Monthly Archives: February 2005

Meet Mullah Rockety

Reader Rick Vatsaas wonders if this Telegraph story might not provide the inspiration for a new twist on our colleague’s nom de cyber: “Rocket man gives up rebellion to put the Taliban on road to peace.” I don’t think so, but it’s an interesting story. »

Tear down this wall, take 3

I wrote about the upcoming Dartmouth trustee election this morning in my Daily Standard column “Bucking the deans at Dartmouth.” At The Volokh Conspiracy insurgent candidate Todd Zywicki has an important update on the mythical “level playing field” on which the election campaign is being waged. »

Still Not Getting It

Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times, has engaged in an interesting email exchange with Jeff Jarvis, who is a Democrat and a liberal but is also a genuinely nice, smart guy. Today Keller was the keynote speaker at Friday night »

Yale vs. JAG: An update

I initially wrote at some length about Yale’s ban on campus recruiters for the military’s JAG program in “Yale vs. U.S. military, round 2.” I’m a couple weeks late in getting around to noting Keith Urbahn’s Yale Daily News column criticizing Yale’s very own lawsuit seeking to have the Solomon Amendment declared unconstitutional, but his criticism remains timely: “End to ‘don’t ask’ won’t come through JAG ban.” Also of interest »

On behalf of Rocket Man

I thank all of our readers who have written to express their support, encouragement, and appreciation of him and of our site in response to Rocket Man’s expression of regret for the intemperate message he sent one of our emailers. Rocket Man has declared a brief moratorium on reading our email, but I have let him know of the response to his post below and want you to know that, »

Postcards of the hanging

Well, it’s not “Desolation Row,” but at Harvard they’re selling postcards of the hanging. Everybody sing along: Here comes the blind commissioner They’ve got him in a trance One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker The other is in his pants And the riot squad they’re restless They need somewhere to go As Lady and I look out tonight From Desolation Row. Paul Nussbaum of the Knight Ridder Newspapers »

Lebanese March to Protest Occupation

Tens of thousands of Lebanese marched today in Beirut to demand an end to the Syrian occupation. In an effort to show national unity in a country where religious conflict led to civil war, some marchers held a Koran in one hand and a cross in the other. The photo below shows the protest march: Meanwhile, President Bush said that Syria “must end its occupation of Lebanon.” And the head »

Where Is That Delete Key Again?

A number of readers have written, asking whether an email purporting to have been sent by me, which was posted on a site called Minnesota Politics, is genuine. It is. Here is the story: We have received relatively little hate mail in the two-and-a half years that we have been writing for this site. One reason is that we rarely choose to engage left-wing sites like Daily Kos and Atrios »

Tear down this wall, take 2

The Daily Standard has posted my column on Ward Churchill, Lawrence Summers, “Cool Hand Luke,” and the upcoming election of two alumni trustees to the Dartmouth board: “Bucking the deans at Dartmouth.” Please check it out if you think you might find it of interest. »

The Madness Continues

Democratic Congressman Maurice Hinchey breaks a news story, via Little Green Footballs: They »

Race-based voter suppression — exposed!

The humorless and now contemptible Al Franken peddles one of the stupid Democratic lies concerning the last election in his column today (linked below) when he refers to “the [Republican] race-based voter suppression of yesteryear »

Baathist Surrender In Works?

This could come to nothing, of course, but it also could be the best news from Iraq in a long time: “U.S. in Secret Talks with Iraqi Insurgents”: U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers are conducting secret talks with Iraq’s Sunni insurgents on ways to end fighting there, Time magazine reported on Sunday, citing Pentagon and other sources. The magazine cited a secret meeting between two members of the U.S. military »

Coming attractions

I’m following the story of Cool Hand Larry Summers and his Harvard faculty wardens through the work of Rick Richman of the Jewish Current Issues blog. Rick’s latest installment notes the pushback within Harvard to the efforts of the wardens: “Veritas in education, part III.” Rick emails: “I think this coming Tuesday [emergency meeting of the faculty] will be an important moment in academic history (even if it is only »

The Insanity of the American Left

I can’t count the number of emails we’ve gotten from Democrats on the Jeff Gannon “story.” For the most part, they drip with venom and irrational hatred. I’d like to believe that there is some kind of a respectable left in this country, but where is it? It sure isn’t showing up in our email inbox. This missive, which came in this morning, is typical: I guess you “holier-than-thou moral »

Civil Disobedience in England

Parliament has banned fox hunting–actually, using dogs to hunt any wild animal–throughout England. This follows a heated campaign, which the pro-hunting forces lost despite the superior pulchritude they brought to the effort. On the first weekend after the ban went into effect, thousands of hunters took to the fields in protest; the Washington Times reports. Many hunters claimed to be staying within the law by not actually pursuing foxes, although »

Unfunny, and demagogic

In his transformation from comedian to pundit, Al Franken has maintained the humorlessness that distinguished his show business career after the expiration of the Al Franken decade. In his capacity as a pundit, Franken has added the element of demagogy on a variety of subjects. Now he peddles the party line like a good left-wing apparatchik. In today’s Los Angeles Times he shows he can hustle racial issues with the »

The LA Times gets it wrong

Reader Diana Magrann draws our attention to this lame column on Eason Jordan by media critic David Shaw in today’s Los Angeles Times: “The blog squad can add another notch to its belt.” Diana has written to Shaw to point out that he “appears to overlook the fact that Mr. Eason Jordan’s comments in Davos were neither unclear nor unique. Indeed, he had been making similar statements since 2002, and »