Thursday, November 3. 2005
Dems oppose free speech on internet: Powerline. This should be front-page news, but it won't be....which is why free speech is necessary. Left and Right don't matter: centralization of power is what matters. Cafe Hayek ACLU opposes proof of identity when voting. Cao
Anderson on Detainees and the Geneva Conventions A somewhat lengthy, very thoughtful legal consideration of the advantages to applying the Geneva Conventions to terrorists. The subject is worthy of debate. One excerpt: "Given, however, that the Bush administration engaged in the utter foolishness of taking a bunch of religious fanatics and giving them solely a Koran for reading material, rather than loading them up on decadent Western entertainment and thought, thus reinforcing their sense of martydom and heroically self-referential world view, it seems a little late for arguing about these issues. The US has done more to reinforce anti-American Muslim resentment, paradoxically, by kow-towing so stupidly to supposed Muslim mores, in ways that no Muslim country would do in war or conflict. But if you announce in advance that you are going to make Muslims happy, then you in effect reward further Muslim resentment as a way of getting more reward, and that has been the sole result of all the goofy politically correct multi-culti way in which so much of the cultural side of the war on terror has been run. It was and is a foolish strategy, exemplified at this moment by a person truly out of her depth, Karen Hughes, and by those who dreamed up a strategy in the first place of trying to show the world that the US would be nice to Muslims, even ones trying to kill the infidel. They artificially set the bar for behavior at a level that angels in heaven itself could not meet, and then seemed surprised when the response from the Muslim world was not, look how humane they are, but rather, what have you done for us lately?" Read entire.
Wednesday, November 2. 2005
Carl on Alito and the NYT: "Forget Fox News or newspapers. Bugger the bloggers, on earth or in the MSM. Never mind The National Review. Useless is US News (and World Report). Screw The Standard (Weekly) and the Spectator (American only for now).
They're all reasonable, right and rational, of course. But the best argument for confirming Samuel Alito to replace "Harriet O'Connor" comes from the mixing-results-and-reasoning, misguided, but no doubt typical, liberals who penned the lead editorial in Tuesday's New York Times:" Read the whole thing at No Oil. This guy is a classic blogger, and he shreds the NYT.
Bush on the avian flu. This scare story from Canada is not the dangerous avian flu - just a normal bird flu. Laughter in marriage. Corny, but a good idea. Alito will be confirmed. It's a done deal. All that is left is the posing, posturing, and partisan exploitation for fund-raising purposes.
Times are hard. Children are disobedient, and everyone is writing a blog. Cicero (updated)
Tuesday, November 1. 2005
Top Daily Kos posts on Alito, at Decision 08 (thanks, Irish Pennants) Iran cracks down on mannequins: Ace Let the debate begin: Geo. Will Witches get tax breaks. Should have run this link yesterday. Who uses cell phones the most? Hispanics. Does exercise prevent breast cancer? What is an "extreme right winger"? Am. Thinker Alito: Champion of minority rights. Front Page.
More on Alito. WSJ opinion site: "Meanwhile, liberal interest groups are massing for battle--though this is as much about raising money for the 2006 election as it is about defeating Judge Alito. Red state Democrats won't be eager to filibuster a man of his credentials, especially when polls show that the vast majority of Americans share his views on abortion and church-state issues." Read entire.
Alito: Hewitt, Patterico, Right Thinking, Ex-Donkey, NPR for the Left: View from 1776 Islamic feminists: Protein. Moslems riot in Paris: Atlas El Salvador's secret: Acton Inst. More on Prince Charles: Samizdata MoDo update: No Oil Bush will discuss Avian Flu today at NIH
Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy. Margaret Thatcher
Monday, October 31. 2005
Weekend lighthouse-keepers: CSM Moslems smuggle SAMs into Europe. LGF Christian girls butchered in Indonesia. Michelle Hey, Prince Charles, we really need your insights into Islam: Ankle Biter. Do they feed you condescension food? Further weighty thoughts from Right Thinking Iran, and the western media: Warren Anti-Israel falsehoods in the NYT: Powerline NYT and its Palestinian protection program: Am. Thinker. And quote-cropping at the insidious New York Times: neo-neo Bill Roggio with Col. Davis ( thanks, Instapundit), here. Cover-up worse than crime? RWN
Friday, October 28. 2005
Miers: Good decision. There was just nothing in that story to get excited about. The White House needs to get its act together. Worldwide dismay about Iran's goal to eliminate Israel. But is this news? Interview with Alan Sears re ACLU: Cao Constitution: Dead or Alive? Serious articles at Volokh and Am. Thinker The New Republic has a blog.
Thursday, October 27. 2005
Oil for Food preview: Right Thinking Australian multiculturalism, and moslems: Protein Wisdom
Hanson, on 2000 deaths What a pleasure to see VDH in the NYT: "... like all wars against amorphous insurgencies, the current struggle requires almost constant explanation by the government to show how and why troops are fighting in a necessary cause - and for the nation's long-term security interests. Unless official spokesmen can continually connect the terrible sacrifices of our youth with the need to establish a consensual government in Iraq that might help to end the old pathology of the Middle East, in which autocracies spawn parasitic anti-Western terrorists, then the TV screen's images of blown-up American troops become the dominant narrative. The Bush administration, of course, did not help itself by having put forth weapons of mass destruction as the primary reason for the invasion - when the Senate, in bipartisan fashion, had previously authorized the war on a score of other sensible writs. " Read entire.
New Orleans Pundit-Fest Gelinas in City Journal: "Yes, New Orleans has a 28 percent poverty rate, and yes, New Orleans is 67 percent black. But nearly two-thirds of New Orleans’s blacks aren’t poor. Yes, it’s true that nearly 25 percent of New Orleans’s families live on less than $15,000 a year, according to the 2000 Census. But 19 percent of New York’s families live on less than $15,000—and it’s much more expensive for poor people to live in New York, making them poorer. The median monthly New York rent is $705, and the median monthly mortgage is $1,535—compared with monthly costs of $488 and $910 respectively in New Orleans. Despite the images of collective helplessness broadcast after Katrina, New Orleans does not have a stratospherically high government-dependency rate. In 2002, it had 6,696 families on cash welfare, or 3.6 percent, compared with New York City’s 98,000 families, or 3.2 percent. In 2000, 7.8 percent of New Orleans households received Supplemental Security Income, compared with 7.5 percent in New York. Anyone familiar with New Orleans knows that the city is filled with hard-working people—most of them black. Welfare reform, in New Orleans as in the rest of the country, worked; between 1996 and 2002, Louisiana cut its welfare rolls by 66 percent. The only virtue of New Orleans’s tourism-dependent economy is that those with few skills who want to work can work; the city’s unemployment rate was 5.2 percent during 2004, lower than New York’s 7.1 percent. But not all black New Orleanians are consigned to working as busboys or hotel maids. The city long has had a substantial black middle class, and indeed a black affluent class." Read entire. Walter Williams at Town Hall: "I share Murray's sentiment expressed at the beginning of his article where he says, "Watching the courage of ordinary low-income people as they deal with the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, it is hard to decide which politicians are more contemptible -- Democrats who are rediscovering poverty and blaming it on George W. Bush, or Republicans who are rediscovering poverty and claiming that the government can fix it." Since President Johnson's War on Poverty, controlling for inflation, the nation has spent $9 trillion on about 80 anti-poverty programs. To put that figure in perspective, last year's U.S. GDP was $11 trillion; $9 trillion exceeds the GDP of any nation except the U.S. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita uncovered the result of the War on Poverty -- dependency and self-destructive behavior. Guess what the president and politicians from both parties are asking the American people to do? If you said, "Enact programs that will sustain and enhance dependency," go to the head of the class." Read entire. From Shelby Steele in WSJ: "Probably the single greatest problem between blacks and whites in America is that we are forever witness to each other's great shames. This occurred to me in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, when so many black people were plunged into misery that it seemed the hurricane itself had held a racial animus. I felt a consuming empathy but also another, more atavistic impulse. I did not like my people being seen this way. Beyond the human mess one expects to see after a storm like this, another kind of human wretchedness was on display. In the people traversing waist-deep water and languishing on rooftops were the markers of a deep and static poverty. The despair over the storm that was so evident in people's faces seemed to come out of an older despair, one that had always been there. Here--40 years after the great civil rights victories and 50 years after Rosa Parks's great refusal--was a poverty that oppression could no longer entirely explain. Here was poverty with an element of surrender in it that seemed to confirm the worst charges against blacks: that we are inferior, that nothing really helps us, that the modern world is beyond our reach." Read entire.
Wednesday, October 26. 2005
More problems with pigs in England - it sounds like a joke, but isn't. Instapundit Bush names crony to Fed: Cafe Hayek Wellington Mara died. The eunuchs are really getting out of hand. Eunuch murders eunuch Buying black votes. Michelle Galloway and $600,000. Gee, I thought he was a money-hating socialist. Captain Ed Flaws in levees caused NO flooding Reporters staggering in the wind videos These bozos love this stuff. The Religion bogeyman: Click here: Townhall.com :: Columns :: The 'religion' bogeyman by Tony Snow
Monday, October 24. 2005
4/10 of New Orleans residents say they will never return. Smart. The Week. And thousands of demolitions are scheduled. Lebanon and Syria update: Publius The Milestone Watch: 2000 coming up: LGF Norm updates his country music classics list: The Momma and Daddy Archives. A Brit who loves country music? What a great guy, even if he is a socialist at heart. Pigs and PC in Britain: Cao. Be careful Brits, or you will lose your culture and your country and your freedom. Don't be suckers like Canada - be proud. Happiest countries: Lonely Centrist Bush approval down in SC, abortion poll numbers change. Does the Left believe anything is worth dying for? RWNH Gal Wars: Dowd vs. Miller - Buzzmachine A Modest Proposal: Kill Whitey
Saturday, October 22. 2005
Boston Globe closes its national news offices. This is actually a big deal. Lots of unemployed reporters. Why do it? Because parent NYT is losing $. MassRight Paternal nonsense, in England: Samizdata Details of the War: Good source - Fourth Rail Should Catholics attend Protestant services? Curt Jester More on PC and football team names. Sensible Mom Seen Harriet Miers' blog yet?
Friday, October 21. 2005
Bush is no conservative, says Auster Fox hunting returns to England - with owls? FMFT Islam OK in schools. Christianity is not. And I know why - because the Islamic stuff is condescending PC pandering, and the Christianity might be real. Repubs to cut spending? Shocking - what a startling new idea. The Scrapple-Dude version, and the other version. Is Homeland Security Porkland Security? Duh. Mugabe welcome at the UN? Powerline
Thursday, October 20. 2005
Sheehan goes after Hillary. Bad idea. The new IEDs in Iraq. Jane's Swimming dinosaur in Colorado Steele scaring Dems in Maryland Carville and Greenberg at a loss: How to leverage Repub weakness into Dem success? Am. Spectator Bush vows to send every illegal home. Let's hold him to it. Here. A history of the saxaphone. I mean saxophone. Wetlands politics in DC. CSM
Tuesday, October 18. 2005
Europe will spend 15 BILLION dollars and 15 years to finish this railway. I wonder what that kind of money and time commitment could do in Africa for the AIDS program, doesn't matter though as the Americans have assumed that responsibility as well. read further here:http://www.travelwirenews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000061/006161-p.htm "Look Ma I'm on top of the world," read more on the world's tallest railway in China: Click here: http://www.travelwirenews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000061/006162-p.htm Wilma: This is not a misprint, I repeat not a misprint. As Wilma looms, the 20 something hurricane of the season, Marriott announces you can reserve your room at one of 12 hotels in the city of New Orleans on November 1. I suppose the first exciting tourist event will be to watch the locals evacuate again. for more on this strange human phenomenon, read here: Click here: New Page 1
Group-Think, In action A propos of the Barrister's piece yesterday on political correctness and thought police, here are two pieces: First, a pro-immigration piece from the San Diego Union-Tribune, in which the author makes no distinction between legal and illegal immigration: Click here: Nativism and the immigration issue | The San Diego Union-Tribune Second, a piece by Steyn pointing out the refusal of the MSM to call Islamic jihadists "Islamic jihadists": Click here: Media utters nonsense, won't call enemy out
Monday, October 17. 2005
Driving the EU Nations Nuts: This kind of thing must be totally exasperating - LGF, "Send in the clowns." Equally absurd is the way they calculate their poverty statistics: Samizdata. What's wrong with these people? Correcting some of the Mao story: New Criterion Elian's friend, Fidel. Cafe Hayek Cutting taxes for the "little guy"? View from 1776 Did El Baradei get Bush's Nobel? Debka Austin Bay analyzes the Zawahiri letter. Here.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve it by not dying. Woody Allen (Thanks, Dr. Bob)
Saturday, October 15. 2005
Happy Birthday, Maggy (Thatcher), with quotes: Right nation Commerce Clause, by an amateur: Protein Classical Music has 3% of the internet music market. Not bad, really, considering our junk culture. MR More fake TV news: Owner's Manual Lock 'n load in Alabama: Pennywit. I always figger that the sound of a pump gun chambering a shell in the dark would make anyone run like hell. Now airguns? See where gun control leads? Ridiculous. FMFT. When will they outlaw pea-shooters? 4000 year-old noodles. Yum. Norm
Friday, October 14. 2005
Pinter? Schwartz: "Pinter is an exhausted English playwright whose sole and obvious current qualification for the prize is his strident participation in the America-baiting, Israel-hating protests against the liberation of Iraq." Harsh negativity also from Ace of Spades, Guardian naturally more positive. AP more neutral. North Country - A Bowl of Cliches - LLBS Dutch ban burquas: maybe they are getting smart. LGF Brady Campaign Against Guns tries to freak out Florida travelers, here: Click here: http://www.travelwirenews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000061/006111-p.htm More on the wetlands litigation: Click here: Supreme Court Takes Up 2 Cases Challenging Powers of U.S. Regulators to Protect Wetlands - New York Times Journalism and poverty: Buzzmachine. What is this idea that it is somehow noble not to make a decent living? California touts its ghosts to tourists. Very lame. Ducks Unlimited and Katrina restoration, here.
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