Posted 4/26/2003 11:58:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
GEE, HERE'S A SHOCKER: "France briefed Iraq on war: report". This Photoshop prank is beginning to look more and more plausible everyday.

Posted 4/26/2003 11:50:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEOCONS GET BOOST IN DEFEAT OF SADDAM, according to The Washington Times. Good article, but considering that the Times should be sympathetic to the idea of neoconservatism, I'm wondering why the quotation marks in the headlines.

Posted 4/26/2003 04:35:16 PM by Edward Driscoll
SMOKING GUN, PART 2,387: "Paper: Documents Show Iraq-Al Qaida Link" No word yet on what Janeane Garofalo thinks of this, however.

Posted 4/26/2003 02:40:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
SARS: Neil Seeman writes how the media has fumbled the ball on SARS in Toronto, for (surprise!) both hype and political correctness:

Whatever the facts, the SARS epidemic will always be more about psychology than epidemiology. If we live in a global village when it comes to the dissemination of news information, then we live in a global cocoon when it comes to the dissemination of fear and rhetoric. The media have a role to play here, and must take it very seriously. The essential problem is shoddy reporting. In order to make the illness appear more widespread, journalists seldom report on the attack rate within discrete, at-risk populations — SARS in Toronto is a disease affecting health-care workers and elderly patients within hospital settings, and with underlying illness. In the province of Ontario, doctors estimate that the case-fatality rate for those who actually contract SARS is less than one percent for patients under 50. Journalists habitually lump together "probable" and "suspected" cases, without ever explaining why. Lumping the two categories together can make the picture of SARS appear bleaker than it might otherwise seem, since, at this stage in the outbreak, many suspected cases may be excluded after investigation and follow-up. Just as disturbing, most media reporting has succumbed to political correctness. Canadians are clueless as to the ethnicity and country of origin of the victims.

Read the whole thing. And check out this post by InstaPundit, who says, "I can't see Bush overexerting himself on Chretien's behalf." Gee, I wonder why?

Posted 4/26/2003 01:40:14 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE STATE OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT: Steven Den Beste writes, "The problem with State is that sometimes it seems as if they've forgotten just who they work for and whose interests they're supposed to be representing. It's almost the diplomatic equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome, where the people in the various bureaus in State identify more with the nations they're assigned to than they do with the US. And there seems to be a strong and very unhealthy strain of post-nationalism there, to the point where in some cases they seem to agree with the French that America is actually the problem." Unlike some others, Den Beste isn't thrilled that Newt's on the case, however.

Posted 4/26/2003 09:35:35 AM by Edward Driscoll
BLOGGING CAN GET RESULTS, according to this post on Across the Atlantic.

Posted 4/26/2003 01:01:44 AM by Edward Driscoll
AN OFFER YOU CAN REFUSE, at least if your initials are GWB. That's essentially how Steven Den Beste describes North Korea's "New Bold Proposal".

Posted 4/26/2003 12:55:52 AM by Edward Driscoll
NFL DRAFTNIKS UNITE! Today is your day. ESPN has a whole section of their Website devoted to NFL Draft 2003.

Posted 4/25/2003 05:45:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
ON THE ROAD AGAIN: Scott Ott, breaking yet another exclusive, writes that the Dixie Chicks are launching a USO tour overseas. You go, girls! (Please.)

Posted 4/25/2003 05:14:53 PM by Edward Driscoll
EUTHANASIA: H.D. Miller writes of three "elderly elderly gentlemen [who] should be put to sleep". Jimmy Breslin is one of them. Read the article in full that Miller links to--it's jaw-dropping in its insensitivity and lack of diversity and open-mindedness. On the other hand, Tom Wolfe, a contemporary of Miller's three stooges (and one of my all time heroes as a writer and social commentator), sounds remarkably fresh and vibrant, as usual. Wolfe's ongoing commitment to new journalism requires that he do at least some reporting (interviewing, visiting locations, researching, etc.), even for his fiction. Maybe that's kept him more in touch with reality than some of his peers.

Posted 4/25/2003 03:28:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
IS RICK SANTORUM A DEMOCRATIC PLANT? James Pinkerton writes:

Some say that Santorum will suffer a Trent Lott-like fate, and ultimately lose his leadership post. But that's unlikely. What's more likely is that Santorum will stay right where he is. As a result, at a time when the GOP needs to be hitting harmoniously on all cylinders, foreign and domestic, various factions within the party will be sniping at each other over an issue that has nothing to do with anything on the legislative horizon for 2003. Moreover, long term, Santorum's continued presence will send a signal to potential swing voters that for all the successes of President Bush, for all the earnestness of his outreach efforts, the Republican Party is still home to haters. And some potential voters will be deterred. See? That's my point: Santorum is a Democratic plant. It's the only explanation.

Well, maybe not the only explanation, but an interesting one, nonetheless.

Posted 4/25/2003 01:42:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
WITH APOLOGIES TO DAVE BARRY: You know, whenever anybody asks me who are the new kick-ass Swedish rock groups, I simply point them here.

Posted 4/25/2003 11:08:16 AM by Edward Driscoll
IF YOU'RE OLD ENOUGH TO DIE FOR YOUR COUNTRY, YOU OUGHT TO BE ABLE TO...smoke? CNS News has an article titled "NJ Mulls Hiking Legal Smoking Age to 21". Like this is going to stop smoking by teenagers. I went to a school in New Jersey whose main building was decimated by a fire caused by an errant cigarette in the senior class lounge. (The structure shown on the home page of their Website took about twenty years to finally get built to replace it--but that's another story.) After that, the school banned smoking on campus by students, at the risk of expulsion. As I recall, a couple of years later, the daughter of the headmaster got caught...smoking. And lots of kids would simply sag off to the street behind the school to smoke. As marijuana appears to slowly, very slowly creep towards decriminalization, it's counterpart, legal since the days of Sir Walter Raleigh, appears to be far more rapidly approaching complete prohibition. Odd, isn't it?

Posted 4/24/2003 11:42:37 PM by Edward Driscoll
HEH: Writing about George Galloway, Andrew Sullivan says, "When I first mentioned the possibility of a fifth column, I presumed it would be fueled by ideological fervor. I didn't contemplate it could be fueled by the mighty dollar. You've got to love these Marxists, don't you?"

Posted 4/24/2003 05:10:42 PM by Edward Driscoll
"SADDAM's FAMILY LIFESTYLES SHOCK IRAQIS": Via Little Green Footballs.

Posted 4/24/2003 02:04:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
BOB KEESHAN: NABBED. Oops, sorry, it's Tariq Aziz, who if he's put on trial, would be the 21st century equivilent of Herman Goering at the Nuremberg Trials. But the photo that Drudge used makes him look exactly like Capt. Kangaroo. UPDATE (2:10 PM PST): Currently, Drudge is linking his Aziz headline to this story, which seems grimly fitting, oddly enough. UPDATE (2:25 PM): He's replaced the above story with this article. (And I don't feel as bad about my silly headline, when I see ABC News referring to Aziz's "Groucho Marx appearance".)

Posted 4/24/2003 11:38:33 AM by Edward Driscoll
"BUT GOD, I LOVE SOY ICE CREAM!" The Institute for Humane Studies sponsored a contest to produce the best creative faux-advertisement "encouraging people to think about and discuss freedom". The winner was Reason magazine's "2001 Burton C. Gray Memorial Intern", Rhys Southan, who produced a 30 second (or so) mock-PSA called called "Consuming Hypocrisy". As the voiceover says, "In a capitalist society, even anti-capitalists can find everything they need." UPDATE: Maybe Madonna needs to see that commercial.

Posted 4/24/2003 11:03:11 AM by Edward Driscoll
GREAT MOMENTS IN EBAY HISTORY.

Posted 4/24/2003 10:30:23 AM by Edward Driscoll
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: Jay Nordlinger writes about Teresa Heinz Kerry, who he describes as "a Martha Mitchell for our time", who's "going to be a big story in the '04 campaign":

Anyway, the really beautiful stuff comes from Teresa. She said, "They [the Republicans] will probably say he's French, he's Jewish . . . he's a monkey. I just find it sad." Whoa, whoa: Jewish? monkey? You mean, the GOP — my GOP — will attack Kerry for having a smidgeon of Jewish ancestry, somewhere (so he says — but wasn't he supposed to be Irish?)? The Democrats had an actual Jew on the ticket in 2000. I don't recall my party going all brownshirt on him. And where did "monkey" come from? (I know: Darwin.) But here's the kicker: Mrs. Heinz Kerry sniffed about the White House, "They probably don't even speak French." Aside from the delicious hauteur of that comment: How much you wanna bet the lady's French stinks? I've heard it before: rich (American) lady's French. It's not pretty. I almost pity the Kerry campaign. They're going to have to do something about this live wire.

In other campaign news, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean was asked by Wolf Blitzer if the Iraqi people are better off now than they were under Saddam:

Dean said, "We don't know that yet. We don't know that yet, Wolf. We still have a country whose city is mostly without electricity. We have tumultuous occasions in the south where there is no clear governance. We have a major city without clear governance."

Could anyone arrange some face time between Dean and Adnan Shaker? Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that "the Justice Department's public integrity section has opened a criminal investigation into donations made to the presidential campaign of Senator John Edwards by employees at a prominent Arkansas law firm, according to lawyers close to the matter." Err, a prominent Arkansas law firm? That has a familiar ring to it...

Posted 4/24/2003 12:48:11 AM by Edward Driscoll
"WHERE ARE YOU NOW, FIDELISTAS?" Cathy Young of Reason writes, "there are times when silence equals consent—and this is one of them." Read the whole thing.

Posted 4/23/2003 03:43:10 PM by Edward Driscoll
JUST SUE, REDUX: "Litigious Raiders spent $33.5 million on legal fees in 1997-2001". Al, call my wife--she's more of a 49ers fan, but she's always happy to take on new clients.

Posted 4/23/2003 01:58:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
REPORT CARD TIME: Media Research Center grades TV's war coverage. Surprisingly, considering how harsh they've been on him in the past (and usually deservedly so), Dan Rather got pretty good grades. Not surprisingly, Peter Jennings didn't. But read the whole thing--or at least the executive summary.

Posted 4/23/2003 01:54:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
US DRAWS UP PLAN TO BOMB NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR PLANT, according to AFP. (Link via the Brothers Judd, via a post called "Reteaching the Osirak Lesson".)

Posted 4/23/2003 08:57:20 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE GINGRICH ROLLOUT? Jonah Goldberg says Gingrich's speech yesterday at AEI is the beginning of a Nixon-style rehabilitation program. Fine with me--I rather liked Newt in 1994 and '95, prior to the infamous budget battle that put the brakes on Newt, Congress, and the Contract with America.

Posted 4/23/2003 08:31:29 AM by Edward Driscoll
HERE'S A RACHEL CORRIE UPDATE, via Cold Fury.

Posted 4/23/2003 08:00:34 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE OBESITY-SUBURBAN SPRAWL "LINK", as identified by Mike Alissi on Reason's Hit & Run blog. Meanwhile, James Lileks deconstructs the perpetual doom and gloom of the Earth Day folks.

Posted 4/23/2003 07:31:55 AM by Edward Driscoll
"PROFESSOR, STUDENTS IDENTIFY 'DEEP THROAT'", according to UPI. It's not Linda Lovelace. On the other hand, it's not Pat Buchanan, either. The truth is out there!

Posted 4/22/2003 10:54:55 PM by Edward Driscoll
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS FORCIBLY REMOVED from trailer park. Surprisingly, The Onion has the exclusive. (Via Andrew Sullivan.)

Posted 4/22/2003 03:20:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
McGREEVY'S MISSTEPS: NJ's GOP hopes to capitalize on the Democratic governor's mistakes, according to CNS News. Still, the governor does have Amiri Baraka in his corner...

Posted 4/22/2003 02:54:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE WAR ROOM: No, not the one in Qatar, these war rooms are the rooms that every team in the NFL will be using this weekend during the NFL draft. ESPN's Greg Garber writes that fortunes can be made and lost there.

Posted 4/22/2003 02:24:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
STEPHEN MOORE, president of the Club for Growth says he doesn't want to kick Senators Olympia Snowe and George Voinovich out of the Republican party. He just wants them "to start acting more like Reagan and less like Daschle. Is that asking so much?" Meanwhile, Donald Luskin writes, "If the New York Times can say no to high taxes, so can liberal lawmakers."

Posted 4/22/2003 01:01:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
BILL BUCKLEY ON CASTRO and his recent executions: "The most decisive counteraction in the West was done by HBO". Buckley adds:

The movie and television company had been planning a splashy introduction of an extended documentary on Fidel Castro by — Oliver Stone. It was all packed up, ready to go. In fact it had been screened in February at a movie festival in Berlin. Castro had given three whole days to Oliver Stone, and that proved to be total immersion — Stone came away a devout apostle of Castro and Castroism. * * * The wording of the HBO official on the fate on Mr. Stone's documentary was finger-dippingly delicate. "In light of recent alarming events in the country, the film seems somewhat dated or incomplete." Perhaps it will be shown after Fidel Castro restores liberty to the Cuban people, who have been without it for 44 years.

With our aircraft carriers standing down in the Gulf and returning home, would a detour in the Caribbean be possible?

Posted 4/22/2003 11:41:59 AM by Edward Driscoll
JUST ASKING: I assume there's little chance that an American politician would be found to be on the Iraqi payroll. Right?

Posted 4/22/2003 10:57:43 AM by Edward Driscoll
HAPPY TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO MOSAIC, the first widely available Web browser (which eventually morphed into Netscape, as I recall).

Posted 4/22/2003 10:52:26 AM by Edward Driscoll
WAS GEORGE GALLOWAY, British antiwar MP, paid off by Iraq? InstaPundit has some thoughts. Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg writes, "If I was the commanding officer in charge of sifting through these Iraqi files, I would be barking out orders to find the 'R' file -- for Ritter." UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has more on Galloway, here and here. ANOTHER UPDATE: As does "Group Captain Mandrake", who has numerous links as well.

Posted 4/22/2003 10:43:43 AM by Edward Driscoll
JUST DISMISS, BABY: "A state judge on Monday dismissed a suit by the Oakland Raiders seeking to prevent the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers from wearing their uniforms for games in California because they allegedly violate the Raiders' trademark rights", according to this AP article, which adds that the judge "did not rule on the merits of the case, but rather said it belonged in federal court. Raiders officials said Monday they were exploring their legal options." I'll bet they are. Al Davis's coaches should be as creative and persistent as his attorneys.

Posted 4/21/2003 04:21:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
US FINDS IRAQ CONTRACTOR WITH NO POLITICAL TIES: Scott Ott has the err, exclusive.

Posted 4/20/2003 01:56:40 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE INVISIBLE WINNER IN IRAQ is "Post-Pan-Arab liberalism", according to a perceptive essay by Reason's Charles Paul Freund.