Maggie's Farm

Ahmadinejad seems like a nut, but the conflicts he provokes with the West strengthen his standing with his constituency. But wiser heads are slowly leaving his side. We have to remember that Iran has a history of western ties, and westernization. It's not an Iraq.

Philosophy in a New Key: The classic is on Norm's list, with an essay.

How could anyone be this stupid and insensitive ? Someone should riot and burn an embassy or two.

Raising Boys that Feminists will Hate. Giles.

We are not "running out of oil."

Government cannot give you love. Rev. Sirico in Detroit News

Mugabe: All you need to know about this friend of Fidel. Front Page

Teacher: Blame the Student. Everything Dan says in this thoughtful piece seems right to me.

Is swimming in syrup slower or faster than swimming in water?

Is the White House staff burned out?

Oriana Fallaci, Swiss speech codes, and European dhimmitude: Atlas

The US moves against Iran. CA Yank

Stuck in Lodi Again? Zawahiri has been in the US

Clooney's lies about McCarthy, etc. the Prof. Can we say that McCarthy was wrong, but right? Truthiness?

Driven to a life of crime. What a nutjob. Moonbattery. What do you call a movement of one?

Sopranos: Wonderful television, although the trip through the sewer always leaves a bad taste. When Tony started singing in the kitchen, we knew trouble was coming.

Bravo, Harper. Harper visits his troops in Afghanistan.

Two from Cap'n Ed:  A good reason to fire an employee, and France's latest kindergarten  student rebellion:

This reaction shows exactly why France will not reform its socialist economy -- too many people have invested themselves into the notion that government force should dictate terms of employment. Under these conditions, foreign investment will be more difficult to procure, as corporations will not want to subject themselves to funding a nanny state where workers cannot be terminated regardless of their work habits. The students who protest against high unemployment have kneecapped themselves and all but guaranteed that their problems will only worsen.

De Villepin had the right idea, or at least the right start to the right idea. His modest proposal would have allowed French firms to take chances on younger workers, usually less reliable than those with more responsibilities. With so many looking for work, these employers do not want to waste a position on someone lacking a track record of reliability, especially since they can't get rid of an employee once hired. Why should employers take risks like that with students and new graduates, especially with their attitude of entitlement as expressed in the protests at the Sorbonne?

Steyn: How Liberal Britain let Hate Flourish. The same Steyn who is no longer writing for any Brit newspaper...

Meathead provides a perfect case study of how the worst of liberal politics works.

More on the Roe v. Wade For Men.

Need a good travel company for this summer? Club ABC wins Maggie's Seal of Approval.

Mardi Gras in Iraq. Nice.

Tom Friedman lives in a world of his own.

Tom Fox was tortured before he was shot. Was he a Christ-like man, or a foolish tool? Something tells me that this sort of behavior makes no positive impression on Jihadists. Doesn't that organization know that the Jihad hates Christians as much as Jews.

And on a similiar note, the pious and feckless Jimmy Carter is subjected to some harsh criticism here.

Everyone is talking about Dr. Sultan, the LA psychiatrist who gave the Jihadists a tongue-lashing on Al Jazeera, and is now the recipient of death threats.

The mess in Darfur, summarized in the CSM. How does anyone help people so determined to create mayhem, and so lacking in what we rightly term "civilization"?

Is Google chosing evil over good? Clockwork Google.

LGF noted that The Telegraph removed this article on Moslems in Britain from their website.

In praise of The Sopranos. The final season.

Whatever happened to the people of Easter Island? New theory.

Good debate on the economics of medical care. TCS. It seems that the wealthier a nation is, the more they spend on education and medical treatment - if given the choice to do so. Maybe we should trust folks to make their own decisions? Those are rational adult choices. (And, by the way, when people talk about the "uninsured" they never tell you how many of those are temporarily uninsured, or illegals, do they? Government power grabs always create a "crisis" to justify it.)

Tom Wolfe praises America. Hey, intellectuals aren't supposed to do that.

Billary in bed with evil evil Wall-Mart.

The $20 million bedbugs. Woops. A little problem with their case. Remember the bumper-sticker: "Please hit me. I need the money."?  I heard this con-gal on the radio. "I was sooooooo upset. Bug bites all over me, blood..." etc etc. "Booo-hoooo." Throw these grifters out of court, and ban them from the Nevele.

If women don't have to bear a child they don't want, why should men have to support a child they don't want? Fun is for fun, and Fair is fair.

We'd need to invent her for humor, except she provides it herself. The ongoing Cindy Sheehan comic strip.

All of the sheep issues, combined. Paxety.

The press and the Left has wanted Iraq to = Vietnam. That silliness should be over now. I hope our pal Dinocrat doesn't mind if we quote at length from his excellent piece on Muslim bias in the MSM:

When the story was just about Iraq, the MSM could set the following template: the Bush administration is responsible for the deaths of many innocent Iraqi citizens because of its incompetent planning and execution of the war. Moreover, US soldiers are known to have been involved in abuse and torture, and in any event, the terrorists were not in Iraq until the lying Bush and his WMD talk bungled America into the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s all Bush’s fault. Hmmmm, the MSM perhaps sound like the leading figures of one of our two great political parties, do they not? Those themes ran through 2003, the MSM and Democrat campaign of 2004, and right up to Jack Murtha in 2005. Almost every newscast, a new bombing, a new body count, and the subtext that it was all Bush’s fault. Then something changed. The MSM lost control of the template.

The template fell apart in stages. First there was the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, a man who made clear his intentions to wipe Israel off the map and to make Jihad a global goal, well beyond anything having to do with Iraq. Next came the election of Hamas in Palestine, a crystalline moment when political power shifted to the leading group manufacturing suicide bombers, and whose charter and raison d’etre was the destruction of the Jewish state — again, nothing to do with Iraq. The final straw came with the cartoon riots. The cartoon riots not only destroyed the old media template (”Iraq is Vietnam”), but it created a new one (”Muslims are totally out of control”). Previously, the MSM had no problem whatsoever showing car bombings and suicide attacks in Iraq — such violence was the mainstay of Iraqi coverage. Despite the MSM’s senstivitiy to Islamic issues in their precious refusal to show the cartoons, they could hardly refuse to show the riots in Damascus and Beirut and in Pakistan and Indonesia and elsewhere, and the torching of embassies — these things were not only news, they were well within the scope of previous reporting. Only now the context was entirely different.

Who pays attention to the Poles? Capn Ed does. They are tired of the EU.

UN=US? Who wants to invade Darfur? Nobody wants to. What a mess. Austin Bay

The Ivy League faculty Hates You. And they are better than you, too:

Yale's behavior illustrates how bankrupt academic liberalism has become. Other than deeply-rooted anti-Americanism, I can think of no coherent theory that would justify admitting a former Taliban official as a Yale student while not permitting the U.S. military to talk to Yale students on campus.

A day in the life of a Chinese internet officer.

Do not mess with Voltaire in France. Moslems trying to, but they are making themselves highly unwelcome, all across the globe. France seems to believe in two things: Easy life, and the Prophet Voltaire. Time for the Moslems to begin learning to understand other cultures.

The MSM continues to campaign for the Dems. Why isn't it required that such MSM reporting be a campaing contribution? Distortion of facts is politics, not reporting.

Warren Buffet says you're paying too much for financial advice.

No diversity of opinion at Duke. Students plan to shut down Horowitz. Why so fearful of ideas?

Berkeley High Schools finally find something easy to teach.

What will the world do with Iran? Iran threatens US with pain and harm. Why can't we all just get along?

Autumn of the Humanities. Kriegel at TCS:

"We have recently witnessed something of a debate on the "science gap" between American universities and the rest of the world. We did not witness, however, any debate on the state of humanities in American universities. This is not because "all is well" in the world of the humanities. On the contrary, they are in a much sorrier state than anything imaginable in the sciences. It is just that the humanities have been satisfied with the status quo, and their decline has remained opaque to themselves."

Media Refuses to Report Moslem Violent Events. So thoughtful of them to protect us from truth. Blankley at RCP

If the Jihadists win:

A Canadian newspaper which is "too sensitive"
to publish Mohammed
cartoons: SDA. This is right out of Orwell.

The Encyclopedia of American Conservatism.

More on Space Tourism. $20 million. I guess nobody considers that the Earth is already in space. Earth is already a Space Tourism destination. I recommend Turkey, Scotland, and Cape Cod as fine destinations on this outer space Life Planet of Solar System #CD-397-4007-29D-300705T.

A tourism boycott of South Dakota? : A law banning nearly all abortions without exception for cases of rape or incest in South Dakota was signed Monday by Governor Mike Rounds prompting women’s groups to call for a tourism boycott of the state. http://www.travelwirenews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000078/007821-p.htm

12 million illegals in US.

As Canada begins to undo its socialized medicine, California proposes marching boldly into the past.

Hamas opens kiddie website to encourage child martyrs.

The Pope's new iPod.

The new battle for the soul money of the Dem Party.

Brit Marxists attack Islam. H/T, Protein Wisdom

Showing your Ass at the NAACP.

What is the Dem agenda? They cannot decide. More socialism, plus defeat? Politics is disgusting. Is "Not Bush" enough? Balloon.

Popular Mechanics is becoming a hot magazine. They deal with Katrina myths, via here.

Why do newspapers pretend they have no political agendas? What do they have to lose?

With housing values rising, property taxes rise too. And politicians get to use the $ to buy votes. Then the regular folks feel exploited, and get mad.

India is within the Circle of Fire - the Jihad. The latest.

Dem-minded Lefties declare victory! Meaning defeat!

University of South Alabama stands tall. So much for the elite colleges.

The Admin. is so out to lunch on immigration that it isn't funny. Who are they talking to? Are they really idiots on this subject? Hey, GW - it's our country.

The Trevor Green story captures all of the unreported nuance that is needed about Moslem blood-lust. Normblog.

The problem with the French economy. Teach people to be children, and they will act like children.

Reconstructing American Indian languages. Useless, but interesting.

Barry Bonds and steroids. A sad, bad, story.

Davidson College. It's a hot school, but can you get a date there? New campus speech code prevents "inquiries about dating."  How about inquires about raw, uncommitted, transgender, gay, or lesbian sex? Is heterosexual dating the big evil? How will this be enforced?

Santorum. No idea why he has been in trouble. He has a tough fight, but he's a nice guy.

Not your father's Britain. Submission in the UK. I ask again - Why does the Left always welcome submission?

And even worse: The Nanny State of the UK will now provide Nannies. We are rapidly losing respect, cousins. What happened to noble Self-Reliance? Is it now a Brit thing to have other people pay your bills? Where is the honor in that?

Yet another good blogger burns out. The blog voice of Tennessee: One Hand Clapping. If the pay were better...like about $700,000 with good benefits and equity, it would be a pretty decent gig, assuming you don't live on the coasts.

The Right to Ridicule. Ridicule is a cruel, humorous, necessary, often clever, and time-honored form of discourse. Dworkin in the NY Review of Books discusses why we must preserve and protect it.

Porsche: Made in Finland with VW parts. Outsourcing in the Auto industry.

Why the Dems refuse to acknowledge Saddam-Al Quaida links. Duh. We hardly need Barone's talents to explain this.

Iran came out of the closet over the weekend and revealed that it has played the EU for suckers. Yesterday, Hamas did the same. I think these guys know they have civilization on the run. LGF.

And now we find that Iran is participating in the war in Iraq. Surely they know that the US is not up for one more war in the middle east.

Most out-of-control school in the US? Why doesn't somebody call the cops? The thought of good kids in that school, who want to learn, breaks my heart. It is too damn bad that the kids who want to be left behind, can't be, nowadays. Not enough unskilled and semi-skilled work and skilled workers - or the Guatemalan illegals do all of it for peanuts. Stoneworkers get $30/hr; gunsmiths make $100/hr. There's lots of work out there for kids who hate school. My local camera/TV/VCR etc repair guy gets $175/hr.

Blogger Ed Driscoll reviews Instapundit's new book about future trends, An Army of Davids. Quote from the book:

"I think the way that you make it in the 21^st century is going to be figuring out a way to help a lot of people do what they want, rather than as in the 20^th century, trying to figure out a way to make them do what you want."

Schwartz at TCS on New Visions for European Islam. Wow. One quote:

Western Europeans are, I fear, spiritually exhausted; and they express their "Christian" loyalties only as a means of declaring they are not Muslims. They are afraid of Muslims, but mainly because they are insecure about their own religious legacies. The peoples of New Europe -- Poles, Hungarians, Slovenes, Romanians, and even some other citizens of former Yugoslavia -- survived Communism thanks to their spiritual commitments, often to traditional Catholicism. They are stronger in their Christian belief and are in a better position to view Islam without fear. With these thoughts in mind, as executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, I went to Slovenia and Croatia in February for university and think-tank conferences on European Islam and the "Balkan Muslim model."

Hillary can't remember Bill's Dubai ties. OK. Gotta believe her. I am concerned that her memory problem may be getting worse.

Cyberthieves. This is creepy.  (H/T, Part-time Pundit)

Yet another poll demonstrating that illegal immigration bothers people.

Getting your kid into school in NYC: It's all about me. Shrinkwrapped.

A guy who loves stray dogs. This is great. CSM

Murtha terms Gen. Pace a Liar.

Taliban at Yale. Jeez. John Fund stays on the story.

From Ace:

Little rule(s) I've learned:

Anyone who says looks don't matter is probably not very attractive.

Anyone who says book-smarts aren't the measure of intelligence probably has trouble getting through a comic book.

And anyone who says that political labels mean nothing at all, especially the label "liberal," is probably slightly to the left of Pol Pot's junior economic advisor, the one Pol Pot ignored as "too utopian and impractical."

Crocodile Tears and Censorship. Moonbattery. Whatever happened to "sticks and stones'''?

Was there something on TV last night? I didn't watch it.

Will Bush's major diplomatic success in India get the credit it deserves?

IPTV - Internet Protocol TV. It's the newest rage. What is it? Blogcritics.

Art Buchwald is dying, by choice - slowly but relatively happily. via Drudge

Iran admits playing Europe for fools.Capt'n Ed

Three Blind Mice? They run about $250.

Was the Halimi story blacked out? Bird of Paradise

Police Chiefs on access to firearms. They approve.

How to Win your Own Oscar. Cracked.

Strunk and White, 4th Edition. On sale. We love it but we don't obey it.

Recoil. Mr. Free Market takes on the pressing subject.

Some thoughts about writing new laws when existing laws "don't work." We have all thought about this, but Classical Values wrote it down.

Thought Crime in England. This is bad. We are permitted bad thoughts legally, although the sin thing is another matter.

Broken penis. Ouch is right. Hey, girl - go easy on me. I am not a machine. Kevin, MD

Chavez, his new army (should help with his unemployment), and his delightful links with Iran. What a nice guy. 

College newspaper editors fired for running Moslem cartoons. WTF? We'd do it in a second. Sometimes publishers need to be ill-mannered, if only to mark the right of freedom. Manners are good, but they aren't the law.

Unbelievable. Video at BKP. We need to "work harder to understand" these people.

What country does Jimmy Carter live in? LGF

Everybody is talking about this Bennish teacher character. Sounds like standard Dem boilerplate to me. If Colorado weren't paying him to teach geography, it would be no biggie. Normal stuck-in-the-1960s. Wow - I am cool - I have radical ideas!!! Yup, very advanced in 1905. Comments from Classical Values.

Lent, from David Warren. One quote:

It is not a simple joy. Abstaining from customary pleasures is hard, can be very hard, and so can be the shame one feels each time one falls off the wagon -- which happens to everyone who tries to ride against the grain of his habits through forty days and nights. Lenten resolutions are not made to oneself, but to God. Part of the discipline is to get clear in my head that when I fail, I am not merely failing myself. For in the Christian view, I am letting down my sinless Lord, who for his own penance, nailed the sins of the world with Himself to the Cross. Take each failure as the crowing of a cock to Peter; then rise, and return manfully to the struggle.

Now, this is not likely the sort of thing you are used to reading in a newspaper. I am immensely grateful to have editors who do not demand that I conceal my “Christian content”; I hope they will continue. At the worst, it is not a dangerous activity. We are not proposing to kill anybody. The “mortification of the flesh” that is proposed can have no meaning unless it is voluntary; just as Christian belief is deprived of meaning when it is compelled. We may proselytize, however, as we have been doing wherever there is freedom, for two thousand years.

Does everyone know by now that Bill Clinton helped with the Dubai deal? I think the entire ports thing is a non-issue.

The dark side of China's economic rise: Pei on corruption, cronyism, and neo-Leninism.

Arthur J. Dahlgren, Jr  to Strike Fla. Panhandle?  National Weather Service to give hurricanes full names next year.

Borders wars. What is going on down there? Hey, GW??? Wash. Times

Anger at AOL for its plan to charge for email. Why shouldn't they charge for it? Give me one good reason.

Are there too many people on the earth? Earth's population has doubled since 1960. Is it a problem? Of course it is.

Can you have Bible study at the Univ. of Wisconsin? Now you can. But wait... one student felt "uncomfortable" about it. Have we raised a nation of infants?

Happiness, Jeremy Bentham, and high taxes to reduce envy! Good piece by Wilkinson at Reason. (H/T, Samizdata)

Whither Conservatism? The goal of a smaller federal govt is as elusive as ever. Rick Moran proposes "good govt" rather than smaller govt.

Minneapolis blacks love their charter schools. From a piece titled "Black Flight" in Opinion Journal:

According to the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute, Minneapolis charter school enrollment is 91% minority and 84% low-income, while district enrollment is 72% minority and 67% low-income. Joe Nathan, the center's director, says that parents want strong academic programs, but also seek smaller schools and a stable teaching staff highly responsive to student needs. Charter schools offer many options. Some cater to particular ethnic communities like the Hmong or Somali; others offer "back to basics" instruction or specialize in arts or career preparation. At Harvest Preparatory School, a K-6 school that is 99% black and two-thirds low income, students wear uniforms, focus on character, and achieve substantially higher test scores than district schools with similar demographics.

The Cotillion gals are carrying. Do not mess with them. They quote Colt: "Have no fear of any man no matter what his size. When danger threatens call on me, and I shall equalize."

Good sounds from the Supremes. They sound skeptical about campaign finance regulation - which means maybe they support free political speech. Gee, that's a good idea. Captain Ed

Ann Coulter's Oscar predictions. (I haven't seen a single one of these movies, and haven't heard of most of them.)

Can you write negative blog posts about your employer? No, not if you want to keep your job. WaPo. Duh? is right.

The French Quarter Festival this year - including Dylan. Dylan loves New Orleans.

"Because they hate."  Brigitte Gabriel at the Intelligence Summit.

A Marine. This will make you feel GOOD.

Is Science all it's cracked up to be? Be careful. John at P'line. Scientists play games, too...political ones. Shame on them.

Speciesism. This used to be a joke. Well, still is, really - even for those who love animals, whether alive in the woods or steaming on the stove. A major and fascinating piece on the subject by Appleton at Spiked.

Is the true purpose of the EU to bring Socialist Totalitarianism? Could be. They certainly seem to want to control everything, including whether you cut your toenails straight or on a curve.

A fresh and objective look at Jacques Derrida, the enfant terrible of the complacent. What about his relationship with God? Caputo at Crosscurrents.

Los Angelinos freak out when it rains. Good grief. No wonder they are such babies out there. Hey, Southern Californians - skin is waterproof.

Mindless cant on assimilation of Moslems, covered by Driscoll

If you think politics and religion don't mix - try politics and government medicine. Canadian hospital bans more hip replacements - too efficient?!?!?!

The Left always blames the victims. So says Prager.  What did we evil ones do to piss them off? If something pisses me off, how come I don't receive the same consideration?  I guess it's complicated...