Monthly Archives: December 2011
December 19, 2011 — John Hinderaker
In today’s world, it is playing the race card. There are two notable miscreants in the news today. The first is Eric Holder, who, in a weekend interview, suggested that criticism of his job performance in relation to Fast and Furious and other issues is–sometimes, anyway–racist: Mr. Holder contended that many of his other critics — not only elected Republicans but also a broader universe of conservative commentators and bloggers
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December 19, 2011 — Scott Johnson
UCLA’s Professor Tim Groseclose, author of Left Turn and contributor to Ricochet, draws our attention to the video below, filmed on location at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. According to the information posted with the video, “the Carlson School of Management received a surprise visit from a saxophonist…and nearly 300 of his friends from the University of Minnesota’s School of Music this November.” Enjoy before somebody holds
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December 19, 2011 — Scott Johnson
NPR’s Linton Weeks emailed me last week to ask if I would contribute something to his series compiling “5 things you don’t know about…” the GOP presidential candidates. Weeks asked me if I had anything that might be of interest about Michele Bachmann, whom I have admired since I first saw her, speaking to a Twin Cities Republican women’s group that I also appeared before, in the summer of 2000.
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December 19, 2011 — Steven Hayward
Way back on the Federal Page of today’s Washington Post is an article that ought to be on the front page above the fold, and its deep placement on the boutique page of the bureaucracy shows how the Post, like most everyone else, doesn’t understand what a big story it is. And it is a clinical study of Hayek’s “knowledge problem”—the impossibility of centralizing fundamentally dispersed knowledge in a timely
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December 19, 2011 — Steven Hayward
One of Newt Gingrich’s unique talents is his ability to make a sensible or serious argument in an extreme way that raises everyone’s hackles. I suspect he originally developed this trait on purpose, as a way of drawing the sharpest possible contrast with liberalism, which served his grand strategy well in his insurgent days in the House in the 1980s and 1990s. Think of it as the conservative version of
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December 19, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Lawrence Wright begins his history of al Qaeda and the road to 9/11 with the story of Muslim Brotherhood ideologist Sayyid Qutb, the fellow whose brief residence in Greeley, Colorado in 1949 contributed to his intense hatred of the United States. Qutb found Greeley to be a den of iniquity, what with the sock hops and friendly women to whom he was exposed as a student at the Colorado State
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December 18, 2011 — Steven Hayward
So I typically get a lot of pushback from liberals when I argue, as I did again in my recent “ideology” series here, that modern liberalism has no limiting principle beyond which it won’t go in a vain attempt to achieve egalitarian perfection. One recent interlocutor, writing in reply to my article on “Modernizing Conservatism,” said that he does not recognize any such liberal as I describe. How about the
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December 18, 2011 — John Hinderaker
We have followed events in Egypt with little enthusiasm, as the “Arab Spring” there appears to be dominated not by pro-Western liberals, but by Islamic radicals who see the opportunity, finally, to overthrow the secular regime they have battled for decades. The one possible force for stability has been the military, which threw Mubarak under the bus (with the encouragement of the Obama administration) while retaining control, at least for
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December 18, 2011 — John Hinderaker
This story is a day or two old, but worth noting: Occupy Group Faults Church, a Onetime Ally: For months, they were the best of neighbors: the slapdash champions of economic equality, putting down stakes in an outdoor plaza, and the venerable Episcopal parish next door, whose munificence helped sustain the growing protest. But in the weeks since Occupy Wall Street was evicted from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, relations
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December 18, 2011 — John Hinderaker
A National Health Service hospital, Alexandra Hospital of Redditch, West Midlands, is being sued in a class action for malpractice. The incidents detailed include leaving patients to starve to death. On the whole, the allegations sound as though you put the postal service in charge of health care. Not a bad analogy, come to think of it: The cases against Alexandra Hospital include: * A 35-year-old father-of-four who his family
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December 18, 2011 — Steven Hayward
How would you respond if a homebuilder proposed a gated community called “Dachau Gardens,” or a jewelry designer offered a gold and diamond broach in the shape of a Swastika? You’d probably think it was in poor taste, at the very least. So what do you suppose the architects who thought of this were (not) thinking when they came up with it:
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December 18, 2011 — Steven Hayward
We may not know yet about the Higgs boson (which is being called the “God particle” for some reason), but if the Denver Broncos beat the New England Patriots today—especially with another 4th quarter miracle—it will be positive proof that God does indeed exist. Or at least that he is a Broncos fan. The real test of God’s goodness will come when Denver plays the Dallas Cowboys, which, being America’s
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December 18, 2011 — Scott Johnson
James Delingpole is the witty, right-minded columnist and blogger for the Telegraph. Among his several books are Obamaland: I Have Seen Your Future and It Doesn’t Work and, most recently, Watermelons: The Green Movement’s True Colors. The latter book provides the occasion for Peter Robinson’s interview with Delingpole in the latest installment of Uncommon Knowledge. Delingpole himself introduces the installment here, mostly in the form of a tribute to our
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December 17, 2011 — John Hinderaker
As our involvement in Iraq has wound down, a few loose ends remained. The most important was the status of Ali Mussa Daqduq. Daqduq is a Hezbollah operative, apparently directed by Iran, who was responsible for the capture, torture and murder of five American servicemen. Under the status of forces agreement, he was to be turned over to Iraqi authorities, and could only be removed from that country with the
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December 17, 2011 — John Hinderaker
Ted Cruz is running for the Senate in Texas. He is a solid conservative and well worth supporting; you can donate at the link. His campaign produced this video titled “The Ghost of Obama’s Future:”
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December 17, 2011 — John Hinderaker
Earlier today, there were two big (but not close) votes in the Senate. The first extended the payroll tax holiday, but for only two months, after which the battle will have to be fought again. That vote was 89-10, with just two Democrats voting No–only one from the left–even though the continued de-funding of Social Security appears to put that program on the road to extinction, in its current form.
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December 17, 2011 — Scott Johnson
I’ve been in Tulsa all week. The local news is full of a story I would otherwise have missed: “Terror suit spurs search at car dealershership.” Check this out: A Tulsa used car dealership was searched Friday by federal and local law enforcement agents in connection with an international scheme that has allegedly funneled $483 million through terrorist-controlled channels to Lebanon since January 2007. Ace Auto Leasing, 5717 E. 11th
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