Musings Archive June 2003
Monday, June 30, 2003 PRIVACY AND SECURITY: HotWired has an interesting interview with Nuala O'Connor Kelly, the chief privacy officer for the Department of Homeland Security. Kelly justifiably will have a difficult time balancing the interests of privacy with the department's focus on anti-terrorism activities.
WN: Some have suggested that your primary job is to provide good PR for homeland defense, not to make real changes in how the government handles private data. Your response to that?
O'Connor Kelly: I've heard that comment (I think I read it in Wired, in fact), and I have to confess to being quite baffled by it.
I have no background in PR, and I haven't been in Washington long enough to know how to "spin" things. People who know me know how hard I work now, and how hard I worked at DoubleClick to make good decisions internally for the organization. Perhaps I should have demanded more credit externally, but that part of the job never occurred to me.
I do think it's incredibly important to be transparent and accountable and accessible. We owe it our citizens, our customers, our clients, to explain what it is we're doing.
If that's PR, then I suppose it's part of the job. But I don't think of it as PR; I think of it as communicating accurately and responsibly to citizens so that they are aware of what their government is up to ... so that they can make informed judgments about those activities. Apparently, I've done a really poor job of PR on my own behalf, as I think that most of my work was internal to the organizations I've been a part of, and apparently those on the outside didn't know the scope of it.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:54 PM EST [Link]
~ LAST CALL...THE WORDS I DREAD HEARING: It's last call for entries for the International Policy Network's 2003 Frederic Bastiat Prize for Journalism. Winners receive $10 000 so if you're a writer who's had work published over the last year promoting the institutions of a free society I don't know why you wouldn't enter.
Visit http://www.policynetwork.net/bastiatprize/ and find full info on how to enter (email acceptable!). Today is the deadline...get to it!
Posted by steve @ 03:40 PM EST [Link]
~ GOODBYE STROM: If you are looking for a remembrance the late Sen. Thurmond's colorful side, conspicuously missing from my piece eulogizing him, look no further than ESR senior writer Jackson Murphy. In addition to recounting the Sue Logue story, he writes: "On a day when the US Supreme Court ruled that sodomy is a-okay with them, it isn't surprising that conservative Strom Thurmond (1902-2003) decided to check out of this world. As Homer Simpson would say, 'the ironing is delicious.'" Read more about Strom and Dennis Thatcher.
There's also no beating Florence King's 1999 review of Ol' Strom, now running in The American Prowler. Simply King at her best - and she ain't bad even when she's at her worst.
Posted by antle @ 09:11 AM EST [Link]
~ MEMO TO JUSTICE THOMAS' CRITICS - SHUT YOUR PIEHOLES: Eugene Volokh has written a magnficient takedown of critics who say that Clarence Thomas should vote to uphold racial preferences because they presume he is a beneficiary of them. First posted at GlennReynolds.com, it is now running in FrontPage Magazine.
Thomas has always been singled out for criticism from hypocritical liberals who seem to think that he and other blacks "owe" them something. It is to his great credit that he has never paid them any mind.
Posted by antle @ 08:44 AM EST [Link]
~ CERTAINLY AN ODD MIX: The New York Times Magazine has a story on Adam Wildavsky, a champ at the card game bridge, who owes his success at the game to Ayn Rand.
Read on. (Free registration required or use account: musingsblog, pass: cookie)
Posted by steve @ 12:51 AM EST [Link]
~ INTO THE BREACH DEAR FRIENDS!: I mean this seriously. Since the death of The Report on Monday I've been smoking a lot of cigarettes and I've been thinking a lot. I want to launch a conservative magazine in Canada.
A lot of you are probably thinking one of two things. First, you must be thinking I'm mad to even contemplate entering an arena that just saw the death of its only representative. I think the failure of The Report was a unique event, a believable contention if you've read the numerous blog entries (especially over at Jeremy Lott's blog) by its newly unemployed staff. The Report may have had its problems but I think at least some of them were created internally. I think a conservative magazine can prosper in this country and only needs someone to step up and begin the hard work of launching it. As I told Lott earlier this week, if two guys without j-school credentials can launch a weekly in Los Angeles then I can't see how a few brave souls can't launch a national conservative magazine in Canada. The economics can work and there's no lack of talented conservative writers in Canada. Heck, we'd start with a ready made staff if even half the people laid off by The Report came onboard.
Second, you're probably thinking that of all the people who should be arrogant enough to want to start an endeavor like this, it shouldn't be me. Fair enough. I realize that ESR is far from being a polished gem. If it's any good it's because of the talented writers who have to put up with me. I'm still willing to give it a shot though even if just to cheer the effort on if someone else shoulders the load and receives the glory.
So what's the next step? Money of course. Launching a magazine requires capital. Unfortunately we don't have a Canadian version of Richard Mellon Sciafe (at least not that I'm aware of) and I don't think Conrad Black is particularly eager to spend any of his money returning to the Canadian journalism industry. Outside of a few major organizations like the Fraser Institute, who have their own publications, there's little in the way of a conservative infrastructure in this country. We were so eager to elect conservative politicians that we seem to have forgotten to do some major work.
That said, I think this country is ripe for a 1960s style National Review-esque conservative awakening though we are missing a national leader at the moment. I think it isn't pie in the sky dreaming to think that we can begin laying the ground work for a conservative movement by launching a conservative magazine and seriously begin the process of having conservatives across Canada debate and network with each other. There are a surprising number of conservatives in Canada and we can inspire and motivate them with a dynamic and forward looking magazine.
So...am I merely shouting out into the wilderness or are there people out there as interested in doing something like this as I am? Don't be a stranger, the email address is editor@enterstageright.com.
Posted by steve @ 12:28 AM EST [Link]
~ DUBYA AND THE RIGHT: There's an interesting article in the New York Times about the strong support President Bush enjoys from conservatives, which I found via Ramesh Ponnuru in The Corner.
Let me start by saying that Bush has been more conservative than his father and has definitely done some good things. Overall, I think he's been better than I expected when I was beating up on him in the pages of ESR during the 2000 presidential campaign.
But there are a couple of things that concern me about this article. One is that it highlights the divisions between conservatives and libertarians I have been writing about recently: The movement conseratives seem to think everything is going just fine with this administration while movement libertarians are up in arms about it. My second concern is that it doesn't seem to take a whole lot more than access, influence and proximity to power to impress a lot of Beltway conservatives. For example, they are implying that he might be better than Reagan when his record does not yet support any such contention. Wayne LaPierre is praising Bush in the context of the Second Amendment while he plans to renew the assault weapons ban. There is no mention of the need to even slow the growth of government, which probably explains why there isn't any criticism of things this administration has done to make government bigger and no concern expressed about the Medicare prescription drug benefits.
I'm not saying that conservatives should be looking for a Pat Buchanan (or a more free-market conservative) to run against Bush in the primaries or that the president isn't worth supporting in 2004. I just think that conservative activists and intellectuals need to set their goals a little higher and actually use their influence to point the administration in the right direction, rather than simply rubber-stamping all its policies. I know that some of this happens, particularly behind the scenes, but I get the sense that this doesn't happen enough. Articles like these reinforce that sense.
Posted by antle @ 12:25 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, June 29, 2003 I ALWAYS HAD A THING FOR HER: Katharine Hepburn died today at the age of 96.
For all of us guys who like our women strong, intelligent and sassy, Hepburn was the personification of that in her movies. You can't beat Woman of the Year, The Philadelphia Story or...well, a bunch of them. Rest in peace Kate.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:31 PM EST [Link]
~ DEAN MEETS THE PRESS: I missed the "Meet the Press" episode where everyone said Howard Dean had a disastrous appearance. I just read the transcript and, wow, were they right.
A lot of people are also making much of the fact that Dean won MoveOn.org's web primary while Dennis Kucinich came in second. Couldn't you imagine an on-line Republican primary in 1996 where Pat Buchanan came in first and Alan Keyes came in second? In fact, if I remember correctly, there was a straw poll in Virginia where that is essentially what happened. The results of any poll where just ideological activists vote need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Posted by antle @ 06:01 PM EST [Link]
~ EXPORTING JOBS, IMPORTING ECONOMIC MYTHS: It's good to see someone responding to myth that free trade is primarily responsible for exporting jobs overseas. William Anderson over at Mises.org does a good job dispelling it here.
Of particular interest was his criticism of some trade-related articles by Paul Craig Roberts, a commentator and Reagan administration veteran I admire. I've also noted Roberts' apparent turn toward protectionism in the pages of ESR.
Posted by antle @ 04:15 PM EST [Link]
~ FORGET ANYMORE TAX CUTS: This Medicare prescription drug benefit is probably the dumbest thing the Bush administration has done on domestic policy yet. If this passes, particularly with many of the provisions contained in the Senate version backed by Ted Kennedy, it will grow government and potentially worsen the looming entitlements crisis. Additionally, by assuming this new burden the administration will make it more difficult to ask for tax cuts in the future, even as real-income bracket creep and the alternative minimum tax conspire to raise tax bills automatically.
Donald Lambro at the Washington Times reports that conservatives aren't happy. And they shouldn't be.
Posted by antle @ 04:03 PM EST [Link]
~ YOU GO, GIRL! FEMINISTS ROCK: The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Hillary got quite a reception from people who turned out to see her in her "smart black pant suit" and get their copies of Living History signed. Of course, some fine Freepers also showed up to tell the other side of the story.
Posted by antle @ 03:28 PM EST [Link]
~ AT $2000 I WAS PRICED OUT: Despite the fact that I spent the night in the company of three attractive women, I think I would have rather been in Los Angeles. Dennis Miller gave a stand up routine during a Bush fundraiser. Okay, I'm not so sure I'd rather have been in LA...
Bush remained offstage until after Miller's often caustic comic performance during the fund-raiser that drew in $3.5 million, most of it in $2,000 checks from 1,600 people.
For instance, he took aim at West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, a Democratic elder statesmen who has questioned the Iraq war and its chaotic aftermath.
Even some in the crowd of Republican loyalists booed when Miller said of Byrd: "I think he must be burning the cross at both ends."
Responding to the boos, Miller said: "Well, he was in the (Ku Klux) Klan. Boo me, but he was in the Klan."
Who were these people that booed? Democrats who walked into the wrong room?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:23 AM EST [Link]
~ MAYBE DUBYA HAD AN EFFECT: Days after George W. Bush suggested Liberia's president should step down, he announces he's sort of doing it.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:08 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, June 28, 2003 WELL HE IS A POLITICIAN: Howard Owens has come to the conclusion that Howard Dean is a spinner of the truth. He comes to that conclusion after a particularly hilarious exchange between Dean and Tim Russert last week. It's funny when people hang themselves with their own words.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 08:03 PM EST [Link]
~ PRIVATIZE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: Richard Cooper, the NY chair of the Libertarian Party of Nassau County has launched a petition supporting the idea that air traffic control is not a government responsibility. Full details and the petition here.
Posted by steve @ 05:49 PM EST [Link]
~ IRANIAN STUDENTS RECEIVE SUPPORT: Four Iranian members of parliament have launched a sit in today to protest the government's treatment of students during their recent protests across Iran.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:32 PM EST [Link]
~ MISSING MEN FOUND: Two American servicemen reported missing in Iraq have been found dead. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:28 PM EST [Link]
~ SMART MOVE: "Israel and the Palestinians reached a disengagement deal in the Gaza Strip and Hamas said it decided to suspend attacks on Israelis -- dramatic moves driven by U.S. pressure to bolster a Middle East peace "road map."
"The deal on an Israeli troop pullback in Gaza was announced before Saturday's visit to the region by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice as Israel and the Palestinians jockeyed for pride of place in pushing forward the U.S.-backed peace plan."
Everyone knows not to mess with our Condi.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:37 AM EST [Link]
~ SHUT UP: "North Korea accused the United States on Friday of planning to pull its troops away from South Korea's border with the communist North to prepare for a pre-emptive attack."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:31 AM EST [Link]
Friday, June 27, 2003 CONSERVATIVE OR NOT, HE'S DAMNED FUNNY: Comedian Dennis Miller will make his first appearance tonight on Hannity and Colmes on the Fox News Channel as a weeky contributor.
Duncan Currie says that Miller isn't a conservative but he was never as liberal as liberals liked to believe. True enough, but he was always a man of principle. I still remember a stand up he did after Adm. James Stockdale was mocked by people when his hearing aid failed during the Vice Presidential Debate back in 1992. It was profanity laced, as most Miller rants are, but he essentially blasted Americans for mocking Stockdale -- who suffered punctured ear drums while being tortured by the North Vietnamese ("f------ animals" as Miller described them) at the Hoa Lo prison near Hanoi -- while they loved Bill Clinton who had ducked the Vietnam War. It was a moving defence of an American hero.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 08:20 PM EST [Link]
~ PRINT THIS OUT AND HANG IT UP ON YOUR WALL: Victor Davis Hanson has a remarkable piece on NRO today about the street that is slowly becoming angrier and angrier. It isn't the "Arab street" or any other street abroad...it's the American street.
During this entire crisis tired voices of convention have misunderstood the nature of this war and the temporary presence of Americans in exotic places like the Asiatic provinces of the former Soviet Union, the Gulf, or Kurdistan. Instead of seeing such deployments in their proper context of ad hoc military efficacy and reaction to 9/11, they have instead shrilly alleged some sinister conspiracy to harness the world's oil through the use of permanent military deployment abroad and perpetual war.
Fools! The real danger is not that we are interventionists, but rather are on the verge of a weird insularity not seen since the 1920s — a paradox of still being engaged abroad but not in the usual manner of the past. The American Street is in a strangely revolutionary — read "fed-up" — mood. It is growing distant from Europe. It is angry with the Arab world especially, and it is tired with South Korea — and most whiny nations that either take billions of dollars in direct American aid or ankle-bite under the aegis of American arms.
The result is while hothouse analysts in Paris and spoiled teenagers in Seoul with Reeboks and football jerseys damn America the imperialist, the United States they knew is changing right before their eyes in ways that they might not like in the next decade — but that will in fact relieve most Americans.
I'd comment on this essay but he says exactly what needs to be said. And the world had better watch out.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 08:05 PM EST [Link]
~ I NEED ONE OF THESE IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD: A one-time grocer in Brisbane, Australia is hoping to sell a gun that has a firing rate of one million rounds a minute to the American military.
I remember reading about this on HotWired last year...good to know he's still at work.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:43 PM EST [Link]
~ OUR CONDOLENCES: Sir Denis Thatcher, husband of former British PM Lady Margaret Thatcher, has died following a heart bypass operation earlier this year.
A true gentleman and the love of Lady Thatcher's life.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:55 PM EST [Link]
~ GOOD NEWS: "Israel's military prosecutor has exonerated Israeli soldiers in the death of an American peace activist, who was crushed to death by an army bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, the army said Thursday."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:53 PM EST [Link]
~ MAY THEY BE SAFE NOW: Massive hunt in Iraq for two American soldiers. Three Iraqis have been detained in connection with their disappearance.
The U.S. really has to start acting like it did in Germany after World War II. Be nice but if people raise a hand to you, break that hand. The U.S. is a liberator of Iraq but it's also an occupier which means it has to play by a different set of rules now...it must get the message across that screwing around with the soldiers earns you a very quick and violent death. Leave the civilians alone but to hell with the militants.
Posted by steve @ 02:46 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT'S THE YIDDISH TERM FOR THIS? CHUTZPAH?: After tweaking the nose of the United States, the United Nations must truly have a brass set. It seems everyone's favourite nascent world government wants the U.S. to pay for renovations at U.N. headquarters in New York.
The U.N.'s two 50-year-old buildings in New York City are basically falling apart — decaying pipes and crumbling ceilings are now commonplace — and the U.N. is seeking an interest-free loan worth more than $1 billion to renovate its headquarters.
Who will pay to fix the 1952 original plumbing, get rid of asbestos and raise security fences? Repairs would cost U.S. taxpayers about $600 million over 30 years.
Less flying to international conferences to enjoy the creme brule might save some money for repairs. The kicker, though, is the following:
Toshiyuki Niwa, who is leading the renovation project, said the U.N. wants to borrow $1.2 billion for the repairs. And he wants the United States to put up the cash.
"It is an established norm set by the host countries following the example set by the U.S. government after World War II to provide an interest-free loan," Niwa said.
Eh? So why is NATO expecting the U.S. to fund a new headquarters in Belgium?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:42 PM EST [Link]
~ AT LEAST HE ADMITTED HIS BIAS: In today's (Friday) New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof admits that he tried to find Iraqis who has been tortured by Saddam Hussein's regime yet still wanted the Americans out of Iraq. He got a difference response.
So I began asking for people with missing tongues or ears. I got a tip about a man in Basra who had had his tongue amputated for criticizing Saddam. He had moved away, but I found a friend of his, Abdel Karim Hassan.
"A thousand thanks to Bush!" he told me. "A thousand thanks to Bush's mother for giving birth to him!"
Hmmm. I hadn't expected a tribute to the Mother of all Bushes.
Then I heard about Mathem Abid Ali and tracked him down in the southern city of Nasiriya. I've posted a photo of him on nytimes.com.kristofresponds (parental guidance is suggested). Mr. Abid Ali deserted the Iraqi Army, was caught, taken to a hospital and given general anesthesia — and woke up with no right ear.
"Children looked at me, and turned away in horror," Mr. Abid Ali said bitterly.
So I asked Mr. Abid Ali what he thought of the Americans.
He thought for a moment and said: "I'd like to make a statue in gold of President Bush."
Of course, he still tries to slip some jabs at the White House but it is the NY Times so what can you expect. Howell Raines may be gone but it's still a liberal cesspool.
Read the piece here. (Free registration required or use account: musingsblog, pass: cookie)
Posted by steve @ 01:55 AM EST [Link]
~ THE END OF AN ERA: Former Sen. Strom Thurmond, the longest serving member of the Senate, died Thursday.
"I tried to be honest. I tried to be patriotic. And I tried to be dedicated," he once said.
Read on.Posted by steve @ 01:11 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, June 26, 2003 SO YOU'RE SAYING I AND KYLIE COULDN'T HAVE A MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIP BUT...: According to a web site that does biorhythms, I and pop star Kylie Minogue are 95 per cent compatible physically (a Monty Burns excellent for that one), 4 per cent emotionally, 8 per cent intellectually and 36 per cent overall.
That clearly means that I and Kylie would enjoy a torrid physical affair but that she'd eventually leave me for the man she's destined to get married to. Hmmm...life is rough. Read on.
I do far worse with dreamboat supermodel Naomi Campbell unfortunately. Who's Steve's ultimate love match? Famke Janssen! Physical 100% (a Monty Burns excellent for that one), Emotional 99% (Hmmm, that I'm not sure about), Intellectual 68% (good enough) and Overall 89% (Good).
I have too much time on my hands...
Posted by steve @ 10:59 PM EST [Link]
~ SHE IS CUTE: For the past couple of years I've been avoiding watching CSI: Crime Scene Investigation just because everyone else was watching it. I know, arrogant of me, but what do you want?
I've started watching it in recent weeks and I have to admit I have a bit of a crush on the character Sara Sidle, played by actress Jorja Fox.
Posted by steve @ 10:43 PM EST [Link]
~ THERE IS NO INTERVIEW...NONE!: Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, AKA "Comical Ali," AKA ex-Iraqi information minister, will appear in an interview on Friday on Arab television.
Someone has to translate this and air it on western television. I still say someone should give this dude a job or he should appear on Saturday Night Live or something.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:39 PM EST [Link]
~ "BUSH LIED" ONLY WORKS IF YOU FORGET EVERYTHING: Byron York says that the "Bush Lied" meme only works if you ignore everything that's been discovered in Iraq.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:26 PM EST [Link]
~ THIS IS A TRICKY ONE: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that laws banning homosexual sex are unconstitutional on the grounds of privacy.
Clarence Thomas, who stated he would have voted to repeal a Texas law banning sodomy if he were a legislator (describing it an "uncommonly silly" law) there dissented stating that there is no constitutional right to privacy. He's right, there isn't one, but I have to agree with the decision. Outside of rational sex related laws (such as age of consent), I have to wonder if the state really has a right to legislate sexual acts performed by two consenting adults, regardless of their respective genders.
People argued that the state-level bans should continue because ruling them unconstitutional would pave a path to gay marriage. I'm not sure that's true since gay marriages rely on another set of arguments, generally based on equality arguments. Oh well, decide for yourself.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:30 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, June 25, 2003 DOES THIS COUNT?: U.S. officials are downplaying this discovery but I don't think I'm going out on a thin branch saying the discovery of parts of a gas centrifuge system, used to enrich uranium, in Iraq is big time. All I had were some old bricks left over in the construction of the house I live in buried in my backyard until last summer.
The parts were unearthed by Iraqi scientist Mahdi Obeidi who had hidden them under a rose bush 12 years ago under orders from Qusay Hussein and Saddam Hussein's then son-in-law, Hussein Kamel.
U.S. officials emphasized this was not evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapon -- but it was evidence the Iraqis concealed plans to reconstitute their nuclear program as soon as the world was no longer looking.
Hopefully this will clue people into the fact that finding stuff like WMDs in a big country isn't like asking some guy walking alongside the road where the house party is. Read on.
[Update - 9:52pm] MSNBC also has a story on interesting finds.
Posted by steve @ 09:45 PM EST [Link]
~ THANKS: To whoever the person/people were who placed a large order(s) on Amazon.com through ESR in the last day or so. Every little bit helps this experiment survive!
Posted by steve @ 03:26 PM EST [Link]
~ HOW CLARENCE GOT HIS GROOVE: Robert Alt dismantles a Maureen Dowd column arguing that Justice Clarence Thomas, who thumbs-downed affirmative action, likely got into law school because of affirmative action. Says Alt, Maureen clearly has a problem with racial stereotypes.
First, Dowd asserts that Thomas got into Yale Law School and picked for the Supreme Court thanks to his race. Yet what proof does she offer for this? Are all Black admittees to Yale Law School there because of their race? No. In fact, this is one of Thomas’s key points: that affirmative action leads to these kind of incorrect assumptions. Yet Dowd doesn’t entertain for a moment that Thomas could have been admitted for any reason other than skin color. Ah, more proof of the benefits of affirmative action.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:48 PM EST [Link]
~ HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEORGE: Today is George Orwell's 100th birthday. Somewhere Christopher Hitchens must be getting very drunk.
Posted by steve @ 02:30 PM EST [Link]
~ FORGET RACIAL DIVERSITY, HOW ABOUT INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY: I've long believed that universities were the place where originality goes to die a lonely death. Although post-secondary institutions proclaim their love of diversity, that doesn't count when it comes to intellectual diversity.
Gabe Neville says, half-jokingly, that perhaps there should be affirmative action for conservatives given how few of them actually make up the faculties of universities today.
Harvard University's Harvey Mansfield, one of America's best conservative scholars of politics, was interviewed not long ago on C-SPAN's Booknotes about translation of Democracy in America. More than once, the host, Brian Lamb, allowed him to speak about his life among the cream of modern academics.
"How many other conservative professors have you met at Harvard?" Mansfield was asked.
"About a half-dozen out of 750, say, that I know of," was his reply.
Mansfield quickly added, "And there may be some others who are — who vote Republican in the privacy of the voting booth, when nobody's watching you, except God. But for the most part, it's a very liberal institution. It's quite changed from when I first got there. It's much more diverse in the sense of many more blacks and Hispanics and a lot more foreigners. And, of course, women are now half-and-half with men at Harvard. But as to diversity of opinion, that has gone way, way down."
Amazing that you diversify the type of people who teach and yet fall into the trap of groupthink. At Laurentian University, my alma mater, I know of one conservative professor. That explains why as a conservative activist I was threatened not only by leftist students but leftist faculty as well.
Posted by steve @ 02:20 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT AN ODD COINCIDENCE: As I mentioned earlier, I was yapping with Jeremy Lott on the phone when he referenced the band Huey Lewis and the News in reference to the lack of hipness amongst conservatives.
Who's the band appearing on Conan O'Brien? Huey Lewis and the News.
J-Lo scares me...
[Update - 1:52am] Of course, more important is that Jennifer Connelly is on the show. Even graced with child she looks fantastic.
Posted by steve @ 01:37 AM EST [Link]
~ ESR AUTHORS ON PARADE: Two ESR authors have new books out! Steve Farrell, longtime contributor, has just released a novel entitled Dark Rose. You can order it here.
Occasional contributor Robert Bove, who contributed the fantastic September 11 cycle of poems called "Compass" to ESR back in March, has just released a book of poetry entitled The UFOs of October. You can find it here.
"Poet and writer Robert Bové has just published The UFOs of October (2003: iUniverse, Inc., Lincoln, NE), an often picaresque account of, among many, his adventures chasing UFOs in Central America for the National Enquirer and caretaking 60 head of cattle in West Virginia. Told with humor and pathos, the five poem cycles comprising UFOs each employ autobiography and fiction, prose and drama, and are related by psyche, style, tone—and narrative speed.
"His readers describe Bové as having 'a wicked wit' (critic/author David Castronovo) and the 'gift of narrative' (poet Allen Ginsberg). And, in a letter to the author, William F. Buckley, Jr. said of Bové’s work, 'It is a great pleasure to read poetry and prose that use language carefully.' The UFOs of October—by turns roguish and righteous—brings all these qualities to bear."
Posted by steve @ 12:58 AM EST [Link]
~ DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE $10K: The deadline for the International Policy Network's 2003 Frederic Bastiat Prize for Journalism is rapidly approaching. Have your applications in by June 30, 2003.
More info here.
Posted by steve @ 12:51 AM EST [Link]
~ ALL OVER THE REPORT STORY: Just got off the phone with Jeremy Lott who ordered me to link to his web site. Jeremy has been all over the failure of Canada's only conservative magazine, The Report, and has a ton of good stuff about it.
Among the interesting tidbits is former senior editor Kevin Michael Grace trying to find a backer to buy the magazine from the Byfield family and relaunch it. I hope he's successful for two very important reasons. 1) Canada needs a conservative magazine. 2) I need a Canadian conservative magazine to sell articles to.
Find it all here.
Posted by steve @ 12:48 AM EST [Link]
~ CHIPPING AWAY AT THE DEMS' ESTRADA FILIBUSTER: As a youngster, I was as big a "CHiPS" fan as anybody, but this is depressing. According to this Washington Times report, Hispanics are paying much attention to the filibuster against Bush judicial appointee Miguel Estrada and one pollster believes he is being confused with Erik Estrada. I first found this story linked via VDARE.com's letters to the editor section, noted for its pessimism about Hispanic support for conservative Republicans. On the bright side, the same poll did show strong favorability ratings for Bush.
Of course, early polls for the 2000 presidential race found large numbers of respondents confusing George W. Bush with his father. At least they did not confuse him with the rock band or the ultra-lite beer.
Posted by antle @ 12:25 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, June 24, 2003 BAKKE REDUX - FORCED TO CHOOSE BETWEEN EQUALITY AND QUOTAS, THE SUPREME COURT PUNTS: I agree with David Frum's take on the gobbledygook that was the Supreme Court's University of Michigan affirmative action decision: It failed to support true equality under the law by junking racial preferences and compounded this atrocity with ambiguity that makes it entirely unclear what would constitute a legal use of affirmative action in admissions.
I think having the government sanction racial discrimination against any group - whether overtly or covertly - and classify people by race is an inherently noxious thing. I agree with Steve Sailer that a more clandestine method of doling out racial preferences doesn't make the practice better. But Julian Sanchez does make a good point - there can be valid reasons for a college or university to want to capture the diversity of experiences represented by what he calls "lived race." This is something that doesn't neatly fall into those little check-off boxes that ask you if you are Caucasian or a Pacific Islander, but it is certainly a meaningful part of contemporary human experience.
However, this comes with a caveat - the pursuit of this kind of diversity can't lead to policies that blindly shut out qualified whites and Asians, and can't simply be put in place to paper over (as opposed to rectifying) the real skills gap that exists between many minority applicants and other American students. Too often, affirmative action as it exists today does both.
Posted by antle @ 11:23 PM EST [Link]
~ THE OLD "THE DEVIL YOU KNOW..." ARGUMENT: Mansoor Ijaz argues in an interesting piece today that while Gen. Pervez Musharraf may not be perfect, he's a damned sight better than anyone else currently operating in the Pakistani political scene. He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.
Musharraf is meeting with Dubya today to ask for debt relief, a textile-trade deal...oh yeah, and some F-16 fighter jets. Ijaz recommends Dubya go along with Musharraf but to impose some conditions on him.
I'm always worried when someone talks about the devil you know being better than the one you don't know but it also turns out to be true an uncomfortably high percentage of the time. Until the Pakistani political scene matures to the point where we have viable replacements that enjoy broad support of the people, men like Musharraf will have to do.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:22 PM EST [Link]
~ ALL I WANTED TO GET WAS SIGNS ON DVD: But in Baghdad you can buy short videos of tortures in Saddam Hussein's jails.
One video - "Saddam's Crimes and His Followers: Mukhabarat Torturing" - shows men lying on the ground as their legs are tied to a stick in the air. They writhe in pain as military officers whip the soles of their bare feet. Another shows a grenade being strapped to the chest of a blindfolded man. A few minutes later, he's blown up.
"Thousands of people have bought them," said Taha Adnan, 16, a vendor in the market.
Iraqis have quite a few stories to tell about what Hussein did to them. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:15 PM EST [Link]
~ NEWS FLASH! ANDREW SULLIVAN IN SUPPORT OF GAY MARRIAGE: I know, I'm as shocked as you are. Andy has a piece in this June 30 issue of Time arguing that gay marriage will bring what conservatives have thought gay society has always been missing: responsibility and respect for traditional institutions.
I haven't read his book Virtually Normal (or whatever it was called) but I'm familiar with all of his arguments concerning gay marriage. If you aren't just visit his web log and start scrolling back. Is he convincing? I think there is an element of gay society that wants to settle down and be married to their loved ones. They are, however, all over the age of 40.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:22 AM EST [Link]
~ IS THIS JUST BECAUSE I GAVE A LOT OF ALCOHOL RELATED ANSWERS?:
You're Newfoundland. You're not a complex person,
but it's not because you're not intelligent;
you just perfer the simpler things in life. You
can work hard and bear harder misfortunes than
most. It's too bad people underestimate you
because you're one tough S.O.B. when need be.
What Canadian Province Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Posted by steve @ 12:03 AM EST [Link]
Monday, June 23, 2003 PAST ESR CONTRIBUTOR PLAYS "SUPERFREAK": Lawrence Henry disses VH1, but doesn't this still qualify him as a rock 'n' roll conservative? The kind you don't take home to mother?
Posted by antle @ 11:02 PM EST [Link]
~ THE REPORT, RIP: (via Relapsed Catholic) Canada's only conservative magazine, The Report, officially was put to rest today by Link Byfield.
Kathy over at Relapsed Catholic has the press release here and some commentary.
I had one piece published in the magazine so I am proud to say I was a distant (very distant) member of the family. I hope everyone associated with the magazine regains their footing quickly.
Posted by steve @ 07:09 PM EST [Link]
~ POOR MAUREEN: ESR regular contributor Bernard Chapin has a new feature over at Mens News Daily, a weekly column analyzing the bizarre offerings of Maureen Dowd.
Check out the first one right here.
Posted by steve @ 02:58 PM EST [Link]
~ WOULD HIS FACE BE PAINTED ON THE SATELITE DISHES?: Scott Belliveau doesn't think much of Al Gore's apparent desire to build a liberal media network. Read on.
Why try and recreate the wheel Al? You've already got several liberal news networks....
Posted by steve @ 02:54 PM EST [Link]
~ SADDAM MAY BE DEAD...AGAIN: U.S. intelligence sources say an attack on an Iraqi convey last week may have whacked Saddam Hussein...which presumes he wasn't whacked in the restaurant hit or the farmhouse hit or the....
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:33 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, June 22, 2003 HATE LAWS ARE STUPID: There, I said it! Now the government can come after me!
Colby Cosh has a good post about a stupid piece written by Marvin Kurz, legal counsel to the League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith Canada, of why David Ahenakew was right to be charged with a hate crime for saying Adolph Hitler was justified in "frying" six million Jews.
Kurz all but says it's cool for the government to "rehabilitate" people for saying bad things...a concept so terrifying that I would think that Jews would be deathly afraid of it themselves. I guess not. At any rate, I wrote Kurz a letter so hopefully I can post a response.
Read Colby's dismantling of Kurz here.
Posted by steve @ 06:51 PM EST [Link]
~ THIS IS GOING A BIT FAR: As some of you have probably gleaned from earlier posts, I'm a bit of a fop. I love clothes and I love buying clothes. I even like discussing clothes with men or women. I like the fact that women think owning 50 pairs of shoes is normal. I love when my female friends show off their new clothes to me (especially the lass with the fondness for the thigh-high socks). It's all good.
The line, however, is drawn at overly foppish behavior.
And how would you define that? The concept of metrosexualism. If you haven't heard it before, it was orginally made up (by a gay writer no less) to mock the advertising industry for attacking traditional notions of masculinity and attempting to replace them with a more feminine masculinity.
The New York Times has a decent article about the rise of the metrosexual, a man that even a fashion-friendly cat like me has to despise. Must have been all of those John Wayne movies when I was younger.
By his own admission, 30-year-old Karru Martinson is not what you'd call a manly man. He uses a $40 face cream, wears Bruno Magli shoes and custom-tailored shirts. His hair is always just so, thanks to three brands of shampoo and the precise application of three hair grooming products: Textureline Smoothing Serum, got2b styling glue and Suave Rave hairspray.
Mr. Martinson likes wine bars and enjoys shopping with his gal pals, who have come to trust his eye for color, his knack for seeing when a bag clashes with an outfit, and his understanding of why some women have 47 pairs of black shoes. ("Because they can!" he said.) He said his guy friends have long thought his consumer and grooming habits a little . . . different. But Mr. Martinson, who lives in Manhattan and works in finance, said he's not that different.
I really do think we're seeing the death of "the real man." My personal human god, Frank Sinatra, was as clothes obsessed as you could be as a straight man and I doubt anyone ever would have called him a metrosexual. If you had, he would have knocked your block off.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:26 PM EST [Link]
~ STEVE'S TV WATCHING TIP: To save time while watching television, always turn the channel when you hear the words "portal" or "dimension". Ideally if you hear them both in the same sentence, turn the television off.
Posted by steve @ 05:45 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, June 21, 2003 THIS RELATIONSHIP IS OVER: Well, since none of my other fellow Canadian bloggers have noticed this, I'm afraid I'm going to have say the Last Rites. Ladies and gentlemen, Mark Steyn and the National Post are now officially finished with each other. While as of this writing, Mr. Steyn is still listed as a columnist for the newspaper, don't expect his smiling visage to remain up for long. I cite two pieces of evidence for believing that a final break has occured:
1. All references to the National Post has been wiped clean from the "LinesOnSteyn" page of his website and from the FAQs below (note that there is no mention of the National Post in Mr. Steyn's answer to the question, "When can I read Mark’s columns each week?").
2. More obviously, the National Post's web banner has been removed from the right side of Mr. Steyn's home page. You will no doubt also note that one of the new web banners reveals that Mr. Steyn now writes for a publication named The Nation (no, don't worry, it isn't what it looks like).
Fare thee well, Mark. Look's like I'll be seeing you on a strictly electronic basis from now on.
Posted by Barton @ 03:50 PM EST [Link]
~ PEACHY NEWS: A York City woman has been given permission to sue city hall after it banned her from displaying a sign in her yard.
The sign? An "an anthropomorphized peach holding a newspaper with the headline, 'Peachy News. Jesus is Alive.'"
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:44 PM EST [Link]
~ ROME WASN'T BUILT IN ONE DAY: Good story in the New Jersey Star-Ledger about Iraqis who are taking matters into their own hands and injecting democracy locally.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:32 PM EST [Link]
~ CUBA LOVING LIBRARIANS SHUSH OTHER LIBRARIANS: Like the headline says, elements of the American Library Association are trying to crush anti-Cuba feelings.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:44 AM EST [Link]
~ CONDI ON IRAN: Condoleezza Rice discusses Iran and Iraq on Fox News. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:27 AM EST [Link]
Friday, June 20, 2003 CASTRO PUNK'D ON FLORIDA RADIO: (Via The Federalist) "Cuban dictator Fidel Castro barraged South Florida with a series of expletives Wednesday morning, when WXDJ-FM disc jockeys Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero placed a call to Castro, claiming to be aides to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Asking Castro for help in tracking down a lost briefcase containing sensitive documents, Castro responded that he had been informed and was 'satisfied.' At this point, Santos replied, 'Are you satisfied with [what] you have done on the island, assassin?' thus prompting Castro's on-air tirade. 'I don't know what we can do to top this,' Mr. Ferrero later commented. 'Maybe we can go after Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden.'
"As funny as this was, it's worth underscoring the brutality of the Castro regime with the realization that some number of aides were likely killed or imprisoned for not properly screening the WXDJ call."
Posted by steve @ 03:50 PM EST [Link]
~ IT SOUNDS PLAUSIBLE: Intelligence indicates that ole Saddam may still be alive and running around the hills of Iraq.
I'm sure this will prompt more false wailing and gnashing of teeth by the antiwar crowd who will ask why we can't find Hussein and Osama bin Laden. I look at it this way...the U.S. couldn't find Eric Rudolph in the North Carolina wilderness for years and the last time I checked N.C. was in the U.S. What makes people think it's easy to find a cat determined not to be found in his own backyard, especially one with the resources of a Hussein or bin Laden?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:30 PM EST [Link]
~ ACCEPT REALITY: Victor Davis Hanson has a great article (does he ever have any other kind?) about how America is winning in the Middle East.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:40 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, June 19, 2003 HELP, I'M SLIPPING!: Evan Kirchhoff raises some interesting points over the whole same-sex marriage brouhaha that a recent Ontario court ruling has provoked.
A note to Evan though, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was never designed to protect Canadians, only special classes. That should explain why Section 2 of the Charter is a complete joke.
Read Evan's thoughts here.
Posted by steve @ 07:43 PM EST [Link]
~ MAY BE NOT ALL THOSE ARRESTS WERE CAPRICIOUS, HEY ANTIWAR CRITICS: An Ohio truck driver pled guilty today to aiding a terrorist organization.
"[John] Ashcroft said Iyman Faris 'appeared to be a hard-working truck driver' but traveled to Pakistan, met with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and 'joined al Qaeda's jihad against America.'"
Faris' gig? To cut the cables on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Read on.
[Update - 7:26pm] The truck driver is also known as Mohammed Rauf. I find it humorous that CNN only identified one of his names.
Posted by steve @ 07:23 PM EST [Link]
~ LUCKY I'M NOT MARRIED: I just remembered that this month marks the beginning of the seventh year of Enter Stage Right. June 1, 1996 marked the first issue of ESR. Happy anniversary old boy...
Posted by steve @ 03:31 PM EST [Link]
~ THE GIFT OF HINDSIGHT: Michael Coren responds to the now unstoppable tide of politicians relenting to allow gay marriages in Canada.
Oh for the gift of hindsight. One day people will look back to the early years of the 21st-century in Canada and wonder why the desires of a small number of people within, perhaps, 3% of the population, should receive so much publicity and be acted upon with such alacrity by politicians and judges. I refer of course to gay marriage.
Numerous legislatures have voted on this issue in recent years and all, including those governed by the NDP, have rejected it. Which is why activists went to the courts and compliant judges read in sexual orientation into a Charter of Rights that was never intended to include it. So those of us who were opposed to the idea called for a vote. But a free one.
He makes the same point I did a couple of weeks ago, namely that sexual orientation is not protected in the Charter of Rights. I could care less if Canadians voted to approve gay marriage but I despair when I see judicial activism create new rights.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:49 PM EST [Link]
~ SADDAM AND WMD: Jed Babbin, a former Bush (41) cabinet cat talks with British Air Marshal Brian Burridge about Saddam, WMD and the Middle East
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:28 PM EST [Link]
~ THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!: Back in the first version of this blog I proclaimed my love of 60s show The Thunderbirds, presented in glorious Marionation (tm), and my dread over the live action version. Turns out quite a few bloggers, such as Orrin Judd, also love the show.
The latest scoop is that the movie comes out next summer and unfortunately Elizabeth Hurley (my choice for the role) was not chosen to play Lady Penelope. Good sign: Bill Paxton plays Jeff Tracy. Bad sign: Anthony Edwards plays Brains.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:24 AM EST [Link]
~ MOORE WATCH: The Times has a good article about the scrutiny that Michael Moore is receiving these days.
Posted by steve @ 02:25 AM EST [Link]
~ PROTEST IN WASHINGTON D.C. FOR IRANIAN WOMEN: I'm still not sure whether there's a protest in Washington, D.C. next month in support of Iranian democracy but there is a protest on Friday in America's capitol supporting Iranian women.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:16 AM EST [Link]
~ MR. MOAB MEET MR. ENRICHMENT FACILITY: James Lileks discusses what the proper approach to Iran's seeking a nuclear weapon should be and Orrin Hatch's idiot idea of damaging the computers of people who violate copyrights.
And he's right, "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" is a great album.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:11 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, June 18, 2003 CAN YOU EVEN TELL ME WHAT A STRIKE ZONE IS?: I mean seriously, I was watching the Chicago White Sox game last night and the umpire had a strike zone that no one could figure out. Throw the ball on the inside and you had a decent shot at getting a strike called.
Wired News has story about a fight between MLB and its umpires. It wants to install a computerized system that tracks pitches and judges whether they were strikes while umps want them out of the parks they are already installed it.
Their argument? The system is inaccurate. Well, we wouldn't want a capricious system determining strikes and balls would we? Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:25 PM EST [Link]
~ FIRST A, THEN B: Tashbih Sayyed argues in a piece today that it's silly to create a new Palestinian state without having the Palestinians renounce terrorism.
Terrorists not only benefit from wide support through Palestinian society, they embody only too well the deepest hopes of the majority: to destroy the Jewish state. Over 50 percent of Palestinians say that the goal of this intifada is not a two-state solution, but the destruction of Israel — referred to as "ending the occupation of territories lost in 1948." The children and grandchildren of Palestinian refugees who have been made second class citizens in Lebanon, Syria, or the Gulf States (nations which refuse to grant them citizenship or equal rights) cling to the illusion that defeating the Jews will restore their dignity.
In my more despairing moments I come to the conclusion that the Palestinians will either attempt to kill all the Jews or that the Jews actually will kill all the Palestinians.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:02 PM EST [Link]
~ FRUM ON GAY MARRIAGE, TERM LIMITS ETC.: Andrew Sullivan has been crowing about Ontario's gay marriage ruling for the past two weeks and now David Frum answers him.
Personally, I was opposed to the ruling -- the article appeared in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record if I remember right -- because it was blatantly unconstitutional. The court ruled that banning same sex marriages was unconstitutional because it discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation. That's funny given the laundry list of things that Canada's constitution bars discrimination against, it doesn't ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In fact, gay activists a few years ago argued for a constitutional amendment that would bar it.
So what's changed? Nothing, except that Canada is infected with the same disease that Americans are suffering with: judicial activism.
At any rate, Frum talks about the institution of marriage and some other stuff. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:56 PM EST [Link]
~ I KNOW IF I WAS AN AMERICAN WHO I'D VOTE FOR: Jennifer D'Angelo over at Fox News reports on the latest meme to travel the political world: Condi vs. Hillary in 2008.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:32 AM EST [Link]
~ WHO'S MORE QUALIFIED - EDWARDS OR ESTRADA?: First Patrick Ruffini and now Radley Balko have posted on the absurdity of Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), who wants to be president after just three years in the Senate, implying that Miguel Estrada lacks an adequate record. Who is he trying to kid?
Posted by antle @ 12:04 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, June 17, 2003 TOO LATE: Steven Den Beste comments on a report that the French are attempting to lure American tourists back to France. Seems there's been a little drop off in American money flowing into France.
The Americans are actually resentful. How could that happen? Don't the Americans understand their place in the world? It's their job to be despised by the French. It's their rightful place in the grand scheme of things.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:45 PM EST [Link]
~ HE REMINDS ME OF A FEW BOOK REVIEWERS: Charles Paul Freund has a funny "review" of Hillary Clinton's book Living History.
If I write really, really fast, maybe I can get in on the Hillary book thing before it's over. I've got to hurry, because it looks like the Hillary book thing is scheduled to stop this weekend when the new Harry Potter adventure goes on sale. That works for me: How many extended fantasies can readers handle at the same time? Anyway, CNN is already running a poll on which of these yarns, Hillary's or Harry's, people plan to buy. Harry was way ahead last time I checked (well, it was the only time I checked), so you can see that I've got no time to waste.
In fact, I've got no time to read the book. Does that matter? I don't see why it should. Hillary didn't actually write her own book, so why should I read it before joining the public chorus about it? Think of me as a ghost-reader.
Read on.
This humorous take on Clinton's book reminds me of that story Jim Antle blogged back in February about book reviewers who review books when they haven't read them.
Posted by steve @ 11:40 PM EST [Link]
~ PLENTY HAS BEEN FOUND IN IRAQ: And Deroy Murdock tells of some of it. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:22 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT'S HAPPENING ON THE STREETS: An Iranian writing under a pseudonym reports in NRO today about the protests occuring in the streets of Tehran.
During the past few nights, we Iranian youth have been agitating — at great risk to our lives — to remove the 24-year-old plague that has stricken our homeland. Our goal is to topple the theocratic regime of the mullahs. Our opponents are barbarian vigilantes — members of Ansaar-e-Hezbollah — who are backed by heavily armed Iranian riot police.
Westerners may have difficulty imagining what these people are like. In fact, it's quite easy: Simply remember the Taliban. The only difference is that they don't wear Afghani clothes.
Read on.
If you live in or near LA or Washington, D.C., you do plan on attending the protests in support of Iranian democracy, don't you?
Posted by steve @ 02:21 PM EST [Link]
~ AL-QAIDA STILL HAS TEETH: British intelligence says that al-Qaida will strike a western city with unconventional weapons some day soon.
"We are faced with the realistic possibility of some form of unconventional attack" that could include chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, said Eliza Manningham-Buller.
In her first public speech since taking over the MI5 in October, Manningham-Buller said intelligence suggested that "renegade scientists" gave terrorist groups the information they need to create such weapons, which will only become more sophisticated.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:16 PM EST [Link]
~ NO CRY-BABY ZONE: Glenn Reynolds takes a shot at Bill O'Reilly after the talk show host's recent rant about the web being a land of irresponsibility.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:11 PM EST [Link]
Monday, June 16, 2003 SELF-PROMO ALERT: A couple actually, and none of them online. Hit the The Telegram - Saint John's for my thoughts about post-war reconstruction in Iraq and the Vancouver Province for my take on David Ahenakew being charged for uttering hate comments over his disgusting remarks about Jews last December. Short takes: Prospects for democracy good in Iraq and freedom of speech is too important to charge Ahenakew. If neither makes its way to the web I may post them here...
Posted by steve @ 09:49 PM EST [Link]
~ THEY WERE GOING PAPAL ON HIM: (Via Relapsed Catholic) Although many people have simply raised their eyebrows at Mel Gibson's biopic project about the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ, a film to be entirely in Aramaic and Latin and with no subtitles, other people have gotten quite upset. One group, the U.S. Conference of Bishops, denies it has a problem with the movie.
I was trying to find stories about this controversy but couldn't until I hit Kathy's web log...that'll teach me.
Posted by steve @ 09:45 PM EST [Link]
~ AN UNDERGROUND HIT LIKE "OFFICE SPACE": The last several months a lot of people have been buzzing about a BBC series called The Office. Now Americans will get chance to see it courtesy of BBC America.
Read on.
If you visit the web site for the series you can watch some truly priceless bits from the including David Brent dancing at an office party. And make sure to rent Office Space...truly an underappreciated movie. Samir's battle with the office printer is hilarious.
[Update - June 17, 2:07pm] Reader James Keay writes in to correct me. It was actually Michael Bolton ("Why should I have to change my name, he's the one that sucks." who had the battle with the officer printer, not Samir.
Posted by steve @ 09:34 PM EST [Link]
~ I ALMOST FELL OFF MY CHAIR LAUGHING...: A grassroots movement is working overtime to convince Wesley K. Clark to seek the presidency.
But Jason Macintosh, an Oklahoma-based PR consultant and one of the organizers of the Draft Clark campaign, says Clark didn't become NATO's supreme commander in Europe by being half-hearted.
Not many people could be as unintentionally funny as Mr. Macintosh. If you know anything about the higher levels of the military, adeptness at one's job is measured by political skill, not military know-how.
Read on.
Col. David Hackworth had few kind things to say about Clark in this May 1999 piece we ran.
Posted by steve @ 03:06 PM EST [Link]
~ ACADEMICS WHO REALLY FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: While academics in America talk about being censored because people disagree and won't listen to their anti-American remarks, a group of academics in Iran are really fighting for freedom.
Today more 250 university lecturers and writers called on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to drop the idea he's the Islamic version of the Catholic pope.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:40 PM EST [Link]
~ AMERICANS, FROGS AND FREEDOM: I've always enjoyed Michael Kinsley's writing, but this is the first column I've read by him that I've ever agreed with wholeheartedly.
It brings to mind the old story comparing the gradual loss of liberty to slowly boiling a frog. If they had tried to boil the frog quickly, it would have jumped out of the pot. But boil it slowly and it will sit in the pot until it is cooked. Take away people's liberty quickly, and they will rebel. Take it away gradually and they may not even notice.
Posted by antle @ 08:53 AM EST [Link]
~ OF COURSE WELLSTONE WAS ASSASSINATED: I had heard that some people believe that Paul Wellstone was assassinated on orders from the Bush White House but I thought it was one of those IndyMedia kind of things. As James Lileks points out, even people with the word "professor" in front of their names are playing part of the game.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:08 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: In an unexpected but happy move, the American Prowler/Spectator is running my piece on North Korea. Read it here
Posted by steve @ 12:30 AM EST [Link]
~ MY STYLE HASN'T CHANGED SINCE UNIVERSITY...THOUGH IT DID GET MORE EXPENSIVE: USA Today had a good story last week on styles and trends that I didn't see until just today. How do you know a trend has died? Ashton Kutcher adopts it.
Read on.
I get dissed about my style from my sister who says I need to lighten up. I tend to go out on the weekends wearing a sport jacket, button down shirt and pants. Back in university it was all J. Crew. During my first working years it was Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger. Now it's Donna Karan Signature, Giorgio Armani Collezioni and Hugo Boss Black Label.
Such shameless name dropping...
At any rate, my point is that I'm comfortable with my style. I don't need to change my very manner of appearance just because someone tells me it's not cool. If you compared a picture of me from 10 years ago to today the only thing you could tell is that I'm obviously shedding some hair and gaining some weight and that I overpay for my clothes now. To hell with trends and hipsters. I don't dress for other people, only me.
Posted by steve @ 12:25 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, June 15, 2003 FINALLY, SOMEBODY IS STANDING UP TO THOSE...: Hunter Baker has a great piece on Bill Pryor, a rare judicial nominee who is standing up for his convictions rather than retreating to facilitate his confirmation hearings. Even John Ashcroft tempered some of his positions under fire.
I was reading through People for the American Way's collection of scare quotes from Pryor and, to be honest, I didn't see what was so scary about them, even though I don't agree with him on every issue. The real question is: Can he apply the law fairly and judiciously? I believe his record demonstrates that he can.
Posted by antle @ 04:38 PM EST [Link]
~ "RIGHT IN THE GUN SIGHTS" MEANS ONLY ONE THING TO ME: George W. Bush said today that Hamas had to be dealth with harshly because "[t]hat's just the way it is in the Middle East."
Sometimes the big man in the room has to do the hard work...
Posted by steve @ 03:37 PM EST [Link]
~ TERRIBLE TAFT: The Cato Institute annually grades the nation's governors on their tax and spending policies, giving the highest scores to those who restrain taxes and spending and promote economic growth and budgetary discipline. Republicans perform slightly better than Democrats - and tend to be heavily represented among the very highest scorers - but a lot of them are pretty lackluster. Given the number of GOP governors who are resorting to tax increases rather than spending cuts in their current shortfalls, I suspect we'll see that to an even greater extent when the next report card comes out.
One of the GOP's worst scorers, earning an F, was the unspeakable Gov. Bob Taft. My old friend Stuart Hagerman gives some examples as to why he is so bad.
Posted by antle @ 03:14 PM EST [Link]
~ I TRULY WISH THEY WOULD SUCCEED: The NY Times has a story about Iranian students fighting for Democracy.
Have I already asked you to show up to the LA and Washington D.C. protests for freedom on Iran? The answer is yes...
Posted by steve @ 04:13 AM EST [Link]
~ YOU THINK YOU ARE MAX SCHMELING?: Vitali Klitschko is good friends with 98-year old Max Schmeling...and Vitali thinks he has a shot at beating Lennox Lewis.
Steve's safe bet: Lennox will slaughter Vitali.
Posted by steve @ 03:57 AM EST [Link]
~ HAPPY FATHER'S DAY: Dubya enjoyed a nice weekend with his father who was a classy president.
Not, of course, that I agreed with that tax hike....
Posted by steve @ 03:33 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, June 14, 2003 BILL AND HILLARY: POLITICAL ANIMALS: I'm not a huge fan of the renewed attention the Clintons are receiving from conservatives in the wake of Hillary's new book Living History. It is important that the Republican Party and conservatives generally define themselves by ideas rather than anti-Clinton sentiment.
Nevertheless, The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash has shed some light on what many people - even those who aren't especially conservative - find so distinctly unappealing about Hillary in the best review of her book I have read yet. Even more than her husband, Hillary is simply obsessed with politics, probably a function of her staunchly statist ideology. Even if you're not a fan of Clinton-bashing, Labash's piece is a good read that rings true in ways that Living History doesn't.
Posted by antle @ 09:27 PM EST [Link]
~ CATS AND DOGS CONSIDER PARALLEL TRUCE: Cool news item of the day: Descendants of the Hatfields and the McCoys today signed a peace treaty officially ending the feud between the two families.
"We ask by God's grace and love that we be forever remembered as those that bound together the hearts of two families to form a family of freedom in America," says the truce, signed by more than 60 descendants.
But will a Hatfield ever marry a McCoy?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:41 PM EST [Link]
~ WORDS TO REMEMBER: "...[Iranians] want only one thing: Freedom. ... We are constantly amazed, though, at how different our reality is from what some American journalists, academics, and opinion-makers portray it as. So often, we hear self-described Iran experts on CNN and reporters in America's leading newspapers explain away the dictatorship under which we suffer. We hear them talk about how young people and women still support President Khatami! No. We do not! ... Listen to us: We no more want to be part of an Islamic Republic than did the Hungarians, Czechs, or Poles want to be part of a Communist dictatorship. ... We aspire to establish a democracy based on a modern, liberal, and, yes, the Western model of secularism. ... To us, the Islamic revolution has failed. ... Iran's 23-year-old theocracy is as incapable of granting freedom and human rights as was the Soviet Union. No politician associated with the Islamic Republic is acceptable to us. There are no reformers in the clerical government. Our real reformers are among the 600,000 languishing in prison, or the hundreds of candidates who are disqualified in each election for believing in human rights or secularism. Do not sell out our freedom because of Khatami's meaningless double talk and irrelevant rhetoric. He is simply a smiling face of an ugly regime." -- Iranian dissident leader Farideh Tehrani
Remember the pro-freedom protests in LA and Washington, D.C. Make sure to attend.
Posted by steve @ 05:00 PM EST [Link]
~ VOTE MORSE!: Old ESR friend and contributor Chuck Morse out of Boston is running for Congress! If you live in the 4th Congressional District in Massachusetts please consider voting for Chuck.
Posted by steve @ 04:36 PM EST [Link]
Friday, June 13, 2003 HOW COULD I FORGET: There was also this rebuttal from Clyde Wayne Crews over at NRO.
Posted by antle @ 08:31 PM EST [Link]
~ DELETING CALDWELL'S SPAM: I usually like Christopher Caldwell's work, but I can't endorse his conclusion that spam proves that what the Internet needs is more government regulation. Now, some people have begun to respond. Arnold Kling rebuts Caldwell here and LewRockwell.com's Daniel McCarthy does so here.
Posted by antle @ 08:23 PM EST [Link]
~ IIIIIEEEEEE!: I just noticed it's Friday the 13th today. That would explain some things today...
Posted by steve @ 07:05 PM EST [Link]
~ NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT: Bill Clinton earned $9.5 million for speechifying over the last year while Hillary Clinton saw $1.15 million as partial payment for her recently released book.
I remember Democratic criticism of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush for travelling around the world and making speeches for less cash...I wonder if they'll be critical of Bill Clinton. For some reason I don't think they'll be saying anything.
Posted by steve @ 06:40 PM EST [Link]
~ I TOLD YOU THOSE SEGWAYS ARE A DANGER: Dubya's golf game is likely one he wants to forget and then he takes a spill on a Segway.
Dean Kamen couldn't buy publicity like that...
Posted by steve @ 04:57 PM EST [Link]
~ BYE BYE: Gone to write freelance stuff. Make sure to enter the contest for the $10K.
Posted by steve @ 02:37 PM EST [Link]
~ THE WAR ISN'T OVER YET: U.S. forces fought a battle north of Baghdad today and whacked a few dozen of the bad guys.
Jeez, even I know not to attack technologically advanced troops head on...
Posted by steve @ 02:28 PM EST [Link]
~ ISRAEL STRIKES AGAIN: Two Israeli Apache helicopters fired on a car in a Gaza City today.
Something makes me think the roadmap to piece got lost when the window on the peace car was opened up...
Posted by steve @ 02:25 PM EST [Link]
~ WHERE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST WILL COME FROM: Victor Davis Hanson says it won't be on the West Bank. A really good one so make sure to read it.
Posted by steve @ 02:20 PM EST [Link]
~ THREE STRAIGHT DAYS: Of anti-government protests have rocked Iran.
Several hundred students and onlookers gathered at a Tehran University dormitory in the early hours of Friday chanting "freedom, freedom" and "death to Khamenei" in a reference to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The protesters have also vented their anger at moderate President Mohammad Khatami, whom they accuse of failing to deliver promised reforms after six years in government.
Please remember the pro-democracy protest set for July 6 in Los Angeles (and there is one in Washington, D.C. as well). Students in Iran are risking their lives to live like you...at least show up and give them your support.
[Update - 5:01pm] The BBC has a longer story on the protests. Notice who they want to help them...and who they didn't mention.
Posted by steve @ 02:12 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, June 12, 2003 WHAT, YOU DON'T NEED 10 GRAND?: The International Policy Network is calling for journalists to apply for its 2003 Frederic Bastiat Prize for Journalism with a prize of $10 000!
International Policy Network developed the Frédéric Bastiat Prize for Journalism in order to recognize and reward writers whose published works promote the institutions of a free society.
The prize was inspired by the 19th century French philosopher Frédéric Bastiat and his compelling belief in free trade and defense of liberty. Bastiat's brilliant use of satire enabled him to turn even the most complex of economic issues into a tale to which the average person could relate.
All details can be found here. The deadline is June 30 so hurry up!
Posted by steve @ 08:27 PM EST [Link]
~ SIMON & SCHUSTER LYING?: When it comes to sales of Hillary Clinton's books Jonah Goldberg certainly thinks so. He believes the numbers "leaked" to AP are bogus.
Simon and Schuster claimed yesterday that they sold 20 percent or 200,000 copies of the book on its first day. Not only do I think this is impossible, given purely anecdotal information, I'm confident it is impossible that Simon and Schuster could actually know if they sold that many books. Such numbers are notoriously difficult to collect months after the fact. The idea that S&S got same-day data strikes me as bizarre. How come we've never gotten same day info like this before? Will we ever get it again? I don't think so.
Posted by steve @ 04:39 PM EST [Link]
~ GREGORY PECK DEAD AT 87: Actor Gregory Peck died overnight at the age of 87. Though he was a member of the political left, Peck's acting transcended politics. Along with To Kill a Mockingbird, the role he's best remembered for, Peck shined in The Guns of Navarone and Gentleman's Agreement. A sad day indeed.
Along with Burt Lancaster, Peck personified what an American actor was.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:24 PM EST [Link]
~ TAKING DICK MORRIS AT FACE VALUE: I take a backseat to no one in my contempt for Bill Clinton, but conservatives should be careful about repeating every bad thing Dick Morris says about him as if it were gospel. In my view, Morris' varying takes on Clinton - who he did, by the way, help win reelection to the White House in 1996 - display a breathtaking amount of opportunism. Everything he says about the former president may well be true, but I think his comments should at least be taken with a grain of salt.
Posted by antle @ 02:33 PM EST [Link]
~ DAVID BRINKLEY, R.I.P.: The veteran news anchor and commentator David Brinkley has died at the age of 82. The Sunday chat shows were never quite the same after he retired. And he was right about Bill Clinton.
Posted by antle @ 11:24 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, June 11, 2003 I STILL DON'T KNOW IF I WANT HIM GOVERNOR: Ahnuld Schwarzenegger gave a very candidate-style speech to the Club for Growth today.
"I'm telling you right now that I'm just thinking about `Terminator' and not about anything else," he told The Associated Press.
But in his speech to the conservative group Club for Growth, he said that the time is right for another revolution at California's voting booths. The gathering was to honor the 25th anniversary of Proposition 13, the state's 1978 tax revolt initiative that inspired a national movement.
In theory I like him as a politician but for someone who comes from the most conservative part of Austria, I get the sense that he's quite liberal on some issues. That said, he'd be better than Gray Davis.
Posted by steve @ 05:10 PM EST [Link]
~ REMEMBER, THE EUROPEANS WANTED THIS GUY: The Guardian has a little profile of Hans Blix. There are some eyerollers in there that would make you want to discuss things in person with him...if you get what I mean.
Posted by steve @ 03:39 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT'S YOUR LINE?: James Lileks has a great today about "the line", that arbitrary place in each of our minds that says enough when we see popular culture hit a new low of coarseness.
For Lileks it was an ad campaign by Chino Latino, a restaurant that literally went to a new low to advertise their food.
Big article in the Strib business section today - billboard ads that go out of their way to be edgy. Money quote: “If you think diarrhea jokes are a bad way to sell Mexican food, you probably won’t be stopping to eat at Chino Latino. And that’s fine with them.” See, they’re the “leading practitioner of edgy advertising. If you don’t get the joke, then they don’t want your business.”
Oh, I get the joke. It’s just not that funny. Of the many aren’t-we-naughty! billboards Chino Latino put up, two stood out: one said they had three spice levels. Hot, Very Hot, and Excuse Me I Have to Go to the Bathroom. Ha ha! We put so much pepper in the food you will spray your entree from your hindquarters before you are finished! Ha ha! The second was for the Tio Pepe Taco, or some such item, and it was described simply as “Runs South of the Border.” I remember looking up at that billboard, and thinking this was like promising that they only served undercooked chicken. No thanks.
I know I describe my self as a rock and roll conservative but I'm more Frank Sinatra then [insert name of currently relevant rock star here]. I don't mind sin but I think it should be classy sin. Sin reserved for adults. Sin behind closed doors. Popular culture in Frank's day may have been coarse compared to popular culture in Frank's father's day, but it still celebrated a certain way to act in public even if our private lives were different.
Myself, I don't know when my, as Lileks puts it, "sigh / eyeroll / whatever thing" moment occured but it certainly did occur some time ago. I can barely turn on a television without watching a commercial that features dogs defecating or urinating (when did this become a popular image in commercials?), blatant sexual appeals, etc. I'm only 31...err...32 + 3 days but this young cat has now apparently turned into the kind of prude that Chino Latino isn't geared to.
Maybe I'm a fuddy duddy like Lileks after all...Nor does this bother me. I will be a father one day and popular culture, if present trends continue, in the future absolutely will absolutely terrify me.
Posted by steve @ 04:17 AM EST [Link]
~ MAYBE HE'S ALIVE LIKE OSAMA BIN LADEN IS STILL ALIVE: Iraqi National Congress boss Ahmed Chalabi says Saddam Hussein is alive and paying a bounty for each U.S. soldier killed.
Posted by steve @ 02:55 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF PROMO ALERT: I have a piece today in The American Prowler/The Spectator about a new report in Science that announces that global warming seems to have led to an increase in planet vegetation.
As I point out, critics of global warming orthodoxy have been saying for years that would happen.
Posted by steve @ 12:41 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, June 10, 2003 MOST UNDERRATED ROLLING STONES SONG: Out of Time, recorded in 1967 for the album Flowers (the same album with Let's Spend The Night Together and Ruby Tuesday).
Posted by steve @ 04:10 PM EST [Link]
~ MATT SPEAKS: Camille Paglia and Maer Roshan interview Matt Drudge.
Posted by steve @ 04:00 PM EST [Link]
~ NICELY DONE ANDREW: Andrew Sullivan reports that he's received donations from 5 000 people so far this week with a goal of 7 000. I think in the year or so I had a donation page up we got about a dozen people to help with the upkeep of ESR Manor so I have to admit I'm highly jealous.
With the money that he raises I could work on ESR full-time, pay writers and update daily...hint, hint. I'm not going to lie, if micropayments ever make sense from both a provider and reader perspective, I may go forward with it.
Oh well, time to write a freelance piece to pay this month's bills off.
Posted by steve @ 03:58 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY I DON'T LIKE EUROPE, REASON #733: A pro-American Danish pizza maker was today convicted of discrimination for refusing to serve French and German tourists.
In February, Bjerre displayed two homemade pictograms with bars through images of people colored in the hues of the French and German flags. He also reprinted his menus to eliminate German translations.
A Danish court fined Bjerre 5,000 kroner (U.S. $780) or said he could spend a week in jail.
"I will not pay, I'll do the time," Bjerre told The Associated Press. "I feel that I was convicted for supporting the coalition."
You have to admire him...he's lost a lot of money refusing to serve French and Germans.
Posted by steve @ 03:11 PM EST [Link]
~ REGAN DEAD AT 84: Donald Regan, a former Treasury Secretary under Ronald Reagan, has died at the age of 84.
Posted by steve @ 03:04 PM EST [Link]
~ ANTIWAR LEFT PUZZLED....SADDAM REALLY WAS A MASS MURDERER?: U.S. and British forensic experts examined a mass grave today near Baghdad and say that it's a recent grave.
They say the grave is likely filled with political prisoners or deserters killed weeks or even days before Saddam Hussein lost power.
Posted by steve @ 02:56 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT THE EUROPEAN PRESS REALLY WANTS TO SAY: Denis Boyles has a nice piece in today's NRO about the European press and what they really want to say to Bush about the WMD/Iraq story.
Posted by steve @ 02:46 PM EST [Link]
~ LET'S SEE THE PROTESTERS COME OUT FOR THIS: (Via an email from the Alliance of Iranian Students)
"The anniversary of the July 9th national uprising is near. The uprising was doubtlessly an event that not only caused the night worshipping manipulators of religion ruling our country to tremble but it also revealed the democracy seeking struggles of the third generation.
Indeed, the worshippers of the night carried out an assault on the university. They attacked, murdered, set fires, and left, but the doves of freedom remain incarcerated. Doves such as Manoochehr Mohammadi, Abbas Deldar, Akbar Mohammadi, Ahmad Batebi, Mehrdad Lohrasbi, Javid Tehrani, Mostafa Piran, Ali Afshari, Koroush Sahti, Abbas Fakhravar, Mehdi Sanjari, Abbas Amir Entezam, Nasser Zerafshan have been held as political prisoners and Ezat Ebrahimnejad lost his life in the struggle for freedom. But the aggressors do not know that these events have ignited a fire in the hearts of Iranian youth that will blaze on until the enemies of Iran and Iranians have been reduced to ashes.
It is up to us to gather in great numbers during the anniversary of the national uprising so that we make apparent our support for our youth and the doves of freedom during this sensitive time in our national history.
The students and youth of Iran have extended a hand to you compatriots for support.
The gathering of the student movement will take place on Sunday July 6, 2003, at four in the afternoon in front of the Federal Building in Los Angeles.
On that day together we will call for the release of all political prisoners. We will shout 'No to an Islamic Republic' and we will tell the world that 'We want a referendum'.
Looking forward to seeing all of you beloved compatriots,
Gholamreza Mohajerinejhad
Alliance of Iranian Students
Organizing Committee for July 9th GatheringSunday July 6, 2003-four in the afternoon-WestWood
Telephone and Fax (818) 346-4317
P.O. Box 664, Reseda, CA 91337
www.daneshjooyan.orgFor your convenience, the Federal Building Parking lot will be open on the demonstration day"
If you live in Los Angeles please make a point of showing your support for a free Iran. The students protesting in the streets of Tehran are asking for your help and all you have to do is support them with your presence.
Posted by steve @ 04:16 AM EST [Link]
Monday, June 9, 2003 NO FUNNY TAGLINE: The Telegraph reports that some North Koreans have resorted to eating children to survive during their latest poor harvest. Of course, the North Korean government won't let any aid agencies in to check out the situation.
For me, the money shot in the Telegraph's story was the following sentence: "North Korea's ability to feed itself has been hit by floods, deforestation and lack of farm fertilisers and equipment."
Well alright then, as long as it's just those factors. Bloody good thing it has nothing to do with a Stalinist regime that created the situation and perpetuates it knowingly in the interests of maintaining a brutal military dictatorship led by a man who demands his children-eating subjects to worship him like a god. At least all the Marxists can take heart that communism has nothing to do with this.
None of this should be a surprise. It happened in both the Soviet Union and China. First the horses, cows and bulls disappeared. Then the cats and dogs. Strangers travelling through a village on their way somewhere else never reached their destination. The recently dead were found to be missing. Finally, the children started vanishing. We saw the beginning of the pattern several years ago and those of us who know history knew these days would come in North Korea.
Remember this story when you see protestors shouting "No blood for rice" or whatever the hell North Korea does actually produce. Remember it when people shout about neocon influence in the Bush White House. Remember it when people say that North Koreans are different from us and it would be cultural imperialism to demand democracy for them. Remember it when someone says that North Korea isn't a danger to anyone. Finally, remember it that not too far away day when we find the mass graves of children.
Oh wait, that's just American propaganda.
Posted by steve @ 08:05 PM EST [Link]
~ HE WAS THE GREATEST: Inside and outside of a ring. Muhammad Ali that is. John over at Right Wing News has assembled a collection of Ali's best quotes. I am surprised he didn't include "What's my name, fool? What's my name?", the line he used to taunt Ernie Terrell in 1967 after Terrell refused to call him by anything other than Cassius Clay.
I always loved this one: "I done wrassled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale. Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I'm so mean I make medicine sick."
Posted by steve @ 07:43 PM EST [Link]
~ SHUT UP ALREADY: North Korea once again says it needs nuclear weapons, this time to protect itself from the United States. What makes this latest pronouncement notable is that it is now basing its deterrence on nuclear weapons and not conventional weapons.
But who protects North Koreans from their government?
Posted by steve @ 04:25 PM EST [Link]
~ WILL THIS EVER BE SOLVED?: FBI agents are currently at a Maryland pond in the belief that whoever mailed those anthrax tainted letters in 2001 may have either dumped material there or did their work under water.
Posted by steve @ 04:20 PM EST [Link]
~ WHO'S REALLY LYING?: The latest conspiracy theory, given that the left was wrong about everything else, is that the Bush administration lied about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction before the war. (See, it really was all about the ooooiiiiil!). The left can't very well say that Saddam Hussein should have been left in power or they defend mass graves filled with children buried alive. Their only outlet is to continually ask where the WMDs are?
The problem for them is everyone knows that Iraq possessed WMDs because they were discovered during the war. Didn't hear about it? As Stanley Kurtz points out in an NRO story today, that's a surprise because the New York Times reported the discovery of nuclear materials on their front page.
The United States has discovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I know this because I read it on the front page of the very liberal New York Times. Of course, the Times was only trying to hurt the administration. In the rush to Baghdad during the war, our troops bypassed and failed to secure one of Saddam's key nuclear facilities. That facility was looted by local villagers, who ransacked vaults and warehouses looking for anything of value. Many of the villagers took home radioactive barrels, and are now suffering from radiation poisoning. According to the Times, the looted nuclear facility, "contained ample radioactive poisons that could be used to manufacture an inestimable quantity of so-called dirty bombs."
It's fun and popular for the left to talk about the feeding frenzy that the right had during the later years of the Clinton administration. They love to say that a vast right-wing conspiracy fanatically attacked Clinton over anything in an attempt to discredit him. Their hatred of him outweighed any other consideration. Gosh, that doesn't describe in any way the left's attacks on George W. Bush does it?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:14 PM EST [Link]
~ A BAD SIGN ALONG THE ROADMAP TO PEACE: No sooner than I take the position that Bush's roadmap plan may work better than previous attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, particularly the unrealistic and largely opportunistic "peace process" driven by Bill Clinton, than does Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas show the first signs that he is not serious about ending terrorism against Israel.
I've never been particularly optimistic that any attempt at a negotiated settlement would bring peace. But my reason for wanting to give the Bush plan a chance was based on my view that the key players this time around brought the right characteristics to the table to give it a shot - Bush is a pro-Israel president who understands the need to be serious about terrorism, Sharon is a security-minded Israeli prime minister unlikely to allow his country to be sold down the river in exchange for nothing, Abbas is a Palestinian leader who seems to want an end to the violence. But if Abbas is unwilling to use force to stop militants - thus insuring that all such force will have to be exercised by the Israelis - he is not really going to be able to stop terrorism. Moral suasion isn't going to cut it.
Now, I do believe that it is important that Abbas not be seen as an Israeli and American stooge. The Palestinian people do need to see him as their leader and he needs to have their confidence. Otherwise, they will continue to place their trust in Arafat or, even worse, groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Maybe part of gaining this confidence will entail going slowly on using force against militants and perhaps initially relying on talks rather than pitched intra-Palestinian battles. It is also true that Palestinian security forces need to be rebuilt and reformed before they would even be as effective as they need to be in combating militant groups. But the question does remain how far beyond words will Abbas go in stopping terrorism - and also how much Israel should actually contribute to helping Palestinian security forces.
This is why we should pursue a peace plan that is results-oriented rather than based on wishful thinking. For now, Bush and Sharon should heed Reagan's dictum: Trust, but verify. I hope that Abbas proves to be 1.) a man of peace and 2.) someone who can actually deliver. But it can't simply be taken for granted - it has to be shown.
Posted by antle @ 09:07 AM EST [Link]
~ I KNOW I DON'T DESERVE IT: But I feel like I deserve a Porsche 911 GT3. It's only about $170 000 so if someone wants to donate one to the cause...
I'd settle for a 911 Turbo.
If you want to know why, go here and listen to the GT2's engine.
[Update - 3:49am] Of course, nothing beats my all time favourite Porsche, the 959. Only 200 ever made and Bill Gates reportedly owns 2 of them. They weren't street legal in the States so you'll never see one on the road. A great web site devoted to the car of the century can be found here.
Posted by steve @ 03:30 AM EST [Link]
~ THE ONLY WAY TO DESCRIBE IT IS TO USE THE WORD MASTERPIECE: I just finished watching Damnation Alley, the 1977 movie starring Jan-Michael Vincent and George Peppard as survivors of a nuclear war who attempt to find the one community in the United States that was spared destruction.
Its awfulness is its attraction and I have to confess that I watch it every time it's on. Its awfulness makes you forget a lot of questionable aspects:
* Why would Albany be the one city in the U.S. that wasn't destroyed?
* What theory of design would make you come up with a military vehicle, called the Landmaster in the movie, that is essentially a rich target. I mean, a fabric middle section? (You can see it if you go to California)
* If enough nuclear weapons were exploded that the planet shifted on its axis I doubt that anything would have survived.
* Let's face it, after years of being womanless, Peppard, Vincent and Paul Winfield might have greeted Dominique Sanda differently.
* The mountain men, which is what I call the dudes at the abandoned diner, are covered in blood. I realize they probably weren't Mensa candidates before the war, but who wouldn't take care of their wounds? They'd have died years earlier just from infection.I could keep going on.
Then again, any movie that features a line of dialogue like "Tanner! This entire city is infested with killer cockroaches. I repeat: KILLER COCKROACHES!" can't be all that bad. I always crack up when Peppard says that line in his "southern accent."
Posted by steve @ 03:14 AM EST [Link]
~ NOT JUST 2004: Sen. Hillary Clinton told Barbara Walters that not only is she not going to seek the Democratic nomination for 2004, she isn't even interested in 2008 either.
"I don't have any intentions or plans for running. I'm flattered the question gets asked. I hope that it will lead to a woman running for president."
It will Hillary, her name is Condoleeza Rice.
Posted by steve @ 02:28 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, June 8, 2003 MARRIAGE OF CONSERVATISM AND BIG GOVERNMENT: Radley Balko chides supporters of a new federal initiative to encourage marriage for their big government conservatism. I'm as strong a champion of traditional marriage - one husband and one wife - as anybody. I also believe that it is at times appropriate for public assistance programs to attempt behavior modification consistent with getting recipients off the dole and into more productive lives. But as a con-con and someone with libertarian tendencies, I do wonder to what extent a program like this is something the federal government should be involved in. What is the constitutional rationale? Where is the evidence that it will even work?
I also think that there is a limit to our ability to use the federal government for conservative purposes. It is not a fundamentally traditionalist institution for one. Second, in order to fund such projects the feds have to tax money away from people that could be better spent by churches and civil society to shore up marriage and the family. Yeah, I like the idea behind this program a whole lot better than I like paying women to have babies out of wedlock or funding artists who dip crucifixes in urine. But it takes more than good intentions to make good policy and big government is not a reliable booster of traditional values.
Posted by antle @ 08:36 PM EST [Link]
~ THE PLACE THEY ARE IN, ONLY GOD CAN SAVE THEM: Thousands of Liberians, descendants of former American slaves, are begging America to save them during a savage civil war.
"Send the Marines to guard us," cried Spencer Suku, a student. "The place we are in now, only God can save us."
Read on. I'm a soft touch...of course, it's not my children serving their nation and who would be sent there...
Posted by steve @ 04:36 AM EST [Link]
~ WORST. BIRTHDAY. EVER.: Every bartender in the city wanted to make sure she knew that I knew that she remembered my birthday -- officially June 8 but I celebrated it on Saturday -- (yeah Blondie, I still dig you!) but it turned out to be most boring birthday I've ever had. The life of a rock and roll conservative can be less than exciting...
Posted by steve @ 03:44 AM EST [Link]
~ DON'T FORGET AUNG SAN SUU KYI: She was arrested this week by Myanmar authorities. Don't forget her in your prayers.
Posted by steve @ 03:34 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, June 7, 2003 IF BILL CLINTON COULD BE OUR FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT, WHY CAN'T ALAN GREENSPAN BE OUR FIRST BLACK FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN?: Alan Greenspan has been declared an honorary black person. Toni Morrison, please call your office.
Posted by antle @ 05:59 PM EST [Link]
~ YEAH, BUT HOW DO YOU REALLY FEEL?: Christopher Hitchens, whose new book will be reviewed in ESR next week, visits the Hay-on-Wye literary festival and entertains mightily.
Warning, some bad language.
Posted by steve @ 05:20 PM EST [Link]
~ THERE'S A SURPRISE: UN inspectors said last night that Iran has not fully disclosed the extent of its atomic program. I don't know about you, but I'm shocked.
"Iran has failed to meet its obligations under its safeguards agreement with respect to the reporting of nuclear material, the subsequent processing and use of that material and the declaration of facilities where that material was stored and processed."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:10 PM EST [Link]
Friday, June 6, 2003 GOOD NEWS: The Clinton Cult seems to be dissapating as quickly as Bill Clinton's aura. A poll released yesterday shows that a majority of Americans would support Dubya over Clinton in a hypothetical election.
Other good news: The Democrats running for their party's nomination are virtual unknowns to the American public. Then again, so was Dubya in 2000...
I'm not sure, though, that I support a continued ban on a president serving more than two terms. I don't recall the Founders having a problem with that.
Posted by steve @ 06:58 PM EST [Link]
~ HOW TO FIX IRAQ: Mark Steyn has a great piece in The Spectator on what the right way to bring democracy to Iraq might be. He bases it on what he saw while he was in Jordan.
Posted by steve @ 02:53 PM EST [Link]
~ FINALLY SOMEONE IS SHOWING SOME SENSE: A judge in Florida today ruled that Sultaana Freeman will not be allowed to wear a veil in her driver's license photo.
Posted by steve @ 02:48 PM EST [Link]
~ I'LL SHAKE HIS HAND LIKE I DO EVERY TIME I SEE HIM: As I do every weekend night I'm going to go to my neighbourhood bar. Tonight will be different though. It's my friend's birthday, but it's not that. Today, 59 years ago, young men by the tens of thousands scrambled out of their landing craft and began the liberation of Europe.
There's a man at my neighbourhood bar named Billy. He was a member of the 2nd division of the 1st Canadian and landed at Juno Beach on June 6, 1944. He's a very friendly man but he prefers to sit alone drinking his beer with God only knows what thoughts going through his head. I suspect today I know what memories he will relive. He's told me some of the stories of that day -- of racing to a low wall beneath the cliffs that held the German gunners and soldiers, the horrifying fire that poured down at him and his platoon, of friends dying around him -- stories that people know through movies like Saving Private Ryan but know only as one knows what went on one day by looking at a picture.
I'll buy Billy a beer like I frequently do and thank him like I often do but it never will do justice to what he had to live through that day.
Thanks Billy and the rest of you that day.
Read what Canadians did that day courtesy of the Canadian Department of Defence here. More can be found here and here.
Posted by steve @ 02:07 PM EST [Link]
~ MORE FROM RON PAUL ON PBA BAN: Our fearless leader Steve Martinovich asked the million dollar question about the partial-birth abortion ban recently passed by the House: Where in the Constitution does Congress get the power to do this? It's one that is hardly ever asked when the federal government gets its hands on something.
One of the few members of Congress to consistently ask that question is Ron Paul, a leading con-con (shorthand for constitutional conservative). Paul voted for a federal ban on partial-birth abortions, although as Steve pointed out his explanation was less than satisfactory. He offers a further elaboration that I think is clearer about the dilemmas faced by pro-life constitutionalists when contemplating this type of legislation. If federal courts usurp power to, in my view, effectively depersonify a group of human beings, is the legislature powerless to stop them? Add to this Ramesh Ponnuru's 14th Amendment equal protection argument and you see where this becomes a much tougher issue than the "slam dunk" many make it out to be.
Ideally, Congress would enact another Paul idea - take the perfectly constitutional step of revoking the federal courts' jurisdiction over abortion cases. This would preserve the partial-birth abortion bans passed by some 30 states and allow pro-lifers to work for their other objectives at the state level.
Posted by antle @ 09:41 AM EST [Link]
~ LAROUCHE MIGHT WIN IT THIS TIME: After all, the perennial political extremist is hardly more of a long shot for the Democratic nomination than former Sen. Carol Mosely-Braun. Yet she apparently believes she can win. Hope - or self-deception - springs eternal, I suppose.
Notice that the Boston Globe mentions her being black and female as liabilities, as if her biggest obstacles are the alleged racism and sexism of the electorate. Perhaps her real problems stem from being a scandal-tainted, washed-up, one-term ex-senator who hasn't held office in five years with no apparent rationale for her candidacy, other than siphoning black primary voters away from Al Sharpton as some cynics allege. Let's see Condi Rice run in the Republican primaries in 2008 and we'll see how voters respond to a credible black female candidate.
Posted by antle @ 12:20 AM EST [Link]
~ PRESCRIPTION FOR DISASTER: Robert Samuelson, who has been a lonely voice crying out in the wildness on the subject of federal entitlement spending, offers some common sense on a prescription drug benefit.
In short: It's a terrible idea. It could compound our already precarious fiscal position due to the growing entitlements burden, itself a disaster in the making. Milton Friedman told us long ago that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Rather than listening, taxpayers are sitting idly by while politicians eat theirs.
Posted by antle @ 12:04 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, June 5, 2003 AND IN OTHER NEWS MY TASTE FOR CHOCOLATE WILL MAKE ME FATTER: Science reported today that climate changes -- more heat, light, water and carbon dioxide -- means that the planet is turning greener. Wow, how about that for news. Next they'll announce that drinking too much gets people drunk and that cats don't like dogs.
If you've been reading ESR for the past couple of years this report is hardly news. Then again, we're often ahead of the curve.
Posted by steve @ 08:12 PM EST [Link]
~ THE ONLY REASON THEY CORRECTED THEMSELVES IS BECAUSE OF ESR'S JEWISH PAYMASTERS: The Guardian today corrected its earlier story that claimed Paul Wolfowitz said the Iraqi war was about oil. Here's their statement:
A report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the heading "Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil" misconstrued remarks made by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. He did not say that. He said, according to the department of defence website, "The ... difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq." The sense was clearly that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war. The report appeared only on the website and has now been removed.
Kind of cowardly removing the report. They should have kept it there and included their mea culpa. Note, it's only a correction and not an apology.
Posted by steve @ 05:34 PM EST [Link]
~ HUMAN SACRIFICE: To paraphrase Norman Mailer on Richard Nixon: "The right-wing bloggers won’t be happy until we cut Howell Raines' heart out and hold it high on the summit of the journalistic pyramid while an ooh goes up from the crowd."
Hey, I'm just trying to see this from Raines' point of view here.
Posted by Barton @ 04:33 PM EST [Link]
~ THE MAN NOBODY KNOWS: Look's like Mark Steyn has done another interview, this time with Michele Kirsch of Britain's Channel 4. Read it here. Loads of interesting stuff including the answer to the question that we amateur columnists have been asking ourselves for years now: how the heck can Steyn churn out such high-quality punditry in such high quantities? Best piece of trivia: Steyn says he "quit education at high school" to become a DJ (ah, isn't that the dream we all have?). Most poignant bit? I found this following anecdote rather funny, if laced with not a little rueful pathos. In case you're wondering, everyone Steyn names in these paragraphs are famous British journalists who are more-or-less on the right-wing end of the political spectrum, just like Steyn:
A couple of years back, I decided too long had gone by since I'd attended a Spectator party so I flew in for the launch of a book about the Speccie's history. It had been so many years since I'd swung by and nobody remembered what I looked like. I kept sort of sidling up to conversations to try and join in, and Alexander Chancellor and Toby Young would cast haughty sidelong glances and think, "Who the hell let this nutter in?" and then turn their backs and try not to catch my eye. Frank Johnson and Bruce Anderson assumed I was some loser and cut me dead.
I wound up at the back talking to a nice gel from the country who was a friend of a friend of a friend of somebody, and eventually the word rippled around that Mark Steyn was somewhere in the room making his once-a-decade descent from his mountain vastness, and Frank came rushing up to apologise for frosting me out and said it had all been a misunderstanding and had his secretary cancel the call to security. But after a few minutes he decided I wasn't that interesting after all and went back to Bruce.
Posted by Barton @ 04:05 PM EST [Link]
~ The Last Best Place? The Free State Project has many admirers in Montana. The article is a fun read if you ignore the smarmy ending and the author's cheerleading for the social-welfare state.
Posted by izzy @ 12:35 PM EST [Link]
~ MIGHT THE GRAY LADY BE OUR PAPER OF RECORD AGAIN?: Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd have resigned.
Can the paper's tarnished image be restored?
Posted by antle @ 11:19 AM EST [Link]
~ ARAFAT ONCE AGAIN SHOWS HIS TRUE COLORS: The Palestinian Authority president is taking potshots at the recent negotiations between his prime minister and Israel.
Posted by antle @ 09:42 AM EST [Link]
~ ONE CON-CON IS FOR IT: Ron Paul gives his thoughts on the partial-birth abortion ban, explaining why he reluctantly voted for it despite its flaws.
Posted by antle @ 08:10 AM EST [Link]
~ I KNOW WHY PEOPLE HATE ABORTION: But thinking that the House of Representatives did right in passing a bill to ban "partial birth" abortion is not a good thing.
Now I'm not an American so perhaps when I read your constitution I might have missed something, but where does it give Congress the right to ban medical procedures, even disturbing ones? Seriously, go and read it right now and tell me where Congress has the power. Couldn't find it? Still happy? If you are, you aren't one of Jim Antle's con-cons.
Conservatives can't celebrate unconstitutional actions when it serves their agendas or they are nothing more than hypocrites. No matter how much you hate abortion, it doesn't justify blatantly unconstitutional legislation.
Posted by steve @ 03:47 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, June 4, 2003 YOU CAN'T TRUST THOSE DIRTY JUDEN, PART TWO: Michael Leeden responds to smears similar those being used against Wolfowitz from his perch at NRO.
Posted by antle @ 11:41 PM EST [Link]
~ CALIFORNIAN ON IMMIGRATION: The Orange County Register's Steve Greenhut sums up my views on immigration pretty well on LewRockwell.com: "I am not against immigration, but problems arise when the numbers of new arrivals go far beyond the ability of the broader society to assimilate them."
Posted by antle @ 11:14 PM EST [Link]
~ RAVE ON - LIBERTARIANS AND CONSERVATIVES REVISITED: A bit ago I wrote about the tensions between libertarians and conservatives, advocating continued cooperation. A number of libertarian bloggers more inclined to view the "third way" model as the best for libertarianism, such as Julian Sanchez, questioned whether a coalition along fusionist lines was still desirable or even possible.
I think the jury is still very much out on whether they are right. I certainly will concede the possibility that such cooperation may not be possible, though I believe strongly that it is desirable. Bu the bottom paragraph of this blog entry from Virginia Postrel shows why the possiblity of a continued conservative/libertarian alliance still exists. This is especially significant given that Postrel is very much a third way libertarian who even said that she hoped the Democrats held the Senate in 2002 to avert a ban on human cloning. I would say that there remain more liberty-oriented individuals within the conservative wing of the GOP than the hopelessly statist liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
Posted by antle @ 07:45 PM EST [Link]
~ AUSTRIANS, SUPPLY-SIDERS AND ANTLE, OH MY: Supply-sider and PoliticalUSA.com columnist Scott Gillette disagrees with the line I have taken on debt, deficits and government spending over the last two weeks in ESR (a version of this piece also ran on their website).
Jeffrey Tucker, editor of the Mises Institute's website and the Free Market magazine, pointed out that I referred to Austrian school economists as "ignored" in the same piece on the great new Mises.org blog. I respond with a bit of a clarification here.
Posted by antle @ 07:31 PM EST [Link]
~ SEE, YOU CAN'T TRUST THE DIRTY JUDEN: Paul Wolfowitz is once again the target of a news outlet that has manufactured or taken a quote out of context in order to denigrate him and the war against Iraq.
The Guardian has a headline blaring "Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil".
Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."
Seems pretty clear cut right? This is why blogs are challenging the mainstream news media. As Little Green Footballs points out, the truth of Wolfowitz's remarks are a little different. Read on for the real story.
Posted by steve @ 06:26 PM EST [Link]
~ BUT DOES IT MATTER ANYMORE?: Associated Press has apparently obtained a copy of Hillary Clinton's new book, set to be released on Monday, and the big "news" is that she discusses the Lewinsky saga and claims that golly gosh darned it she didn't know Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky until he admitted it to her.
That, of course, doesn't sound plausible in the slightest. Bimbo eruptions were a yearly occurance around Bill long before he ran for president, if all those people who say so are to be believed. I can imagine one person lying, not dozens. I find it hard to believe, especially in light of Bill and Hillary's appearance on 60 Minutes to defend their marriage all those years ago, that none of those whispers reached her ears. We all know that she knew. End of story. For her to write a memoir claiming the exact opposite crosses the disingenious line.
Well, Ramesh Ponnuru doesn't believe her either and makes it clear in a NRO story today.
AP, reporting on the contents of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's new book, says that she did not believe her husband had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky until the day before his grand-jury testimony. It is not exactly a surprise that Sen. Clinton is sticking to this line in her book. But I don't believe it for a minute.
Maybe it's partisanship, and maybe it's Clinton-hating paranoia — but I doubt it. The Washington Post account about the book helpfully repeats Mrs. Clinton's words to Matt Lauer a few days after the Lewinsky story broke. If the story about the president having an affair and lying about it were "proven true," she said, it "would be a very serious offense." She added, "That is not going to be proven true." Twice, she used the construction "proven true." Are those really the words that you would pick if you were convinced of your husband's innocence?
In another story NRO contributing editor Mark Levin argues the same, stating that she couldn't possibly be that dumb to believe him until he confessed.
But does it matter? Do we care anymore? Random House is betting yes considering it's releasing 1 million hardcover copies on Monday, quite a large number for those of you unsure about these things. I have to wonder if it really does matter anymore? The Clinton era is over. We all know the truth. Do we really have to debate this stuff again?
For God's sake I hope not. I just got a review copy of Douglas Coupland's new novel and I'd rather discuss that.
Posted by steve @ 04:37 PM EST [Link]
~ SCUMBAG: Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich yesterday called on the U.S. Department of Defence to release an uneditted version of the video depicting Pvt. Jessica Lynch's rescue from an Iraqi hospital during the recent war.
"Nothing the administration has said about Private Lynch has been verified by private news reports. It's time to find out the truth."
I'd have the commandos who rescued her hand him the tape and watch it with him.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:25 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, June 3, 2003 THEY DON'T KNOW WHEN TO QUIT: After the debacle that surrounded the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines for dissing George W. Bush outside of the country you'd think the members of the band would show a little discretion. Nope.
"Just as the controversy appeared to be dying down after the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines mildly ridiculed President Bush before the start of the Iraq war, country radio programmers are disappointed in the group once again.
"This time, they take issue with the fact that Maines apparently chose to take a shot at fellow country musician Toby Keith during her May 21 performance at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Maines wore a sleeveless shirt with the letters F.U.T.K. on the front.
Most viewers, including awards show presenter Vince Gill, interpreted the letters as an expletive aimed at Keith. After opening the envelope that revealed Keith had won the night's biggest award -- entertainer of the year -- Gill quipped, 'I think his name was on someone's shirt tonight.'"
I wonder what F.U.T.K. could stand for? I always thought they were talentless and if this is the best she could come up with it proves it.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:21 PM EST [Link]
~ THE SOLDIERS WILL THANK YOU: If you donated any money that is. Kevin over at The Primary Objective wrapped up his fundraising drive for the soldiers in the Middle East who lost all their personal possessions in a fire and has raised $2665. Nicely done Kevin!
Posted by steve @ 05:36 AM EST [Link]
~ THE ART OF DRINKING: (Found via another site which I can't remember) In these politically correct times, drinking is looked upon not much more kindly than tobacco...or asbestos for that matter. What was once considered a social lubricant celebrated by men like Ernest Hemingway is now the future target of America's trial attorneys. Yet for some of us, the romance of drinking (note, I didn't say the romance of being drunk) hasn't disappeared. It is, as Ariel Levy writes in a story for New York Metro, "alcohol is like love: an endless source of pleasure and havoc and confusion."
Levy writes a great story about the drinking scene in New York City, how it's changed since the 1980s. Although I understand that her experiences are far different from my own, Sudbury, Ontario isn't NYC, I can understand the atmosphere that she's trying to invoke. It's an atmosphere where friends and circles mix effortlessly, where drinking was like a river that nourishes. Drinking could make things possible in any given night. Here's a great para from her story that should explain what I mean:
There is a democracy to drinking in New York. Pete Hamill, the ghost of alcoholic New York past, calls it “the great leveler.” The boozy New York youth of the forties and fifties that he describes in his memoir was spent largely in the “snug darkness of saloons,” in the all-male world of Brooklyn bars, and later in places like the Lion’s Head in the West Village, where an artsier machismo pervaded. “Drinking was part of being a man,” he writes. “Drinking was an integral part of sexuality. . . . Drinking was the sacramental binder of friendships. Drinking was the reward for work, the fuel of celebration, the consolation for death or defeat. Drinking gave me strength, confidence, ease, laughter; it made me believe that dreams really could come true.”
Levy isn't a big fan of today's moderation but I think she understands why it's come about. Too many people have forgotten that you walk from moderation to fun but you stumble into overdoing it. Personally, I'm far from overdoing it but a little past moderation. Then again, I'm 31 (32 this Sunday), I hang around with a singles crowd that circulates easily and we all like to meet in bars. Is that an excuse or a reason? Whatever it is, alcohol creates pleasure and havoc and confusion for us. Maybe that's what being young is all about.
Read on. Warning, some language.
Posted by steve @ 02:23 AM EST [Link]
~ SALAM PAX IS REAL: This teaches me to visit Slate in the afternoon, not the morning. Peter Maas says he has proof that Salam Pax is real. What's that proof? Salam was his interpretor while he was in Baghdad.
The day after I returned to New York, reunited with my cable modem, I checked out a friend's blog that linked to an Austrian interview with Salam Pax. I clicked to it. Salam Pax mentioned an NGO he had worked for, CIVIC, and this caught my attention. I knew the woman who was in charge of CIVIC; she stayed at my Baghdad hotel, the Hamra. Salam Pax mentioned that he had done some work for foreign journalists. We traveled in the same circles, apparently. He also mentioned that he had studied in Vienna. This really caught my attention, because I knew an Iraqi who had worked for CIVIC, hung out with foreign journalists, and studied in Vienna. I clicked over to his blog.
His latest post mentioned an afternoon he spent at the Hamra Hotel pool, reading a borrowed copy of The New Yorker. I laughed out loud. He then mentioned an escapade in which he helped deliver 24 pizzas to American soldiers. I howled. Salam Pax, the most famous and most mysterious blogger in the world, was my interpreter. The New Yorker he had been reading—mine. Poolside at the Hamra—with me. The 24 pizzas—we had taken them to a unit of 82nd Airborne soldiers I was writing about.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:24 AM EST [Link]
Monday, June 2, 2003 HEY, I REMEMBER SEEING THIS STUFF IN HISTORY BOOKS: Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs reports on a vile cartoon published in the Chicago Tribune last Friday, one so sick that the Chicago Sun Times felt compelled to attack in an editorial today.
I wonder if any elderly Jews opened up their Tribunes Friday morning and flashbacked a couple of decades ago? I wonder they were reminded of other cartoons that exploited the same imagery?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:26 PM EST [Link]
~ WOLFOWITZ AND IRAQ: James S. Robbins has a neat story at NRO today about Paul Wolfowitz and why the coalition of the willing went to war with Iraq.
There is something of a straw man being erected in the debate, namely the suggestion that Saddam's WMD arsenal was the only reason for the war. Certainly, it was the most highly debated issue. But was it the reason? No, and no one in the administration ever said that it was. The rationale for regime change in Iraq was larger than that issue. Secretary Wolfowitz listed three fundamental concerns with respect to Iraq, namely WMDs, links to terrorism, and crimes against the Iraqi people. I will cite an additional issue: the fact that Saddam Hussein was an international aggressor. Of these four rationales, the last two were not controversial because they were beyond dispute. In fact, their indisputability was what led the antiwar groups to downplay both of them, usually by saying that of course Saddam was a butcher, but it was up to the Iraqi people to do something about it since it was their country and we had no right getting involved in their internal affairs. That this same group of people seemed to want to intervene almost anywhere else in the world where there were serious human-rights violations, like inadequate health-care plans or climates of non-inclusiveness, was temporarily forgotten. In the weeks since Iraq was liberated numerous mass graves have been unearthed confirming the fundamental inhumanity of Saddam's regime. Whether or not anyone believed that this was reason enough to invade, I think all can agree that having less mass murder in the world is qualitatively better than having more. As for Saddam's record of conventional international aggression (against Iran, Kuwait, and Israel), it is worth noting that "waging aggressive war" was the principle charge at Nuremberg. Saddam was an avid practitioner, and there is no reason to think he had ever mended his ways.
Read it all here.
Posted by steve @ 03:13 PM EST [Link]
~ PAUL KRUGMAN, MEET JAYSON BLAIR: Stephen W. Stanton gives the New York Times op-ed windbag and Keynesian snake-oil peddler Paul Krugman a much deserved fisking over at Tech Central Station.
Posted by antle @ 09:22 AM EST [Link]
~ WATCH THIS SPACE: I would have to give Rep. Johnny Isakson the edge in the race for the GOP nod to succeed Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA). But Hermain Cain would be an extremely impressive candidate and his election would constitute a major breakthrough for a number of reasons. An accomplished businessman, popular motivational speaker and strong conservative, he briefly flirted with a presidential run in 2000 but ended up supporting Steve Forbes instead. A senatorial bid strikes me as a more realistic starting point for the Godfather's Pizza C.E.O. I'm not sure if he can pull it off this time, but I think he remains someone on the political scene worth watching.
Posted by antle @ 08:50 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, June 1, 2003 MAYBE I WAS WRONG: I rejected an article this week for tonight's issue of ESR that laid out conditions for peace in the Middle East. One of those conditions was the death of Yasser Arafat. I rejected it because I thought that notion might lead people to believe that ESR supports killing off people who stand in the way of our agenda. I'm reconsidering that article now in light of the following:
Israel Television Channel Two News correspondent Ehud Yaari showed a tape this evening of the meeting Yasser Arafat held in Ramallah with children to mark International Children's Day.
Arafat devoted his remarks to encouraging the children to be "shahid" (die for the cause), noting that one shahid who dies for the sake of Jerusalem has the power equal to 40 of the enemy dying.
Yaari noted that Arafat said nothing in his remarks about peace or reconciliation.
One must wonder how human beings can value their children so lightly that they want them to die. Perhaps Arafat must die in order for peace to come about...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:58 PM EST [Link]
~ IRAQ: COME FOR THE POST-WAR VISIT AND STAY FOR THE CHICKEN: Mark Steyn is back from his trip to Iraq and he's got a great piece at The Telegraph about what's really happening there.
I've spent the past couple of weeks on a motoring tour of western and northern Iraq, and I can't recommend it highly enough. The roads are empty except for the occasional burnt-out tank and abandoned Saddamite limo. You can make excellent time, because it will be several months before a deBa'athified Iraqi highway patrol squad is up and running and even longer before they replace the looted radar detectors. On the boring stretches of desert motorway you can liven things up by playing D-I-Y contraflow. And best of all, if you avoid Baghdad and a couple of other major cities, you'll find the charming countryside completely unspoilt by Western reporters insisting that America is "losing the peace".
I missed him while he was gone. Thank God he's back. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:02 PM EST [Link]
~ DO YOU REALLY REMEMBER?: As with a lot of people, I surf other people's personal blogs. This morning I read a woman's blog entries during the month of September 2001. Yeah, you know what day I mean to refer to. The blogs that we did that month died during a software change but the young lady's blog entries that week reminded me of what I felt. Do you remember that week? Are you still angry? If not, why not?
Get angry again America.
[Musings Archive Index] [Back to New Musings]
