http://corner.nationalreview.com/ en-us 2008-05-14T17:59:34-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 David Freddoso http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2ZlZmQ5Mjg4ODBmMDk2YzFmZDczYmY0N2VlOWM3MTE=Speaking of the Farm Bill, which passed on a 318-106 vote today, Republicans failed to strip out a very special provision benefiting one company. In case you want to know who is plundering you this time, I wrote on the matter earlier this week. 2008-05-14T17:59:34-05:00 David Freddoso http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzQ3OGU2NjVhZjQyZTcyODQ3ODliOGNhODJlYmJjMTg=House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) penned a letter to Rep. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) on the Farm Bill's various problems, including earmarks. I don't have a link for it, but here's a small sample: The farm bill -- which reaffirms flawed policies and carries earmarks that were "airdropped" into the bill -- symbolizes a broken Washington. During the House Republican retreat this past January, House Republicans adopted a series of earmark reform principles. One of those principles was "no more airdrops" -- because we recognized Americans are fed up with the practice of dropping wasteful earmarks into bills at the last minute with little to no scrutiny or public debate. This comes after Boehner's endorsement of the Paul Ryan (R.,Wis.) plan to pay for a gas tax holiday by removing earmarks from this year's appropriations bills. The gas-tax business is rather gimmicky, of course, but I cannot think of a better way to pay for it. Not all conservatives agree on this topic, of course -- Ramesh ably argues the opposite school on earmarks -- but I believe Boehner is taking a correct and politically wise approach (according to Frank Luntz's research, per Robert Novak, last item) that will appeal to the right people who consider voting Republican. Some from the anti-earmark school have been critical of Boehner as too soft, but I've disagreed. House Republicans are definitely not of one mind on this issue, so you could say he's really going out on a limb. It could cost him, too. 2008-05-14T17:47:28-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmY4YTA1OGMxNGNlMzc2M2RjMmRlMTE1ZGQzMmUyOTA=As Sean Hannity issued the above warning to congressional Republicans today on his show, the House -- including enough Republicans (100) to amass a veto-proof majority -- passed the pork-laden farm bill. We editorialized on the bill: The program is nothing more than a massive income transfer from American taxpayers to a small handful of very large producers who grow just a few crops; the program can't be serving the purposes its defenders claim it does -- ensuring a stable food supply and keeping farmers out of poverty -- considering that a majority of American farmers do just fine without government aid; and disputes over the large U.S. and EU farm-subsidy programs have opened an apparently unbridgeable divide between developed and developing countries in the current round of multilateral trade talks. The only conclusion one can reasonably draw is that the system is broken and ought to be scrapped. Brian Riedl wrote earlier today elsewhere on NRO: With food prices soaring, it takes some gall to force Americans to pay billions of dollars to millionaire agribusinesses. Yet that's what the latest farm bill would do. Since the last farm bill was enacted in 2002, the five crops that receive the lion's share of farm subsidies have also enjoyed massive price hikes: cotton (105 percent price hike), soybeans (164 percent), corn (169 percent), wheat (256 percent), and rice (281 percent). For consumers, these price hikes have caused financial pain domestically and near-riots abroad. For farmers, it's a sunnier story: Total net farm income has leaped 56 percent in just two years, and helped bring the average farm household's income to a record $89,434, and its net worth to $838,875. During this crop-price boom, continuing to subsidize farmers makes as much sense as paying Apple to make another generation of iPods. Yet instead of cutting, Congress's answer is to harvest even more farm subsidies. The latest version would increase payment rates for more than a dozen crops and increase conservation subsidies. Although the same farmers already receive massive annual subsidies, plus taxpayer-funded crop insurance, Congress would also layer a new permanent disaster aid program. Release of any disaster aid would require an emergency declaration, so expect Congress to declare an emergency any week that it rains -- or doesn't rain. Farm subsidies have long been America's largest corporate-welfare program. Rather than help small, struggling family farmers, the majority of subsidies go to commercial farmers, who report an average income of $200,000 and a net worth of nearly $2 million. Republican leadership ought to crack down on Republicans who supported the bill. Will it? Unlikely. Consider, for instance: WASHINGTON -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., netted tax breaks for the thoroughbred horse racing industry in the farm bill worth $126 million over the next 10 years, a provision that helped guarantee his support for the hotly debated bill. The provision ensures that all racehorses are depreciated over three years for tax purposes, regardless of when the horses start training. The current tax code doesn't reflect the entire length of a horse's racing life, according to a National Thoroughbred Racing Association analysis of Jockey Club racing data. 'While many Americans identify the horse industry as one of Kentucky's signature industries, its economic impact extends well beyond the borders of the commonwealth,' McConnell said. Reidl says: ' farm subsidies will continue costing taxpayers at least $25 billion annually.' Yay! Thanks for the leadership! Enjoy the roll. UPDATE: Really do read the roll: Blunt ... Kingston ... Putnam ... What a crowd... 2008-05-14T17:39:45-05:00 Ramesh Ponnuru http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzNhMThmMzVmMGI5ZDM2ZWRlZmUxZWRlMmEzYmMzYjk=I really liked Pinker's book The Language Instinct and have one or two more Pinker titles on my shelf that I look forward to reading eventually. But when he turns to anything touching on morality or theology, I'm afraid the results are often crude and jejune. His 1997 essay on infanticide for the New York Times Magazine was a case in point. (He concluded that it is a bad thing but that a) it can be an understandable act and b) we don't really have strong grounds for condemning it.) Pinker's new essay on bioethics is pretty bad, for the reasons Yuval Levin goes through and a few more. Levin is, I think, a little too soft on the vicious hostility to religion that the New Republic has let Pinker express in its pages. Note how Pinker begins his discussion of a report by the president's bioethics council. The report's oddness begins with its list of contributors. Two (Adam Schulman and Daniel Davis) are Council staffers, and wrote superb introductory pieces. Of the remaining 21, four (Leon R. Kass, David Gelernter, Robert George, and Robert Kraynak) are vociferous advocates of a central role for religion in morality and public life, and another eleven work for Christian institutions (all but two of the institutions Catholic). Of course, institutional affiliation does not entail partiality, but, with three-quarters of the invited contributors having religious entanglements, one gets a sense that the fix is in. As Levin points out, Pinker has done a fine job of highlighting the theocratic menace of Georgetown University. The question this passage raises for me, though, is: What proportion of people with "religious entanglements" would Pinker consider appropriate? Defined as broadly as Pinker defines them, three-quarters of the American public probably have "religious entanglements." Later in the essay he takes a swipe at a "a smattering of scientists (mostly with a reputation for being religious or politically conservative)" on the council. To the extent there is any argument here at all, it is that religious people are by definition less rational and sensible than non-believers. Pinker himself seems to be a walking refutation of that claim. 2008-05-14T17:25:45-05:00 Ramesh Ponnuru http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2I1OWI3OTY1M2M1NjZiOWYwMWRlM2E3OWVkOGNkODE=Dan Lips of the Heritage Foundation writes in:Georgia's victory is the third big win for school choice this year. Louisiana enacted a tuition tax deduction during Jindal's first special session. Last week, Florida increased the cap on its corporate tax credit program to $120 million. Importantly, that win came with strong support from Democrats. Democrats are also sponsoring school choice measures in Maryland and New Jersey. I wouldn't be surprised if a couple more states pass bills this year. All in all, 2008 is turning out to be a good year for school choice. 2008-05-14T17:23:34-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjA5ZjdkYWI5OGQ5MDFhOTAwNzU5MTllYTA1YjczYTk=Also looking for attention: Sean Penn, who accuses Obama of having an "phenomenally inhuman and unconstitutional' record. I agree! I suspect for different reasons. 2008-05-14T17:19:51-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTVlZDk5YTNjZWRhZjEzYmNlYTRlOGQ4NmM3NDA2ZjM=John Edwards endorses Obama. (MSNBC) 2008-05-14T17:16:11-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjYwZDU2ZGQ4YWQ0MTZmMDAwMjg2Y2E3Nzk5NjgxNGQ=And Yuval Levin blasts Pinker in response. 2008-05-14T17:07:06-05:00 John Derbyshire http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWRlZTU4NmM0YTU0OGRiNmI3NjFlYmZjOGIxYTNiNTI=Steven Pinker's attention lights on the new report titled Human Dignity and Bioethics from the President's Council on Bioethics. He gives it both barrels. 2008-05-14T17:06:23-05:00 Andy McCarthy http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTU5YmYwNGE1ODAxN2VhMDRhOTBjNGQwNmY4Njk0YzQ=I suggest we send the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security strategists, and all their like-minded colleagues in the intelligence community and elsewhere to their rooms until they memorize this 2006 piece by Bruce Thornton (or, actually, just about any piece by Bruce Thornton).  Every word should be memorized, but this is particularly relevant to the thinking behind the language purge: [S]ome Westerners, enthralled to their own materialist assumptions and multicultural "we are the world" sentimentalism, wave away this evidence and reduce this destructive behavior to any and every cause except the one that counts: spiritual belief. So we hear that the violence is caused by a lack of jobs, or a lack of liberal-democratic institutions, or "frustration" and insecurity about the dismal backwardness of most Muslim states, or wounded pride in the face of Western success, or resentment of Western imperialist and colonialist sins, or oppressive autocrats, or . . . take your pick. The same therapeutic mentality that thinks destructive behavior in teens results from a "lack of self-esteem" reduces the religious values of Muslims to mere "epiphenomena," as the Marxists see it, symptoms of some underlying condition rooted in material deprivation, political impotence, or psychological trauma. The problem with Islam, however, is not a lack of self-esteem but too damned much. This is a faith fanatically certain of its truth and righteousness, the culminating vision of God's relations with humanity, the ultimate meaning of human existence on every level, including the social and political. As such, its destiny is to spread over the whole world until the benefits, both in this life and the next, of submission to God are bestowed on all humans, and the dysfunctional man-made values-- including democracy, materialism, "equal rights," and freedom-- are swept away. For however alluring, these do not deliver true happiness or true freedom, but mere hedonism and license that create misery and degradation in this world, and put the soul at risk in the next. If, then, you are in possession of this truth that you are absolutely certain holds the key to universal happiness in this world and the next, why would you be tolerant of alternatives? Why should you tolerate a dangerous lie? Why should you "live and let live," the credo of the spiritually moribund who stand for everything because they stand for nothing? And why wouldn't you kill in the name of this vision, when the infidel nations work against God's will and his beneficent intentions for the human race? This is precisely what the jihadists tell us, what fourteen centuries of Islamic theology and jurisprudence tell us, what the Koran and Hadith tell us. Yet we smug Westerners, so certain of our own superior knowledge that human life is really about genes or neuroses or politics or nutrition, condescendingly look down on the true believer. Patronizing him like a child, we tell him that he doesn't know that his own faith has been "hijacked" by "fundamentalists" who manipulate his ignorance, that what he thinks he knows about his faith is a delusion, and that the true explanation is one that we advanced, sophisticated Westerners understand while the believer remains mired in superstition and neurotic fantasy. 2008-05-14T17:06:13-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjIyOGE1YWEyY2FkYjRhMjJjMjc2YzE3NTRkZWEwNjc=As goes Derb ... 2008-05-14T17:05:42-05:00 Jonah Goldberg http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjNiM2I2YjY3YzExNjAzZmY3OGI0MTM1ZDJjNWEzZWE=Well sorta. Glenn Reynolds reviews Ron Paul's latest book. 2008-05-14T16:58:55-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTgxOTZkYTcxMjJhYWJmMTNkYTllNzFmYWJjZmQ4ZDU=A solar-powered bra -- just what your ipod needed. Public breastfeeding debates promise to sag in comparison ...  2008-05-14T16:36:59-05:00 John Derbyshire http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWM2YmZhNWU3NDg4MmFlNjhlMDcyMjczZGUwOTEyZDM=Lisa:  By using 'Ye Men' in my subject line, I was only making a lame attempt at a pun. ('Ye Men' ... 'Yemen' ... geddit?) I certainly intended no disrespect towards the female population of Yemen, whom I know to be all wonderful, wonderful people. I deeply regret any distress I may inadvertently have caused to our Yemena readers. And you are of course right about cooking. Even more traditionally female skills are alive and well. My daughter is a pretty good knitter, and patronizes a store in our village devoted to that art. They seem to be doing good business. Human hands are good for a lot of things other than tapping at keyboards. 2008-05-14T16:33:17-05:00 Andy McCarthy http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTY0ZDY2YWQyMTM0NmVjY2RiOWM4NmJjYWNjZDczOTQ=What is it about the vision of democracy that makes the mind go ga-ga?  The AP reports that, having arrived in Jersualem, 'President Bush said Wednesday that 60 years of Israel's existence is cause for optimism for democratic change throughout the Middle East. 'What happened here is possible everywhere.'' So the existence of a democracy with strong Western ties that sprang to life as a democracy with strong Western ties is cause for optimism that the hundreds of millions of Muslims surrounding it -- many of whom openly seek its destruction when not brazenly calling for its destruction -- will democratize notwithstanding the utter absence of a democratic tradition and a belief system that is resistant (indeed, hostile) to Western democracy in several particulars. Sheesh. 2008-05-14T16:25:53-05:00 Jonah Goldberg http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTQxOWMyMDA1NjgxZjY4MDhkOWZkNDNkNTNlYzEwZDY=My interview with Newsbusters. It's a bit rambling as it was by phone, and I'm something of a rambler.  2008-05-14T16:21:10-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWNkMDZkYmFjNmQxM2I3NWY3MmNkYmIwMjRiN2Q4OGU=Live by abortionists, die by abortionists? Their lobbyists are turning on one another. 2008-05-14T16:18:22-05:00 Ramesh Ponnuru http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGIxN2JjODIwMzI3Y2QwODg3OGJkZWUyNGU0MmVjMjY=in Georgia. 2008-05-14T16:02:42-05:00 Stephen Spruiell http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGVkNzFjODUxODZhODY1MWZiNDFhODg2YzgxNWFlYmQ=Barack Obama angers a female reporter who works for channel 7 in Detroit by calling her 'sweetie': 2008-05-14T15:49:26-05:00 Rich Lowry http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTU3ZDcyMGI3YTBhMGQ0YTU4ZjY1MmQ2YzI5ZjJkMjU=Very sad news. Army Staff Sgt. Ronald Blystone, who was on the cover of NR in 2005 (it was my 'We're Winning' story), was killed by small arms fire while patrolling in Baghdad. He was on his third tour. Read this and this, and you'll get an idea of what an incredible American he was and the sacrifices his family has made for our country (his brother is in Iraq as well, and his mom didn't know which of them had been killed when two officers showed up at her door). He had three children, and the family has set up an educational fund for their children. I'll be contributing and I hope you will too. Donations can be mailed to Blystone Educational Fund, BanCorp South, P.O. Box 4023, Springfield, MO 65808.  I'm also told the good people at the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation will be presenting each of the three children a EE Patriot Bond maturity value of $30,000 each. 2008-05-14T15:34:02-05:00 Jonah Goldberg http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGRiZWQyNzFkY2UwNTNiMTM0NDYxNzc5YzE2NzFjZjI=I agree with Kathryn, Mark and Andy, but if I can throw out one other point. There seems to be something other than a misunderstanding of conservatism going on with his column. He writes: How much do seven members of the U.S. Senate weigh? Eyeing them -- Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint, Jeff Sessions, Saxby Chambliss, David Vitter, Jim Bunning, Richard Burr -- I'd guess they probably come in at about 1,300 pounds. These are the Republicans who have signed a hold letter, preventing action on the reauthorization of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Now, how much do 3 million HIV/AIDS-infected people -- the treatment goal of a reauthorized PEPFAR -- weigh? This is a more difficult calculation. Adults with advanced forms of the disease can weigh about 60 pounds. Children with AIDS are like a shadow falling on a scale. Maintaining weight becomes difficult with vomiting and diarrhea, with tuberculosis and fungal infections, and with cancers such as Kaposi's sarcoma and lymphoma. Even so, you'd think that a few million of these wasting bodies would weigh more on the moral balance than seven senators. But so far, you'd be wrong. I understand Gerson's passionate about this issue (and deeply invested in it) and that's all fine, even admirable. But does reducing the issue to the comparative body weight of U.S. senators and dying Africans really take us very far? Literary license notwithstanding, it's worth remembering that the senate is slow and deliberative by design. This sort of dark utilitarian calculus may score cheap rhetorical points, but I think Gerson's frustration is aimed less at conservatism than it is at the inefficiencies of deliberative democracy. Update: Ross Douthat on Gerson: This is rhetoric better suited to Michael Moore than to a columnist who wants conservatives to take him seriously, rather than just tuning him out. 2008-05-14T15:30:28-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWU5OWQ3NDAxOTQzZTg1MzVhYzIwMDU4MTU2ZjZkYTM=Barackstar is 'ready to do the Lord's work.' Imagine what would be said if McCain tried to make that case for himself.UPDATE: I should take that back. There is this: "to try to do the Lord's work in the city of Satan."  2008-05-14T15:01:00-05:00 Iain Murray http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGQ4NGQzZTlkNzRhYzQ5ZDdjM2FkY2YwYzc4N2JiMDA=British conservative activist Ben Rogers, as humane a man as I have ever met, has some related thoughts here.  He's not gung-ho, but he's not as dismissive of military intervention as Rich's friend. 2008-05-14T14:57:41-05:00 Stephen Spruiell http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmEzNDk3NzRjOWUwM2NkNzRiYTU5OGFhMjA5OTYyY2Q=Rep. Ron Kind, a Democrat from Wisconsin, has been a stalwart on farm-subsidy reform for a long time. Moments ago, he took to the floor of the House to speak against the outrageous, $300 billion farm bill set to pass both houses today (Bush has promised a veto). Watch: 2008-05-14T14:27:22-05:00 Yuval Levin http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjZmZGM1M2YzYjBhODdjYzg0ODM0MjkyYTc0ZDEwOGM=Andrew Sullivan today makes a case for removing the rigid statutory ban against the entry of HIV positive people into the United States (even as visitors), and treating the disease like other serious and communicable conditions. He is exactly right. The ban now on the books is not only unreasonable (given what we now know about how the disease is and is not spread) but utterly unenforceable, and creates a dangerous perverse incentive, encouraging people with HIV to go untreated and unreported--thus increasing, not lowering, the risk they will spread the disease. When I was in the White House, we made inquiries on the Hill (at the President's personal request, if I'm not mistaken--though I don't recall that with certainty) about removing the ban by statute, and found a mix of (mostly) disinterest and (a little) hostility on both sides of the aisle. There is now a bipartisan effort to attach a provision removing the ban to the PEPFAR reauthorization bill. I hope it succeeds. 2008-05-14T14:26:06-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODhiNTViNzI2ZjBjM2U4MWVkN2NkYmI2MzJmODQxZGU=From the Heritage Foundation's homepage: The THF  tax-status is safe... 2008-05-14T14:24:36-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDRmMTdiNTc0OTc1Y2QyNTY0MzhlOGQxYTFkYmI3ZTQ=An e-mail: Lomborg described the need to plan over the next century to deal with climate change. John McCain should make the case that the '100 years' in Iraq is much the same as '100 years' in climate change work -- you spend the time you need to spend on the problem, and don't make rash promises to fix the issues quickly. It would reinforce his true meaning on Iraq while promising long term solutions to climate change rather than short term goals that just sound nice. Both would make conservatives feel better. 2008-05-14T14:15:31-05:00 John Derbyshire http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2MzY2M4ZTE4YTU1NzhlMzdjOTdlNWQ5NzRkNzMxNGE=Masses of e-mail on my 'tinkering' post yesterday. Main points. (1)  Keep tinkering alive!  It's not only John Ratzenberger who's trying to keep tinkering alive. There are lots of programs, websites, clubs, competitions. A few passed on from readers: Maker Faire, with an associated magazine. A Wiki-style how-to manual with a very wide scope. For fixing up your garage preparatory to tinkering. Lotsa websites still for auto tinkerers, like this one. A lot of bloggers like this guy who put their pet project on the web. I guess my tree house is in this category. Just for completion, John Ratzenberger's Nuts, Bolts, and Thingamajigs, mentioned in my original post. (2)  Tinkerproof automobiles  So far as tinkering with cars is concerned, in the words of one reader, echoing many others: Consider that the barrier to entry has increased when it comes to things like cars. It used to be that one could just roll down to the library, grab the manufacturer's manual for the car, pick up a socket wrench, and go to work. Now cars have pretty advanced computers in them that need equally sophisticated diagnostic equipment, the cost of which is out of reach for your average hobbyist car guy.[Me]  That's not going to get any better as we head into the nanotech society. Machines you can open up and fiddle with are disappearing fast. Domestically, the VCR may have been the last. We had a VCR repair shop in my village until a couple of years ago. No more. Ever see anyone tinkering with an iPod? (Well, there was that kid who reconfigured his iPhone, but he is plainly a genius.) #more#On the matter of cars, another reader adds: Also, while I suppose that I could change the oil in our cars, what would I do with the used oil when I'm done? I would have to wait for the annual HAZMAT day to dispose of it legally.(3)  Code tinkerers  Many readers protested that kids nowadays just tinker with computer code instead of machinery. (Especially, added a couple, with the spread of open-source software.) That's a definite no-sale for me, and I write as a guy who can attain flow via both coding and DIY. They are just not the same thing, only the same verb. Fiddling with code is mental, it's symbol manipulation. Building, making, and fixing complicated physical objects is different. You're in touch with the raw material of the world, and with all its cussedness and peculiarity and solidity. Something is lost, I'm sure. The old military adage that 'no battle plan survives contact with the enemy' applies to most of our intellection. Thinking things through abstractly is of course a wonderful thing to be able to do, but you will always get failures when you test against reality. Every engineer knows this. (4)  Gardening  Several readers told me of the great hands-on pleasure they get from gardening. It's a kind of tinkering, I guess; and it adds to the ordinary cussedness of physical objects the extra cussedness of the natural world. Ma Nature is a great joker. Winston Churchill told Siegried Sassoon that the natural occupations of humanity are 'war and gardening.' (5)  Sons of Martha  I had a sprinkling of letters from engineers bemoaning their low pay and status. One of them pointed me to Kipling's poem on this theme, 'Sons of Martha'. Engineers are still doing Martha's penance, apparently. (6)  Upbeat in Colorado  To end on a cheerful note, here is an e-mail from a reader in Colorado. Derb -- Recently I drove to an industrial area of Denver to weld a coworker's car. The place was a paradise of unwise automotive projects. So many guys spent their evenings there that it became a social scene. Word would spread of some interesting diversion, and projects would halt as people gathered to watch. Last week was my introduction to high power model rocketry. This was a different crowd, heavily salted with engineers. While pyromania was visible among the Denver motorheads, here it stood front and center. Some of these guys had married pyros, so I got to meet two girls, about 4 and 6, who were the most adorably enthusiastic pyros I'd ever seen. Perhaps personality researchers should add a sixth major axis, and find out just how heritable such traits are. I agree that such activities are less common than a generation or two past, but I challenge you to find another nation that can better ours in tinkering.[Me]  I want to believe it, Sir. 2008-05-14T14:10:25-05:00 Iain Murray http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTY4M2Q0ODFlMzJiN2Q2YThkNTQxYjI1YzdmZDQwM2Q=(Sorry). Secretary Kempthorne is poised to make a 'major announcement' about the proposed listing of the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act at 2:30. I will try to have instant reaction. It could be a small victory or a major, devastating defeat for the American economy. UPDATE: He says it is now 'threatened.' See 'Planet Gore' in a bit for more. 2008-05-14T14:05:17-05:00 Byron York http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzIyMmFjODBkZmI1NWIyMGQwMmY5YjY3YWE4OWM5MzY=The National Abortion Rights Action League, which changed its name to NARAL Pro-Choice America, has just announced that its political action committee is endorsing Barack Obama. From the press release: "Pro-choice Americans have been fortunate to have two strong pro-choice candidates in Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton, both of whom have inspired millions of new voters to participate in this historic presidential race," [NARAL President Nancy] Keenan said. "Today, we are proud to put our organization's grassroots and political support behind the pro-choice candidate whom we believe will secure the Democratic nomination and advance to the general election. That candidate is Sen. Obama." 2008-05-14T14:04:19-05:00 Andy McCarthy http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTlkMDA5NmQwYTlhYmNkOWY4YzI3NThmNTUyN2U4MzY=Fox reports an Israeli shopping mall has been struck by a rocket fired from Gaza. Palestinian Islamic [INSENSITIVE TERM DELETED] has claimed responsibility. No word yet on when the peace-loving Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank will rise up in condemnation against this handful of criminals that is perverting the true Islam. Did I mention that recent polling indicates that 50 percent of Palestinians openly support terrorist attacks against Israel? On the bright side, this compares favorably with the 93 percent of young Palestinian adults (aged 18 to 25) who deny Israel's right to exist -- a figure that plummets to a mere 75 percent when the total population is factored in. Obviously, this has nothing to do with Islam and is caused by foolish Americans who enhance the self-esteem of terrorists by referring to them as you-know-what-ists. 2008-05-14T13:14:05-05:00 Rich Lowry http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDAxYzNlMmMzYTU3NTMyYjdlMTRkZWQ1MmZhNDI0N2Y=I asked a friend who has experience at all levels of this kind of thing, from humanitarian delivery to high-level government deliberations, whether it makes sense to go into Burma without permission. His response:   No.  It would make us feel good about ourselves, and help a very, very small number of people (an almost entirely symbolic exercise - very hard to do in bulk - and with no control over distribution) but could backfire in serious ways:  1) Something get's screwed up (like when we crushed Khurdish kids under pallets of relief supplies in Provide Comfort or when gangsters got to all the aid first or a plane goes down or whatever), as it always does.  2) There is no movement in Burma to take advantage of the good intention, thus and strategic communication benefit on the real target audience is lost (unlike in Acheh where we got a huge strategic comms benefit with Indonesians who saw it real time via their govt and international media that Burma does not have access too).  3) it would be replayed against us by the junta and others as more examples of American imposition and intrusiveness, especially when something goes wrong and the benefit is know to be infinitesimally small, as it has to be given the sheer mechanical challenge of dropping aid w/out permission with no knowledge of what the situation on the ground it. Obama and Clinton and McCain will all be for it, because it looks and feels good. A better strategy is to continue to lead the international community (but not out front - pushing someone else out front as the flag carrier) to show up the junta and it's ineffectiveness and use this whole episode as a serious point of leverage to get a Prague Spring going in Burma. 2008-05-14T12:54:48-05:00 David Freddoso http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmJjYjk2ZTU0ZTNkMWQ1YWE4ZWU5NDQyYmVkNTY4YzM=This Republican ad is running today in Kent County, Michigan (Grand Rapids) for Barack Obama's visit. It lacks subtlety and it's too long to be terribly effective, even if it does have the virtue of mentioning his comments about bitter people clinging to guns and religion. 2008-05-14T12:46:49-05:00 Andy McCarthy http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGRhMGQ2NGE0NmU1MDJjYjEzOTUyOGJhNjM2NDRkNDU=Mark's right -- conservatism is not the problem, it's conservatives like Gerson. When Katrina struck, I was horrified by the reports.  Of course the voice in my head that said (a) why didn't these people leave when they had the chance, and (b) these people elected the likes of Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco, what did they expect?  But like millions of other Americans, I felt an obligation to help less fortunate people who were in need.  So I sent money to the Red Cross because the Red Cross is a reputable outfit with a good reputation help to the people who need it.  Afterwards, I got so angry at the boondoggle government spending, which inevitably rewarded (and continues to reward) the worst tendencies, I ended up annoyed at myself for contributing -- in the name of 'compassion,' the government is going to spend goo-gobs of your money anyway, and waste aplenty. Why does Gerson think that the measure of compassion is whether the government moves when people are hurting?  Look at our experience:  Katrina, 9/11, or name your overseas catastrophe.  Americans pony up more dough than any people on the planet.  Government activism causes the dysfunction we saw in Katrina and, at best, it stands in the next Katrina to depress the charitable impulse.  That's compassion? 2008-05-14T12:43:56-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTA0NDBiZjE3Y2Q4ZTFlNzdlMjVhNDkzNDNkNmJmMTY=Bjorn Lomborg, 'The Skeptical Environmentalist,' is not easy to label but very easy to listen to. He makes a lot of sense on Kyoto and other matters -- including practical money and cause-and-effect matters. Anyway, I interviewed him in the wake of McCain's climate-change speech and here's a little of what he had to say: Lopez: What's the most frequent mistake you see politicians make when talking about climate policy? Lomborg: John McCain's daughter recently told GQ magazine that her dad is "freaked out" by climate change. I think freaking out is the worst thing that any of us can do. There's a lot of hysteria about this problem, which means that we don't look at the full picture. For example, McCain mentions that global warming means that there'll be more heat-waves which will claim lives. That is correct. But it's also true that rising temperatures will reduce the number of cold spells. And cold is far deadlier than heat. According to the first complete peer-reviewed survey of climate change's health effects, global warming will actually save lives. It's estimated that by 2050, global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year. But at the same time, 1.8 million fewer people will die from cold. When we get "freaked out," we don't see the big picture. We don't have a sensible discussion about dealing with climate change the best way possible -- instead, we just reach for answers like massive cuts in carbon emissions, which we know is a very inefficient way of responding. He also cautioned ... Lopez: How can John McCain legitimately differentiate himself from the Democratic nominee on climate policy? Lomborg: I'm no expert on American politics. I note that Obama and Clinton have called McCain's plan "too timid" -- but I also note that the three of them are all supporting, in varying levels, the Warner-Lieberman Bill on climate change, which looks set to be a massive subsidy-fest that would achieve very little for the environment, at great cost. McCain could dramatically differentiate himself by being the only candidate acknowledging that promising cuts in the near future just means economic pain for no gain. He could stand out by acknowledging that promising dramatic reductions in the far-off future is simply sweeping the hard choices under the rug for now, for no gain. Wishful thinking is not sound public policy. We need the technological solutions that will allow our societies to transition cost-effectively to low-carbon energy by mid-century. McCain could recognize that this is a century-long problem which needs century-long, smart solutions. He should also realize that global warming is not the top concern of the American public. Despite all the attention and attempts to stir up panic, Gallup polls show the American people worry about it as much today as they did in 1989. Moreover, it is one of the lowest-ranked issues across all voters: in a Pew survey of Republicans in 2006, the percentage of respondents rating global warming as "very important," was the lowest out of all 19 issues presented, and, for Democrats, 13th-lowest. In 2007, the ranking was even lower. As McCain also knows, because of his promise to cut gas taxes this summer, the voters overwhelmingly reject tax increases as a way of dealing with global warming. In the May 1 London mayoral election, Ken Livingstone was a high-flying advocate for stringent carbon cuts and made his reelection a referendum on his policies to tackle climate change. His aides claimed it would be the first election in British history to be decided largely on environmental issues. Livingstone lost. The whole Lomborg interview can be read here.   2008-05-14T12:40:21-05:00 Jonathan Adler http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzU0ZTg4OTM1NjYxMDFlNmUxYmI3YWFkNmU1MjM1MDE=Ohio AG Marc Dann canceled a press statement scheduled for noon today, when many expected him to resign.  Now his office is on 'lockdown' and state troopers are making sure no documents get removed or destroyed.  This guy campaigned against GOP corruption and said he should be held to a higher standard.  Now he's the most scandal-ridden Ohio officeholder in years, and he's doing everything he can to cling to power.   2008-05-14T12:36:57-05:00 Jonah Goldberg http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTY3MTY5ZWE4Mjc4MTgwOWM3ZjVkMWNhZmZlMTdmZjk=From Bloomberg: Wolverines Return to California, Scaring Bears, Mountain Lions   May 14 (Bloomberg) -- There's a sure way to coax a wolverine from hiding: Nail raw chicken to trees, place deer carcasses on the ground and season the area with skunk glands. Finding enough chicken meat at the local Safeway to keep the wolverine returning is another matter. ``I'd go into the store every Sunday night before they restocked and buy everything they had left,'' said Katie Moriarty, a 26-year-old biology student involved in the effort to track the first wolverine officially sighted in California since 1922. 2008-05-14T12:08:09-05:00 Jonah Goldberg http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDBmZjdjZjliMzc1NDdlZTM0M2U0NjM1YzQ0MTQ2Njc=We need more feck. From my column today: The Yuccafication of Gitmo, or the Gitmoizing of Yucca Mountain, are two versions of the same story. Political elites passionately declare their commitment to a desired end -- victory in this war or that -- but are feckless about providing means to those ends.   2008-05-14T11:55:31-05:00 Jonah Goldberg http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTE5MTViYjk2YzkyZDZjZDgxNjc5NzNiNDY0NjFkMTc=From Debby, My OLG: For Die Hard fans: you might consider voting for John McClane for President.   Robot squirrel used to infiltrate native squirrel population.   Fascinating video - autistic savant draws aerial view of Rome after a helicopter ride.   5 Scientific Laws and the Scientists Behind Them.   Man uses revolver as back scratcher.  Guess what happened?    How to catch up on lost sleep.   Skydiving with a wingsuit - video.  Related - a strap on helicopter.   The 10 Most Terrifying Video Game Enemies of All Time.   Fractal furniture.  Click on 'works' on the left side.   Cow the size of a small elephant.   A lightbulb in a firehouse in Livermore, CA, has been burning continuously since 1901.   Working NES controller/coffee table.   William Shatner says he hated sleeping with 'Star Trek' fans because they'd pretend he was beaming them up in bed.   Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope.   Steak flavored beer designed for dogs.    The British Ministry of Defense plans to make UFO files available to the public. Graph Theory Meets the 7 Vices.   This has been around the internet for years but I haven't seen it lately: 1943 Guide to Hiring Women.  And here's a 1939 Marital Rating Scale for wives. 2008-05-14T11:52:52-05:00 Ramesh Ponnuru http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Yzc1OTQ3ZWIxY2UwMmUyYWVmNmE3OTcxNTNkNzIwNGM=I ask the question at the Washington Post today. 2008-05-14T11:48:32-05:00 Mark R. Levin http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGRkNWJjNTJmNzVjNDc4ZGNkMGM4MWFkZDk4MWQyNzc=Yes, Kathryn, that's been the problem with congressional Republicans these last years -- their conservatism has 'degenerate[d] into an anti-government ideology -- rigid, stingy and indifferent to human suffering.' Is Michael Gerson living on our planet? A Republican president proposed a $3.1 trillion budget, with the support of his party. We are trillions of dollars in debt, owing mainly to massive entitlement programs supported by both parties. And Gerson thinks that a handful of conservative senators finally drawing a line somewhere is evidence of the inhumanity of their philosophy. I ask Gerson -- how much should the government spend on human suffering? Can it ever be enough? And who should decide what kinds of human suffering deserve the government's limited attention and resources? All human suffering? What about people like me, with heart disease? Should we be upset about the disproportionate amount of money spent on researching diseases with fewer sufferers? Nothing personal, but it is dispiriting to me to know that Gerson was a major player in the Bush White House. 2008-05-14T11:24:43-05:00 John J. Miller http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTk1YmFkYmM5MmViMTFiOGI0Y2Q0OTlkNWZhMTA2MmU=K Lo: Agree with you on Vito. This whole mess is an especially big disappointment because at one time he showed so much promise. Yesterday, fwiw, I had lunch with a member of the House GOP leadership who said he believes that Vito will 'do the right thing' before too much longer. 2008-05-14T11:24:40-05:00 Lisa Schiffren http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTA0YTExN2MxODdjYzI0Mjc2NDA4Y2E2Njg0YWRlMTM=Whenever they can't think of anything more urgent with which to frighten the population, the Pakistani media summons up the scariest monster of all: the Hindu-Zionist Alliance. The conspiracy theory driven world view common among illiterate Pakistanis (70 percent of the population?) thrives on this stuff, and once you accept that everyone is against you, that particular alliance of enemies makes perfect sense: Hindus on their border; Zionists in control everywhere. And both focused on innocent Pakistan. Forget that for most of the existence of both (post-colonial) India and Israel, Cold War alliances made their own co-operation unlikely. But now, here we are. Leading weapons manufacturers from each country have just announced a new partnership. Israel Aerospace Industries and Tata Advanced Systems will be co-operating on building unmanned aerial vehicles for the Indian Army. In fact, the Indian businessman who presided over this deal suggests that this partnership could make his country into a regional defense hub. Of course, considering the dangers on its own borders, among the highly armed Waziris who are perfectly capable of shooting down Pakistani government planes, and the nice al Qaeda folk hiding in those mountain caves, no one needs unmanned aerial vehicles more than the Pakistani military. Bonding over arms sales has a long history as a way of bringing former adversaries together. Maybe the Pakistanis should give IAI a call themselves. 2008-05-14T11:20:05-05:00 Jim Manzi http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWJjYzU3NTgwZTY1ZmQwN2Q2Y2FhZDdiNDE4YWNjNmU=I've argued in NRODT that teacher's unions are a (not the) big impediment to improving K - 12 education in the U.S.  Education reform strikes me as one of the many topics on which traditional conservatives and libertarians ought to be in close alignment. Megan McArdle is fighting the good fight on this topic at her blog. 2008-05-14T11:07:04-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Zjg5ZGVmZWFhODFhYzMwNjU2NWJjNDAwMDkyOGUzNGE=Vito Fossella really needs to resign ASAP. 2008-05-14T10:49:56-05:00 http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDY3NWFlYzdmYTM2MTg5MjZmZWNjN2ZjZDIyZDczNTk=Get the new May 19, 2008 issue of NR shipped to you pronto, first class. Five bucks covers it all. What a great issue: Stanley Kurtz's cover essay, which is a thorough guide to the radical theology of Obama eminence gris Jeremiah Wright, is a profound must read. The back of the book contains some of America's greatest writers: Ross Douthat contributes yet another smash movie review (this time on Baby Mama), Florence King pokes body language with her "Bent Pin" column, Mark Steyn's "Happy Warrior" hurls a lance into wacko race theories, Rick Brookhiser expounds from the "City Desk" on young America's infatuation with "The Show," and elsewhere there's Ramesh Ponnuru on Senator Bob Corker, and Andy McCarthy on Gitmo, and John Derbyshire and Byron York and Rob Long and . . . look, if you want a typical (and superior)  issue of NR, this is it. Order here. 2008-05-14T10:41:59-05:00 Mark R. Levin http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDA0MDgxODUyNzJkNmY5ZWQ5OGIyMWM1ODhlZDQyZjE=The flag pin issue is important to, among others, veterans who fought under the flag and, to this day, treat it with respect.  It is more than an empty symbol to them (and me).  I have talked to many of them.  I have lived with some of them.  And they don't understand why a candidate for president would draw some kind of 'principled' line against wearing it.  Obama had said that he shows his patriotism in other ways.  It's not as if wearing the flag pin and showing these other ways are mutually exclusive.  It's an odd argument.  Others may not think this is a big deal.  That's fine.  But Obama made a point of not wearing the flag pin, knowing that a point would be made of it, just as he makes a point of not placing his hand over his heart during the playing of the National Anthem.  I find this perplexing, although I won't obsess over it.  This is not the typical behavior of a presidential candidate.        2008-05-14T10:39:27-05:00 Mark Krikorian http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGZlZDlmMTk5OTA1ZDZlNzkyYTU5M2YzYmFjMWUzNGY=If the GOP can't hold on to a House seat in the Deep South that Bush won by 25 points, it's going to be 1974 all over again. I'm just hoping that Rahm Emanuel has recruited enough pro-sovereignty, Heath Shuler-style Dems so that we can head off amnesty. But even if that happens, next year is going to be bad on taxes and other issues. 2008-05-14T10:17:28-05:00 Katherine Connell http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTIyNzc2ZDUwNDMyNTdlM2MyYTIyN2U0MWMzNDBiM2Y=The latest on the candidates . . . Clinton Beats Obama Handily in West Virginia The New York Times Victory Does Little to Tighten the Delegate Race The Washington Post Women, Churchgoers Fuel Win Politico Win Brings Little Reward The Wall Street Journal Touts Her Electability in the Swing States The Boston Globe Repaying Campaign Debt Hard For Losing Side USA Today McCain Backer Regrets Comments On Catholics The New York Times Consultant Is Tied to Work For Ukraine Party The Wall Street Journal Stumping On Climate, Faults Bush The New York Times Backer Apologizes For Anti-Catholic Remarks The Washington Post NRA Chief Stresses Common Ground The Chicacgo Tribune Proposes More Use of Nuclear Power Seattle Post-Intelligencer Obama 'Almost Nominee' Status Keeps in Limbo The New York Times May Have His Work Cut Out For Him to Draw Independents The Wall Street Journal Defeat Amplifies Race, Rural Problems Politico To Receive Endorsement of 3 Former SEC Chairmen The Wall Street Journal Rumor Mill Keeps On Defense The Washington Times State of the Race It's Finals Time For Student Superdelegates The Washington Post Obama, McCain Aim to Curb '527s' The Washington Post Clinton's W.VA. Win Is Meaningless The New York Post In the Tracks of Ron Paul, a Candidate Goes Forth The New York Times 2008-05-14T10:16:57-05:00 Rick Brookhiser http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Mjc2NmE2MTVjOWUxMGJmMGRiZmYyNTIyMWZkYTdhNmI=There was an important West Virginia primary in 1960, when Hubert Humphrey tried vainly to beat JFK. It takes half a chapter in Theodore H. White's The Making of the President 1960. White was very tough on West Virginia's political culture, which he called 'squalid, corrupt and despicable...[belonging] to that Jukes family of American politics that includes Indiana, Massachusetts and Texas.' The reason was poverty. 'Posts on local school boards are bitterly contested, from one end of the state to the other. 'Hell,' one local politician answered me, 'curriculum? They don't give a damn about curriculum, half of them don't know what the word 'curriculum' means. School board means jobs....They'll pass the curriculum in five minutes and spend two hours arguing about who's gonna be bus driver on Peapot Route Number One.' White's politician surely said Pisspot Route Number One, but the prudery of 1960, and of White, changed this, not even to Peepot, but to a pot for holding peas. But then White goes on. To this bleak picture of hunger and politics one should add, in all justice, a condition which most of us who reported West Virginia in the spring found little time to note: that these are...beyond doubt, the best mannered and most courteous [people] in the nation....their relations with their Negroes are the best of any state with any significant Negro population, north or south. The Negroes, being treated with respect and good manners, reciprocate with a bearing of good manners and respect....morever, these are brave people--no state of the union contributed more heavily to the armed forces of the United States in proportion to population that did this state of mountain men; nor did any state suffer more casualties in proportion to its population. When I read the chatter of pundits about this primary, to say nothing of the snarls of commenters on political blogs, I think how liberals have changed, not for the better. 2008-05-14T10:00:49-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2FkNTA1Y2M5YzIyYTRjNzVkZTgyMDIxZDc4MzQzNjg=I sometimes get the feeling Mike Gerson thinks that conservatism is fundamentally flawed. The latest example: For all of conservatism's evident virtues, it can have one furtive, seedy vice: A justified suspicion of government can degenerate into an anti-government ideology -- rigid, stingy and indifferent to human suffering. This time it's about concerns about PEPFAR -- legitimate ones worth debate and attention. The contention that Tom Coburn is rigid, stingy and indifferent to suffering strikes me as very wrong; the senator defends himself here. I'm not voting for an anti-government ideology. I am voting for conservatives to not fear their big-government skepticism. Nothing wrong with that. 2008-05-14T09:42:47-05:00 Rick Brookhiser http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Mjk4MDE0NmY5MWNhMWFlYmYzYzlkYjRmNTdkMmNlNjk=Shamed Dogan is also a friend of mine. Give this fine candidate a boost. 2008-05-14T09:39:58-05:00 Byron York http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODk4MTAxZWZhZDcxYzA5NWUyNDAxN2Y5NjA5NGQxM2I=I've always thought the flag-pin controversy was a non-issue, and I had no problem with Barack Obama, like John McCain, not wearing one. But I would like to know why Obama has now started wearing one. He has apparently worn a flag pin in his most recent appearances in West Virginia, Missouri, and Michigan. So what gives? This is the man who said in 2007, 'The truth is that right after 9/11 I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security. I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest. Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism.' What has changed? P.S.  Especially since Obama apparently put the pin on after leaving the U.S. Capitol yesterday (below) and before his event in Cape Girardeau, Missouri (above).   2008-05-14T09:38:39-05:00 Mark Steyn http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGMyYzEzMjQ5MWI5YWQxOWFlYmUyOWQ3N2ZkMWI0NTk=Just as an addendum to that discussion Derb launched yesterday re the declining American tradition of tinkering in the barn, may I say that's one of the great aspects of the new Iron Man movie - which I enjoyed immensely mainly because (unlike that bore who starred in The Hulk) Robert Downey Jr, Jeff Bridges, and Gwyneth Paltrow are all terrific in their respective roles. But the great thing about Iron Man is that, unlike most superheroes, Tony Stark doesn't get bitten by a radioactive spider or whatever other transformative bug is going around. He (in Derbyshire terms) tinkers himself into a superhero. Although the film's script is superficially very PC, its subtext is a tribute to the American spirit. Tony Stark is captured by an unspecified group of swarthy bearded men in Afghanistan. Would they happen to be...? Whoa, don't mention the M word, unless you mean Magyar: at one point, his captors are said to be speaking Hungarian. But, whatever they are, they order him to build him a state-of-the-art missile. He, of course (warning: small plot spoiler), starts hammering the various bits of ordnance lying around the cave into heavy underwear - while his captors loaf around the old campfire and watch him. In a scrupulously PC movie, this is as devastating a precis of civilizational differences as anything in Samuel Huntington.  2008-05-14T09:17:52-05:00 John J. Miller http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDNhNDQyNTVhZmE0OTM1NjQ0ZTE1NTRkNDI5NmY1ZTA=An interesting idea: The chancellor of the University of Colorado at Boulder hopes to raise $9-million to endow a faculty chair for a professor of conservative thought and policy. According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal, the chancellor, G.P. (Bud) Peterson, believes the new chair would help create "intellectual diversity" on the campus. Yet a permanently endowed chair is a big mistake--and conservative philanthropists shouldn't be tricked into supporting it. The first person to hold the chair might be an outstanding selection, such as George Nash. But going forward, there's no guarantee that this will remain the case. In the future, the chair could belong to a left-winger who produces 'scholarship' on the right-wing's 'paranoid politics' or somesuch. If Colorado's faculty truly wants intellectual diversity, it will make a genuine effort to hire conservatives. But it doesn't, and its lack of interest is the occasion for this top-down initiative that was probably dreamed up in the development office. Potential donors beware, unless you think it's okay for guys like Ward Churchill to decide how your money is best spent. UPDATE: Anne Neal has further observations on Phi Beta Cons. 2008-05-14T09:00:00-05:00 Michael Rubin http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTU1ZGUxOWUwZTM3YmRlZWJiOWI3ODdjNmNjNjhkMjc=(Thanks to Ali Alfoneh for his compilation) Diplomacy At his major first major press conference in the Persian New Year, Ahmadinejad:Downplays Russia's support for the sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic, and says the two countries enjoy good relations.Says he does not recognize any 'incentive package' to stop uranium enrichment, and added the Islamic Republic has prepared an incentive package for the entire world. Says the U.S. tries to divert attention from its own shortcomings in Iraq by blaming others. On Lebanon, he asks the United States: 'Why do you provoke? Why do you arm some and start wars? Who is going to answer for the blood shedding in Lebanon?' Downplays the remarks made by Saudi foreign minister, which Ahmadinejad said had more to do with the minister's personal temperament than the actual state of affairs between Iran and Saudi Arabia.Answering a question on why the Islamic Republic does not shut down the British embassy in Tehran given its 'involve[ment] in conspiracies,' Ahmadinejad gave a survey of the 'crimes of the British against Iran,' and said the journalist had expressed 'the words of our hearts.'Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, head of the Law Enforcement Forces, says Iran has delivered information on drugs transport and production in Afghanistan to NATO, but the organization has not been responsive.Sobhani, former Islamic Republic of Iran ambassador to Lebanon, says the Ahmadinejad government is responsible for provoking accusations against Iran in the Arab world.Alef News reports of 'war crimes' of 'Saudi paramilitary forces in Lebanon.''Iranian students demonstrate in front of the of the British embassy.'#more#Politics At his major first major press conference in the Persian New Year, Ahmadinejad:Said the general economic conditions of Iranians have improvedPurchasing power has increasedSaid the government is unhappy with rising prices which he claimed were due to 'external factors.'On the executive leadership of the Twelfth Imam in world affairs, Ahmadinejad says: 'In the government, we are all involved in ... expert discussions and device scientific solutions to the problems, but if we deny existence of divine intervention and intervention of the Imam of the Era in our society and the society of mankind is a very bad behavior.'More. Ansar News' reportage, here.Ahmadinejad will soon appoint Seyyed Mehdi Hashemi as acting minister of interior.Iranian parliamentarians face threats and incentives to abstain from delivering a vote of no confidence to the minister of trade.Religion, Culture, and Society Karaj Municipality warns Gonabadi sufis that their Hosseiniyeh will soon be destroyed.Ayatollah Allah-Badashti, a leading theological scholar with expertise in the field of Reemergence of the Mahdi and Shi'ite Escathology accuses the Iranian president of instrumental use of religion and abuse of the Imam for political purposes. He also says 'all those who claim to be in contact with the Imam are liars and should be punished.'Fatemeh Rajabi, the wife of government spokesman Elham, accuses those who criticize the Iranian president's 'belief in the Imam of the Era' and warns of the 'sabotage by the enemies of the Mahdi.'The Student Basij Organization attacks Iran Azad University in an open letter.Two executives at the ministry of higher education involved in the work of disciplinary committees resign.Economy Take-over of Tabriz Tractor Factory by an economic foundation connected with the Basij.Nowbakht, Iranian economist from Martyr Beheshti University, says the Iranian government does not live up to its own development schemes.Trade Mohammad-Ali Khatibi takes Hossein Kazempour Ardebili's place as the Islamic Republic's representative in OPEC.Military and Security Pakistan to extradite Jundallah terrorists to the Islamic Republic. In English.Commander Gholami, Basij chief in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, visits the Basij units in Chabahar.Media Afghans in western Afghanistan are the largest audience for Iran's foreign broadcasting.Photo of the Day Tehran street scene. 2008-05-14T08:58:30-05:00 Jonathan Adler http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmU0NzRiOWM4ZmVlNGVjNjg2Y2VkZDAwNTRjMTUyNDg=Scandal-plagued Ohio AG Marc Dann (D) may be on the verge of leaving office. The state Democratic Party has renounced him, Dems in the legislature have introduced articles of impeachment with nine counts of misconduct, and the FBI is poised to begin its own inquiry into some of Dann's misdeeds. As of this AM, sources close to him say he's trying to leave office with some 'dignity.' It's a bit late for that. I round up some of the latest here. 2008-05-14T08:35:49-05:00 Byron York http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2YxMmY2NzhhZDlhYmQ2ODBlODA3MzMyODY5ZGZjZDQ=Fun facts from the Democratic popular vote race: Obama's lead, including estimated vote totals in caucus states (which favors Obama) plus results from Florida (which favors Clinton), but nothing from Michigan:                     411,915 Obama's margin of victory over Clinton in Cook County, Illinois:                                     429,052(Obama's lead is from the Real Clear Politics total; Cook County result is from the Illinois Board of Elections website.) By other counts, Obama's lead is far less than his winning edge in Cook County. Only in counts which do not include either Florida or Michigan does his lead in the national popular vote exceed his margin in Cook County. 2008-05-14T07:59:07-05:00 John J. Miller http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Njg2ZjkzNWRjNmE1NTUxOTA4ODYzNGZlZmVlODEzY2M=I have not yet seen Prince Caspian, the Narnia movie that opens on Friday, but the early reviews look encouraging. Here's Dirty Harry at Libertas: With Iron Man I was sure the best film of the summer was already behind us. I do love it when I'm wrong. It certainly promises to be a movie for our times. Of the seven Narnia books, Prince Caspian is the most militaristic. There's a big battle scene in the movie version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, of course. Yet it's a relatively small part of the book--it takes up roughly a single paragraph. Prince Caspian is different. One of its major themes is just warfare, and there's plenty of fighting--Narnia scholar Michael Ward has made this point. If Hollywood wants to make a mint at the box office, it will produce a Black Hawk Down-style film about Marines in Fallujah. Americans will flock to buy tickets. But Hollywood refuses to meet this demand. Instead, we're bombarded by a series of anti-war flicks that few people want to see. On occasion, however, we get excellent films such as 300, which appreciates the importance of martial valor. Here's to hoping that Prince Caspian is equally subversive. 2008-05-14T07:31:09-05:00 Byron York http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTY5OTJiOTg5NDM2ODYwMTBlZGRkMjJhNzBlOWViN2E=I have a new story on Hillary Clinton's landslide win in West Virginia.   Among other things, I look back at the 1992 race, in which Jerry Brown stayed in through early June even though he was more than 1,500 delegates behind Bill Clinton: Brown could stay in as long as he liked because his presence didn't really matter. But Hillary Clinton's campaign, which is not only not 1,500 delegates behind Barack Obama but might, by some reckoning, catch up with him in the popular vote total -- and in any event remains excruciatingly close to Obama in all measures -- is different.  Obama's supporters, in the campaign, in the Democratic party, and in the press are desperate for her to leave the race precisely because her support is so substantial; her continued presence is a daily reminder of how profoundly divided the party is at this moment.... [In her victory speech] Clinton repeated her insistence that delegates from Florida and Michigan -- 'all of their delegates' -- be seated.  'I believe we should honor the votes cast by 2.3 million people in those states,' she said.  Her demand was pooh-poohed in some circles of the commentariat, but the question for Democrats is, Why is that such a radioactive proposition?  This is the party that got rather excited over 537 votes in Florida in 2000, the party that would like to pass something called the Count Every Vote Act, the party that has consistently favored greater enfranchisement over stricter enforcement of the rules (and sometimes the law).  Sure, Clinton wants to change the agreement that existed going in to Florida and Michigan, but circumstances have changed, too.  Since when have Democrats been such sticklers for unbending rules?  Why do so many in the party insist that millions of votes in two key states be counted only if they don't matter -- that is, if the result is a fait accompli -- and not be counted if they do? 2008-05-14T07:29:37-05:00 David Freddoso http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTNjZGQzZTNhMGU1YWFlMDBhODE4Yzk2MGVmZWMxNDA=It's a great feeling to see a good friend run for office, especially when he has a chance of winning. Tomorrow evening at 6 p.m., my friend Shamed Dogan will be passing the hat for his Missouri state House race here on Capitol Hill, in the upstairs of the Pour House bar. The maximum donation for state House campaigns in Missouri is only $325. This amusing and quaint regulation makes Shamed's job a real challenge. But he's doing his level best, and he has the backing of his old boss, former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.). 2008-05-14T05:19:57-05:00 Mark Hemingway http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Nzk2OTNjMTZkNjAzMjQwNzBmY2NiMmI0MzcwNDY4ZDU=Patrick Ruffini just cited this staggering statistic in his twitter feed: Wow. Obama only wins 53% of WV DEM PRIMARY VOTERS in a matchup with McCain. Holy cow. If even half that holds that's got to be terrifying for Obama. Also, his rather ungracious way of fleeing the state without making a concession speech tonight probably didn't do much to win over West Virgina voters for the general. Has his campaign just written the state off already?  2008-05-13T23:50:58-05:00 Victor Davis Hanson http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjYwZWVjMTY5NzE0MWI5OWIyOGNmNzA1M2VkODZjZWI=Egyptians have been recently rioting over price hikes in their food subsidies and occasional shortages. Four thoughts come to mind: Since the original Camp David accords, following the Yom Kippur War, the United States in aggregate has given Egypt more than $60 billion in aid, much of it in the form of bulk deliveries of American foodstuffs. Two, Egypt is one of the most anti-American of the many hostile countries in the Middle East, at least if various opinion polls of popular sentiment have any currency that have consistently shown 60% and more of Egyptians have an unfavorable view of the United States. Three, the food riots ultimately are prompted by spiraling fuel prices, due to the OPEC cartel price hikes that inflate production costs of almost everything, and the resulting decision elsewhere to divert acreage in the Americas and Europe to produce ethanol. Four, of the many trillions of dollars that have poured into Iran and the Gulf monarchies following the rise from $23 a barrel to $123 since 2002, very little has been given from brethren Arab states to their poorer neighbors, made even poorer by the petrol-profiteering of those in the Middle East. It is ironic that we are both paying trillions these past few years in jacked-up oil prices to the Middle East, and still sending billions more in food aid to Egypt at a time when our foodstuffs are in short supply--and still being disliked by those in places like Cairo, whose state-controlled media whips up anti-American sentiment. What should we do about this? Perhaps a magnanimous speech along the following lines: 'Because the Arab world has become enriched by spiraling oil prices, the U.S. would like to redirect its food aid to states in the Americas and Africa newly impoverished by soaring fuel and food bills, in recognition that the Middle East now has trillions of dollars in new profits and thus the newfound wherewithal to take care of its own.' 2008-05-13T21:34:16-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2NkNDc2MWJlZjc3Y2QzNGNmZTA3NjdkYThkYjZkZTQ=Tomorrow night, my senator will be on all the .... retirees' shows? From her campaign: On Wednesday, May 14, Hillary Clinton will be in Washington, D.C. She will appear on national news programs including: ABC World News, CBS Evening News, CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, FOX News, and NBC Nightly News. 'Run to Katie Couric' isn't a survival instinct, dear. 2008-05-13T20:59:13-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjJmYTI4NmM2MDgyYzJmYmY2MjdkMTNlYjU3Y2RiYjg=Carville has his Obama check ready? What does a girl have to do to keep a friend? Maybe win a state? Guess not. 2008-05-13T20:56:34-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjM3MzgxMDI2MjFjZTg5MTgyMTAwNDk1OGZjY2E5NDk=I don't believe this race is over until it's over. But this primary night is the first one I've thought about sleeping through. (The fever I have weighing heavier in the decision-making process than Barack Obama, I confess, just for one night... ) 2008-05-13T19:23:33-05:00 Andrew Stuttaford http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWJjN2IxN2IzOGU2MTU0MzhlNTljMWQxNWQwM2E0YzQ=Ross Douthat writes this: For American conservatives looking across the pond for inspiration, what's at stake in the current - and perhaps temporary - Tory renaissance has less to do with policy specifics (the shape of U.S. politics more or less ensures that any revived American Right will have to be simultaneously more libertarian and more socially-conservative than Cameron's Tories) than with the broader question of whether Anglo-American conservatives can successfully govern a welfare-state society in an era that isn't characterized by profound, late-Seventies-style disillusionment with the administrative state. Well, yes and no. Ross is correct on the longer term issue (which touches on my own belief that, like it or not, the GOP may well morph into an Americanized version of Germany's CDU), but, in the short term, the main reason that Cameron's Tories are doing so well is that Labour is doing so badly. In particular, voters seem finally to be coming to the realization that the principal economic achievement of the Blair/Brown administrations was to squander the Tory legacy more slowly than some (including me) had once feared. Nevertheless, squander that legacy they did. Britain is now counting the cost and it's not relishing the price. Cameron's achievement is the way that he appears to have 'decontaminated' the Tory brand, and thus made the Conservatives into the electorally viable alternative that they were not in 1997, 2001 and 2005. They have become strong enough to take advantage (at least for now) of Labour's weakness. To do that, Cameron has taken the party in a direction that many of a more Thatcherite set of mind (including yours truly) have not, to put it mildly, always liked. I'd still argue that Cameron has gone further along that route than was either necessary or productive, but I'd also argue that he was right to understand that you have to face electoral realities before you can change them. There can be little doubt that McCain is going to have to do the same. With an unpopular Republican in the White House and about six months to go until the election, that's going to be very tricky indeed. This process is not always going to be easy for those of us on the right to accept (and there's nothing wrong with a vigorous debate on this side of the aisle over some of McCain's proposals), but the alternative, defeat in the fall to Obama, will be far, far worse. And as for those who talk about principled defeat and a quick bounceback in 2012, they should take a look at what happened to Britain's Conservatives in the years after Blair's first victory: they lost, and they kept on losing. 2008-05-13T18:58:35-05:00 Jonah Goldberg http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWIwZmZlNmIyZWMwMzNiN2Y2N2Y5NjcyMWM4Yzk0MDU=For shame Barack Obama! (Via SNH) 2008-05-13T18:57:16-05:00 Mark R. Levin http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTA1Y2VjMzNjOWQwODc3MmJhNGU2MDVkNGRiOGVkMzI=Do the McCain Team eco-friendly polo shirts carry the union label?  They wouldn't want to leave out too many of the lib constituencies. 2008-05-13T18:32:57-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzE5NjY4MTg1ZGRjMmE0OGEwYWJmNjdhYWUzYTg1NTg=Telegraph: The parents of a premature baby born below the legal abortion limit spoke of their 'miracle' after they took her home for the first time on Monday. Ellie-Suzanne Fish was born four months premature on September 3 last year, five days before the current limit of 24 weeks. She weighed 1lb 4.7oz and was given just a 10 to 15 per cent chance of survival then had to endure three operations, including two on the brain. But she is now nine months old and a healthy 14lbs, and has been allowed out of hospital for the first time. Her move home comes as the Fertilisation and Embryology Act reached its second reading in the House of Commons. Pro-life MPs are pushing for amendments to the Bill to lower the legal limit for abortion from its present level of 24 weeks to between 12 and 22 weeks. Ellie-Suzanne was born at 23 weeks and her skin was so undeveloped that her mother Beverley, 37, said 'we could see the blood running around her body'. She said doctors had advised them switch off the ventilator that was keeping their daughter alive in the early weeks of her life. Mrs Fish and her husband Dave, 42, an electrical goods distributor, strongly backed a lowering of the limit. Beverley, a housewife, lives with her husband and children David, 18, Martyn, 17, Abbie, 15 and Joshua, 11, in Fishponds, Bristol. She went into labour five months into her pregnancy and gave birth naturally just three hours later on September 3 last year but complications caused two brain bleeds. Ellie-Suzanne was born with mild cerebral palsy and spent six months in the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit at Southmead Hospital in Bristol before she was moved to Bristol Children's Hospital. She then endured two operations to remove fluid from her brain, and a third on her stomach to help her digest, but has confounded doctors' expectations. Ellie-Suzanne has to be fed through a tube, requires oxygen and needs suction to keep her airways clear. However, she is now able to move around, has good sight and hearing, and is learning new skills quickly. Mrs Fish said: 'When I gave birth at 23 weeks, my daughter looked like a baby: not a foetus, a fully-developed baby. 'I strongly feel the abortion limit should be lowered to 16 week if not less. Unless there are exceptional medical circumstances, it should not be allowed at all.' 2008-05-13T18:24:37-05:00 Andy McCarthy http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Njk3MWUzODc0MDE1YjFhMTU3ZWVjNGE4NWYyOGFmMDM=ZZZZhhhhhhhhvv .... ZZZZhhhhhhhhvv .... ZZZZhhhhhhhhvv Ah, the sound of McCain mailings, RNC mailings, and Republican Congressional Campaign Committee mailings going through shredder. But not to worry.  While the mainstream media voted for President Obama, they duly paused to tip their hats to the Arizona Maverick, who ran such a high-minded, eco-friendly campaign.  Of course, given that the Republicans lost seven seats in the Senate and 25 in the House, McCain may also provide the surprise of the season, saying yes to an unexpected offer to be Interior Secretary, providing real bipartisan heft to the new administration ... 2008-05-13T18:23:54-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Njc3NGU5NzNiMjg0YzZmZTZiMjNkZTdjMTNkM2E1ZTg= 2008-05-13T18:04:11-05:00 Lisa Schiffren http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTA4OGI4MTgxNjhiYzU1YWZhNWE2OWVlYjhlY2U4Nzg=I certainly share the view that people whose lives revolve around symbolic manipulation -- including typing -- are well served when they have hobbies that require mastery of something real. Carpentry is impressive, of course. As are gardens. But on a daily basis I just don't think this is a big an issue for women as it is for men since, regardless what else we do most of us have to cook dinner most nights, for a family. Cooking may not leave you with some exquisite, handcrafted thing to show for your labors. But it is certainly hands on, physically real, often a source of pleasure, and, unless your children have better manners than mine, you pretty much always know how well you've done. Alas, we can't all be Hedy Lamarr....Btw, Derb -- I note with amusement that, in relating that the Yemenites have the world's sixth highest fertility rate you see fit to congratulate the men -- Ye Men of Valor. (Valor?) I think the expression Arabs use to congratulate each other on such accomplishments in most of the Arabian Peninsula is the brief but comprehensive, 'Strong back!' 2008-05-13T17:35:52-05:00 Andy McCarthy http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjE3NGUwYjE3MDdmMjI4NjgxYTgyNWZmNGM2NWZiYzc=I debated him here in an NRO exchange on surveillance against foreign threats to the United States.  I like Bob, but, as you'll see, I think he's dangerously wrong on this one. 2008-05-13T17:28:05-05:00 Ramesh Ponnuru http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjRjMmRhYTU1MzY4MzZiNWVjNWUyMjU4Zjk4ZGVhZjU=Earlier, I noted that Rep. Barr had voted to create a prescription-drug entitlement in Medicare. Clark Stooksbury points out that Barr had left Congress before the bill passed in 2003. That's correct. But Barr was still in Congress in 2002, and he voted for the idea then. (I phrased the post a bit clumsily, so it sounded as though I were claiming that Barr had voted for the bill in 2003.) 2008-05-13T17:00:37-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDM1MTU4NDU5ZTRlYzEzNDE2YzdmOGJkMzAzYjE0MzA=I just read this: Pro-life advocates were split on whether Romney had made a full-fledged switch to the pro-life position after advocating abortion for most of his political career. But, Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review says Politico is simply trying to cause a split within the pro-life community with the blog post. Actually, I don't think the Politico is 'trying to cause a split.' I think whoever complained to the Politico has unresolved primary issues they need to get over for the good of the cause.   2008-05-13T16:35:58-05:00 Mark Steyn http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzYwYmNlZTBmMTE2MTEyNDMwY2I2ZDYzMGJlZDQzODk=A propos Derb and tinkering, several readers have written to remind me of Hedy Lamarr, who, aside from looking very fetching without her clothes on in Ekstase (1933) and almost as lovely if overly dressed in Algiers (1938), invented in her spare time a frequency-hopping system for torpedo guidance that was the forerunner of today's spread-spectrum communications technology in WiFi and whatnot.  2008-05-13T16:31:15-05:00 Jim Manzi http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzRkOGQzOTkzM2NhMmE3YzQzNWM2YmZmNGEwMGNkNTQ=John, one of the things that people who go straight from school to a career of symbol manipulation often miss is the vast difference between talking about a thing and doing it - a sense of how hard it is to really accomplish anything tangible. Here is a fantastic article from The New Atlantis (h/t Rod Dreher) written by a guy who left his Washington, DC think tank job to run a motorcycle repair shop in Richmond.  Here's a sample: I began working as an electrician's helper at age fourteen, and started a small electrical contracting business after college, in Santa Barbara. In those years I never ceased to take pleasure in the moment, at the end of a job, when I would flip the switch. "And there was light." It was an experience of agency and competence. The effects of my work were visible for all to see, so my competence was real for others as well; it had a social currency. The well-founded pride of the tradesman is far from the gratuitous "self-esteem" that educators would impart to students, as though by magic. I was sometimes quieted at the sight of a gang of conduit entering a large panel in a commercial setting, bent into nestled, flowing curves, with varying offsets, that somehow all terminated in the same plane. This was a skill so far beyond my abilities that I felt I was in the presence of some genius, and the man who bent that conduit surely imagined this moment of recognition as he worked.  My guess is that he took a writing class somewhere along the way, too. 2008-05-13T15:49:21-05:00 Mark Krikorian http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTVlZDZmMmFhYzE5YmM5MGI1MmQ1MDg0ZjViNWNiZDk=We have a new video out, starring my research director, on how immigration is not an escape hatch from our Social Security problems or the other challenges that come with an increase in the average age of our population, as to many politicians seem to think. 2008-05-13T15:29:42-05:00 David Freddoso http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjVmZjY3YjE0MWEyOWJjZTJhMzQ3NWI1MmZlMzhjYWM=Who would have thought? From Roll Call. [I]n Mississippi today, a last-minute mailer from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has Republicans crying foul in a race that was already very nasty. The DCCC mailer...accuses Republican nominee Greg Davis of wanting to honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who is considered to be the the founder of the Ku Klux Klan, with a statue in Southaven, the suburban community where he serves as mayor. ...Davis spokesman Ted Prill called the mailer "11th-hour gutter politics" and said Davis never supported bringing a statue of Forrest to Southaven...Prill said that three years ago, when Memphis officials were trying to remove the statues of Forrest and Confederate President Jefferson Davis from city parks, Greg Davis offered to take only the statue of Jefferson Davis and put it in Southaven, a suburb of Memphis. He said Davis never indicated he would accept the Forrest statue. The DCCC stands by the mailing -- and they only have to until this evening, since the voting is going on right now.  2008-05-13T14:57:18-05:00 John Derbyshire http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzJjMjVlNWY3YTkxMzU4MTY1MjUwZDc4MDQwZTcyMjI=Wow, my tinkering post tapped into a deep vein of discontent: 26 e-mails so far, and still coming in. I'll get them all read this afternoon. In the meantime, here is the old can-do America, the one I grew up believing in, the one the whole world admired and marveled at. The extracts are from The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge. He is writing about his father, a Vermont countryman in the latter decades of the 19th century. He was a good business man, a very hard worker, and did not like to see things wasted. He kept the [village] store about thirteen years ... In addition to his business ability my father was very skillful with his hands. He worked with a carriage maker for a short time when he was young, and the best buggy he had for twenty years was one he made himself. He had a complete set of tools, ample to do all kinds of building and carpenter work. He knew how to lay bricks and was an excellent stone mason ... Following his sale of the store about the time my grandfather died, bedises running the farm, he opened the old blacksmith shop which stood upon the place across the road to which we had moved. He hired a blacksmith at $1 a day ... My father seemed to like to work in the shop, but did not go there much except when a difficult piece of work was required, like welding a broken steel section rod of a mowing machine, which had to be done with great precision or it would break again. He kept tools for mending shoes and harnesses and repairing water pipes and tinware. He knew how to perform all kinds of delicate operations on domestic animals. The lines he laid out were true and straight, and the curves regular. The work he did endured. ... My father was at times a Justice of the Peace and always had a commission as a notary public. This enabled him to take the acknowledgment of deeds, which he knew how to draw, and administer oaths ... or to take affidavits ... In my youth he was also always engaged in the transation of all kinds of town business, being constantly elected for that purpose. He was painstaking, precise, and very accurate, and had such wide experience that the lawyers of the region knew they could rely on him to serve papers in difficult cases and make returns that would be upheld in the courts ...The man who wrote that filial tribute was President of the United States, within (just barely) living memory. [Sigh] On the other hand, I bet old Colonel Coolidge (yes, he'd earned military rank too, somehow -- I forget the details) would have made a simply terrible 'community organizer.' 2008-05-13T14:25:25-05:00 Andy McCarthy http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjY4M2NlMzU3MWQyMzg1ODEzNmM1MjhkMTBjODBmZmI=A Minnesota grad student has had to leave a teacher-training special-ed program due to intimidation -- specifically, a threat to kill his dog.  The St. Cloud Times reports that the student, Tyler Hurd, 23, was prone to seizures due to a childhood injury.  He thus attended school with his service dog, a black lab called Emmit, who is trained to protect Hurd during siezures and carries a pouch which contains items that would be of help to passersby who stop to assist Hurd during such episodes. The teacher-training program required Hurd to do field work at local high schools.  At Technical High School, many of the students are immigrants from Somalia.  'The Muslim faith, which is the dominant faith of Somali immigrants,' reports the newspaper, 'forbids the touching of dogs.'  As a result, there was much taunting and, finally, one student threatened to kill the dog.  Hurd feared for himself and the dog, and complained.  The university resolved ... to waive Hurd's remaining training hours.  A school official, the paper recounts, opined that it was 'important to respect different cultures and the rights of disabled students.  'I think this is part of the growth process when we become more diverse,'' added the official. Sigh ... 2008-05-13T14:13:16-05:00 Mark Krikorian http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTIzNTRhMWY0ZGYzOGZjZmE1MTdjY2JhOTJjYTcyMDA=From someone inside the Department of Homeland Security in response to my comments on the Post's sob-story series on medical care for deportable immigrants in detention: One other thing about the Post Article on ICE medical care; they make it sound like these people are detained and have no way to leave. That is not true. They can always choose to go back to their country of origin. The only reason anyone is held in detention is because they are fighting deportation and are considered a flight risk. Every one of them could leave detention tomorrow if they would agree to go back home. They chose to stay in detention because they want to fight to get a visa or a green card. Also, if they are sick they get better care in detention than they do at home in many cases. If you read the Post article you would think we lock these people up and don't let them go home. 2008-05-13T13:59:17-05:00 David Freddoso http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjZjYzI3MTNlMTg3NjhmMjQyNzRmZGY1MTc3OWJjOTk=John McCormack dissects the Democrats and the gun issue over at the Weekly Standard. With both contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination evading the gun control issue as if it were sniper fire, you couldn't blame gun control advocates for feeling bitter. Yet Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence--the pro-gun control counterweight to the National Rifle Association--says Obama and Clinton are "coming fairly close to delivering the message we'd like." On licensing and registering guns, Helmke says, they are "being realistic" in recognizing "there's no support for pushing that forward at this stage." His thoughts on the candidates' ducking questions on the D.C. gun ban? "They're politicians, and most politicians on tough calls do not answer." McCormack warns that private firearm sales may soon be regulated. On a tangential note, he reminds us of a side of Obama about which many of his passionate defenders get very emotional: When moderator Charlie Gibson pointed out that Obama's handwriting was on a 1996 candidate survey that said he favored banning handguns, Obama flatly denied his writing was on the questionnaire, contradicting what a campaign staffer had told Politico weeks earlier. Obama represents a new, totally different politics. He's not just another politician -- the old kind that gets involved in sweetheart real estate deals or tells crowds of Christians and anti-free trade workers one thing but says otherwise in private meetings. If you're getting the impression that Obama is one of those old-school politicians, it is only because his campaign staff have an unfortunate habit of filling out surveys without his knowledge or consent -- sometimes even in his own handwriting! It demonstrates the power of Obama's message that he's about to win the nomination despite such acts of internal sabotage. 2008-05-13T13:59:17-05:00 John Derbyshire http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjQ3MTEzYzBmMzA4ZDdhYzZjMDFhYjVkNjc4OTJiYWQ=Just a couple of footnotes on the David Brooks piece, and on our religion / metaphysics threads in general. (1)  I get irritated at the way people toss around the word 'materialist.' (Brooks: 'In this materialist view ...') I have no idea what this means. Dictionary.com defines 'materialism' as 'the philosophical theory that regards matter and its motions as constituting the universe, and all phenomena, including those of mind, as due to material agencies.' The problem with that is that in our current understanding, 'matter and its motions' are deeply mysterious, with radical problems of causality and measurement still subjects of debate. The June issue of Seed magazine has a good article, not yet online, called 'The Reality Tests,' about some researchers in Vienna still attempting to validate the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, as against the 'hidden variables' versions that keep cropping up (Einstein, Bohm, Bell). So far Copenhagen's holding up pretty well, which means that the world is a very weird place indeed. No offense to anyone, but I can't help smiling when I hear people mention 'the mysteries of faith.' If it's mysteries you want, go into particle physics. The word 'reality' (which, said Nabokov, should never appear without quotation marks) turns up a lot in the Seed article (though without quotes). (2)  The subject of Albert Einstein's religious faith gets tossed around a lot. Now a letter written near the end of his life is up for auction in London. It makes plain that whatever he may have said & thought when younger, Big Al was an atheist when he left the world. 2008-05-13T13:52:26-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTk2MWY5N2JkYjJiMWVhM2NmYzkyNTVmNTc2YjVjZDY=From our editorial on the McCain speech yesterday:  Senator McCain gave a speech in Portland, Oregon Monday reiterating and explaining his longstanding support for a "cap-and-trade" approach to global warming. He proposes that the government require reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions but allow companies to trade emissions credits, supposedly creating an efficient, market-based distribution of the regulatory burden. Support for this policy is the biggest mistake his campaign has made so far. 2008-05-13T13:24:24-05:00 Mark Krikorian http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzAxMjFhODFmYzQwODRhMTc3ZjdhODFkZWUwY2E3MGM=An interesting event here in DC starting tomorrow that I'm afraid I'll miss -- the second annual GI Film Festival, 'Honoring the successes and sacrifices of the American G.I.' My friend Ron Maxwell will screen the director's cut of his film Gods and Generals, plus lots of other short and feature films, panel discussions, and celebrities (Sinise, Voight, Duvall, Baldwin (Stephen, not Alec!)). 2008-05-13T13:20:15-05:00 John Derbyshire http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzkxMzM5ZTNmMjFkMmYxOWI2MDZiZTJjMmJhZjYzZWE=A reader picks a Dawkinsian nit with that David Brooks piece: Derb -- A quick quibble with Brooks' article. He wrote: 'Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.' There's no 'instead'. The fairness/empathy/attachment gene (or more to the point, its sophisticated 'exoskeleton') continues on in the gene pool, if fairness/empathy/attachment turns out to be a good or better survival behavior than not acting that way. The blind, selfish gene is paramount. Always. No matter how much it doesn't look that way here on the outside.[Me]  Just so. Those 'deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment' are all susceptible to explanations in terms of 'cold' survival strategies on the part of our selfish genes. That those explanations are correct has not, so far as I know, been proved beyond doubt; but they do not contradict anything we know about how organisms survive and evolve, and are the best naturalistic explanations we have for fairness, empathy, etc. 2008-05-13T13:17:04-05:00 Mark Hemingway http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWI4Y2RjYmNlZjE1ODljNDRkOGMzMTNmYmE3MGNjNjY=The media's willingness to prostrate themselves at the altar of Obama continues unabated. Having just read Rich's great column on the subject, I opened the Washington Post and read Richard Cohen's latest. After praising McCain's honesty and integrity in 2000, he now claims the Straight Talk Express has 'veered into the mud': I have in mind McCain's charge that Barack Obama is the favored presidential candidate of Hamas. The citation for this remark is the statement of Ahmed Yousef, a Hamas political adviser, who said, 'We like Mr. Obama, and we hope that he will win the election.' Yousef likened Obama to John F. Kennedy and said that Obama 'has a vision to change America' and with it the world. Yousef apparently got so carried away that he forgot that Obama has repeatedly called Hamas a 'terrorist organization.' McCain seems to have forgotten that, too. His campaign has sent out an e-mail showing how guilt by association really works. 'Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders,' it said. The message went on to claim that Obama's foreign policy positions have earned him 'kind words' from Hamas. Never mind that this was the sort of campaigning that McCain vowed to eschew.  Cohen doesn't explain his objection any further. It also doesn't help that his writing here has the patina of dishonesty. 'The message went on to claim that Obama's foreign policy positions have earned him 'kind words' from Hamas' -- Excuse me? That's not a claim, that's exactly what happened. No less than David Axelrod said, "We all agree that John Kennedy was a great president, and it's flattering when anybody says that Barack Obama would follow in his footsteps." Near as I can tell, Cohen's objecting to any time Hamas and Obama are mentioned in the same breath, whether there's a perfectly logical connection or not. It's clear that McCain isn't casually equating Hamas and Obama. Rather, McCain is correctly pointing out that terror groups seem to prefer Obama's policies -- and the goal here is obviously not to elect someone who's policies will allow groups like Hamas to thrive. Of course, Hamas might also like Obama because he seems to have no trouble keeping campaign advisers around that have fully embraced the terror group. But pointing out such inconvienent details is undoubtedly more mud flinging. The upshot here is that Obama isn't even officially the nominee yet, and it would appear the media are so resigned to defending him they're getting lazy about it.  2008-05-13T13:03:28-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODM2NzcyOWEwNzBlZDE2M2E0MWYwYjFmM2U1MzlhYzI=How does the vice president matter in a McCain administration? McCain gives him a portfolio. For instance: McCain delivered that judge speech last week. It was a good speech save for a line or so that reminded conservatives who hadn't yet forgotten that they don't trust his instincts. So, he hands that judge blueprint over to a competent conservative and that helps. He does this with other domestic issues. Like the economy. Like life and family issues (which are going to overlap with economic issues -- and occasionally foreign-policy issues). I think the vice president could serve McCain and conservatives if McCain would be bold. Hey -- it's a maverick move! John McCain is, indeed, set in his ways -- I have no Pollyannish dreams of waking up tomorrow to a different candidate. But he also is a guy who has been around the block a few times and has already said he doesn't have an interest in or knowledge of certain issues. So, maybe it's not insane to think he thinks he can hand 'em over to someone who does -- and who shores up his base a little. 2008-05-13T12:23:24-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGJjMTNmNjA1ZDQxNjc0ZTZlMTkwMWEzMGUzM2QwMGQ=That's Rush right now on McCain's speech yesterday. Vote for McCain, another Al Gore. Roy Spencer writes: here we are with bad science ready to support bad policy decisions that will lead to bad economic times ahead, and no presidential candidate who is willing to ask the hard questions. While we hate to be pandered to by politicians, in this case I can only hope that they really are pandering -- that this is hot air and not prospective policy. 2008-05-13T12:10:01-05:00 Mark Hemingway http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjA4MmQyN2I3NjNjNjE4YzNhMmRlYmRjZjIzODkwNDM=From Jonathan Martin: The Texas megachurch pastor whose past comments about the Catholic Church have caused headaches for John McCain for over two months will issue an apology to Catholics later today, according a top Christian conservative. John Hagee, pastor of San Antonio's Cornerstone Church, will send a letter to Catholic League President William Donahue expressing 'deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful.' 'After engaging in constructive dialogue with Catholic friends and leaders, I now have an improved understanding of the Catholic Church, its relation to the Jewish faith, and the history of anti-Catholicism,' Hagee wrote in a letter running just over two pages.  In a carefully-coordinated plan, Donahue is to accept the apology with a statement of his own. The conservative leader who shared the letter said McCain's campaign was not involved at all in encouraging Hagee to apologize.   2008-05-13T12:06:40-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGY3MmZkNDQxMGVhZGFmMzVkNzcyOGY2MWZmNmYzZDM=That's but one of Elaine Chao's successes as a conservative Cabinet secretary over at the Department of Labor. From our editorial today:  Many of her successes have been preventative. Not only has she kept her budget in line, but she has also led efforts to defeat a series of bad ideas emanating from liberals in Congress, such as burdensome regulations involving ergonomics. She has effectively opposed the No. 1 item on Big Labor's legislative wish list: card check, a.k.a. the Employee Free Choice Act, an Orwellian bill that would deny workers the right to a secret ballot when unions are trying to organize them. Chao's most significant achievement, however, may be proactive rather than defensive: Unions now must provide a far more detailed accounting of their money and activities. In last week's hearing, Harkin called this "going after labor unions" for making them file "onerous new financial disclosure requirements for rank-and-file members." In reality, Chao has empowered rank-and-file members by demanding that labor leaders comply with modern standards of transparency. They must report income, expenses, salaries, and so on. It's all online in a searchable database, too. It means that in the future, union bosses will have a harder time keeping the lid on everything from their left-wing politicking to the bar tabs they rack up at their Las Vegas conventions. 2008-05-13T12:04:17-05:00 Mark Steyn http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmY3Yjg0NzU4MWViMGVlY2IyYjZlYTc1YTFhYzA4MGY=My 'flagrant Islamophobia' (according to the Canadian Islamic Congress) doesn't seem to be making much headway up north: The poll, conducted for CanWest News Service, revealed Canadians would be more open to voting for a party led by a Muslim or atheist than one led by an evangelical Christian. 2008-05-13T11:56:55-05:00 Peter Wehner http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmQxOGNjNzE1NjhiMWUxMmExNjdhNGZiNDAwMzMwYzQ=I have written about Obama and the reemergence of his American flag pin elsewhere this morning. Given his transparent pandering on this issue, I wonder what the effect will be on some of those liberals who not long ago praised Obama for not wearing it. I have in mind, for example, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post. In his May 6, 2008 column, Cohen wrote this: Sometimes I think the best thing about Barack Obama is that little empty space on his lapel. It is where other politicians wear the American flag pin, a kitschy piece of empty symbolism that tells you nothing about that particular person except that he or she thinks like everyone else. Obama's flag, invisible to the naked eye, is the Jolly Roger of a politician thinking for himself. The flag pin issue arose last fall when someone noticed that Obama was campaigning in the patriotic nude. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, wearing the pin had become de rigueur for politicians. Obama, too, had worn the pin but took it off when he started "noticing people wearing a lapel pin, but not acting very patriotic." Some of these people, he said unconvincingly, were not voting for veterans' benefits and the like -- "not voting to make sure that disability payments were coming out on time." I suspect more to the point -- and much more important than votes on veterans' issues -- was Obama's sense that the flag pin, rather than representing patriotism, was an emblem of conformity and hypocrisy... Many people will read a lot of meaning into Obama's refusal to wear the pin. Some will see it as a lack of patriotism, an emotional distance from the country that has served him so well. Others, such as I, will see it as an expression of cool, the statement of a candidate who wants to be president but not at the cost of his intellectual integrity. And still others (me again) will see it as Obama's push-back, his reluctance to do something simply because it is demanded of him. An allergy to cant can be an admirable quality in a politician, although not necessarily a politically smart one... This column would itself be an exercise in pandering if it did not acknowledge that, on occasion, Obama can practice the old politics with the best of them... Still, it is bracing to see a presidential candidate recoil, for the most part, from the orthodoxies of pandering. In this regard, the lack of a flag pin has become an important sign of Obama's desire to think for himself. For all it says about Obama, I salute it. Now that Obama has embraced cant and the orthodoxies of pandering, I wonder if Cohen and other liberals will take him to task for it. It would be an admirable display of independent thought if they did. Cohen is quite wrong, I think, to say that the American flag pin is "a kitschy piece of empty symbolism" -- and to pretend it takes Sharansky-like courage not to wear it is nonsense. But at least Cohen will be consistent in his hatred of it. It seems to me that Obama is worse -- pandering to the Left when it suits him (and of course done with his own touch of high-minded arrogance), pandering toward the center when it advances his own self-interest. Obama seems quite skilled at playing this game; the question is how long it will take before people from every part of the political spectrum begin to call him on it. Right now Obama is rightly thought to be a heavy favorite to win the presidency, especially in an environment that strongly favors Democrats. He is an extremely gifted candidate with a first-rate political operation behind him. But if the impression metastasizes that Obama is, at his core, a man of leftist instincts and unreliable character, he could make a race that shouldn't be competitive into one that is. 2008-05-13T11:50:50-05:00 Mark Steyn http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDViOWUwMTA5OWI2NmY3ZWM1ZDVlOGIzN2JjNjRlOTY=I agree with Derb. Given the population profiles of most western nations (NRO In-House Demography Bore alert!), we should be trying to figure out how to telescope education rather than send the entire citizenry to college till they're 30 so they can come out and be 'community organizers' and 'diversity outreach coordinators'. When Barack is elected Community-Organizer-In-Chief with Michelle as First Diversity Consultant, perhaps every other practitioner of their grim callings can be reassigned, or, if not, dumped on an atoll in the south Pacific to community-organize amongst themselves. On the tinkering, Derb's even more right. I have a lot of respect for fellows who are brilliant at one thing but nevertheless like to potter at something else entirely. I remember being very impressed to discover that Frank Loesser, the composer of 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' and Guys And Dolls, was also a prodigious carpenter and cabinetmaker whose home was filled with amazing pieces of his own design and construction. He once got one of those pompous letters from some Hollywood vice-president or other headed 'From The Desk Of...' So he went into his shop and spent the weekend crafting a beautiful life-size desk corner complete with inlay and moldings, and mailed it back to the studio suit with a piece of paper headed 'From The Desk Of Frank Loesser'. On a broader socio-cultural point, I vaguely feel that people who don't know where stuff comes from or how it works are more receptive to bigger government. That's one reason why Canada and much of western Europe, both of which are more urbanized and in which more people live in small apartments, vote leftier than America.  As I said, that's a hunch, but I'd be interested to know if there's any data to back up my prejudices.    2008-05-13T11:49:53-05:00 Katherine Connell http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjBiZTMzM2E0NjA5YWI1YTQ0Y2JmN2UyNmMzMWRhOWQ=The latest on the candidates . . . Clinton Running Hard as West Virginia Votes The New York Times Setting a Tone: Lightens Up Wardrobe as Race Winds Down The Boston Herald Post-Crucible Real Clear Politics McCain Differs With Bush on Climate Change The New York Times Cindy Lags With Public Image The Washington Times Picks Climate Words With Delicacy The Wall Street Journal Pushes Environmental Policy Politico Outlines a Plan to Tackle Global Warming Los Angeles Times GOP Strives to Avert Miss. Train Wreck The Hill Bob Barr Running For President As a Libertarian Los Angeles Times Obama Puts On a Flag Pin The Chicago Sun-Times Braces for West Virginia Setback The Wall Street Journal Not at Home in W.Va. The Washington Times Confronting Questions, Obama Assures Jews of His Support The New York Times Racist Incidents Give Some Campaigners Pause The Washington Post Long Country Road Politico State of the Race Legal But Controversial, It Helped Get Out the Vote The New York Times Democrats' Colorado Dilemmas The Wall Street Journal Democrats Say Let the Contest Continue USA Today The General Election Is Calling The Washington Post Five Things to Watch in W. Va. Politico 2008-05-13T11:49:16-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2ZhMDRmM2M3MzEyNTc1MmI0MTA1M2VjZGI3MThmZjU=endorses school choice: I know it may surprise some that I would support a school voucher program, but I am proud to do so -- and I especially support the D.C. scholarships. Many here in Washington also favor this program: community and business leaders, educators, parents, and elected officials who are putting children first. I would oppose this voucher program if it took money from the D.C. public schools, but it doesn't. I support this package because it provides much-needed financial support to all D.C. schools and because it offers parents a choice without hurting public schools. That's a win-win situation. We must make sure that children in the District are given every chance to attend schools that work for them. To do anything else is wrong. Moms, dads, aunts, uncles and other guardians in my community tell me that these programs are making a difference in their children's lives and giving them hope they have never had. I salute them for working to make the right choices for their children. In March, I held a community meeting at the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center, where several families whose children have scholarships told me how much the program has done for them. One mom, Wanda Gaddis, has worked for a long time, including serving as a parent advocate at her daughter's public elementary school, to make sure her daughter gets a great education. At the meeting, I learned that her daughter is attending a private school in Ward 8 through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. Gaddis told me, 'The schools in D.C. were not educating my child. At first I did not have a choice, but I am so thankful that I and so many other parents did get choice with the Opportunity Scholarship Program. I can't begin to tell you how much my child's education has improved since starting with this program. It is a program that is helping to educate our children so they can have better, more productive lives and in turn create better communities here in Ward 8 and across D.C.' 2008-05-13T11:36:39-05:00 Jonah Goldberg http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjhmNzRmOTMzM2YwNWQ2YjY0ZGE5OGZmNWU5OWI3NGU=This is what it's come to. I have so, so many thoughts on this. But I also have deadlines out the ying-yang. From the WSJ:  BOULDER, Colo. -- How liberal is the University of Colorado at Boulder? The campus hot-dog stand sells tofu wieners. A recent pro-marijuana rally drew a crowd of 10,000, roughly a third the size of the student body. And according to one professor's analysis of voter registration, the 800-strong faculty includes just 32 Republicans. Chancellor G.P. 'Bud' Peterson surveys this landscape with unease. A college that champions diversity, he believes, must think beyond courses in gay literature, Chicano studies and feminist theory. 'We should also talk about intellectual diversity,' he says. So over the next year, Mr. Peterson plans to raise $9 million to create an endowed chair for what is thought to be the nation's first Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy. Mr. Peterson's quest has been greeted with protests from some faculty and students, who say the move is too -- well, radical. 'Why set aside money specifically for a conservative?' asks Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. 'I'd rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective.' Me:  I agree they shouldn't set aside money for a conservative (more on that later), but can anyone really argue that 'quality academics' aren't brought on to faculties to represent particular perspectives? Really?  2008-05-13T11:31:54-05:00 John Derbyshire http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzgwMDMwNDM0NmRlNDVjNzJlYTM3NTZlYTUyZGYyNWM=Very interesting piece by David Brooks today. He's certainly been doing some good human-sciences reading, though Pinker's an odd omission from his list. Yogi Berra syndrome perhaps: 'Nobody goes there any more, it's too crowded.' My own strong impression, most recently from that Tucson conference, is that what Brooks calls 'the neuroscience revolution' has been considerably oversold. There are a lot of bitty experimental results, some of them very suggestive, and some plausible attempts at grand theories (Global Workspace, or Penrose/Hameroff's 'quantum neurobiology') that sure are fun to talk about, but are still data-light. The metaphysical problems of mind are, as I say in the current NRODT, still pretty much where they were when 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre. Brooks' remarks about institutional religion are, I think, sensible. Human beings are spiritual creatures, and that side of our nature must find nourishment. That the big old institutional faiths -- Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism -- will continue to provide that nourishment is open to reasonable doubt. We are more and more accustomed to high evidentiary standards in our work and leisure -- if only from watching courtroom dramas on TV or doing quality control and evaluative work. Each of us has his own threshold of credulity, of course, but it's hard to believe the average hasn't been creeping up, and will continue to do so. This saps away at faith in the magical and miraculous, without which the big old religions are holed below the water line. Probably Brooks is right, or part-right. Reflective people will indeed turn to a sort of 'neural Buddhism,' some kind of organized system of spirituality that doesn't require us to believe in incredible occurrences in the remote past, or in the individual personality surviving death. For the unreflective, Chesterton's rule will kick in, and people will drift off into Wiccanism, Scientology, or The Secret. This could be an interesting century for religion; and not necessarily (David Brook's guess, and mine) in ways that would gladden the heart of either Richard Dawkins or Benedict XVI. 2008-05-13T11:26:45-05:00