CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Is Michelle Obama responsible for the Jeremiah Wright fiasco?
Archive for 2008
May 5, 2008
IS DISABLING RED-LIGHT CAMERAS a species of civil disobedience?
It’s certainly a species of what Gordon Wood calls out of doors political activity, as opposed to mere garden-variety vandalism.
With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama still slugging it out in the Democratic primaries, John McCain has already cleared the way to the Republican nomination. He’s spending his time laying out his positions for the general election, and one of the most important issues has to do with judicial nominations. We were lucky enough to catch up with McCain’s friend Fred Thompson, who talked with us about McCain’s positions, the current and possible future states of the federal judiciary, and whether there’s a place for an Attorney General Fred Thompson in a McCain administration. (“No Ma’am” he responded, when Helen asked.) Thompson said this was the first interview he’s given on McCain and the judiciary, but it won’t be the last.
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Show archives are at GlennandHelenShow.com. Music is by Todd Steed and the Suns of Phere.
SPREADING THE GOSPEL: New science fiction anthologies.
THIS SEEMS LIKE NEWS: Interpol confirms authenticity of Raúl Reyes’s computer files. So the Hugo Chavez / FARC reports based on those files appear to have been correct.
UPDATE: What does it mean? A big roundup at Gateway Pundit.
THE NEW YORK TIMES channels the old much-fisked Guardian Olive Garden piece, and Ezra Klein smacks them down. I’ll just note that even the NYT’s description of the food (“surprisingly decent”) echoes that of the Guardian’s writer, Matt Engel, as does its snobbery.
GOOD NEWS: New $100 million X-Prizes for clean energy.
Also, Aptera crushing its electric cars: But that’s actually good news, too, as they’re testing them for safety in the process.
UPDATE: Second link was wrong at first. Fixed now. Sorry!
JAY LENO ON ANWR DRILLING: “Leno’s punchline: Democrats say drilling in ANWR wouldn’t produce any oil for 10 years — the same point they’ve been making for more than 10 years now. President Bill Clinton vetoed legislation in 1995 that would have opened ANWR to oil exploration.” It would be nice to have some extra oil coming on line about now.
IS THE CRIMINAL-JUSTICE SYSTEM RACIST? Heather MacDonald says no. (Via Paul Cassell). Her article might profitably be read along with this piece.
MICHAEL YON in The Daily News:
April saw 49 U.S. casualties in Iraq, the highest total in seven months. Does this mean, as some insist, that the enormous progress we have made since the start of the military surge is being lost?
As one who has spent nearly two years with American soldiers and Marines and British Army troops in Iraq – having returned from my last trip a month ago – here’s my short answer: no.
Read the whole thing.
MAY, 1968: Forty years later.
IN THE MAIL: Ron Paul’s The Revolution: A Manifesto. It made it up to #1 on Amazon. I’ll be posting a review later. Lots of positive reader reviews . . . .
“WHY NOT MARRY A ROBOT?” Don’t tell Matt Yglesias and the other robophobes about this! But hey, I’m already married to a cyborg and it’s pretty great . . . .
UPDATE: More here.
Lakeshore Park, Knoxville.
PURSUING THE NEXT LEVEL of artificial intelligence.
IN THE LATEST JOURNAL OF AIR LAW AND COMMERCE, Alan Wasser and Douglas Jobes write Space Settlements, Property Rights, and International Law: Could a Lunar Settlement Claim the Lunar Real Estate It Needs to Survive? The topic of space property rights is getting more attention these days — it’s the subject of my latest Popular Mechanics column. I wish I’d read this piece before I’d written it.
MICKEY KAUS: psychoanalyzing Hillary.
LEXINGTON GREEN HAS SOME THOUGHTS on Fareed Zakaria’s new book.
POWER LINE: The truth laces up its shoes.
WHO WILL BE LEFT TO DIE in the event of a pandemic? There’s nothing new about triage, notwithstanding the discussion in the article. However, in a true pandemic I suspect things will go well beyond what’s described here. That’s certainly happened in the past, though the article helpfully notes that modern nondiscrimination laws might gum things up in a fashion not previously experienced.
UPDATE: Hubris.
ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts from TigerHawk.
FREEMAN HUNT ON more and more people going without vaccinations.
UPDATE: Related thoughts here.
CAPTAIN’S JOURNAL has more on the continuing problems in Afghanistan.
BILL KRISTOL: McCain-Jindal?
UPDATE: Too early for Jindal? Seems that way to me.
BILL CLINTON: They’ve got me right where I want me. “Clinton’s crowds are mostly white, just like they’ve been in Pennsylvania and Ohio and nearly everywhere else. In the south, they remind you of how many whites didn’t migrate to the Republican party, and of how popular Clinton remains here.”
BILL AYERS: The problem that won’t go away.