The purple finger may become as iconic for the Middle East as the color orange is in Ukraine. The just-completed election, the first in living memory of most Iraqis, has been a success. The turnout will likely approach or even exceed our turnout in the 2004 presidential election. And recall the whines [...]
Archive for January, 2005
Little short of amazing
Posted in Uncategorized on January 31, 2005 | 1 Comment »
Monroe Doctrine, redux
Posted in Uncategorized on January 30, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
Today’s Gray Lady reaches out to one of our more conservative literary voices, Tom Wolfe, for some limited balancing of the usual left-wing scrapple on its (formal) opinion pages. The Times’ range of opinion, both on its news pages and its opinion pages, does have a range. That range is from liberal, left [...]
Inconsistent signals
Posted in Uncategorized on January 29, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
…on Iran. You might say that again. The propoganda machine in the mainstream media is already cranking at full-tilt boogie against the notion that we might actually do something about the mad mullahs. Consider this story in today’s Gray Lady. The story is headlined, “United States and Europe Differ Over Strategy [...]
April 22, 2000, 5:14 a.m.
Posted in Uncategorized on January 28, 2005 | 1 Comment »
This was the moment in time when all doubts about the Clinton administration should have been put to rest. A SWAT-team assault was made on a home in Miami by federal agents. What was the target of the assault? A narco-terrorist ring? Islamic terrorists? Crime syndicate? Could have [...]
Never forget
Posted in Uncategorized on January 27, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
On the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp: To any who think they have pat answers for evils such as the Holocaust, I commend this powerful statement in today’s New York Times. It is titled “Always, Darkness Visible”, by Aharon Appelfeld, an Auschwitz survivor. Some excerpts:
In [...]
“Atrocities”
Posted in Uncategorized on January 26, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
Not the ones, however, brought to mind by an important anniversary. Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on January 27, 1945. One supposes that the inmates were never so glad to see the sight of Soviet troops opening the gates. Just before the [...]
Opposing strains of thought in and on Islam
Posted in Uncategorized on January 25, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
James Taranto’s Best of the Web is a must read every day, and yesterday he didn’t disappoint. Two items, one picking up on something in the President’s inaugural address, and another making a seemingly opposed point.
First from the inaugural address. The offending quotation is “the truths of Sinai, the Sermon [...]
Not perfect…
Posted in Uncategorized on January 24, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
…but far, far better than what it replaces. The interim government to be voted on by Iraqis on January 30 has been derided by the usual suspects. Liberals in the United States, Islamic apologists at the UN and in Europe, and, naturally, Saddam’s old favorites, the Sunnis. They are joined by a [...]
War on Terror
Posted in Uncategorized on January 24, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
Well, just in case you weren’t paying attention during last year’s presidential election, and hadn’t listened when President Bush reminded us that Iraq is just another front in the war on terror, this little tidbit from our good friends the Saudis. The headline for this story: Saudi Clerics Point Militants Toward Iraq. [...]
Keystone State Smackdown
Posted in Uncategorized on January 23, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
Although a native New Yorker, I lived for several years in Pittsburgh. And loved it, and the town. Note how I call Pittsburgh a “town.” New York is The City; Pittsburgh has most of the attributes of a real city, but also a slower, friendlier atmosphere. Unless, of course, you happen [...]
Gray Lady, Paleoconservative?
Posted in Uncategorized on January 23, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
As in paleoconservative. As in the school of thought that places America’s interests first, and last. As in isolationist, America First. As in Know Nothings. Yep. That’s the Times. Except for that business of placing America’s interests first.
Today’s Times has a snarky little piece by David Sanger, [...]
Book guilt
Posted in Uncategorized on January 22, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
Nick Hornby’s latest, is titled “The Polysyllabic Spree.” The theme is explained by the subtitle, which also explains much of my reading life for the past several years:
A Hilarious and True Account of One Man’s Struggle With the Monthly Tide of the Books He’s Bought and the Books He’s Been Meaning to Read
As I [...]
“Berkeley-style liberalism”
Posted in Uncategorized on January 21, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
These words are intoned by a sympathiser, and a Muslim (by definition; see below) writing for the Gray Lady on the annual pilgrimage that Muslims make to Mecca.
The article positively gushes with good things about Mecca; about what a fine, tolerant, and (ugh) diversity. The story is headlined with this editorial note: Islamic Pilgrims [...]
"eventual triumph of freedom"
Posted in Uncategorized on January 20, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
It’s a bold agenda. It is classic Woodrow Wilson, without the starry-eyed, naive view of the efficacy of multinational organizations. Call it neoconservative. Call it what you will, it is Dubya off to a brilliant start, one certain to cause freedom’s enemies to scoff. Until it comes their turn to answer [...]
“eventual triumph of freedom”
Posted in Uncategorized on January 20, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
It’s a bold agenda. It is classic Woodrow Wilson, without the starry-eyed, naive view of the efficacy of multinational organizations. Call it neoconservative. Call it what you will, it is Dubya off to a brilliant start, one certain to cause freedom’s enemies to scoff. Until it comes their turn to answer [...]
Fight Fiercely, Harvard…
Posted in Uncategorized on January 19, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
For those who’ve not had the pleasure, Tom Lehrer’s songs are an undiscovered country of satire, humor, and, did I mention satire? One kind soul has collected all of his lyrics at this site. One of his earliest, if not the first, is “Fight Fiercely, Harvard”, written while Tom was a student [...]
I have a dream…
Posted in Uncategorized on January 18, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
…in which one of the greatest of the founders of our nation would be honored before a 1960s radical is. Call me a curmudgeon, and most definitely politically incorrect. There should never have been a “Martin Luther King” Day. At least not before there was a James Madison Day. [...]
Lefty Logic
Posted in Uncategorized on January 17, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
Some on the left (all, actually, but who’s making generalizations now…) want so much to believe some of the their myths that they can’t recognize hardcore irony even when it’s right in front of them. Witness: the idiotarian site, BUSHBLACKOUT, which is urging all sorts of stuff for eager little Bush-bashing puppies to [...]
Nerd and proud
Posted in Uncategorized on January 16, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve still got it. My nerd score is so high, that the clerks at Compuserve bow down to me when I enter the store. Or perhaps that was because I was their only customer? Whatever. Here’s a fun test to get in touch with your inner nerd.
You have nothing to fear [...]
Best be a Democrat…
Posted in Uncategorized on January 16, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
…should you wish to score highly on the new Scholastic Aptitude Test. There’s a new breed of SATs coming at us, gathering speed and threatening you and your children with…having to write an essay as part of demonstrating their academic prowess. Clearly a fascistic plot, those (fill in you favorite group for vilification [...]
“weight gain is inevitable”
Posted in Uncategorized on January 15, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
In other words, “resistance is futile.” Except that in this case, you will not be assimilated into the Borg collective. You will gain weight, because, among other reasons, you slacker, you eat too much sugar and don’t exercise enough. You know who you are, so don’t deny it.
The context is yet [...]
Shalom?
Posted in Islam, Judaism, Religion on January 14, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
A full-page ad appears in today’s New York Times, headlined “A Call for Peacemaking.” It is sponsored by a left-leaning Jewish group calling itself “The Shalom Center” Shalom, of course, being the Hebrew word for “peace.” By which these folks seem to mean intellectual and moral surrender. The ad is typical left-leaning fare: all problems [...]
“It all started when this guy hit back�
Posted in Uncategorized on January 13, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
In essence, this is the rationale used against Israel by its enemies. Israel stands universally accused of abusing its neighbors, all of whom attacked it at its birth. A quick tour through the rancid arguments against Israel’s existence appears in Foreign Policy, in a survey article by Josef Joffe.
Mr. Joffe takes us through [...]
“making gratuitous enemies”
Posted in Uncategorized on January 12, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
The title phrase comes from a thought-provoking piece today from Anne Applebaum. Her thesis: torture, at least the physical, “Bunsen burner to the guy’s genitals” kind, does not work. And, surprise of surprises, it makes “gratuitous enemies.” There are two serious flaws in this. The first is that [...]
Think it might be political?
Posted in Uncategorized on January 11, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
The by-now infamous attempt to smear George Bush with counterfeit memos has surfaced in a whitewash report that pretty much exonerates CBS News. A few functionaries take the fall, and the good ship of the Matlock Network continues to founder. The New York Times is clearly relieved, now that it is no longer [...]
On Smoking
Posted in Liberty on January 10, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
Clever headline in this story (The Age): “Bar owners ignite over Italy’s smoking ban.”
The ostensible reasoning is by-now typical for the nanny states of Europe: it’s for your own good. From the story:
The ban – delayed for a few days so revellers could enjoy their last New Year celebrations in smoky bars – aims to [...]
"American Creed"
Posted in Uncategorized on January 9, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
David Gelernter has written a brilliant, provocative, yet almost self-intuitive essay in Commentary that links the Puritans with modern-day Americanism. The essence of his argument would not surprise most Protestants — America is the “new Israel”, the shining city on the hill, and the source of our polity is nothing more nor less [...]
Nazis and Planned Parenthood
Posted in Uncategorized on January 8, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
This isn’t the first association that would normally come to mind, is it? It was, however, for me. There is a sobering piece in the New York Times, titled “The Tainted Science of Nazi Atrocities.” It is a review of an exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
From [...]
King Arthur
Posted in Uncategorized on January 7, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
Well, now that our presidential election has been certified, perhaps we should consider this dialogue concerning how another chief executive from an altogether different time and place was chosen.
From the just-released screenplay of one of the funniest movies ever, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. If you have not seen this [...]
“bravely pointed out…”
Posted in Uncategorized on January 6, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
Richard Cohen’s piece in today’s Washington Post has half a point. His central point is well taken, is about charity. He quotes Maimonedes to the effect that charity is best done for its own sake — not for any reward to the giver. For a Christian take on this, go no further [...]
