Posted
11/22/2003 11:21:32 PM
by Edward Driscoll
COUNTERWEIGHT: Linda Chavez writes:
Proponents of affirmative action were quick to claim victory last summer when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that colleges could continue to consider race in their admissions policy in order to promote "diversity," but they may soon be singing a different tune. A number of schools have already abandoned some race-based programs, and others may be about to follow suit.Read the rest for Chavez's explanation as to why.
Posted
11/22/2003 11:15:49 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THE MEDICARE BILL: Arm-twisting wins a 220-215 vote in the House. On to the Senate on Monday.
Posted
11/22/2003 09:52:11 PM
by Edward Driscoll
IT'S 1938 ALL OVER AGAIN, according to Roger L. Simon:
Yes, of course I am being rhetorical and, of course, history does not repeat itself exactly. It comes back as farce, Marx famously said, but the farce seems to get darker with each passing year. Well, here we are with yet another 1938-like episode, this time enacted by the faceless bureaucrats of the European Union's own racism watchdog committee--the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna. These apparatchiks of the "New" Europe had asked for a study of anti-Semitism in the EU and guess what they did when they received it? ... They completely SHELVED THE REPORT!Which makes incidents like this none too surprising.
Posted
11/22/2003 07:05:23 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"THE CASE FOR G.I. JOE": I'm sure the same folks concerned about subversive "B.C." cartoons are equally outraged over the toy that this post on "Armavirumque" links to.
Right?
Posted
11/22/2003 05:38:46 PM
by Edward Driscoll
SHUT UP AND PLAY YOUR COMPUTER! I have a detailed review (complete with sound clips of yours truly!) of Roland's USB-equipped guitar synthesizer system online at Blogcritics.
Posted
11/22/2003 04:12:32 PM
by Edward Driscoll
TEMPEST IN AN OUTHOUSE: Check out the controversy that a "B.C." cartoon(!) has caused.
I don't know which is more preposterous--that Johnny Hart is trying to draw subliminal messages into his cartoon, or that someone would find them there if he were.
Posted
11/21/2003 10:57:00 PM
by Edward Driscoll
TRY SAYING IT TEN TIMES FAST: Sgt. Stryker studies psychedelic sheiks.
Posted
11/21/2003 10:43:47 PM
by Edward Driscoll
MICHELLE MALKIN WRITES that "It's time to verbally roast the vegan marshmallows".
Posted
11/21/2003 07:15:28 PM
by Edward Driscoll
COULD SOMEBODY CHECK THE WEATHER CHANNEL, PLEASE? Hell must have frozen over, because I agree with Gloria Allred completely on this one.
Posted
11/21/2003 06:57:52 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THE BAD OLD DAYS, REVISITED: James Pinkerton takes us "From Here to the Great Society", and back again, in apparently, the first of a two part series.
Posted
11/21/2003 02:16:07 AM
by Edward Driscoll
QUOTE OF THE DAY: It's too funny to not see first hand, so click on over to Roger L. Simon, who's sending his regrets...
Posted
11/21/2003 01:06:37 AM
by Edward Driscoll
HERE'S A HEADLINE YOU DON'T SEE EVERY DAY:
"Mary Kay Denies Taking Part in Religious Persecution of Falun Gong"I'm torn on this one: I actually think Mary Kay in China is somewhat of a good thing: it allows Chinese women to earn an few extra shekels for selling the products, and its reminds them just how much better things are for women living in the US. The latter is a particularly important, long term. (See: Union, Soviet.) But in order to sell their products there, Mary Kay has had to cozy up with a brutal dictatorship. Is it worth it?
Posted
11/21/2003 12:40:15 AM
by Edward Driscoll
WHY DO THEY HATE HIM? John Podhoretz has an answer: "They hate him because he calls their values into question".
Posted
11/21/2003 12:25:03 AM
by Edward Driscoll
TO SAY THAT Nicholas Stix is not happy with George Soros would be a gross understatement.
Posted
11/20/2003 09:48:38 PM
by Edward Driscoll
TOM DASCHLE, LIBERTARIAN: Like Dukakis in the tank, bet this photo will come back to haunt him? Me too.
In the long run, the Republicans' prescription bill will no doubt end up being as costly as Medicare, Medicaid, and the rest of the Great Society programs. In the short term however, it's a great piece of triangulation by President Bush and Karl Rove: it's fun watching Daschle, Ted Kennedy, and rest of the Democrats squirm and contort their speeches into Clintonian "what the meaning of 'is' is"-style rhetorical pretzels.
It takes the "Republicans want to kill old people" mantras of '94 off the table. And Newt Gingrich is for it, which should make his infamous (because it was infamously distorted) "wither on the vine" quote...wither on the vine.
OK, that's the long and short term. Medium term? Ramesh Ponnuru isn't too happy with the bill.
Posted
11/19/2003 11:51:17 PM
by Edward Driscoll
BIASED BBC: David Frum witnessed it firsthand:
Before the three of us got to business, “Newsnight” broadcast an introductory video clip. It was that clip that was my perfect moment of news slanting. A reporter at the gates of Buckingham Palace told us that a small crowd was waiting for President Bush, and that its mood was mixed. Cut to clips from three members of that crowd: all negative. (One of the negative voices was American – that was apparently all the balance the broadcaster required.) Now here’s the punchline: I recognized one of the three – I’d seen him earlier that day at an anti-Bush rally in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. [Which Frum wrote about here--Ed.] In the interim, he’d changed into casual tourist clothes – and the BBC was now presenting him as a representative of ordinary British opinion. I pointed out this distorting selection bias in my first answer to one of moderator Jeremy Paxman’s questions. He was very impatient with me. But I persisted. How can you do a program that purports to study why British people are so hostile to President Bush – without taking note of the state broadcaster’s role in creating and magnifying that hostility? The BBC is not just reporting this story; it is in many ways the story’s most important actor.Fortunately, a few calmer voices exist as well in the UK.
Posted
11/19/2003 03:20:19 PM
by Edward Driscoll
MICHAEL JACKSON STILL DOESN'T GET IT: MSNBC contributor Michael Ventre has written a brutally funny article on Michael Jackson's possible future, full of lines I really wish I had written first.
Posted
11/19/2003 02:20:56 PM
by Edward Driscoll
LET IT BE...NAKED: Don't worry, I'm not planning to get X-rated with the blog. Unfortunately, I probably won't be doing much with the blog at all today--I have a couple of articles on deadline. In the meantime, Matt Rowe has some thoughts on the "new" Beatles album.
Posted
11/17/2003 10:55:28 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THE CHOMSKY CHOP: As Andrew Sullivan says, it's a beaut. Check out the full quote from The New York Times that Noam Chomsky (or whoever wrote the copy for the back cover of his latest book) truncated to describe Chomsky as "Arguably the most important intellectual alive".
If I had a "rolling on floor laughing out loud" emoticon, I'd paste it in here.
Posted
11/17/2003 01:18:00 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"O.J. HUSSEIN": James Taranto writes, "Have you noticed how Saddam Hussein has become the O.J. Simpson of the Angry Left?"
Heh--to coin a phrase.
Posted
11/17/2003 01:10:35 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"THE EXPLOSIVE EUROPEAN STREET": Mark Steyn writes:
After two years of warnings from clapped-out Arabists that the incendiary 'Arab street' was about to explode in anti-American rage across the Middle East, it remains as unrousable as ever. Instead, it is the explosive European street that remains implacably pro-Saddam, pro-Yasser, pro-jihad, pro-Taliban misogynist homophobes, pro-anyone as long as they are anti-American.Glenn Reynolds has more.
Posted
11/17/2003 12:58:48 PM
by Edward Driscoll
EL RUSHBO IS BACK: Rush Limbaugh returned to the airways today, after a month in rehab.
Posted
11/17/2003 12:04:16 PM
by Edward Driscoll
IT'S OFFICIAL: "Schwarzenegger Takes Office in California".
Posted
11/17/2003 10:55:19 AM
by Edward Driscoll
BAR OWNERS' PROFITS GO UP IN SMOKE IN NY: This article talks about a bar owner in Kirkwood, New York, on the border of Pennyslvania, which has no smoking ban. Guess where his customers go, to smoke and drink?
Posted
11/16/2003 02:54:15 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THE UN: THE LAST BEST HOPE--of smokers in New York.
(Found via Reason's "Hit & Run" blog.)
Posted
11/16/2003 01:27:53 PM
by Edward Driscoll
UPSET! Congrats to Cincinnati, who upset the Kansas City Chiefs 24 to 19, and spoiled their undefeated season. Time for the '72 Dolphins to pop the champagne!
Posted
11/16/2003 01:23:01 PM
by Edward Driscoll
BLOGGER BUG SOLVED? Congrats to Google and Blogger--it looks like they've finally fixed the bug that stopped early Sunday morning posts from not archiving. Many, many weeks, I had to manually adjust the times of everything I posted on Sunday morning, to Sunday afternoon, because of that bug.
Blogger gets lots of shots--and many of them quite rightly so--but I'm happy to give them credit for fixing this one.
Posted
11/16/2003 01:19:45 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THE HILLARY FACTOR: Howard Fineman thinks she'll enter the election race in June.
Orrin Judd says that would be suicidal for her chances.
Meanwhile, Michael Graham writes that, as Zell Miller feared they would, the Democrats have all but written off the south in this election.
Posted
11/16/2003 11:50:34 AM
by Edward Driscoll
RAIDER WOES: Lots of problems for the defending AFC champs: four Oakland players may be suspended for THG, a designer steroid:
A report on SportsLine.com identified tackle Dana Stubblefield, center Barret Robbins, linebacker Bill Romanowski and defensive tackle Chris Cooper as the Raiders who, pending appeal, will be banned for a violation of the NFL's drug policy...The suspensions will not take effect until the completion of an appeal process that could include testing of a backup sample and/or a hearing.Here's an article that explains more about what THG is. Meanwhile, AP is reporting that Raider running back Oakland Raiders running back Tyrone Wheatley "hit a photographer outside a federal courthouse Thursday, hours prior to testifying before a grand jury probing a nutritional supplements lab". And Rich Gannon is done for the season--and possibly his career, after shoulder surgery. And they haven't been selling out home games, despite the fact that they went to the Super Bowl in January!
Posted
11/16/2003 11:38:42 AM
by Edward Driscoll
BUH-BYE: Via Glenn Reynolds, I read that MP3.com is shutting down. I feel badly for people like Glenn who hosted their songs there, but when I tried to join in the summer to upload my tunes, it was quite an abortion: all of the tunes had to be pre-approved by their management, their customer service took about a week to write back a terse, unhelpful email.
With a new customer experience like that it's no wonder that they're shutting down.
Posted
11/16/2003 12:41:23 AM
by Edward Driscoll
BOEING WANTS TO EJECT from the digital cinema business.
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