Patricia Buckley, wife of National Review’s William F Buckley, died last night. Rest in peace, madam, and for the rest of you, please say a prayer for her loved ones.
Year: 2007
Terror Warrior?
Rudy Giuliani should be forgiven for his social liberalism and elected president because he’ll fight an aggressive War on Terror—or so we’re told. Now, even that is questionable:
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[I]n discussing the deployment of more troops, Mr. Giuliani has been alone in saying that such a strategy may not succeed, potentially providing him cover should the situation in Iraq deteriorate further. And he has put the strategy in a broader context that plays down the importance of Iraq.
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Terrorists “are going to continue to be at war with us, no matter what the outcome in Iraq,” Mr. Giuliani said recently in New Hampshire. The night before, he said that “there are no sure things,” and that if the United States fails in Iraq, “we have to be ready for that, too.” In California a few days later, speaking of “the danger of focusing on Iraq too much,” he said that complete success there would not win the fight against terrorism, and that failure there would not lose it.
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I’ve been trying to figure out the why Rudy’s terror rhetoric is so underwhelming yet so appealing to people, and the other night it hit me: it’s nothing the average talk-radio listener off the street couldn’t repeat back to you. “Terrorists will come here…war whether we want it or not…the president has acknowledged mistakes…” which is true enough as far as it goes, but that’s about as specific as America’s Mayor gets (listen for his answer as to what mistakes we made in Iraq…hint: it ain’t there).
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Man, this house of cards is seriously overdue for a nice, strong gust of wind…
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[I]n discussing the deployment of more troops, Mr. Giuliani has been alone in saying that such a strategy may not succeed, potentially providing him cover should the situation in Iraq deteriorate further. And he has put the strategy in a broader context that plays down the importance of Iraq.
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Terrorists “are going to continue to be at war with us, no matter what the outcome in Iraq,” Mr. Giuliani said recently in New Hampshire. The night before, he said that “there are no sure things,” and that if the United States fails in Iraq, “we have to be ready for that, too.” In California a few days later, speaking of “the danger of focusing on Iraq too much,” he said that complete success there would not win the fight against terrorism, and that failure there would not lose it.
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I’ve been trying to figure out the why Rudy’s terror rhetoric is so underwhelming yet so appealing to people, and the other night it hit me: it’s nothing the average talk-radio listener off the street couldn’t repeat back to you. “Terrorists will come here…war whether we want it or not…the president has acknowledged mistakes…” which is true enough as far as it goes, but that’s about as specific as America’s Mayor gets (listen for his answer as to what mistakes we made in Iraq…hint: it ain’t there).
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Man, this house of cards is seriously overdue for a nice, strong gust of wind…
Life in Bush’s Amerika of Fear – or – CAIR Needs to Get a Life
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Two hours before the Islamic Center of Clarksville held its 1 p.m. Friday prayer service, called Jummah, a Quran was found vandalized on the front steps.
Two hours before the Islamic Center of Clarksville held its 1 p.m. Friday prayer service, called Jummah, a Quran was found vandalized on the front steps.
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The front of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, read “Mohammad pedophile” while an expletive was written inside, smeared under two strips of bacon, according to a Clarksville Police report. The report labeled the incident a hate crime.
The front of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, read “Mohammad pedophile” while an expletive was written inside, smeared under two strips of bacon, according to a Clarksville Police report. The report labeled the incident a hate crime.
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The bacon strips are offensive to Muslims because they are forbidden from eating pork.
The bacon strips are offensive to Muslims because they are forbidden from eating pork.
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Apparently, CAIR wants the FBI to investigate the case. Last time I checked, the feds were kinda busy with that whole “global movement of Islamic fanatics trying to kill people en masse” thing. I’d rather they didn’t make detours for every vandalism case that comes their way.
Apparently, CAIR wants the FBI to investigate the case. Last time I checked, the feds were kinda busy with that whole “global movement of Islamic fanatics trying to kill people en masse” thing. I’d rather they didn’t make detours for every vandalism case that comes their way.
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Man’s Inhumanity to Man…& the Spin Defending It
Back on April 5, the Reporter ran this pro-life letter:
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Abortion: ‘Man’s inhumanity to man’
Abortion: ‘Man’s inhumanity to man’
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Keith Kramer
Keith Kramer
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Because abortion cannot be defended on its own merits, population controllers argue for a woman’s right to choose, never about what is being chosen.
Because abortion cannot be defended on its own merits, population controllers argue for a woman’s right to choose, never about what is being chosen.
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Choosing abortion always kills the innocent glimmer of light within our very dark world. A grieving time for life, our society begs healing from questions still to be asked; yet a man’s intellect never quite permits asking, lest complacency flee like dried dandelion fluff.
Choosing abortion always kills the innocent glimmer of light within our very dark world. A grieving time for life, our society begs healing from questions still to be asked; yet a man’s intellect never quite permits asking, lest complacency flee like dried dandelion fluff.
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We would dwell beyond the snares of “man’s inhumanity to man,” leaving inhumanity at the door of the Nazi holocaust. Now that we are the enforcer, we justify atrocity as somehow necessary and excusable.
We would dwell beyond the snares of “man’s inhumanity to man,” leaving inhumanity at the door of the Nazi holocaust. Now that we are the enforcer, we justify atrocity as somehow necessary and excusable.
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“I tremble for my country when I recall that God is just.”—Thomas Jefferson
“I tremble for my country when I recall that God is just.”—Thomas Jefferson
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Today this response appeared:
Today this response appeared:
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Brent Schmitz
Brent Schmitz
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Mr. Keith Kraemer asserts in his letter to the editor on Thursday (April 5) that “abortion cannot be defended on its own merits,” and proceeds to refer to pro-choice Americans as “population controllers,” evoking images of the government mandated infanticide and involuntary sterilizations of parents that have occurred in China for the past decades.
Mr. Keith Kraemer asserts in his letter to the editor on Thursday (April 5) that “abortion cannot be defended on its own merits,” and proceeds to refer to pro-choice Americans as “population controllers,” evoking images of the government mandated infanticide and involuntary sterilizations of parents that have occurred in China for the past decades.
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It’s equally safe to assume that there won’t be a mass program to imprison & kill Jews in the United States, too. Does that mean we can’t attribute such a desire to neo-Nazis operating within the country? Furthermore, while a variety of motivations prop up abortion (all of them sick), there is a very real movement of “population controllers” on the Left, as evidenced by Mark Morford of the San Francisco Gate.
It’s equally safe to assume that there won’t be a mass program to imprison & kill Jews in the United States, too. Does that mean we can’t attribute such a desire to neo-Nazis operating within the country? Furthermore, while a variety of motivations prop up abortion (all of them sick), there is a very real movement of “population controllers” on the Left, as evidenced by Mark Morford of the San Francisco Gate.
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By focusing on abortion as “inhumanity,” Mr. Kraemer ignores the vital question of this issue, “When does human life begin?” I am neither a doctor nor a theologian, and do not presume to answer this question with an assertion, though Mr. Kraemer feels no such apprehension.
By focusing on abortion as “inhumanity,” Mr. Kraemer ignores the vital question of this issue, “When does human life begin?” I am neither a doctor nor a theologian, and do not presume to answer this question with an assertion, though Mr. Kraemer feels no such apprehension.
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I suspect Mr. Kramer “feels no such apprehension” about accepting unborn humanity as a given because we live in an age where that fact ought to be as clear as that the sun rises in the morning. I think that, considering the length of the average Opinion letter, Kramer focused on a point that needed to be heard.
I suspect Mr. Kramer “feels no such apprehension” about accepting unborn humanity as a given because we live in an age where that fact ought to be as clear as that the sun rises in the morning. I think that, considering the length of the average Opinion letter, Kramer focused on a point that needed to be heard.
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I would ask him what qualifications he has to assert the beginning of life at conception. This position, if supported adequately, is certainly valid, and thus would render abortion immoral, but Mr. Kraemer has given us no evidence to support his conjecture.
I would ask him what qualifications he has to assert the beginning of life at conception. This position, if supported adequately, is certainly valid, and thus would render abortion immoral, but Mr. Kraemer has given us no evidence to support his conjecture.
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I also find it interesting that Mr. Kraemer compares a pro-choice society to Nazism without acknowledging that there is doubt in whether or not abortion terminates a human life—there is no such doubt that millions of innocents died in the Holocaust.
I also find it interesting that Mr. Kraemer compares a pro-choice society to Nazism without acknowledging that there is doubt in whether or not abortion terminates a human life—there is no such doubt that millions of innocents died in the Holocaust.
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Actually, the only doubt is among those who want abortion to be legal. In reality, “life begins at conception” is a scientific fact. But Mr. Schmitz’s acknowledgement of doubt points to another flaw in the case for abortion: unless science could unequivocally establish that life begins at some point after conception, to terminate something you understand might be life is a clearly-evil act.
Actually, the only doubt is among those who want abortion to be legal. In reality, “life begins at conception” is a scientific fact. But Mr. Schmitz’s acknowledgement of doubt points to another flaw in the case for abortion: unless science could unequivocally establish that life begins at some point after conception, to terminate something you understand might be life is a clearly-evil act.
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Mr. Kraemer ends his letter with a quotation from Thomas Jefferson. I will do the same. “Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.” Mr. Kraemer, defend your position without invoking religious dogma, which cannot be argued against, and our country can begin to have a serious debate about the moral dilemma that is abortion.
Mr. Kraemer ends his letter with a quotation from Thomas Jefferson. I will do the same. “Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.” Mr. Kraemer, defend your position without invoking religious dogma, which cannot be argued against, and our country can begin to have a serious debate about the moral dilemma that is abortion.
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The most serious debate our country ever had was about the moral dilemma that is slavery. And that is the evil to which Jefferson referred when he trembled for his country at the thought of God’s justice. Does Schmitz think Jefferson’s invocation of “religious dogma” invalidated his disgust for slavery? Did the explicitly-religious rhetoric invoked by the rest of the Founding Fathers supporting the overall concept of liberty invalidate the American Revolution or the Constitutional Convention? What about the deep influence religion held on Abraham Lincoln? Or Churchill’s calls to fight for “the survival of Christian civilization”?
The most serious debate our country ever had was about the moral dilemma that is slavery. And that is the evil to which Jefferson referred when he trembled for his country at the thought of God’s justice. Does Schmitz think Jefferson’s invocation of “religious dogma” invalidated his disgust for slavery? Did the explicitly-religious rhetoric invoked by the rest of the Founding Fathers supporting the overall concept of liberty invalidate the American Revolution or the Constitutional Convention? What about the deep influence religion held on Abraham Lincoln? Or Churchill’s calls to fight for “the survival of Christian civilization”?
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Maybe the issues revolving around America’s birth, slavery, the Civil War, and World War II don’t count as “serious.”
Maybe the issues revolving around America’s birth, slavery, the Civil War, and World War II don’t count as “serious.”
Hollywood’s At It Again? You Bet Your Sweet Shoe-Phone!
It seems Hollywood’s gonna bring the classic spy sitcom Get Smart to the big screen. As a fan of the original (hey TV Land, how ‘bout putting it back on your lineup?), I really want this movie to be good. But considering that sitcom-to-film translations have a mixed track record (good…and ugh), I’m a bit anxious…
Coulter Tells It Like It Is
I really haven’t felt like weighing in on the Don Imus flap. Fortunately, Ann does it for me. (By the way, about a year ago she wrote a piece about the now-absolved Duke lacrosse players that remains a must-read for this important, oft-overlooked point:
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Yes, of course no one “deserves” to die for a mistake. Or to be raped or falsely accused of rape for a mistake. I have always been unabashedly anti-murder, anti-rape and anti-false accusation — and I don’t care who knows about it! -But these statements would roll off the tongue more easily in a world that so much as tacitly acknowledged that all these messy turns of fate followed behavior that your mother could have told you was tacky.
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Yes, of course no one “deserves” to die for a mistake. Or to be raped or falsely accused of rape for a mistake. I have always been unabashedly anti-murder, anti-rape and anti-false accusation — and I don’t care who knows about it! -But these statements would roll off the tongue more easily in a world that so much as tacitly acknowledged that all these messy turns of fate followed behavior that your mother could have told you was tacky.
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Not very long ago, all the precursor behavior in these cases would have been recognized as vulgar — whether or not anyone ended up dead, raped or falsely accused of rape. But in a nation of people in constant terror of being perceived as “judgmental,” I’m not sure most people do recognize that anymore.
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It shouldn’t be necessary to point out that girls shouldn’t be bar-hopping alone or taking their clothes off in front of strangers, and that young men shouldn’t be hiring strippers. But we live in a world of Bill Clinton, Paris Hilton, Howard Stern, Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman,” Democratic fund-raisers at the Playboy Mansion and tax deductions for entertaining clients at strip clubs.
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This is an age in which the expression “girls gone wild” is becoming a redundancy. So even as the bodies pile up, I don’t think the message about integrity is getting through.
Heresy from the Church of Gore
A warmer climate could prove to be more beneficial than the one we have now. Much of the alarm over climate change is based on ignorance of what is normal for weather and climate. There is no evidence, for instance, that extreme weather events are increasing in any systematic way, according to scientists at the U.S. National Hurricane Center, the World Meteorological Organization and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which released the second part of this year’s report earlier this month). Indeed, meteorological theory holds that, outside the tropics, weather in a warming world should be less variable, which might be a good thing.
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In many other respects, the ill effects of warming are overblown. Sea levels, for example, have been increasing since the end of the last ice age. When you look at recent centuries in perspective, ignoring short-term fluctuations, the rate of sea-level rise has been relatively uniform (less than a couple of millimeters a year). There’s even some evidence that the rate was higher in the first half of the twentieth century than in the second half. Overall, the risk of sea-level rise from global warming is less at almost any given location than that from other causes, such as tectonic motions of the earth’s surface.
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That’s Richard Lindzen, the Alfred Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT, in the pages of Newsweek. How inconvenient.
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In many other respects, the ill effects of warming are overblown. Sea levels, for example, have been increasing since the end of the last ice age. When you look at recent centuries in perspective, ignoring short-term fluctuations, the rate of sea-level rise has been relatively uniform (less than a couple of millimeters a year). There’s even some evidence that the rate was higher in the first half of the twentieth century than in the second half. Overall, the risk of sea-level rise from global warming is less at almost any given location than that from other causes, such as tectonic motions of the earth’s surface.
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That’s Richard Lindzen, the Alfred Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT, in the pages of Newsweek. How inconvenient.
Division on the Right
I’ve got a bone to pick with two of our potential candidates: Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich.
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Not on policy grounds—both men are (though not perfect) conservative enough to win my support, should they conquer the primaries. I think Thompson has a chance of winning, Newt not so much, but there are a lot of people excited about the mere possibility of their candidacies. Which is why the “maybe” status of their candidacies bothers me.
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If you want to be president, go for it. Make your cases and do your best to rally the Right. I wouldn’t jump ship (I’m convinced Mitt Romney is the best the field has to offer), but if you can convince the most voters that you’re the standard-bearer, I’ll be more than happy to fight for you after the primary.
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On the flip side, you need to make a decision. If you’re not going to run, you need to say so. A lot of people’s hopes are resting on you two—especially on Thompson—and it’s not right to get their hopes up over nothing.
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It’s this state of limbo that bothers me. Until you make a commitment, your presence in the mix only serves to divide the Right’s support, and help Giuliani—and if we’re going to save the Republican Party from becoming the RINO Party, we need to unite behind a real candidate.
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Not on policy grounds—both men are (though not perfect) conservative enough to win my support, should they conquer the primaries. I think Thompson has a chance of winning, Newt not so much, but there are a lot of people excited about the mere possibility of their candidacies. Which is why the “maybe” status of their candidacies bothers me.
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If you want to be president, go for it. Make your cases and do your best to rally the Right. I wouldn’t jump ship (I’m convinced Mitt Romney is the best the field has to offer), but if you can convince the most voters that you’re the standard-bearer, I’ll be more than happy to fight for you after the primary.
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On the flip side, you need to make a decision. If you’re not going to run, you need to say so. A lot of people’s hopes are resting on you two—especially on Thompson—and it’s not right to get their hopes up over nothing.
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It’s this state of limbo that bothers me. Until you make a commitment, your presence in the mix only serves to divide the Right’s support, and help Giuliani—and if we’re going to save the Republican Party from becoming the RINO Party, we need to unite behind a real candidate.
RIP, Johnny Hart
Johnny Hart, the cartoonist behind BC, died Saturday at 76.
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Though not my favorite comic (that honor would go to Dilbert), BC was always a charming, amusing strip. On my wall, I have one of Mr. Hart’s Sunday strips, which features the following poem:
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There once was a preacher named Charlie D
Whose degree was in Christianity
But he chose to take up botany
So he sailed aboard the HMS B
A fox of a man on a dog of a ship
Allowed his Christianity to slip
And concocted a ‘theory’ while at sea
Designed to make monkeys of you and me.
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Rest in peace, Johnny Hart.
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Though not my favorite comic (that honor would go to Dilbert), BC was always a charming, amusing strip. On my wall, I have one of Mr. Hart’s Sunday strips, which features the following poem:
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There once was a preacher named Charlie D
Whose degree was in Christianity
But he chose to take up botany
So he sailed aboard the HMS B
A fox of a man on a dog of a ship
Allowed his Christianity to slip
And concocted a ‘theory’ while at sea
Designed to make monkeys of you and me.
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Rest in peace, Johnny Hart.
Conservative Standards 