April 29, 2013 — Steven Hayward
It’s an axiom of American cosmopolitanism that Europe is far advanced over the United States in terms of social democracy, tolerance, openness, and so forth, and at the pinnacle of European sophistication stands France. The French have it over us on everything from existential filmmaking, wine and cheese, anti-semitism, and embrace of gay . . . —wait, what’s this? A major populist uprising against gay marriage in France, with hundreds
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April 29, 2013 — Steven Hayward
How did I miss these two 30-second videos last week while compiling the Week in Pictures? The first is a recording, via YouTube, of NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston speculating that the Boston bombing was likely the result of right-wing extremists because Hitler’s birthday was about to be observed. Even though this video has only sound but no images, you have to hear it, not to believe it–much better than reading the
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April 28, 2013 — Steven Hayward
There’s likely an inverse relationship between the decline of the legacy media and the increasingly over-the-top desperation, self-congratulation and spectacle of the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, held last night. You would think the media would do themselves a favor and not televise the proceedings of their Otherness on C-SPAN, just as the Gridiron dinner is not open to cameras. Even Tom Brokaw has had enough; isn’t this almost a
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April 28, 2013 — Steven Hayward
As we noted here a few weeks ago, The Economist has gone off the reservation on climate change, and in the current issue it has done so again on the issue of affirmation action and race-conscious policy. The issue is featured on the cover, which means it is the subject of the first “leader” (house editorial), “Time to Scrap Affirmative Action,” as well as the focus of a long feature
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April 26, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Lot to get through this week; in fact it almost demands a video, but I haven’t got the time. In any case, we need to start with our friends at The Looking Spoon, who made up this poster to make vivid John’s post the other day on how liberals have trouble with this whole “problem of evil” thingie (beyond, that is, rich people, who are clearly evil if you’re a
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April 26, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Just in time for the Weekly Winston comes the fabulous news that the Bank of England has decided to put Churchill on the five-pound note. Now, can we please put Reagan on the twenty, or something? Speaking of Winnie, who according to legend (surely apocryphal) was the inspiration for A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, loyal Power Line reader RS sends along this adaptation of Milne to remind us of why
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April 25, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Modern liberalism is all about “rights”—rights to health care, right to a job, right to food, the right to more rights, and so forth. You know the drill. Of course, these kind of liberal “rights” aren’t rights at all properly understood; they are benefits that require the state to tax or expropriate someone’s property to provide the “right” to someone else. Right now the California state legislature is poised to
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April 24, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Ken Masugi’s long post about “The Big Bang Theory” (the TV show, not the theory) at the LibertyLaw site deserves more notice than just a link in our Picks section. Do read it; it is philosophical-scientific-cultural criticism at its best, with a special bonus of James Schall. I’ve been meaning to comment on BBT myself, but keep putting it off. BBT is clearly the best TV science fiction comedy since
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April 24, 2013 — Steven Hayward
When even the New York Times calls you “the Solyndra of the electric car industry,” you know you’ve had it. Fisker, another Obamanation that cost taxpayers over $500 million in subsidies and props, was losing more than $500,000 per vehicle. (But I’m sure they made up for it in volume.) I especially like this droll bit of narrative in the Times’ story: “Fisker, with its technical problems, management turmoil and
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April 23, 2013 — Steven Hayward
In my Weekly Standard article out a few days ago (“The Climate Circus Leaves Town”), I predicted: What [Obama] may do is tentatively approve Keystone along with a major policy shift that will please environmentalists and subject Keystone to further and perhaps fatal delays. There is talk that the administration may expand the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to require that proposed projects like Keystone document their
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April 22, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Hey everybody—it’s Earth Day! I know, you can hardly contain your excitement. I’m planning to observe it as I do most sunny days on the coast: by lighting up my carbon-intensive barbecue and roasting some green weenies. I’m behind on a lot of things these days, one of them being the update of my Almanac of Environmental Trends. I have managed to complete an update of the air quality section,
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April 21, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Herewith a second installment of my recent interview with Peter Schramm of the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, where he discusses the extraordinary effect of Harry Jaffa, how students should be approached and regarded in the classroom, and the Bowdoin report. About 7 minutes long.
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April 20, 2013 — Steven Hayward
I know I’ve posted here before Churchill’s infamous reflections about Islam from the unabridged edition of The River War, but it would seem worth reposting them at the end of this particular week: How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent
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April 20, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Well, it’s pretty obvious what has to dominate a roundup of the best memes, cartoons, and pictures of this week. But there”s lots of other important news this week, including the remarkable admission by Obamacare author Max Baucus that Obamacare is heading for a “train wreck.” One of the mysteries of Washington is why the completely mediocre Baucus commands a reputation as a thoughtful man. And there’s always the gun
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April 19, 2013 — Steven Hayward
While this story continues to unfold in front of us, we have enough information to pose a few questions. A popular theme on the Left (Rev. Wright, etc.) but also among a few on the libertarian Right, is that Islamic terrorism against the U.S. and its allies is “blowback” for our support of Israel, the Iraq War, and so forth. But just what beef do Chechnyans have with America? To
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April 18, 2013 — Steven Hayward
It’s been another terrible, no good, very bad week for the left, and it isn’t over yet. We could still get another Democrat or trade union running for cover over the disaster that is the unfolding of Obamacare. We certainly haven’t seen the last of the left’s bitter clingers complaining about the four Democratic Senators who extended their own right of self-preservation to the rest of us by voting down
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April 17, 2013 — Steven Hayward
It’s long past time to get to Peter Schramm’s place (not to say ranking, which we don’t have anyway) on the Power Line 100 Best Professors in America roster. Schramm, born in Hungary, emigrated to the United States in the aftermath of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 because, his father told him at the time, “We were born American–just in the wrong place.” You can read his account of the
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