federal court to invalidate Title IX." Invalidate Title IX? No one wants to do that. It's the Clinton Ed Dept.'s quota test for implentation that the coaches have been fighting to kill. The law itself, they have no beef with. This is no breaking news and easily verifiable. Posted 1:42 PM | [Link] THE FAMILY OF THE BABY BOMBER SAYS IT'S NO FORGERY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] They dressed the kid up as a suicide bomber for fun, as "a joke." Posted 1:37 PM | [Link] ONE SIZE FITS ALL [Andrew Stuttaford] A number of the smaller EU nations that signed up for the Euro (the union's common currency) did so on the grounds that it was the best way to maintain some degree of control over their financial affairs. The Euro was always going to have a major impact on their domestic economies, so why not join in and gain a say on how the currency is run? Well, this is why. Posted 1:27 PM | [Link] STRANGER THAN FICTION [Andrew Stuttaford] You couldn't make this stuff up. Posted 12:59 PM | [Link] BTW, RE: JOHN ENTWISTLE, RIP [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Here's Kevin Cherry's appreciation. Posted 12:58 PM | [Link] VEIL TRAVAILS (2) [Andrew Stuttaford] If Ms. Freeman is looking for support for her cause she had better not look for any from the religious authorities in Saudi Arabia. Women in the 'Kingdom' are not allowed to drive. Ladies at the wheel would be un-Islamic, apparently. Now that really is an "inconvenience". Posted 12:36 PM | [Link] GOTTA HATE CELEBRITY POLITICS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] But if we can keep it to Alf and ditch any and all Baldwins, we’re doing good. Posted 12:27 PM | [Link] VEIL TRAVAILS [Andrew Stuttaford] Here's a remarkable story from yesterday's New York Times. Sultaana Freeman is claiming that Florida is violating her religious rights. The state's offence? Making Ms. Freeman remove her veil for a driver's licence photo. She won't do so and her licence has been revoked. She complains that "it's an inconvenience....I can't go to visit friends and family." That's probably true, but it is Ms. Freeman's choice. How surprising that such a devout woman appears to have forgotten that faith can involve some sacrifices. Posted 12:21 PM | [Link] HAS ANYONE SEEN PROFESSOR ADLER TODAY? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] In today's Hotline: POLICE LOG: Pro-Pot Gov. Candidate Busted For Possession Of Pot And Paraphernalia A "marijuana advocate running" for HI GOV "as a third party candidate was convicted on drug charges." Jonathan Adler, "who says he needs marijuana for his asthma and for religious purposes, was convicted of possessing more than 50 marijuana plants and drug paraphernalia." Public defender Michael Glenn said Adler "faces up to 60 years in prison when sentenced" 8/26, "but probation is more likely." Glenn also said that "he will appeal the ruling" by Third Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura filed 6/20. Adler "was charged" in '99 but an '01 trial "resulted in a hung jury and a mistrial." A non-jury trial "was held" in 1/02. Adler "filed nomination papers" 4/1 as a Natural Law Party candidate (AP, 6/28). Guess that can happen when you take NR's drug stance serial but the law doesn't. Rich, think we should bail him out? Posted 12:16 PM | [Link] MYTH DEBUNKING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Today’s Washington Post piece on the new Title IX commission goes on about feminist whining that the law is being reviewed. Contrary to the sound of their shrieks, the commission isn’t the “Let’s Kill Title IX Commission,” it’s set up to assess the current state of the law. Capping the article, is a lie written countless times since Jerry Reynolds was nominated to served in the Department of Ed and will undoubtedly be heard endlessly in coming the months. “Last March, Bush appointed Gerald Reynolds, who has publicly questioned the validity of Title IX's athletics policies, to head the Office for Civil Rights at the Education Department.” That simply isn’t true. Jerry Reynolds, a solid guy, has never written or publicly spoken a word challenging the validity of Title IX, as has been reported on NRO. It’s simply a liberal smear to try to dismiss him, the commission, and the administration before they get out of the gates on this. Posted 12:09 PM | [Link] TITLE VI EQUALS TITLE IX[Roger Clegg] As Jessica Gavora documents in her new book Tilting the Playing Field, bureaucrats’ interpretation of the federal law called Title IX pushes colleges into eliminating men’s sports and adding women’s sports, irrespective of the sexes’ respective interests, or lack thereof, in athletics. It frequently turns out that the women’s sports added are played disproportionately by white women (e.g., lacrosse), and the men’s sports eliminated are played disproportionately by black men (e.g., track). But bureaucrats’ interpretation of another federal law, called Title VI, makes it illegal for colleges to do anything with a disproportionate effect on the basis of race. So, does Title IX violate Title VI, or does Title VI violate Title IX? The answer is that both laws are equally silly insofar as they are interpreted to mandate proportionate outcomes, instead of simply banning actual discrimination, which is what the texts of the laws actually do and what the original idea of the civil-rights laws was. Posted 12:06 PM | [Link] THE FACE OF SYRIAN DIPLOMACY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Posted 12:03 PM | [Link] HE COULD’VE BEEN A JIHADIST[Kathryn Jean Lopez] The “Accidental Jihadist” Jim Robbins wrote about last week on NRO is living in Baltimore and profiled here. Posted 11:55 AM | [Link] NOT TO RAIN ON THE RED CROSS PARADE… [Kathryn Jean Lopez] But, Marsha Johnson Evans, the head of the Girl Scouts turned savior of the Red Cross is called '' an extremely visionary leader” in USA Today. More like safe PC choice who will delight the liberal elites of the world. Here’s a snippet from a piece on the Girl Scouts from a while back: The Girl Scouts is arguably one of the most politically correct organizations in the country. Its executive director, Marsha Johnson Evans, has impeccable feminist credentials: She had a 29-year career in the Navy, during which she earned the title of rear admiral, only the second woman ever to do so. As head recruiter for the Navy, she was the mother of the 12-12-5 affirmative-action policy, a mandate to make the Navy look more like America: 12 percent African-American, 12 percent Hispanic, and 5 percent Asian/Pacific. According to Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, Evans "demanded quotas with full implementation when the liberal control of the Navy was at its peak. She is very much a feminist, and was promoted and thrived in the Clinton military." Posted 11:47 AM | [Link] NICE TRY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The British press tries to debunk the baby-bomber picture, but fails, even admitting, "There is no doubt, however, that Hamas and Islamic Jihad's supporters bring toddlers to rallies, especially in Gaza, wearing suicide-bomber belts made at school from lavatory rolls." Posted 11:45 AM | [Link] THE “T” WORD [Roger Clegg] I guess it’s generally acknowledged that the worst thing a white can call a black is a nigger. Is the worst thing that a black can call another black an Uncle Tom? It asserts cowardliness, traitorousness, and obsequiousness, all rolled up together in one dirty package. I think if I were black, I’d rather be called a nigger by a white than an Uncle Tom by a black. Amazing, then, that Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Florida) can blithely call Ralph Boyd, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, a “modern day Uncle Tom” at last week’s Congressional Black Caucus hearing without anyone thinking much of it. Boyd’s sin is that he dares to disagree with the Caucus on civil rights policy—bad enough if he were white, but unforgivable since he’s black. Posted 11:38 AM | [Link] STUDLY FIREMEN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Studly they are, but in D.C. they could use a little help: Yesterday they had to use a garden hose to put out a house fire when their bad equipment konked out on them. Posted 11:32 AM | [Link] MAD AS HELL SENIORS!!!: [Rich Lowry] I was just about to conclude from my recent hate mail experiences that angry grannies are still more polite than angry Muslims, but now I'm not so sure. A batch of new e-mail has arrived after the Tucson paper ran my drug column, like this one: "You are an ass!! May you be old, in poor health, and a limited income for your medications. Obviously, you are already demented now so better start working on that problem immediately. If you're so damned smart, why don't you come up with a solution for the people who are paying big bucks for medications not covered by insurance. I live in Tucson AZ (in case you don't know where Tucson is) and it's about an hour's drive to Mexico where lots of people go to get their medication because it's the same stuff but somuch cheaper. So, BIG MOUTH (that's YOU) why don't you go after the drug people who are making the big bucks--not "well-heeled Grans." I'm sure you are too chicken as well as not being smart enough to do that. You are an IDIOT. Read this before you're completely demented." Posted 11:32 AM | [Link] THE SECKORA JUGGERNAUT: [Rich Lowry] This isn’t news to anyone here, but UPI has a story on NR’s own Melissa Seckora, “a rising conservative media star who has taken on the New York Times and the academic establishment and won.” MEANWHILE…: [Rich Lowry] …Joel Mowbray is scheduled to be on the Rita Cosby show on Fox Sunday night, talking about his latest mag piece on the Saudis. MSNBC: [Rich Lowry] I’m supposed to be on around 3:30 p.m., quarrelling about the future of American capitalism. THANKS…: [Rich Lowry] …for all the help with forest fires. As I learned more about it, I became increasingly convinced that it’s one of the great public-policy debacles of recent history. Posted 11:31 AM | [Link] DON’T PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN THE SAUDI BASKET [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Looks like State—and the AP—is anxious to. Posted 11:18 AM | [Link] FYI ... [Jonah Goldberg] My syndicated column on the Pledge craziness. Posted 10:06 AM | [Link] SAME OLD MINETA [Andrew Stuttaford] Well maybe, Kathryn, but this could be rough on the US trucking industry. If Mineta follows his usual approach any crackdown on Mexican trucks will be unacceptable unless accompanied by even greater scrutiny of American rigs. That would suck for Rubber Duck. Posted 10:04 AM | [Link] JOHN ENTWISTLE, RIP [Jonah Goldberg] The Who's bassist died last night. Posted 9:24 AM | [Link] HILL CONFIDENCE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Capitol Hill is getting 20,000 gas masks. Posted 7:45 AM | [Link] MINETA GETS SERIOUS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Andrew, your man Mineta is cracking down on Mexican trucks. Posted 7:43 AM | [Link] IRANIAN DIPLOMATS EXPELLED [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Posted 6:20 AM | [Link] FORGET KINDERGARTEN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Wonder if you can train your kid to be a suicide bomber in the womb, too? Posted 6:17 AM | [Link]
OUR CONSTITUTIONAL CULTURE: [Ramesh Ponnuru] Okay, a second point. Almost everyone in this controversy—from the judge himself to the Democrats to the Republicans—shares some important assumptions: 1) The Bill of Rights exists so that the federal courts can protect the rights mentioned therein. Such judicial enforcement of rights is indeed very high on the list of the things that keep us free. 2) The Bill of Rights can be enforced by federal courts against state and local governments. 3) When the federal courts send down a bad decision, about all that politicians can do about it is to criticize it. All three assumptions seem to me to be shakier than is generally acknowledged. Posted 9:18 PM | [Link] THE PLEDGE AND FEDERALISM: [Ramesh Ponnuru] Tomorrow, I’ll be posting my take on how conservatives should respond to the pledge-of-allegiance controversy. One point for now: Most conservative critics of the last 30-50 years of church-state jurisprudence argue that the Court has mistakenly substituted a policy of official neutrality between religion and irreligion for the Constitution’s true policy of neutrality among religions. (Or they make some variant of this argument.) Assume, for the moment, that this is true. Even so, 95 percent of the damage the courts do (from this perspective) flows not from the principle they believe the First Amendment mandates, but from the scope at which they apply the principle. If the courts were to apply the no-endorsement-of-religion principle to “Congress” (as the First Amendment states) or to the federal government (by implication)--and not to the policies of state governments, local governments, and public schools--they wouldn’t be constantly reviewing schools’ policies on prayer and the like. There’s a federalist solution here. Posted 9:16 PM | [Link] OLSON ROCKS! [Ramesh Ponnuru] Solicitor General Ted Olson argued eight cases before the Supreme Court this term, and won--eight. The government participated in 65 of the 78 oral arguments the Court heard this term--a high percentage--and won 83% of them. That's better than Clinton's lawyers did in any year of his administration, which is either a commentary on the divergence of views between each administration and the Court or on the competence of the legal teams involved. Regardless, I am hoping it is not Olson who defends campaign-finance reform before the Court. Posted 5:07 PM | [Link] POTENTIAL GOOD SIGN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] National Women’s Law Center is upset about the Title IX commission. How dare the government consider discrimination charges against men. Posted 4:43 PM | [Link] GOOD NEWS FOR THE GIRL SCOUTS? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Their feminist chief is now Red Cross head. Posted 4:41 PM | [Link] TOO SMART FOR THEIR OWN GOOD [Roger Clegg] Now that the Supreme Court has made it illegal to execute killers with low intelligence levels, some smart guy should sue. After all, the decision will have a disproportionate effect on killers in certain groups—like Unitarians and Jews, who are the top performers on the SAT, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. They are much less likely, statistically speaking, to avoid the chair because they’re too dumb. The only solution is to “religion norm” the tests, taking IQ points away from Unitarians so they can better compete with us Methodists. Posted 4:40 PM | [Link] NO FLY ZONE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] After the new Cabinet agency is created, who would ultimately sign off on this? Posted 4:40 PM | [Link] MORE CAMPUS NONSENSE [Melissa Seckora] Posted 4:39 PM | [Link] WORLDCOM: BLITHERINGLY INCOMPETENT, OR JUST PLAIN EVIL?: [Rod Dreher] I should start a book of MCI Worldcom customer horror stories. The worst one -- and believe me, that's really saying something -- has to be from an NRO reader in south Louisiana, who penned a lengthy account of his soul-killing ordeal with that company. I wish The Corner were big enough to post the whole thing, but the gist of it is they sent him three phones instead of the one he ordered, wouldn't help him return the extras, kept him hanging on the customer service line for five and six hours at a time, billed him hundreds of dollars for accounts he neither ordered nor used, and threatened his credit rating if he didn't pay. Someone else wrote to say, about Worldcom's fate, "I'm a practicing Catholic, but I believe in karma." You said it, pal. Posted 4:04 PM | [Link] NO PLEDGING [Andrew Stuttaford] Hey, Jonah, thanks for the welcome! Actually, as a humble Green Card holder I haven't been asked to make any pledges of allegiance. Don't worry though, the application process does involve a great deal of prayer.. Posted 3:59 PM | [Link] POSTCARD FROM BLUE AMERICA: [Rod Dreher] As I write this from atop some kind of Californian Alp west of San Jose, GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon is having a press conference in San Francisco to denounce the 9th Circuit's pledge decision. Too bad I only found out about it 10 minutes before it was to start; I'm an hour away from San Francisco. But I'd been hearing from the 'pubbies out here all week that Simon was starting to get some traction after a woeful start, and this issue should ramp him up, even though Gov. Gray Davis, no political idiot he, has already denounced the court too. Thanks, all you Bay Area NROniks, for all your story ideas; I think I've got a really good one (more on which later), thanks to one pissed-off Silicon Valley high-tech guy who reads NRO. Speaking of, the headline in the San Jose Mercury News, which I saw getting off the plane last night, reported that the tech industry is in awful shape. I asked my host, who is a muckety-muck at a huge tech firm, if that headline was accurate. Without a moment's hesitation, he said, "Oh, it's worse than they reported." Finally, I have just learned that I'm here in the Bay Area during Gay Pride Weekend. They'll be glad to see me, I'm sure. I'll be marching with the Martha Stewart Fan Club (that's a JOKE, people). Posted 3:59 PM | [Link] KILLING MONSTERS [Jonah Goldberg] Outstanding post by Virginia Postrell on monsters and comic books. Required reading for comic book fans and friends of imagination everywhere. Posted 3:53 PM | [Link] A MOMENT TO EXPLAIN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Someone (initials=KJL) goofed earlier and allowed the Derbyshire post on his naturalization ceremony to be attributed to Andrew Stuttaford. Sometimes it's hard to tell marmite fans apart. My apologies. It's now fixed. But in case you saw and were confused, or see Jonah's "WAIT A MINUTE!" post and have no idea what it means, that's the explanation. Was that a hate crime? Posted 3:50 PM | [Link] SECOND THOUGHTS[Kathryn Jean Lopez] The pledge decision has been put on hold. Posted 3:46 PM | [Link] MAYBE IT'S JUST ME [Jonah Goldberg] But I detect a whiff of hostility to vouchers in AP's coverage of the Supreme Court's ruling. Here are the first three paragraphs: Led by a narrow conservative majority, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that school voucher programs are constitutional if they provide parents a choice among a range of religious and secular schools. Posted 2:25 PM | [Link] WAIT A MINUTE! [Jonah Goldberg] They let Stuttaford in here too? Damn. Posted 2:23 PM | [Link] PLEDGE AT NATURALIZATION [John Derbyshire] Yes, we read the pledge, 2,000 of us assembled at Javits Center. It has the "under God" wording--I kept the sheet we read it from, and just checked. Does this mean my citizenship is invalid? Or is it only invalid in the 9th Circuit? Or what? Posted 1:45 PM | [Link] JUSTICE THOMAS: [John J. Miller] The best part of the Zelman decision on school choice is Justice Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion: “While the romanticized ideal of universal public education resonates with the cognoscenti who oppose vouchers, poor urban families just want the best education for their children, who will certainly need it to function in our high-tech and advanced society. ... The failure to provide education to poor urban children perpetuates a vicious cycle of poverty, dependence, criminality, and alienation that continues for the remainder of their lives. If society cannot end racial discrimination, at least it can arm minorities with the education to defend themselves from some of discriminations effects.” It's a wonder liberals still oppose school choice. The only thing that could possibly motivate them is blind allegiance to the teacher unions and all their money. Posted 1:21 PM | [Link] FED FOLLIES [Roger Clegg] The Federal Reserve announced late last week that it will “Require lenders to ask applicants their ethnicity, race, and sex in applications by telephone.” As discussed earlier on NRO, this is a bad idea, and will encourage rather than discourage discrimination. The Fed’s reasoning, if you want to call it that, is that it collects these data for applications not made by telephone, so it might as well collect them for phone applications, too. A foolish consistency … Posted 1:15 PM | [Link] HEY DERB.... [Jonah Goldberg] Didn't you have to say the pledge or something like it when they swore you in as a citizen? Isn't that unconstitutional? Otherwise how can atheist immigrants ever become Americans? Posted 1:07 PM | [Link] TILTED COMMISSION? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Secretary of Ed has announced a blue-ribbon commission to look at Title IX. Of the 15 commission members, there's not one coach of a men's team that has been hurt by the law. The president of the Women's Sport Foundation is there though, of course (an omission like that would not be tolerated by the sisterhood). No doubt some coaches whose teams have been axed will be invited to speak to the commission, but it certainly looks like a bad start--not a good sign as to the goals for the end game. Posted 1:04 PM | [Link] COLORED THINKING [Jonah Goldberg] G-File readers know that I think it's absurd that "people of color" is the height of sophistication and "colored people" is racist. Get rid of them both I say (the phrases, not the people). Well, I was just reading the article linked by Drudge about the Palestinian newspaper which denounced Condoleeza Rice. It's typical prattle. But what's interesting is the use of the word "colored" as if it came from a Jim Crow era newspaper. Apparently the author finds the "person of color" construction too burdensome. Posted 12:55 PM | [Link] QUICK QUESTION [Jonah Goldberg] The College Board is to the self-esteem of dumb teenagers as: A. Rolling papers are to marijuana B. Crutches are to cripples C. Bill Clinton is to his box of fried chicken skins D. The Secret Service is the President E. All of the above. Posted 12:36 PM | [Link] FURTHER ERODING OF THE SAT [Kathryn Jean Lopez] As expected the College Board has voted to include essay writing and drop analogies. Drop analogies?! If you are a high-school junior you might be delighted, but is there any room in America for critical thinking? Stanley, I'm sure, will have much more to say about this in days to come. Posted 12:30 PM | [Link] COMING NEXT: FOXES ON THE FUTURE OF CHICKENS [Jonah Goldberg] Maybe it's just sour grapes on my part for not being invited, but doesn't it seem odd to have a panel on the significance and future of blogging comprised entirely of bloggers? It sounds like a good panel and there are good people on it, but it sounds like groupthink in the making. I mean who's going to say, "You know, blogging is a big waste of my time." Posted 11:26 AM | [Link] JUST UP [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Notre Dame Law Prof Rick Garnett on the school-choice decision. Posted 10:57 AM | [Link] ANY PROFESSIONAL ANIMATORS IN NRO-LAND? [Jonah Goldberg] I'm trying to find out if there's a technical term of the trade for the little swirl of dust created when a cartoon character disappears really fast. You know, like when Homer finds out there's a free buffet and vanishes so fast there's a little dust outline of his body left behind. Or when Bug Bunny makes the Tasmanian Devil look the other way and then splits with a zvvvvvvvvvvt! sound. Lemme know. Posted 10:39 AM | [Link] THE SCHOOL-CHOICE DECISION [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Read it here. Posted 10:33 AM | [Link] ON THE OTHER HAND [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The NEA has a very different take. Posted 10:25 AM | [Link] WHAT'S IQ DONE FOR ME LATELY? [Jonah Goldberg] Steve Sailer and I don't always see eye-to-eye, but I thought this article was great. Posted 10:23 AM | [Link] LANDMARK ON CHOICE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Mark R. Levin, president of the Landmark Legal Foundation and NRO contributing editor says today's school choice ruling is "next critical phase in the new era of competition and accountability in America's schools." "Vouchers give hope to families who have been failed by the public school system," said Levin. "Today's decision recognizes that letting the teachers' union and bureaucrats monopolize education is the cause of decay in our schools - and that more of the same can never cure the disease." Posted 10:21 AM | [Link] WHAT IJ SAYS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Clint Bolick, of the Institute for Justice, which defended the Cleveland Scholarship Program, said this of the decision: "This was the Super Bowl for school choice and the kids won...This decision makes good on the promise made nearly 50 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education." Here's the full IJ reax. Posted 10:11 AM | [Link] MORE GOOD LEGAL NEWS TODAY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Rumor has it the Department of Education, at a congressional hearing today, will be announcing a new commission to review Title IX. Let's hope the commission has more than the goddesses of Title IX opinion, the likes of the Women's Sports Foundation, serving on it. A few coaches who have felt the ax definitely deserve a seat. Posted 9:58 AM | [Link] EXCUSE ME MA'AM, I'M HERE TO FIX THE BAMBOO SPRINKLER.... [Jonah Goldberg] Another explanation for the Panda's opposable thumb. Posted 9:53 AM | [Link] CONFUSION AMONG MY PEOPLE [Jonah Goldberg] A reader asks: "Why are you and the Derb getting into a big argument about comic strips by an obscure French cartoonist? Besides, his Silver Surfer doesn't hold a candle to Jack Kirby's Silver Surfer." Posted 9:46 AM | [Link] WHO'S THE REAL ORWELLIAN? [Jonah Goldberg] Without singling me out by name (or even having me in mind) Tapped declares "Quite frankly, it's just plain Orwellian to argue that the phrase "under God" in the pledge doesn't have anything to do with religion." One can see Tapped's point even as one dismisses it as cavalierly as I do. And since we're all being so frank here, it strikes me as far, far, far more Orwellian to rewrite the past and deny the obvious by insisting that the Founding Fathers would have considered references to God in general or the Pledge of Allegiance in particular as unconstitutional. George Washington declared National Days of Prayer and Fasting all the time. I don't recall reading anything about Tommy Jefferson or Alex Hamilton freaking out over it. Personally, I don't think saying "under God" has anything to do with religion and -- again, frankly -- it is a Huge Lie (a close cousin of the Big Lie) to embrace the historical revisionism implicit in suggesting that this country was founded on anti-religious principles. Posted 9:40 AM | [Link] SCHOOL CHOICE WINS! [John J. Miller] The Institute for Justice has sent around an email saying the Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 in favor of school choice. Details TBA. Posted 9:36 AM | [Link] WHO SAYS "UNDER GOD"? [Jonathan Adler] The plaintiff in the Pledge of Allegiance case made an interesting admission on FoxNews this morning: His daughter -- the one whose rights' he sought to vindicate in his lawsuit -- prefers to say "under God" when she recites the Pledge. This may have no legal import, but it's interesting nonetheless. Posted 9:21 AM | [Link] MILES TO GO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Jeff Jacoby's column today on the Bush Mideast plan and thiking beyond simply removing Arafat: "As a prerequisite to peace, Palestinian culture must be drastically reformed. The venom of the Arafat era must be drained. Persons implicated in terrorism must be punished and ostracized; democratic norms must be instilled; the virtue of tolerance must be learned. There is only one way to effect such wholesale changes: The Palestinian Authority must be dealt a devastating military defeat, one that will crush Arafat and his junta and shatter forever the Palestinian fantasy of 'liberating' Israel and driving the Jews into the sea." Posted 9:16 AM | [Link] NEVER! [Jonah Goldberg] Derb -- My family on my mother's side has been in a vicious Tong war with the reviled Listing scum for generations. We shall never concede an inch to their smug and illegitimate claims to the Moebius strip (which is also a dance routine in Vegas which involves putting on one item of clothing for every one you take off -- so the dancer always ends up where she began). Posted 9:10 AM | [Link] MATHEMATICALLY CORRECT [John Derbyshire] "But my favorite example of this Mobius-strip logic...." Ahem, Jonah, I am going to nitpick. These nits are such tiny ones you can barely see them, but, well, you know me. (1) There should be an umlaut over the "o" in "Mobius." An acceptable alternative is to write "Moebius." (2) The famous strip was actually discovered by Johann Listing. He not only found the strip first, he even went to print with it first. To refer to it as "the Moebius strip" is therefore to commit a grave unjustice against poor Listing--who, goodness knows, had enough troubles. Let's try to make a resolution, shall we? to refer to it in future as "the Listing strip." Or--I suppose being understood has to count for something--"the Listing-Moebius strip." Okay? Posted 8:58 AM | [Link] THE PLEDGE, CHICAGO & VDH [Stanley Kurtz] It hit home to see my piece on the dismembering of the University of Chicago’s famous Core curriculum in Western Civilization come out on a day when the big national story is the banning of the Pledge of Allegiance. The banning of the pledge in elementary schools, and the gutting of the Western Civilization program at one of our greatest universities, are just pint-sized and grown-up versions of the same thing. As Victor Davis Hanson points out in his piece today, the deeper issue in the pledge dispute is the demise of civic education–of our sense of being part of a unifying cultural and national tradition. The dust-up at Chicago is very much a part of this process. Victor Davis Hanson himself is the perfect example of a man who has learned to use the wisdom of the Ancients to see more deeply into the present. He is a living embodiment of the link between modern America and the origins of the West in Greece and Rome. By cutting the Ancients out of its European history sequence, the University of Chicago has broken the living link between Americans and the founders of our cultural tradition. Will men like Victor Davis Hanson soon become impossible? Posted 8:48 AM | [Link] A LITTLE LEG [James S. Robbins] The Washington Post's reportage on yesterday's on-air tiff between Katie Couric and Ann Coulter twice makes reference to the fact that Coulter was showing some leg. But the accompanying photo shows Couric exposing just about as much. Somewhere in all this one could make some piquant observations about media bias, the death of feminism, and burkhas, if one thought it even mattered. Posted 8:19 AM | [Link] THROWING THE BOOK AT YOU [Kathryn Jean Lopez] An overdue library book could land you in court--even if you're 12. Posted 6:58 AM | [Link] UNCONVENTIONAL ATTACKS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Al Qaeda working on attacking our infrastructure, online. Posted 6:13 AM | [Link] HITLER YOUTH [John Derbyshire] I may even have understated that. "From the age of six to ten, a boy served a sort of apprenticeship for the Hitler Youth as a Pimpf. ... At ten, after passing suitable tests in athletics, camping, and Nazified history, he graduated into the Jungvolk... At fourteen the boy entered the Hitler Youth proper, and stayed there until he was eighteen..." (Shirer, Rise & Fall of the Third Reich, p.253.) Posted 5:54 AM | [Link] BETTER CHOICE: [John J. Miller] My favorite school-choice website is this one. Check in with it throughout the day for up-to-the-minute information on the Supreme Court decision. Posted 4:52 AM | [Link] PLEDGE LOGIC [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Eugene Volokh on the decision (He's always worth reading. Posted 4:50 AM | [Link] WHAT IS THIS CRP? [John J. Miller] Just took a quick look at the Harvard Civil Rights Project web site. The school-choice report may be read here. It should perhaps come as no surprise that the CRP is a left-wing outfit, run by former Clinton advisor Christopher Edley, who is also a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, where he serves as one of Mary Frances Berry's lapdogs. Among the CRP's other recent dubious activities is its attack on efforts to reform bilingual education. Posted 4:48 AM | [Link] SCHOOL CHOICE AND RACE: [John J. Miller] Anybody who wants to examine race and school choice must begin by looking at a recent Brookings Institution study by William G. Howell and Paul E. Peterson. The chief finding: "At the conclusion of a three-year evaluation, the test scores of African American students participating in New York City's privately funded voucher program were substantially higher than the test scores of comparable students in public schools. The difference in scores - over nine national percentile points - was moderately large, enough to erase almost half of the achievement gap found nationwide between African American and white students." Meanwhile, Harvard and the New York Times are trying to tell us school choice is positively bad for black kids. What rubbish. Posted 4:40 AM | [Link] DUMB CHOICE: [John J. Miller] Harvard's "Civil Rights Project" pulled a nasty little trick yesterday by releasing a report that says religious schools are more segregated than public ones--and today the New York Times features a prominent story on the claim. The timing is obnoxious, considering that this morning the Supreme Court is widely expected to rule in the Cleveland school-choice case. If the Court rules in favor of school choice, as most people seem to anticipate, a lot of TV reporters can be expected to give this Harvard study equal time. I'm skeptical that the study's claims will stand up to scrutiny, but scrutiny will take more than a few hours, and right now that's time nobody has. Posted 4:24 AM | [Link]
BRAINWASHING THE KIDDIES [Andrew Stuttaford] John, A minimum age of ten for the Hitler Youth eh? Well, in the USSR it was possible to become a 'Young Octobrist' from the age of six. Like, it seems, the jihadists, the Soviets wanted to get children signed up to their ideology really, really early. Posted 5:53 PM | [Link] ISSUE AVOIDANCE [Robert A. George] Just for the record, I didn't rip off Jonathan Adler's cogent comments (below). We just happened to be on the same wavelength at the same time. Oh, Jonathan: We'd like the judicial nominations battles AND the upcoming elections both to be waged on "more substantive" issues. But guess what? It's all about issue-avoidance (isn't that a perfect metaphor to describe the general state of the perpetually-in-therapy Baby Boomers running the country?). The Democrats want to avoid the issue of the war (except for how much they "support" it). The Republicans want to avoid just about everything--except for inoculating themselves against an attack on Social Security "privatization." The president seems to want to avoid anything controversial involving domestic policy. Given this state of affairs, hey, the pledge of allegiance might as well do! Posted 5:28 PM | [Link] GOD AND WICCAN AT COURT [Kathryn Jean Lopez] David French points out that the 9th Circuit ruled in 1994 (Brown v. Woodland Joint Unified School District) that using textbooks with Wiccan role-playing scenarios (including spell casting) in public elementary schools is cool. Posted 5:11 PM | [Link] WOOPS [Jonah Goldberg] I wrote too quickly below. I conflated two thoughts by accident. The establishment clause did not have anything to do with constraining established state churches. Indeed, there were established state churches for years after the ratification of the Constitution. So the idea that the state of California can't require the pledge is even goofier. Sorry for the mistake though. I've even written about this before. Posted 4:34 PM | [Link] CONNECT THE DOTS [James S. Robbins] New York Times and Washington Post beefs that the Bush plan does not have a "roadmap" seem to have overlooked salient details such as: calling for local elections in the fall; having presidential elctions shortly after; halting expansion of Israeli settlements; having multilateral final settlement talks; and accomplishing it all in three years. How more specific do they want it? Are they talking about failure to include ballot design? Posted 4:29 PM | [Link] JIHADIST KIDDIES [John Derbyshire] Er, Jonah, these kids are too young for Hitler Youth. You had to be ten. Posted 4:21 PM | [Link] KUDOS TO CNN [Robert A. George] CNN gets a lot of grief for a lot of things (some deserved -- though they get kudos for putting Jonah and yours truly on on Sundays!). Thus, when they do something right, they should be commended. Note the tailend of the pledge story Kathryn posted from the CNN website: "The 9th Circuit is the most liberal and the most overturned appeals court in the country." This is the type of information that almost invariably gets left out of many mainstream news takes. Give CNN some credit on this one! Posted 4:14 PM | [Link] AGENDA ITEM [Robert A. George] Dubya needs to call Poppy to get the address of that flag-making factory visited during the 1988 campaign. Come to think of it, Dubya may have scheduled that first visit himself. Posted 4:13 PM | [Link] POLITICAL MANNA [Robert A. George] Bush may be as lucky as Clinton in some ways. Given all the noise on corporate America, questions on how the war is going, and the battles with Congress on everything from debt-limits to Dept. of Homeland Security, this pledge ruling is exactly the cultural-war gimme that Dubya needs to put some groove back in his step. The NRCC is already sending e-mails around noting the judicial nomination logjam: "Liberal Democrat Tom Daschle and Senate Democrats are holding up 45 of President Bush's judicial nominees who would serve as a counterweight to this type of nonsense. This ruling demonstrates why it is so important that Daschle move on President Bush's judicial nominees." Posted 4:13 PM | [Link] THE POWER OF THE PLEDGE [Jonathan Adler] The 9th Circuit's Pledge of Allegiance decision could actually have interesting political ramifications. Remember how important an issue the pledge became in the 1988 presidential election? Not only might the decision create a useful bogeyman for Republicans in the Congressional elections, it could create an opportunity for Republicans to make judicial nominations a higher profile political issue. While I'd prefer such fights to focus on more substantive matters, it's getting a little late for that. If Neas & Co. want a gutter war over judges, the pledge could make a powerful bludgeon. Posted 4:10 PM | [Link] KILLING A JOKE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A Charlotte columnist having fun with an Onion satire column that was reported as serious news in China. Posted 3:54 PM | [Link] UNGODLY BABBLE [Jonah Goldberg] This Pledge story is going to elicit so much buffoonery over the next few days. I dread it. I'm probably going to write tomorrow's syndicated column on this. But here's a quick preview of how I look at the issue. Belief in God is not belief in religion. Religions -- generically speaking -- are inherently subjective institutional interpretations of God's will as expressed through ritual. You can believe in God and reject all religions. And, as some Unitarians and hyper-secular Jews have taught us, I guess you can even reject God but embrace religion. Regardless, you can also believe that your own religion is the best and only true faith, but as a matter of public policy you must be willing to let others worship incorrectly. Relatedly, the establishment clause of the constitution was never intended to protect atheists from being exposed to the assertion that God exists by government agents. It was put into the constitution to protect smaller Churches and other sects from huge established state Churches or from an American equivalent of the Anglican Church. When atheists whine about the pledge, our money (in God We Trust), the Declaration, the Seals of the Senate, the House, etc. they miss the point that Government is saying nothing about a specific religion. The pledge could say, "One Nation, Under Blue Skies." This would seem like a huge victory for blue-sky worshippers, but that hardly means gray-sky worshippers could sue. In America, most religions happen to be centered on the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. If you don't believe in God or if you worship Satan, trees or bellybutton lint, you may find the pledge of allegiance annoying but you'd be wrong to find it unconstitutional. Posted 3:45 PM | [Link] MORE PLEDGING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The pledge-is-unconstitutional opinion came from one judge on a three-judge panel. Not everyone agreed on nixing God from the pledge. Posted 3:29 PM | [Link] THOSE DAMN YANKEES [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Tennis star Martina Navratilova is not a fan of her adopted homeland, nor, unsurprisingly, of the GOP. Posted 2:42 PM | [Link] CONSIDER THE COURT [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A reader points out that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the most overturned court in the country. Posted 2:22 PM | [Link] "GAY SLUTS ARE BACK": [Rod Dreher] So says this this article from the gay-oriented San Francisco Bay Guardian. The proudly promiscuous author says that despite AIDS scolds within the gay community, a lot of gay men copulate with reckless abandon -- and that that's a great thing. Meanwhile, back east, the new Village Voice is out with it's self-described "Queer Issue," which has the following headline on its cover: "The Return of Public Sex." This too is a good thing, we are told. Yet we are to pay no attention to the man behind the bushes. Posted 2:06 PM | [Link] DO THE JIHADISTS LOVE THEIR CHILDREN TOO? [Jonah Goldberg] I just clicked on the link Kathryn put up below. Jeez. Not to beat this Nazi thing to death, but can anyone say Hitler Youth? Posted 1:58 PM | [Link] FROM THE JUDGES'S MOUTH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The judge's opinion. Posted 1:39 PM | [Link] THIS IS NOT FROM THE ONION [Kathryn Jean Lopez] SAN FRANCISCO (AP) –– A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the Pledge of Allegiance is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion and cannot be recited in schools. Posted 1:33 PM | [Link] BANANAS [Andrew Stuttaford] The good news: A British court has thrown out EU regulations purporting to control just how curved a banana can be. The ridiculous news: The British government is appealing. Posted 1:28 PM | [Link] I GOTTA IDEA! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A reader e-mails: "May a humble Flying Monkey suggest that a new rule be imposed whereby Jonah isn't allowed to play in the Corner until he's finished his G-File for the day? Thanks!" Who am I to deny a humble GFile fan? Posted 12:17 PM | [Link] MEMO TO ROD [Jonah Goldberg] To: RD Fr: JG Re: SF Rod, some ideas for your trip. 1. Check out the Pork Store in the Haight. Don't let the name freak ya out. There's nothing dirty about it, just an outstanding diner. 2. As for story ideas, I've long wanted to write about how SF is the last big city in America with 1970s urban policies. The homelessness is amazing. 3. You could also interview Jonathan Yegge. 4. Last, if you can, check out the giant bear skin in Peter Robinson's office at Hoover. Posted 11:58 AM | [Link] HEY BAY AREA NRO-NIKS: [Rod Dreher] I'm headed out this afternoon for the San Francisco Bay Area, where I'll be a guest at a taping of Peter Robinson's PBS program Uncommon Knowledge. Garry Wills and I will be on to discuss the Church scandal. I'll let you know when the episode will air. I'll be in the Bay Area till Sunday, provided the feral homeless on the streets of San Francisco don't eat me (where's Karl Malden when you need him?), so if you have a good story idea for NRO, drop me a line at rdreher@nationalreview.com. Posted 11:46 AM | [Link] EVERYBODY HATES WORLDCOM: [Rod Dreher] Amazing! I was far from alone in my horrible billing experiences with Worldcom. I'm getting e-mails from all over reporting the exact same problem: continued billing, even after the account was cancelled, followed by rude and utterly incompetent customer service. One reader said it took a solid year for him to free himself from Worldcom's tentacles. Another said he was told by a Worldcom customer service rep, "Fine, we don't need your business anyway." They do now, the jerks. Posted 11:40 AM | [Link] MINORITY OPINION: [Rod Dreher] I dunno, Rich, I saw Minority Report too, and aside from the chase scenes, and the cool thingy that Tom Cruise does with his hands back at police headquarters, I thought it was a dud. I checked out about two-thirds of the way through, and only hung out to see how it ended (what an unbelievable -- as in not credible -- ending). Then again, I was one of only three people in the United States who liked A.I.... . Posted 11:40 AM | [Link] I INTERRUPT THE RICH LOWRY RESEARCH SERVICE.... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Sorry...just had to say that. Posted 11:38 AM | [Link] HELP!: [Rich Lowry] I think I'm going to write about forest fires. If you have any information about logging is good for forests, I would love to hear from you. Posted 11:21 AM | [Link] THANKS…: [Rich Lowry] …for all the column ideas. I won’t be able to thank everyone individually, but I read each one. I’ll let you know how it turns out. Posted 10:29 AM | [Link] IN THE MEANTIME…: [Rich Lowry] …here was the beginning of one of my columns from last week that prompted a lot of hate mail from retirees who read the Arizona Republic: “Americans age 65 and over spend, on average, about $700 a year on prescription drugs. This is a "crisis," and Congress is tripping all over itself to pick up the tab. But consider all the other senior-citizen "crises" that are going woefully unaddressed. Seniors, on average, spend $1,200 a year on dining out. The elderly could save so much on "blue-plate" specials if only the government paid the tab. Seniors drop $800 a year on furnishings. How many recliners--perfect for pushing back and watching the Golf Channel--go unbought because Congress refuses to help pay this bill? 65-and-overs spend $1,000 a year on entertainment. But we persist in forcing them to pay for their own subscriptions to large-print edition of Reader's Digest…” Posted 10:28 AM | [Link] EXCELLENT…: [Rich Lowry] …analysis from stratfor.com on Bush speech: “By making reform and new leadership prerequisites for further American participation in a peace process, the United States has created the framework for its withdrawal from that process. Bush in effect is washing his hands of trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Washington's challenge, however, is not aimed at the Palestinians but at the country that pushed for greater U.S. involvement in the peace process: Saudi Arabia. Riyadh tried to shift U.S. attention from its war against al Qaeda by making resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a key prerequisite for Saudi cooperation on hunting Osama bin Laden's associates and financiers. Bush's speech warns the Saudis that Israel and the Palestinians will no longer serve as a distraction. This means that a Saudi-U.S. confrontation may be on the horizon….” Posted 10:27 AM | [Link] MINORITY REPORT: [Lowry] Saw it with Andrew Stuttaford last night, who was apparently taking a break from his chick flicks. It’s very entertaining, with one excellent chase scene in the middle. Only downside is that it has occasionally soggy moments that reminded me of the DREADFUL, and I mean DREADFUL, A.I. Posted 10:24 AM | [Link] DUGOUT SCUFFLES: [Lowry] You’ve got to love ‘em. Barry Bonds shoved Jeff Kent last night. My favorite internecine battle is, of course, the Billy Martin-Reggie Jackson shoving match during a nationally televised game in Boston in 1978 (although could have been 1977). Posted 10:23 AM | [Link] FROM NYTIMES: [Rich Lowry] “RICHMOND, Va., June 25 — An appellate judge hearing one of the most closely watched cases pitting civil liberties against national security seemed favorable today toward the government argument that an American citizen can be held indefinitely without being charged with anything or represented by a lawyer... In oral arguments here before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, J. Harvie Wilkinson III, the chief judge, appeared incredulous today at Mr. Hamdi's lawyer's assertion that his client — captured during battle and designated an enemy combatant — had any constitutional rights. "What is unconstitutional about the government detaining that person and getting from that individual all the intelligence that might later save American lives?" Judge Wilkinson asked Geremy Kamens, an assistant federal public defender helping to represent Mr. Hamdi." Posted 10:18 AM | [Link] WORLDCOM: HA-HA: [Rod Dreher] I know we should pull a long face over the Worldcom fraud, which is probably going to result in the largest corporate bankruptcy in US history, and is at this very moment dragging the Dow down. No joke, it's a terrible thing, and lots of innocent employees and investors will suffer because of the greed and corruption of the company's directors. Before I stop to think about how devastating this will be, I have to send out a Nelson-y "HA-ha" to that vile company, in its hour of disgrace. A year or so ago, when I was at the New York Post, the company had its cellular business through MCI Worldcom. I was constantly being double-billed by those varlets, and then kept billing me months after I'd cancelled my service. It took weeks of phone calls and angry letters before they finally straightened things out. I am exceedingly polite by training -- that vexing Southern thing I complained about last week -- but by the time we got to the end of the process, I was literally yelling into the phone with a drudge from the so-called "Escalation Team." At long last, I escaped their clutches, but I remember telling my wife that any company that incompetent in dealing with simple billing matters and customer-service requests has serious problems. This morning, quod erat demonstrandum. Posted 9:48 AM | [Link] MALE COMMITMENT ISSUES [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Guys don't want to get married, according to a new study, because they are having all the fun of marriage--without the "till death" parts--as bachelors. Posted 9:18 AM | [Link] FOREIGN-STUDENTS UNION [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A 25-year-old Saudi Arabian man--a student at Marymount University in Virginia--was accused yesterday of taking at least 50 English-language proficiency tests for other foreign-student-visa holders. Posted 9:12 AM | [Link] IT'S HIS NATURE [Jonah Goldberg] If you had any doubt about the kind of man Arafat is, it should be put to rest now. Last week, when Arafat was "condemning" suicide bombings in Israel he was still paying for them. It's in today's Washington Post. Posted 8:36 AM | [Link] BAT RACKET [Kathryn Jean Lopez] If bats move into your place, you're moving out. Posted 7:33 AM | [Link] LEARNING JIHAD EARLY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Posted 7:24 AM | [Link] HILL PATROL [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Hillary Clinton says that the current president is "totally irresponsible" for his failure to adequately address the Amtrak situation. She says it "undermines national security." Posted 7:14 AM | [Link] A CAUSE MARTHA STEWART COULD GET BEHIND [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Reason's Brian Doherty says insider trading shouldn't be a crime. Posted 5:04 AM | [Link] KRUGMAN WATCH: [Ramesh Ponnuru] So I have some time to catch up on reading I didn't get to on Tuesday, when I was busy writing some editorials and helping to edit others. What do you know--another Krugman column, another smear against the Bush administration. PK writes, "It's interesting to note that the planned Department of Homeland Security, while of dubious effectiveness in its announced purpose, will be protected against future Colleen Rowleys: the new department will be exempted from both whistle-blower protection and the Freedom of Information Act." The administration wants the right for the department to waive a section of law that includes whistle-blower protection, but it has not said that it plans to actually dump whistleblower protection. Krugman is presenting a speculation as a fact, doubtless because he doesn't know any better. Posted 2:27 AM | [Link] AND YES,: [Ramesh Ponnuru] I have insomnia. Posted 2:19 AM | [Link] GOOD POLITICAL NEWS: [Ramesh Ponnuru] Sanford "easily" wins in South Carolina. (For why I think this is a good thing, click here.) . . . Mitt Romney can run for governor of Massachusetts. . . . One poll suggests that Republicans are more motivated to vote this fall than Democrats (good news, although it tends to undermine an argument I make in our upcoming issue). . . . and another repulsive Democratic congressman loses a primary. Posted 2:18 AM | [Link]
COURT IN THE ACT? [Andrew Stuttaford] There's a report of an interesting twist on the ICC controversy in Wednesday's Independent. The US has introduced two resolutions into the Security Council to secure immunity from prosecution in the ICC (the new international criminal 'court') for US troops on UN-supported and mandated missions. Britain, along with other EU countries, has been a vocal critical of US hostility to the court. It turns out, however, that the Brits have secured immunity from international prosecution for their troops in Afghanistan. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and nor is there anything wrong with the US pointing out the inconsistency. Posted 8:37 PM | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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