A RATHER EMBARRASSING EXERCISE by The Economist Intelligence Unit. I’ve always looked at the ads for their expensive services and wondered what I was missing. Not much, if this is any guide.

A “REACTIONARY TURN IN THE INTELLECTUAL WORLD,” in the reception of Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Full story (registration required) here. And here’s an excerpt:

About Hirsi Ali we do not have to wonder: where does she stand on the question of stoning women to death? Or on the obligation for husbands to beat their wives? Read one page by her and you will know the answer; and if you read two pages, you might begin to suspect that, on the television screens of France, the man who defended the oppressed of the oppressed in the poorest neighborhoods of Europe was Nicolas Sarkozy. But that has got to be the problem from a perspective like Buruma’s. This talk of women’s rights–doesn’t it point ultimately in directions that ought to be regarded as (here is the mystery of our present moment) conservative? Better the seventh century than Nicolas Sarkozy. . . .

But this means only that Hirsi Ali’s critics have lost the ability to distinguish between a fanatical murderer and a rational debater. Here is “the racism of the anti-racists,” in Bruckner’s phrase. It is the racism that, while pretending to stand up for the oppressed, would deny to someone from Africa the right to make use of the same Enlightenment tools of analysis that Europeans are welcome to use. Bruckner took note of the nasty personal tone with which Hirsi Ali had been discussed–the masculine condescension, to mention one aspect, which scarcely anybody could have missed in Garton Ash’s New York Review essay, where he suggested that Hirsi Ali’s literary success must be owed significantly to her looks. . . .Salman Rushdie has metastasized into an entire social class, a subset of the European intelligentsia–its Muslim wing especially–who survive only because of their bodyguards and their own precautions. This is unprecedented in Western Europe during the last sixty years. And yet if someone like Pascal Bruckner mumbles a few words about the need for courage under these circumstances, the sneers begin.

The progressives aren’t looking particularly progressive these days.

A LOOK AT THE FUTURE OF NEWSPAPERS:

Right now there’s a dispute at Romanesko over whether Google is to blame for newspapers’ problems – why, they link to things they don’t pay for. One writer confronted the future square on, and came up with two forward-thinking responses: a class-action suit, and union pressure.

That’ll do it. I can see the headline: Newspapers win $1.6 billion verdict against Google, use the money to start a youth-oriented tabloid giveaway paper that competes with YouTube. If you flip the corners of the pages really fast, the pictures appear to move!

It’s a winner.

QUESTIONS ABOUT eavesdropping on phone calls and the Clinton campaign.

IN UNDERSTANDING SUPREME COURT JUSTICES, it pays to read their opinions rather than simply relying on political stereotyping.

IF YOU CAN’T WIN THE GAME, change the rules!

Dartmouth blog Dartlog reports: “Petition candidate Stephen Smith ’88’s recent accession to Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees has inspired the unhappy Alumni Council and the Board of Trustees to change the rules by which trustees are elected. As outlined in two speeches given during the Alumni Council’s annual Green Key meeting in Hanover this year, the Board may take drastic measures during their June 10th meeting to revamp the current election system for alumni trustees.” Insiders seldom yield power to outsiders without a fight.

UPDATE: Here’s more from Joe Malchow.

DON SURBER ON TORTURE, SILENCE, AND COMPLICITY.

IMPORTANT THOUGHTS ON HOLODECK SEX from Professor Bainbridge. And Naomi Wolf should be pleased that her old article is still spurring discussion in the blogosphere.

(Link was bad earlier. Fixed now. Sorry!)

HELEN AND I JUST WATCHED EVAN COYNE MALONEY’S FILM, Indoctrinate U. It’s a gripping hour-and-a-half, and the college administrators — and there are a lot of them — who call the cops on Evan rather than answer simple questions about matters of public record certainly give higher education a jackbooted-thug ambience. Even your dumber corporate PR people would know better, but they are used to a lot more public scrutiny than the folks who run colleges and universities.

I hope that the film gets a lot of attention. It certainly deserves it, and I think it’s going to leave a lot of people angry.

A NEW BUSH CLIMATE POLICY: Jonathan Adler has a roundup.

HOW TO HAVE SUCCESSFUL KIDS: Stay married.

Well, my parents didn’t, and I’m . . . well, never mind.

More on this topic here.

MICHAEL MALONE looks at strange doings in the tech world and offers some explanation.

CAPITALISM AGAINST climate change.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: More on Murtha’s secret Johnstown earmark, from CNN:

(Via Tom Elia). I like the term “Soprano-type politics.”

HANDS-ON TOYS FOR BOYS (AND GIRLS!): My earlier post on hands-on toys seem to have generated some interest, and there are still lots of cool things that will get kids away from the PlayStation and encourage them to do a few things with their hands. Something that was big in my childhood: The Estes model rockets, which are still around, and still fun, safe, and cheap. (Infinitely safer than building your own rockets from scratch, too: I did that and escaped unscathed, but I know a guy whose matchhead-and-scuba-tank rocket leveled his house and cost him some fingers. In fact, I think the impetus for the Estes-style model rockets was to provide a safe alternative to homemade pyrotechnics.)

In response to my earlier post on hands-on skills, Martin Greenberger emails:

Boy can I second the lack of basic skills in adults. I volunteer a lot with Habitat for Humanity here in Los Angeles. The volunteers that come out occasionally to help frequently can’t do something as basic as reading a tape measure (beyond the numbers which are printed on it of course). Many of my Saturdays are effectively a clinic on how to pound a nail.

If shop classes were oriented to teach good work habits along with basic instead mechanical skills, instead of worrying that the students weren’t learning on state of the art equipment, everyone
would be better off.

I got a lot of emails along these lines. My high school (and junior high) required this — and actually required a kind of home-ec-in-disguise course for seniors of both sexes on how to shop, budget, cook, and generally run a household that was really quite good. Of course, nowadays it’s all about teaching to the standardized tests, and they don’t test people’s ability to hammer a nail. If they did, every class would be hammering for an hour a day.

PARANOIA STRIKES DEEP. Or, in this case, maybe it’s shallow . . . .

RISING UP against Al Qaeda in Baghdad.

UPDATE: Omar at Iraq the Model says that this was actually a fight between Al Qaeda and another insurgent group. Between AP and Omar, I think I’d be inclined to trust Omar. But if one group of terrorists is killing another, well, I can live with that, I guess.

TORTURE: The sounds of silence. Silence is complicity, you know.

APPLE HIDES USER INFO in DRM-free iTunes tracks. “The big question, of course, is what might Apple do with this information?”

INDEED: “It’s the arrogance and condescension that finally makes your blood boil.”

BLUESTATERS BUY MORE compact fluorescent lights: Unless, apparently, they’re the blue-staters who hang out at Daily Kos!

Maybe they’re holding out for those promised high-efficiency incandescents.

AN ARREST IN ANBAR: Michael Yon has posted a report on the arrest of the Iraqi general that he emailed about the other day. He adds, via emails: “Note: An official press release stated that Iraqi Police conducted the arrest. That statement is untrue. Instapundit Readers found out first!”

Indeed they did. Thanks, Michael! And don’t miss the post, which offers insight into what’s going on, and how, that you won’t find many other places.

PRAISE FOR BUSH from an unlikely source:

STOP THE PRESSES!!! Barbara Lee has just issued her second press release in two days commending President Bush.

The liberal California Democrat, who is among the most vocal critics of the war, issued a statement Tuesday applauding the president for ratcheting up pressure on the Sudanese government to stop the killing in that country’s Darfur region. Now, she’s acknowledging Bush for asking Congress for another $30 billion to fund his AIDS relief program in Africa.

He’s been pretty good on that, but not many people have noticed.

NEWS ABOUT THE NEWS: And about not getting it.

FEW WILL MOURN:

A 27-year-old man described as one of the world’s most prolific spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail.

Upon conviction, he should be forced to consume off-brand Viagra substitutes and herbal penis-enlargement supplements while refinancing people’s houses.