EdDriscoll.com

Posted 1/17/2003 07:27:51 PM by Edward Driscoll
I'VE NEVER WATCHED FARSCAPE, the Sci-Fi Channel TV series, but according to this article, it's very big in Afghanistan:

At Bagram Air Force Base in northern Afghanistan, soldiers couldn't picket [to protest Farscape's cancellation], so they gathered to watch tapes of the show and write letters of protest instead. When other fans heard about this, they raised money to send the soldiers a "care package" of DVDs, photos and T-shirts. One European fan commented sardonically, "This is the first time I've felt positive about the American military lately." The thought of a mine-clearing unit obsessing over a TV program that features living alien spaceships is surreal. But it also challenges the popular image of fans as isolated geeks who have lost touch with reality.

The article quotes Spc. Howard W. Bushey III, who organized the Bagram rally, on what he finds so appealing about the show.

Posted 1/17/2003 03:17:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE TYRANNY OF "BUT": Victor Davis Hanson has a terrific piece on war and words in National Review Online.

Posted 1/17/2003 11:44:24 AM by Edward Driscoll
EXACTLY. (Link via InstaPundit.)

Posted 1/16/2003 09:06:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
JACOB SULLUM ON ARRIANA HUFFINGTON, and her anti-SUV hysteria:

I'm sure Huffington, who turned in her SUV for a snazzy little gas/electric hybrid and never misses a chance to preach the virtues of conservation, will take the next step by eliminating unnecessary trips in taxis, limos, and airplanes. It may hobble her book tour, but perhaps that's just as well. If she sells too many copies, her publisher will have to send out more, and the trucks that carry them won't be burning water.

I'm sure she'll do just that. Just as Al Gore refused to use Air Force Two after he wrote Earth in the Balance.

Posted 1/16/2003 07:57:17 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE BLOGOSPHERE/VETERANS STADIUM CONNECTION: This Sunday's NFC championship game marks the last Philadelphia Eagles game at Veterans Stadium. (Click here for my coverage from mid-December of the last regular season "Iggles" game there.) Patrick Ruffini and Asparagirl also have coverage of the Vet. Including myself, this makes at least three bloggers who've attended games there when we lived in the area. (And Sgt. Stryker and I have each seen separate Pink Floyd concerts there--go figure.) I wonder if it's something they put in the Budweiser there that causes people to blog. Probably not, but it's better than booing Santa Claus.

Posted 1/16/2003 05:11:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
SECRET TiVO FEATURE REVEALED, on Blogcritics. Cool!

Posted 1/16/2003 01:59:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
TARANTO ON BUSH AND MICHIGAN:

Had Bush and the Republicans stood behind Lott, it would indeed have been much harder to present the Michigan stance as a principled one. And it's noteworthy that many of the conservatives who were most emphatic in calling for Lott's ouster--people like Ward Connerly and Abigail Thernstrom--are also among the strongest critics of racial preferences. The Connerlys and Thernstroms of the world rightly do not want to be associated with those who take the same position as they on this issue--but for what is very much the wrong reason. There's a lesson here for our friends on the Democratic left, though one they probably won't learn. Republicans and conservatives have generally been much better at policing their own ranks for extremists and haters. Pat Buchanan, for example, no longer commands any respect within the Republican Party or the conservative movement, and David Duke never did. In contrast, look at the freak show that makes up the American left: Jim McDermott, Al Sharpton, Cynthia McKinney, Patty Murray, Maxine Waters, Ramsey Clark, Noam Chomsky--the list could go on and on. Obviously one could make many distinctions here: Clark and Chomsky are not active in Democratic politics; most Democrats don't actually endorse McKinney's anti-Semitism or McDermott's pro-Saddam stance; Patty Murray may be more naive than evil. And of course the Democratic Party includes many serious and sober political leaders. But the point is that they don't make these distinctions, at least not publicly. They don't repudiate the McDermotts, Sharptons and Chomskys of the world, the way conservatives repudiate their Lotts, Dukes and Buchanans. The result, to take the Iraq issue as an example, is that if there is a principled antiwar position, it gets drowned out amid the voices of extremism, who run the gamut from hyperpartisan to downright anti-American.

Speaking of downright anti-American, be sure to read about the terrorist speaking at Duke, on your way to the above quotes.

Posted 1/16/2003 01:51:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
POSTINDUSTRIAL WAR: Good article by Michael Barone. To read where this concept began, click here.

Posted 1/16/2003 01:42:35 PM by Edward Driscoll
ARCHEOLOGICAL TERRORISM is the theme of this post by Charles Johnson:

Among their many other crimes, the PLO is systematically destroying priceless Jewish religious artifacts from the Temple Mount, and undermining the foundations of the ancient temple. Steven Plaut writes about this archaeological terrorism, and accuses the Sharon government of cowardice for failing to confront it: The Destruction on the Temple Mount.

Archaeological terrorism is par for the course, isn't it?

Posted 1/16/2003 01:01:35 PM by Edward Driscoll
IT WON'T BE A STYLISH MARRIAGE: The Washington Post reports that an anti-war group revives LBJ's hoary old 'daisy' ad. The Media Research Center adds, "...And the CBS News staff didn't find a thing wrong with it." "It's almost as if ABC and CBS are trying to create their own reality so they can report on it", MRC writes. Gee, ya think so?

Posted 1/16/2003 12:07:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE FIRST ISRAELI ASTRONAUT IS IN SPACE: Columbia launched in what AP reports is "the most heavily guarded space shot in NASA history". Here's a briefing on the most precious cargo they're carrying.

Posted 1/16/2003 12:03:17 PM by Edward Driscoll
COSMO IS ON TOP OF THE NORTH KOREAN SITUATION. Not the women's magazine, the small furry Cosmo--the other white meat.

Posted 1/16/2003 11:44:48 AM by Edward Driscoll
MR HUSSEIN'S NEIGHBORHOOD: Why yes, I can say "material breach". Charles Johnson writes:

Saddam is playing games with the inspectors, letting them find a few empty warheads; it won�t be enough to trigger the war, but every peace creep and Saddam apologist will be screaming, �See! The inspections are working! Give �em another year!�

Of course, one of Johnson's readers really sums up the whole situation: "I wonder when Greenpeace will denounce Saddam for not recycling his empties." UPDATE to the above quote by Johnson: he's found his winner.

Posted 1/16/2003 11:34:38 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE JAGS' EXPECTED NEW HEAD COACH IS Jack Del Rio , according to ESPN.com.

Posted 1/16/2003 11:26:52 AM by Edward Driscoll
JEFF BROKAW SAYS "yes, I'm buying the Pete Townshend alibi!", and explains why. Brian Doherty of Reason seems to agree with him, as does Howard Owens of Blogcritics.

Posted 1/16/2003 11:01:01 AM by Edward Driscoll
INTERESTING EMAIL FROM A READER:

Did my wife slip me some acid last night, or did I see a report on ABC stating that our Peace Prize winner is thinking of running for Zell Miller's Senate seat when Miller retires in 2004. The report said that Carter did not want the seat to fall into Republican' hands. I have found nothing about it in the print medium.

Given the drubbing that Carter took in '80, the blow-out drubbing that his vice-president received in '84, and then the salt in Mondale's wounds this past November, Carter may want to think twice before entering. If Carter's record is discussed (the original, and definitive "worst economy in fifty years", the hostages, his shameful sell-out of Israel, and his visits with our enemies), he's eminently beatable.

Posted 1/16/2003 02:38:33 AM by Edward Driscoll
SHOOTING CROWS IN A BARREL: Sometimes it's just too easy, especially when you're Andrew Sullivan, and you're Fisking Sheryl Crow's deeeeep thoughts.

Posted 1/16/2003 12:54:21 AM by Edward Driscoll
HYPERBOLIC: I love this line in the latest Reason Express:

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams wants to add 100,000 residents to the District's population over the next 10 years. He compares this, in terms of its importance, to the 1969 moon shot.

Of course it is.

Posted 1/15/2003 05:05:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
LIND HIM A CLUE: Ever wonder how books by Rachel Carson and John Maynard Keynes ended up on the National Review Top 100 Non-Fiction Books of the 20th Century list? Blame Michael Lind, whom Orrin Judd does a lengthy and thorough smackdown of. FLASHBACK: Here's a piece on Lind from December of 2001 written by Jonah Goldberg, who once suffered what he calls a Lind "hissy fit".

Posted 1/15/2003 04:51:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
TRUTH IN ADVERTISING: According to the Internet Movie Database, the working title for Madonna's new album is "Ein Sof", the Hebrew phrase for endlessness. Speaking of which, she's been ordered by Warner Brothers brass to re-record the album, as its "too extreme". (Be warned--the above link contains one seriously scary photo of Madonna, taken just before every vein in her neck exploded.)

Posted 1/15/2003 02:32:12 PM by Edward Driscoll
REVEALING ON-AIR FREUDIAN SLIP BY GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS.

Posted 1/15/2003 02:15:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
FRIENDS DON'T LET FOOTBALL PLAYERS DRIVE: Bad season for NFL players and automobiles: Cowboys player free on bail after fatal hit-and-run Back on September 25th, we posted about Randy Moss's arrest for pushing a traffic agent half a block with his car.

Posted 1/15/2003 02:07:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHITEWASHING HISTORY: Jonathan Foreman, writing in England's Daily Telegraph, says that Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York "portrays racist mass murderers as victims":

Martin Scorsese is rightly the most lauded living American film-maker - a beacon of integrity as well as a brilliant talent. But his bloody, visually gorgeous new epic, Gangs of New York, set in Civil War-era Manhattan, distorts history at least as egregiously as The Patriot, Braveheart or the recent remake of The Four Feathers. In its confused way, it puts even the revisionism of Oliver Stone to shame. The film works so hard to make mid-19th-century Irish-American street gang members into politically correct modern heroes (and to fit them into Scorsese's view of American history as one long ethnic rumble) that it radically distorts a great and terrible historical episode.

Read Foreman's excellent article as to why and how.

Posted 1/15/2003 01:48:21 PM by Edward Driscoll
GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE DEPARTMENT: Andrew Sullivan writes:

Like many people, I've long since given up on reading most of the editorials in the New York Times. Unlike those in the Washington Post, they don't seem designed to persuade anyone. They posture and preen and pronounce. But they don't seem intended to engage.

Yesterday, Steven Den Beste wrote this about the "peace" movement:

One comes to the conclusion that they are actually playing to each other. Like the apocalyptic Christians who stand on a street corner and shout the message that "Repent, for the end is coming soon" one comes to the conclusion that they're doing it more to prove their moral purity than because they actually expect to make any difference. It's not that they think they can sway the political middle; they don't even care to try. They're parading for each other, to prove commitment to the cause. (And a healthy dose of Tu Quoque never hurts, either.)

Talk about circling the wagons. UPDATE: Adam G. Mersereau has some additional thoughts on the "peace" movement in National Review Online.

Posted 1/15/2003 01:39:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
ESPN'S JOHN CLAYTON ON MARIUCCI:

A year ago, Mariucci was tempted by the money and power of having the dual roles in Tampa. He would have been a $4 million major player in this league, but in the end, he turned it down because his family wanted to remain in the Bay area. The Bucs bit the bullet and traded two first-round choices, two second-rounders and $8 million to Oakland for Jon Gruden. The flirtation with the Bucs' job hurt Mariucci organizationally. His fine coaching job this season put him back in a position for York to make an offer about an extension. But one thing wasn't going to happen. York wasn't going to allow Mariucci to do anything more than just coach. It's not that Mariucci is wrong. The timing was bad. For the first couple years of this decade, NFL owners were handing out duel titles and big coaching contracts like candy at Christmas. Nearly half of the teams had head coaches in full charge of the football operations. Things are changing this year. Mike Holmgren lost his general manager duties in Seattle, but kept his salary and status as coach. Tom Coughlin was let go as the single person in charge of the Jaguars. Bill Parcells had to take a job as coach only for Jerry Jones in Dallas. The reality of things is that as much as Mariucci is the perfect coach for one of the youngest starting lineups in football, it probably was time for him to move. Had he accepted an extension for $3 million a year, that wouldn't have changed the feeling that he was an outsider in the organization. The person who hired him is still in Cleveland. Should he go to Jacksonville, Mariucci might get more money than in San Francisco. He might get a little more power, although owner Wayne Weaver wants a sharing of the power between a coach and a personnel director. As for the 49ers, they can go a number of different directions. Dennis Green is a perfect candidate as long as he casts aside his desires to run the front office, too. Looking internally, the team could go for Jim Mora Jr., the team's bright young defensive coordinator.

Posted 1/15/2003 01:08:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
ADVANTAGE ED! Back on October 8, we reported about Internet2, a consortium of universities and businesses that are designing technology for a possible ultra-high-speed successor to the current Internet. (Actually, we've been writing about Internet2 since around late 1999 or early 2000, it's only been recently that these articles started showing up on the actual Internet, as opposed to on dead tree.) Anyhow, my wife found this on her My Yahoo home page: Yahoo! News - Arecibo's Internet2 Connection Gives Researchers Greater Access Cool story about an even cooler technology.

Posted 1/15/2003 11:32:11 AM by Edward Driscoll
REPORT: STEVE MARIUCCI OUT AS 49ers HEAD COACH. "A 49ers spokeswoman would not confirm the report, but said that the team has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday at 3 p.m. EST." UPDATE: It's official. Next stop, Jacksonville?

Posted 1/15/2003 11:26:49 AM by Edward Driscoll
ANOTHER INTERNET ANNIVERSARY: Five years ago today, Monicagate was born, via Matt Drudge, by far the most visible of the many scandals "emanating from the [former] President's pants", as Jonah Goldberg once put it. Meanwhile, tax-evasion charges have been filed against a miracle-cure peddler pardoned by Clinton as part of the infamous 177 pardons he issued before leaving office in 2001.

Posted 1/15/2003 12:33:24 AM by Edward Driscoll
WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN. James Lileks writes:

So now I have to remove Sheryl Crow AND Pete Townsend from my iTunes playlist. Ms. Crow has informed us that war is bad for our karma, and that it can be avoided by �not having enemies.� She has a point. Cancer can be avoided by not having any flesh, but given the alternative, I�ll opt every time for a world stuffed with bright meat. I try not to make enemies, but damn if they don't keep volunteering for the job.

Here's the money quote, though:

People who use children for their sexual gratification should be walled up and left for dead. I guess that makes them my enemy. And in Ms. Crow�s world, that�s my problem. Imagine you�re living in WW2, and you learn that Glenn Miller had kiddie-diddler urges, Dick Powell is in Berlin on a fact-finding mission, Hitchcock is insisting that the Blitz could be solved with diplomacy and understanding, and the Andrews Sisters showed up for an awards banquet wearing T-shirts that criticized Lend-Lease. Hitler the Second would be running Germany today, because the beautiful people would have convinced America that scrap drives were a plot by the rubber-industrial complex.

Actually, I'm sure I'll get fooled again. I said to my wife tonight that I'm really batting a thousand when it comes to teenage idols: Coppola worships mass-murders, Pete Townshend is suspected of being a pedophile, and then there's the whole Woody Allen debacle. Oh and Brian Eno, a man whom produced some wonderful records with U-2 and the Talking Heads has a world view that's the polar opposite of his originality as a musician. Not really a teenage idol, but his thoughts on the recording process were hugely influential to me when I first began recording my own songs in my late teens on a four-track. Another interesting guy who probably never should have opened his mouth about politics. Steven Den Beste has some thoughts on the whole protest movement. I think he's dead-on target with this point:

One comes to the conclusion that they are actually playing to each other. Like the apocalyptic Christians who stand on a street corner and shout the message that "Repent, for the end is coming soon" one comes to the conclusion that they're doing it more to prove their moral purity than because they actually expect to make any difference. It's not that they think they can sway the political middle; they don't even care to try. They're parading for each other, to prove commitment to the cause. (And a healthy dose of Tu Quoque never hurts, either.)

Certainly this is true in Hollywood, which is an astonishingly insular and monolithic community, at least when it comes to politics. Den Beste's essay is well worth reading in its entirety, as usual. UPDATE: A reader says, "While you are at it, you might as well also remove John LeCarr� from your library after reading this. Ugh. UPDATE UPDATE: Charles Johnson is much more articulate on LeCarr� than my comment above:

Unbelievable. If the deluded fools keep popping their heads up at this rate, we�re going to need an Idiotarian of the Week contest. Now it�s John LeCarr�, hitting every anti-war trope; it�s all about oil, it�s a personal vendetta between Bush and Saddam, it�s a religious war (but not a word about radical Islam!), US media is suppressing the debate (hah!), et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam.

Posted 1/14/2003 08:58:45 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE TERMINATOR: Has Gray Davis just opened the door for Arnold Schwarzenegger to become the next governor of California? Patrick Ruffini thinks so.

Posted 1/14/2003 04:57:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE CINCINNATI BENGALS NAME Marvin Lewis as their head coach. He's been an excellent defensive coach with the Ravens and Redskins, but he'll certainly have his work cut out for him, to turn the hapless ~~Bungles~~ Bengals around.

Posted 1/14/2003 10:39:28 AM by Edward Driscoll
WHEN THE PETE TOWNSHEND PEDOPHILE CHARGES BROKE over the weekend, I was stunned. It really felt like Woody and Soon-Yi all over again, and I took it very personally, because it was someone who's career and art I grew up with--was shaped by. Here was another of my teenage idols, somebody who, despite his excesses and shortcoming, I felt was one of rock's most intelligent men, who's career and reputation had just self-destructed (and the key word is self: nobody put a gun to Pete's head and told him to download kiddie porn). Beyond my own selfish considerations, what must his wife and daughters think of him? At this point in time, I still don't know what to add to the story, but Damian Penny is all over it, and has lots of thoughts of his own. Start here, and then scroll down and/or up, depending upon when you're reading this.

Posted 1/14/2003 09:53:31 AM by Edward Driscoll
LIFE IMITATES SEINFELD: Back in the mid-1990s, Seinfeld had a hilarious episode where Kramer invented "The Bro", the bra for aging guys who need, err...just a little extra support. Somebody's watched the rerun of that episode one time too many. (Link found via NRO's The Corner)

Posted 1/14/2003 09:41:20 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE ULTIMATE RINO: With Jumpin' Jim Jefford having finally jumped, Lincoln Chafee, despite the history encapsulated into his first name, is the definitive RINO, that is, a Republican in name only. Check out this quote, courtesy of Jay Nordlinger:

Every now and then, you find a statement that encapsulates everything � or something � perfectly. I found one such statement from the mouth of Lincoln Chafee, the senator from Rhode Island. Here�s what he had to say about the Bush economic program: �I can�t see giving away any more of our revenues, which we�re doing in tax cuts.� Ponder those words: �giving away� (which is socialist-speak for taking less of a person�s income); �our revenues� � the very ownership of that money.

As Nordlinger says, "Folks, this is just too perfect. Hang on to it." Rush Limbaugh, call your office. You could do a whole show on Chafee's line, (if you haven't already).

Posted 1/13/2003 07:03:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE MILES DAVIS, GEORGE W. BUSH CONNECTION, PART II. Back on November 7th, I wrote:

IN A SILENT WAY: Miles Davis knew how to make silence work for him as a musician--by carefully choosing when not to play, he made what he did play that much more eloquent. George W. Bush seems to understand that that can work equally well for politics.

I remember saying to my wife at the time, that I must be the only guy who would compare George W. Bush with Miles Davis. But Suzanne Fields' January 9th column is an essay titled, "Celebrating compassionate cool", in which she writes:

Conservatives like leaders who are like themselves. George W. lives in the White House but we know he's also at home on the range, which he visits often. Bill Clinton lived out wild fantasies without a sense of place, not even Hot Springs, which is why he almost never went "home." The world has become a more dangerous place since 9/11 and we may soon be in a hot war. That requires a cool hand. Cool, of course, changes with shifting cultural and political forces. When Donald Rumsfeld, our 70-year old secretary of Defense, began holding widely watched press briefings on television, the press started treating him like a rock star. American Maturity, the magazine for retired folk, featured him in an article on "Eldercool." Cool in the modern vernacular began with jazz. Miles Davis, the brilliant trumpeter, is credited with "the birth of cool," a relaxed, smooth style in reaction to the hard bumping, jumping, grinding, flashy, vulgar rhythms of bebop. Cool, like jazz, is easy to recognize but difficult to explain. If you have to ask, as Louis Armstrong said of jazz, you ain't cool.

It's a great essay--she has some excellent thoughts about the coolness of conservative women (see also John Derbyshire's essay from early 2001, for some additional examples of cool conservative babes), and this paragraph, which I love:

Conservative cool comes with a preference for uncomplicated leaders, plain guys who could play linebacker. Liberals want showoffs with lots of hair, to idolize as quarterbacks even if they throw more interceptions than touchdowns. Conservatives are more likely to go to church; liberals are more likely to worship trees and snail darters in their natural habitat.

I'm far from a regular churchgoer. But on the other hand, I don't spend a whole lot of time worshipping snail darters, trees, Xenu, or Gaia, either.

Posted 1/13/2003 05:18:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
BIG-ASS RIBS, race and Republicans, and liberal journalism professors--all in Rich Galen's latest Mullings. Be sure to read the whole thing, including his "Secret Decoder Ring", which is where you will find the big-ass rib in question. And it's big!

Posted 1/13/2003 03:13:40 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO AOL AFTER CASE LEAVES? This Reuters article has some thoughts.

Posted 1/13/2003 02:44:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
FOR THOSE CHILDREN NOT ON RITALIN: headbanging baby gear debuts.

Posted 1/13/2003 12:26:56 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ROOTS OF UN-AMERICANISM: Victor Davis Hanson, as usual, is right on the money:

Eschewing any reference to truths of this kind, adherents of postmodernist relativism assess morality instead by the sole criterion of power: Those without it deserve the ethical high ground by virtue of their very status as underdogs; those with it, at least if they are Westerners, and especially if they are Americans, are ipso facto oppressors. Israel could give over the entire West Bank, suffer 10,000 dead from suicide bombers, and apologize formally for its existence, and it would still be despised by American and European intellectuals for being what it is--Western, prosperous, confident, and successful amid a sea of abject self-induced failure. One is bound to point out that as a way of organizing reality, this deterministic view of the world suffers from certain fatal defects, primarily an easy susceptibility to self-contradiction. Thus, a roguish Augusto Pinochet, who executed thousands in the name of "law and order" in Chile, is regarded as an incarnation of the devil purely by dint of his purportedly close association with the United States, while a roguish and anti-American Castro, who butchered tens of thousands in the name of "social justice" in Cuba, is courted by congressmen and ex-presidents even as Hollywood celebrities festooned with AIDS ribbons sedulously ignore the thousands of HIV-positive Cubans languishing in his camps. Kofi Annan gushes, Chamberlain-like, of Saddam Hussein, "He's a man I can do business with," while the ghosts of thousands slain by the Iraqi tyrant, many of them at his own hand, flutter nearby; for this, the soft-spoken internationalist is lionized. Few have exploited the contradictions of this amoral morality as deftly as Jimmy Carter, who can parlay with some of the world's most odious dictators and still garner praise for "reaching out" to the disadvantaged and the oppressed. As president, Mr. Carter evidently was incapable of doing much of anything at all when tens of thousands of Ethiopians were being butchered; but as chief executive emeritus, he has managed to abet the criminal regime of North Korea in its determination to fabricate nuclear bombs and lately, having been rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize for peace, has brazenly attempted to thwart a sitting president's efforts to save the world from the Iraqi madman.

Read the whole thing.

Posted 1/13/2003 10:55:58 AM by Edward Driscoll
GENERAL CHAOS: Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who served under Lyndon Johnson, and now seems to serving under Saddam Hussein, is in hot water from both Christians And Muslims for calling Jesus Christ a terrorist:

Rev. Lou Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, scolded Clark for his comments and demanded an apology on behalf of Christians and Muslims. "Mr. Clark has made a very serious error and he needs to apologize both to the Christians and to the Muslims, because the Muslims hold Jesus Christ as a great prophet equal to Muhammad," Sheldon said. "He has insulted and offended people on both sides of the Christian-Muslim line ... I hope he's forthcoming right away with an apology." "Jesus never said, 'Kill your enemy.' He said, 'Turn the other cheek," Sheldon said. "It appears that Mr. Ramsey [Clark] does not know the New Testament." "One cannot be a Muslim unless one believes in the miraculous birth of Christ and in his great mission of promoting love and brotherhood," said Sayyid Syeed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). "We consider him as a model, we consider him as a great prophet, a teacher and a comforter whose birth we believe was a great miracle."

Meanwhile, the AG of another liberal Democratic President is considering running for the US Senate. P.J. O'Rourke, call your office... UPDATE: Orrin Judd writes:

Add another nomination to the list--along with Al Sharpton in the Presidential; Cynthia McKinney in GA; and Carol Mosley-Braun in IL--of those races where the National Party has to work to knock off a member of its base. The Democratic Party is going to spend the Spring of '04 opposing blacks and women who are running for office. That should be good for turnout in November.

Posted 1/13/2003 12:13:06 AM by Edward Driscoll
SADDAM'S IDIOTS: Jonah Goldberg writes that in the past, "V.I. Lenin, the founding dictator of the Soviet Union, had a pithy phrase for the Western liberals who took the side of the Soviets in political debates. He called them 'useful idiots.'", Today, Goldberg writes, "we have a new and improved version of useful idiots; we call them 'human shields.'", and examines a recent would-be ~~idio~~...err, "human shield" who's on his way to Baghdad.

Posted 1/12/2003 04:48:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
ADVANTAGE ED! Back on December 24th, we wrote about the payback that ex-Redskins, current Chargers coach Marty Schotteinheimer extracted when his b�te noire, Deion Sanders, publicly said he was wanted to play for the Raiders:

Schottenheimer has taken away the one thing Deion craves more than cash: the spotlight. Because the Chargers now own his rights, if he wants to play football again, it�ll have to be for Marty and the Chargers.

Three days later, Skip Bayless of the San Jose Mercury wrote:

Sanders found his NFL rights suspended in his version of Dante's "Inferno.'' He wound up with the longest playoff shot: Schottenheimer's San Diego Chargers. He's free to negotiate with them -- fat chance -- while they can park him on their reserve/retired list for the duration of his Redskins contract. Several league sources anticipate Sanders will tee off on Schottenheimer this Sunday on "The NFL Today.'' The man who ran Sanders out of football has kept him out. Sanders is still stuck on TV, and Davis is still backed into a corner.

We don't always do it, but when we do, it's nice to beat someone to the punch! Speaking of the Raiders, with 50 seconds left, it's Raiders 30, Jets 10. Is a Super Bowl featuring John Gruden versus his old Raiders in the offing? Tune into next week's AFC and NFC championships to see!

Posted 1/12/2003 04:37:23 PM by Edward Driscoll
IS THE MOOCH A MEMORY? While the Bucs were blowing out the '49ers, Fox's NFL announcers, Troy Aikman, Collinsworth and Joe Buck spent much of the fourth quarter speculating that 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci was toast. In contrast, these quotes by John York, the owner of the 49ers sound like there will be mo' Mooch next season. But obviously, anything could happen in the interim, particularly when Mariucci has Bill Walsh and Terry Donahue looking over his shoulder. UPDATE: Len Pasquarelli of ESPN.com has some thoughts:

"The more plausible scenario is that Niners ownership and general manager Terry Donahue will offer Mariucci an extension, but at a salary below the current market value for a coach of his tenure. Then rather than accept such a deal, Mariucci could simply announce that he will enter 2003 as a lame duck, and become a free agent after that season. Management would then be forced with the decision of whether or not to keep Mariucci around for the final season of his contract.

Posted 1/12/2003 04:19:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
IT WAS A GOOD WEEK FOR CONSERVATIVES, according to David Limbaugh.

Posted 1/12/2003 04:15:40 PM by Edward Driscoll
SILICON VALLEY RENT PLUNGES: high-tech commercial real estate fell almost 30 percent in 2002, extending a slide that began a year earlier. [engage sarcasm mode]Of course, raising taxes should cure that![/sarcasm]

Posted 1/12/2003 02:18:29 PM by Edward Driscoll
DOES THE US NAVY HAVE A DISCIPLINE PROBLEM? Donald Sensing, who served in the Army until 1995 has some thoughts. Speaking of the Army, this is no great insight, but I wonder what those "Army of One" ads are doing for discipline and entitlement. Of course, Sensing does have one novel suggestion for how to make an example of a sailor who screws up.

Posted 1/12/2003 01:27:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
POISON PILL: CNS News reports on state governments and raising taxes:

As new governors take office and state legislatures return to work in the first days of 2003, many states are considering tax increases in order to balance their budgets. But a study just released by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) concludes that higher taxes are the wrong solution for states to balance their books. John Berthoud, president of the NTUF and author of the study, believes "a review of the last state budget crisis clearly shows that resorting to tax hikes will slow economic recovery and thus prolong the budget agonies that many states are experiencing." The study said states that enacted tax hikes in the early 1990s experienced slower income, less employment and less population growth during the ensuing decade. "The message of history is clear," Berthoud observed. "Ratcheting up taxes is a devastating poison pill for state economies.

Of course. But that isn't stopping his Gray-ness from raising California's taxes, to bail him out of the mess that he created.