Archive for 2007

MICKEY KAUS: “On reflection, homemade YouTube ads seem more potentially subversive than I originally thought.”

MARK STEYN: “If Yemen cuts its fertility rate, Yemen will empty out. If Britain cuts its fertility rate, Yemen will move in.”

PHOTO-SPACEBLOGGING FROM DALE AMON: And notice how strongly Dale is starting to resemble Scotty . . . .

GOOD NEWS: “Wall Street soared Thursday, propelling the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and Dow Jones industrials to record highs as bright spots among generally sluggish retail sales allowed investors to toss aside concerns about the health of the economy. The rally, which gave the Dow its biggest one-day percentage gain in nearly four years, was perhaps surprising given that there was no extraordinary announcement or other catalyst often seen with such a huge gain, and that it came before most companies have announced their second-quarter earnings.” I’m watching Kudlow on the Tivo and he’s gloating. Rightly so.

Maybe it has something to do with that incredible shrinking deficit?

MICHAEL YON ON HUGH HEWITT:

HH: Now yesterday, Harry Reid said on the floor of the Senate that the surge has failed. Do you think there’s any factual basis for making that assertion, Michael Yon, from what you’ve seen in Iraq over the last many months?

MY: He’s wrong, he’s wrong. It has absolutely not failed, and in fact, I’m finally willing to say it in public.

Transcript of full interview here. Read the whole thing.

IS “LADIES NIGHT” discriminatory?

HOW TO UPDATE HORROR FILM:

Apparently the default style for a haunted house is still the Victorian model, with high-backed chairs, rotted filigrees, oval portraits of sour men with dead eyes and string ties, and the general sense of emotional suffocation we associate, however inaccurately, with the Victorian house. But that’s old. Very old. If the Victorian house was scary in a 40s film, it’s because it was from the Grandma era, half a century ago. The modern equivalent would be a style from the 50s no one builds any more – say, a classic one-story rambler. Haunt that, and you’re on to something. Have ectoplasm seep from the push-button GE electric range, and you’ll connect with the Boomers.

Bonus horror points if there’s a knotty-pine recreation room. But if you want real horror, shouldn’t it be something from the 1970s?

AN INCONVENIENT TURBINE:

In neighborhoods across the country, there’s a battle brewing: the environmentalists vs. the aesthetes.

As “green”-minded homeowners move to put in new energy-efficient windows, solar panels and light-reflecting roofs, they are bumping up against neighbors and local boards that object, saying the additions defy historic-district regulations, will look ugly or damage property values.

Yeah. I wouldn’t mind a wind turbine, but I’ll bet my neighborhood association would object.

WHY THERE WILL NEVER BE A REALITY SHOW ABOUT ACADEMIA: “The reason professors sleep with their students in fiction is because any realistic portrayal of your jobs would bore readers out of their skulls within ten minutes.”

But check the thrilling minute-by-minute account that follows.

WHERE THE SINGLES ARE: Men vs. women.

TYLER COWEN ON RESOURCES AND CORRUPTION:

It is unfortunate that economists have to debate whether natural resources are a blessing or a curse for a developing nation. Minerals, diamonds or oil may appear to represent automatic wealth but resource-rich countries usually become mired in corruption. High oil revenues, for instance, allow a government to maintain power and reward political supporters without doing much for its people. The government of Nigeria has taken in billions from high oil prices, yet the average person was probably better off 40 years ago. The easy-to-reach wealth of a resource also encourages coups, and thus political stability is problematic.

The solution is to make these governments more accountable in spending their money, but how can that be done? Paul Collier, an economics professor at Oxford University, has a new and potentially powerful idea.

I got a copy of Collier’s book, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What to Do About It in the mail, but I haven’t read it. But read Tyler’s article for a summary of the issue. Corruption and lack of accountability are a serious problem, as Nigeria certainly demonstrates. In fact, what worries me about Iraq is that Nigeria may plausibly represent an upper bound for civil society in a country with ethnic divisions, oil wealth, and a history of widespread corruption.

BILL ROGGIO GOES NONPROFIT: So if you want to donate to his reporting efforts, it’s deductible.

JAKE TAPPER TRIES AND FAILS TO GET A STRAIGHT ANSWER FROM HARRY REID:

TAPPER: Senator Reid, what do you say to critics who say, “Look, the Senate voted, including two of you up on the stage, to authorize the president to use force in Iraq. Is there not a moral obligation of the United States to make sure that the Iraqi people are safe before the U.S. withdraws”? It’s very clear that withdrawing U.S. troops might make U.S. troops safer, but it won’t necessarily make the Iraqi people safer.

Follow the link to see Reid’s lengthy non-answer.

RUMORS THAT LAMAR ALEXANDER MIGHT LEAVE THE SENATE to become chancellor of Vanderbilt University are fairly dubious in my opinion. On the other hand, Michael Silence observes: “Alexander’s five years in the Senate is the longest he’s held a job since he was governor of Tennessee from 1979 to 1987. I’m just saying…”

LEE HARRIS WONDERS WHY WE’RE AFRAID OF THE F-WORD: “Fanatic,” that is:

To Ghazi and his followers, the overwhelming odds against them made no difference in their calculations. It simply did not matter to them. They still refused to compromise or surrender. They accepted in advance the death that awaited them, and with a fatalism that we in the West find virtually incomprehensible.

Such suicidal behavior is not militancy; it is fanaticism. The militant may be prepared to risk his life in battle, but it is always a calculated risk. The fanatic is not given to such calculation. If his cause is lost, he will still refuse to compromise or surrender. Not only will he prefer death for himself, but he will choose it for his entire group, including his own family.

Though in fact Ghazi was trying to cut a deal for his own escape, and probably would have donned a burka to escape the siege if he could have. The true fanatics are a bit further down the chain of command, and might more properly be labeled “chumps.”

Nonetheless, the entire essay is worth reading.