Monthly Archives: November 2007

November 25, 2007 — Scott Johnson

A memory of George Lincoln Rockwell

George Lincoln Rockwell was the founder of the American Nazi Party who was assassinated by a former follower in 1967. Following Rockwell’s death, William Buckley devoted an interesting column (collected in The Jeweler’s Eye) to his own epistolary encounter with Rockwell. Buckley’s remembrance begins: “Surely George Lincoln Rockwell was insane.” I saw Rockwell speak in 1965 or 1966 around the time of his infamous Playboy interview on one of “his »
November 25, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Visions of Annapolis

In his excellent paper inquiring whether American policy has been altered regarding Israel’s rights in a peace settlement, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold carefully examines President Bush’s previous commitments to Israel. I take it as a given that those commitments are direly threatened by the administration’s refusal even to abide by President Bush’s minimal criteria for attendance at the Annapolis peace conference. Now comes word from »
November 24, 2007 — John Hinderaker

“The Silence of the Artistic Lambs”

Don’t miss Mark Steyn’s latest: All true, when you see the border post ahead of you down the road, or when the customs inspector demands “Your papers, mein herr.” But what if instead the border comes to you? Not explicitly, but in a kind of demographic equivalent to the overlaid area codes of a North American metropolis. Amsterdam is the city of legalized pot and prostitution and a gay hedonist »
November 24, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Maple Leaf Rag

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Scott Joplin. In the video clip above we can hear Joplin performing his incredibly successful composition “Maple Leaf Rag” through one of the Pianola rolls he cut in 1916 and 1917. The Allmusic Guide profile of Joplin captures the vicissitudes of his reputation: “Maple Leaf Rag” remained a constant in popular music throughout the Jazz Age, but the better part of Joplin’s »
November 24, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Everton on fire

When last we looked in on Everton, the club had just lost the Merseyside derby, thanks to horrible refereeing. Since then (Oct. 20), Everton has reeled off six victories in seven matches, the latest being today’s 7-1 thrashing of Sunderland. The only “blemish” was a draw at Chelsea, a team that hasn’t lost at home in recent memory. Three of the victories have come in the Premier League, two in »
November 24, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Call Me Cynical, But…

…I am deeply skeptical of the CNN/YouTube Presidential debate scheduled for Wednesday evening. On a personal level, I like CNN; I’ve rarely worked with a company whose employees are as congenial. But CNN’s commitment to the left side of the political spectrum has been getting stronger and stronger. So it makes me nervous to read that a team of “top journalists at CNN’s political unit” has been poring over thousands »
November 24, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Rachel Paulose, a liberal’s view

Daniel Solove is a distinguished law professor at George Washington University. He was also a classmate of Rachel Paulose at Yale law school. Until recently, Paulose was the U.S. attorney in Minnesota. She left this post after coming under persistent personal attack from some career prosecutors in the office. Solove has this to say about Paulose and the attacks on her character: As one who has been very critical of »
November 24, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

All politics is national

John Howard, a staunch ally of the U.S., has been soundly defeated in the election for prime minister of Australia. Howard, the second longest serving PM in Australia’s history, was expected to lose, but not by as large a margin as he did. Kevin Rudd will be the new prime minister. As Michelle Malkin observes, the differences between Howard and Rudd are not likely to be great, especially when it »
November 24, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Iranian-Backed Militia Blamed for Bombing

The New York Times has a good report on the bombing of a pet market in Baghdad yesterday that killed as many as 13 people. Last night, the American military said that it had detained four people associated with the bombing, and had found that it was the work of an Iranian-supported extremist group: [Rear Adm. Gregory] Smith said the bomb was packed with ball bearings to maximize casualties and »
November 24, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Blinded by the nour

Yvonne Ridley is a left-wing British journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban in 2001. She seems to present as a case study in the Stockholm syndrome with a multicultural Londonistan twist. In the video above, she stumps for her new faith at the University of California-Irvine. Jonathan reports at Red County OC Blog in “A warm and fuzzy Taliban?” Michelle Malkin issues a useless idiot alert. Via Little Green »
November 24, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Bridge on the River Nowhere

Developments in the Middle East provide much to worry over. The consensus of reported opinion about the Israeli operation that took out a structure in Syria holds that the object of the attack was a nuclear reactor. Haaretz, however, begs to differ. Haaretz reports that Professor Uzi Even concludes that the object of the attack was “Not a reactor — something far more vicious.” At Right Wing Nuthouse, Rick Moran »
November 24, 2007 — Scott Johnson

A chump at Oxford

I’ve written repeatedly about the “The Israel Lobby” by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt since it was first published last year by the London Review of Books and posted in pseudoscholarly form as a working paper on the Kennedy School site. I wrote about the essay in “They too dare to speak out!” immediately after it was published and in numerous subsequent posts. Mearsheimer and Walt deny that they »
November 23, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Deluded realists

We’ve all heard the story of the psychology professor who was convinced that babies could swim from the time of birth. When his own child was two weeks old, the prof dumped her in a pool and the infant sank like a stone. After reviving his baby, the professor declared that he obviously had waited too long, and that the child wasn’t young enough any more. It’s pretty clear that »
November 23, 2007 — John Hinderaker

The Anti-al Qaeda Insurgency

The Chicago Tribune has an excellent report on a familiar story: the revolt of former Sunni insurgents against the murderous al Qaeda thugs who for a time dominated much of Sunni Iraq. The Tribune tells the story of Amariyah, a Baghdad neighborhood that was the scene of an al Qaeda reign of terror until a former insurgent leader named Abul Abed killed the local al Qaeda commander: The next day, »
November 23, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Beyond rescuing

Last weekend, Israel revived England’s fading hopes of qualifying for the 2008 European soccer championship by defeating Russia on a last second goal. Israel’s victory meant that England only needed a draw at home against Croatia on Wednesday (Nov. 21) to qualify for Europe. Although England rarely loses at home, getting the necessary result was hardly a given. Croatia, under former Everton defender Slaven Bilic, has become a quality side. »
November 23, 2007 — Scott Johnson

A Chinese slap in the face

A naval officer writes: Wire services and some newspapers have reported that China, at the last possible minute, denied USS Kitty Hawk and her battle group access to Hong Kong for a pre-planned Thanksgiving port visit. What hasn’t been widely reported yet is that several hundred families of the Kitty Hawk crew, who live here in Yokosuka, Japan, had flown to Hong Kong to spend the holiday with their spouses. »
November 23, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Hypocrisy and Incompetence

That’s a fair characterization of Wednesday’s editorial in the New York Times on the 2nd Amendment case that will be decided next term by the Supreme Court. The hypocrisy lies in the Times’ seeming horror that the case is going to the Supreme Court at all: By agreeing yesterday to rule on whether provisions of the District of Columbia »