Monthly Archives: February 2013
February 17, 2013 — John Hinderaker
This post has nothing to do with current affairs, so feel free to skip it. My youngest daughter, a high school sophomore, competed this weekend in the Minnesota state high school dance tournament at the Target Center in Minneapolis. The public high school that my kids have all attended is a dance powerhouse, and Minnesota is–who knew?–a hotbed of competitive dance. There are two categories, jazz and kick, and my
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February 17, 2013 — John Hinderaker
For more than a century, the law has been that any application for a visa to enter the United States must be denied if the applicant is likely to become a “public charge” on the American people. (“An alien who…is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.”) Yet the Obama administration has not only ignored this aspect of our immigration laws, it has actively recruited immigrants
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February 17, 2013 — Scott Johnson
It’s hard to understand our lives without seeing that the human virtues are real and that they exist pretty much as Aristotle described them in The Nichomachaean Ethics. Aristotle’s understanding imprinted itself on the Founders of the United States. When progressive politicians, historians and social scientists denigrated the virtues in order to undermine the Founders’ handiwork, as they continue to do in our own day, John Ford sought to save
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February 17, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Dozens of protesters rallied outside the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters yesterday in a show of support for Christopher Dorner and his claims of racism on the part of the LAPD. Among the signs the protesters carried were: “If you’re not enraged, you’re not paying attention.” “Why couldn’t we hear his side?” “Clear his name! Christopher Dorner” Support for the deranged killer wasn’t limited to the protesters. According to the
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February 17, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Here in the United States, reporters seem to be almost an extinct species. That is true in the United Kingdom as well, except that some relatively disreputable organs, like the Sun, actually investigate things from time to time. It was the Sun that infiltrated radical mosques and filmed cleric Anjem Choudary telling his followers how to make war on the West. The Sun’s account is all pretty disgusting, but what
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February 17, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Bob Woodward said that “some [Democratic Senators] have actually called the White House and said, ‘Is Hagel going to withdraw? Will he consider withdrawing?'” My guess is that President Obama is committed to installing Hagel at the Pentagon, and isn’t going to back down as long as he believes Hagel can be confirmed. To the extent that some Democratic Senators have a problem with Hagel,
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February 17, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Special thanks and a shout out are owed this morning to the several Power Line readers who turned up Friday afternoon at the University of Colorado, Boulder for my lecture on “Is ‘Conservative Environmentalist’ an Oxymoron?” And kudos also to the university administration. There had been rumors that two different student groups were thinking about protesting my appearance, and perhaps disrupting it. I was fully prepared for the pie-in-the-face treatment—this
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February 17, 2013 — Scott Johnson
There is a flip side to the due process problem of making everything a crime — the problem Glenn Reynolds has dubbed “Ham Sandwich Nation.” On the one hand, in Ham Sandwich Nation innocent citizens are subject to the whim of prosecutors and their masters (the Aaron Swartz case, cited in Glenn’s essay). On the other hand, when everyone is guilty of something, there is a lot of truly culpable
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February 16, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Seven Syrians wounded in fighting in that country’s civil war entered Israel today and received medical treatment. The seven were wounded when Syrian troops bombarded the demilitarized zone near Israel on Saturday in reprisal for rebel action nearby. They arrived at the Syrian-Israeli border fence, where IDF soldiers administered first aid on the spot. The seven were then rushed to Ziv Medical Center in Safed in Northern Israel for additional
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February 16, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
This evening, the University of Maryland played host to Duke in men’s basketball. With Maryland on the verge of leaving the ACC for the Big Ten — where, rumor has it, the referees don’t call fouls for breathing on an opponent — this visit by Coach K and his crew will likely be their last for years. Maryland marked the occasion by upsetting Duke 83-81. In fairness to Duke, they
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February 16, 2013 — John Hinderaker
That isn’t quite what he said, of course. Rather, the topic was guns, and the occasion was the president’s Google Plus “Fireside Hangout” on Thursday: Obama was asked why he favored a ban on assault weapons, which account for only a small percentage of gun deaths, as opposed to handguns, which are responsible for the majority. “I actually don’t think we should ban handguns,” Obama said. “But keep in mind
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February 16, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Last night, Brian Ward and I recorded Episode 43 of the Hinderaker-Ward Experience. We were guest-free, so it was just Brian and I riffing on the news of the day, along with other topics–high school dance, the weather and meteors, with more than a dash of horse meat. Serious topics included the State of the Union, the ongoing mystery of Barack Obama, and the Pope’s resignation. We wrapped up with
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February 16, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Megan McArdle makes this point in the context of the minimum wage, but it is one that I have tried to make a couple of times in the context of Obama’s many and varied employment-suppressing policies generally: The thing about unemployment is that it’s much, much worse than having a crap low-wage job. It’s worse than almost anything. It’s one of those life events that people never really recover from.
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February 16, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I discovered via Kyle Smith on Twitter yesterday that the Criterion Collection of mostly classic films has been made available for free via Hulu this weekend. Engagdet recommends a few science fiction classics from the collection. I recommend anything by Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa, favorites dating back to my college days. The films stream with brief commercial interruption, but hey, they’re free. If you have any favorites to recommend,
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February 16, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Elliott Abrams is the Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. His CFR blog is Pressure Points. He served, most recently, on the staff of the National Security Council staff during the Bush administration commencing in June 2001, first as a deputy assistant to the president and later as deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy. We recently featured a column by Abrams based
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February 15, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
In his State of the Union address, President Obama announced a “nonpartisan” commission led by two campaign lawyers “to improve the voting experience in America” because no one should have to wait in line for “five, six, seven hours just to cast their ballot.” Obama cited the experience of Desiline Victor, the 102-year-old voter who allegedly waited in line for three hours to vote. As Hans von Spakovsky shows, we
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February 15, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Our friend Mac Owens, of the Naval War College and Orbis, writes: You all know Jim Webb–bona fide Vietnam war hero, prize winning novelist, secretary of the Navy, assistant secretary of defense, Senator from Virginia. He is a man of conviction who says what he means. It turns out that his son–also Jim–is cut from the same cloth. Webb the younger gave up a promising college baseball career to join
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