Archive for 2008

HMM: “A woman who worked for the United Nations died Sunday after falling from the 19th floor of the U.N.’s Secretariat Building, authorities said.”

MARGARET CARLSON’S anti-Hillary email. And Taylor Marsh really doesn’t like Obama.

UPDATE: Reader Craig Lippus emails:

I got quite a kick out of this passage in Taylor Marsh’s article:

“This is what Clinton is up against. A traditional news media that has no integrity or ethics, while passing themselves off as “reporters” and unbiased analysts, while they’re actually conning the public”

That’s rich. It sure doesn’t bother most folks at the Huffington Post when said “reporters” con the public on the Bush Administration, the war, global warming, and pretty much every other pet issue championed by the Left, eh?

I’m enjoying this Democratic primary, as it seems to be causing our friends to the left to notice phenomena that they had previously pooh-poohed.

CLINTON AND GITMO: “If elected president, Hillary Clinton would ask the Justice Department to determine if alleged 9/11 plotters currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be tried in civilian courts or regular military courts rather than face military commissions that have sparked controversy both inside and outside the United States, her campaign says.”

IMAGE IS everything.

THE PERILS OF UNIVERSAL JURISDICTION: “Given the woeful failure of the international community to step in, it seems a bit rich to now be indicting the Tutsis who were left to their own defenses.”

I’d say it’s emblematic.

SO I GOT THE Supreme Beings of Leisure CD and it’s good, but I have to say that it’s still not as good as their first album. It’s more like Divine Operating System — sounds good while you listen to it, but doesn’t inspire the desire to put it on again any time soon. I think more than anything it’s the absence of Rick Torres’ guitar work, which gave the first album its edge. This is background chill-music, but not much more, notwithstanding guest appearances by Lili Haydn and even Marty Friedman of Megadeth (no, really). So, not bad, but a bit of a disappointment. On the other hand, if you haven’t listened to the first album, I highly recommend it. (Audio samples for all albums are available by following the links.)

UPDATE: Why Rick Torres and not Kirin Shahani? Well, if you listen to Shahani’s new post-SBL venture, Bitter:Sweet, you’ll hear something much like what’s described above. Nice chillout stuff, but without the edge. I’m very sorry that the original SBL lineup broke, because I think the whole was more than the sum of the parts. Much like Morcheeba and Skye Edwards.

More SBL tunes at their MySpace page. My favorite of the tunes there is “Under the Gun” from their first album.

UPDATE: Longtime InstaPundit reader Stephen Skubinna emails:

Well, I am amazed at your post. Rick Torres is my brother in law, and while I had heard of the SBoL prior to meeting him for the first time, I had never listened to them. I need to make sure he knows he’s gotten an Insta-cite. Yeah, there should be no need for anyone to tell him, but musicians, right?

It’s a small world. Skubinna reports that Torres has been touring with The English Beat lately.

JAY TEA HAS THOUGHTS ON GUN-FREE ZONES;

Nearly all of the mass shootings of late have been in “gun-free zones.” And the ones that weren’t — at the New Life Church in Colorado and the Appalachian School of Law in Virginia — were stopped by private citizens (and members of the community being attacked) with their own weapons.

Now for my second thought. If these places aren’t going to get rid of their “gun-free zone” status, despite the overwhelming circumstantial evidence that they simply get more people killed, then how can they improve their security where it actually make the people inside safer?

I have a few ideas. And for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to apply them to a college.

Meanwhile, Nathan Moore is offering to represent anyone who wants to challenge Tennessee’s rules against carry on campus.

UPDATE: “Lawyer up, kids!”

GENE NICHOL UPDATE: William & Mary’s student paper says that firing him was the right decision: “Painful as it is, the Board of Visitors was right not to renew College President Gene Nichol’s contract. Months of discussion, independent research and outside input have proved one thing: Nichol’s executive failures and a pattern of mismanagement clearly indicate that he is no longer qualified for the job. Now comes the time for reconciliation — for moving on.”

Plus, criticism for his resignation e-mail: “Nichol only plays into the hands of his political detractors by insisting that he is their victim. The board that fired him had backed him up publicly, from the controversy over the cross in the Wren Chapel, to the expansion of opportunity for lower-income applicants, to the support for free speech and student prerogatives. Privately the board expressed concerns over the past several years, but it didn’t hang Nichol out to dry.”

More here. I know Nichol slightly, and I’ve always thought of him as a nice, smart guy. But his manner of departure seemed . . . odd.

PRO-OBAMA HECKLER gets a rise out of Bill Clinton. The sparring among Clinton and Obama supporters in the comments is interesting. There seems to be some real bad blood forming. See this comment thread, too.

EMBRACE YOUR INNER MORON! “Requiring children to actually demonstrate knowledge of math, English and science in order to graduate may be the single greatest educational innovation of our time, forcing schools that had demonstrably not been teaching at all to at least teach for the test.”

UPDATE: Somewhat related item here.

PATRICK RUFFINI: ” With the nomination in hand, the instinct in Camp McCain has been to ‘rein in’ their candidate and rebrand him as safe and unthreatening. This is the wrong instinct.”

TOLEDO UPDATE: “Carty Finkbeiner, the jerk mayor of Toledo,cursed on live radio when asked about his anti-Marines stance.”

Plus this: Mayor heckled in Central Toledo. This isn’t playing well . . . .

THE BITER, bit.

UPDATE: Related item here.

PESSIMISTIC PAKISTANIS prepare to vote: Ghalia Aymen reports from Islamabad.

ARABS FOR OBAMA: “A friend from the Gulf tells me her young relative was so excited about the Democratic candidate that he tried to donate money over the Internet, as he’d heard so many young Americans were doing. Then he found out he had to be a U.S. citizen to do so. Another young woman, visiting from next-door Saudi Arabia, said that all her friends in Riyadh are ‘for Obama.’ The symbolism of a major American presidential candidate with the middle name of Hussein, who went to elementary school in Indonesia, certainly speaks to Muslims abroad.”

RIOTS IN DENMARK continue.

UPDATE: Roger Kimball has thoughts on those mysterious rioting “youths.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related item here.

MORE: A profile of Dutch politician Geert Wilders.