IT’S NOT PERSONAL, it’s just business.
Archive for 2007
September 30, 2007
AN INSINCERE APOLOGY from Duke President Richard Brodhead.
AS THE NEW YORK TIMES WRITES ABOUT BLACKWATER, it’s worth remembering that its own security operation in Iraq has not been beyond reproach. (Via Michael Petrelis, who also notes that Blackwater seems to be more gay-friendly than the U.S. military. You’d think that would get them some points . . . .)
September 29, 2007
INDEED: “Call it Spook’s Inverse Law of Iraq War Reporting: if you don’t see a spate of stories on U.S. casualties at the end of the month, then there must be some good news the MSM is ignoring.”
When a San Mateo County judge accepted Democratic financier Norman Hsu’s no-contest plea on a grand theft charge 15 years ago, nearly everyone expected Hsu would return to court a few weeks later and be sentenced to three years in prison by that same judge.
Instead, the defendant went on the lam in 1992. Veteran judge Aram Serverian retired in 2000.
Now that Hsu is finally back in court, his attorney says the old plea agreement should be tossed out because Serverian is unavailable to impose the sentence.
That’s an audacious move.
TIM RUTTEN ON AHMADINEJAD AND COLUMBIA: “One of the world’s truly dangerous men, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left New York a clear winner this week, and he can thank the arrogance of the American academy and most of the U.S. news media’s studied indifference for his victory. If the blood-drenched history of the century just past had taught American academics one thing, it should have been that the totalitarian impulse knows no accommodation with reason. You cannot change the totalitarian mind through dialogue or conversation, because totalitarianism — however ingenious the superstructure of faux ideas with which it surrounds itself — is a creature of the will and not the mind. That’s a large lesson, but what should have made Ahmadinejad’s appearance at Columbia University this week a wholly avoidable debacle was the school’s knowledge of its own, very specific history.”
Read the whole thing. And some of the comments to his post show that the Silvershirts’ descendants are still active, condemning America and excusing dictators.
UPDATE: Related thoughts here.
DON’T MESS WITH SCIENTOLOGISTS, unless you’re tougher than this guy. “A man who agreed to plead guilty in a plot to extort more than $1 million from Tom Cruise for the actor’s stolen wedding photos was found dead in his home, authorities said.”
NEWT WON’T RUN: “Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will not run for president in 2008 after determining he could not legally explore a bid and remain as head of his tax-exempt political organization, a spokesman said Saturday.”
ERIC SCHEIE starring on XM. They should give him his own show.
DISRESPECTING THE MARINES in Oakland.
UPDATE: Or is the report a hoax?
ANOTHER UPDATE: Apparently not.
INVASION OF THE body politic snatchers?
MONKS AND BLOGGERS in Burma.
This is basically the narrative of The Big Con: we used to have this terrific economy with low inequality and a growing government share of national income, with everyone except a few rich malcontents happy, then this giant Republican conspiracy to make us all hate taxes came along and lured us off the Yellow Brick Road and onto the Road to Perdition.
This seems an odd belief to hold in a nation that was basically founded in a tax revolt. A modestly comprehensive perusal of pre-1970 literature reveals that Americans seem to have hated taxes all along. And why wouldn’t they? Taxes don’t need any special conspiracy to make you hate them, at least if you are among the majority of people who would rather have more money in your pocket than less. . . .
But perhaps even more importantly, it’s not clear that 1980-2007 are the anomalies in American public sentiment about taxes. On the contrary, I think I can make a better case that 1945-1970 was the oddity. While incomes were growing rapidly, and inflation wasn’t, the American public was willing to accept a higher tax burden because even after taxes, they felt a lot richer. As soon as productivity growth slowed (and therefore growth in real incomes), people started to feel the pinch of a growing tax burden, particularly since inflation was pushing them into tax brackets originally meant for “the rich”.
What does this say about the next decade?
SOME MORE VERY NICE Manhattan photos.
SOME IMPORTANT fashion advice for men.
A RECIPE FOR FRIED RAVIOLI. It sounds delicious — and oh-so-dietetic!
LAWFARE: When legal news on the war on terror isn’t news.
THE SHORT, HAPPY LIFE of a Russian anti-corruption investigator. Emphasis on the “short.”
IN THE AMERICAN THINKER, this analysis: “There are signs that the global Islamic jihad movement is splitting apart, in what would be a tremendous achievement for American strategy.” Read the whole thing, and hope that he’s right.
AT BOINGBOING, some Velvet Underground video.
“FAKE SOLDIERS:” It goes way beyond antiwar faker Jesse MacBeth: “How serious is the problem of ‘phony soldiers?’ Congress last year passed legislation to allow prosecution of people who claimed medals that they had not earned. It passed both the House and Senate unanimously. It was introduced by Congressman John Salazar (D-CO), whose press release on the measure lists several phony heroes.”
IN THE MAIL: Walter Russell Mead’s new book, God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World.
MORE ETHANOL DOWNSIDE: “Soaring food prices, driven in part by demand for ethanol made from corn, have helped slash the amount of food aid the government buys to its lowest level in a decade, possibly resulting in more hungry people around the world this year.”