Musings Archive December 2004
Friday, December 31, 2004 I ASSUME 'BLING BLING' IS ALREADY BANNED: Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie has released its list of banned words and phrases for 2005. On the list are "You're fired!" and "blog."
The Nov. 2 election produced a host of proposed bannings for 2005, including "blue (Democratic) and red (Republican) states," "battleground states," "flip-flop" and the political ad tag line ".... and I approve this message."
Sex also was on the minds of committee members, who targeted the impotence synonym "erectile dysfunction" from Viagra and Levitra ads and "wardrobe malfunction," used to describe the baring of singer Janet Jackson's right breast at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.
And yes, "bling bling" was banned last year. I remember first hearing that word in the mid-90s (coined by the rap group Cash Money Millionaires) -- years before it got big -- and knowing that it would soon be ubiquitous. I hate being right.
Check out the 2005 list and all lists going back to 1976 here.
Posted by steve @ 06:30 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ GEN X CONFESSIONS: This isn't good New Year's Eve fare, but this item from Joshua Clabyorn, guest-blogging at Radley Balko's The Agitator, is a pretty good rundown of the Gen-X yuppie life.
"That'll be $67.53," she said. I handed her my TJ Maxx gift card, but I didn't really care how much of the total I had to pay on my own. I had plenty of money, especially after all the Christmas gifts. I think the remainder was thirty-something, but I didn't care. I simply hadned her the plastic debit card, which I knew had more than enough to cover it.As I stepped out of the store and onto the downtown sidewalk, two men in their 50s were crouching on the pavement, jingling fast food drink cups that had a few coins in them. The sight is neither common nor rare, it just exists. Occassionally I'll stop and offer a dollar, but today I lied and said I had nothing. The truth was that I didn't want to whip out my roll of cash and reveal the two $50 bills.
When I look at my level of material comfort and compare it to the images of the tsunami victims, somehow it just doesn't seem right.
Read on.
Posted by antle @ 06:19 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ MISUNDERSTANDING MARRIAGE: While I am more sympathetic to some of the reasons many gays and lesbians (among others) feel so strongly there should be same-sex marriage, I wholeheartedly agree with the conclusion Thomas Sowell reaches in his latest syndicated column. The whole debate fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of marriage laws, which is to limit the sexual and other freedoms of adults by tethering them to responsibilities of some societal import.
Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the life of the law is not logic but experience. Marriage laws have evolved through centuries of experience with couples of opposite sexes and the children that result from such unions. Society asserts its stake in the decisions made by restricting the couples' options.Society has no such stake in the outcome of a union between two people of the same sex. Transferring all those laws to same-sex couples would make no more sense than transferring the rules of baseball to football.
Read on.
Posted by antle @ 05:29 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ LAST CALL!: How I hate those two words. At any rate, it's last call for your nominations/votes for ESR's Ninth Annual Person of the Year! We have plenty of votes but do we have your vote? You have until midnight EST Friday night.
Vote here.
Posted by steve @ 01:18 AM EST [Link] [No Comments]
Thursday, December 30, 2004 BIAS IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: Many people have, with good reason, proclaimed 2004 the year where biased media liberals were hoist on their own petard by the blogosphere. (Dan Rather, anyone?) But that doesn't mean blogs and radio talk shows are without faults. Matt Welch has a piece in the December Reason that is a must-read before we get a little too self-congratulatory.
Posted by antle @ 11:55 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ MORE GOOD NEWS: Longtime ESR friend Lawrence Henry has a piece over at The American Spectator website looking at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights after Mary Frances Berry. It sounds like a vast improvement.
Posted by antle @ 11:43 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ THERE IS GOOD NEWS: Sorry for the lack of blogging today. Trying to make money to eat. You know how it is. At any rate, our current poll asks how things were for you both personally and professionally in 2004 and a majority of you seem to be positive about this year.
In a column for Fox News, Radley Balko argues that 2004 was indeed full of good news: Juvenile crime was down, the world was less violent, American is cleaner...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:29 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
Wednesday, December 29, 2004 A GOOD WAY TO SCHEDULE A MEETING WITH THE FBI AT YOUR HOME: Pilots are reporting that in recent days a number of airliners have had their cockpits illuminated by lasers while they were landing.
The cockpit of a Continental Airlines 737 was illuminated by a laser Monday as it approached Cleveland, authorities said.
FBI spokesman Bob Hawk said the light, which shined into the cockpit at around 8 p.m., came from a suburb about 15 miles from the airport.
Terrorists or idiot kids? Either way, some pilot gets blinded and life will become uncomfortable for someone.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:52 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ DUKE IS A LONG WAY FROM PALESTINE: But that doesn't mean it can't host the annual conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement, an umbrella for Canadian and U.S. groups. Eric Adler has emailed to tell me that he's co-authored a story that will appear in the January issue of Commentary on the PSM conference that took place at Duke University in October.
One keynote speech of the PSM’s exercise in “education through dialogue” was delivered by Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Yale professor of genetics, who presented a short history of what he portrayed as the virulent Zionist “disease.” There was also a lecture by the PLO legal adviser Diana Buttu, a polished speaker whose theme was that Palestinians under Israeli occupation have suffered a fate worse than blacks under apartheid in South Africa, and that Israel is today “the greatest abuser of human rights” in the world. Nasser Abufarha, a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, spoke of Israel’s “racist ambitions” and defended the terrorist activities of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in combating Zionist “aggression.” Brian Avery, an activist for ISM, explained that both George W. Bush and John Kerry were “on auction to the Jewish lobby.”
Them Jews sure are busy, aren't they? At any rate, check out Adler and Jack Langer's story as it's well worth reading.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:58 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ BIG MISTAKE: Jay Reding reacts to a broadside by Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Nick Coleman against conservative blog Powerline. Seems the very liberal Mr. Coleman, who also attacked Powerline on Air America earlier this month, is upset that the cats behind the blog are conservatives.
When will Mr. Coleman learn: The bloggers always have the last word.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:57 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ OH, SO WHEN CONSERVATIVE STUDENTS COMPLAIN OF BIAS AGAINST THEM IT'S "CHILLING": If you're a conservative student fighting for academic freedom, be prepared to be accused of creating a "chill in the air." See, when liberals invoke academic freedom, it's a good thing. When conservatives do it, it's disruptive and vengeful.
Those behind the trend call it an antidote to the overwhelming liberal dominance of university faculties. But many educators, while agreeing students should never feel bullied, worry that they just want to avoid exposure to ideas that challenge their core beliefs -- an essential part of education.
Some also fear teachers will shy away from sensitive topics, or fend off criticism by "balancing" their syllabuses with opposing viewpoints, even if they represent inferior scholarship.
"Faculty retrench. They are less willing to discuss contemporary problems and I think everyone loses out," said Joe Losco, a professor of political science at Ball State University in Indiana who has supported two colleagues targeted for alleged bias. "It puts a chill in the air."
I find that funny considering that my academic career was threatened by two professors at Laurentian University in the 1990s when I was a conservative columnist at the student paper. Not one professor stood up to defend me...even the conservative proofs remained silent. It was certainly chilling to have tenured professors working to have me fail out. Sorry, no pity from me Mr. Losco.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:03 AM EST [Link] [No Comments]
Tuesday, December 28, 2004 SELF-PROMO ALERT: My take on limiting judicial filibusters at Tech Central Station. The Cliff Notes version: I understand why conservatives tend to support it, but if it creates a precedent for weakening the filibuster overall we may regret it.
Posted by antle @ 11:37 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ YOU WON'T BE MISSED: I can't wait for the inevitable hand-wringing that we've lost another intellectual giant because of the death of Susan Sontag today. Already she's being described as the leading intellectual of her generation so undoubtedly many boomers are crying in their low-fat lattes this afternoon. I for one will not weep for her.
After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks Sontag, in a New Yorker essay refused to call the murderers 'cowards' because she defined "courage [as a] morally neutral virtue.". In a 2003 interview when asked what Susan Sontag's America was she answered, "My America is called Europe. It is my place of dreams." She once described the white race as a cancer on humanity, though oddly enough she didn't end her own life to ameliorate the illness. I won't even bother to address her hateful essay on the Abu Ghraib pictures in which she announced that the pictures represented America today.
I could sit here all day and quote the intellectual sickness that Sontag has personified since the 1960s but it's hardly worthwhile. She was the voice of another generation, bleating on about imperialism and the other concerns of graying 60s radicals who haven't changed their basic assumptions about the world in four decades.
Posted by steve @ 01:34 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ I WAS WONDERING WHEN IT WOULD HAPPEN: I was wondering when environmentalists were going to use the earthquake and tsunami for their own purposes and I've never disappointed by the movement. As Tim Blair relates, one scientist has blamed shrimping. You can't make this stuff up.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:30 AM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ THEY'RE WORSE THAN ANYTHING I EVER WROTE IN UNIVERSITY: Our friends over at The Hatemonger's Quarterly have released their winner in the First Annual "Worst Academic Paper Title" Competition. How bad do you think it is? The runner-up was entitled "Eternal Flame: State Formation, Deviant Architecture, and the Monumentality of Same-Sex Eroticism in the Roman d'Eneas" by Noah D. Guynn. The 'winner' is much worse.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:42 AM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ MONDAY NIGHT QUARTERBACK: What a sad weekend and what a happy one.
Sad, of course, because we lost Reggie White on Sunday morning at the age of 43. As I mentioned on Sunday, although I am a Chicago Bears fan, I always admired White. The man was a warrior on the field and widely respected off of it. Forty-three is just too young for a husband and father to die. Our thoughts go out to the White family who can take some comfort that no one will ever forget the Minister of Defense.
Most of you reading this will remember White during those early years with Green Bay when he played like a man possessed. As someone stated this weekend, sometimes White got his man simply because he terrified them into immobility. I can't remember any other player in my life who so easily penetrated offensive lines and hunted quarterbacks down. Not Bruce Smith or Deacon Jones -- no slouches themselves, not nobody. And not only was he a sack specialist, but runners didn't particularly enjoy their meetings with Reggie either. He was quite simply the best defensive lineman to have ever played.
On a happier note, as expected Preston Manning set a new record for touchdowns during the regular season with 49. Manning has one more game in which to pad his new record and we wouldn't be surprised if he ended up with more than 50. Once again Manning showed the class act that he was by refusing to stop the game to honour the new record and kept his mind on tying the game with a two-point conversion, not celebrating the touchdown. Not only has he set a new mark for touchdowns, it appears he will also set a new season record for highest quarterback rating, beating Steve Young's mark of 112.8.
All I can say about this weekend was it seemed every team I picked tried their hardest to lose the game. As I write this the Philadelphia Eagles are not only not covering the six point spread I gave them, they're losing to St. Louis. Also messing up my pool sheet were Jacksonville, Tampa Bay and Washington -- which was winning with just minutes left in the game but decided to give it up to Dallas.
Say what you will, this was a weird weekend. It was one where I picked Miami to win against Cleveland, Atlanta to lose against New Orleans and Seattle to beat Arizona. Most other weekends I would have picked the other way but considering the unpredictability of some teams this year you could just throw darts at a board and probably do as well.
How about those Bills? They start the season 0-4 and now have just notched their sixth consecutive win. They may become just the second team to start 0-4 and enter the playoffs. It didn't hurt that Baltimore, Jacksonville and the New York Jets all lost.
Week 1 - 8 out of 15
Week 2 - 11 out of 16
Week 3 - 9 of 15
Week 4 - 7 of 14
Week 5 - 7 of 14
Week 6 - 9 of 14
Week 7 - 6 of 14
Week 8 - 8 of 14
Week 9 - 8 of 14
Week 10 - 9 of 14
Week 11 - 13 of 16
Week 14 - 12 of 14
Week 15 - 10 of 16
Week 16 - 12 of 16
Week 17 - 10 of 16
Week 18 - 11 of 15 (Friday night game not included)%: 63.2 (150 of 237)
It's hard to believe but I have never picked a Buffalo Bills cheerleader as our ESR CotW! You'd think during their run I would have at least given the Jills a glance but the team just sneaked up on me this year. To remedy that gross oversight, this week's CotW is Amanda (First row, second from the left). Unfortunately the Bills website gives but the barest of information about its cheerleaders but I can say two things about Jill: She was born in 1985 -- I'm always terrified when I meet women born in years that I remember well, and I'm only 33 -- and she looks like several women I've fallen for with bad results. Always a bad combination personally but a great choice for our Cheerleader of the Week.
Posted by steve @ 12:36 AM EST [Link] [2 comments]
Monday, December 27, 2004 WHERE SURVIVAL IS CONCERNED, RICHER IS BETTER: Glenn Harlan Reynolds writes about this weekend's horrific tsunami tragedy in Sri Lanka for Tech Central Station, and fingers poverty and inattention as culprits alongside the natural disaster. Economic growth, he argues, far from being anti-human might have saved lives.
Read on.
Posted by antle @ 11:13 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ TRADE THOUGHTS: I remain a free trader, but recent research has made me more open to Paul Craig Roberts' argument that the international mobility of factors of production undermines the idea of comparative advantage upon which free trade theory is based. Bob Murphy has a nice piece over at Mises.org making the case against free trade revisionism and for the overall benefits of globalization.
Posted by antle @ 10:46 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ I COULD HAVE ATE THAT SANDWICH: An online casino has bought the Nintendo DS systems that a family placed on eBay after the kids were more naughty than nice for Christmas. Oddly enough, they also bought a cheese sandwich that has an "image" of the Virgin Mary.
I'm not a theological expert but presumably God has more important things to do than place images of Mary on cheese sandwiches. That's a sandwich I could have eaten.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:23 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ WHAT REALLY HAPPENED WITH FLIGHT 93: Speaking of Donald Rumsfeld, he made some cryptic comments about Flight 93, the airliner that crashed into a Pennsylvannia field on September 11, 2001, being shot down. Michelle Malkin says that Rumsfeld's comments made it sound like the hijackers shot down the airplane. Naturally some crazies have pulled out their decoder rings and revamped their conspiracy theories about the flight.
Malkin discusses Rumsfeld's comments here.
Just weeks after 9/11 Stuart Buck penned a column about what really may have happened to the airplane for ESR. You can find that here. Not surprisingly it is one of the most accessed articles in the magazine's history.
Posted by steve @ 06:08 PM EST [Link] [1 Comment]
~ NO, LET'S KEEP TALKING ABOUT HIS AUTOPEN: Tim Chavez had an interesting story run in yesterday's The Tennessean about the side of Donald Rumsfeld that the media never reports on. Why? Because Rumsfeld isn't interested in this kind of publicity.
The Tennessee man spoke of a defense secretary, on an early May day, who came to visit the wounded at Bethesda Naval Hospital — without any press coverage.
And he remembers a defense secretary and his wife who gave him 20 minutes to listen, talk and cry about the heroics and loss of his son, Brent.
"He’s not the insensitive ogre he’s made out to be," Morel said. " I just don’t think it is right that he is getting pounded. I found him to be generally a person, someone who showed genuine concern, a patriot.
"There are things they were ill-prepared for in the aftermath of the war. But he understood Brent had lost his life and saved the lives of several others. He was sorry. I could see the man was visibly upset. He was crying, too."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:57 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ IT'S SO HARD TO GET GOOD HELP THESE DAYS: A funny McSweeney's item on the things you can learn about yourself if you are nominated to run the Department of Homeland Security. (Via LewRockwell.com.)
Read on.
Posted by antle @ 04:10 PM EST [Link] [1 Comment]
~ BLAH BLAH BLAH: Hard to believe the most feared man in the world just three or four years ago has now been reduced to just making poor quality audio tapes. The latest missive from Osama bin Laden? Boycott elections in Iraq next month!
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:09 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ YOU KNOW, I ACTUALLY DO BLOG IN MY PAJAMAS: I'm doing it right now in fact. At any rate, Edward B. Driscoll, Jr. has a list of the top ten events that the blogosphere was involved in.
So…from the home office in San Jose, California, allow me to present, via my 1972 IBM Selectric and my jammies, the top ten events that ricocheted through the Blogosphere in 2004.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:01 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ WHEN SOMEONE HAS WRONGED YOU, DON'T TAKE THE LAW INTO YOUR OWN HANDS AND HONOUR KILL THEM...YOU TAKE THEM TO COURT!: (Via Instapundit) I finished reading In the Red Zone this weekend -- you'll see my review next week -- so I was quite interested in a PDF that Instapundit.com linked to earlier today on the practice of law in Iraq.
As Steve Vincent points out in his book, the rule of law is a foreign concept to many Iraqis thanks to Saddam Hussein. Lawyer Bert McGurk has some very interesting thoughts himself -- and he would know plenty on the subject as he practiced law in Iraq earlier this year.
Download it here. (189 KB)
Posted by steve @ 03:55 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
Sunday, December 26, 2004 MINISTER OF DEFENSE, RIP: NFL great Reggie White, sack-master and social conservative, has died. White was only 43 when he apparently suffered a massive heart attack.
Thoughts and prayers go out to his family.
Posted by antle @ 04:46 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, December 25, 2004 CLAY AIKEN AIN'T NAT KING COLE: I've been listening to a radio station that plays Christmas songs for 36 hours straight until midnight tonight. That necessarily means it must mix the classics - Bing Crosby, Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole, Andy Williams' older Christmas recordings - with a lot of more recent dreck (Stevie Nicks, for example, never should have recorded "Silent Night").
Sorting through it all not only confirmed that some of the remakes are a little off compared to earlier versions, but that there is in fact a dearth of recent great Christmas music.
Some of the newer pop and rock Christmas caroling is fine. I confess to being a fan of the '70s singer-songwriter genre, so I was disappointed that I was unable to snap up a copy of James Taylor's new Christmas CD And for whatever reason, I've always been a fan of that 1977 Bing Crosby/David Bowie duet.
Oh well. I guess I'll leave my Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Christmas with the Rat Pack CDs in the stereo 'til New Years.
Posted by antle @ 11:32 PM EST [Link]
~ PC UNIVERSITY: Just getting back online to surf through the news after stuffing myself and enjoying holiday cheer. An AP story with the headline "Conservative Students Target Liberal Profs" quickly caught my eye.
As a onetime bane of liberal profs (for reasons political as well as academic), I'm nevertheless sympathetic to some arguments against David Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights and have argued that campus conservatives sometimes focus too much on their professors' politics.
Having said that, the overall tone of this story struck me as more stacked against the young righties than is warranted. Read on.
Posted by antle @ 10:58 PM EST [Link]
~ I DON'T MIND BUSH BUT I AIN'T MOVING TO TEXAS: Ted Nugent likes George W. Bush so much that he practically lives next door to the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Okay, that's not why he moved but the fact that a Republican president lives down the road from him doesn't hurt either.
Nugent says he plans to get a Texas driver's license soon. He said that he officially will become a Texas resident in 2005, after moving his family to Crawford, Texas, about a year and a half ago.
Apparently the hunting in Crawford is amazing. Now that is a good reason to live there.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:09 AM EST [Link]
~ MERRY CHRISTMAS!: On behalf of the entire ESR family, I just want to wish all of you non-Orthodox Christians a very Merry Christmas!
Posted by steve @ 01:02 AM EST [Link]
Friday, December 24, 2004 WHY WE LOVE ANN: Missed it when she posted it earlier this week but Ann Coulter had a good piece about Donald Rumsfeld's use of an autopen.
An autopen is a mechanical arm that actually holds a pen and is programmed to sign letters with a particular person's precise signature. Imagine a President Al Gore, with slightly more personality, signing all official government letters – that's an autopen. (You can relax now, there will be no more exercises imagining a President Al Gore.)
There are 300 million Americans who have a constitutional right – an actual right, not a phony one invented by Harry Blackmun – to write to government officials. Every government office you've ever heard of in Washington, D.C., uses autopens with abandon.
As president, Clinton sold burial plots in Arlington Cemetery and liberals shrugged it off. What really gets their goat is the autopen. Evidently, the important thing was that every one of those pardons Clinton sold for cash on his last day in office was signed by Bill Clinton personally.
It occurred to someone (who obviously has the best interests of America at heart!) that among the letters Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sends out there must be condolence letters to the families of servicemen who died for their country. So liberals are in a lather that those letters were signed by autopen.
On the bright side, this is the first war America has been in where the number of casualties is small enough that it would even be theoretically possible for a Defense secretary to sign each condolence letter personally. When Democrats were running the Vietnam War, letters of condolence often began, "To whom it may concern" and were addressed to "occupant."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:05 PM EST [Link]
~ PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN?: Some hopeful signs in Bethelem this Christmas as Israel eases travel restrictions into the city to let pilgrims, including Palestinians, pass through more easily.
During more than four years of fighting, Christmas in the traditional birthplace of Jesus has been marked by gloom, military curfews and violence. The town is ringed by Israeli checkpoints and a massive separation barrier.
However, on Friday, troops eased restrictions at roadblocks leading into Bethlehem, allowing Palestinians and foreigners to pass more quickly. Military officials said they expected about 5,000 visitors for the two-day holiday, ans that 280 Palestinians from Gaza came to the city.
Read on.
Posted by antle @ 03:52 PM EST [Link]
~ WINTER SOLSTICE? BAH HUMBUG!: For your Christmas Eve reading pleasure, here is a piece from a couple years back for The Patriotist in which I weighed in on the annual Christmas Catfights. I doubt it will displace 'Twas the Night Before Christmas in your family's yearly tradition, but I hope you enjoy it just the same.
Merry Christmas!
Posted by antle @ 03:12 PM EST [Link]
~ DEMOCRAT WINS WASHINGTON GOVERNOR'S RACE...MAYBE: Democrat Christine Gregoire appears to have won the governorship of Washington by 130 votes, out of nearly 2.9 million votes cast. Does that mean she's the next governor of the state? Nope, the Republicans vow to carry on the fight since the new King County results overturned a Republican victory.
Read on.
I feel like buying a fedora.
Posted by steve @ 03:52 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, December 23, 2004 WWII: If at first you don't succeed, try again. The White House has announced that Dubya will renominate all of those judges filibustered by Senate Democrats during the first term.
"The president nominated highly qualified individuals to the federal courts during his first term, but the Senate failed to vote on many nominations," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said. "Unfortunately, this only exacerbates the issue of judicial vacancies, compounds the backlog of cases and delays timely justice for the American people."
Of course, Senate Democrats aren't chastened by the drubbing they took in November and have already promised new filibusters.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:50 PM EST [Link]
~ I WOULD EXECUTE THE PERSON WHO USED CHRISMUKKAH IN MY PRESENCE: Fox News has released its list of catch phrases that caught on in 2004, ones that include Celebutante, Chrismukkah and Deaniac.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:40 AM EST [Link]
~ USING CHILDREN IS PATHETIC: The Rainforest Action Network is in a bit of hot water because they used a group of second grade children to protest J.P. Morgan. Apparently they were placing pressure on the company not to loan money out for projects that could "destroy endangered forests and cause global warming."
Read on.
People just don't get it -- though I'm not dissing those angry at RAN. The environmental movement is ruthless and will do anything they can to promote their anti-human message. Using children? Hell, that may be among the more benign things they've done. We aren't we getting our message to children?
Posted by steve @ 11:12 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, December 22, 2004 OUR GAIN IS YOUR LOSS
Sorry to have to tell you this, but the first of the anti-Bush liberal whiners have received visas to emigrate to Canada. The US just became a little redder, while Canada became a little bluer.
Read about it here.
Get your papers ready, Steve.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 03:36 PM EST [Link]
~ I ALMOST DON'T CARE WHO WINS: I make a prediction: Every four years there will be one race that will take so long to hammer out that by the time we know the results, we don't care who won. This year's prize winner is the Washington's governor's race. We should know -- in the same way we knew who won Florida about this time four years ago -- who won later today.
Not surprisingly the Democrats are paving the way for shocked! outrage! (and the inevitable court challenge) if they lose by actually announcing they've won. Heck, in one story they even claimed the margin of victory was eight votes despite the fact that the results haven't been released yet. Oh those Democrats. You almost have to admire them.
At any rate, they're still fighting about what votes will be counted so I doubt this will be done today no matter if Christine Gregoire or Dino Rossi wins.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:21 PM EST [Link]
~ STILL MORE ON THE MOSUL ATTACK: The Belmost Club has a good post on the matter.
Posted by steve @ 02:11 PM EST [Link]
~ MILITARY LEADERSHIP LISTENS TO TROOPS' CONCERNS
In the wake of the attack on the mess hall in Mosul, there have been rumblings to try to pin another "armor"-type problem on Rumsfeld and the military leadership. The charge is that the leadership has been ignoring the concerns of the troops regarding the vulnerability of mess facilities.
That charge does not hold up when the whole story comes to light. In today's Las Vegas Sun, the story points out that the US base at Mosul was scheduled to open a more substantial building within days. The story is here.
The realistic view of the military leadership at every level is how to complete the mission with the fewest number of casualties. Time is the issue that controls the ability to provide more protection.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:46 AM EST [Link]
~ A LETTER FROM FALLUJAH: I spent most of the day "off the grid" so I didn't find out about the attack in Mosul until later this evening. I hope this is a wake-up call to the brass; when soldiers warn you that they feel vulnerable during chow time, you listen. Grunts have a sixth sense about these sorts of things.
On a happer note, The American Enterprise has posted a letter from a soldier who fought in Fallujah. An interesting read.
Posted by steve @ 01:44 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, December 21, 2004 MONDAY NIGHT QUARTERBACK: The one thing you can say about New England is that they always find a way to win the game. Well, except Monday evening apparently. Leading by 11 points in the fourth quarter with just three minutes to go the Patriots actually found a way to lose the game. You have to give the Miami Dolphins credit. For a team that can be charitably described as being hopeless this year, they didn't give up.
Of course, that screwed me up. Las Vegas had the Pats favoured by 9.5 points. I figured they'd win by 20 points. Oh well.
I also had picked Chicago to win at home against Houston, Denver to win on the road against Kansas City, Tampa Bay not to embarrass themselves against the New Orleans Saints, Green Bay to win and Tennessee to win. The afternoon games just killed me this week.
Am I the only one thinking that Green Bay, despite being assured of a playoff spot, really should have won that game against Jacksonville? Brett Favre's stats looked decent -- until you see his four picks.
What was that with Indy fans booing Peyton Manning? It came near the end of the game when Manning, showing just how classy he is, decided to kneel twice in the final minute of the game rather than to try and tie Dan Marino's record. The Colts were leading the Baltimore Ravens 20-10 and another touchdown was essentially pointless. Colts fans: You have a great quarterback and a great individual. Appreciate him.
Week 1 - 8 out of 15
Week 2 - 11 out of 16
Week 3 - 9 of 15
Week 4 - 7 of 14
Week 5 - 7 of 14
Week 6 - 9 of 14
Week 7 - 6 of 14
Week 8 - 8 of 14
Week 9 - 8 of 14
Week 10 - 9 of 14
Week 11 - 13 of 16
Week 14 - 12 of 14
Week 15 - 10 of 16
Week 16 - 12 of 16
Week 17 - 10 of 16%: 63 (139 of 222)
I guess this week's Cheerleader of the Week Award should go to a Miami Dolphins squad member, the first time this year the team has merited a selection. Picking just one from the outrageously beautiful crew was nearly impossible. A decision must be made, however, so our CotW goes to Danielle, a rookie member of the squad. Danielle is a nursing student and loves to shop. Surprisingly she was quiet in high school.
Posted by steve @ 03:46 AM EST [Link]
~ CHRISTMAS CATFIGHTS: Terry Mattingly, over at GetReligion, has more on the holiday cheer he calls "Christmas culture war skirmishes." He also characterizes the annual creche tug-of-wars as "cat fights between armies of liberal fundamentalists and conservative fundamentalists."
More promisingly, he urges church leaders to bypass some of these controversies by putting "glowing decorations wherever they wished on church properties and private land" and organizing "choirs of carollers to sing on public sidewalks and in other acceptable open-air environments."
It's a constructive suggestion, though there is something about letting the anti-Christmas brigades decide what constitutes an "acceptable open-air environment" that makes me say bah, humbug.
Read on.
Posted by antle @ 12:07 AM EST [Link]
Monday, December 20, 2004 BRAND NEW DAY: USA Today reports that conservatives are going to get serious in the new Congress, sometimes even challenging the Bush administration on issues like federal non-defense spending.
Hope springs eternal.
Posted by antle @ 10:59 PM EST [Link]
~ RED AND BLUE, NOT RED AND GREEN, NEW CHRISTMAS COLORS?: Slate today featured a short item talking about "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays" being the latest manifestation of the tired red versus blue meme. This isn't anything new to anyone familar with the battles between the religious right and those mean-spirited, Santa-hating liberals.
Here's a round-up of some conservative rejoinders to said liberals: Jeff Jacoby may not celebrate Christmas himself but he nevertheless comes to its defense; Charles Krauthammer does likewise. Tom Piatak has long been fighting the good fight on Christmas, as has Pat Buchanan.
UPDATE: Lest anyone say we're not fair and balanced here at ESR, note Julian Sanchez's piece over at Reason dissecting Yuletide claims that America's Christian majority is being persecuted. And always worth a read this time a year is Paul Craig Roberts' column on Christianity and liberty.
Posted by antle @ 05:50 PM EST [Link]
~ LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW: When I left northern Virginia Saturday afternoon, it was 51 degrees and still warm enough for me to move around outside without a jacket. Now I'm outside of Boston for the holidays, where we have snow and it is expected to be just six degrees tonight. Bundle up, Bostonians.
Posted by antle @ 05:05 PM EST [Link]
~ THERE MUST BE A WHOLE LOT OF PRAYING THEN: A new Fox News poll suggests that Americans pray more often then they take an alcoholic drink.
Almost a third of the public say they pray several times a day, and two thirds pray at least once a day. Less than one in 10 Americans say they "never" pray.
...
Of the activities included in the survey, drinking alcohol is the least frequent on a daily basis as well as when daily and weekly categories are combined. Just over one in 10 Americans say they have an alcoholic drink every day, while nearly half (48 percent) say they either rarely (14 percent) or never (34 percent) touch the stuff.
Jim Antle once told me that I underestimated the influence of Christianity in American life and if this is true, I'd would humbly agree with him...and have a drink.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:51 PM EST [Link]
~ THERE'S ONLY ONE PROBLEM WITH CANADIAN CONSERVATISM?: Ever since I read Richard A. Viguerie and David Franke's America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power this past summer I've been thinking a lot about why the Canadian conservative movement has failed to gain traction despite all of the work of the past decade. Although conservative parties have managed to raise their support each and every federal election, we seem to be no closer than we were a decade ago when Preston Manning was our saviour with the western-based Reform Party. We are not even defining the issues, sometimes more important then winning elections.
In the November 8 issue of The Western Standard Adam Daifallah and Tasha Kheiriddin argued that one of the biggest things holding back conservatism in Canada was a lack of money. Unlike the U.S. (as America's Right Turn documented) we don't have the same access to money. We only have a few think tanks and the wealthy tend not to support conservative groups. Actually, their money is chasing the Liberal Party.
At any rate, in a letter to Adam and Tasha I argued that the biggest problem was really the lack of a grassroots -- a few key leaders among the people who proselytized, did the ground work and threw themselves completely in advancing the conservative cause. The people who served as the hubs of their social and political circle, who motivated others to get involved. Money was certainly important in the nascent modern American conservative movement in the 1950s and 60s but I've always felt that there was a pseudo-spontaneous rise of a new class of conservative activists, ones who proselytized on behalf of the movement without being directly tied to an organization or reliant on funding. We have no similar class in this country and I don't see one arising any time soon.
Sure, we have a bit of one on the web. The folks over at Free Dominion do a great job. The Western Standard promises to carry the banner on newsstands. We have hundreds of hard-core conservatives who email, post and dissect online. These things are valuable but it's the flag waving in the real world that's necessary.
I guess it's almost chicken-egg. Do we need a thriving grassroots community before the money comes, or if the money is there the community will arise. I personally think it's the former but that's just my opinion.
Another comes via Dana Dennis over at The Western Standard's blog, The Shotgun. In a post entitled "The Problem with Canadian Conservatism" Dennis argues that Canadian conservatism needs a small set of goals that it can move with.
Conservative politicians refuse to define the agenda and because of this get clobbered in the press galleries. Conservatives have allowed themselves to be defined as the 'radicals' when it comes to the gay-marriage debate. How is this possible? Radical for preferring the status-quo? This is a failure of Canadian conservatives and no one else.
So what is my solution to all of this? Simple... define 3 or 4 issues that must be addressed based on conservative/libertarian principles. All else is off the table. End of freaking story. And what if the national media doesn't want to discuss these 3 or 4 issues? Then take them to the local media. If you have 80 conservative MPs discussing an issue on their local news broadcasts it won't be long before it becomes a national concern.
Dana attacks it from the third side of the triangle -- policy and the lack of a clear agenda by our conservative political representatives. The problem I have with this -- though I agree with Dana in principle, we certainly do need a clear and effective agenda we can harp on -- is that it assumes that a top down approach is needed to move the conservative agenda forward. I disagree as I maintain that we need a grassroots commitment -- the base is more important than the elite -- to fight for conservative change. I think a simple agenda is a good start, but it is nowhere near enough to kick start Canadian conservatism.
We have to figure out a way to inspire our potential recruits to serve as those hubs. Money is nice -- if our think tanks, researchers, writers and activist groups weren't starved of resources the job would be easier. A clear agenda is good for communicating with the public, assuming they really listen in off-election years. The grassroots, however, is the one that lights the fires in the brush.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:41 AM EST [Link]
~ WHY I DON'T WANT SCHWARZENEGGER CRAFTING LONG-TERM POLICY: Arnold Schwarzenegger is a good candidate but he should stay out of deciding the Republican Party's long-term strategies. Der Governator stated this weekend that the Republican Party should move to the left in order to pick up new voters.
Presumably this means that conservatives in the GOP would have no problem with their party moving to the left and would just stick around. Someone also needs to educate Mr. Schwarzenegger on American political history: Whenever the GOP moves to the left, it loses elections. When it moves to the right (with Goldwater proving to be the exception to the rule), it wins elections.
To put it another way, why vote for Democrat-lite when you can just vote for the Democrats? The Republicans are successful when they differentiate themselves from the Democrats. The fact that Schwarzenegger is saying this after the Republicans recaptured the White House and increased their margins in both the House and the Senate leads me to believe that he's confusing California with the rest of the United States.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:19 AM EST [Link]
~ DEMOCRATS REDISCOVER PRO-LIFERS: Sean Higgins, writing over at The American Spectator, discusses a trend I have commented on at this here blog and mention in a piece for ESR this week: Democrats, if not quite ready to rethink their pro-choice stance on abortion, are at least willing to tolerate pro-lifers within their party.
The question, as Higgins points out, is whether merely playing nice will be good enough. Read on.
Posted by antle @ 12:43 AM EST [Link]
~ WHAT'S CHRISTMAS WITHOUT AN ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER SONG?: Dr. B.L.T. is apparently keeping busy this holiday season. He's got a new free song you can download entitled "Arnold’s Christmas" which you can find on Dr. B.L.T.’s Greatest Prospective Christmas Hits: Volume I (Right-wing Records/ConservaTUNES).
The song celebrates the Governator's move to change the name of the Sacramento Capitol "Holiday Tree" back to Christmas Tree.
Download it here.
Posted by steve @ 12:22 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, December 19, 2004 I THINK OUR AWARD MEANS MORE: George W. Bush will join some pretty illustrious company Monday when he becomes Time's Person of the Year for the second time.
In the Time article, Bush said he relishes that some people dislike him.
"I think the natural instinct for most people in the political world is that they want people to like them," Bush said. "On the other hand, I think sometimes I take kind of a delight in who the critics are."
I can certainly understand that. Sometimes it's a lot easier to get a big job done when you know people are gunning for you the whole time. Their hate motivates you to get them even angrier at you. The trick is not to get angry yourself.
At any rate, George W. Bush is running strong for ESR's Person of the Year. I haven't done any counting -- I want it to be a surprise when I open the ballot box on January 1 -- but it could be that he wins the award for the fourth straight year.
Read on.
Vote for your choice for ESR's Person of the Year here.
Posted by steve @ 06:26 PM EST [Link]
~ NO SURPRISE: A lot of people have been chronicling how Iran is attempting to destablize Iraq and some handy proof came Sunday when Iraqi forces captured several dozen Iranians attempting to enter the country.
The 45 detainees were captured Saturday at Mandali, on the Iranian border 60 miles east of Baghdad, police said. They had no identity documents but claimed to be Muslim pilgrims from Iran, Afghanistan or Bangladesh. They ranged in age from early 20s to 60s.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:45 AM EST [Link]
Friday, December 17, 2004 HASN'T AMERICA HAD ENOUGH OF INTERNMENT CAMPS?: A rather distressing result to a poll was released today.
Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans, according to a nationwide poll.
The survey conducted by Cornell University also found that Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims' civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious.
Researchers also found that respondents who paid more attention to television news were more likely to fear terrorist attacks and support limiting the rights of Muslim-Americans.
I fully support a more pro-active approach to combatting terrorism but the idea of forcing people to register on the basis of their religion -- supported by 27 percent of respondents -- terrifies me.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:53 PM EST [Link]
~ ABOUT BLOODY TIME: The Associated Press reports that George W. Bush is likely looking for a spending freeze or even a rollback in domestic spending next year. Considering how much he jacked it up in the past four years, however, this is definately one of those glass half empty deals.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:29 PM EST [Link]
~ SKYNET BECAME SELF-AWARE ON AUGUST 29TH, 1997 AT 2:14AM EASTERN TIME: Remember this story when the evil robots rise up against humanity. Korean scientists announced yesterday they have created robots with genes that can pass them along to other robots.
Dr Kim believes there is no danger that such self-reproducing robots will take over the world as portrayed in movies such as this year's blockbuster I, Robot.
"If we design the chromosomes quite safely, then we can avoid such a bad situation," he said.
Every time a scientist says that in a movie you know a bad situation will occur.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:07 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, December 16, 2004 MORE DEFENSE OF MY POSITION
Larry Elder attacks the lack of journalistic ethics of the "reporter" who set up the Rumsfeld question on armor.
His piece is at Townhall.com.
CB
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:53 AM EST [Link]
~ DUBYAECONOMICS: At the White House economic conference, President Bush and Vice President Cheney made the case for permanent tax cuts and tort reform. A nice start, entitlement reform and serious spending cuts would finish the job.
Read on.
Posted by antle @ 12:26 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, December 15, 2004 MORBID SPECULATION: My last post might make you wonder if it is premature, even morbid, to speculate on the potential need for a new chief justice when the one we have hasn't retired yet. Dahlia Lithwick argues in Slate that maybe we wouldn't have to do so much guesswork if William Rehnquist would disclose information about his condition that the public has a right to know about.
My own view is that we are still too early in the chief justice's health problems to insist that he should be more forthcoming than he has been, but enough time could elapse to give Lithwick's argument greater validity.
Posted by antle @ 11:59 PM EST [Link]
~ SCALIA AS BIPARTISAN CHIEF JUSTICE?: Over at Tech Central Station, Ryan Sager argues that recent comments suggest the Democrats might be open to the idea of Antonin Scalia as chief justice. That is, if it would keep Clarence Thomas from the position.
Read on.
Posted by antle @ 11:41 PM EST [Link]
~ RETHINKING THE ABORTION PARTY: More signs that some Democrats are even willing to tolerate pro-life dissent within their party if need be to regain their competitive footing in national elections. (Via Brothers Judd.)
Even some pro-choice Democrats apparently see that being the Abortion Party hasn't served them well. Of course, gestures of moderation and pro-life tokenism can only get them so far. The Democrats acquired the party of amnesty, acid and abortion label in 1972, even though George McGovern first chose Thomas Eagleton and then Sargent Shriver, both pro-lifers, as running mates that year.
BTW - in reference to the title of Orrin Judd's post, as Tom Daschle's deputy Harry Reid generally voted pro-life but whipped pro-choice.
Posted by antle @ 09:26 PM EST [Link]
~ DEATH IS TOO GOOD FOR HIM: When it comes to Ali Hassan al-Majid I hope he receives a fair and quick trial and a very slow death. I hate to be bloodthirsty but when it comes to genocidal murderers I'm a bit Old Testament.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:51 PM EST [Link]
~ A MARINE AGREES
Check out what a marine has to say about the Rumsfeld Challenge.
Posted at Opinion Journal.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 11:02 AM EST [Link]
~ BRENT BOZELL AGREES WITH ME
Bozell thinks the "reporter" that coached the soldier to ask about armor "pranked" the SECDEF".
His column is posted today at Townhall.com.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:57 AM EST [Link]
~ I'M SURPRISED I DIDN'T GET THIS EARLIER: Well, it's about the first anniversary of Saddam Hussein's capture so it was appropriate I got this spam:
FROM: Sgt. John Mark Fitte
Important Message
To President / Managing DirectorGood day,
My name is John Mark Fitte, I am an American soldier, I am serving in the military of the 1st Armored Division in Iraq, As you know we are being attacked by insurgents everyday and car bombs.We managed to move funds belonging to Saddam Hussien's family. The total amount is US$25 Million dollars in cash, mostly 100 dollar bills. We want to move this money to you, so that you may invest it for us and keep our share for banking. We will take 50%, my partner and I. You take the other 50%. no strings attached, just help us move it out of Iraq, Iraq is a warzone.
We plan on using diplomatic courier and shipping the money out in one large silver box, using diplomatic immunity. If you are interested I will send you the full details, my job is to find a good partner that we can trust and that will assist us.
Can I trust you? When you receive this letter,kindly send me an e-mail signifying your interest including your most confidential telephone/fax numbers for quick communication also your contact details. This business is risk free. The box can be shipped out in 48hrs.
Respectfully,
Sgt. John M. FitteIraq is a warzone? I had no idea!
Posted by steve @ 03:47 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, December 14, 2004 THE LOTT THESIS CARRIES: No, not Trent. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have apparently endorsed Tim Roemer for the DNC chairmanship. Roemer, like Reid, is pro-life. Someone who would prefer to remain nameless had previously indicated that any Democratic openness toward red-state pro-lifers might be a harbinger of things to come.
Posted by antle @ 09:44 PM EST [Link]
~ COULD SAME SEX MARRIAGE LAW FAIL TO PASS IN CANADA?: Greg Weston says if the vote were held today it would pass easily. Next month? No guarantees.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:06 PM EST [Link]
~ DO TROOPS WANT PERFECT ARMOR OR ACCEPTABLE ARMOR?
While Rumsfeld and the DoD leadership take hits about armor for the troops, they are in a "Catch 22". If the troops are provided with less than the absolute best armor protection, the Defense Department leadership are accused of not caring for the safety of the troops. When the DoD strives for the best protection that can be produced, they get accused of not caring for the safety of the troops.
The media have spent loads of time and gallons of ink criticizing Rumsfeld for not providing enough armor fast enough. Now the criticism is that the Defense Department is delaying providing armor while perfection is pursued.
Read this from the Opinion Journal.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 01:20 PM EST [Link]
~ CRITIQUING RUMSFELD
Just to show some readers that I am not a bootlicking Rumsfeld sycophant, here is a link to a story that I will agree with. I said Rumsfeld's answer was reasonable because I don't expect the SECDEF to know all the details of every issue.
Read this from the New York Daily News:
"Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf said yesterday he was "angry" at Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's response to a soldier who complained he and his fellow grunts in Iraq lack sufficient armor plating.
And Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a Vietnam War hero, reiterated that he has "no confidence" in the Pentagon boss.After a soldier told Rumsfeld that he and his fellow servicemen must scrounge for metal to better fortify their Humvees, the secretary told him, "You go to war with the Army you have." That response didn't sit well with the former general.
"They deserve every bit of protection we can give them," Schwarzkopf scowled in an interview with "Hardball" host Chris Matthews on MSNBC. "I was very, very disappointed - let me put it stronger - I was angry by the words of the secretary of defense."
More than half of the more than 1,200 U.S. troops killed in Iraq have come from insurgent attacks on the vehicles.
"When he [Rumsfeld] laid it all on the Army, I mean, as if he as the secretary of defense didn't have anything to do with it, the Army was over there doing it themselves screwing up," Schwarzkopf said."
Rumsfeld and the DoD are not perfect. But I believe they are trying to do the best they can within the constraints imposed on them.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 12:58 PM EST [Link]
~ AN AWARD NO ONE WANTS TO WIN: Tom Wolfe's latest novel I am Charlotte Simmons, which I reviewed a few weeks back, has been pummeled by the critics and virtually ignored by every awards committee. Well, except for one. The Bad Sex Award committee. And man, is it ever well deserved.
Wolfe won it for a couple of purple passages from his latest novel "I am Charlotte Simmons," a tale of campus life at an exclusive U.S. university.
"Slither slither slither slither went the tongue," one of his winning sentences begins.
"But the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns -- oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest -- no, the hand was cupping her entire right -- Now!"
Sex in a novel should either make you aroused or want to take a shower. It should never make you laugh.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:26 AM EST [Link]
~ MONDAY NIGHT QUARTERBACK: Interesting weekend of football, not so much in the outcomes -- many of which seemed predetermined -- but in how the games were played.
Good example was the Green Bay-Detroit game. After the beating that the Packers took at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles last week I thought they'd come out with all guns blazing against the Lions. Instead, they looked like they weren't even in the playoff hunt during the fast half. The start of the second half, however, Brett Favre got that crazy look he gets in his eyes and just started playing.
An even better example might have been the close call the Philadelphia Eagles suffered against the Washington Redskins. Terrell Owens looked human -- though with three or four guys covering you so would anyone -- and the Eagles looked somewhat unimpressive for much of the game. That interception by Brian Dawkins at the end of the game saved it for them otherwise we might only have two 12-1 teams.
Hey, someone tell me why I picked Tennessee to win by seven over the Kansas City Chiefs? The Titans came into the game with nine starters missing -- including Steve McNair -- and lost three more during the game. That's one of those you wish you could take back. Then again, even Las Vegas had the Titans favoured by one point. Still, Billy Volek did have a decent game despite losing and Drew Bennett had a career night.
Also messing me up was Dallas losing to New Orleans, Minnesota losing to Seattle and Arizona dropping the ball against San Francisco. Every time I start to take Arizona seriously they go and do something stupid. My high school football team could have possibly beaten the 49ers. Even worse, the 49ers blew a huge lead against the Cardinals but came back to win it. Arizona effectively lost that game twice. Bah.
Memo to Eli Manning: How you liking the NFL now? Manning went 4-for-18 for 27 yards, two interceptions and a fumble against the Baltimore Ravens before he was yanked by Tom Coughlin in the fourth quarter. That adds up to a big fat 0.0 quarterback rating. I realize Manning -- as hard as it is to believe right now -- is the future of the New York Giants but there's no reason not to play Kurt Warner the rest of the way -- though Coughlin has already said Manning is starting next week against Pittsburgh. Let Manning learn some more of the trade from the old master and then give him another shot next season. Of course, Troy Aikman went through hell his first year with the Dallas Cowboys and it didn't seem to have hurt the rest of his career. Well, except for all the concussions he later sustained.
Week 1 - 8 out of 15
Week 2 - 11 out of 16
Week 3 - 9 of 15
Week 4 - 7 of 14
Week 5 - 7 of 14
Week 6 - 9 of 14
Week 7 - 6 of 14
Week 8 - 8 of 14
Week 9 - 8 of 14
Week 10 - 9 of 14
Week 11 - 13 of 16
Week 14 - 12 of 14
Week 15 - 10 of 16
Week 16 - 12 of 16%: 63 (129 of 206)
So who to hand the ESR's vaunted Cheerleader of the Week Award to? There are a lot of good teams to pick from but this week I'll go with the Baltimore Ravens. Erica N. isn't just a cheerleader -- though that would be enough for the hardworking crew here at Fort Sinatra -- she is also the president of her family's business. Among the people she would most like to have dinner with? Ronald Reagan. She also loves coffee. A woman after my own heart.
Posted by steve @ 01:38 AM EST [Link]
~ HE WAS A LEFTIST RADICAL?: Wow, I had no idea that Michael Medved was a lefty before he became a prominent conservative cultural critic. The things you learn. At any rate, learn that and more about Medved with an interview that The American Enterprise conducted with him in the latest issue of TAE.
Then again, I too was once a liberal. There is hope for us all.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:55 AM EST [Link]
~ A NICE CHRISTMAS PRESENT: Dr. Bruce L. Thiessen a.k.a Dr. B.L.T. has a new song available on his web site. Celebrate Christmas and take a poke at environmentalists at the same time with his song "Christmas Tree Hugger"!
Find it here.
Posted by steve @ 12:49 AM EST [Link]
~ A NEW FILIBUSTER PROOF MAJORITY: I understand the motivation behind the GOP's proposal to limit the use of the filibuster on judicial nominees, but I think it's a bad idea - at least from the perspective of limited constitutional government.
Posted by antle @ 12:39 AM EST [Link]
~ SMEARING WITHOUT SPELLING: There's a lot that can be said about the casual New York Daily News gossip-column smear of Steve Sailer but the most obvious is that you shouldn't be able to accuse anyone of anything - such as being a "white supremecist" (sic) -without being able to spell it first.
Posted by antle @ 12:08 AM EST [Link]
Monday, December 13, 2004 WASN'T IT THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE?: Hardly surprising but the absolutely worthless Hollywood Foreign Press Association -- derided by everyone in and out of the industry as a joke -- released its Golden Globe nominations today and The Passion of the Christ was missing. Apparently it loves movies about murderous Cuban communists though.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:08 PM EST [Link]
~ HIM AGAIN?: Boy, those Clinton era figures never seem to go away. Who is at the centre of the Oil-for-Food investigation at the moment? Why, none other than Pardongate's Marc Rich!
Rich, the fugitive Swiss-based commodities trader who received a controversial pardon from President Bill Clinton in January 2001, is a primary target of criminal probes under way in the U.S. attorney's office in New York and by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, sources said.
"We think he was a major player in this — a central figure," a senior law-enforcement official told The Post.
Investigators are looking into a series of deals that took place in the months after his pardon from Clinton. If criminal wrongdoing is established in these deals, he could be subject to prosecution.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:59 PM EST [Link]
~ GOSH, I WONDER WHY THEY'RE UPSET: Republicans at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point are steamed by a newspaper column written by a faculty member that mentions -- "as a joke" -- murdering as many Republicans as you can before you go down.
We all know the firestorm that would greet a conservative professor if he wrote the same thing about Democrats. Well...assuming there were any conservative professors in the United States.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:52 PM EST [Link]
~ THANK YOU: I'd just like to thank Vijay Dandapani for his incredibly kind donation to Enter Stage Right. We survive based on your kindness -- whether it's a financial contribution or just visiting the web site -- and we're alway thankful for events like these.
Mr. Dandapani coincidentally enough appears in this week's issue. You can find his essay here.
Again, thank you Mr. Dandapani!
Posted by steve @ 03:09 PM EST [Link]
~ DAVID BRUDNOY, R.I.P.: The host of Boston's most informed talk show, and a great friend to libertarians and conservatives (among many others), died Thursday.
I have a piece remembering him running today over at The American Spectator site.
Posted by antle @ 12:08 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, December 12, 2004 I GUESS MORONS ARE RUNNING PHILADELPHIA'S SCHOOLS AND POLICE FORCE: A 10 year old girl was handcuffed by Philadelphia police for the unforgivable crime of bringing a pair of scissors to school.
School district officials said the fourth-grade student did not threaten anyone with the 8-inch shears, but violated a rule that considers scissors to be potential weapons.
Administrators said they were following state law when they called police Thursday, and police said they were following department rules when they handcuffed Porsche Brown and took her away in a patrol wagon.
"My daughter cried and cried," said her mother, Rose Jackson. "She had no idea what she did was wrong. I think that was way too harsh."
Police officers decided the girl hadn't committed a crime and let her go.
I'm not saying that Brown didn't make a mistake for bringing the scissors to school but to handcuff her and suspend her?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:04 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, December 11, 2004 NICE: The hands of the U.S. don't appear to be so clean when it comes to Saddam Hussein.
The CIA's top weapons inspector in Iraq said Saddam carried out much of that trade with proceeds from illegal oil sales to Syria, one of three Iraqi neighbours that bought oil from Saddam in defiance of the United Nations.
Trade with Syria, Jordan and Turkey was the biggest source of illicit funds for Saddam, more so than the much-maligned UN oil-for-food program, investigations of Saddam's finances discovered.
Though considered smuggling, most of the trade took place with the knowledge - and sometimes the tacit consent - of the United States and other countries.
We are not amused.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:35 PM EST [Link]
~ THE TRUTH COMES OUT: Apparently it wasn't a "conflict of interest" earlier reported that forced Bernard Kerik but rather an immigration problem concerning a housekeeper. Perhaps I'm niave, but aren't cops supposed to be careful about not breaking the law, particularly if they're ex-commissioners?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:30 PM EST [Link]
~ THAT EXPLAINS THAT: A lot of people have been joking around at Viktor Yushchenko's expense the last couple of weeks. He went from an attractive man to someone who looks like an even puffier version of Boris Yeltsin in a matter of weeks. Well, turns out that Yushchenko was in fact poisoned and his appearance changed as a result of it.
The director of the private Rudolphinerhaus clinic in Vienna said there was no doubt that Yushchenko had eaten or drunk dioxin, but could not say whether the poisoning was intentional.
"What we can say at this point is that this concentration constitutes an amount which is 1,000 times above the normal levels that you would find in blood or [skin] tissue," said Dr. Michael Zimpfer, who noted that doctors at his and other European clinics had conducted tests during the past 24 hours.
Perhaps things are different in Ukraine but I find it hard to believe someone could accidentally ingest 1,000 times the normal level of dioxin by eating tasty meals of kulesh or galushki.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:20 PM EST [Link]
~ SIGH: Bernard Kerik, a Homeland Security czar I was already happy with, has withdrawn his name over potential conflict of interest. Now, I'm not expert but the White House doesn't name nominees unless you've already been contacted first so Mr. Kerik should have known he couldn't take the job.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:42 AM EST [Link]
Friday, December 10, 2004 THE HISPANIC VOTE DEBATE: In my ESR rebuttal to a recent Opinion Journal diatribe against conservatives who favor sustainable and controlled immigration, I briefly touch on the controversy over the Hispanic vote. In particular, I cite evidence that while President Bush increased his share among Hispanics in 2004 he did not get the 44 percent originally estimated by the NEP exit poll.
Steve Sailer has continued to offer more detailed analysis of the exit-poll follies and why it matters. GOP minority outreach guru Richard Nadler penned a piece for NRO seeking to "debunk the debunkers;" Sailer responded at VDARE.
An argument that Nadler and Republicans such as the blogger Patrick Ruffini keep making is that by downplaying Bush's gains in the Hispanic vote, we are telling Latinos that we as conservative Republicans don't want their votes and don't welcome them into our party.
This is not true. First of all, accuracy about what percentage of the Hispanic vote Bush actually got is important for its own sake. There is that bit about the truth shall set you free, and also the little matter that even tiny statistical variations make a big difference in national electoral politics. Making sense of complex voting patterns requires accurate data, not wishful thinking or spin.
But secondly - and more importantly - most of the debunking has occurred in the context of immigration enthusiasts and guest-workers supporters arguing that the alleged 44 percent figure is a political sea change for the GOP and evidence that the party should embrace certain immigration policies - namely, those that increase legal immigration and legalize at least some large subset of illegal immigrants. Neither argument is true and a realistic look at Hispanic voting patterns in this election is important to understanding why.
The reality is that Bush's gains among Hispanics were consistent with his gains among the electorate as a whole. Embracing open-borders policies does not seem to increase support for the GOP among current Latino voters and only imports poorer future voters who will have an economic interest in voting Democratic. The best long-term strategy for Republicans to gain among Hispanic Americans is to stop bidding down their wages with illegal immigration, thereby allowing them to vote in larger numbers on the basis of social issues, and to encourage their continued assimilation through a slowdown in legal immigration. This is not unwelcoming; this is a stance that's good for legal immigrants, good for Hispanics already here and good for America.
Posted by antle @ 08:16 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece in the upcoming issue of The American Conservative on the debate over the homeland-security implications of IT offshoring. Hint: There are some risks, but rogue foreign programmers might not be the biggest one.
The issue hits the newsstands and mailboxes Monday. As usual, I'll link to it here if it is posted on the website. If interested, here is where you can subscribe.
Posted by antle @ 07:38 PM EST [Link]
~ DUH: The editor of the Chattanooga Times Free Press admitted today that the newspaper should have told readers that the question Spc. Thomas "Jerry" Wilson asked Donald Rumsfeld earlier this week was planted by one its reporters.
"In hindsight, information on how the question was framed should have been included in Thursday's story in the Times Free Press. It was not," the paper's publisher and executive editor, Tom Griscom, said in a note to readers published Friday.
At least they fessed up to the ethical breach.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:09 PM EST [Link]
~ IN THE RED ZONE: The author of In the Red Zone, a book about Iraq we'll be reviewing in ESR very soon, has launched his own blog. You can find it here. Interesting stuff.
Posted by steve @ 03:20 PM EST [Link]
~ SURPRISING HE WASN'T IN A MICHAEL MOORE MOVIE: A soldier has confessed that a story he told about American soldiers shooting and killing a 10-year old boy was a lie.
When Army Sergeant Dennis Edwards spoke at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School last month, 100 students listened in rapt silence as he told chilling tales of battlefield horror in Iraq and criticized President Bush's motives for going to war.
Edwards, 23, a Barnstable High School graduate, said he and two other soldiers shot and killed a 10-year-old boy in Iraq who pretended to be wounded and suddenly fired an AK-47 rifle. The boy was found to have explosives attached to his body, Edwards told the stunned audience.
Now, Edwards has admitted to his superiors in the elite 82d Airborne Division that the story about the shooting was a lie, Army officials yesterday. As a result, the veteran of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could be charged with making false statements, face a court-martial, and be stripped of his rank.
Wouldn't real stories about Iraq be compelling? You know, like school openings, upcoming democratic elections, the lack of rape gangs, the end of mass graves?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:14 PM EST [Link]
~ EXPANDING STEM CELL RESEARCH: I forgot to blog it yesterday but Ramesh Ponnuru had an interesting piece on how stem cell research could advance without creating new embryos. Today he follows up with another interesting essay on the subject.
Posted by steve @ 03:08 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, December 9, 2004 HE PROBABLY WOULD HAVE BEEN A GOOD JUDGE: There will be no more wars over Judge Charles Pickering. Today he announced his retirement and said he would not seek a permanent seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Pity.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:45 PM EST [Link]
~ THE WAR ON BLOGGERS CONTINUES: Jim Boulet says that Bill O'Reilly and David Paul Kuhn both agree that bloggers should be federally regulated. All hail freedom!
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:08 PM EST [Link]
~ GAY MARRIAGE A REALITY: As you may hav