L.A. Weekly's John Powers recently wrote a terrific column examining the difference between The Nation and The Weekly Standard. A good followup is John Rosenberg's reminiscences of his days as a staff member over at The Nation, detailing the last thing he wrote for that venerable publication.

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Stealing from John Rosenberg seems to be my hobby anymore. But he recently linked to a terrific Washington Post article on black politicians who are increasingly chafing at being thought of as "black leaders."

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The Times of India reports that the head of Russia's Parliamentary defense committee thinks the US will invade Iraq on 9/11/02. I've been wondering myself if that wasn't going to be the date that kicked off the offensive. Other, more sober analysts say that we probably shouldn't invade until after winter begins, for a host of reasons, most pressing of which is that chemical weapon defense gear is bloody hot and therefore works best in winter. In any case, the story is interesting. (Thanks to Casey Tompkins for the link.)

On the other hand, the Asia Times continues reporting that the conflict began there months ago. They believe that most of the public blather about it from the administration hides the fact that the conflict is already well underway. From their perspective, all that's likely to happen in the following weeks is a gradual heatup of what began long ago. (Link nabbed from Bill Quick.)

CNN Reports that over 70,000 Australians reported their religion to the government census as "Jedi." The government complains that this sort of silliness makes it harder for them to properly fund government services.

I'm thinking of starting a similar movement in the US for 2010. :-)

Dean Cheng emailed me some terrifically insightful comments recently on the "Dubya sucks" rants from the pro-war Bush-Bashers of late, and I'm going to quote from them here at some length:

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There have been some very thoughtful and interesting comments to my Bush Basher quiz. I am grateful for those who took the time to be thoughtful. Thank you. Even those who disagree with me deserve thanks for thoughtful responses.

But only two people directly answered the question, and only those two got it within 25 words. These were:

1) "Stop insisting decisions are black or white and that people are evildoers or valued allies" and,

2) "Lie to their faces until we bring the middle east domino down on their asses."

I'm not sure that the former is any reason to angrily storm to the polls to punish the President and his party, but it's clear enough. The second strikes me as very possibly what Bush is already doing.

Unfortunately, the rest of the Bush critics generally farted around without directly answering the question. They thus appear incapable of making focused, specific, and internally consistent policy recommendations. They also apparently don't know the meaning of "twenty-five words or less."

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Imagine my surprise when I found out that Victorino Matus of The Weekly Standard had mentioned me in one of his columns. Imagine my chagrin when I realized I'd managed to come off like an ass. Even moreso than usual, I mean. All over something I'd written over two months ago.

Matus notes that I said he was "full of hot air." Alas, I did say that. But I didn't mean it to come off so harsh. It just came at the end of the article where I was attempting to explain the error of his ways. :-) Now I wish I'd said "he's all wet when it comes to this issue. Just for the record, I don't think Matus is generally full of hot air, and even if I did, it would be pot/kettle/black. Anyway, I hope Matus keeps on writing his usual good stuff, and I thank him for the mention.

I recently found a link from Diane Moon's web site that still has me feeling a little ill. It's a graphic story about a kind of domestic violence that is fairly well known in Pakistan.

This is not a joke. Do not click on this link without bracing yourself for something truly disturbing. You will be looking at a woman who survived being hung upside-down on a rope, beaten with an ax-handle, and then had her eyes gouged out, her ears and nose sliced off, and her tongue cut by her husband. Most chilling is the fact that this sort of thing usually goes completely unpunished in Pakistan, where it happens on a fairly regular basis.

If you're not up for it right now, come back later. But do come back if you can.

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1. The Big Question. President Bush should:

A) Declare war on the House of Saud.
B) Close the US Embassy in Riyadh, expel the Saudi ambassador, and state that the House of Saud is our enemy, but not make war on them.
C) Make demands, but not back the demands up with any threat of force or retaliation.
D) Declare the House of Saud our enemy and do nothing else.
E) Other

If you choose E) you must explain, IN TWENTY-FIVE WORDS OR LESS, what the other option is.

I suggest that if you cannot forthrightly answer this question, directly and without evasion, you are nothing but a kvetching, irrational child, and should shut the hell up and let the grownups get on with fighting the war.

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Anti-Bush simmering in the blogosphere has of late been turned to a boil, mostly over the administration's handling of Saudi Arabia. I first started seeing it on left-wing sites, like that of the reliably Bush-bashing Ara Rubyan, who most memorably showed a picture of Bush smiling and standing next to the Saudi Crown Prince as if it were an endorsement of all bad things Saudi. Then the generally right-leaning Diane E. Moon began regularly lambasting Bush over unsubstantiated allegations of corruption and overly friendly relations with the Sauds. Suddenly, libertarian Bill Quick and a host of his readers have pledged to vote the Democratic ticket in November, despite their loathing of everything the Democratic Party stands for today, and even despite their belief that Democrats are mostly dovish. Their rationale for this is based entirely on the fact that the Bush administration continues to call the Saudis our allies.

Far be it from me to suggest that the Saudi government isn't awful. I think that all these folks have their hearts in the right place. But their heads aren't in the right place at all. At least, not yet.

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From a UPI story I picked up from Chris Johnson:

The United States has also moved swiftly to reduce dependence on Saudi oil. Almost unnoticed, the United States now gets less than 8 percent of its oil needs from the kingdom, according to the American Petroleum Institute....Sept. 11 revealed an ugly House of Saud secret....

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Remember, remember 11 September
Suicide demons' dark plot
We see no reasons
Why suicide demons'
Evil should ever be forgot

Remember, remember 11 September
Murderous monsters in flight
Reject their dark game
And let Liberty's flame
Burn prouder and ever more bright

Remember, remember 11 September
When madness and malice took wing
Face darkness and fear
With this memory clear
And everywhere let Freedom ring!

---by Geoffrey Barto

Bill Quick's got a good riff on new organizations springing up as a result of the pathetic McCain/Feingold campaign finance "reforms" that President Bush, in his most unprincipled act to date, signed a few months ago.

I long ago predicted that...

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Victor Davis Hanson. Victor Davis Hanson. There are times when I read Victor Davis Hanson, sigh, and think, "Why do I bother writing, when guys like this are out there?"

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For those of you keeping score at home, after Robin Goodfellow correctly answered last week's Presiential Trivia Question, it took almost a week of further intense battle before my brilliant wife Rosemary came up with the correct answer to the bonus question: Barry Goldwater. She even had to correct the Trivia Master himself (yours truly) on the correct answer.

I'll get even soon...

Every freaking time I go over to Andrea Harris' Spleenville, I find something I wish I'd seen first. Every freaking time I go over there, I have to suppress my urge to run back here and post all the links I found from her site. Like this or this or this, and that's not even counting the two other times I cribbed from her just this week.

Aw, just go check out her site, will ya? Leave me to my redundant and pointless existence.

A remarkable transformation has occurred in American thought. It's one of those transformations that's imperceptible while it's happening, but seems breathtaking when looked upon in retrospect. I believe historians will almost certainly remark upon the 1990s as the linchpin decade that marked a radical shift in the American mindset.

Consider a 1950 book called Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society, by Lionel Trilling. In it, Trilling wrote:

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I am furious. I am livid. I am so upset I can hardly speak.

Billy McKinney, Georgia politician and father of recently-ousted congresscreature Cynthia McKinney, has been quoted by several sources as saying, "Jews have bought everybody. Jews. J-E-W-S." It's been reported a few different places, including The American Prospect and Photodude. Sure, it's old news. But the significance of this only recently hit me.

First off, I'm grateful that he spelled it out for us, so we didn't think he meant "booze."

But second, and more important: I haven't been bought yet. Who the hell is responsible for this?! I want my check and I want it now! Otherwise I will immediately cease and desist all efforts to support the International Zionist Conspiracy!

I'm not kidding people!

The all-knowing, all-seeing Instapundit spotted this story. Excerpts:

"We never thought that one day he would become a terrorist," Bashir Butt said. "We never even imagined. ... These cruel jihadis made him a terrorist."

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As Joanne Jacobs reports, recent polls, even by the educational establishment, show that support for vouchers is gaining ground, while opposition to it is shrinking. This, despite the frenzied, near-hysterical efforts of the deep-pocket elite to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about freedom of choice. The latest efforts by opponents of freedom of choice have been to use Nativist laws from over 100 years ago. Class act, guys. Shame on you for calling yourselves "liberal" or "progressive," though.

A month or two ago, my friend Ara suggested that I believe private schools have some magical quality that public schools lack, and suggested that we discuss it at more length. Well, now's as good a time as any. Maybe this can help those who know little about the School Choice movement to start to really understand its arguments.

What, exactly, is the case for School Choice?

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Is it just me, or should the Sacremento Bee be censured (censured I said, not censored) for publishing this article?

Should the blogger sites I got it from be censured? Should I be?

I dunno. I've been speculating in private with my friends things that I won't generally post on my weblog for some time now. Like my belief that we may already be in Iraq, or that we may have to worry about China moving on Taiwan once we invade Iraq. And so on. Not that I fancy that, with my 200 or so daily readers, I'm even 1% as important as my local paper. Still and all, idle speculation seems unhealthy in wartime.

Yet increasingly, the press has been saying things like this themselves. I guess none of it should concern me. The more idle speculation in the press, the more white noise it creates anyway. But the SacBee piece really upset me. Am I wrong?

Little Green Footballs spotted this horrific article in the Arab News deploring those who are attempting to de-couple the Neo-Nazi style hate group, the National Alliance, from the pro-Palestinian cause. It's a little confusing at first, but read carefully; one group is attempting to get rid of those attempting to form an alliance with the anti-semitic National Alliance, and the columnist in the Arab News is giving them grief for it.

In other news, the Weekly Standard has one of Larry Miller's more upsetting columns about what he's seeing over there. "It gets hard when they cheer." [shudder]

I'm tired of calling on the Arab community in the U.S. to stand against this stuff. They won't. Whose fault is it? I'm increasingly unwilling to blame the "racist" United States for it.

"Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes" because their manner of dress would be regarded by Muslim men as inappropriate. "Norwegian women must realize that we live in a multicultural society and adapt themselves to it."

Thus spaketh a Professor at the University of Oslo, where the problem of gang-rape has been growing in recent years. This is what modern day "liberalism" has sunk to in the name of tolerance. All on the grounds that we must "understand other cultures and not impose our values on them."

As Mark Steyn puts it so eloquently in his Multiculturalists Are The Real Racists column in the National Post, "Good heavens, you can't expect a Muslim in Norway not to go about raping the womenfolk! Much better just to get used to it." This is bigotry at its most odious, and that it's being argued in the name of "tolerance" and "liberalism" tells us a lot about how far the West's intellectual elites have sunk.

Dick Morris had a pretty interesting analysis in yesterday's New York Post. It's worth a read. For the record, I think he's mostly right.

My only point of dissent:

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I'm a little embarassed I didn't spot this BBC Report on anti-gravity experiments at Boeing earlier. The story's almost a month old. But wouldn't it be neat if this sort of technology panned out?

My Inner Skeptic is already ranting at me. Companies get fooled by bogus ideas all the time. An understanding of how science really works is sadly missing in most of the world, and the corporate world is no different. But dare to dream...

Here's an interesting question my friend Paul Fallon asked me a few weeks ago. It's not a provocative question, either. No tricks here, I'm not leading up to anything. It's a simple a simple interesting question of history and historical perspective. Simply put:

The Roman Empire. Was it a terrorist state?

Discuss.

NRO has a pretty good report here about a bunch of misogynists stomping on a woman for doing her job competently. That, and the suspicion that she might--just might--have the wrong opinions. Really, how dare she? She belongs back in the kitchen, I says...

We're going to see Austin Powers III tonight. I've seen little but mediocre to poor reviews of it, and I expect it to be highly sophomoric and a bit of a letdown. I'm positive I'm going to enjoy it and will probably see it three or four times.

Here's the thing that no one seems to notice. The first Austin Powers got mediocre to poor reviews. I saw it and I thought they were deserved. I thought it was dumb. But I kind of chuckled enough at it that when my lovely wife rented it a few months later, I watched it again, and I chuckled a little more. The third time I saw it I laughed hard.

Then the second Austin Powers movie came out. I was disappointed. I didn't think it stood up to the first movie. It had a few funny moments, but it was really stupid and kind of gross. I agreed with the critics that it wasn't as good as the first. But sure as heck, the second time I saw it, at home, I laughed a little more. Third, fourth, fifth viewing, ever single time I saw it, it just got funnier. I can now start watching it at any point and enjoy myself.

I'm not expecting to immediately fall in love with Goldmember. I can hardly wait. :-)

The fabulous Susanna Cornett has gone above and beyond the call of duty to verify the story. The woman suing the Catholic Church for sexually discriminating against her is real. Alas, it appears that the case will likely be thrown out of court. Thus ruining our chance to give months of much-needed Fisking to the Victim Industry.

Although it suddenly occurs to me that there's still one missing unproven component. Can Susanna Cornett prove that she really exists? Enquiring minds want to know!

(For those who wonder why I made such a fuss over this, I recommend again Ara Rubyan's story about Cooking With Dogs.)

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The fabulous Susanna Cornett and the inimitable Bryan Preston of Junkyard Blog report that a New Hampshire woman is suing the Catholic Church, hoping to force them to either start accepting women as priests or lose their tax-exempt status as a religious organization. When I first read it, I thought, "Oh, go be a Wiccan priestess and shut up." Then I though, "I hope she wins. It would almost certainly be overturned on appeal, and the blow against the Victim Industry would be delicious to watch."

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As Clay Waters reports, the old rant-rag of the Right, The American Spectator, is back in the hands of Emmett Tyrell and the frat-boy Right. Unlike Clay, I'm not particularly enthused.

I was a subscriber to the American Spectator back in...

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I'm in a ranting mood. Please forgive me in advance.

Remember the shrieks of horror and dismay when Dubya actually said out loud that his greatest political influence was Jesus Christ, and spoke of how his relationship with God changed his life? The howls of horror were so loud, you probably could have heard it on Mars. He's really saying you're either in the Christ-club or you're not welcome! Religious right! Separation of Church and State! Scary scary, aaaaaaaaahhhh!!!

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A 20th century Presidential candidate, who later went on to become President, campaigned saying that the income tax code was a "disgrace to the human race." He also proposed that there ought to be work incentives for welfare, and declared, "We should decentralize power. When there is a choice between government responsibilitiy and private responsibility, we should always go with private responsibility."

For 500 points, name that President.

Bonus 500 Point Question
Name the first--the first!--major-party Presidential candidate to propose a so-called "flat tax," namely, a single income tax rate with limited deductions, in order to spur economic growth, eliminate loopholes, and cut down on cheating. For an extra 100 points each, name the year he ran, and who defeated him in the general election.

We have a winner! Puckish non-Warblogger Robin Goodfellow, who correctly named the President in question: Jimmy Carter.

Update Number 2 Super-Genius Rosemary Esmay finally came in with the winning answer to the bonus-followup question. Barry Goldwater, defeated by Lyndon Johnson in 1964, was the first major Presidential candidate to advocate the so-called "flat tax." She'll be getting her prize soon. :-)

Diana Moon's "Letter from Gotham" is one of the better-written sites on the 'net, and deserves more attention. She's volatile, but she's interesting, and occasionally posts things a lot more people should read.

Case in point: this letter from an American in Saudi Arabia that she published a few months ago. I tend to believe she's right, and that every American should read it.

One of the problems with having a large centralized government is that no human being can track everything it does. Ditto such a large Congress, which is largely unaccountable to the people. One way they're unaccountable is by the way they name bills. HappyFunPundit, for example, notes some of the astonishing things that went into the recent "Supplemental spending bill to enhance Homeland Security", including funding for puppy breeding research, work on the Cattle Genome Project, and a program to encourage senior citizens to eat more fresh produce.

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My Esmay ancestors came to this country in the 1700s. They lived in New York, where slavery was not allowed. My mother's ancestors emigrated to the U.S. in the early 20th century, or were American Indian. No slaves for them. Some of my ancestors who fought for the Union are buried in Civil War battlefields.

None of my ancestors were rich. I left home at the age of 15, with literally nothing but a few changes of clothes and some books. I never looked back. My darling wife's parents emigrated here in the late 1960s, barely speaking the language, and worked for everything they had.

The rally in D.C. this weekend for reparations for slavery is a sick joke. D.C. Thornton, in his moving They Owe Us Nothing article, says it better than I can:

Get over it and get a life, damn it....given the hate-filled, divisive rhetoric espoused at Saturday's rally...I strongly oppose the reparations movement, as it only serves to salt the wounds of division between blacks and whites in America as opposed to healing them. Such divisiveness must be opposed, and to hell with those who are bent on keeping blacks shackled to a blinding mindset of hate and supremacy in the misguided quest for another government handout.

I'm tempted to say more, but that's enough I think.

It's A Beautiful Thing. [Sniff]

I have discovered that I have a Geek Factor of 66%. Alas, I really thought I'd gotten better as I'd aged. Ah well. Maybe I have. I suspect that when I was younger, I would have scored higher.

They probably ought to have added a question: "Do you run a weblog?" That ought to be worth an extra 10% all by itself.

Here was the result of my score, for anyone who cares. :-)

You are 66% geek

You are a geek. Good for you! Considering the endless complexity of the universe, as well as whatever discipline you happen to be most interested in, you'll never be bored as long as you have a good book store, a net connection, and thousands of dollars worth of expensive equipment. Assuming you're a technical geek, you'll be able to afford it, too. If you're not a technical geek, you're geek enough to mate with a technical geek and thereby get the needed dough. Dating tip: Don't date a geek of the same persuasion as you. You'll constantly try to out-geek the other.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Mark Erikson of the Asia Times claims that the war in Iraq started in March. That, basically, all the speculation about when it will start has been pointless. Asia Times isn't exactly the Associated Press, but it's a mainstream press organ.

If his analysis is correct--and it's hardly out of the question--the Bushies are going to deserve some kind of award for Keeping A Straight Face. And I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

Yahoo News reports that a group of record companies are suing big internet service providers for allowing access to a site that gives out free pirated music. That's right. Essentially, they're suing the internet itself.

My prediction? They'll win.

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So. Were the editors of the New York Times dead drunk when they allowed this Virginia Postrel piece to be published? Was it a lark? Or did Postrel sneak in at night and insert it into the galleys when no one was looking?

Well, however she managed to get it in there, she's spot on right. Paul Krugman must have had a fit when he saw it.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most comprehensive civil rights law ever passed in America. It is the cornerstone of all current Federal antidiscrimination law. Its most famous section is Title VII, which prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of "race, creed, color, or national origin" when hiring workers.

The debate for and against passage of the bill fierce; no piece of legislation was ever so hard fought. It's interesting to look back sometimes and see what those arguing for and against it were saying.

"It is not written in the bill that there that there must be a quota system, but the net effect of the adoption of [Title VII] would be that employers, in order to keep themselves from being charged with having discriminated, would, in time, have certain people working for them to meet the color qualifications, the religious qualifications, the creed qualifications, and so on."
---Senator George Smathers, arguing against passage

The response from one of the bill's key supporters was eloquent:

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The Media Minder is a copy editor at one of America's largest daily newspapers. He has over 12 years of experience in print journalism, at newspapers both small and large. He runs one of the more interesting weblogs: Media Minded. Because he posts a lot from and about work, he tries to remain anonymous.

Probably the most thoughtful series I've seen in the Blogosophere lately has been his Profiles In Discourage series, which examines how race-baiting and lock-step political conformity in the name of "diversity" have stifled creativity and created dishonest reporting in some of America's news rooms. Read Part I, then just look to the right for links to later parts. He's up to 4 installments now, and all are worth your time.

If you've ever wondered why so many people are increasingly given to shuddering at the utterance of the word "diversity," maybe this'll give you a clue.

In 1977, on the day Elvis Presley died, there were three people who worked as Elvis impersonators. Three years after his death, there were over 500. By 1985, there were over 10,000 living, breathing tributes to The King around the world. By the year 1990 that number had more than quadrupled, and quadrupled again by 1995. Today, the numbers have grown to the point where they can no longer be reliably tracked, but it's believed that there is not a country in the world without at least one public, living tribute to The King every week.

Scientists estimate that if the current unchecked rate of growth continues, by the year 2030 we will all be Elvis.

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Affirmative action programs provide jobs but no guarantees that workers will get the opportunity to perform. That means women and people of color in America have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness right up until the moment we step into the workplace. Once inside, companies grant us the right to file grievances and lawsuits. I, for one, would rather just be treated well.

So writes Linda S. Wallace, President of LSW Communications, in yesterday's Christian Scientist Monitor. She also writes about how she turned down a promotion when she found out they were only offering it to her because she was black. This is a brave and principled woman I'd be proud to know.

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The Times of London has a unsettling but unsurprising story about relations between the House of Saud and the US.

There are several reasons why we haven't attacked the Sauds. Oil is the smallest and least significant among them. I need to write about this at more length. I'll probably do so over the weekend. But I hear the thunder rumbling in the distance. Don't you?

By the way, thanks, all, for keeping this a fun and civil place with all your wonderful comments.

Noam Scheiber over at The New Republic has some pretty good thoughts on what Joe's up to. It's hard not to agree with Scheiber's conclusion that Lieberman's typically passive-aggressive approach is, despite what Lieberman may say, all leading up to his running for President in 2004.

Democrats could do worse. My ideal Democrat would be...

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"With the appearance of Christianity, the first spiritual terror entered the far freer pagan world."

---Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 454.

Rainbow, over at Sunlight Through Rain, has written a passionate post on the subject of intolerance toward gay people. I decided it was worth a public response.

I met my first openly gay (bi, actually) man when I was 14, back in 1980. I never hated him. I made my first lesbian friend when I was 16. Since then...

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A man who helps manage supermarket privacy programs, speaking for himself and not for any company, has posted some terrific information on his weblog. Details below. Click here and scroll to the bottom of the article for the update, and to see further useful comments by such worthies as Jessica Mulligan and Andrea Harris (of Spleenville fame).

Hear about that kid who got in trouble at "American University" (who's letting them keep that title?) for videotaping a speech by Tipper Gore?

Well, the school administration has finally decided how to punish the kid. The charge is for "stealing" Mrs. Gore's intellectual property. His punishment? Being forced to attend...

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In 1975, two years after American troops pulled out of Vietnam, shortly after we went back on our promise to help supply South Vietnam with arms to defend herself, Saigon fell to the Communists.

In the following years, a half-million people...

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When I read this BBC Story about Israel beefing up her anti-Ballistic Missile Defense, all I could think was: "Don't they know they're going to destabilize the world balance and start a new arms race? Don't they know these technologies can never work and are a waste of money? The Star Wars fantasy is a proven joke!"

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When I read this fascinating Washington Post article on how cell phones are changing lives, I was astonished.

First, because I realized I'd made it to old fogeydom: I don't have a cell phone with the kind of messaging they're talking about. Worse, I've never even used that kind of messaging.

Second, because the social phenomona the article describes are both familiar and alien. Familiar, because I've been online for almost 20 years, and saw all this coming. Alien because I hadn't realized it had quite arrived, and I hadn't foreseen it working quite this way.

(By the way, is the Washington Post the best left-leaning newspaper in the country or what?)

Euan Ferguson over at Guardian Unlimited has a fascinating piece on the myth of dumbing down in the U.K. that I've just snitched from Jerry Kindall's webog. (The second one today. Who needs me?)

I found it fascinating. I saw many parallels to...

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According to professional journalist and weblogger John Ellis, a pretty reliable poll of voters shows overwhelming support for military action against Iraq. Even if the war went on for several years and cost thousands of soldiers' lives, about half would support it. This in the absense of any sustained, high-visibility campaign by our leaders to increase public support.

A poll by USA Today/Gallup shows even more substantial support. The Gallup poll is of a random sample of Americans, whereas the Opinion Dynamics poll is specifically of registered voters. Interesting discrepancy, though.

I must admit that I am growing impatient. The need is well established. Getting other Middle Eastern regimes to stop feeding the terrorist machine virtually requires this sort of action. Public support is overwhelming. The War on Terror demands some sort of high-visibility action. Some on the Right and a few more on the Left are against it. They are wrong. We need to do this. Let's have the debate in Congress if a debate we must have; let's let the Chamberlains have their say, and then let's get on with business.

If the Army would let me enlist, I would. I really would. If this is not a cause worth putting your life on the line for, I don't know what is.

For years I was depressed, as the fight to end racial discrimination and to champion individual rights was steadily abandoned by the ACLU, the NAACP, and other once-noble groups. Fortunately, over the last decade or so, a steadily increasing stream of true progressives have stepped up to the plate. The Center for Individual Rights, the Institute for Justice, and the American Civil Rights Institute are among the best and bravest.

I'm pleased to see that the Center for Individual Rights has finally launched a much-needed class-action lawsuit to stop racial and sexual discrimination by the Federal government. Since such discrimination is in clear violation of both the Constitution's Equal Protection clause and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it should be a slam-dunk case. Right?

Godspeed, my friends.

(Thanks to John Rosenberg for spotting the story.)

I noticed that on Fox News Sunday's "Below the Fold" segment yesterday (August 11), they mentioned webloggers as the source for a story on online terrorist support groups. Not that the webloggers were terrorist-supporting; they were the source for finding out about them. The Special Report web site has the story. It's no-frills info, without links; it's just a verbatim transcript of what Tony Snow read on the air.

Nevertheless, it's astonishing, especially if it's the start of a trend.

Democratic partisan Ara Rubyan of E Pluribus Unum--formerly known as "Postmodern Politics"--recently suggested that Lloyd Bentsen's famous "you're no Jack Kennedy" line was a more moving moment----more naturally conducive to drawing raving applause from a crowd of reporters--than Ronald Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech.

I supported Dukakis/Bentsen in 1988. I remember when...

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DailyPundit notes that we may already be at war with Iraq---by way of more people than I can count, although it seems to go to ultimately go to three sources: Debka, Pravda, and some stuff that Tonecluster has come up with, including a Turkish paper that someone over on Free Republic translated into English.

The blogosphere's getting a little weird methinks, when so many disparate sources are quoted all over the place. Let's deconstruct this:

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Jessica Mulligan sent me an article a few days ago that got me to thinking.

There exists in Shreveport, Louisiana a charming little drug store & restaurant called the Glenwood Village Tea Room. When I lived in Louisiana, I'd go there most Sunday mornings, and sometimes midweek as well. If you're ever in Shreveport, it's worth going out of your way to find. I was kind of a strange customer....

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The Israelis know that if the Iraqi or the Iranian army came across the Jordan River, I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die.

---Former President Clinton, at a recent Hadassah children's charity fund-raising dinner in Toronto, Canada.

I've been meaning to comment on this one ever since it hit the news. I just hadn't found the word-for-word quote until it appeard on the Indepundit's site.

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John Weidner has called for a boycott of Yahoo. His reasoning? Yahoo has made a deal with the People's Republic of China to help block content that the Chinese government considers inappropriate.

I must say he's got a point. I can understand why a company would do something like this, but as a consumer I'm not obligated to help companies do such things. I use Yahoo pretty extensively. I've even paid them $10/year for storage of email archives. What I like best is not just that they give you the email address, but let you check mail from other servers, and store a significant amount of stuff in your folders.

Does anyone know of another service that will let me not just check my mail from other servers, but also gives you some decent storage capability?

Mark Steyn nails it.

That's all. He just does.

Ever since the events of 9/11, some people have developed an almost kneejerk idealism about the religion of Islam. "Islam is a peaceful religion" seems to be the required oath we all must chant, and leave it at that. This I would categorize as the "wishful thinking." I don't think anyone can look at the history of Islam and say that it is a completely peaceful and pacifist religion. These folks need to read a little more history. Islam isn't always peaceful. It's just been peaceful throughout most of its history.

On the other hand, many observers on the other side tend to view the problem with Islamic extremism as endemic to the religion itself. Eric Raymond, for example, is a well-known proponent of this view. I frankly consider this view just as shallow. These folks think they know history, but they're even worse than the idealists.

The highly negative view of Islam seems to come from two camps:

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Pipes also has a another good New York Post column about why Israel is winning the current conflict.

Did I say "Israel is winning?" Yes, I did. So does Pipes. Give it a read and tell me if you don't agree.

In a recent article discussing an old Kurt Vonnegut story, Ara Rubyan made some comments. I decided I had enough to say about Vonnegut that it warranted its own thread.

I'd say I've read more than half of Vonnegut's lifetime output-- the novels, at least. Probably the only author I've read more of is...

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It's a truly amazing thing, how prejudice dominates the culture. I remember reading a story in school, back around the 8th grade. It was by Kurt Vonnegut, and it was called Harrison Bergeron. It made a huge impact on me. It was in our class textbook, although the teacher didn't much want to talk about it in class, and was both dismissive and contemptuous of it (this would have been around 1980). She used to skip a lot of stuff she didn't like in the book, like the parts where they explained that in English, the masculine and the neuter are often used interchangeably.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when Jay Nordlinger mentioned the same story recently. He even noticed that this wonderful old story (written in 1961) is now available online. You can read it yourself here. Go ahead, it's worth a few minutes of your time. It's not all that long.

It's shocking how forward-thinking that story was, isn't it? If I told you some radical had written it today you'd probably believe me. I've read nearly all of Vonnegut's books, but I thought I was the only one who remembered this obscure little story.

The most hilarious--and true-to-life--comment in his piece is when one of his readers described how his own teacher characterized the story:

I remember someone in my class asking the teacher, ‘What kind of government would want to do that?’ and the teacher replied, ‘Republicans.’

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If you are liking what you see of our new Dean's World layout, you have two sources to thank:

1) The dozen or so of you who took the time to give me your ideas, constructive criticism, and useful suggestions when I asked for it, and

2) The fabulously talented, infinitely patient, shamefully underpaid, and artistically diverse Chari Daignault, whose assiduosly professional web design company, Techie-Girl deserves your business, right now. Snap her up, boys and girls, before she starts charging what she's really worth.

The site will probably be undergoing a few more tweaks and twitters in the coming days. But the bulk of the work is done.

So, how y'all like it? :-)

I felt a genuine psychic pain as I read this Sunday Washington Post article on a lawyer who defended a boy-molesting(*) priest back in the '80s (yes, the 1980s), found evidence that his client was not alone, and then tried, with the help of decent priests, to get the church to take the issue more seriously.

I don't know why I found it so upsetting. Well, maybe I do. When I was a teenager, especially in my early teens, I was very pretty. Not effeminate, but slender and well-formed. Not at all unlike a young Leonardo DiCaprio. I don't say that to brag; if you saw me now you'd laugh and probably wouldn't believe me. But I did look like that.

I was apparently very attractive to men, since I had my first overtly sexual encounters, at the ages of 13 and 14, with two different men(**). One was a Catholic Augustinian monk (a brother not a priest), and the other a music teacher from my local public High School (not a religious man). I won't bore you with the details; there was no rape, no penetration, nothing forced. But it was disturbing, mostly in retrospect, and it happened more than once. I was a confused and very impressionable and very sensitive boy, and wasn't sure what the hell was going on exactly. I wouldn't call it rape. I wouldn't call it consensual. I don't know what I'd call it.

I was also once fairly good friends with a man who was a staunch (at times vicious) gay-rights advocate(***) who turned out to have a thing for young boys. I suspected him for a long time, but said nothing. He later wound up going to jail for sodomizing a 14 year-old boy. That makes it all even weirder for me. He still gets NAMBLA material, or so I hear.

I also have loved ones who are Catholic. Yet I know few adult Catholics who have been shocked at this whole episode. Many saw it coming, and some used to joke about it, long before any of this was in the news. Yet reading this lawyer's story really bothered me. The crisis of faith has to be gut-wrenching.

I don't know. Maybe I'll have more to say about this later. But I'm wondering: why did it take so long for this to bubble up? So many people were unsurprised, so many weren't shocked. Why did it take so long?

* - Can we all stop pretending this problem for the Church is "pedophilia?" This is almost entirely about men who like boys. We need to deal with that honestly.

** - Just for the record, I've had gay, lesbian, and transgendered friends since I was 16, most of them people I'm glad I know.

*** -- See above. But the experience with that one guy forever changed my attitude about the self-righteous, in-your-face Harvey Fierstein/Bruce Vilanche goons.

Current wisdom holds that Powell is dovish, "obsessed" with working with Arafat and finding political compromise with devils whenever possible. I've never seen much evidence of that. The problem being that most people see him as a typical diplomat, when what he is is a combat-hardened soldier. This is also why all the talk about Powell feeling "marginalized" is complete hokum. The man's a soldier to his core. If you don't get that, then you don't get him.

Gunner20 over at One Hand Clapping says it better than I can. May the Lord help the enemy of the patient man whose patience has expired.

Indeed.

Joe Lieberman has been doing something smart. He's been coming out and saying that the hateful class-warfare agenda of the Gore/Lieberman campaign in 2000 cost them the election. He is completely correct about this. He's also hinting that he may back out of his promise not to run for the 2004 nomination if Gore runs again. He's hinting now that if Gore runs the same kind of destructive, devisive campaign of small ideas and class warfare that they ran in 2000, he may run just to help save his party.

Joshua Marshall argues that Lieberman would lose too much credibility if he did that. But I suspect the opposite is the truth.

Joe Lieberman sold out almost all of the values he's best known for when he signed up to run with Al. In fact, he openly told Democratic hate-mongers like Maxine Waters that the best way to shut him up on those issues would be to elect him Vice President, since he'd be loyal to Gore. It was heartbreaking, because until that point I'd actually liked and respected old Joe.

What could do more for Lieberman's credibility than to come out and say, "I made a huge mistake supporting the bitter, divisive, and destructive elements of the 2000 campaign. I made the mistake of selling out issues I strongly believe in, purely out of party loyalty. I'm not going to make that mistake again."

I could think about voting for a Lieberman/Miller ticket. But I'd reach into a barrel full of live rattlesnakes to pull the lever against the Gore/Lieberman 2000 agenda.

It seems odd that two of the most important parts of the Republican coalition in America are Christian evangelicals and economic libertarians. There are other groups within the party of course (hawks, traditionalist Catholics, individualist feminists, cultural nationalists, and so on), but these two are the most prominently visible. To some, the marriage seems almost freakish; what on Earth does evangelism have to do with opposing price controls? These things are not necessarily incompatible, but how on Earth did they merge into one political juggernaut?

One explanation I've always leaned on is the simple reality that our cultural elites view both groups with thinly-disguised fear and loathing. They may fool themselves...

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The Born Alive Infants Protection Act was signed into law today. Critics of the law charge that it is "symbolic." As a person who has always been pro-choice on abortion, who gets very angry at intolerant, closed-minded pro-lifers, I say flatly: This is a lie. Infants have been allowed...

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Huh. I must have been living in a cave. I didn't know The Onion had a competitor: Recoil Magazine.

I wouldn't think there was need for a competitor, but this story on a man and his wife had me laughing so hard I had people at work staring at me.

The indomitable Bjørn Stærk is back from a long vacation, and he's neatly summarized, in one paragraph, all the news that's fit to print for the entire summer so far:

What's been happening in the world? Well, off the top of my head: The Bush presidency has faced it's worst scandal yet, faith in corporate America is at an all time low, a major crisis over Perejil have been averted by diplomacy, the Middle East peace process threatens to go off track, and the environment is on the brink of collapse. Oops - I've been reading the International Herald Tribune without applying corrective blogosphere counter-measures. I need to revive that skeptical warblogger sensibility! Let me try that again: Endless, desperate quest to redo Watergate produces dullest result yet, several goats killed in bloody mediterranean stand-off, palestinian resistance still morally bankrupt [and] counter-productive, and [the] litany of doom claims yet more journalist victims. At least that sounds better - don't blame me if not much new happens these days.

He runs a damn good warblog. Check it out. He also runs the People's Blog, a truly inspiring beacon of hope in a world of madness.

Dear Excellency and Friend:

I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it.

You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on this spot and in my country that I love, no matter, because we all are born and must die. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you.

Please accept, Excellency and dear friend, my faithful and friendly sentiments.

Sirik Matak

When the Communists came for Prime Minister Matak, they shot him in the stomach. They allowed him to die slowly of his wounds over the next three days.

In 1975, about two weeks before the fall of Saigon, U.S. military advisors...

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...the folks over at StrategyPage claim that the sun may be rising in the East. Let's hope it's true. They do not, unfortunately, name their sources. (Thanks to newshound Casey Tompkins for the heads-up.)

The New York Times has, as others have noted, become so bad it's beyond parody. Among the paper's worst offenders is Paul Krugman. Krugman recently has gone beyond making bizarre economic pronouncements and, apparently, has begun to simply make things up about the President, with no one at the Times even bothering to fact-check him. Any takers on a bet as to when they'll issue a retraction or apology?

It's tempting to drop your subscription and stop reading the Times, and to gently mock anyone who reads it, or links to it. Increasingly, it seems...

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"The Third Reich did not rest on the concentration camps alone. There was also patriotism, construction, economic advancement, the spread of education and national medical services, and racial pride for millions."

So wrote a noted Holocaust Revisionist, in that most left-wing of "liberal" publications, The Nation.

No, actually, that's not quite true. What he wrote was, "The Soviet Union did not rest on the gulag alone. There was also enthusiasm, construction, the spread of education and social advancement for millions."

Clay Waters does a better job of tearing apart this callous and sickening garbage than I do. Check out this archive page and scroll down a few stories. (The direct link seems broken.)

It's Clay Waters Day here at Dean's World. I've been meaning to post some extended thoughts on the fascinating debate that's been going on in the gay community over political issues. Now that gay rights are officially enshrined into law in most of America, and few people have any real problems with gays, a number of gay men, lesbians, and other parts of the "GLBT" community are starting to wake up and ask themselves:

"So being gay means I oppose missile defense, hate guns and gun owners, want more centralized government, oppose social security privatization, oppose school choice, and love paying more and more taxes? Being gay means I have to like Al Gore?"

"Yes dear, it says so right here on your membership card," says...

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Not long ago, a few miles from where I live, an insane person decided to kill herself by taking her SUV over the highway divider and ramming it head-on into oncoming traffic. She died, as did a number of other people in the ensuing multi-car accident.

I also remember growing up in Chicago, when a crazy person decided to kill a bunch of children. She simply waited until recess at the local schoolyard, then floored her Buick into the crowd of kids. This sort of thing happens...

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I am frequently amazed at what supposedly "liberal" and "tolerant" and "enlightened" people are willing to say, quite without shame, about conservative Christians. There is no group in America more frequently reviled, openly despised, and even outright lied about. In polite company. On television. In interviews. In movie scripts. It's simply astonishing.

It's also embarassing. I used to talk like that too. Until I, you know, made a couple of friends who were Fundamentalist Christians. (Mea Culpa, my friends. Mea Culpa.)

There is no group more frequently subject to fear or verbal attack in America. None. If you throw in their fellow Christians--the Catholics--they're America's favorite punching bag, bar none. (While in fairness some protestant groups take part in Catholic-bashing, most simply disagree with Catholics and are more interested in debating than bashing--like the folks at the wrongly-reviled Bob Jones University. Most of the bashing anymore seems to come from political commentators, Hollywood celebrities, journalists, and gay rights activists who equate saying "we believe that is sinful" to "we want you thrown into Concentration Camps.")

A man I am proud to call my friend--Fundamentalist (Gasp! YES!) Christian Randy Brandt--has written an excellent rant about bizarre attacks from the lead singer of Korn. After reading it I'm tempted to pitch the one Korn CD I own, but then it hit me:

If I did, someone would just call me a "book burner" and an "intolerant right-winger."