REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.
Archive for 2011
January 4, 2011
I’VE GOT A PIECE IN THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY TODAY, on The Unexpected Return of ‘Duck and Cover.’ In which I defend the Obama Administration’s newfound interest in civil defense. (Bumped).
LETTER TO THE NEW CONGRESS: Beware the Ethical Snares of Washington.
ROGER KIMBALL: The Anglosphere And The Future of Liberty: An Introduction.
JONAH GOLDBERG: Keep Your Laws Off My Body. “I’m something of a product of my times. In the 1980s and 1990s I heard a lot of putatively honest liberals insist that the one zone of life that was absolutely sacrosanct was our own bodies. The state simply had no business getting involved in ‘our bodies.’ Admittedly, this was mostly the rhetoric of abortion. . . . Flash forward to today and pretty much the entire edifice of liberalism insists that our bodies — what we put into them, how we maintain them — are fair game not just for Congress but for bureaucrats.”
IT’S THE CARNIVAL OF Latin America and the Caribbean.
AN EPIDEMIC IS KILLING THE BATS.
MORE AND MORE PEOPLE will live past 100.
CROSSING AMERICA IN LESS THAN TWO TANKS OF GAS, in a Hyundai Sonata hybrid.
IN THE MAIL: The Myth of American Religious Freedom.
PAJAMAS MEDIA LAUNCHES THE NEW TRANSPARENCY PROJECT:
As you no doubt know, transparency—openness in government, really—has become the new watchword in our political culture. Beneath the headline “Transparency and Open Government,” President Obama promised his administration would have an “unprecedented level of openness.”
How did that turn out?
Plus, involving PJM readers in doing something about it.
FROM YUPPIES TO MAPPIES: “The acronym stands for Mature, Affluent, Pioneering People and has been coined to describe a growing social group of active, fun-loving fifty- and sixty-somethings.”
IT’S NOT AN INCANDESCENT LIGHT BULB: It’s a “small heating device.” And highly efficient at that task. Very green!
ABA NOW WARNING STUDENTS NOT TO GO TO LAW SCHOOL, or at least to be careful about debt issues. “The ABA is also warning of endowment losses, declining state support, and difficulties in fundraising that have hit law schools hard. It expects most public schools to raise tuition this year by 10 to 25 percent. Tens of thousands of dollars in debt — and a shiny degree: But, at the end of the day, getting a job in law could be a cold case in 2011.” It’s like there’s some kind of . . . higher education bubble . . . that’s bursting or something.
Related thoughts here.
AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD IS BETTING ON STUPIDITY. This does seem like the way to go. . . .
UPDATE: Here’s what one second of the U.S national debt looks like.
ON SALE, TODAY ONLY: Farscape: The Complete Series.
JOHN BOEHNER AND NANCY PELOSI: Compare And Contrast.
FOREIGN POLICY: American Decline: This Time It’s For Real. America’s biggest weakness is that we have the worst political class in our history.
MORT ZUCKERMAN: “Home Prices Will Decline For Years.”
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE THINK THEIR MONEY IS WASTED: Fundraising worries dominate the race for chairman of the RNC. Since Ed Morrissey started the “not one dime” campaign back in 2005, there have been a lot of angry Republicans who won’t donate to the RNC. Michael Steele only exacerbated this problem. Will they find someone else who can reverse the trend? I don’t know.
I got a call from an RNC candidate last week, but after explaining that I don’t do endorsements I noted that personally I’m more interested in what’s going on in the various Tea Party groups than what’s happening at the RNC, which I regard as mostly irrelevant. The Tea Party movement, after all, has a track record of success . . . .
ASHLEY SMITHWICK AND the paring-knife loophole.
DONALD SENSING: The Crush Depth of Debt.
DEALING WITH INVASIVE SPECIES by eating them. Space aliens take note — you could be fodder for “invasivores.”
Plus, a blog. And hunting for lionfish. “Lionfish don’t give ground to much of anything. Watch how it sits right there in front of its crevice even as a diver is right in front of it and thrusting a spear at it. The lionfish has venomous spikes sticking out all around the front of it. An array of hypodermic needles that will either kill or badly hurt almost anything that decides to pick a fight. While that behavior illustrates one of the reasons why lionfish have been able to quickly dominate this habitat (lack of natural parasites in the Atlantic is probably another reason), it also comes in real handy when you are hunting them. They won’t generally spook off unless you injure them with the spear.”
End result: “The lionfish tasted really good. . . . The texture is superior to Chilean sea bass and I think that lionfish represent a viable alternative to much of the ill-gotten Chilean sea bass that is on the market today.”
TOM MAGUIRE DEPLORES the New York Times’ embrace of eliminationist rhetoric.