Posted 4/19/2003 08:59:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
TEN YEARS AFTER: Today is the 10th anniversary of the tragedy at Waco. Curious, isn't it, that an administration that made a fetish out of the phrase "do it for the children" is bookmarked by Waco and Elian Gonzalez. (Link to Waco article via Reason's Hit & Run blog.)

Posted 4/19/2003 02:12:11 AM by Edward Driscoll
I'LL EVEN HARA-KIRI IF YOU SHOW ME HOW: Check out this classic from James Taranto in the Journal's Best of the Web Today:

[Iraqi Major] Saleh Abdullah Mahdi Al Jaburi...says: "We were desperate when Baghdad fell so quickly. If we were not Muslims we would have done like the Japanese and committed suicide [but] . . . our religion forbids it." If only the Fedayeen, the Palestinians and al Qaeda followed the same religion.

Exactly.

Posted 4/18/2003 06:38:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
BLACKLIST, HOLLYWOOD STYLE: The Media Research Center reminds us that while Tim Robbins is crying "blacklist" because he was disinvited to the Baseball Hall of Fame, he's organized at least one blacklist of his own:

While ABC ached for Tim Robbins, who ached when Robbins led the boycotts? ABC found post-war boycotts a horror story of free speech under attack, but did not warn of the impending doom three years ago, when it was Robbins and other leftists organizing boycotts and blacklists. ABC gave Hollywood hypocrites a free ride. In 2000, the Screen Actors Guild went on a long strike against advertisers, demanding higher residual payments for actors appearing in commercials. Not only did Robbins and his colleagues demand that everyone punish Procter & Gamble workers with a boycott, they were highly interested in punishing any actor who crossed the picket line. When model-actress Elizabeth Hurley made an Estee Lauder ad, and then claimed she was unaware of the strike, Robbins was in a punitive mood, calling for Hurley to be punished, even banned from Hollywood. Hurley was eventually fined $100,000, not banned, but if she’d lost her SAG card, her acting career would have been ruined. Wooten didn’t have any time in his report last night for Tim Robbins’ attempt at Hollywood blacklisting.

Posted 4/18/2003 11:34:13 AM by Edward Driscoll
HERE'S ONE CLASS ACTION SUIT I CAN GET BEHIND. (Found via InstaPundit.)

Posted 4/17/2003 07:57:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
GREAT LINE by Steven Den Beste: "CNN sold its soul, but it didn't sell ours". Found in a long, but fascinating essay on what CNN did to remain in Baghdad, and what will happen as a result of it.

Posted 4/17/2003 03:58:51 PM by Edward Driscoll
NATIONAL REVIEW LOVES AC/DC: No, really!

Posted 4/17/2003 03:41:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
LINGERING ANGST: Mona Charen on the "fantasy world [that] is all too common among Arab countries reluctant to live with hard facts and truth."

Posted 4/17/2003 03:19:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE MAN WHO BUILT THE DALLAS COWBOYS: Tex Schramm, who was the team's president and general manager from 1960-89, will be added to the Ring of Honor at Texas Stadium this fall.

Posted 4/17/2003 12:35:22 PM by Edward Driscoll
TOO MANY GOOD ITEMS IN Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus today to quote just one, so click on over and read the whole thing. OK, well, I will quote this one:

David Letterman had a priceless comment about Iraq — deep, too. "And now the really difficult part: We have to rebuild Iraq into a strong and independent nation that will one day hate the United States."

As Nordlinger writes, "There is enough wisdom in that crack to merit a dissertation."

Posted 4/17/2003 12:22:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
DASCHLE DOUBLE-PLAY: The Senate minority leader has been ordered to stop calling himself a Catholic, according to The Weekly Standard:

The Senate minority leader and the highest ranking Democrat in Washington has been sent a letter by his home diocese of Sioux Falls, sources in South Dakota have told The Weekly Standard, directing him to remove from his congressional biography and campaign documents all references to his standing as a member of the Catholic Church. This isn't exactly excommunication--which is unnecessary, in any case, since Daschle made himself ineligible for communion almost 20 years ago with his divorce and remarriage to a Washington lobbyist. The directive from Sioux Falls' Bishop Robert Carlson is rather something less than excommunication--and, at the same time, something more: a declaration that Tom Daschle's religious identification constitutes, in technical Catholic vocabulary, a grave public scandal.

The article also has a very illuminating comment about California's Gov. Gray Davis, who received a similar chastisement from Bishop William Weigand of Sacramento:

Russ Lopez, a spokesman for Davis, responded with the hilarious and deeply revealing complaint that Bishop Weigand was "telling the faithful how to practice their faith." In Lopez's mind--as, indeed, in the minds of many--the promise of the separation of Church and state, in which no political figure gets to tell believers how to practice their faith, has turned into a need for the separation of Church and Church, in which not even a religious figure gets to tell believers how to practice their faith.)

Meanwhile, the Washington Times reports that "Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, would lose to a prominent state Republican, according to a poll conducted for the National Republican Senatorial Committee." We're very...disappointed in Senator Daschle. It's all so...troubling. And...saddening.

Posted 4/17/2003 11:09:10 AM by Edward Driscoll
ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE U.N.: Scroll down to the bottom of today's Best of the Web Today to find it. In other Max Headroom-like retro/modern recombinant news, Glenn Reynolds asks, "what would Bugs Bunny Do?"

Posted 4/17/2003 10:56:20 AM by Edward Driscoll
JUST SUE BABY, PART MMCCCLXVII: "Raiders seek to force changes in uniforms of Bucs, Panthers". I'd say this is proof that Al Davis has officially jumped the shark, but San Jose's hockey team might sue me... UPDATE: Ray Ratto of ESPN.com says "Monday was Groundhog Day at Al Davis' house, which means he came out the front door, saw a court date and a lawyer, and thereby signaled the beginning of spring."

Posted 4/17/2003 01:02:08 AM by Edward Driscoll
COULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED TO A NICER COUNTRY: "France Told It Owes Jews Millions for Vichy Plundering", according to this Reuters article.

Posted 4/16/2003 10:01:48 PM by Edward Driscoll
STEVEN DEN BESTE has some news for the BBC.

Posted 4/16/2003 04:58:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
SOON TO BE A MAJOR OUT OF COURT SETTLEMENT: Marvel asks court to revoke Sony's Spider-Man license. Considering that Marvel itself isn't in the best shape these days, both financially and emotionally, they certainly have a lot of chutzpah if they're serious about revoking Sony's license for the superhero--which I doubt they are.

Posted 4/16/2003 03:02:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
HEYWOOD JABLOME: He's everywhere these days!

Posted 4/16/2003 02:40:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHY ARE CONSERVATIVES OPTIMISTIC? Paul Jaminet, (who I guess is the other, other brother), weighs in on the Brothers Judd Blog.

Posted 4/16/2003 02:11:51 PM by Edward Driscoll
LOW FIDELITY: Clayton Cramer explains the First Amendment to Tim Robbins, who seems to have problems understanding what it actually says. Cramer also links to this AP story:

One casualty of the war with Iraq is the First Amendment right to oppose it, actor Tim Robbins says. Robbins and longtime companion actress Susan Sarandon are war opponents whose scheduled appearance at baseball's Hall of Fame was canceled last week by former Reagan administration aide Dale Petroskey, now the hall's president. "A chill wind is blowing in this nation," Robbins told a National Press Club luncheon Tuesday. "Every day the airwaves are filled with warnings, veiled and unveiled threats, spewed invective and hatred directed at any voice of dissent."

If Robbins has ever commented on the previous administration, which was alleged by numerous conservative groups of siccing the IRS on them, please email me--I doubt it very seriously.

Posted 4/16/2003 01:13:40 PM by Edward Driscoll
RANDY MOSS SUED BY TRAFFIC OFFICER, the same one the Minnesota Vikings' wide reciever hit with his car last fall.

Posted 4/16/2003 12:30:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
THIS IS CNN: The first four of the seven items on the Media Research Center's daily CyberAlert are all about CNN, including this classic bit of doublethink by NBC's Tom Brokaw:

Tom Brokaw scolded CNN's Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive who late last week confessed that CNN withheld specific information he had about Saddam Hussein's brutality and endangerment of Iraqis CNN employed, suggesting he should have kept his knowledge secret since the revelation now casts doubt on anything CNN reports. On Tuesday's Late Show, Brokaw told David Letterman that CNN “should have worked harder at conveying” what Jordan knew, but that if you “decide to keep that as a secret for yourself to protect those people and to protect the interests of your company, then you probably ought to keep it secret for a long time because it opens them up now, wherever they go, wherever they're stationed, 'well what are they not telling us now?'”

"So much for journalists demanding full disclosure", says Brent Baker of the MRC. Or as Glenn Reynolds wrote yesterday, "If any other institution had performed as badly, the media folks would be all over it and demanding government action." UPDATE: If CNN is going down, they're determined to take others with them: CNN's pre-written obits for Ronald Reagan, Dick Cheney, Bob Hope, and Fidel Castro were discovered recently on a publicly accessible server. The Smoking Gun has the details (along with screen captures). ANOTHER UPDATE: This cartoon neatly sums up CNN and the Baathists.

Posted 4/16/2003 11:13:20 AM by Edward Driscoll
NEWSPUNDIT.NET has permalinked us. Be sure to stop by Douglas Oliver's site several dozen times today--and tomorrow as well.

Posted 4/15/2003 08:56:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE KYOTO TREATY: Is it the hidden cost of victory? God, I hope not.

Posted 4/15/2003 08:41:48 PM by Edward Driscoll
GROUP CAPTAIN MANDRAKE HAS MOVED TO A NEW BLOG: Adjust your hyperlinks and CRM-114 discriminators to the new URL.

Posted 4/15/2003 08:38:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
IS COLONEL SANDERS THE NEW IRAQI STRONGMAN? This quote by Joanne Jacobs pretty much sums the difference between the anti-war far left, and...well, just about everyone else:

When I think of "Western cultural values," I think of individualism, freedom, democracy and tolerance. Anti-war activists think of fast food. And they're not tolerant of Iraqis' right to make choices about what's for dinner.

Ouch. Jacobs adds, "Of course, anti-war protesters also think scenes of Iraqis joyfully welcoming U.S. troops are staged. They know better than the Iraqis how they feel about their new colonial masters, who will force them to eat fried chicken with seven special herbs and spices. With a spork." OK, I'm with them on protesting that spork thing...

Posted 4/15/2003 07:47:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
CAN'T KEEP HIM AWAY: Andrew Sullivan, ostensibly on vacation, weighs in on the BBC's coverage of the arrest--in Baghdad--of Abu Abbas, the mastermind behind the Achille Lauro hijacking. The version of the BBC article now online seems much toned down from the Reuters-ish equivocation that oozed out from the original draft of just a few hours ago. I'm actually surprised the BBC rewrote it that quickly, but I wonder if anybody has saved their first version.

Posted 4/15/2003 06:41:56 PM by Edward Driscoll
FORMER PHILLY EAGLES OWNER DIES: Leonard Tose, the high flying (and later, hard crashing) former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, died Tuesday at age 88. Besides owning the Eagles from 1969 until 1985, Tose also was also the driving force behind the Ronald McDonald House program, and the Eagles Fly for Leukemia fund.

Posted 4/15/2003 06:11:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
NOT QUITE THE AXIS OF EVIL, BUT...: The Village Voice writes of a "Republic of Fear" at the New York Times under Howell Raines.

Posted 4/15/2003 11:34:31 AM by Edward Driscoll
MAYBE A SEVEN DAY WAITING PERIOD WILL BE NEXT: "Modern Day Prohibitionists Want to Ration Your Alcohol".

Posted 4/15/2003 10:19:30 AM by Edward Driscoll
WHAT DOGS BARKED? Patrick Ruffini, writing on the tricked out NCC-1701-A version of his site, runs down what Saddam did and didn't do during the war.

Posted 4/15/2003 09:54:43 AM by Edward Driscoll
LOOTING AND LIES: Jonathan Foreman on what CNN, the BBC, et al, haven't mentioned about the looting in Baghdad:

The hysterical tone of some press reports may reflect the fact that some of the reporters who have been sitting in Baghdad for months have lost sight of the nature of the Saddam regime: They are mystified by the exhilaration felt by so many liberated Iraqis. But the failure of so many reports to mention the fact that many of the looted stores, institutions and even hospitals were linked to the regime is more troubling. These institutions were dedicated to the exclusive use of Ba'ath Party members - the ordinary public could not make use of them - or were owned and operated by known supporters of the regime. It's not clear if this whale of an omission reflects disingenuousness or genuine ignorance. But it is telling that some of the doctors now being quoted about the horrors of looting are the same ones who furnished journalists those massively exaggerated reports of civilian casualties from U.S. bombing - a dishonesty that benefited both the regime they served and the journalists' need for a dramatic story of American cruelty.

Gee, you think? UPDATE: See also this InstaPost about who might be behind the looting of Iraq's National Museum.

Posted 4/15/2003 02:12:39 AM by Edward Driscoll
JUMPED THE SHARK: Brian Doherty posts about Kurt Vonnegut, a superstar author who wishes he had never been born!

Posted 4/13/2003 11:57:29 PM by Edward Driscoll
MARINES START FIGHT FOR TIKRIT, according to The Washington Times

Posted 4/13/2003 11:20:29 PM by Edward Driscoll
OF COURSE--AS SOON AS ALEC BALDWIN MOVES TO FRANCE: Will Janeane Garofalo apologize as she promised she would?

Posted 4/13/2003 03:39:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE DECLINE OF THE WEST EUROPE: I wonder what Oswald Spengler would think of James Bennett's essay, titled "Why do they hate us?":

The widespread anti-Americanism in the world, of which Continental Europe is the ultimate source, has almost nothing to do with the character of President George W. Bush or the current administration, or other such cosmetic issues. The modern world was first carried forward by two great civilizations. The Anglosphere was one. The dynamic industrializing culture of 19th century Continental Europe, to which the spark of the Judaeo-Christian encounter was so important, was the other. That culture committed suicide in the '30s. Perhaps its successor is not the revival of that culture, but rather its zombie. In considering the Holocaust, most attention has been given to its direct victims, as is appropriate. However, we must also consider that it was a form of self-administered lobotomy for Continental European culture. It would not be surprising if the twin anti-modernist themes of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, now rapidly coalescing into a single nasty mess visible in many of the pro-Saddam demonstrations of the past year, become once again the predominant political-cultural theme in Western Continental Europe, overwhelming the decent and positive forces there that had previously prevailed.

Be sure to read the whole thing. I was struck, particularly, by these paragraphs:

How can we calculate how much more dynamism was added by the everyday interaction of people who had previously been kept in parallel and uncommunicative spheres? The Germanosphere, including not just the Second Reich, but Austria-Hungary, German Switzerland, and the German-speaking communities of Eastern Europe and the Americas, really might better be dubbed the Judaeo-Germanosphere during that period. Continental European Jews, because they owed their very presence in the larger civilization to the values of liberalism and modernism, were one of the first and most obvious targets of the Industrial Counter-Revolution. The collapse of globalization and consequent rise of totalitarianism set the stage for the end of the great Judaeo-German hybrid civilization of Europe and its French counterpart. Those European Jews who were left alive at the end of the war overwhelmingly desired to leave, and they left to two destinations: Israel, and the Anglosphere. With this emigration, on top of the previous great Jewish emigration to London and New York in the late 19th century, much of the energy, creativity and contributions of European Jews were given to the Anglosphere rather than the Continent. The cost to the Continent, and the benefits to the Anglosphere has never, to my knowledge, been calculated. The cost might never be calculable, but it is real.

This very much ties in with a Steven Den Beste essay from December, where he looked at the lack of technological innovation coming out of much of Europe, echoing (actually foreshadowing) Bennett's comments:

If you ask someone with any kind of technical background to list high-tech Japanese companies, they'll have no trouble at all reeling off several names immediately (often brandnames chosen for the American market, like Pioneer), and several more after a few seconds of thought: Sony, Toshiba, Matsushita; the only reason there aren't more names on the list is because of the Japanese zaibatsu system. Ask pretty much anyone to list American high tech companies and they may come up with 50 names before they have to slow down. But ask people to list high-tech companies from continental Europe, and I think most people would have to think hard to list even one. I, myself, having been in the industry for 25 years can only list a few: Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens, Alcatel, Philips and then I run out, and honestly can't think of any more right now. And among them, Philips as the only one actually doing cutting-edge research. (They developed the laserdisc, which led to the CD and DVD, among other interesting things.)

And Virginia Postrel posted in January about laws originally passed by National Socialist Germany in the 1930s that continue to impede the success of its own businesses, and prevents greater sales by American firms there. No need to fret however. The EU will cut through so much of Europe's red tape... UPDATE: Quick thought: In a way, the impending grounding of the supersonic Concorde neatly foreshadows the slowing pace of European business development, and the growing strangehold the transnational progressivist EU is placing on European business development.

Posted 4/13/2003 12:01:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
HE'S BACK! Patrick Ruffini, after a nasty hack attack, is back with what he calls PatrickRuffini.com Version 5.5, now running on the Moveable Type blogging platform. Stop by today!