Sobering Thoughts |
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Comments on politics, the culture, economics and religion by Paul Tuns -- in short, everything about the human endeavour from a non-hyphenated conservative perspective.
I am Toronto-based writer and editor, whose articles, columns and reviews have appeared in more than 35 publications. I am editor-in-chief of The Interim, Canada's life and family newspaper, author of Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal and a regular contributor to the book pages of the Halifax Herald.
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Monday, December 22, 2003
In this case, it makes sense to put the cart before the ass Arnold Kling argues in his TechCentralStation column that while some say the "Howard Dean phenomenon was caused by the candidate's discovery of how to use the Internet. I believe that it was the other way around. It was the militant leftwing movement on the Internet that created Dean." Kling says that an angry Left-wing mob has taken control of the Democratic primary and claimed Dean as their candidate. The Left wins because centrist voters are not motivated enough to get involved in this election. This thought-provoking column is worth reading. Thank you Captain Obvious From the annals of "couldn't think of anything but the obvious" school of headline writing, the Oakland Tribune offers this: "Gibson's Jesus movie bound to cause more controversy." Gibson, however, is not purposefully courting controversy. He just wants to make a film that is faithful to the teachings of the Gospels. "I hope it makes them reflect," Gibson said of people who will watch The Passion of the Christ. "The movie is about faith, hope, love and forgiveness. If it stirs those things up in people, it will be a success." Old Europe is literally becoming old Europe Christmas is the time of a miracle birth but as Mark Steyn notes in the Daily Telegraph of Luke's view of children coming into this world, they are all miracles. Europe, however, is suffering a dearth of such miracles: "Confronted with all the begetting in the Old Testament, the modern mind says, 'Well, naturally, these primitive societies were concerned with children. They needed someone to provide for them in their old age.' In our advanced society, we don't have to worry about that; we automatically have someone to provide for us in our old age: the state. But the state - at least in its modern European welfare incarnation - needs children as least as much as those old-time Jews did. And the problem with the European state is that, like Elisabeth, it's barren. Collectively barren, I hasten to add. Individually, it's made up of millions of fertile women, who voluntarily opt for no children at all or one designer kid at 39. In Italy, the home of the Church, the birthrate's down to 1.2 children per couple - or about half 'replacement rate.' You can't buck that kind of arithmetic." (Israel is facing the same problem, with Arabs out-producing Jews: "It's remarkable that, having survived the Holocaust, the Jewish people should now be in danger of not surviving their survival of the Holocaust." Steyn says that soon Arabs and Palestinians will stop demanding their own state and demand one-man-one-vote in the state that they're in, in which case Israel will cease to be.) "Demography is not necessarily destiny," says Steyn, but neither is it ever inconsequential. Steyn says of the constitutional wrangling of EU types, "it seems amazing that no Continental politician is willing to get to grips with the real crisis facing Europe in the 21st century: the lack of Europeans." Old Europe may soon be the land mass formerly known as Europe. I'm agnostic about whether this is a negative development. Sunday, December 21, 2003
Winning the War on Terror Everybody wants to be on the winning side and the War on Terror is no different. Unless, of course, you're Noam Chomsky, Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, France, Saddam Hussein. Okay, almost everybody wants to be on the winning side. Perhaps it would be better to say, sane people want to be on the winning side and that's why we don't see the Democratic Party leadership or the academic and European Left signing up for the War on Terror. But who has? Muammar Gadaffi (to use The Observer's spelling). He has agreed to, according to that paper, provide "detailed intelligence on hundreds of al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists as part of a deal to end its isolation as a pariah nation." Moammar Gaddafi's (to use the Washington Post's spelling) willingness to side with the winners may have been inspired by watching, as that paper editorialized, the "United States and Britain demonstrat(e) in Iraq that evasion and defiance of a demand for disarmament would invite armed intervention." Still, right now Kaddafi (or Qaddafi -- Saddam has 17 look-alikes, Gaddafi has 17 ways to spell his first and last name) is on the side of the angels and Dean, Clark, France, et al are not. On Saddam's capture and other aspects of a good week for Dubya -- and Iraq Mark Steyn says in his Chicago Sun-Times column, "A good week, I'd say, for cowboy 'unilateralists'." On Senator John Kerry (and others of his ilk who Saddam Hussein should be tried to the "international community"), Steyn says: "Kerry doesn't get it: If it had been left to Kofi Annan, the French, Germans, Russians, Canadians, Arabs and all but two of the nine Democratic Presidential candidates, Saddam Hussein wouldn't be being inspected for lice by American medics, he'd still be sitting on his solid gold toilet in his palace reading about the latest massive anti-Bush demonstrations in Le Monde. The Iraqi people don't want to place their future in the hands of an 'international community' that found it more convenient to allow Saddam to go on torturing them." Clark candidacy, RIP Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby has a great column on the incredible shrinking credibility of retired General Wesley Clark. Jacoby notes the frolicking good time Clark had with Ratko Mladic in 1994 and the excuses Clark later offered for not being able to apprehend Mladic once he was (later) indicted. The reason? Having to work it all out multilaterally. Apparently, the French were a pain in the backside then, too. Jacoby also notes Clark's willingness to go after Saddam Hussein, at least until retired General Wesley Clark became Democratic candidate Wesley Clark. If the Democrats think that the way to win elections is with Clintonian-style evasions and duplicity, Clark appears to be their man. But for most Americans, his inconsistencies and willingness to blame others will not fly in 2004. Turkey/al-Qaida link Adnan Ersoz, a terrorist involved in last month's Istanbul bombing, admits al-Qaida gave $150,000 to help fund the operation. Also, it is rumoured that the CIA asked Turkish Airlines to cancel one of its flights because it was expected to be used as a WMD against a military target near Adana. With failures like these ... The Derb on Libya giving up its WMD. Actually, its about Dubya's successful foreign policy initiative to make the world a little more safer: "So let's see: 3/4 of the way through his first administration, George W. Bush has put two dictators out of business and, without firing a shot, persuaded a third to dismantle his WMD. And the Democrats' case against administration foreign policy is... what, again? Kabul, Baghdad, Tripoli. On to Pyongyang and Tehran!" Saturday, December 20, 2003
Christmas vacation I will be away but near enough a computer to occasionally blog. Stop in from time to time. Ditto for Paulitics. Biggest non-story in recent memory is a nice segue into a comment on education Mary Kate and Ashley are headed to New York University. According to an AP report, they will be "enrolled next fall at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, a college within NYU that allows students to tailor their own curriculums." That sentence illustrates what is wrong with our post-secondary education system. That there is a place where students can go for "individualized study" at a university so that such students can choose their own curriculum when they should be getting guidance as to what is worth studying, is all that needs to be said about what is wrong with our universities (or as Professor Graeme Hunter calls them, the multiversity). Hillary for veep. Morris paints the scenario In his New York Post column, former Bill Clinton advisor and the world's most famous toe-sucker Dick Morris says that Howard Dean should nominate Senator Hillary Clinton as his running mate next year. Why on earth would he do this? Noting that much of the Democratic Party apparatus is in the hands of Clintonistas, Dean will want to "avoid the McGovern problem - getting knifed in the back by his own party leaders?" How does he avoid that? "Take a hostage, Hillary, and put her on the ticket." Morris says that she would instant credibility, help him reach out to the party's centre (she's the party's centre?), add the excitement of having a woman on the ticket (she's a woman?) and ensure the support of the Clintonistas. "Dean will remember how Reagan united his fractured party by putting his defeated primary opponent, George W. Bush on his ticket in 1980. While Dean's nominal opponents are named Gephardt, Kerry, Clark, and Lieberman, his real adversary all along has been Clinton." So why would her Hillaryness agree? The CW is that former vice president Al Gore has been catapulted back into the top tier with his endorsement of Dean. If Dean picked anyone else -- General Wesley Clark, for instance -- that person would join Hillary and Gore as the front-runners for 2008. But becoming the veep nominee herself in 2004 would give Hillary an edge (again) over Gore. This is all Morrisian analysis, which means that it makes for better reading than it does real analysis so take it for what its worth, which probably is not much. Media loves Lord For now. Bernard Lord seems like a nice, moderate New Brunswick boy. The media will play him up as not as conservative as Stephen Harper, a candidate who can bridge the Canadian Alliance-Tory gap and who can bring new supporters to the party. But be forewarned: the moment Lord were to win the Conservative Party of Canada leadership, he would be viewed as too conservative for Canada. The media would have succeeded in getting a candidate that is 1) less conservative and therefore more palpable to themselves and 2) less conservative and therefore less likely to generate the grassroots support during the campaign that a party needs at election time. The conservative movement in this country cannot take its lead from the Globe and Mail for that paper's interests and the interests of our movement are not the same. Friday, December 19, 2003
Worth checking out The Canadian outfit, the Centre for Cultural Renewal has a blog. Ian Benson, CCR's executive director appears to be the only writer. Why CentreBlog? "Cultural Renewal as a possibility. False Rhetorics exposed. Critical analysis of role of religions in relation to culture and 'faith' (religious and non) examined." UnReagan-like Ontario socialists Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty wants to increase the province's revenues without breaking his no new taxes campaign promise so he will raise user fees instead. Of course, user fees are just taxes for particular services. McGuinty said "I don't want to raise taxes. It is not my intention to raise taxes." So he'll call a tax a user fee and all is fine. He refused to answer Canadian Press queries of whether a user fee is actually just a tax. Also, notice the Clintonian phrasology of "not my intention." Soon he will non-intentionally raising taxes or, at the very least, he does not intend to raise taxes at this time. McGuinty also said "We are looking at new and creative ways to raise revenue. Maybe we're offering some services that we should be charging for that we're not (currently) charging for." If the government is providing services for which there should be a charge, shouldn't the free market be providing the services instead? Reaganesque German socialists The Guardian reports that Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats have passed a 10 billion euro tax cut to jump start Germany's anemic economy. Schroeder said "This is a signal that Germany is on the move ... Our country is resolutely taking on the challenges posed by the 21st century." Apparently having a European edition of the Wall Street Journal is paying off. More than one way to kill a (former) tyrant Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer on "Killing Him Softly," him being Saddam Hussein, of course: "In the old days the conquered tyrant was dragged through the streets behind the Roman general's chariot. Or paraded shackled before a jeering crowd. Or, when more finality was required, had his head placed on a spike on the tower wall. Iraq has its own ways. In the revolution of 1958, Prime Minister Nuri Said was caught by a crowd and murdered, and his body was dragged behind a car through the streets of Baghdad until there was nothing left but half a leg. We Americans don't do it that way. Instead, we show Saddam Hussein -- King of Kings, Lion of the Tigris, Saladin of the Arabs -- compliantly opening his mouth like a child to the universal indignity of an oral (and head lice!) exam. Docility wrapped in banality. Brilliant. Nothing could have been better calculated to demystify the all-powerful tyrant." Liberals on letting Saddam live Just a thought: would liberals favour executing Saddam Hussein if he, say, committed "hate crimes" against homosexuals? Best case for capturing Osama bin Laden The Derb in The Corner: "Capturing Osama bin Laden, always very desirable, is now also an electoral imperative. If he were to show up on our TV screens around the middle of next year with a US Army medic shining a flashlight down his throat, the Democrats would be polling in single digits." Thursday, December 18, 2003
Infertility and marriage When conservatives argue that marriage cannot be extended to homosexual couples because the purpose of marriage is procreation, those who seek to redefine marriage come back with the "what about infertile heterosexual couples" argument. My best argument against this retort is that sexual relations between opposite-sex partners does not mock the procreative purpose of sex. Jennifer Roback Morse has her own highly personal rebuttal to the retort. Two highlights: "I am convinced that understanding the natural, organic purposes of marriage provides the key insight for helping them navigate the difficulties ahead of them. For merely having sex is not the measure of their marriage, and neither is successful procreation. Appreciating spousal unity, the other natural purpose of sexuality, has the potential to direct them toward a fruitful love, even if children are not among the immediate fruits." And: "The key to whether they [infertile couples] found peace was not whether they eventually had children. The key wasn't whether their children came through assisted reproductive technology, or by adoption. The crucial issue was whether they let go of controlling all outcomes. The need to 'have it your way,' so deeply imbued in our consumer culture, is positively destructive to married life." Are there enough abortion pills and are they easy enough to get? The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has spoken up on over-the-counter distribution of the abortifacient morning-after pill Plan B. (Cathy Cleaver Ruse, Director of Planning and Information for the USCCB Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities: "American women and children do not deserve this reckless experiment on their lives.") Its nice to see the USCCB deserve the second "c" of their acronym because a popular joke has it that the second "c" stands for communist. Anyway, two advisory committees of the Food and Drug Administration have voted to allow the MAP to be distributed OTC. One of those committees is the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs. There is a whole committee for reproductive drugs? What to do about Saddam I'll offer my mega dittos to Adam Daifallah's comment: "My view on this is pretty much the same. Let the Iraqis deal with Saddam's fate. He should be tried publicly and if the Iraqis decide on capital punishment, fine. If they don't, thats OK too. (I favour the former; preferrably in Firdos Square in Baghdad by his old statue.)" William F. Buckley addresses not only the punishment but the trial -- and the idiots who think that procedure is everything: "The very idea that Saddam Hussein needs the niceties of Blackstone's laws prescribing judicial procedure and the means of protecting the innocent is a surrender to epistemological pessimism: the notion that you can't ever really prove anything. Built into that nihilist surrender is doubt about first principles. If there is anybody in town who believes that Saddam Hussein is not guilty of crimes however described, what we need to worry about is him, not Saddam. The notion that we should be immobilized by the kind of skepticism that demands full-blown trials with judges from Jamaica and amici curiae from Russia and France tells us that a lot more is riding here than the fate of Saddam Hussein." Ditto that, too. Exposing anti-Christmas grinches Check out The Grinch List which has a far-from-complete list of the corporate and government grinches and an article about the trend to deny the Christmas season its proper name. The list, by the way, has a write-up of the anti-Christmas sins of the entities described and my favourite is its skewering of the Discovery Store: "The Discovery Store carries 'holiday ornaments.' They indicated that they did not want to offend those who don't celebrate Christmas under their limited corporate mantra of diversity and multiculturalism." It is funny but predictable that companies who deny the existence of Christmas still want our Christmas spending. No matter what, those who celebrate Christmas should not buy "holiday ornaments" from companies that do not acknowledge Christmas, no matter how much those ornaments look like they belong on our Christmas trees. Grinch List also has a wonderful essay on maintaining our heritage when it comes to Christmas and a list of those companies that don't deny that heritage. Heretic view The Daily Standard's Jonathan V. Last catalogues the problems with Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Last is not completely wrong but he does over-state his case and he misses the forest for the trees: whatever particular problems there are, they do not make the Return of the King a bad movie. I will agree with him that the movie seems hurried and that the passing of time -- events that take days and weeks -- is poorly handled. The movie would have been better if it were four hours long instead of three, but this problem will (I hope) be corrected (somewhat) in the DVD. But for his heresy of criticizing the final instalment of LOTR, Last should be faced to meet the army of Orcs on his own. Building a bike path to the future Great Mark Steyn column in yesterday's Wall Street Journal is now available on-line. Essentially Steyn identifies how the Left has changed so the Left could stay the same and he (with apologies to Chesterton) finds that once you don't believe in one big thing you'll believe in a lot of little things. Steyn on liberalism in 21st century America: "David Brooks, visiting Burlington in 1997 in search of what eventually became his thesis 'Bobos in Paradise,' concluded that the quintessential latté burg was 'relatively apolitical.' He's a smart guy but he was wrong. All the stuff he took as evidence of the lack of politics -- pedestrianization, independent bookstores -- is the politics. Because all the big ideas failed, culminating in 1989 in Eastern Europe with the comprehensive failure of the biggest idea of all, the left retreated to all the small ideas: in a phrase, bike paths. That's what Bill Clinton meant when he said the era of big government was over; instead, he'd be ushering in the era of lots and lots of itsy bits of small government that, when you tote 'em up, works out even more expensive than the era of big government. That's what Howard Dean represents--the passion of the Bike-Path Left." How about the morning-before pill? Great satire from Scrappleface: "A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel has approved over-the-counter sales of the so-called 'morning-before' pill. Although experts disagree over how the pill works, it seems to prevent unwanted pregnancy by attacking the problem at its source in the human brain. The drug is an emergency pre-emptive contraceptive known as 'Plan A,' which, when taken 48-72 hours before potential unprotected sex, is 100 percent effective in preventing pregnancy. Rather than causing a quick abortion, like the so-called 'morning after' pills, Plan A works on the cerebrum in the brain to actually keep women from getting into sexual situations in the first place. 'It seems to knock some sense into them, clinically speaking,' said one unnamed FDA researcher. 'After taking Plan A, our test subjects intuitively understood what men were really thinking. They no longer believed the words "I love you" when it was just an inducement to sexual activity. In fact, they avoided situations where they might be alone together with any man to whom they were not married.' Scientists continue to work on a male version of the drug, also known as the 'personal responsibility' pill." For the real-life story on which the satire is based, check out LifeSite's coverage of a Food and Drug Administration panel calling for the "morning-after pill" to be distributed over-the-counter. The important point LifeSite makes: that despite media coverage implying OTC status for the MAP is a done deal, final decision is not expected for several months. About that new Conservative Party of Canada Reliably unreliable Bourque News says that New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord (PC) will run for the leadership despite just weeks ago denying any interest in leading the party. And yesterday, Bourque News reported that former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day is not ruling out a run for the leadership: "I never say never, Pierre, and right now I am watching the race develop with interest." The last CA leader, Stephen Harper will announce on January 12 that he is seeking the new party's leadership, which is a lot like announcing now that he is leadership candidate. One person certain not to run is former Tory leader Robert Stanfield. If Lord and Day join Harper and entry-date announced candidate Jim Prentice, who ran for the Tory leadership last spring, this will be a real race and give the party greater credibility. It's a good time to be a Canadian conservative I can't remember a time I've ever said that. Ever even thought that. We use to have two political parties which was either one too many or, as Mark Steyn used to say, way too few. Let's see what unity delivers. But while we had two political parties, for the past eight months, we've had no magazine, and for a year or so before that, a magazine that was lost in the woods. That is about to change. Ezra Levant is bringing back to life the spirit of Alberta Report in The Western Standard. Read all about it in Levant's Calgary Sun column. Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Check out Paulitics Several posts on endorsements, Christian Science Monitor says Dean-Bush could be close and Louisiana Senate. All at Paulitics. Loony Left watch According to WorldNetDaily, "Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told Fox News Channel analyst Morton Kondracke yesterday she suspects President Bush knows the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and is simply waiting for the most politically expedient moment to announce his capture." Yes, she told it off camera. Yes, Kondracke should be careful about speaking "out of school." Yes, whatever and what else. But the most important issue Albright's outburst raises is this: has the Left gone that crazy, that conspiratorial? Yes. Where do they get these ideas? I was once told that the Left accuses the Right of all kinds of awful things because that is what they would do themselves given half the chance. If this explanation is true -- and I think there is much truth in it -- then such comments as those made by Albright tell us more about the Left -- and their psychology and their win-at-all-costs gamemanship -- than it does about the Bush administration or any other of their targets. Obligatory LOTR post Jonah Goldberg on Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, in The Corner: "Usually the noticeably aging actors have to be corralled back with offers of more money, more screen time, or, shudder, more creative control. Who knows what would have happened if Viggo Mortensen, Elijah Wood, and Ian McKellen had been allowed to indulge their personal politics? At best, teams of U.N. magic-rings inspectors would have been dispatched to Mordor before any fighting began. And, since Orcs appear to be all of one sex, and male, perhaps McKellen would have insisted on a brief cameo of an Orc marriage." Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Excellent Washington Times editorial on abortion Ditto what the Washington Times says, which is essentially that the pro-life movment has the momentum in the United States following the partial-birth abortion ban (and other pro-life measures over the past 15 months) and that the National Right to Life Committee is taking its eye off the ball when it supports the Bush administration-supported prescription drug benefit. The Times says the NRLC would be better off educating the public about the next pro-life issue, the over-the-counter distribution of the abortifacient morning-after pill. Blair on where Saddam's trial should be held CNSNews reports that British Prime Minister Tony Blair says that Saddam Hussein should be tried in Iraq and that he could be executed: "Any trial of Saddam should be by the Iraqi government for the Iraqi people." Why? "Where his rule meant terror and division and brutality, let his capture bring about unity, reconciliation and peace between all the people in Iraq." Art criticism imitating real-life punditry This portion of a review of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, by Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post, describes why it is important that the US finally captured Saddam Hussein and why he must be executed: "In this version, Sauron has taken the form of the Lidless Eye, and he looks like something off a secret Masonic document, an eye bathed in fire and floating in space. Like the many effects in the film it's impressive, but it's static. We want a villain whose ritual death will delight us. (On the other hand, when someone takes out one of the Ringwraiths by driving a sword through his face, I liked that a lot!) Watching what is essentially a structure tip into the flames lacks dramatic impact." Monday, December 15, 2003
Sullivan on stupid post The Capture quotes Scroll down and under ten Galloway Awards, Andrew Sullivan lists the desperateness and stupidity of those that would deny President George W. Bush this victory. This, on the other hand, is a great poster Great anti-gun control poster can be seen here. (Hat tip to Operation Self Defense) This is just really stupid You have to see it for yourself. Deanian idolatry has gone too far. Dean's own Blog for America thinks it's link-worthy. Daifallah on The Capture Adam Daifallah is an editorial writer with the National Post. Today he gave "The Last Word" commentary on Global National News: "So the rat was found in a rat hole. What a relief. Saddam Hussein will never be able to terrorize the Iraqi people again. What can we expect in Iraq now that Saddam has been captured? We can expect more good news in the days to come. Assuming Saddam will talk, we'll find out what really happened to his weapons of mass destruction. We'll get intelligence on the guerrilla attacks plaguing the occupation forces. The Iraqi people will hopefully themselves prosecute the tyrant for his 30 years of torture and murder. And we'll find out more about his work with al-Qaida and other odious terrorist organizations. But most importantly, it means peace of mind for people of Iraq. When I was in Iraq in May, just after the war ended, the people were still scared, nervous, unsettled. They didn't want to cooperate with the Americans because they feared the return of Saddam. Now that anxiety is gone. Iraqis will feel free to help in the building a new civil society for their country based on democracy, freedom and human rights. Had critics of the war had their way, Saddam would still be in power, wreaking havoc on his own people. Instead, he is in American custody, looking haggard, defeated and beaten. Somehow, this result seems a lot more just." Not all the jackasses were hiding in holes in Tikrit Former Rep. Dick Armey says that conservatives believe what they see and liberals see what they believe. For liberals, the story that is apparent to everyone else in the world is never the whole story and thus they dream up conspiracies. The Associated Press reports that Rep. Jim McDermott (D, WA) told a Seattle radio station that the US military could have found Saddam Hussein "a long time ago if they wanted." The timing, of course, was political: "There's too much by happenstance for it to be just a coincidental thing." Liberal, conspiracy-minded Democrats should beware that campaigning in make-believe land won't get you real world votes. The predictability of Kofi Annan UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says it would be wrong to execute Saddam Hussein, master executioner of the Iraqi people. The lighter side of The Capture Larry Miller on The Daily Standard: "Ah, Saddam, Saddam, Saddam. What has it all come to, eh, my friend? All those palaces, all those solid gold toilets, all those deliciously terrified looks in people's eyes. All that hard work, and you just wind up looking like Jerry Garcia after a show." Very funny essay. Who else but Miller would find that the "Most important aspect of Hussein's capture: Could you grow a beard like that in seven months? I don't think I could. I mean, you've got to hand it to him: A full head of black hair, and he looks like Aristotle in a week." I'm not looking forward to the post-embarrassment age Tina Brown wrote in the Washington Post last week: "The success of society babe Paris Hilton's reality TV show 'The Simple Life,' hard on the heels of the bootleg porn tape showing her steamily in flagrante delicto with her dirtbag then-boyfriend Rick Solomon, proves once again there is no such thing as bad press. We live in the post-embarrassment age." Put aside for a moment that The Simple Life was a success despite the sex tape. Oh, sorry, the point is that you can't put aside the sex tape. TSL was a success not despite but because of the tape. The publicity was priceless. A little (more) embarrassment for a gal not embarrassed enough to avoid being taped in flagrante delicto in the first place, is a small price to pay for (greater) stardom. But considering President Bill Clinton could still show his face in public after he stained a young intern's dress, why shouldn't a party-going tramp cash-in on what should make young girl's her age blush? The point Brown never makes is this: we live in a post-embarrassment age because we have lost our ability to blush -- there is nothing to be embarrassed about when there are no standards. Speaking of cheap shots In a column on NRO about cheap shots that Democrats, France, the media, etc... have made on the administration for not capturing Saddam Hussein over the past nine months, Jim Geraghty has one of his own: "Thankfully, former Illinois senator and current long-shot Carol Moseley Braun is still willing to find the dark lining on the sliver cloud. 'The capture of Saddam Hussein is good news for the people of Iraq and the world,' Braun said in released statement, e-mailed by spokeswoman Loretta Kane from a yahoo account. 'But it does not change the fact that our troops remain in harm's way; and we are no closer to bringing them home'." Chronicles blog, RIP I reported last month that Chronicles blog Cultural Revolutions Online has been dormant since mid-September. You would think that the events of this weekend would have them up and running again. You would be wrong. Kieko, RIP Scrappleface begins its satirical coverage of the demise of the one-time movie star cum fishbait thusly: "A decade-long, multimillion dollar effort to 'Free Willy' has finally succeeded." Will on where Saddam should be tried Washington Post columnist George F. Will has a column on whether Saddam Hussein should be tried by the people he wronged (the Iraqis) or by those who did everything in their power to prevent Saddam from being removed from power (the international community of France, Germany and Russia). Will concludes Iraq and finds that such a trial might be an important nation-making moment: "The attempts of 'internationalists' to hijack Hussein's prosecution are partly for the purpose of derogating the importance and legitimacy of nation-states generally. But Iraqi nationhood -- currently tenuous as a political and psychological fact -- can be affirmed by entrusting it with the trial. By serving Iraq's national memory, the trial can be a nation-building event." Hitchens on The Capture A meandering column by Christopher Hitchens in The Mirror, but he makes an important point that answers the question, How does this change the war for Iraq from this point forward?: "Meanwhile, the whole enterprise of re-making Iraq is greatly clarified by the certain knowledge that there's no going back." Cameron for the prosecution Mark Cameron, a traditionalist Catholic, makes the Catholic case for executing Saddam Hussein: "I have no doubt that the scale of Saddam's crimes against humanity merits the death penalty, but I would point out that a good case could be made for execution even under the modern Catholic limitation of capital punishment to cases where bloodless means are inufficient to 'defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of person.' (CCC #2267) A Saddam in prison might give some hope to Baathist remnants and terrorist groups that he could escape or be released, or traded in a prisoner exchange for high enough ranking hostages. Undoubtedly keeping him alive in some sort of desert version of Spandau Prison would also keep alive the insurgency for more months or years, which would unnecessarily cost dozens of innocent lives." The importance of The Fence Because life is precious and cannot be put at risk for public relations stunts, er, I mean the search for diplomatic solutions while the killing continues. Check out this presentation from the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs. As David Mader notes, "it conveys a reality - the proximity of Israeli towns to Palestinian terrorists - that is too often lost on foreign audiences. The map is instructive, but the repetition of the walking time between the pre-1967 border and Israeli targets of terror is the most illuminating." Kudos to Lieberman Senator John Kerry (UltraD, People's Republic of MA) was on Fox News this morning illustrating why he is irrelevant. While he gave the president credit for The Capture, in the same breath he criticized Bush's foreign policy (need to tackle North Korea, need to worry what France will think, blah blah blah). Senator Joseph Lieberman (D, CT), on the other hand, said the obvious: capturing Saddam Hussein is a good thing, plain and simple: "Hallelujah, praise the Lord. This is something that I have been advocating and praying for for more than twelve years, since the Gulf War of 1991. Saddam Hussein was a homicidal maniac, a brutal dictator, who wanted to dominate the Arab world and was supporting terrorists." Whereas Kerry tried to score political points by saying that Bush must abandon his "utilitarianism" [sic] and accept an international court to try Saddam, Lieberman made justice not geopolitics the central consideration in trying the former dictator: "This evil man has to face the death penalty. The international tribunal in The Hague cannot order the death penalty, so my first question about where he's going to be tried will be answered by whether that tribunal can execute him. If it cannot be done by the Iraqi military tribunal, he should be brought before an American military tribunal and face death." And only then at the end of his release did Lieberman address the politics of the situation -- and not in a political way, but in the Zell Miller-reminding-his-party way that the Democrats must remain relevant and live up to its responsibility of being a national party: "This news also makes clear the choice the Democrats face next year. If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power today, not in prison, and the world would be a more dangerous place. If we Democrats want to win back the White House and take this country forward, we have to show the American people that we're prepared to keep them safe." The difference between Saddam's Iraq and the new Iraq The New York Times reports that four members of the Iraqi Governing Council met with the captured Saddam Hussein -- or as the Times insists, Mr. Hussein. Mowaffak al-Rubaie was one of the council members and he said "I was in his torture chamber in 1979 and now he was sitting there, powerless in front of me without anybody stopping me from doing anything to him." Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, said "The most important fact: Had the roles been reversed, he would have torn us apart and cut us into small pieces after torture ... This contrast was paramount in my mind — how we treated him and how he would have treated us." Sunday, December 14, 2003
Goldwater would be spinning in his grave Now, I know that the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) is hardly an authoratative source on political labelling, but in an report about sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein, CBC reporter Robin Rowland says that politically the author moved from the Left to the Right and came eventually to support "Barry Goldwater for president in 1964 (some political analysts consider Goldwater the first neo-conservative)." What political analyst would consider Goldwater a neo-con? Saddam is in trouble Writing in the Daily Telegraph, historian John Keegan says now that Saddam Hussein has been captured, it is time to execute. The charge: "...He may, de facto, have been head of state but, by fleeing his capital and office at the outset of the last Gulf War, he effectively abandoned whatever constitutional status he enjoyed. The power vacuum he left has been filled by the creation of the Iraqi Governing Council, which, very conveniently last week, announced the establishment of a tribunal empowered to try any Iraqi citizen - and that Saddam unquestionably is - for crimes under domestic law. Prima facie, Saddam has to answer for many crimes, including murders he has himself committed, large-scale episodes of murder and torture of his fellow citizens, and organised extermination of minorities, particularly Kurds and Marsh Arabs, inside his own country." There are two types of people ... In The Corner, Tim Graham explains the other kind: "Had to razz my sister-in-law in Minnesota as she called at 3 PM and said 'Oh my God! I just heard! I was watching MTV...' This demonstrates how the Other Half lives, those who get their news almost entirely by accident." 'We got him' With these words by Paul Bremmer, the war for Iraq changes (it does not end). Jed Babbin has the best column on this development. The one bad side of this capture is that it overshadows this important column in the Sunday Telegraph by Con Coughlin possibly linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11. (What a time to be away from the computer. More later.) Friday, December 12, 2003
Light blogging For the rest of the weekend. Out of town, access to the computer limited. If there is time, probably updates on Paulitics. VDH on Iraq Victor Davis Hanson in The Corner on Iraq: "But again the key is not to look at the present from the present but rather to imagine what it most likely will appear like ten years from now." A very good but rather long read that looks (as historians are wont) at the past (Greece, the Civil War, World War II) and the lessons about power it provides. Essentially VDH says that while there continues to be attacks on Americans in Iraq and not all the world has lined up to pat the US on the back, eventually most sane people and principalities want to be on the winning side. If you get excited by punctuation There is a great little review in The Economist of what seems like a great little book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. Maybe it is because I'm a nerd that I like these types of books (although I will use the excuse that I must because I'm an editor), the review is actually quite funny and fun, despite the seriousness of the issue. The reviewer notes one lovely anecdote that Truss trots out: "Harold Ross, a former New Yorker editor, and James Thurber rowed frequently over commas. Thurber, who disliked them, usually lost. He was once asked by a correspondent why there was a comma in the sentence, 'After dinner, the men went into the living room.' 'His answer,' says Ms Truss, 'was probably one of the loveliest things ever said about punctuation."This particular comma," Thurber explained, "was Ross's way of giving the men time to push back their chairs and stand up"'." And, yes, that quotation is properly punctuated. One last comment about punctuation, an error that I, as editor, see often. People do not know how to handle decades. It is not the 1950's or even 50's but '50s. In this case, the apostrophe takes the place of missing numbers or letters. There is nothing possessive about the 1950s nor is any letter being replaced just before the "s". Just a pet peeve of mine. I'm curious to see if Ms. Truss addresses this issue in her book. Best comment on the Martin cabinet My comment is simply this: uninspired. I might post more on this as I think about it in broader terms than I have today, which is simply the impact this has on social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. (Reminder: my day job is editor of The Interim, Canada's life and family newspaper.) But generally a collection of nobodies replacing a collection of losers. David P. Janes says very little (but a lot) of Sheila Copps not getting a cabinet post; he posts her picture under the title "Nobody's Baby." That's it. More on Bartley It is certainly a testament to the man and the journalist that the late Robert Bartley, editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, the most important editorial page in America, is being remembered the way he has. The Weekly Standard has an article by the godfather of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol. Kristol notes that Bartley was early on a reader of Kristol's journal Public Interest. Obviously Bartley was always a man who took ideas seriously and his prescience in recognizing PI's importance goes a long way to explain why Bartley did what he did at the WSJ, namely to help lead the American public (or at least that portion of it that reads the WSJ) to take ideas seriously. Kristol explains Bartley's role in putting one idea -- supply side economics -- into action. While Kristol disapproves of the term (favouring, instead, the economics of growth), he outlined how the ball got rolling with Bartley and Jude Wanniski, (skipping over Arthur Laffer and Robert Mundell) then Jack Kemp and eventually Ronald Reagan. The rest, as they say, is history and Kristol makes this judgement about that history: "Converting the Republican party to the new economics was Bartley's finest hour." Adam Daifallah links to this item in the New York Sun. Sun editor Seth Lipsky gave a speech to his newsroom so his staff would better understand one of the great newspapermen (Bartley was no mere editor) of our age: "Bartley’s standard for honesty carried over into his own conduct of journalism. In the 1980s, he turned down one of the most prestigious prizes in economics, the Prix Rueff, because it was funded by Lewis Lehrman, who was politically involved. And when the Founders’ Association, a charity of which I am a director, gave Bartley its medal in lifetime achievement for his long defense of Israel, he sent back the check for the cash component of the prize, with a note that he might want someday to say something about The New York Sun." Lastly, Peter Brimelow remembers Bartley, the man who invited him to come down to the WSJ from Canada. Brimelow encapsulates nicely the position of the paper's editorial page in recent political history and also airs his disagreement on immigration policy with that same editorial page. Thursday, December 11, 2003
On fiscal conservatism This is a very important issue. The idea that government will confiscate enough of its people's hard-earned income to cover their wreckless spending qualifies as fiscal conservatism is a troubling new journalistic trend. Tim Graham comments on this in The Corner: "To win the battle of defining conservatism, conservatives are going to have to reject the notion that balanced-budget socialism can be defined as "fiscally conservative." Fiscal conservatism should be defined as a preference for low taxes and strictly limited government." Defending this term is vital if conservatism is to be a political force in the future. Will not on campaign finance reform A little disappointing that today's George F. Will Washington Post column is not on yesterday's US Supreme Court decision upholding the key provisions of McCain-Feingold. Over the past several years, Will has written numerous columns condemning the dubious constitutionality of, the philosophy behind and political consequences of campaign finance reform laws. However, Will, has a great column asking several difficult and, most likely, alien questions of the Democratic presidential candidates. They are alien because the candidates have so tailored their message to the Democratic activist voters of Iowa and New Hampshire -- voters, it should be added, that are more political because of their first caucus/primary in the nation status -- that the candidates may have lost touch with most Americans. Will poses questions about foreign policy and economics that require more than cliche-ridden boilerplate, including this one: "Is it pure coincidence that in 1983-84, as today, the nation was deep into the first term of a tax-cutting Republican administration?" Will concludes: "In the past nine presidential elections (1968-2000), the 11 states of the former Confederacy, plus Kentucky and Oklahoma, have awarded 1,385 electoral votes. Democratic candidates have won just 270 (20 percent) of them. Which Deanisms -- the war is bad, same-sex civil unions are good, Americans are undertaxed -- will be most helpful to Democrats down there?" Sad day for freedom Yesterday, the US Supreme Court upheld the core provisions of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance restrictions (formerly known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act). If you care to read the Court's defense of this travesty of justice, click here. In its decision on McConnell v. Federal Election Commission there are some particularly worrisome findings by the majority that the restrictions are not burdensome, that money corrupts the system, and that there is not any discrimination in the law when it allows special interests to raise so-called soft money for registration drives (etc...) but not political parties. (Most of these points are made in the first 85 pages.) In a nutshell, this is what the Court did (in the words of Kenneth Starr, who represented the plaintiff, Senator Mitch McConnell, during a Washington Post online Q&A): "Today's decision upheld virtually the entirety of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), including its two most important components: the restrictions on the raising and spending of non-federal funds, or so-called 'soft money,' by national and state political parties, and the restriction on broadcast advertising that refers to federal candidates by corporations and unions within specified periods before federal elections." Samizdata's Robert Clayton Dean has two great points about this terrible decision. First, "It does not take many words to apply the simple phrase 'Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech' to overturn legislation; it does, however, take many, many words to obfuscate the meaning of that phrase sufficiently to uphold legislation that, in part, prohibits the airing of campaign commercials in the weeks before an election." Relatedly, "Campaign finance regulation is nothing more than state limitations on the use of resources to distribute political speech, which is to say, state limitations on political speech." Rick Hasen writes at his Election Law Blog that even as an advocate of the campaign finance restriction law, he has concerns about "the Court's cursory dismissal of First Amendment arguments" and that while it ultimately reached the correct conclusion (Hasen is, of course, wrong about this) it reached it "too easily." Hasen writes: "I think the Court should have given more careful treatment to some of the First Amendment concerns. If not, the danger is that self-interested legislation makes its way through very easily under the guise of campaign finance reform." He goes into greater detail in his posting. For two other heavy-on-the-legalese posts by Hasen, see this one on the issue of whether Title II is over-broad (Hasen mistakenly argues that it isn't) and this one on the problems with the vagueness of several terms when it comes to soft money restrictions. Also, just to note, as Eugene Volokh points out, if Justice Sandra Day O'Connor hadn't change her view, er, legal opinion on soft-money contributions since her stated opposition to such restrictions in an 1990 decision, this provision of McCain-Feingold would have been struck down. (Or as the Washington Post put it, the decision was made "with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in the decisive role.") John Fund's Opinion Journal column says that this decision confirms O'Connor's status as a judicial activist. Fund also notes Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent, in which he says: "The first instinct of power is the retention of power, and, under a Constitution that requires periodic elections, that is best achieved by the suppression of election-time speech. We have witnessed merely the second scene of Act I of what promises to be a lengthy tragedy." God bless Justice Scalia. Importantly, Kenneth Starr, in his Q&A with the Post discusses whether McConnell supersedes the already too-restrictive Buckley decision: "Unfortunately from our point of view, as of today, McConnell v. FEC itself is arguably the leading precedent on campaign finance law! As for the Court's 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo, which upheld restrictions on campaign contributions but struck down restrictions on expenditures, only two Justices by my count (Justices Scalia and Thomas) plainly indicated their willingness to overturn Buckley. All of the other Justices seemed to work from the premise that Buckley was still good law, but concluded that Buckley supported their respective positions. (Interestingly, the Chief Justice was on the Court when Buckley was decided, and largely voted with the majority in that case.)" We'll now see if American democracy is well served by what James Bopp, general counsel at the James Madison Center for Free Speech, calls "an orgy of incumbent protection," which is the best description of the effect of restricting campaign contributions. More on Bartley A nice column by the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan. She says that Bartley was conservative when conservative wasn't cool and optimistic. Although Nooan doesn't put it this way, she is in effect saying Bartley was the journalistic version of Noonan's old boss Ronald Reagan. The column concludes: "He was unillusioned and yet optimistic, felt human agency could change a great deal, and loved America in a way so Midwestern and ingrained that he never had to mention it or show it. It was just there, like his soft gray hair. He was one great man. He was a great American. The Founders would have loved him. So many of us are grateful that George W. Bush, earlier this month, gave Bob the presidential Medal of Freedom, our country's highest civilian honor. Well given. Freedom never had a better friend." Opinion Journal has fine sampling of Bartley's writing and, truth be told, I like his older stuff better than his weekly offerings of recent years. Bartley at his absolute best (October 14, 1968): "In our time, liberalism has come to mean dependence on the powers of central government to solve nearly all problems. This has stemmed from a view of man holding that any evil he displays is merely the result of his environment, and that his innate good will be released by the simple step of giving him ample money, housing and other worldly goods. Thus, the liberal creed has come to demand an almost religious 'commitment' to using the government to uplift the poor; not so much as a way to help the unfortunate, but as an answer to all the problems of mankind." Bartley at his near best (June 25, 1984): "The technological arguments against [missile] defense are mainly foils for the underlying philosophy that has dominated our strategic deployments and arms-negotiating strategies for a generation--the notion that defense is bad, that it is good if each side can destroy the other entirely." Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Unsafe at any height LifeSite Daily News has a story on the dangers of flying while using oral contraceptives. The Archives of Internal Medicine published a study today that finds that women who use birth control pills have a fourteen-fold increase in their risk of potentially life-threatening blood clots (thrombophilia). American Life League President Judie Brown told LifeSite "Warning signs should be posted in every airport," about The Pill's potentially dangerous effects. Brown added, "The birth control pill is simply bad medicine, regardless of how you look at it. And now we learn that from 35,000 feet, the view is even worse." The warnings might be especially apt in airplane washrooms where eager members of the mile high club congregate. The cure for AIDS is more capitalism This is a little late for World AIDS Day but as they say, better late than never. Especially when it is the thoughts of Johan Norberg (scroll down to December 1 to "Growth is the Cure"): "Today is World AIDS Day, and everybody will be talking about the need for a quick fix, the need for cheap medicines for example. But it’s important not to see the AIDS problem in isolation. The need for controlled distribution of drugs, and to take them in specific intervals requires better health care infrastructure. And the drugs are strong, so you need to be well-nourished to take them, so you need better access to food as well. And you need more political and economical emancipation for women, so that they can say no to ruthless men. And furthermore, malaria, diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infections kills millions more than AIDS. So we need other drugs as well, better health care, more information, and sanitation. All of this takes resources, wealth and growth. What the poor need is not cheap drugs, but the wealth to get the drugs and everything else they need. Free trade is more important than free drugs." First Clark, now Brison's gone After the 1997 federal election which elected a Liberal majority supposedly because of a fractured right, there was the usual talk about re-uniting the right. Toronto Sun columnist Peter Worthington said he was all for re-uniting the two parties but only if Reformers could have a veto of which Tories joined. In the aftermath of this week's merger of the Canadian Alliance, the reincarnation of the Reform Party, and the Tories, the latter are purging themselves. The latest is socially liberal and openly gay Tory MP Scott Brison who has announced he has jumped ship to the Liberals just one day after announcing he would not seek the Conservative Party of Canada's leadership. How one can seriously consider running for the leadership of a party and several days later leave that party is beyond my comprehension but clearly the new party is better off without his ilk (by which I mean socially "progressive" intolerant types and not someone who is openly gay). See also Adam Daifallah's thoughts on why the new party won't miss Brison. For starters, Daifallah says, "Brison has revealed himself as a two-faced, unprincipled, shameless, spineless, opportunistic dork." Robert Bartley, RIP Robert Bartley, the man who revitalized the way America looked at the editorial page -- or at least the Wall Street Journal's -- passed away today at the too-young age of 66. Bartley was an important journalist and a vital figure within the conservative movement in the early 1980s when his editorial page led to the acceptance of the idea of supply side economics. His book The Seven Fat Years chronicles the success of Reaganomics and is by all accounts the best book to do so. I have links to several articles on Bartley below. The WSJ's announcement from today that Bartley had passed away. A wonderfully succinct tribute from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: "Robert Bartley was an articulate and most effective advocate of free markets, indeed freedom generally. His thoughtful voice will be sorely missed." Robert Novak's essay in the Weekly Standard on Bartley from January of this year: "The second and more important reason is his enormous impact on public policy. Without Bartley and his newspaper, supply-side economics would have been stillborn. His muscular foreign policy sounded the death knell of isolationism on the right. His relentless assaults on Bill Clinton's ethics set the standard for Republicans. He has not permitted conservatives to forget such unpleasant issues as tort reform and school choice." Last week Bartley has honoured by President George W. Bush with the highest honour given to civilians, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Bush said, "Robert L. Bartley is one of the most influential journalists in American history. As a reporter, author, editorial page editor, and columnist, he helped shape the times in which we live. A champion of free markets, individual liberty, and the values necessary for a free society, his writings have been characterized by profound insights, passionate convictions, a commitment to democratic principles, and an unyielding optimism in America. The United States honors him for his contributions to American journalism and to the intellectual and political life of our Nation." Lastly, Christopher Buckley remembers his first meeting with Bartley. This toast from 1997 can't be summed up easily or even cut up into a tasty morsel, so you're going to have to read the whole thing. Yet more good news from Iraq The US army has apparently killed Colonel Ghanem Abdul-Ghani Sultan al-Zeidi during raids in Mosul. Colonel al-Zeidi was a senior officer in the Saddam Fedayeen, a group suspected of co-ordinating the attacks on Americans in post-Saddam Iraq. While the US military would not comment on al-Zeidi specifically, a spokesman said there were raids Wednesday against "35 separate targets" and that they did indeed capture suspected Saddam Fedayeen members. Sullivan on Kerry Andrew Sullivan summarizes (scroll way down) why Senator John Kerry (UltraD, People's Republic of MA) has not caught on with voters: "He's the only candidate you just know for sure would be a terrible president - indecisive, vain, out-of-touch and incapable of rising to the occasion. Dean, Lieberman and Gephardt all strike me as men who could grow in the office. Not Kerry. He's Gore, without the charm." A fair question Joshua Muravchik writes in the December Commentary about his experience at a conference in Greece that hosted university-age students from Greece and Turkey, Bosnia and Serbia, Israel and her Arab neighbours. At one point, he says: "... there was a dinner at which the students, grouped by country, exhibited or performed something of their native culture. When the Palestinians' turn came, Gevara [a Palestinian who claimed he was harassed by Israeli security at the airport] led off. After showing an artifact of some kind, he picked up a fist-sized stone he had brought and said, 'These are the stones we throw at our oppressors.' Next came the Palestinian-American, who opened with the remark that 'nothing is more important to us than family.' At this point, Ruthie called out: 'Not even your stones?'" The reaction of the Greek hosts was great upset with Ruthie even though there reason behind her inquiry. If Palestinians (many but by no means all) are practicing suicide attacks on Israel, is it not fair to wonder if they hatred for the Jewish state is greater than their love of family? The challenge ahead in the Middle East Joshua Muravchik, a resident scholar at AEI, has a wonderful essay in the December Commentary about "Listening to Arabs." Muravchik encapsulates the problem in the Middle East with Islamic cultures: "The most remarkable person I met at the symposium was Ali, an Iraqi exile living in Morocco. In the formal session, while others deflected responsibility or made alibis, he asserted: 'Our societies have failed to move into the modern world because we have accorded no importance to the acquisition of knowledge'." Predominantly Islamic countries, especially Islamic Arab countries, have a frustration borne of envy -- the envy of watching a world progress around them, with developments in the sciences and the arts, personal freedoms and representative governments. (As Ralph Peters writes in yesterday's New York Post, "God has blessed America. This isn't the decayed civilization of the Middle East.") Islamic countries end up backwards not because they eschew the luxuries of modernism but because they don't understand them. The good news in Iraq Two pieces of good news, in fact. The first is that Japan has approved the use of 1,000 troops in Iraq for "reconstruction" purposes. So, will those on the Left continue their complaints about American unilateralism. Sure, because in their mind, the Japanese don't count; Japan doesn't have a Security Council veto. Regardless of the Left's obstinacy, the Daily Telegraph sees the significance: "In pushing through this mission, Mr Koizumi is taking a great risk. Most of the public and the main opposition group, the Democratic Party, oppose it. Even his coalition partner, Komeito, has misgivings. The Japanese were shocked by the murder of two of their diplomats in Iraq last month. Imagine their reaction if the SDF were to take or inflict casualties. It requires courageous leadership to move beyond the prevailing consensus in an attempt to give Japan a political voice commensurate with its economic strength." The second story is more significant. Reuters reports that US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has cited national security concerns in excluding firms from countries that opposed the liberation of Iraq (read: Canada, Old Europe, Russia) from bidding on 24 reconstruction contracts worth $18.6 billion. The contracts cover electricity, communications, public buildings, transportation, public works and security and justice. Wolfowitz said of the restrictions: "It is necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States to limit competition for the prime contracts of these procurements to companies from the United States, Iraq, coalition partners and force contributing nations." In other words, up your France and Germany. Tuesday, December 09, 2003
If you tax it, they will come A Toronto Star editorial said on Monday: "SARS is gone. Toronto's glittering theatres and sports arenas stand ready to entertain. Its museums brim with cultural treasures. And its calendar is packed with festivals and special events. But international travellers and convention organizers still turn away from this city." How to fix this problem? According to the editorial (and Toronto's new mayor comrade Miller and many tourism-related or tourism dependent businesses), the answer is to tax visitors' stays hotel rooms. The idea is that a $2 a room tax would pay for "a coherent, well-funded, and permanent campaign selling Toronto around the world." The Star says that the $3.1 billion area tourism industry stands to lose $600 million in 2004 but really how does anyone know that?. And is the best way to encourage people to come to Toronto to make their stay here more expensive? Perhaps we can advertise that in Miller's Toronto they will pay tolls on roads as they drive from the downtown up the DVP to the Ontario Science Centre or across the city to the Toronto Zoo. That should really make tourists flock to our great city. Now put aside the question of whether the tax would be a disincentive to staying at a Toronto hotel; assume for a minute that it attracts tens of thousands of tourists. Isn't taxing tourists for an advertising campaign to help Toronto businesses best described as a form of corporate welfare? Why not, when auto plants threaten to shut down, have the government pay for Ford's or GM's commercials? A hotel tax is an indefensibly bad idea. Pro-abortion violence The media is usually quick to report any allegation of violence against abortuaries. This item shows that intimidation and harassment is a two-way street. A threat was recently called into the Choices Medical Clinic, a crisis pregnancy centre in Wichita, on December 3. The caller threatened to blow up the Choices centre, which is located next door to the abortion facility of the infamous late-term abortion specialist George Tiller. So far, no New York Times or CNN story on the issue. Comments and notice I was particularly busy blogging today so expect a much lessened output over the next few days. That said, whenever I say that, I continue to blog excessively. Just a reminder that comments can be sent to paul_tuns@yahoo.com. Scrappleface on Kerry The incomparable Scrappleface says that Senator John Kerry has lowered expectations in New Hampshire where he currently trails Howard Dean (depending on the poll) by 20-30 points: "Aides to Democrat presidential hopeful John F. Kerry say that their candidate will be 'in the thick of things' after the January 27 New Hampshire primary if Mr. Kerry 'can still fog a mirror.' 'As long as his body is above room temperature it will be a win for Kerry,' said campaign spokesman Michael Meehan. 'On the heart monitor, we're looking for a wiggle above flatline. No matter what the ballot box numbers are, if Senator Kerry is still breathing on January 28, he's still in the hunt as far as we're concerned'." John Lennon, RIP retrospective The beatification (metaphorical, to be sure) of slain singer/songwriter/Beatle John Lennon has long been a project of sentimental music fans and lefties everywhere. The fact is, when teamed up with Paul McCartney, the Beatles rolled out rock hit after rock hit but as a single artist Lennon was good but not great. However, Lennon is adored not just or even primarily for his music but for his causes which were the trendy, leftish causes most artists wore on their sleeves in the 1970s. Surprisingly, Lennon did not get a Nobel Peace Prize for dreaming up the idea of bedding his wife in Montreal to raise awareness for the cause of peace. Perhaps there is a sick irony in this long-haired, unwashed, peacenik getting gunned down in front of his own posh apartment complex. Yes, he hated capitalism but surely enjoyed its fruits. Yesterday was the anniversary (20-somethingth, but who really cares) of Mark Chapman gunning down Lennon. Joel Engel wrote in the Daily Standard yesterday about the hypocritical and juvenile lyrics of Lennon's leftist anthem Imagine. It is worth looking at, but consider whether Lennon really meant what he wrote and sang "Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can / No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man / Imagine all the people, sharing all the world." Engel says, "Let's begin implementing the third stanza's message by splitting up the royalties to this copyrighted song." But then Lennon would never have lived in the Dakota, would he? Playing with reproductive choice Excuse the awkward title on this posting but after checking out NARAL Pro-Choice America's e-game "Too Bad: The Game of Losing Your Right to Choose," my head is still spinning. You roll the die and they ask a question. But the game is fixed because it offers three multiple choice answers but none of them are the correct one, enabling NARAL to "educate" game-players about the loss of reproductive freedom in America. Or is that Amerika? That said, whatever complaints one has about this game it is poetic that none of the "choices" (choice is today a synonym for abortion) is the right answer. (Thanks to NRO's K-Jo for pointing out this site.) Commentary on Gore's endorsement of Dean Two quick and easy reads. David Frum's NRO diary where he says the former Veep and presidential candidate wants Dean to so he can run himself in 2008, but also to look good: "So Gore has to wish for defeat this year. And not for mere defeat, but for catastrophic defeat. A Democratic wipeout in 2004 would make Gore’s performance in 2000 – 51 million votes, 266 electoral votes – look retrospectively much more impressive." At the same time, he played nice with the party's Left. Also on NRO, Clifford D. May writes: "It's come to this: Either Al Gore will be asked to be secretary of state in 2004, or Hillary Clinton will be asked to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008. It's one or the other, it can't be both. Did you notice that Gore said this morning that he wants to 'remake the Democratic party'? Well, he's taken the first step: The Democratic nominee next year will be his boy, not the Clinton's." By the way, May warns that Republicans should be careful what they wish for; the most easily defeatable candidate has sometimes proven to tougher than expected. May reminds readers that in 1998, Republicans thought Gray Davis would be a push-over; he won two California gubernatorial contests. Clark outClintons Clinton Jay Nordlinger in yesterday's Impromptus column: "Have you gotten a load of Gen. Wesley Clark? I mean, the most recent load? He told a synagogue down in Florida that he had seven Jewish cousins living in the state. He said, 'I'm so proud of my Jewish family and Jewish heritage that I just had to share it with you.' Did you know he was Jewish? Me neither. Sounds like one of those Hillary things. According to the Miami Herald, Clark said that, when he learned that his father was Jewish, 'I was overjoyed and thrilled and happy.' Yeah, I'll bet, General. I believe the ol' boy (or should that be "goy"?) doth protest too much. Clark may be the phoniest presidential candidate in modern history, which is saying something. He makes his fellow Arkansan, Bill Clinton, seem like Joe Authenticity." Would you trade one Joe Clark for a set of conservative principles? I would. And that's what John O'Sullivan thinks is the result of the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties. JO'S writes: "The new party will now be the main official Opposition and is to be called simply 'the Conservative Party of Canada.' This new title is highly significant. For it acknowledges that the new party will be a center-right party rather than the zebra-like ideological hybrid going in all directions. For that reason it will probably lose some leading Red Tories like its former leader Joe Clark. But it will gain greatly in clarity of ideas and force of exposition." Novakian gem Michael Novak, that is. NRO reprints one of his Domino Forum (Slovakia) columns on why the Left hates President George W. Bush. Novak says the Left thinks he stole from them two things that are their birthright: the presidency and the future. Read the column to see why. But here is the gem: "Having finished on top in the Florida election by a small margin, the Bush team prevented the Democrats from stealing the election in the recount. But winning elections in a recount is a maneuver at which Democrats have been incomparably accomplished for generations. In most urban centers, the Democratic party controls the local workers who do the bulk of the counting and vote storage. Therefore, Democrats felt the bitter loss in Florida with exquisite pain. The Republicans beat them on the streets, in the counting houses, and in the courts. That election belonged to them, Democrats think, and they have continued to cry out against a cosmic injustice." Chretien countdown For more than a year, the National Citizen's Coalition has had a billboard counting down the months before Prime Minister Jean Chretien's long-awaited departure. Well, it is no longer measured in months or even weeks but days. To steal a joke from Right Point, today is "Da turd last day!" Not that Prime Minister Paul Martin will be any better. Warren gone from Citizen David Warren is one of the few genuinely conservative columnists left in this country and he has recently been relieved of his post at the Ottawa Citizen. I heard about the dismissal earlier in the week but did not know if it was public knowledge. Mark Cameron had this to say about Warren's work: "I received the sad and disturbing news this morning that David Warren has published his last piece in the Ottawa Citizen, depriving him of his last mainstream outlet in the Canadian press. The column that cost him his perch was this insightful gem on Canadian multicultural policy, which was motivated by the disturbing news that Canada is about to recognize Sharia law for resolving civil disputes among Muslims. Are we approaching a Millet system in Canada? Warren has also been outspoken in defence of Alliance MP Larry Spencer, who was summarily drummed out of the ranks of polite society for his interview on the gay agenda. David Warren's writing sometimes needed an editor, but not to soften his opinions, but to sharpen his prose which at its best can reach a Russell Kirkian poetry or a Mark Steynian bite." For proof, check out Warren's archives at Essays on Our Times. Best line on Joe Clark David P. Janes is a daily must-read Canadian blogger (he joins Mark Cameron and Adam Daifallah on top of that list) at Ranting and Roaring and today he has a great line about pouting former PC leader Joe Clark, whom he said "epitomized the old-order Tories" with his "personal vision for his party and his country extended no futher than being the B-list Liberals, the first alternate for when Canadians occasionally tired of having the Liberals in power." Janes continues: "History has recorded both your brief months in power and your lengthy stint as second, third and fourth tier opposition leader as abject failures." Canada's porous borders The Washington Times has a series on guarding America's borders. Today's article looks at preventing drug smugglers from entering the United States and reports that a November 2002 study by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police found that smuggling marijuana into the US was "an activity that is conducted every day, practically all along the border." RCMP noted that the Peace Arch Provincial Park on the British Columbia-Washington border was one of two "major pipelines for smugglers" into the US (the other being the San Ysidro, CA). If Canada will not do its job and prevent drug-smugglers from entering the US via Canada, is it any surprise that the US is worried about our ability to prevent terrorists from entering their country from ours? That was the topic of the first article.) Noting that the Canada-US border has had fewer security measures than the US-Mexico border, the Times reports "On the 1,940-mile southern border, CBP (Bureau of Customs and Border Protection) has assigned 9,539 Border Patrol agents, compared with 999 on the 4,121-mile northern border." The northern relationship has historically been animated by concern with the free flow of trade. But the free flow of terrorists has now caught US attention. The Times reports Americans are concerned with "Canada's lax immigration laws [which] allow aliens from around the world — including those from Islamic nations that embrace terrorism — to enter that country with little or no scrutiny and to stay indefinitely." The story lists several examples and, of course, there are the unknown knowns -- the number of potential threats to US security. Very important reading. Dick Morris on Gore's endorsement I think that Dick Morris is generally over-rated as a political analyst but his New York Post column on Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean is right on the money. He says that the endorsement is not about the presidential election of 2004 but the presidential election of 2008, and, more immediately, control of the Democratic Party. In one corner are the Clintons and the failed candidates they have put forward to represent what the media calls the centrist wing of the Democratic Party but which is really the Clinton-loving wing of the Democratic Party: retired General Wesley Clark and senators Joseph Lieberman and John Kerry. (I wouldn't have included Lieberman in this list because he doesn't appear (personally) close to the Clintons but at least he is positioned to continue the fiction that the party has repositioned in the centre.) In the other corner, according to Morris is "Dean, backed by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and now Gore, battling to take the party away from Hillary and craft a new Democratic left." By endorsing Dean, Gore hopes to regain some relevance. Morris: "Gore likely knows that Dean won't win. But by backing him, he begins to carve out his own identity in the post-Bill Clinton, post-moderation post-sanity Democratic era." That may mean Gore in 2008 or it might just mean steering the Democrats back to the true Gore position of Dukakis-like liberalism. So far, so good. But then Morris concludes with a frightening and thought-provoking sentence: "Or maybe he [Gore] just wants to be vice president again?" Think about it and it makes sense. Gore would provide Dean with instant inside-the-beltway credibility and what passes for foreign policy expertise (or at least experience). Having Gore on the ticket will energize the base hungry to avenge the 2000 election results and might even put Florida in the (legitimately) up-for-grabs column (as opposed to the delusional Democrat belief that Florida is winnable). It seems far-fetched -- as most of Morris's predictions and ideas do -- but it also makes sense. From the 'They're only Jews' file Writing in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Columbia and York universities' Anne Bayefsky examines the anti-semitism endemic to the United Nations. She concludes: "The U.N. is an organization founded on the ashes of the Jewish people, and whose core human rights principles were drafted from the lessons of the Holocaust. The inability of the organization to address seriously one of the very evils it was intended to prevent is a scandal of global proportions. In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declared, 'disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.' Fifty-five years later the outrage is gone, the silence of the U.N. when it comes to anti-Semitism is deafening, and the only ones benefiting are those planning future barbarous acts against Jews everywhere." Steyn on Rummy Mark Steyn defends US Secretary General Donald Rumsfield against charges that he butchered the English language. Last week, the Plain English Campaign gave its Foot-In-Mouth (dis)honour to Donald Rumsfeld for saying: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know." (For my previous comments on this, click here.) Steyn said the PEC is at its best when they criticize bureaucratese and responsibility-evading jargon but that in awarding their Foot-in-Mouth to Rumsfield it is "plain nuts" because "The Defence Secretary is perhaps the best speaker of Plain English in English-speaking politics, and it would be a less despised profession if there were more like him." You doubt that? As Steyn notes: "At some Pentagon briefing during the Afghan campaign, a showboating reporter noted that human rights groups had objected to the dropping of cluster bombs and demanded to know why America was using them. Rumsfeld replied: 'They're being used on frontline al-Qa'eda and Taliban troops to try to kill them.' Plain enough for you?" Back to the known knowns et al, Steyn says that the award-winning known knowns comment was "in fact a brilliant distillation of quite a complex matter." As Steyn explains: "What he means is that he knows the things he doesn't know. He doesn't know the precise location of the bad guys, but he knows they're out there somewhere, inching through the dust, perhaps trying to get to the large cactus from behind which they can get a clean shot at him. Thus he knows what to be on the lookout for: he is living in a world of known unknowns." The unknown unknowns, Steyn reminds readers, included the pre-9/11 use of passenger jets as weapons of terror. Unknown unknowns is not bad English, it defines the age we live. We must be prepared for new and unimaginable (to us) ways of killing westerners and getting our attention. Steyn, again: "Rumsfeld's line is a cool, clear-headed way of understanding this new world. The fact that the Plain English Campaign chooses to mock Rummy, rather than the platitudinous Colin Powell or the mellifluously banal Dominque de Villepin or any of the other politicians unwilling to rise the challenge of the times, is a reflection on them rather than the Defence Secretary." Person of the Year Enter Stage Right is having its PotY contest. Nominate (really, vote for) George W. Bush and make him a three-time winner of this prestigious award. Other possible nominees I would suggest include Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield and ... I guess that's it. Leviathan grows The Washington Times reports that the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush "could cost as much as $2 trillion in its second decade" according to the Congressional Budget Office. Rep. Charlie Norwood (R, GA) said "creating a completely open-ended entitlement ... then handing the bill to our kids and grandkids, is just the wrong answer. ... The fiscal path this bill sets us on scares the heck out of me." It should scare the heck out of all of us, especially Americans who will have to pay the taxes to cover the bill. While this might be a short-term election winner, the expansion of such "entitlements" is neither compassionate nor conservative. Normally a government sponsored study is needed to determine the obvious ... ... but apparently pollsters can serve such a function also. The Guardian is awarded the Unnecessarily Obvious Fact Award by Catallarchy's Randall McElroy for its headline "Polls: Dean's Strength Is Among Liberals." If not to kill for, women are at least willing to mulitate for these shoes Several weeks ago I blogged about women having plastic surgery so they could fit comfortably into their high heels. The Independent has a story on the phenomenon and quotes Dr. Suzanne Levine whose Institute Beauté clinic cuts up toes (among other procedures) to make feet shorter or narrower: I'm "simply fulfilling a need, a need to wear stylish shoes." A need for stylish shoes. Well, at least it hasn't been (yet) called a right. I'm not sure what is more insane: doing what it takes to fit into a pair of Manolo Blahniks or justifying such actions. The problem with stats There are two adages about statistics that are often repeated but neither quite true. One is there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. The other has it that statistics lie and liars use statistics. I think that G.K. Chesterton was more accurate in diagnosing the problem with statistics. He said the problem is not they can be used to lie but that they are meaningless. Statistics do not tell you if something is (morally) right or wrong and many do give much context (on their own) about the issue they hope to elucidate. National Review editor Rich Lowry has an column up on NRO about it being a good thing that jobs are destroyed because "It is in destroying jobs that the economy improves and makes it possible for the standard of living of all Americans to increase." Creative destruction and all that. Lowry notes that employment statisitics are terribly misleading because in any given year, 10% of the jobs are destroyed but that roughly an equal number are created. "This constant churning means that even a 'stagnant' American job market is extremely dynamic," says Lowry "and that the ranks of the unemployed are not necessarily the dispossessed of the earth, as Democrats tend to portray them." John Derbyshire, describing himself as "NRO's house pessimist" wonders, though, if Lowry's contention that "The trick, of course, is to create more jobs than are lost," is true: "Well, that's part of the trick. Problems would occur, though if the jobs lost were jobs for engineers, chip designers, materials scientists and systems analysts, while the jobs created were for telemarketers, child-care providers, HMO paper-shufflers and fruit pickers. Are we sure this is not what's happening? I'm not an economist, but I live in a lower-middle-class neighborhood where people are moving in and out of jobs all the time, and I hear stuff. Similarly, if 100,000 jobs are lost to mostly U.S. citizens while 100,000 are created for largely lower-paid legal and illegal immigrants, that would not be something to celebrate. The devil is in the details." None of this is to disparage Lowry's point or even the use of statistics. It is just a reminder of the need to dig deeper and, as The Derb does, ask questions. Brooks on Dean It's two in a row for New York Times resident "conservative" David Brooks who has another great column on the real Howard Dean. Brooks begins: "My moment of illumination about Howard Dean came one day in Iowa when I saw him lean into a crowd and begin a sentence with, 'Us rural people...' Dean grew up on Park Avenue and in East Hampton." Dean is all about re-inventing himself. Or as Brooks says, "Dean had liberated himself from his past." Thus, Dean "has freed himself to say anything, to be anybody." Specifics please. He was the centrist governor of Vermont but now he's the angry maverick. He was a free trader but now he's not. He was open to Medicare reform (thus the attacks linking his name to that of Newt Gingrich) but now Medicare is off the table. He was for gun rights but now appears to favour gun control. He was a "pro-business fiscal moderate" but now he spouts socialist slogans about multinational corporations. Brooks continues: "... the liberated Dean is beyond categories like liberal and centrist because he is beyond coherence. He'll make a string of outspoken comments over a period of weeks — on 're-regulating' the economy or gay marriage — but none of them have any relation to the others. When you actually try to pin him down on a policy, you often find there is nothing there." Brooks describes the ever-changing Dean policy on Iraq -- or at least what Dean says about Iraq -- and finds that "At each moment, he appears outspoken, blunt and honest. But over time he is incoherent and contradictory." But Dean is not called on this; instead, the incoherence, Brooks says, "gives him an amazing freshness and an exhilarating freedom." So why is Dean doing this? One reason, the obvious reason, is that he wants to become the Democratic presidential candidate and then the president. But Brooks is known for cute theories and he trots one out: "Everybody talks about how the Internet has been key to his fund-raising and organization. Nobody talks about how it has shaped his persona. On the Internet, the long term doesn't matter, as long as you are blunt and forceful at that moment. On the Internet, a new persona is just a click away. On the Internet, everyone is loosely tethered, careless and free. Dean is the Internet man, a string of exhilarating moments and daring accusations." But the internet goes further in explaining how Dean can get away with it than it does of an explanation why. To end with a reminder for Dean and any possible copycats: Americans may want someone with more than an ephemeral set of principles. More good news for the Bush re-election campaign At one point this morning, the Dow Jones was above 10,000 for the first time in 18 months. Almost every economic sign is positive. Check out Larry Kudlow's NRO column yesterday, to find out why "This booming economy is voting for Bush." The CA-PC merger Whatever else one might think of the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties -- today I'm more for it than against it, but my opinion on the matter shifts often and sometimes drastically -- one clear benefit is the finishing off of the federal Progressive Conservative Party. The PCs have been more progressive and in recent years more political correct than conservative; they have been complicit in the profligate spending and confiscatory taxation of the federal government, have appointed liberal judges who substitute their personal views for the rule of law and utterly failed to oppose the Liberal's suicidal immigration and language policies. ("Hey ma, no social conservatism -- I didn't even mention abortion, gay rights or capital punishment.") But back to accentuating the positive. Joe Clark, the two-time Tory leader, and two of his fellow sulkers, New Brunswick MP John Herron and Quebec MP Andre Bachand, will sit as independents. Two other Tory MPs may join them: Manitoba's Rick Borotsik and Newfoundland's Rex Barnes. The new party is better off without them. That said, there is a lesson to learn here; like Clark and the Tory MPs who want nothing to do with the new conservative party, many people who voted Tory will vote Liberal (or even NDP) before they support the Conservative Party of Canada. Getting the parties to agree to become one was the easy part; now it must convince Canadians to accept some semblance of conservative policy. Success in the War on Terror The New York Times reports that Philippine authorities arrested Galib Andang (aka Commander Robot), the leader of Abu Sayyaf, an "Islamic militant group" responsible for the abduction and murder of Filipinos and foreigners. Abu Sayyaf is on the U.S. list of international terrorist organizations and may be linked to Al Qaeda. Its hard to blame the students for their failures Clayton Cramer is teaching Constitutional History at Boise University this semester and after grading the term papers wonders "Should some secondary institutions remove that word 'school' from their signs, for fear of being brought up on fraud charges?" He continues: "On average, these papers showed an inferior command of written English compared to the essays written by my wife's 7th and 8th graders in California. (Admittedly, she taught at a private school, and it was a school so reactionary and narrow-minded that they still taught grammar.) ... For many of these students, however, I want to line up their middle school and high school teachers, and ask, 'What happened? Weren't you supposed to be teaching them to write competent sentences, paragraphs, and essays?'" Check out Paulitics Lots of political stuff over at my other blog, Paulitics. Several posts on Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean (including what it means for 2008), Senate races in California and South Dakota, is Dean the best Democrat running (probably) and the New Hampshire primary. Monday, December 08, 2003
Reason #3,451,836 the liberation of Iraq was justified Gallup polled people in Baghdad and found that 6.6% of them had a member of their household killed by Saddam Hussein's regime. Will the real David Brooks please stand up The David Brooks of Bobos in Paradise has finally shown up in his New York Times column. In a hilarious piece, Brooks advises rank-and-file Republicans of the culture shock that they will experience when they come to New York for their national convention next September and offers them tips for fitting in. First, they will discover that they are not in Kansas anymore: "... decent Republicans will be wandering innocently among packs of inflamed New York liberals. They'll be subjected to long harangues that rely heavily on the words 'multilateral,' 'Kyoto' and 'John Ashcroft.' They'll get condescending looks when they go into a deli and order a strawberry and chocolate chip bagel with pineapple cream cheese — a perfectly acceptable bagel option in most suburbs. They will naïvely pick up The Village Voice, thinking it contains small-town news. When the Utah delegation pauses to say grace before dinner at Elaine's, the cultural dissonance will be so great it will be measurable on the Richter scale. ... New Yorkers suffer from liberal anhedonia, which is the inability to derive pleasure from grossly oversized pieces of machinery. So when a Republican starts a perfectly normal conversation about the glories of his powerboat, snowmobile, combine or hemi, the liberal is likely to screech out something about the ozone layer. ... If a Martian landed in a Manhattan playground, he would conclude that human beings start out small and white, and grow up to become middle-aged Jamaican women." And how not to look like you are from Kansas or Utah or anywhere else in fly-over country: "We need to tell prospective G.O.P. delegates what sort of clothing they cannot wear in New York: pastels, pleated pants, khakis, Docksiders and tassels. If a Republican was seen walking down Riverside Drive wearing his normal outfit — tasseled loafers, no socks, green pants, a festive plaid sports jacket and a faded Hawaiian Tommy Bahama shirt — some New Yorker would come up and ask him if he could bring Paris Hilton out to his home for a reality series. We also need to tell them what they will need to blend in: dark, rumpled clothing, frayed shopping bags from the Strand, logo-less sweatshirts, Yasir Arafat-style facial hair and those black rectangular glasses that make everybody look like a Dutch architect." Classic Brooks. It's nice to have him back. Nominees in GM Nation Builders poll include great dividers Whatever one may think of the Ontario Court of Appeal's decision to legislate from the bench a new-found right for homosexuals to marry in Canada, it is clear that in doing so, the justices did not bring Canadians together. In fact, quite the opposite happened: they ignited what has long been absent from Canada, namely any semblance of a culture war. It would be silly for the Globe and Mail's readers to reward these three judges for deeply dividing the country as just 31% of Canadians support redefining marriage to include homosexuals, according to one recent poll. This is hardly nation building. Prentice to the rescue? The answer to the prayers of Canadian conservatives have been answered in the second coming of Jim Prentice. Prentice, a moderately conservative Tory from Alberta, has announced he will seek the new Conservative Party of Canada's leadership. That's good; I think that the last thing the new party needs to be taken seriously is race that is essentially between two Albertans (the other being Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper). If Prentice wins, he would be the fourth consecutive Reform/CA/Conservative Party leader from Alberta, and third from Calgary. That's bold and new and a sign of doing things differently. Prentice says the rights things -- "What this party needs to be is big enough and broad enough to encompass, on the one hand, social conservatives and on the other hand Red Tories" -- without indicating how he would do it. But that illustrates a serious problem: does anyone know how to build a tent big enough to hold both Red Tories and social conservatives? Would such a party offer consistent and principled policies or would it be merely opportunistic? Does Prentice (or any other possible leadership candidate) offer something other than he's not a Liberal? Time will tell, but I'm afraid of what it will tell, which is that (as the Ottawa Citizen's John Robson has said) there is a whole lot of unite and not a lot of right. Essential reading in the War on Terror In a very long but highly readable report, US News and World Report illustrates the connection between Saudi Arabia and Islamic terrorism around the world. In a nutshell: "Over the past 25 years, the desert kingdom has been the single greatest force in spreading Islamic fundamentalism, while its huge, unregulated charities funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to jihad groups and al Qaeda cells around the world." Check the story for details. The one thing Lieberman had going for him is gone Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote that despite all of Senator Joseph Lierberman's flip-flops, he seems to be a consistent defender of the role of religion in public life. Or is he? During a recent meeting with reporters from the Globe, Lieberman backed away from his famous 2000 speech in which he quoted America's first president: "George Washington warned us never to 'indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion'." Now that Lieberman is seeking the votes of mostly secular, liberal Democrats to secure the Democratic presidential nomination instead of the votes of mostly church-going, middle-class Americans in a presidential contest, Lieberman has nuanced his comments. Jacoby says that America may not be pleased with the fact that Lieberman is treating politics like a game of Twister. It takes a researcher to discover the obvious The Sydney Morning Herald reports that "American researchers have found overweight characters on top-rating shows - such as E.R., Friends, Frasier and The Practice - are less likely to be shown as attractive, romantic or physically affectionate." The researchers looked at 1000 American television characters and found that "larger male and female characters had fewer than half the romantic interactions of characters with smaller body types." Wonder why? Oh, yeah, because such characters are FAT! WMD update The Sunday Telegraph reported that the source of the claim made in an British intelligence dossier that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could hit British forces within 45-minute is Lt-Col al-Dabbagh, a 40-year-old Iraqi who "was the head of an Iraqi air defence unit in the western desert." The Telegraph reported that he said "cases containing WMD warheads were delivered to front-line units, including his own, towards the end of last year." So can we end the debate over WMD now? Sunday, December 07, 2003
Islam, Religion of Peace The Hindustan Times reports that Maulana Masood Azhar, head of the banned Pakistani terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed said "In Islam the only meaning of jihad was killing ..." According to the Times, Azhar said claiming jihad is not about killing was a conspiracy against Islam. Penetrating essay on Michael Jackson Gerald Early has an excellent column on Michael Jackson in Opinion Journal. This (partial) paragraph explains the Jackson career and psyche succinctly: "Mr. Jackson, so sensitive to the demographics that govern his profession as pop star, wanted very much to transcend any trace of being a demographic himself by erasing his race, his sex and his age, turning himself into a sociological palimpsest, the legible subtext of which fascinates because of Mr. Jackson's oddly heroic denial of what makes him real. But in this quest for being, to borrow Duke Ellington's phrase, "beyond category," he ceased to allow himself the mechanisms by which to grow and change. Mr. Jackson did not allow himself to mature as an artist, because he couldn't. He could only, like Fitzgerald's Gatsby, produce more grandiose and improbable versions of himself. And he could only, like Gatsby, wish to relive his past." It's funny how odd the honorific Mr. looks in front of Jackson in this case. 12/7 and 9/11 On the anniversary of Pearl Harbour, a New York Post editorial admits it is easy to overstate the similarities. Nonetheless: "In the wake of 9/11, the great divide in America is between those who understand how fundamentally the world has changed and those who wish to pretend that nothing has happened. But on Dec. 7, 1943, no one would have said that it was time to move on and return to politics as usual. Nor should anyone today." The best the UN can hope to shoot for In a column in the Los Angeles Times last week, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says the UN must define its role. I would suggest that, at best, the UN might serve usefully as traffic cop in Lagos. Anyway, at one point Annan says "I know that over the years our record has been far from perfect. The Security Council has been unable to prevent horrendous atrocities — the rule of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, genocide in Rwanda. But, to paraphrase Henry Cabot Lodge, the United Nations may not have brought us to heaven but it played a vital role in saving us from hell." Is Annan saying that the slaughter by Pol Pot and the genocides of the 1990s were in some sense between heaven and hell, an unfortunate but acceptable track record? WaPo on Democratic pander bears Remembering Paul Tsongas's taunting of then candidate Bill Clinton by waving a panda bear to highlight Clinton's promise-mongering, the Washington Post criticizes the Democrats for their reckless promising of new programs to fulfill every want and desire of the American entitlement-demanding middle class. As the Post says, "On the campaign trail, selling pain is a lot harder than hawking candy." (Read the editorial for the long list of new spending promises by the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.) The War against Children Clayton Cramer notes a news report on a Michigan case of sexual abuse by a minor: "An 8-year-old boy accused of fondling four female classmates will be the youngest participant in Wayne County's sex offender rehabilitation program, prosecutors said," the story begins. Cramer says that at one time, such behavoir would have been an indication of that a child was sexually abused, that children learn such behavior first-hand. But, Cramer says, "I suspect that this isn't such a reliable indicator today, when a surprising number of parents make no attempt to keep their chidren away from explicit and even perverted materials." With the mainstream media, and especially MTV, "the under 8 set learns the really important age-inappropriate lessons" about the most perverse sexual behaviors. Cramer wonders about the Michigan case: "So, is this eight year old's behavior an indication of sexual abuse? Or just that he is keeping up on the popular culture?" The War against Christmas Vdare has stories and lots of links on the Christophobic War against Christmas. Surprisingly, even the Bush White House employs the term holidays instead of Christmas. Those who live in glass houses The Washington Post's George F. Will has an excellent column exploring Howard Dean's supposed great intellect and finds it MIA. A taste: "Asked to name his favorite philosopher, Dean named Laotzu because 'my favorite saying is, "The longest journey begins with a single step".' That might make a better bumper sticker than anything David Hume said, but if that measures the depths of Dean, he and his supporters should take a sabbatical from deriding Bush's supposed shallowness." Remember, Dean is the candidate of choice among the professoriate because of, among other reasons, the latter's distaste for President George W. Bush's lack of intellectual seriousness. Saturday, December 06, 2003
Anti-art fascists at New York university The New York Times reports on rather silly controversy at New York University where a 21-year-old film student wants to tape students having sex in front of classmates in order (in the words of the Times) to "contrast between unbridled human lust and banal everyday behavior." Richard Pierce, spokesman for the university's Tisch School of the Arts, said (in the words of the Times) "N.Y.U. was considered very broad-minded on questions of artistic freedom, but had to draw the line at videotaping real sex before a class of students." Apparently not broad-minded enough to allow videotaping real sex before a class of students; NYU is so reactionary you might think it is being run John Silber. For its part, the New York Civil Liberties Union, through an associate legal director, Christopher Dunn, said there was no freedom of speech issue involved because NUY is a private institution but it lamented the crack-down on academic freedom. Dunn said "Students should be able to make films, write books or compose paintings without their university acting as a moral censor." The proof is in the criticism Max Boot writes in Opinion Journal that any question of whether or not President George W. Bush's Baghdad excursion was a success need only look as far as the criticism: "The most compelling evidence of the success of President Bush's trip to Iraq was the reaction of the opposition. No, not the Iraqi opposition--or 'resistance,' as the French have taken to calling it. I mean the American opposition: the Democrats and the news media." Critics of Bush know the stakes; if this is just a photo-op, who cares if Bush's visit with the troops went well. But the Thanksgiving visit was a Bush triumph, a small but significant victory in the public opinion war over Iraq; the Democrats and their willing accomplices in the media cannot allow Bush any victory in this war or their presidential ambitions in 2004 are imperiled. They know -- as Boot illustrates -- the symbolic importance of the Baghdad visit: "George W. Bush seems to have been infected with the Roosevelt spirit. And a good thing, too. Cynics may claim that the visit to Iraq was only 'theater' without any real strategic significance, but this misses the point entirely: As FDR realized, a large part of modern warfare must be waged in the public arena. The battle over symbols and images can be as important as the battle for any hill or town. This is particularly the case in a guerrilla war where there are few conventional measures of success and the 'center of gravity'--to use Clausewitz's term--lies in public opinion, American and Iraqi." Over at Paulitics A light day here but there are a number of political developments over at Paulitics. Florida Senate race. South Carolina Democratic polling. Washington cancels their primary. California golden for GOP. Things to read I haven't had a lot of time to blog yesterday or today although I've been wondering 'round the net looking for things to comment about. Perhaps I momentarily commented out, but here are a number of things to to peak at. Normal blogging will resume later today. 1. Oh, no, there they go again making unannounced trips to the liberated zone. New York Times reports that Secretary of State Donald Rumsfield stopped by in Kirkuk, Iraq. As far as I can tell, he did not lie to any journalists about his meal plans in America before leaving. 2. I thought we had seen the last of him. The Washington Times reports that James A. Baker III has been hand-picked by President George W. Bush to examine the issue of Iraqi debt. (Imagine how much less odious debt the country would have if Bush I, Baker, Powell etc... had finished the job 12 years ago.) 3. The Wall Street Journal's Robert Bartley received a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Washington Times editorial explains why. 4. Wizbang blog has polls for all kinds of best blog awards. If nothing else, you'll find a bunch more blogs to check out. (But please come back here regularly.) 5. Good news on uniting-the-right: its getting closer to becoming a reality. The National Post editorializes. 6. Good news on the War on Terror/Expanding the Empire of Liberty front. The Boston Globe reports that the US will fund domestic opponents of Iran's fundamentalist Islamic government. Thursday, December 04, 2003
Third Way to socialism With Tony Blair's current troubles, just a quick thought about Third Way politics. In his essay, "Why I am Not a Conservative," F.A. Hayek said that contemporary conservatives were "advocates of the Middle Way with no goal of their own" and thus compromised with socialism. Third Way politics seems not to have a coherent plan of its own and has certainly compromised itself when it comes to defending liberty. The problem with Islam Edward Feser writes in TechCentralStation that Islam may not be amiable to the rule of law. One reason why: it is not like Catholicism: "One consequence of all this is that there is no mechanism in Islam, as there is in Catholicism, for an application of the principles of an ongoing Tradition to new circumstances -- be they social, political, scientific, or technological -- by drawing out heretofore implicit consequences. That is, there is no broad and complex body of teaching of which its sacred book forms but a part, and thus no resources as authoritative as the text itself to appeal to in applying it to the modern world." IDSing Blair The Daily Telegraph reports that New Labour would like go old again and replace its leader, Prime Minister Tony Blair, sooner rather than later. There is even rumour that Blair could step down before the next election and perhaps as early as the spring. That would clear the way for England's Paul Martin, Gordon Brown. The paper also reports a former minister said that top potential rivals to Brown ascension to the Labour throne "will have already done their deals with Gordon." Assigned reading on Schiavo case Two articles on the Terri Schiavo case. The first, from TechCentralStation, by a physician, Sidney Smith. Great article but the conclusion is unignorable: "So little and so much has changed in the past ten years. Our science is no closer to understanding consciousness, but our society is more confident that those living in altered forms of it are closer to death than to life. In the era of Quinlan and Cruzan, the burden of proof lay on those who would deny basic care to the severely cognitively impaired. Today, the burden of proof is on those who would continue it. If that isn't a slide down the slippery slope, what is?" The second, in the Daily Standard, by a lawyer, Wesley Smith, says that Jay Wolfson should not be Terri's guardian at litem: "Wolfson also seems to buy into 'personhood theory,' the predominate view in bioethics that people with severe cognitive impairments are less than fully equal persons, and hence, have fewer rights. Expressing his belief that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) and that her behavior recorded on videos is 'reflexive, rather than cognitive,' and thus 'neither conscious nor aware activities,' Wolfson references Descartes' proposition, 'Cognito, [sic] ergo sum,' (I think, therefore, I am). 'This logic would imply,' he writes, 'that unless we are aware and conscious, we cease to be.' If Wolfson really believes this, it means that he views Terri as essentially dead. If so, he should not be her guardian ad litem." Wednesday, December 03, 2003
There might be nothing worst than bad sex writing Yes, I know that Jerri Hall once said that "Bad sex writing is like bad sex -- both are better than nothing." (And a character in the movie Reality Bites said that "pizza is like sex, even when its bad, its good.") But in truth, there is no need to write badly about sex (as opposed to merely writing boring sex such as that displayed in the novels of John Updike and Philip Roth). That is why literary critic Rhoda Koenig and the late Auberon Waugh (when editor of the Literary Review), created the Bad Sex Prize for literature. Waugh said it was intended to "draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it." The winner for 2003 is Aniruddha Bahal, for his novel Bunker 13, which included this abomination: "She's taking off her blouse. It's on the floor. Her breasts are placards for the endomorphically endowed. In spite of yourself a soft whistle of air escapes you. She's taking off her trousers now. They are a heap on the floor. Her panties are white and translucent. You can see the dark hair sticking to them inside. There's a design as well. You gasp. 'What's that?' you ask. You see a designer pussy. Hair razored and ordered in the shape of a swastika. The Aryan denominator..." British Tories just don't get it The Daily Telegraph reports that Britons are fed up with high taxes and think that program reforms are the way to go, not higher taxes to pay for ever more expensive but failiing policies. New Conservative Party leader Michael Howard is under some pressure to commit to lowering taxes, but new shadow chancellor Oliver Letwin has said that such a promise would be"irresponsible" and even recently indicated that a new Tory government might have "transitional costs," thus leaving the door open to higher taxes. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak has said that Republicans were put on this earth to cut taxes. That is the very least a conservative party should be expected to do in any western democracy. If the Conservatives can't promise this, they don't deserve power. Public schools forced to compete with charter schools Tait Trussell writes for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy that public schools in Flint, Michigan are forced to complete with charter schools and that this is a sign of something good. I'm not so sure. The problem is public schools are using what Trussell calls "Madison Avenue tactics" in an attempt to "lure back students and school dollars from competing local public charter schools." Thus, the school board has appropriated $18,000 to an advertising campaign that includes radio, television, billboards and daily newspapers advertising, interviews with parents who pull their children from public schools and visits to the homes of families. But all this does not address the root problem of why parents are taking their children out of public education: poor educational standards, the teaching of ethical values inimical to the moral and religious views of parents and dangerous schools. Yes, charter schools in Michigan are being outperformed by public schools, but the gap is closing because test scores are rising much faster in charter schools. This is a vindication of charter schools because the students who are moved to them in the first place generally have learning disabilities or are underperforming or troubled students. The problem with many public schools is not PR but the three Rs. Until they realize this, all the slick ads in the world will not prevent parents from moving their children out of failing schools. What is Advent, anyway Peter Robinson blogs on The Corner: "Well, here we are, four days into Advent, and the only Advent calendars I've found are entirely secular--calendars covered with pictures of Rudolph the Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. What I want is a proper Advent calendar, one decorated with scenes from the nativity narrative with windows that contain not stale pieces of chocolate but quotations from scripture or carols." Our family has also had this problem, with even Catholic bookstores selling secular Advent calendars. Advent is the time of the liturgical year in which Catholics (and presumably other Christians) prepare for the coming of Christ. It is one thing to have Christmas secularized by the rest of society into an orgy of gift-giving, but to have the preceeding four weeks taken from us also is just plain reprehensible. Society has long wanted the Christian holidays without the Christian holy day. Now it wants the build-up too. Christians should refuse to buy these Advent calenders and demand religious ones. How to tell you are in the company of adults Tim Blair's column in Australia's The Bulletin: "Colleague Patrick Cook uses a simpletactic to determine a person's understanding of terrorism. He merely asks: 'Do you believe we are at war?' An affirmative answer indicates that conversation may proceed at an adult level. A negative reply requires Cook to excise large words, and to explain any difficult concepts using puppetry and mime." Drinking and driving may be preferable to drinking and doing studies The Toronto Star reports that last year, 3.4 million Canadians got behind the wheel of a car after drinking. Read the fine print and the (likely) number of people who drank and drove while over the legal blood alcohol level was 1.4 million. Read more closely and find that this information is extrapolated from a survey of just 1,400 Canadians. There is no mention this study from the Traffic Injury Research Foundation of how many actual drinking and driving accidents there are in Canada each year. It certainly is not 3.4 million and it is unlikely to even be 340,000. MADD claims on their website that "1,680 people are killed and 74,000 injured each year in alcohol-related crashes." This is a tragedy but clearly the majority of people who drink and drive -- and it is safe to assume that many of them probably do this more than once -- arrive home safely and without harming others. This is not a defense of drinking and driving; such actions are irresponsible and probably deserve to be criminal acts. But clearly the outrage people express at such senselessness is not commensurate with the degree of the problem. Why does Krugman have any credibility at all? Donald Luskin, NRO's Krugman Truth Squad, addresses Paul Krugman's New York Times Tuesday column, an unfair indictment of Republicans in a column that otherwise addressed a serious and important issue (electronic voting). Luskin rebuts each of Krugman's half-truths and innuendos. But he piles on when he concludes: "And heaven only knows Krugman can't write about the economy anymore —not with the Bush boom putting the lie to his partisan pessimism with the almost daily release of each new and fabulous economic statistic. Last week on CNBC, Krugman was so mortified by the upward revision of third quarter gross domestic product to a sizzling 8.2 percent, that it was all he could do to stammer out an English-language sentence on the economy: 'Um, it's definitely an upturn, I mean, uh you can't, uh, you know I, what do you say? It looks good. Um, it doesn't look great yet. ... But, uh, it's a lot better than I expected. I think — it's better really than anyone expected. ... look, um this, it really wasn't about the short-term business cycle. It's — it's the long-term budget deficit. ... But look, it's — it's — it's better, and — I've got relatives looking for jobs, and — and, you know, this is good. Better'." We already knew Krugman was an idiot before this TV appearance. Mr. Luskin should show some mercy. Comments Send them to paul_tuns@yahoo.com The former email address, soberingthoughts@hotmail.com has been retired. The politics Can be read about in Paulitics. Today and yesterday: Senate primaries in Louisiana, Georgia and Florida, Democratic primaries in New England. Neglecting the Empire of Liberty Claudia Rosett writes in Opinion Journal that "there is a curious U.S. sellout afoot of our own most beleaguered democratic allies, Israel and Taiwan." That may be over-stating the case, but the point is valid. Two loyal and important allies are at risk from belligerent neighbours and the US is barely raising its voice, let alone a fist, to defend them. Worse yet, in nuanced ways, we are nudging them to more precarious positions. At least the taxpayers aren't getting screwed The Daily Telegraph reports "MPs from Thailand's ruling party are threatening to rebel over plans by the leadership to ban the traditions of keeping mistresses or visiting massage parlours and brothels." One elected government official said the new rules may impede the ruling party's ability to field candidates. Why? What's Thai for "Kennedy"? Tuesday, December 02, 2003
WFB's mixed but generally review of Coulter changed my mind. A little William F. Buckley reviews Ann Coulter's Treason in the current Claremont Review of Books (the conservative equivalent of The New York Review of Books). In the first half of the review, Buckley reviews not Coulter's book, but her inaugural column in the National Post (her syndicated column) which skewered Pinch Sulzberger of the New York Times. WFB convinces me that Coulter's MO -- indiscriminate carpet bombing of the enemy -- is not as odious as I once thought. While WFB says that Coulter can sometimes go a little over the top, he concludes the review (of the book) with this line after quoting some delightful lines poking fun at the cliches the Times trot out: "There is a lot of such fun and shrewdness as this in Ann Coulter's book, but there is also mischief, which of course can be fun. Especially mischief about the other guy." Granted. But my concern remains, even if I have a new appreciation of her bulldog tactics (which, WFB reminds me, is combined with a lawyer's mind) that her relentless assault of the Left that sometimes leads her to pay more attention to landing punches than getting the facts straight, helps the Left define conservatism by her excesses. 'Extra, extra, read all about it. Political parties doing what political parties do' The Globe and Mail has an article today on a fundraising effort by some leading conservative heavyweights on behalf of the new Conservative Party. It might be noteworthy that former Ontario Premier Mike Harris, Toronto Blue Jays CEO Paul Godfrey, former Brian Mulroney principal secretary Peter White, Ontario Tory fundraiser Jim Ginou and PC Canada Fund chairman Irving Gerstein have all signed the letter which reminds corporate Canada that the soon-to-be-official merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties fulfills a demand of corporate heads to get their act together. The letter also reminds executives that on January 1, 2004, legal limits on fundraising kick in. But this kind of fundraising activity is hardly news and the article admits as much when it reports that "Alliance member John Capobianco, also a fundraiser for the party, said it's not out of the ordinary for parties to hit up corporations at the end of the year." Chalabi was right The National Post's Adam Daifallah corrects an egregious wrong by pointing out that the criticism of the Bush administration heeding too much the advice of Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile and leader of the Iraqi National Congress, is simply wrong. (For an example of the attacks on the administration's Chalabi coziness, see David Rieff New York Times Magazine article.) In fact, Daifallah argues, the American project in Iraq has hit snags precisely because the administration did not listen to Chalabi. Daifallah writes: "Chalabi and other exiles had been working diligently for months to form a provisional government that would be ready to take the reigns of power as soon as possible after Saddam's fall. The plan was for newly-returned exiled leaders to create the nucleus of such an entity and to add so-called 'internals' -- Iraqis who never left the country and lived through Saddam's terror -- as circumstances permitted. These leaders rightly felt that there should be no gap in Iraqi sovereignty, and therefore no pretext for a guerrilla war against Western 'occupiers.' But this plan was kiboshed by U.S. officials. Realizing they'd made a mistake, the Americans have slowly come around to Chalabi's view since, and have accelerated the timetable for holding national elections and restoring full control of Iraq to Iraqis." Now that the US is following the Iraqi's advice, Daifallah says, "Chalabi will be vindicated." As he is in this important column that provides the historical record, not the slanted worldview of the New York, anti-Bush media. The politics of language The British Plain English Campaign gave their Foot in Mouth award to US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield for muddled English. The "winning" quote: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know." That, actually, is not an example of some mis-spoken words but of wisdom. Harper's conservative credentials should be questioned The Toronto Sun reports that during a meeting with the paper's editorial board, Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper -- the presumptive leader of the soon-to-be Conservative Party of Canada -- said that when it comes to health care, it's "absolutely irrelevant from a philosophical standpoint" who delivers health services, saying the public cares more about access. He was defending two-tier healthcare, but shouldn't a conservative understand that from a philosophical standpoint, it is hardly irrelevant who delivers healthcare? Then how does the government know? The CBC reports that according to Health Canada "17,000 Canadians don't know they have AIDS/HIV." The dangers of the Taxpayer Protection Act This TD Economics paper (released nearly a month ago) on the need for the Ontario government to make smart decisions to tackle the unbalanced provincial budget (eschewing quick asset sales and "'slash-and-burn' spending cuts") raises an issue about the Taxpayer Protection Act that I have never really thought about: "For the new government to consider a multi-year deficit reduction target, significant changes will need to made to the province’s Balanced Budget and Taxpayer Protection Act, which was introduced by the former government in 1999. The Act, which rigidly stipulates that the government balance the books each year and forbids tax increases without a referendum, provoked the previous government to undertake less-than-transparent policies and to paper over reality. Better to sacrifice the Act for the sake of transparency." (One particular area in which there should be more transparency is the "stranded debt" of the electricity sector (payment in lieu of taxes), which is expanded upon in the paper.) While I don't agree with the overly cautious approach of Don Drummond, SVP & Chief Economist at TD and Derek Burleton, TD's senior economist, the paper's authors, and I am concerned about their failure to address taxation, the report is worth reading. And this argument about transparency is extremely important. Most conservatives I know think that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has cooked the books to make it look there is a bigger deficit than there really is so he won't have to keep his promises. This is nonsense but it is unimaginable to some conservatives that the Tories were as fiscally irresponsible as former auditor Erik Peters has indicated. The fact seems to be that they appeared more fiscally responsible than they were precisely because the system lacked transparency. Proof #3,142,784 that the war for Iraq was justified The Eject Eject Eject blog says that if the Not in Our Name crowd (Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, George Clooney, The Dixie Chicks, Janeane Garofalo, and thousands of nameless anti-globalization protestors) had got their way, 13,000 Iraqis would have died in the past nine months. EEE's reasoning: "During the 30-odd years he was in power, Saddam Hussein murdered at least 300,000 of his own people. These are the ones we are finding in mass graves in Iraq. Another 300,000 – at least – were killed in his war with Iran and his two conflicts with the US. Those are bare-bones, undeniable, non-speculative, minimums. That darling arithmetic works out to no less than 20,000 people a year killed by that lunatic, or about 1,700 people a month. So how many innocent people have not died as a result of the Iraq war? I get about 13,000 so far." And remember, those 13,000 were gassed, electrocuted to death, shredded, tortured with acid baths, etc... And remember, the liberation of Iraq was not done In Their Name. Is the French diplomatic core going on strike a laughing matter Well, yes, in the hands of Scrappleface. This satire has Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield worried about the global impact of French diplomats not attending to their very important business: "'If the French stop talking,' Mr. Rumsfeld said, 'the fragile infrastructure of geopolitical security could collapse. Remember, Iraq was an oasis of tranquility for 12 years thanks largely to French diplomacy. I shudder to think of who might unilaterally rush into the vacuum of silence created by a prolonged strike by French diplomats'. Mr. Rumsfeld added: 'We can only take solace in the fact that the United Nations remains open for business'." Cell phones should be banned here In the classroom, that is. The Christian Science Monitor has an article today on students who use cell phones, especially ones with text messaging, to cheat: "Students need only turn off the phone's sound, type the answer, and hit send. Instantly the student across the room receives the correct answer. These young cellphone users can even transmit messages to someone in another classroom and also record, store, and retrieve test answers." Students should not have this distraction in the classroom in the first place. Schools should obviously ban cell phones from being used during school hours on school property. The argument that they are necessary because parents need to contact children in cases of emergency is rubbish; parents can do what parents have always done: call the office and have the student paged. This seems like a no brainer which is why schools and school boards will not implement the necessary policies. In the meantime, their procrastination will enable cheaters to cheat with greater ease. Krugman has a point New York Times fact-adverse columnist Paul Krugman has a good point in today's column about electronic voting: it is open to abuse. It is too bad that instead of serving as a useful warning, Krugman's column insinuates that Republicans would like to use electronic voting in order to rig elections, if they haven't already. Happy Birthday To Edwin Meese III, who is invariably described as a "trusted advisor" to President Ronald Reagan, serving as his domestic policy advisor before becoming the Attorney General from 1985-1988. Meese is now a Distinguished Fellow at both the Heritage Foundation and the Hoover Institute. He turns 72 today. A number of his essays and papers can be viewed at the Heritage Foundation website. Monday, December 01, 2003
Quote of the day "The making of a journalist: no ideas and the ability to express them." -- Karl Kraus, Beim Wort genommen , quoted by Terry Teachout at About Last Night. Anything short of strong condemnation of killing innocents and the terrorists win Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mark Steyn notes the difficulty of combatting terrorism on one hand and spouting "equivalist pap" on the other: "Last month, the archbishop happened to be in Istanbul and was a guest at the home of the British Consul, Roger Short. Within a few hours of his departure, Mr Short was dead, vaporised in the wreckage of an almighty bombing. Dr Williams sounded momentarily shaken, expressing 'shock and grief' at the death of his host, and condemning 'these vicious and senseless attacks. These acts of violence achieve nothing.' In fact, 'these acts of violence' achieve quite a bit. Why, only a month earlier similar acts of violence had led the Archbishop to make a speech at the Royal Institute for International Affairs at which he'd argued that terrorism can 'have serious moral goals'." Proof #3,142,783 that the war for Iraq was justified The New York Times has a very good article on Iraq negotiating with North Korea not merely the purchase of several missiles but "to obtain a full production line to manufacture, under an Iraqi flag, the North Korean missile system, which would be capable of hitting American allies and bases around the region, according to the Bush administration officials." Saddam Hussein paid North Korea $10 million up front and got ... nothing. It appears that like thieves, there is no honour among terrorists. Speaking of thieves and terrorists, it appears that the deal was negotiated in Syria and that missile technology would be shipped to Iraq through Syria. The Times reports "If it served as a middleman in this deal, as the documents suggest, Syria was acting in violation of Security Council resolutions even as it served on the Council and voted with the United States on the most important resolution before the war." The paper also reports "International inspectors note that the missile deal gone bad appears to be the most serious violation that has been found so far." Most serious would imply that other violations occurred, would it not? Ayn Rand was right Among other things that Ayn Rand says in her book The Virtue of Selfishness is that altruism is ultimately hypocritical because it is not as selfless as the do-gooders claim but is instead quite selfish. It is selfish because the altruistic person does good deeds because it makes the do-gooder feel good. The Toronto Star reports today that "according to an increasing stack of scientific and medical studies" doing good has positive benefits for the do-gooder. "While virtue is supposed to be its own reward, an accumulating body of evidence suggests that by helping others, we help ourselves — improving our mental health, our physical well-being, even our longevity." So now one can add these easily calculable measures of benefit. But getting back to Rand's comments, the proof of her criticism of the supposed selflessness of committing good deeds is Henry Condie, a 78-year-old retired principal and volunteer whom the Star interviewed. "I love to do these things. I enjoy every moment," says Condie. He says he doesn't want the credit (including "a golden key to the Pearly Gates") because doing good for others gives him a "darn good feeling." In other words, he benefits from his altruism because he enjoys it. When Condie tells the Star that he is "not looking for any rewards" that's because he has already found it: the happiness that comes with his smug self-satisfaction. Same-sex marriage predictions to come true Some critics of same-sex marriage say it will lead to polygamy or incest. Basically the argument goes: once the definition of marriage is changed from the union of one man and one woman to something else such as two people, what is unique to the newly included relationship that would prohibit a slide down the slope to polygamy or incest? Critics of ssm critics say that is hogwash. The Associated Press reports (via New Orleans Times Picayune) that "A lawyer for a Utah man with five wives argued Monday that his polygamy convictions should be thrown out following a Supreme Court decision decriminalizing gay sex." The Lawrence decision said there is no compelling reason the state should be concerned with what happens in personal relationships so it was just a matter of time that a lawyer (in this case John Bucher) would argue (in front of the Utah Supreme Court) that if having five wives "doesn't bother anyone, (and with) no compelling state interest in what you do in your own home with consenting adults, you should be allowed to do so." Remember this story when homosexual activists and their willing accomplices in the media say the worries of conservatives never come to fruition; this concern took a little more than five months to become reality. This is a good sign From The Independent: "Twenty-two people suspected of involvement in the four Istanbul suicide bombing were handed over to Turkish authorities by Syria yesterday." This is called trying to get off the regime change tour schedule, but whatever the motivation, it is, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing. Easterbrook in over his head in latest book Gregg Easterbrook's The Progress Paradox is book-length examination of why Americans do not seem any happier even as leading US indicators of health and wealth are improving. Kay Hymowitz reviews the book in the December issue of The Commentary and finds that Easterbrook doesn't understand what all the great thinkers "from Plato to Shakespeare to Tolstoy" understood: that money does not bring happiness. That seems to prove the old adage that money doesn't buy happiness and Hymowitz explains why some people have difficulty grasping this: a deep frustration with "the reason-defying complexity of human motivations." All the analysis of numbers and figures will do little good without a real understanding of psychology, religion and philosophy; people are motivated by something much deeper than the urge to acquire or even to live long lives. Worth peaking at The latest issue of The New Atlantis is online. Thus far the only essay I have read is Eric Cohen's Bioethics in Wartime. Cohen says, essentially, that bioethics is fundamentally about who we are and he relates this question to the War on Terror: "And this leads me to the fourth (and final) reason why we should engage in bioethics during wartime. And here, I take my direction not from C. S. Lewis but from Winston Churchill, and also from Leon Kass, who made a similar point on the occasion of accepting the Bradley Prize earlier this year. For those of you who have never done so, I recommend you spend some time at the Cabinet War Rooms in London, the underground headquarters where Churchill directed the war and exhorted the spirits of his countrymen on national radio. For sale in the gift shop is the reprint of an old poster—a giant picture of Churchill’s face, with his finger pointing at us, and two words: 'Deserve Victory.' If the war on terrorism is to be a just war, we must not only fight in a just way, but we must fight for a just cause. Our idea of civilization—the American idea of progress and democracy, freedom and prosperity, science and commerce—must be worth fighting for. And the greatest test for whether we will deserve victory in the years ahead may be how we deal with biotechnology, and whether we can steer our way through three sets of dangers." While I have yet to even peruse it, Christine Rosen's Why Not Artificial Wombs looks like both important and interesting reading. More on The Spencer Affair Edmonton Journal columnist Lorne Gunter writes about The Spencer Affair and laments that for all the ink spilled and air time used to cover Larry Spencer's comments on homosexual and homosexuality, there has been very little exploration of his ideas: "Homosexuality was once referred to as the 'love that dare not speak its name.' Now dissent from the official line -- preached by our political and media establishments -- that homosexuality is completely normal and entirely benign is an opinion that dare not be spoken in public." The political and media elite position simply cannot acknowledge that there are dissenting views. Hypocrisy watch The Toronto Star editorializes about The Spencer Affair and has this nugget: "As he tries to broaden the conservative tent, [Canadian Alliance leader Stephen] Harper would have done everyone who shares that goal a favour if he had made it clear to Canadians that there is no room in his tent for anyone who can't abide the fact that people are different." So the fact that someone has a dissenting view cannot be tolerated because members of the new Conservative Party of Canada must recognize "that people are different." The competing worldviews in 2004 Public Interest editor Adam Wolfson in NRO: "The very touchstone of his [President Bush's] thinking is the moral and political distinction between democracy and tyranny. Such analysis does not go down well with liberals. The utopian Left believes that the wolf can be made to dwell with the lamb." Now the question for voters in the 2004 presidential election is this: which vision makes America -- and the world -- safer? Defending Bush's carrier speech Just a reminder, from Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus column: " I weary of defending 'Mission Accomplished,' but I'll keep doing it anyway. As you know, 'Mission Accomplished' is supposed to have been a great gaffe, embarrassing to the president. We shouldn't let 'them' take away 'Mission Accomplished' from 'us.' The mission had been accomplished, and that mission was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, which was no easy thing, or which at least bargained not to be. And, as the president stated plainly aboard that carrier, we had hard work ahead of us. But there was nothing wrong with celebrating the accomplishment of that important mission, so beneficial to humanity — and more than celebrating, with thanking the troops who had, in fact, accomplished the mission. Bush wasn't patting himself on the back — he was congratulating those troops, and conveying the gratitude of all of us. We must not let 'them' — the Democrats, the media — make it seem dirty." Frum on Will on ssm David Frum shares my disappointment with Washington Post columnist George F. Will regarding the latter's opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment: "Alas, George Will has declared against the Federal Marriage Amendment. It's sad and demoralizing that the American journalist who has most closely studied - and thought hardest about - the data on the decline of the American family should have decided against joining the most pressing battle in its defense." Frum notes the folly of using the states as laboratories of social policy when policy changes come from the hands of "judicial mad scientists" and not the people. Furthermore, the utility of state-level experimenting with social policy (and I'm not conceding that marriage is mere social policy) is negated by the the fact that it fails the test set by Justice Louis Brandeis who said states may "try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." As Frum notes, allowing same-sex marriage in some states and not others will harm the rest of the country. Sunday, November 30, 2003
Goldberg makes same ssm mistake as George Will In his current syndicated column, Jonah Goldberg writes "You can't favor federalism for only good ideas or ideas you like. Experimentation means allowing local communities to make mistakes." Very disappointing. Goldberg also says "If Massachusetts really wants something called 'gay marriage,' I may disagree with the decision, but it's their decision." Does Goldberg employ similar disinterestedness on issues such as taxes and affirmative action? I also recall him commenting extensively on the recall election in California despite the fact he lives on the other coast. Graham on Clark's Catholicism The Media Research Centre's Tim Graham on General Wesley Clark, over at The Corner: "I'm a bit befuddled by the Democratic candidates' self-descriptions, especially Wesley Clark, 'a Catholic who frequently attends Presbyterian services.' (At my church, we'd call that kind of Catholic a 'Presbyterian.')" Will Kerry line up for his ration? The Toronto Star's US affairs columnist Tim Harper writes about the "negative" ads in Iowa, focusing mostly on President George W. Bush's "attack ads". To Harper's mind, the ads fired off against one another by the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination focus on policy differences and are not terribly personal. Democrats don't attack, they debate or point out short-comings; any tint of unsavouriness on the part of Democrats can never be admitted by the media. However, the point of this post is not media bias. In Harper's column there is this thought-provoking line: "In recent days, [Senator John] Kerry has been shown leaning into the camera to talk about his prostate cancer as a way of saying he wants every American to have access to the high level of health care he received as a U.S. senator." So, would Senator Kerry (Ultra D, People's Republic of Mass.) use the socialized medical scheme that he and former President Bill Clinton support or would he use the millions at his disposal to admit himself into the best clinic money could buy? Just a question. Toronto, capital of Gaynada The Toronto Star has an article louding proclaiming Toronto as the in gay place in the country that "legalized" same-sex marriage in 2003 (never mind that Parliament has yet to even see legislation on the issue). Typical fare, really: progressive, open-minded, tolerant Canada is compared to the George Bush-led reactionary, intolerant America. And for good measure, the un-bylined article even notes that "liberals" are upset with Bush's anti-abortion policies. When the going gets tough, the tough stay in Baghdad The Sunday Telegraph reports that Spain and Japan will not give in to terrorism by abandoning their missions in Baghdad after their intelligence officers and diplomats were targets of terrorism yesterday. This is in stark contrast to the UN who abandoned their work in the UN when the going got predictably tough. In a related story, the British Tories, through their foreign affairs critic Michael Ancram, said that if the West were to abandon Baghdad and thus the Iraqi people because of a handful of terrorist attacks on Western targets, the terrorists, quite literally, win. "It must not be allowed to succeed in derailing vital work to take forward the reconstruction to Iraq and to hand control of Iraq back to the Iraqis." Protectionism kills A paper released in September by the Centre for the New Europe finds that the European Union's agricultural protectionism has deadly consequences. The gist of the authors' arguments is that the developing world could develop more quickly and feed more of its people if the EU's trade policy would be amended to open their own markets to foreign food producers and eliminate the dumping of their own (highly subsidized) product on third world nations. The authors say that by one count -- a count that by their own admission is not an entirely reasonable or unquestionable number -- 13 people die every second because of EU trade policies. Those who profess to care about the world's poor would do well to vigorously oppose agricultural trade restrictions and agricultural subsidies. More on the Spencer fallout The Larry Spencer comments about wanting to recriminalize homosexuality and his view that there is conspiracy by homosexualists to recruit young boys have led to numerous columns, news reports and "news reports" than any Canadian news story since Paul Martin formally took control of the Liberal Party two weeks ago. But thus far Sun Media's Greg Weston is the only one to comment on how Spencer's comments are a gift to the Liberal Party, a party that specializes in unfair gimmicky attacks (remember Warren Kinsella's Barney the dinosaur and Stockwell Day?). Not that Weston actually called such attacks unfair and gimmicky; he merely warned that Kinsella will strike again. Will good, bad on ssm George F. Will has a column on same-sex marriage in the Washington Post. There are important considerations he raises but generally he comes down on the side of ... well, he doesn't take a side, really. He seems to be saying that we're not sure what the effects of same-sex marriage will have on society so it is unclear whether same-sex marriage should be prohibited. He makes the conservative argument against amending the constitution as an unnecessary violence to that document: "Amending the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman would be unwise for two reasons. Constitutionalizing social policy is generally a misuse of fundamental law. And it would be especially imprudent to end state responsibility for marriage law at a moment when we require evidence of the sort that can be generated by allowing the states to be laboratories of social policy." But marriage is more than social policy and the potential effects to serious to be considered mere fodder for a really big science fair project. And, anyway, Will knows why marriage requires (exclusively) one man and one woman and why altering that it akin to opening Pandora's Box: "The binary idea of marriage -- friends and foes of gay marriage agree it is an institution involving couples -- arose because there are two sexes. But if the meaning of marriage and the right to marital status is sufficiently defined with reference to "autonomy of the self . . . [in] certain intimate conduct," what principled, nonarbitrary ground is there for denying the right of marriage to, say, a threesome whose members insist that it is necessary for their self-fulfillment through intimacy?" Will knows -- or should know -- better. The sanctity of marriage is under assault: divorce, extra-marital affairs, illegitimacy, etc.... But that is hardly reason to add insult to the injury these pathologies have already inflicted upon the foundational but now precarious institution of marriage. Saturday, November 29, 2003
If elected, it would be a case of worst coming to worst Celtic musician Ashley MacIsaac says he's running for federal politics as an Independent in the next election in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The Halifax Herald reports that MacIsaac doesn't think he'll win on his first try but hopes to pick up political experience. But it isn't his lack of political experience but his person history including publicly admitting a urination fetish that prevent him from getting elected. I hope. All roads lead to freedom While not quite but at least those that do will get you there faster. Yesterday marked the eighth anniversary of President Bill Clinton signing the bill to end the 55 mph federal speed limit. Some have complained that the increased speed limits have endangered lives. The Cato Institute's Stephen Moore shows otherwise. And not only are higher speed limits safer, they are more effecient: "We also found that there were huge economic savings to motorists and commuters from higher speed limits is between $3 and $6 billion a year. Motorists saved approximately 250 million man hours thanks to higher speed limits." The Citizen on Manley's unwelcome in Martin's cabinet Finance Minister John Manley will not run for re-election and will likely be appointed ambassador to the United States. While the appointment was referred to as a plumb post by one of the Toronto dailies, it is, in fact, a step down from his high perch in Chretien's cabinet. The reason Manley is probably not seeking re-election is to spare himself the embarrassment of not being appointed to a similarly senior post by soon-to-be Prime Minister Paul Martin. The Ottawa Citizen editorializes: "... it's not a good sign when our next prime minister doesn't seem to want to retain a man of Mr. Manley's calibre in his cabinet. There's surely no question about Mr. Manley's abilities. In 1993, when he was handed the Industry portfolio with half the budget of his predecessor, Mr. Manley showed his mettle by shifting the department from being a clearinghouse for public subsidies to shaky enterprises to encouraging Canadian businesses to be more competitive. As Foreign Affairs minister, while other ministers waffled or indulged in blame-America posturing in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Mr. Manley was a voice of realism, reminding Canadians that freedom must be earned every day. Likewise, as chairman of cabinet committees on public security and the co-ordinator of Canada's international response to terrorism, he demonstrated he was no treacly preacher of soft power. As finance minister, Mr. Manley was unfortunate to take the reins as the global economy went into a downturn. Even so, he was a fiscal conservative surrounded by instinctive spendthrifts, working for a prime minister who seemed to want to spend his way to a legacy. Yet as deputy prime minister he kept a calm hand on the transition tiller while Mr. Chretien continued his long farewell." I disagree with the notion that Manley is a fiscal conservative but he is clearly more fiscally responsible than his Liberal colleagues. But he was clearly one of the more capable federal cabinet ministers in recent years. It is petty and political for Martin not to recognize his talents, thus driving him away, for the time being, elected politics. Bush and the common man While former President Bill Clinton often talked about the common man, whom was usually nothing more than a prop for whatever program the president was pushing at the time, President George W. Bush actually knows and likes the common man. Steven Hayward makes the point with a nice anecdote at No Left Turns: "I was having dinner at Morton’s on Connecticut Avenue in Washington in early October, 2001--less than a month after 9/11--when Bush showed up with a small entourage to have his first dinner out since 9/11. (I took it as a good sign that he came to Morton’s, where one is assured of a large cut of red meat.) The entire restaurant immediately rose to its feet and applauded, of course, and Bush waved in every direction. But instead of working the tables to shake hands with the self-appointed VIPs who habituate Morton’s, Bush went to . . . the kitchen, where he shook hands and greeted the wait staff and cooks at length. The man has a genuine common touch." Wisdom from Dr. Sowell Thomas Sowell has another of his Random Thoughts columns. Some nuggets: "A careful definition of words would destroy half the agenda of the political left and scrutinizing evidence would destroy the other half." "Do people who react negatively to the word 'profits' have any speck of evidence or any hint of logic to support their reaction? Or are they prepared to admit that they have been conditioned to react to sounds, much like Pavlov's dog?" "Giving leaders enough power to create 'social justice' is giving them enough power to destroy all justice, all freedom, and all human dignity." "Most people who read 'The Communist Manifesto' probably have no idea that it was written by a couple of young men who had never worked a day in their lives, and who nevertheless spoke boldly in the name of "the workers." Similar offspring of inherited wealth have repeatedly provided the leadership of radical movements, with similar pretenses of speaking for 'the people'." "You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing." "One of the reasons psychology is so popular on the left may be that it enables them to do an end run around facts and logic, and attribute other people's disagreements with them to unworthy motives or irrational drives." "Whenever people talk glibly of a need to achieve educational 'excellence,' I think of what an improvement it would be if our public schools could just achieve mediocrity." You might be an Islamic moderate if ... In a Jerusalem Post column earlier this week, Daniel Pipes proposes some useful questions to help determine if self-proclaimed moderate Muslims are truly moderate: * Violence: Do you condone or condemn the Palestinians, Chechens, and Kashmiris who give up their lives to kill enemy civilians? Will you condemn by name as terrorist groups such organizations as Abu Sayyaf, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, Groupe Islamique Armée, Hamas, Harakat ul-Mujahidin, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, and al-Qaida? * Modernity: Should Muslim women have equal rights with men (for example, in inheritance shares or court testimony)? Is jihad, meaning a form of warfare, acceptable in today's world? Do you accept the validity of other religions? Do Muslims have anything to learn from the West? * Secularism: Should non-Muslims enjoy completely equal civil rights with Muslims? May Muslims convert to other religions? May Muslim women marry non-Muslim men? Do you accept the laws of a majority non-Muslim government and unreservedly pledge allegiance to that government? Should the state impose religious observance, such as banning food service during Ramadan? When Islamic customs conflict with secular laws (e.g., covering the face for drivers' license pictures), which should give way? * Islamic pluralism: Are Sufis and Shi'ites fully legitimate Muslims? Do you see Muslims who disagree with you as having fallen into unbelief? Is takfir (condemning fellow Muslims with whom one has disagreements as unbelievers) an acceptable practice? * Self-criticism: Do you accept the legitimacy of scholarly inquiry into the origins of Islam? Who was responsible for the 9/11 suicide hijackings? * Defense against militant Islam: Do you accept enhanced security measures to fight militant Islam, even if this means extra scrutiny of yourself (for example, at airline security)? Do you agree that institutions accused of funding terrorism should be shut down, or do you see this a symptom of bias? * Goals in the West: Do you accept that Western countries are majority-Christian and secular or do you seek to transform them into majority-Muslim countries ruled by Islamic law?" Pipes says these questions must be asked publicly. This seems to be a move away from Pipes' recent move toward no longer distinguishing radical Islamofacism from moderate and mainstream Islam. Or perhaps he knows that few Muslims will answer these questions satisfactorily if they are answered honestly. More Larry Spencer fallout The Globe and Mail reports that Progressive Conservative MP John Herron (Fundy-Royal)says that he will not join the new Conservative Party of Canada if the PCs and Canadian Alliance approve a merger plan in early December. Herron said "The only type of party that can contend is a party that is centrist, moderate and progressive." The problem is, we have one of those and it is in government. What Herron wants is a slightly different version of the governing Liberals when what Canada needs is a radically different vision of where this country should be headed. Potential future target of regime change disapproves of US policy in Iraq The Associated Press reports that Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari has criticized the US presence in Iraq and praised the terrorists attacking American targets in Iraq as resistance fighters. Yes, Syria is run by Ba'athists and is the pre-eminent sponsor and enabler of terrorism in the world today. But then wouldn't you go out of your way to not antagonize America when it is sitting by your door-step? Friday, November 28, 2003
Some praise for Bush New York Post columnist Deborah Orin on President George W. Bush's visit to Baghdad: "There was no better way for President Bush to show a commander in chief's support for his troops than to put himself at risk and fly to Iraq, knowing full well that he's the No. 1 target for Saddam Hussein's thugs. Bush's top-secret morale mission was also a boost for the Iraqi Governing Council - in Baghdad the president met with four council members as well as Baghdad's mayor and City Council - and a firm message that America will stay the course." Great news for British conservatives A YouGov poll published in Friday's Daily Telegraph shows that the Michael Howard's Tories have a slight lead over Tony Blair's Labour Party. The Tories lead Labour 38%-36% with the Liberal Democrats garnering a mere 19%. The poll also found that 59% of respondents disapprove of the Blair government's overall record and 65% believe it is not trustworthy. These are all good numbers (if you're a Tory or simply an opponent of Blairite government) and may be a sign of trouble for Blair who is now disliked by not just the far left of his own party and most Tories, but the general public. Andrew Gimson, writing in today's Telegraph, says the reason that the public now supports the Tories is new leader Michael Howard, the anti-Blair: "We admire him [Howard], or may come to admire him, because he is tough and intelligent and may, unlike Mr Blair, have the detachment needed to judge which matters need his personal attention and which can be left to colleagues. His reputation for nastiness is one of the most valuable things about him. It means that when, as he did this week, he attacks the Government's monstrous plan to take away the children of asylum seekers, he cannot be accused of weakness. He has the strength to say the decent and civilised thing. We look to him for plain speaking, not for feelgood blather." The British public now can see through Blair's charm and realize their isn't much else. Howard's rather dull leadership forces the public to see his competence and consider his ideas. And as they do, they take Howard -- and the Conservatives -- seriously. Going after Bush The media will feign hating Bush's trip to Baghdad but really they love it because it gives yet another chance to attack him. Dana Millbank, a reporter who does a pretty good imitation of a columnist in the Washington Post, says that "While the troops cheered the moment, it is too soon to know whether the image of Bush in his Army jacket yesterday will become a symbol of strong leadership or a symbol of unwarranted bravado." Most of the rest of the column predicts that it will be an "unwarranted bravado" verdict. Some children are more equal than others As the National Post reported yesterday, Israel withdrew its resolution condemning the killing of innocent Israeli children in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict just weeks after the United Nations passed a resolution condemning the killing of Palestinian children. The "automatic majority" (read: anti-Israeli majority) consisting of mostly Arab and African countries, altered the wording of the resolution to remove any reference to Israeli children and Israel thus withdrew its resolution. Dan Gillerman, Israeli ambassador to the UN, said "Today we lifted the veil and exposed the true face of the UN General Assembly." He said that the resolution, the first Israel has introduced in the General Assembly since 1976, was a test to see if the UN would give the same value to the life of an Israeli child as it did a Palestinian child. The Post reports that "As he withdrew the proposal, Mr. Gillerman said the UN 'had failed'." The Globe and Mail's Marcus Gee has a column that examines the context of this recent outrage to illustrate that one should not be surprised at the opposition to Israel's resolution. After all, there has been persistent persecution of Israel at the UN since 1967. Gee says: "All of this has consequences. As a result of its consistent prejudice against Israel, the United Nations has played no substantial role in the effort to make peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours. Any time anyone suggests a UN intervention in the dispute, Israel quite understandably protests. How could it possibly trust the UN to supervise an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, for example?" The UN has made itself irrelevant to the Middle East peace process by clearly taking sides in the conflict. Furthermore, most of Israel's neighbours have demonstrated that they are not bargaining in good faith when they have consistently used the UN to badger Israel over every single little thing and utterly failed to even condemn the murder of Israeli children. This week's tragicomedy at the UN has shown not just the insanity of the international agency but the futility of proceeding with any sort of peace process at this time. Who in their right mind makes peace with countries that won't even condemn the killing of children? Cosh on head-in-the-sand politicians Colby Cosh has a column in the National Post that he indicates in his blog he not happy about, concerning the Larry Spencer controversy. The point of his column is that older people (grandpas, in his phraseology) have views that perhaps we should understand comes with their age. It is condescending and, frankly, a lame attempt to be funny. However, in his blog today, Cosh makes a serious point about the feigned upset of Tory leader Peter MacKay: "Peter Mackay inadvertently confirmed yesterday how insane our approach to these little dustups is: 'I'm shocked, frankly, that a person would have those thoughts, let alone express them in such a fashion,' he said. Q: is Peter Mackay a retard? He's shocked that anyone could contemplate proscribing homosexuality by law, despite having been born in a country where it was illegal. He's shocked that an old man confused by the rapid acceptance of gay sex would be attracted to nutty explanations for it, or that anyone would believe homosexuality is inculcated by nurture rather than nature, which was a near-universal belief until about last week. Sorry, I call bullshit. This is not a case of being 'shocked': this is a case of a country, and a political class, having arrived at a certain moral position and trying to secure it by pretending that things were always this way. It's a Year Zero mentality that ought to embarrass anyone going by the Conservative label." Torrance on the art of gift-giving Brainwash arts and culture editor Kelly Torrance writes about what are proper considerations when purchasing gifts for loved ones at this time of year. It is worth reading but two considerations for those who are too busy to read the whole column, perhaps because they're waiting in lines purchasing gifts or hopelessly roaming malls in search of the perfect gift. First, a truism: "It can be hard to buy for people when you don’t have access to their bookshelf or CD collection." And secondly, some advice: "Then there is the urge to buy culturally uplifting gifts. I find this impulse comes most often when shopping for children. Your nephew may want the latest and greatest Buzz Lightyear toy. But wouldn’t it be better to buy him a classic book? ... I don’t buy my cousins books merely because I think reading is good for them. There must be an expectation that the gift will bring delight. I think everyone should be listening to classical music, but I’m not going to buy my teenaged cousin Bartok’s String Quartets. You don’t buy people gifts you think they should have. That’s self-centered and not what Christmas is about." Selective intolerance As far as I know, there are no calls for Liberal MP David Kilgour to be removed his party's caucus or from Jean Chretien's sub-cabinet, despite a CanWest report (via the Calgary Herald) that he did not show up for a vote against same-sex marriage earlier this fall because he thinks legalizing same-sex marriage could lead to increased suicides among homosexuals and the legalization of polygamy and incest. (Actually, he didn't show up for the vote because he believed these things but didn't want to be dumped from the cabinet because he supported an opposition motion. Obviously he is not a candidate for a Canadian version of profiles in courage.) The news of Kilgour's views became public the day after Canadian Alliance MP Larry Spencer resigned as his party's family issues critic and then from the caucus after linking homosexuality and pedophilia, and saying there was a conspiracy among homosexualists to "seduce and recruit" young boys. CA leader Stephen Harper condemned the comments and accepted Spencer's resignation, Tory leader Peter MacKay, former Tory leader Joe Clark and potential Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Scott Brison all condemned Spencer, and NDP MP and homosexual activist Svend Robinson said Spencer should not be welcomed back into either the CA caucus or the House of Commons. Selective tolerance Clayton Cramer blogs about tolerance as practiced in today's universities: "...this idea that all belief systems are equally valid only applies to ideas such as 'homosexuality is just like being heterosexual,' 'children have a right to have sex with adults,' 'meat is murder,' but not to ideas such as 'abortion is murder,' 'homosexuality is wrong,' and 'George Bush is trying to do something good in Iraq.' These are ideas so outside the pale that they cannot be tolerated, much less seriously examined or considered." I'm not going all George F. Will on you Thomas Boswell, the Christy Matthewson of sports writing, has a great column in the Washington Post on the late Warren Spahn. Boswell says "The man who may have crafted the greatest pitching career in baseball's modern era is gone." The secret to Spahn's success, in Spahn's words, is this: "Hitting is timing. Pitching is destroying timing." Boswell says that the reason we -- society in general and baseball fans in particular -- are not taking note of Spahn's passing is that he played most of his career in Milwaukee (for the Braves, not the Brewers, silly) and not New York. Correct the error ard read Boswell's column. Man is not responsible for every extinction Sorry to all the animal rights types but nature is very brutish and animals are often very nasty to one another. Yes, some animals will go extinct even without man's interference because animals sometimes kill other animals. The Los Angeles Times reports on a study that suggests man shoot to kill protected Golden Eagles to protect a rare sub-species of fox on Santa Cruz island. Good news for Canadian conservatives William Gairdner's essays are now online. While I'm not really for finding the next conservative leader from outside the realm of federal politics, here's a thought: lets start a draft William Gairdner campaign to lead the new Conservative Party. I'll post more extensively on this (his new website) later but his essays are worth reading. Update on General Clark's reaction to the Bush Baghdad visit The AFP characterized retired General Wesley Clark's reaction to President George W. Bush's cloak and dagger (and inspirational) visit to Iraq thusly: "Some critics, including the presidential campaign of retired general Wesley Clark, said the brevity and cloak-and-dagger nature of the visit -- which the White House sold as a morale-booster -- actually showed how little Washington has accomplished in Iraq since taking control in April." The story also rebuts the criticism of those who say there has been no liberal criticism of Bush's visit because it features Condi Rice's "defence" of the president. It was just a matter of time for the complaining to start Criticism of President George W. Bush spending time with the troops in Baghdad, that is. A biggie from The Independent, which, in a news story, slams the visit as a campaign turkey. (The headline: "The turkey has landed.") The trip to the Iraqi capital, the paper reported, "was clearly calculated to burnish Mr. Bush's image as he prepares for a re-election campaign that will be overshadowed by violence in Iraq and the rising toll of American casualties." Clearly to who? There was no source saying, "Hey, this is meant to burnish the president's image before the 2004 presidential campaign." The complaint that the visit was political -- a gimmick to get people to forget his carrier landing last spring and the violence that has plagued the mission since -- wouldn't be viewed as political if Bush's opponents didn't make it so. Second, the paper condemned Bush for misleading his wife, his secret service detail, his parents and the American people by telling reporters that he would be in Crawford for Thanksgiving. But do people really expect him to tell the media of his plans to go to Baghdad but trust them to keep it a secret? Obviously, going to Iraq required discretion. And what did Iraqis think? The Independent found one and called him "some Iraqis," reporting "Some Iraqis were unimpressed. 'To hell with Bush,' said Mohammed al-Jubouri. 'He is another Mongol in a line of invaders who have destroyed Iraq'." Obviously this man has no sense of history. Does he know what the Mongols did in Baghdad in the 1300 and 1500s? Not that you had to go to England's trendy lefty paper to find people complain about Bush's visit. Opinion Journal's James Taranto has a nice list at his Best of the Web feature. Included is a media line and the reaction of Democrats. The Assoicated Press (via the Salt Lake Tribune) reported: "In a ruse staged in the name of security, White House deputy press secretary Claire Buchan put out word Wednesday -- unknowingly, she said later -- that Bush would be spending Thanksgiving in Texas with his wife, Laura, his parents and other family members. She even announced the dinner menu." This goes in the Bush lied category of criticism of the presidential visit. There was some of this on talk radio today. The New York Times reported the reactions of the Demcratic presidential candidates, none of which was very supportive (perhaps, save for Senator Joseph Lieberman and retired General Wesley Clark). Most of them took the opportunity to say something ambiguous about the gesture but go on to attack Bush's Iraq policy (including some of those that voted for the 2002 Senate resolution authorizing force be used). But isn't using the visit as an opportunity to attack the president's Iraq policy as political as going to Baghdad in the first place? If not more so? Changing TV viewing habits David P. Janes blogs at Ranting and Roaring about how first run TV viewing may be less important than the subsequent DVD sales. This is probably true and it is nice to watch Family Guy or Buffy or whatever at your convenience, but it reduces yet even more that which falls under the category of things Americans, Canadians or whoever do together -- as much as having 40 million people watch ER at one time counts as community. Matthew Parris gets it all wrong about the 'debate' Writing in The Spectatorabout the possibility of working for porn peddler Richard Desmond, Matthew Parris talks about his disagreements with Conrad Black: "Well, maybe. I could argue that support for the policies of the state of Israel, urged by the present proprietor of the Telegraph (and of this magazine), is doing more real harm in the world than anything attempted by Mr Desmond. Lord Black of Crossharbour could argue that it is my own beliefs on the Middle East which are pernicious. He might also (if reports we hear of his personal opinions are to be believed) privately think me a man of dubious moral judgment because I am openly homosexual and encourage others to be open too. And I might consider such opinions crazy. And where would it end? In lively, even angry, debate, one would hope — and no more." Now, this brings me to something that has long bothered me: the idea that talking about issues suffices. If a debate is to ensue, is the purpose of the debate to merely let off steam or even just to exchange ideas -- "and no more"? Or is the idea of the debate to change minds, to persuade others? Currently in Canada the debate over the united right has focussed on a central theme, what role for social conservatives? Most (but not all) conservatives agree that so-cons should be allowed a place at the table. Thanks, but that's hardly enough. So-cons want more than a chance to air grievances. Sit around the table, yes, have a lively discussion but social conservatives must have the opportunity to persuade others that their favoured policies deserve a chance to be put in front of the voters. Freedom of speech isn't protecting and cherished because it provides a chance to vent; it is important because any democratic government that matters is a deliberative democracy where ideas are honestly exchanged and the most persuasive side wins. Matthew Parris gets it all wrong about the 'debate' Writing in The Spectatorabout the possibility of working for porn peddler Richard Desmond, Matthew Parris talks about his disagreements with Conrad Black: "Well, maybe. I could argue that support for the policies of the state of Israel, urged by the present proprietor of the Telegraph (and of this magazine), is doing more real harm in the world than anything attempted by Mr Desmond. Lord Black of Crossharbour could argue that it is my own beliefs on the Middle East which are pernicious. He might also (if reports we hear of his personal opinions are to be believed) privately think me a man of dubious moral judgment because I am openly homosexual and encourage others to be open too. And I might consider such opinions crazy. And where would it end? In lively, even angry, debate, one would hope — and no more." Now, this brings me to something that has long bothered me: the idea that talking about issues suffices. If a debate is to ensue, is the purpose of the debate to merely let off steam or even just to exchange ideas -- "and no more"? Or is the idea of the debate to change minds, to persuade others? Currently in Canada the debate over the united right has focussed on a central theme, what role for social conservatives? Most (but not all) conservatives agree that so-cons should be allowed a place at the table. Thanks, but that's hardly enough. So-cons want more than a chance to air grievances. Sit around the table, yes, have a lively discussion but social conservatives must have the opportunity to persuade others that their favoured policies deserve a chance to be put in front of the voters. Freedom of speech isn't protecting and cherished because it provides a chance to vent; it is important because any democratic government that matters is a deliberative democracy where ideas are honestly exchanged and the most persuasive side wins. A regime change global tour In The Spectator, Mark Steyn lists five countries that should be introduced to new governments courtesy of Uncle Sam ASAP: Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and North Korea. Where's France? Anyway, as Steyn says: "Profound changes in the above countries would not necessarily mean the end of the war on terror, but it would be pretty close. It would remove terrorism’s most brazen patron (Syria), its ideological inspiration (the prototype Islamic Republic of Iran), its principal paymaster (Saudi Arabia), a critical source of manpower (Sudan) and its most potentially dangerous weapons supplier (North Korea)." And France, the terror-defending obstructionist at the UN. But what about when they take their sexy shoes off? As a caller who phoned into the John Moore show (CFRB in Toronto) said yesterday, "women want to add breast, remove toes and be taken seriously for their minds." The impetus for the comment and proof that the last item (being take seriously for their minds) is highly suspect, is found in the National Post which reported yesterday on "fashion oriented" professional women who have surgery on their feet to fit into stylish high heel shoes. For some, surgery includes toe shortening. So while some may wonder whether the foot will be as sexy once the shoes are slipped off perhaps a better question for the fashion fadists is this: what will they do when the fashion changes and, say, sandals or open-toed shoes are back in? Idiot Hall of Fame It's been a while since I have had the pleasure to induct someone into the Idiot Hall of Fame but this morning, the latest honouree jumped off the front page of the Globe and Mail. Shawna Richer reports that Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 51 in Moncton is defending George Pavlovsky. I can't improve upon Richer's narrative, so here it is: "The City of Moncton thinks that showing up drunk at work toting a loaded, sawed-off shotgun in search of the boss is a firing offence. The city's union disagrees. Seven days after George Pavlovsky was fired from his job as a senior tree cutter with the City of Moncton, the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 51 filed a grievance to his employer challenging the dismissal. That would be normal procedure by a union in most cases, but Mr. Pavlovksy's was far different from most cases. The details were recounted during his trial this month. The 44-year-old arrived at the Moncton Public Works Operation Centre on April 10 extremely intoxicated and carrying a sawed-off shotgun and a handgun. He was looking for two senior managers. The two were not in their offices, but in meetings at the time. As he stormed through the sprawling operations centre, his two dozen co-workers ran for cover or fled the building. Mr. Pavlovksy was acquitted of attempted murder charges related to the incident and is now serving a two-year sentence in Dorchester Penitentiary for the lesser weapons-related offence of carrying a loaded gun for the purpose of committing a crime. He is hoping to get his job back when he is released. 'Certainly it is shocking,' said Susan Barton, a spokeswoman for Local 51, of Mr. Pavlovsky's actions. 'But Mr. Pavlovsky is a CUPE member and has a right to representation. We have a duty to represent him. There are mitigating factors and extenuating circumstances and we'll have to look at the facts of the case'." The Globe story continues. But by now one clearly understands that CUPE Local 51 is collectively a bona fide Idiot Hall of Famer. It is also crystal clear why Canadians hate unions. More to give thanks for Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe: give thanks to capitalism: "But it probably won't occur to too many of us to give thanks for the fact that the local supermarket had plenty of turkey for sale this week. Even the devout aren't likely to thank God for airline schedules that made it possible for some of those loved ones to fly home for Thanksgiving. Or for the arrival of 'Master and Commander' at the local movie theater in time for the holiday weekend. Or for that great cranberry-apple pie recipe in the food section of the newspaper. Those things we take more or less for granted. It hardly takes a miracle to explain why grocery stores stock up on turkey before Thanksgiving, or why Hollywood releases big movies in time for big holidays. That's what they do. Where is God in that? And yet, isn't there something wondrous -- something almost inexplicable -- in the way your Thanksgiving weekend is made possible by the skill and labor of vast numbers of total strangers?" Remember Adam Smith, who said it wasn't due to the goodwill of the butcher and baker that we eat, but their self-interest. A belated happy Thanksgiving. And happy Capitalism. Guns don't kill people so gun control doesn't save them Fraser Institute study on gun control (The Failed Experiment: Gun Control and Public Safety in Canada, Australia, England and Wales) shows what honest people already know: gun control doesn't work. For those who don't want to read the whole study, there is the press release. Gary Mauser, professor of business at Simon Fraser University and the study's author, says "The widely ignored key to evaluating firearm regulations is to examine trends in total violent crime, not just firearms crime. Since firearms are only a small fraction of criminal violence, the public would not be safer if the new law could reduce firearm violence but had no effect on total criminal violence." Proof that the US is winning in Iraq Michael Graham on President George W. Bush's visit to Baghdad: "What can President Bush do in Baghdad that Saddam Hussein can't? Appear in public. If that doesn't send a message to the Ba'athists and their would-be allies, I don't know what does." (Via The Corner) Manley to quit politics The Globe and Mail reports that Finance Minister John Manley is going to quit politics rather than see himself demoted within the future Paul Martin cabinet. The Globe reports that Manley's quick rise within the Chretien cabinet was due to his "being quietly competent." It was so quiet that one hardly even detects any competency. Thursday, November 27, 2003
NDP can still be called NDP but I have other names for them The NDP rump sitting as the third place party in the Ontario legislature have won the right to be recognized by their party name rather than as independents. They are stuck, however, with their same old polices. Bush in Baghdad What a great surprise that President George W. Bush dropped in to see the troops in Iraq today. Here is his speech to the troops. Consider, however, this line: "Together, you and I have taken an oath to defend our country." He, and they, take that oath seriously. Which is why he, and they, are in Iraq. President Bush on Thanksgiving From President George W. Bush's Thanksgiving Proclamation: "America is a land of abundance, prosperity, and hope. We must never take for granted the things that make our country great: a firm foundation of freedom, justice, and equality; a belief in democracy and the rule of law; and our fundamental rights to gather, speak, and worship freely. These liberties do not come without cost. Throughout history, many have sacrificed to preserve our freedoms and to defend peace around the world. Today, the brave men and women of our military continue this noble tradition. These heroes and their loved ones have the gratitude of our Nation. On this day, we also remember those less fortunate among us. They are our neighbors and our fellow citizens, and we are committed to reaching out to them and to all of those in need in our communities. This Thanksgiving, we again give thanks for all of our blessings and for the freedoms we enjoy every day. Our Founders thanked the Almighty and humbly sought His wisdom and blessing. May we always live by that same trust, and may God continue to watch over and bless the United States of America." To Whom we give thanks Lest we forget, Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation of 1863 reminds us that we give thanks to God for our many blessings: "No human counsel hath devised not hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People." Interesting quote "Speaking just for myself, I don't like marriage. I prefer the old-fashioned ideal of monogamous free love, not that it worked out particularly well in my case." -- Katha Pollitt writing about opposition to same-sex marriage in the current The Nation. On critics At About Last Night, Terry Teachout blogs about reading a critic's appraisal of a play (or whatever) before seeing it for oneself. There are some good comments, but his are the comments of a critic. ("Above all, try to trust yourself, to feel what you feel, not what you think you ought to feel.") An email from a reader says: "I don't agree completely with your point about reading a critic only after the performance. If you've followed a critic for any substantial length of time, you know with some precision where your tastes and his intersect and where they diverge. You know his enthusiasms, his antipathies, his idiosyncrasies. In short, you can often tell from what he thinks of a work whether or not you're going to like it. In this way, he can be quite useful to you as a consumer guide. And reliable guidance about what is worth seeing or reading is essential, for how is the ordinary guy (who doesn't have the time or resources to make many mistakes) to know which new novelist to pick up or which new cabaret performer to seek out without the help of his favorite critics?" So it comes down to this: if you read criticism to better understand a play, book, movie, art exhibit, opera, etc..., read the criticism afterwards. If you read a (trusted) critic to help determine what to see, read, etc..., obviously you would read such criticism beforehand. The Left wants to re-fight past elections but it won't do its fact-checking first To illustrate how loony the Left is, we're talking about the British Left (The Independent) and the 2000 US presidential election. In a story about Rep. Katherine Harris (R, FL) potentially running for the GOP Senate nomination next year, The Independent introduces Harris thusly: "once called the 'power bitch' for her pivotal role as Florida's secretary of state in handing the state, and therefore the Presidency itself, to George Bush in the 2000 balloting debacle." Bush was elected and it was Harris's job as secretary of state to ensure that the ballots were counted properly (i.e. according to the law dictates not how the Gore campaign or CNN wanted them counted). The Independent is expected to be wrong on such interpretation of the news when they get such elementary facts such as Harris's current job wrong; the paper reports that her position of secretary of state is term-limited next year so she will likely run for the Senate, seemingly unaware of the fact that Harris was elected to Congress last year. Quote of the day "The sounds of an uninhibited society are a lot like whining." -- David Gelernter in today's Opinion Journal in column on Dr. Raymond Damadian campaigning to have himself included in the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his role in developing the MRI. Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Don't homosexuals already have a parade of their own? Openly homosexual and cross-dressing Harvey Fierstein will be playing Mrs. Claus in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York and I typically wouldn't care too much but for the big deal that Mr. Fierstein makes about it. Writing in the New York Times, he says, "tomorrow, to the delight of millions of little children (not to mention the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court), the Santa in New York's great parade will be half of a same-sex couple." Fierstein is, presumably, the other half. To hijack both the Thanksgiving parade and Santa's wife for the homosexual cause is just plain insane. Fierstein's column in the Times says, in a nutshell, that Santa would approve of same-sex marriage because Santa brings joy and happiness to people. Earth to Harvey: Santa isn't real. But then again, same-sex marriage isn't really marriage. The UN says to Iran, 'Stop or I'll say stop again!' The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency passed a resolution "censuring" Iran for carrying on its clandestine nuclear weapons program for 18 years. Way to go International Atomic Energy Agency for being on top of things. The Associated Press story reports, "Adopted by consensus, the resolution warns against 'further serious Iranian failures,' saying that could lead the board to consider actions allowed by its statute — shorthand for UN Security Council action." So apparently, all Iran has to fear is a strenuous debate in the Security Council before France offers its protection through its all powerful veto. Rules are meant to be broken The Independent reports that France and Germany will not suffer any fines for breaking European Union euro rules about persistent budget deficits. The rules imposing fines (of 0.5% of GDP) for running deficits in consecutive years was suspended for promises of fiscal responsibility by the two habitual fiscally irresponsibe countries. Star on need for crime inquiry The headline and subhead in today's Toronto Star news article on crime in Toronto: "Guns rule streets? Stats beg to differ: Long-term trend casts doubt on police claims but incomplete data make inquiry worth considering." The headline on the Star's editorial: "With crime down, inquiry not needed." Paulitics update Lots of stuff from Kentucky (Congress), California (Senate), Vermont (Governor), Iowa (primaries) and more. Get the US out of the UN The Freedom Alliance reports that the United Nations General Assembly votes against the United States most of the time. Some staggering figures: * 114 members of the Non-aligned Movement voted against U.S. supported positions 78 percent of the time. This group includes all the world’s dictatorships and terrorist states. It considers Cuba’s Castro, Libya’s Gadhafi and Syria’s Assad heroes. * The 22 members of the League of Arab States voted against U.S. supported positions 83 percent of the time. * The 56 members of the Islamic Conference voted against U.S. supported positions 79 percent of the time. * The 53 members of the African Union voted against U.S. supported positions 80 percent of the time. When Europeans and North American liberals talk about multilateralism, they know it is a method by which they can prevent America from pursuing its national interest. These figures proves as much. Scrappleface on 8.2% quarterly economic growth Satirical blog Scrappleface on the Democrats worst nightmare -- a booming economy. So they send out the spin machine, led by Democrat National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe: "'The economy is swelling like a tsunami out at sea,' said Mr. McAuliffe, 'and unless we increase tax rates fast, it will flood the stock market with buy orders, and a shockwave of consumer confidence will ripple across this great land. We must take action now to stop this or millions of Americans will be doomed to another four years of George Bush's failed economic policies'." Lesser moments in gotcha journalism The media is now fishing far and wide for angles to attack Conrad Black. On the weekend, the Globe and Mail took another couple shots at the newspaper baron. One article criticizes Hollinger's purchase of $8 million (American!) worth of "cherished documents relating to Franklin Delano Roosevelt" which the reporters (it took three of them) implied were Black's private luxury by immediately linking the aforementioned purchase to the fact that FDR is "the subject of a recently published biography written by none other than Lord Black" -- the fantastic Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom. But the papers are historical documents and an investment and adorn corporate headquarters, not Black's private residence, as a piece of art would. Not guilty on charge number one. Another angle the media has taken over the past week is that Black is wrong to be promoting his book while the controversy of under-documented expenses (as one friend put it) rages. The fact is, it is admirable that Black continued with his book tour in Toronto and New York despite the controversy. Why stop living his life, including getting the word out on a project that took four years to complete? Charge number two, thrown out for its irrelevance. But this leads us to another complaint: why work on the book for four years during which what are thought to be dubious business practices are closely examined? To which there is no better reply than, "why not?" The Globe continues with, "but why?" The Globe reports that "Lord Black spent four years writing the book, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, with the help of three Hollinger staffers. He received an advance of nearly $75,000, according to his publisher, New York-based Public Affairs Books, which has printed 60,000 copies for sale. A journalist who also did research for the book, Adam Daifallah, who is on the editorial board of the National Post, said on his website that the book is destined to be a hit because "these elephantine tomes on dead white men seem to sell like hotcakes." This has absolutely nothing to do with the current corporate controversy, but reporters are now groping for an angle in which to assail Black. The reporters find this incriminating evidence on Adam Daifallah's website which proves ... what exactly? Nothing but that Daifallah did some research for the FDR biography and says so on his blog. They imply but do not offer evidence that Daifallah worked for Hollinger (as opposed to Black). And Daifallah thinks that the FDR book will be a success. Somehow the reporters consider this relevant, but it is hardly damning evidence of whatever transgression they want to convict Black. Charge number three: not guilty due to lack of evidence of wrong-doing and lack of evidence that the wrong-doing was wrong. Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Government mostly responsible for sky-high cost of living in New York Regulation, not the cost of land, is the primary reason housing is so expensive in Manhattan according to three scholars who have studied the housing market there ( Edward L. Glaeser (Harvard), Joseph Gyourko (U of Penn), and Raven Saks (Harvard)). If you have time for the 52-page study and are interested in the horrendous costs of regulation in general, this is required reading. (Via Econlog.) Regulation doesn't account for all the exorbitant costs, of course. Many more millionaires competing for luxury property (than elsewhere) has a trickle down effect that raises the cost of property throughout the city. But the authors have a point, even if it is over-stated. Quote of the day "The older I get, the more distance I try to put between myself and anyone who lacks a sense of humor." -- Terry Teachout, about Joni Mitchell, on his blog About Last Night. BTW, Chronicles is almost as bad as TAC Srdja Trifkovic, in his Chronicles online column on Richard Perle says that Perle is a Clintonista. This is almost as bad as The American Conservative [sic] (December 1, not yet online) making the case that President George W. Bush is not a conservative. (Medicare bill notwithstanding.) International law is an ass Chronicles gets the vapours when Richard Perle says international law got in the war of prosecuting the war on terror. To Chronicles types (namely, Srdja Trifkovic), this is evidence that the US liberation of Iraq was illegal. To others, such as Richard Perle, the administration and those who cherish western civilization, its proof that international law gets in the way of prosecuting the war on terror. Where's Paul Martin? On the blogosphere. No entries since October 19. It will be an exciting progression in the world o' blogging when an actual leader instead of someone merely vying for votes blogs seriously. Not necessarily a good thing, just an exciting thing. For now, Paul Martin is busy evading difficult policy questions. Thanksgiving for freedom The Adam Smith Institute's Dr. Madsen Pirie blogs thankfully despite the fact he is not an American: "The Adam Smith Institute celebrates Thanksgiving, although we are not a US outfit. We do it traditionally. The directors, who are no longer young, cook a meal for the staff, who still are. New England clam chowder is followed, as expected, by turkey with cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes, and then by pumpkin pie. After this for some strange reason we all watch 'Mickey's Christmas Carol' and then the most junior gets to decorate the Christmas tree, while others hurl abuse at the incompetent mess they are making of it. Decanters of Port and Madeira are passed round. A small bust of Thomas Jefferson decorates the table, and we toast Adam Smith's 'Peace and low taxes,' as always. We also give thanks, as the Pilgrim Fathers did, for our safe delivery from tyranny and persecution. In particular we thank Ronald Reagan, who helped lift the threat of totalitarian socialism from the world, along with the risk of imminent nuclear annihilation. And we remember Lady Thatcher, who did so much to free Britain from state planning and the power of the labour unions. This is how we do it. It would be entirely appropriate, though, if people from the newly-freed countries of Eastern and Central Europe spared a moment to remember, and to thank, the two leaders to whom they owe so much." "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain." Boston Braves pitching great Warren Spahn, the winningest left-hander in baseball history is dead at the age of 82. Washington Post has a good obit. Numbers don't say it all but they say a lot: 362-245 record, 3.09 ERA, 14 National League All-Star appearances, four World Series, two no-hitters. Cell phone etiquette John Stone writes in TechCentralStation on "beyond cell phone etiquette" with 10 simple rules for using the cursed contraption. #7: "Avoid at all costs speaking on intimate or hygiene-related topics (even in a whisper)." And, relatedly, #9: "Consider the holding of private conservations in public as a fluke of technology and as a morally suspect privilege. In other words, never feel entitled to speak about anything in a stranger's presence; your words are so much noise pollution to be controlled, regulated and hushed." The case for the war in Iraq in pictures Remember 'Not in my name' protestors? Well, we did not liberate Iraq in their name. A website with dozens of photos of the mass graves and the family members of Saddam's victims. (Via Tim Blair) Of all the promises to keep Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has broken (altered?) nearly every promise he made during the election campaign. That's generally a good thing because 1) he promised policies that would be harmful to Ontario and 2) his string of broken promises are unlikely to endear him to the electorate. That said, what promise has McGuinty kept? The one about raising taxes. The Fraser Institute's director of Ontario Policy Studies, Mark Mullins has some thoughts about that: "Their first move — Bill 1! — is to increase the cost of doing business with a tax increase. Yes, this was a campaign promise, but we already know how many of those have been broken over the past six weeks of this government's short but exciting life." His Globe and Mail column goes on to say that raising taxes is not a noble goal for government but increasing jobs and generally improving the economy is. True enough (although barely enough). Raising taxes will work against this goal. The first rule of government should be the first rule of medicine: do no harm. The Penn is not mightier than the pen Editor and Publisher reports that it is possible but a long-shot that actor and Leftie activist Sean Penn could be "writing news dispatches from Iraq for the San Francisco Chronicle." The former Mr. Sharon Stone, Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein told E&P that reports in the current Entertainment Weekly saying that the actor might do some writing for the paper are not far-fetched and that indeed the two have talked. However, both are non-committal as Penn is now promoting a pair of movies. Recalling Penn's infantile screed against the war earlier this year (in the form of an ad in the New York Times), Sobering Thoughts suggests that instead of a pen and pad of paper, the former Mr. Madonna be equipped with crayons. Everything you wanted to know about Howard Dean Howard Dean: A Citizen's Guide to the Man Who Would Be President, edited by Dirk Van Susteren, is described by amazon.com as "filled with fresh information and keen new insights." But here's all we need to know about the former Vermont governor: he's too liberal for America and he's not up to the job. Abortion and Harry Potter Catholic Insight has a fascinating article by two doctors -- Marie Peeters-Ney and Philip G. Ney -- on how J.K. Rowling created a character (Harry Potter) to whom abortion surviviors can relate. (Abortion survivors are children within families where the mother has also had an abortion.) The authors go through the psychology of such children and the events in Harry's life and find that Rowlings "describes with great accuracy the world of the abortion survivors." Potter, they say "is the 'boy that lived,' although physically marked by the sign of death and wanted dead by a satanic figure." The article goes into a fair amount of detail but is, unfortunately, not available online. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the December issue ($2 plus shipping and handling) or a getting a subcription ($32 per year), call CI at 416.204.9601 or catholic@catholicinsight.com. When Homer met Peter Hitchens Tony Blair may want to abolish Britain in place of Cool Britainia but the The Simpsons would have none of that. The Guardian has got Tony Blair's voice cameo on the Fox hit series covered and illustrates the point: "Ah, beefeaters. Aeons ago Mr Blair's pointy-heads declared that Britain needed a makeover to replace beefeaters and castles with hi-tech, Damien Hirst and Stella McCartney. That is more or less what he tells the Simpsons when they they arrive at Heathrow. ...'Why are you greeting low lifes like us?' asks Bart. 'Because I want to encourage Americans to come and see 21st century Britain,' replies George Bush's mate [Blair]. 'I can't believe we've just met Mr Bean,' says Homer as the PM jetpacks off to greet a Dutch couple at Gate 23. And that's it. A cameo role in which the former student actor and rock singer sounds as if he read his lines while doing something else. Homer, Marge and the kids go on to embrace a British world full of the very quaint and uncool images No 10 is so keen to shed. Castles, aristocratic gays, the Judi Dench fish and chip shop, Mary Poppins, and a brush with the Queen after Homer shunts her golden coach in his rented Mini Cooper." The good news is better than was thought For those on the Left who were hoping that the economy remained sluggish, last month's economic numbers were most unwelcome news: quarterly growth of 7.2%. But Bloomberg reports that the economy is growing faster than that and that the revised numbers include 8.2% growth for the last quarter ending in September. So the Left will now secretly wish for catastrophe in Iraq so that the Democrats have something to run on. Washington Times on sex-selection technologies The Washington Times has a thought-provoking editorial that puts a number of accepted truths (about new reproductive technologies) on their heads but which ultimately doesn't take a side. Instead, the paper urges a public debate on the issue. How one allegedly Islamaphobic cartoon gets more play than Muslim violence Mark Steyn in the Daily Telegraph on Johnny Hart's supposedly anti-Islamic cartoon: "Although I agreed of course that Islamophobic cartooning was the most pressing issue of the week, in my usual shallow way I'd become distracted by some of the day's more trivial stories - the 11 Hindus burnt alive by a Muslim gang in Bangladesh, the 13 Christian churches torched by Muslim rioters in the Nigerian town of Kazaure, and the 27 Turks and Britons murdered by Muslim terrorists in Istanbul. No dead Jews in that particular day's headlines, but otherwise a good haul of Hindus, Christians and, of course, Muslims. Every society has its ugly side: in America, the problem is stone-age cartoons; in Nigeria, it's stone-age - or stoning age - reality. But one can't help noticing that polysemic cartooning seems a notably ineffective way of stirring up anti-Muslim feeling, at least when one looks at preliminary statistics for Muslims murdered in America this Ramadan, compared with Muslims murdered in, say, Saudi Arabia and Turkey." If men can't talk about abortion because they're men... The Weekly Standard's Noemie Emery has a good column on how pro-abortion feminists ignore the reality of pro-life women (namely, that such a species exists). But in passing she raises a good question: if President George W. Bush can't discuss abortion because he's a man, why is Ted Kennedy allowed to do so? Emery asks, "Does Ted have a womb we don't know of?" The feminists' combination of excluding or dismissing women's voices when they are pro-life and giving credence to the views of those men whose opinions line up with the abortion orthodoxy, perfectly illustrates the close-mindedness of abortion advocates. And such close-mindedness is surely a sign that they are unable to defend their position; if they are confident that they are correct, why be afraid of opposing viewpoints? Its not either or Charley Reese, ertswhile columnist for the Orlando Sentinel, says is a rather silly syndicated column about same-sex marriage, that he doesn't see it as an all-that-important issue: "This is another of those inconsequential red-herring issues designed to distract you while the politicians steal the country right out from under you. You had better worry about why one euro costs $1.19 rather than whether two homosexuals can get a piece of paper at the county courthouse." But can't one be concerned about the dollar and gays getting married? Is our concern or our attention span that limited? Monday, November 24, 2003
Going after bin Laden half-heartedly Jonah Goldberg in The Corner on the offensiveness of General Wesley Clark's comments on the administration's seriousness about prosecuting the war on terror: "I caught a snippet of a Wesley Clark speech on C-Span last night. He was droning on about how we could find Osama Bin Laden 'if we really wanted to.' Imagine if you were a member of the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan and heard that Clark said that? He offered no proof, no evidence, nothing by way as support for his contention that the US is deliberately pulling it's punches in the effort. As usual, he just said it because he thought it sounded good." But it more than sounded good. No doubt that Clark's views, as offensive as they are, are not unique. Many of President George W. Bush's political opponents really think the War on Terror is secondary to the expansion of America's empire. Thus, many on the Left do think that the search for bin Laden is less vigorous than Bush would have us believe. No Whyte on Black A note on the opinion page of the Toronto Star says that the Ken Whyte column on Conrad Black is "not available." No word if it will ever by available. But the trip is cheap and the drinks are plenty It is disappointing to read in this morning's Toronto Star that long-time Ontario Tory MPP Bob Runciman recently vacationed in Cuba. Runciman, the gossipy Queen's Park Notebook feature reports, returned from Varadero where he reportedly enjoyed the "a taste of local rum" and "some well-rolled cigars." Sunday, November 23, 2003
Trading places With two former Canadian Football League commissioners (Larry Smith and John Tory) seriously considering running for the leadership of the new Conservative Party of Canada (assuming it goes ahead), it is only fair that Canadian Alliance MP Deborah Grey, who is retiring from politics after this term, has said she is interested in becoming the CFL's first woman commish. (Story was in the dead tree version of the Globe and Mail but I couldn't see it online.) When will the Left condemn terrorism against the West? Just a thought as I read this paragraph from Mark Steyn's Chicago Sun-Times column comparing President George W. Bush and John F. Kennedy and the concept of sons of bitches and our sons of bitches: "It would be nice to think the so-called 'progressives' of the left might find this a worthy project. Instead, in London, they waved their silly placards showing Bush and Blair drenched in blood, even as the real blood of the British consul-general and others had been spilled in Turkey that day." The key to survival For France's Jews is to hide this Jewishness. That's the advice from France's top rabbi. Ha'aretz reports: "The Chief Rabbi of France, Rabbi Joseph Sitruk, called on that country's Jewish community to wear baseball caps instead of skullcaps while not in their homes, in order 'to prevent being attacked in the street'." Oh, yes, civilized, decent Old Europe, home of the englightenment. A reason to read the Star Former National Post editor-in-chief Ken Whyte will appear in Monday's op-ed section of the Toronto Star, writing about his former boss, Conrad Black. Standing athwart the Brave New World yelling Stop! A good essay by Erwin W. Lutzer from the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, warning about man's proclivity to play God. Lutzer frames the issue thusly: "We stand today at a crossroads where quite literally the future of the human race is at stake. I do not mean the survival of the human race, but something more sinister: the altering of the very concept of what it means to be human. The issue is not whether future generations shall live; the issue is what future people—if we call them such—shall be like." Modern man has an irrational faith in science and Lutzer warns that we must "refuse to accept the premise that whatever human beings can do scientifically should be done, especially if the identity of the human species is at stake." There is no discussion of ought if it has already been determined that we can. But there is a residue of Christian morality and the human conscience or sometimes just what Leon Kass calls the "yuck factor" rears its ugly, obsructionist head to raise concerns. That's why those who favour "progress," defined as going ahead with whatever science allows, must use evasive language. Lutzer notes that in doing so, "Morality will collapse into biology and ethics will be spoken of in purely clinical terms." Peter Kreeft says that if Christians want to win the culture wars they must just speak the truth. The same is true for those who are concerned about technologies that will fundamentally change who we are. The truth will not only set us free, it will keep us fully human. What if JFK was not assassinated Rush Limbaugh has said playing "what if" is for children. Well, there's an infantile column in The Independent by Robert Cornwell wondering what would have happened if JFK was not assassinated. He assumes that a Democrat would have won 1968 and thus there would be no Watergate and no Carter in '76. But he thinks Reagan would still be possible but there would have been no Nixonian "southern strategy" and thus no major realignment in American politics. This is silly. Cornwell's singular noteworthy observation is that the Bushes have replaced the Kennedys as the "most successful political dynasty" in America. But that probably wouldn't have happened either were it not for JFK's assassination. What ifs may be fun to read but they are utterly useless and teach us little if anything about history other than it would probably have been different. But it would have been different in ways that simply cannot be predicted. Torygraph will stay Tory The Observer reports the good news that Conrad Black has indicated it is highly unlikely he will sell the Daily Telegraph to pornography peddler and Express Newspapers owner Richard Desmond. Desmond's papers back Labour and the Telegraph has historically been a Tory paper. The Observer says Desmond talked to new Conservative leader Michael Howard and vowed to maintain the paper's pro-Tory editorial bent. Still, it is better not to risk it. The story also lists a number of other interested parties which seems to include almost anyone who already owns a paper in the United Kingdom who is not named Rupert Murdoch. The absurdity of public funding of campaigns George F. Will in today's Washington Post: "And because Dean can afford to spend more money, especially against Gephardt in Iowa, than is permitted by the absurd state-by-state spending limits that come with public funding. Yes, the government, that wizard of foreknowledge, knows exactly how much should be spent on political speech in each year in each state." |
