Sunday, April 30, 2006
Enough Good People Have Said Enough Good Things (08:45 PM) - I am going to see “United 93” tonight. 11:07PM: I don’t have anything special to say about the movie. It was not a movie, it was a reminder. “United 93” is a list of facts, presented visually, to remind. Instead…
A Good Line on the Pro-Illegal Immigration Rallies (04:08 PM) - Paul Simmons: “Save for striking air traffic controllers — who were warned by Ronald Reagan that he would fire them en masse — I can’t think of any other group that has overplayed its hand as obviously as the illegals…
Undocumented Learners Rise Up (07:10 AM) - Well, the immigration question has come to Dartmouth. On Monday, in coalition with the many other protests that day across this land, there will be some kind of rally in support of immigrant rights. Now that it’s close to home,…
Godwin’s Law is Officially Suspended for Today (06:28 AM) - Godwin’s Law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. When such a comparison is made, the discussion shall end.” Out in the real world, however, there are some situations where…
Dubai, Back Again (06:26 AM) - Big Lizards has a discussion of a problem-free Dubai deal. Would that the first had gone similarly swimmingly….
Stephen Colbert Bombs at Correspondents Dinner (06:20 AM) - I didn’t believe the headlines either, but Colbert was quite thoroughly terrible at the White House Correspondents Dinner last evening, while the President won some serious laughs….
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Glenn Hubbard Strikes Again (10:32 PM) - In 2005, the brilliant Columbia Business School Follies released a video that had their “dean” remix a Vanilla Ice song into Dean, Dean, Baby. (Memorable for such lines as: “Findin’ all the real hot winners; invite them to my Dean’s…
Friday, April 28, 2006
McKinsey report calls for more transparency (03:36 PM) - The consulting firm McKinsey gave Dartmouth a thorough audit and says more transparency is necessary. Of course, some have been saying that for a good while. Here is a good way to get a jump on transparency: Release to the…
New York Sun on Dartmouth Review (03:32 PM) - In today’s New York Sun, Gary Shapiro recounts the Dartmouth Review’s Anniversary Gala of last week….
Blogging Update (02:38 AM) - Blogging will be light over the next day or two, as I am down in New Jersey and New York seeing some folks and doing some things….
Controversial Jesus Cartoons at University of Oregon (12:53 AM) - One campus magazine prints the Mohammed cartoons. In retaliation, another prints sexual cartoons of Jesus Christ. Christian groups are protesting and writing letters. Repeat: Christian groups are protesting and writing letters. Thanks to Jon Shea for the tip….
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Ask and Ye Shall Receive (08:34 AM) - My classical music bleg of yesterday, regarding Mozart’s Missa Brevis in F-major, has been fulfilled with a capital e-mail from reader John Griffith, which is reprinted in the extended. He was able to find two recordings of the mass I…
See United 93, They Say (08:06 AM) - Everyone was rightly concerned about Hollywood’s ability to patriotically and fairly represent the events of September 11 on board United Airlines flight 93, but Michael Smerconish and David Beamer and the New Yorker’s excellent David Denby approve. It still feels…
The Stamp Scandal (06:32 AM) - Julian Ku: “Sometimes, it is just too easy to take potshots at the U.N.”…
Nancy Pelosi’s Tommyrot on High Gasoline Prices (12:05 AM) - This is truly something to behold. Would that more Democrats spoke this way, and were more widely heard. The sad reality of North American oil prospects, meanwhile, remains….
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
California Gal Spanked at Work; Sues for $1.2 Million (11:38 PM) - Read the first paragraph of the sympathetic Associated Press dispatch and it’s an outrage:FRESNO, Calif. - Lawyers for a woman who was spanked in front of her co-workers as part of what her employer said was a camaraderie-building exercise asked…
The Trucks Come In Tomorrow (09:22 PM) - Our long metropolitan nightmare is over: Larry Silverstein has given up control of the Freedom Tower and construction will finally begin at Ground Zero on the stalwart little island of Manhattan. Of course, all of this—from the “It’s sort of…
Thoughts on Crossdressing (08:17 PM) - The perennially-polemicizing Dafydd ab-Hugh has muses on an old bardic trope: “[W]hy do the cross-dressing gals in Shakespeare always get away with it, while in Marivaux, they’re seen through as easily as a ‘pro-defense’ Democrat?”…
A War for Oil, but How? (07:27 PM) - Scott Adams questions the conspiracy….
Muslims Threaten German Brothel With Violence (05:09 PM) - TigerHawk:We are becoming sadly used to the spectacle of gangs of Muslims threatening violence to demand that non-Muslims retract speech that is otherwise protected under Western law. While Border’s, Comedy Central and Jyllands-Posten probably won’t appreciate being lumped in with…
English Transcript of Zarqawi Video Released; “despicable rejectionist agent army” (04:54 PM) - Noted here, the Zarqawi video has now been transcribed in English. CENTCOM provides the transcript here. An excerpt that seems, to me, quite significant:America has realized that its tanks, airplanes, huge armies, and its despicable rejectionist agent army will not…
Praise in excelsis (01:02 PM) - Peter Robinson on Tony Snow: “Hosanna”. RELATED: Can anyone locate a recording of W.A. Mozart’s Missa Brevis in F-major, K. 192? It is an early work, and was only recorded once to my knowledge, but that recording is no longer…
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) Moves War Money (12:59 PM) - The Senate is in rare form today: The Senate voted Wednesday to divert some of the money President Bush requested for the war in Iraq to instead increase patrols against illegal immigrants on the nation’s borders and increase security at…
Tony Snow in as White House Press Secretary (10:31 AM) - Michelle Malkin has the video….
T.J. Rodgers Does Not Demur (10:04 AM) - For a short while rumors were swirling that Dartmouth trustee and Chief Executive Officer of Cypress Semiconductors T.J. Rodgers might run for governor. No, he proudly tells a reporter in an interview with EETimes Online. The full-hearted rejection:EETimes: If you…
Professor Discretion Is Advised, Cont. (05:15 AM) - In early March, I wrote in “Professor Discretion Is Advised” about the brave Professor Karen Murdock of Century College. She had the libertine* gall, and in the thick of the Cartoon Jihad no less, to actually make public the cartoons…
The Higher Education Market, left to its own devices… (05:12 AM) - Over at National Review Online’s Phi Beta Cons, John Miller says, “Bet you didn’t know this: ‘Between 1900 and 1930, male and female enrollments were roughly at parity. And relatively few of the women enrolled (about 5 percent) were at…
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Beauty is truth, truth beauty (07:36 PM) - Over at National Review’s The Corner, Peter Robinson links to two lovely trinkets that I had not seen: here and here. Both exemplify John Keats’ old line….
Zarqawi Shows Himself (02:06 PM) - Al-Qaeda in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has released a web video. It isn’t yet on the non-Jihadi Internet or stateside networks, but I am viewing it now on al-Jazeera. Will attempt to get a copy online. MSNBC reports here….
The Stealth Economy Presses On (11:20 AM) - Consumer confidence is high; as high as it has been since the spring of 2002:NEW YORK - Consumers shrugged off higher gasoline prices in April and sent a widely watched barometer of consumer confidence to its highest level in almost…
Nate Fick ‘99 on the Dissenting Generals (10:35 AM) - Author of One Bullet Away Nate Fick has a column in USA Today this morning in which he stakes out a moderate position. I do think he’s arguing against nothing more than a straw man when he loudly proclaims that…
Coming Soon to the Brady Room… (10:15 AM) - The rumors are that Fox News commentator Tony Snow will be Scott McClellan’s replacement….
The Harvard Novelist and Her Dutiful Fakirs (08:20 AM) - There are a few updates to note in the case of Harvard student-cum-author-cum-target of dripping schadenfreude Kaavya Viswanathan; a case which is turning out to be far less interesting than anyone could have possibly imagined. But since it has a…
Vox Clamantis In Deserto.org (07:18 AM) - A group of five Dartmouth undergraduates has started a new petition exclusively for undergraduates who oppose the sort of tawdry politicking that’s been behind the actions of the current Executive Committee (A group which has yet to answer whether it…
Roger Toussaint in Jail, Shouts Still (06:47 AM) - Toussaint is now serving the first of his assigned ten days in a local jail for, truly, holding a court of law in contempt. You’ll recall the name from the great transit strike of 2005 on the isle of Manhattan….
Kos: We Need You to Save the Internet! (06:42 AM) - The folks at the Daily Kos have an informative post on the net neutrality fight. Economist Tom Bozzo has also been a leading voice on the issue. See here and here, among many others….
Times Recommends that Harvard Mandate Calculus Again (05:31 AM) - As John Hinderaker recently noted to wide attention, the New York Times has some trouble with numbers. And (how troubling!) the trouble always seems to be in one political direction. The good folks at Regret the Error round up several…
Did The Heckler’s Veto Shut Out Coulter at Cornell? (05:01 AM) - The Cornell Daily Sun reports:After nearly a year’s worth of preparations that included $25,000, 12 Cornell Police Department officers and a bomb-sniffing dog, College Republicans heard yesterday afternoon that conservative pundit Ann Coulter ‘84 would not appear at her speaking…
Monday, April 24, 2006
A Funny Video of an Awful Singer (08:25 PM) - Every once in a while, these sorts of things are amusing to watch. Laughter is good for the heart, after all. What’s disturbing is that one cannot tell if the audience genuinely is enjoying her singing….
Journal: Romney Health Plan a “Misfire” (02:33 PM) - Subscribers only, but worth a read if possible….
The Terribly Confused Judge Reinhardt (02:22 PM) - Eugene Volokh looks at the strange opinions of Judge Reinhardt, which include support for pro-Taliban speech and opposition to speech critical of homosexuality….
In Memoriam: Sergeant 1st Class John Thomas Stone (08:53 AM) - Jared Smith, trainer at the United States Army’s Mountain Warfare School in Vermont and longtime reader, writes to me, and to everyone: I got the breath knocked out of me in central Asia a few weeks ago: Army Medic and…
The Enemy’s Propaganda, 24/7 (07:39 AM) - I know of only one place in the United States of America where continuous access to al-Jazeera, the pro-terrorist propaganda outlet which releases all of Osama bin Laden’s videos, is available. That place is Dartmouth, which offers it for free,…
AGTF Follies Continued (07:24 AM) - Timothy Dreisbach ‘71 is in The Dartmouth today, taking umbrage at “[t]he callous disregard of democratic process by the current officials” and saying that the AGTF’s final proposed constitution is far from perfect….
Elvis Presley’s Home For Sale on eBay (07:10 AM) - The inventor of rock ‘n roll didn’t live in Graceland when, in 1956, he had two of his biggest hits: “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Love Me Tender”. He lived at 1034 Audubon Drive in good old Memphis, Tennessee. The 1953 home…
Sunday, April 23, 2006
With hey, ho, &c. (09:45 PM) - It was 442 years ago, give or take a few days because of the vagaries of 16th century recordkeeping, that William Shakespeare was brought into the world on Henley Street, in Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire, England. In celebration, I reprint in…
Finally, Proof! (03:42 PM) - The good people over at the Daily Kos have discovered absolute, unimpeachable proof that global warming is a clear and present danger to humanity. What they’ve got is a photograph of a mountain in 1985, with some snow. And then…
Caught Crimson-Handed? (12:48 PM) - The Harvard Crimson reports that yet another member of the Harvard community has been accused of stealing someone else’s creative output. This time, it’s a sophomore called Kaavya Viswanathan, who has got a half-million, two-book contract with Little, Brown and…
Removal of Funding for Hamas Annoys The Right People (09:11 AM) - When even the editorial board of the Harvard Crimson is heartfully inveighing against sending financial aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, it is safe to say that current circumstances are very, very clear: A dollar to Hamas is a dollar…
Saturday, April 22, 2006
What Bush Did Not Say To Hu (08:30 AM) - When Chinese president Hu Jintao was greeted at the White House on Thursday, he was heckled, jeered, spurned and shouted down. Drowned out. He had to stop speaking. Bowed his head. George Bush leans over and tones, calmly and measuredly,…
“We’re Looking Into It.” (08:28 AM) - Even the most even-tempered commenters at the Dartmouth Alumni Association Executive Committee’s blog are becoming exasperated at the committee’s illiberal, dishonest tactics. Be sure to read David Gale’s last few comments….
Friday, April 21, 2006
Hollywood Makes Films About 9/11 (11:26 PM) - Mary Katharine Ham has seen an early screening of the first one, about United Airlines flight 93, and says it is with merit….
“Ewwww. Too gross.” (11:24 PM) - In an e-mail with the above subject header, reader Dan Collins writes:Most of the time when you’re cleaning out the refrigerator, you want to give the stuff you’ve tossed in there the benefit of the doubt. The milk’s past the…
The Beer, Too? (07:39 PM) - Ice cream makers Ben & Jerry are apologizing and pulling the product after some folks were insulted by its new flavor Black and Tan….
Dogs Breed Cross-Nework Comity (08:56 AM) - The ABC News folks in Iraq adopt a puppy from the Fox News folks in Iraq….
And Lo, John Kerry Rose Again, and was besieged (08:20 AM) - Today, there are two good pieces of news about the junior senator from the Bay State and former presidential candidate John F. Kerry. The first one is that he is “thinking hard” (and fundraising harder) about running for president in…
“The Problem with Christianity” (08:05 AM) - Northwestern freshman Jared Sax had himself a doozie of an opposite-editorial yesterday. It is a rather reprehensible thing, but the good news is that, so far, no one has called for Sax to be silenced. Via Guy Benson at Phi…
Tony Snow In Negotiations for McClellan’s Post (08:02 AM) - The Fox News commentator looks to be quite close to the job….
Finding Qiblah from miles up (07:33 AM) - A conference Malaysia aims to determine at what times and in which direction Muslims can pray when in space. Says Islam-Online: “Muslims must face the Ka`bah in the holy city of Makkah while praying and determining which direction that will…
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Press Secretary Speculation (02:11 PM) - National Journal’s Hotline rounds up the blind speculation on who will fill Scott McClellan’s shoes in the Brady room. Senor, Snow, and Clarke are still the big names. As an added bonus, read how Dana Milbank makes a fool of…
The Right Not To Be Offended, Cont. (02:03 PM) - David Bernstein sees that the California State Supreme Court made an awfully good decision….
Students Campaign to Extend Editing Program (12:13 PM) - The Dartmouth reports that donor Joe Asch ‘79 has agreed to continue the Departmental Editing Program, which assigns professional writing editors to students, after students campaigned for its continuance….
Opack, Back (11:42 AM) - This will mean something only to New Yorkers, but Opie and Anthony are coming back to New York airwaves. Excellent news….
Hero. (10:35 AM) - Drudge:FLASH: Heckler disrupts Chinese President Hu’s speech on south lawn at White House: ‘President Bush, stop him from killing’… one cameraman put a hand on her shoulder as she shouted… seemed to be trying to quiet her down… ‘Stop…
“The Threat or Use of Force” (08:32 AM) - International law is so adorable. Like the hamster who claims to threaten the lives of your family if you fail to give it an extra handful of cedar chips, international law can never be accused of aiming low. Within its…
The Frowny Face President (08:03 AM) - The Senate minority leader has some damning critiques….
New Jersey Voters Leave No Child Behind (07:02 AM) - The fundamental split on the No Child Left Behind Act—between those who support it and those who oppose it—is its idea of correlating funding for a public school to that school’s performance. The schools most in need of help are…
A Day With Just A Few Illegal Immigrants (06:55 AM) - A report from Houstin says that the planned May 1 “Day Without Illegal Immigrants” may be falling out of favor with many activists. It seems likely that at least key cities will see large demonstrations, but I was always skeptical…
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
First Analysis (03:23 PM) - David Gale ‘00 looks at the Alumni Governance Task Force’s final draft….
“You Can Kill Us, But You Can’t Enslave Us” (11:02 AM) - Iraq the Model writer Mohammed’s brother-in-law has been murdered….
McClellan Out (10:09 AM) - News here. Rove goes back to strategy, if he ever left….
Double Standard (08:51 AM) - When six generals criticized Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, it was a genuine, organic outpouring of widespread displeasure. When even more retired generals offer their support, it is a farce….
The Duke Accusal Presses On, Still Louder Than the Facts (08:16 AM) - The Duke New Sense blog continues reporting all the facts, which continue to weigh exclusively in the defense’s favor. DNA, time-stamped photography, the reports of the grocery store security guard, and now, it seems, some ATM receipts all say that…
Brit Hume, Profiled (08:06 AM) - Howard Kurtz looks at Fox News’ front man Brit Hume in the Wasington Post today. Truly a swell guy, Brit, from everything I’ve heard….
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Paging High School History Teachers (10:16 PM) - Where art thou whilst the youths do bear the sickle?…
Dartmouth AGTF Releases Final Draft (02:57 PM) - Dartmouth’s Alumni Governance Task Force has released its latest draft. [PDF] UPDATE: The comments are already coming in. I have not yet plowed through it, but for those enterprising few who were considering it, I suppose it is worth mentioning…
Rob Portman ‘78 Appointed White House Budget Director (11:09 AM) - Amid much personnel shuffling, the rumors say that President Bush will name Rob Portman, current United States trade representative and Dartmouth ‘78, to the post of director of the Office of Management and Budget. He’ll replace Joshua Bolten, who was…
The Simple Joy of Spending Someone Else’s Money (07:33 AM) - Donald Trump developed the lot just across from the United Nations complex into a residential skyscraper called Trump World Tower. It is, or was, the tallest residential building in the world. 871,000 square feet. And each one cost Trump $258.32….
A Million Scowls (07:21 AM) - Yesterday I essentially made a prediction that Donald Rumsfeld will probably be the most-quoted secretary of defense in American history. I should have noted that Mr. Rumsfeld’s facial expressions are also quote-worthy….
Yale Looks To the Left For Diversity (06:53 AM) - The erstwhile Yale Diva and daughter of Power Liner Scott Johnson, Eliana Johnson, is in the New York Sun today (along with HLS student Mitch Webber) revealing to the world outside New Haven that Yale University, already on public hooks…
Monday, April 17, 2006
“And They Were Sore Afraid.” (07:00 PM) - sore, adv. By most estimations, the word sore as a noun has at least eight definitions. It can name bodily suffering, pain, disease, affliction, a wound, mental grief, grievousness, and a raw spot of skin. History has seen other uses…
Politicizing The English Language, Continued (03:08 PM) - Jacob Laksin observes that Dictionary.com is editorializing in its list of the most looked-up words in 2005….
CNN International: We Must Understand Iran in Context (01:22 PM) - This report, filed last Friday by former BBC political editor Robin Oakley for CNN International, is titled “Nuclear Hypocrisy”. It is, essentially, a pro-Iran report on the current nuclear stand-off. Note that on CNN’s U.S.-based website, it has been re-named…
Hark (08:59 AM) - In legion, there is good news from Iraq, where American deaths have been down every month since October of 2005. Bill Crawford offers a round-up of the sort of winning actualities that only small hometown papers—whose readers have a dog…
The Retired Generals and the South Park Offensive (07:12 AM) - The episodes of South Park of the last fortnight concerned a partisan censor who wanted the television show Family Guy—in the real world another animated comedy but in this South Park episode a doppelganger for Park itself—taken off the air….
Sunday, April 16, 2006
The Great Duke E-Mail Sting (09:08 PM) - It appears that the case against the demonized lacrosse players at Duke is deflating faster than activists’ hot air can inflate it. According to a report in Time magazine, investigators may have broken into a student’s e-mail account and may…
More on Gender (11:09 AM) - Via e-mail, a reader offers some further comments on gender, and very succinctly explains its appeal to certain cohorts:The use of “gender” instead of “sex” among academic lefties has to do with its implications: gender implies a fact of social…
Happy Easter (07:43 AM) - Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua. Osanna in excelsis. For a wonderful setting, see Mozart’s Missa Brevis in F-major, K. 192, written when he was eighteen years old, and inspired. And in the…
Saturday, April 15, 2006
E-Mail: Don’t Blame Comedy Central (07:45 PM) - Reader April Scott e-mails in some sympathies for the Comedy Central executives who chose to censor “South Park”:That 2-part series was the most ingenious device I’ve seen for framing the issue of depictions of the Prophet Mohammad (even better than…
Gender, Again (01:23 PM) - Dedicated readers know in full my personal hatred for the word gender or, more specifically, that mess to which it has been redefined. Pleased to report that I have found a kindred soul in accomplished travel writer (and Hanover, New…
Hillary Clinton: Impromptu No. 5 in F (12:14 PM) - Via Drew Cline, I see that Bloomberg reporter Al Hunt had himself a sitdown with New York Senator Hillary Clinton, and released into the wilds of the Internet is the transcript of Clinton’s unprepared remarks on various topics. The thing…
Friday, April 14, 2006
The Army We Have (08:21 PM) - Dartblog has many undergraduate readers—and an undergraduate writer—and we all, collectively, are about to realize our extreme unimportance; our unredeemed deficit of bravery and human utility, in this softly-reported news story of utter heroism in Iraq. That realization is, simply,…
Faux Rights (11:56 AM) - Over at Wizbang, writer J.T. has a capital roundup of rights which do not exist….
At Ohio State, Recommending a Book is Sexual Harassment (07:49 AM) - I’ve just been browsing through the book collections at the Ohio State University. Not a bad library, there. Here is the entry for Mein Kampf. Here’s the Communist Manifesto.. Here we have Chairman Mao’s treatise on the evils of society….
Cable Network Makes Terrorism Effective and Worthwhile (07:33 AM) - What a terrible shame that the right-of-center blogosphere is only just now discovering “South Park”. Trey Parker and Matt Stone have been doing capital political commentary for a good while now and, with the exception of a few who get…
“Bonjour, America” from the New French Punks (07:25 AM) - With French youth much in the news as a result of their grandiloquent march for government protection against the pink slip, it is perhaps worthwhile to dolly the spotlight over to some more responsible—and less disaffected—young Frenchmen. Consider Cyrille de…
Thursday, April 13, 2006
An Audience With a Father (03:40 PM) - Drew Cline interviews Thomas Jefferson on the occasion of the 263rd anniversary of his birth….
An Associated Press Dispatch To Consider (03:04 PM) - I was able only to glance over this non-news AP dispatch, but it seems pretty singularly awful. Not a single fact has changed in the Duke case, and AP reporter Erin Texeira seems to want only to fan the flames,…
FIRE Covers South Park (03:03 PM) - Comedy Central’s confirmed censorship of South Park rightfully has folks in a huff. Charles Mitchell at FIRE comments, eloquently per usual, in “South Park Mirrors Life”….
“Having an open heart doesn’t mean supporting open borders.” (10:39 AM) - Peggy Noonan on immigration. LATER: It is good; I hope you’ve read it. What Peggy writes—“America in general has deep affection for immigrants, knows they are part of the dynamic, a part of our growth and our endless coming-into-being. But…
Of Posting Is No Need (06:27 AM) - William Shakespeare, in the Sonnet LI, begins: THUS can my love excuse the slow offence Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed: From where thou art why should I haste me thence? Till I return, of posting is…
A single female homeowner, and her husband (05:33 AM) - Sometimes those human interest stories fail to miss the mark. Usually when the volunteer has a book coming out….
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Will The Mohammad Cartoons Be On Television Tonight? (07:27 PM) - Part two of South Park’s Mohammad Cartoon duo airs for the first time tonight. And, of course, the big question is whether or not the cartoons themselves will appear. The first episode received wide praise in the right-of-center blogosphere. Will…
10:02:25 — Down. Push, push, push, push, push. (06:36 PM) - The transcript, if you can read it….
Dishonest Law Schools (03:02 PM) - When the coalition of law schools represented by FAIR brought suit against Donald Rumsfeld for the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, it was under the banner of freedom of speech: Can universities discriminate against some job recruiters if they…
Who’s Elite Here? (12:02 PM) - Writing to The Dartmouth this fine morning, David Kopec responds to an earlier critic of elite universities, who said their lofty station does not justify their skystrewn tuition charges. David says: “[The first writer] fail[s] to acknowledge that the value…
Who Loves Ya, Baby? (07:36 AM) - The Futurist blog and the Pew Research Center look at anti-Americanism around the world. Not surprisingly, America is the most pro-America place around. India follows close on her heels, and then Poland, Canada, Britain, and Russia. France scarcely ekes out…
Why is the Duke New Sense Blog Offline? (07:00 AM) - Here is a blank screen where once was reasoned analysis of the current political storm from Duke’s conservative group. What happened? UPDATE: I am told that their bandwidth limit was exceeded, and they expect to be up shortly. LATER: They…
The Duke 47 & Leopold and Loeb (06:41 AM) - A reader writes: The Duke situation has all of the attributes of an old-time lynching: a woman screams rape and points to a black man and without further ado (or due process) the mob lights out after the poor fellow…
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
The Single Greatest Human (03:33 PM) - “If I were asked to single out the greatest human being who has ever lived, I would unhesitatingly name the sixteenth President of the United States.” Matthew Kramer, professor of Legal and Political Philosophy at Cambridge University, is in much…
“This is a major negative development” (01:36 PM) - Vital Perspective reports that Iran has announced that, for the first time, it has successfully enriched its own uranium using a bunker-housed cascade centrifuge, composed of 164 small centrifuges. The developed world is on record as saying that Iran cannot…
Immigration Counterprotest Draws Millions (01:32 PM) - Crack stringer Scott Ott reports: (2006-04-11) — In a grassroots counterprotest against yesterday’s nationwide rallies by illegal aliens, today millions of documented U.S. citizens took to their desks, factories, shops and other job sites to demonstrate their commitment to U.S….
Défait par une fille (07:45 AM) - Witness Jacques Chirac, president of the mighty France, a nation dwindling into the deep with all the elegance of a glissando on a Stradivarius, and too Julie Coudray, leader of a student movement fresh-thrust into salience and firmly footed at…
Steyn: Facing Down Iran (05:44 AM) - In the latest edition of City Journal, Mark Steyn surveys the lay of the Iranian land:That moment of ascendancy is now upon us. Or as the Daily Telegraph in London reported: “Iran’s hardline spiritual leaders have issued an unprecedented new…
Monday, April 10, 2006
You Know What ‘Scumbag’ Means, Don’t You? (10:12 PM) - No? Then you’ve something in common with the New York Times. (….via reader John Buckholz)…
Saddam Hussein Recruited Suicide Bombers to Attack U.S. (01:27 PM) - Wow—Blogger Ed Morrissey hired two Arabic translators and has determined that Saddam Hussein’s government was indeed an active participant in terrorist designs against the United States of America and her interests abroad, including suicide bombings….
The Great North to Get “More Realistic” (12:53 PM) - Canada is all but jumping ship on Kyoto, calling its requirements “impossible”. Someone should have said something!…
The Latest on the Duke University Rape Accusal (11:20 AM) - I am interested in this Duke situation only insofar as it has shown to a newly wide audience the ill that can result from the extrajudicial procedures that colleges too often embrace when their students are accused of some wrong,…
Exit Polls Look Dim for Berlusconi (11:14 AM) - There are now two exit pollsters reporting the Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi will lose his bid for re-election….
It’s a Good Day for a Correction (09:30 AM) - On this bright Monday, a host of pro-illegal immigration protests will swallow whole cities, many of them underwritten and orchestrated by shadowy Communist organizations who view the illegal immigration issue merely as a rare foothold for “radical social change”—which is…
When the Going Gets Tough, the French Back Down (08:52 AM) - So proposed in Gaul was the First Employment Contract—known as the CPE, because in France things go in the wrong order—which would institute some standardized work contract for employees under the age of twenty-six, and would make their retention subject…
Dartmouth Men, Angry Women, Harvey, &c. (07:27 AM) - No sooner does Maureen Dowd fall, finally and quietly, back behind the pay wall of the New York Times, and no sooner does she with great mercy quit the gentry and the pasture’s simpler, less deconstructionist folk to till and…
Andrew Sullivan: “It’s literally a web log…” (07:11 AM) - Literally, A Web Blog is a capital blog dedicated to tracking and exposing the widespread adulteration of the word “literally,” which is a word that means actually but which is most often used, in direct derogation from its actual meaning,…
Is Free Speech Under Attack in Arizona? (06:48 AM) - Brian Maloney, the Radio Equalizer, reports that a renegade Arizona State Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat with apparent political ambitions, has demanded a federal investigation and resultant fines into comments made early on in March by a man called…
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Not Only Good, but Legal (05:40 PM) - The Washington Post editorial board comes this Sunday to the defense of the Bush administration, for “leaking” a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago: “A Good Leak”. It is, as Scott Johnson argued to some chortles from Arianna…
On The Third Anniversary of a Grand Beheading (05:07 PM) - John Stuart Mill was late with On Liberty—he already had it, for the most part, and moved little in advancing its global prevalence. Nevertheless, his words have inspired many, and I think the ones he selected to close the great…
“Harvard is the haven of the true, Dartmouth is the haven of the useful.” (04:44 PM) - In its latest issue the Dartmouth Review re-publishes an essay by former Professor of Philosophy Herman H. Horne (1874-1946): “The Dartmouth Man”. It is quite good, and well worth a read….
Secretary of State Rice Photoshopped Again? (03:33 PM) - According to Riehl World View, TIME magazine is the latest mainstream media publication to alter the visage of the Secretary of State. Take a look at this site, on the right, three quarters down. To me, it looks like an…
Photographs From an Unusually Bright Early Morning (01:02 PM) - Today was a day for late rising; bloggers, as always, excepted. To get fresh air in between some heavy reading, I walked up to the wooded area in the northeast corner of campus, and took my trusty camera. (After so…
Goin’ to the Chapel & Russians in the White House (11:25 AM) - The New York Times’ Vows section reports wonderfully on the now-avowed Mr. and Mrs. Dan Senor. The bride, the lovely NBC reporter Campbell Brown, grew up in “a big Catholic family in Ferriday, La., full of hunters, politicians and good…
“There is no truth.” (09:56 AM) - If ever you need to gauge your own progress in intellectual exchange with a academician, wait for the utterance of that dirty deconstructionism. It means you’ve won. And Candace de Russy reports that Ward Churchill said the collegiate ‘uncle’ in…
Handey and Hersh on current American Foreign Policy (08:36 AM) - Saith Handey in a bygone era of the “Saturday Night Live” program, “If you’re in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at some guys, throw one of those little baby-type pumpkins. Maybe it’ll make everyone think of how…
An Update From The Blogging Epicist (01:15 AM) - Geoffrey Chaucer: “Yf thou knowst nat this maner of Englyssh, be nat ashamed. Yf thou kanst reden thys blogge, thou kanst reden yt. Talke to yt slowlie, as if it were an olde relative whom thou lovest verie muche, and…
Saturday, April 08, 2006
“Leak-Hating President As Leaker-In-Chief?” (06:31 PM) - Associated Press reporter Tom Raum does snark, and not particularly well. ‘Twas the topic of much confusion at this past Friday’s presser—largely because Scott McClellan seemed honestly to not know the answer—but it is indeed the case that the President…
I Shant Shunt The ‘Commonwealth’ (12:32 PM) - Reader Catherine Glass responds to my mockery of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:Must demur at your punning unkindness to the “Commonwealth”, though Massachusetts certainly deserves it. It was John Adams, who essentially wrote the Massachusetts Constitution, who came up with the…
New York Times Learns from Blogs (11:08 AM) - The good people at Six Apart software report that the Times’ new web design is influenced by blogs….
Color-Scheming the Blog (10:16 AM) - When Dartblog first began piquing tempers here in Hanover, my absolute favorite coup was that it provoked some outraged far, far-left fellow undergraduate to say—and indeed to put into printed, published words—that Dartblog could only be popular because of its…
Stephanie Wench. (10:00 AM) - The name of the announcer on Vermont Public Radio’s classical music network, as she just announced herself. I find it highly fitting that the lady behind the dulcet introductory tones of the toper Mephisto Waltz should be a Wench. UPDATE:…
About That Too-Temperate Blogging (09:44 AM) - Things have been busy here. Not that I’ve been outside in the oxygen rollicking in the midst of a Frisbee game or any such thing—and I certainly have found little time to read any of those textbooks I’ve got in…
Downloading Classical (08:09 AM) - In due time I’d like to do a full post on the topic of classical music and the Internet, but here is a good Norman Lebrecht column on the topic….
Friday, April 07, 2006
The Due Diligence of Not Funding Terrorism (03:31 PM) - The State Department has completed its nightmarish task of determining what aid the United States can still send to Palestine even though its political leaders are dedicated to the mass murder and destruction of our nation and our allies. (Who…
The Difference Between Civil Servants and Appointee (03:27 PM) - Over at Wizbang, it is revealed that the shamed Department of Homeland Security officer—the one trapped by an online child sex sting operation—is not any kind of political appointee, but a career bureaucrat. In fact, he’s a Democrat, and partisan…
One of the anti-Danish Boycotts Ends (10:33 AM) - Vital Perspective, one of the keenest blogs on all the Internet, reports that Saudi Arabia has abandoned its national boycott ‘gainst Denmark….
The Boom Booms Again (10:18 AM) - The United States continues to plow, plow forward in job-creation: 211,000 were created in March. And, as Dartblog has previously noted, the class of 2006 will have one of the happiest post-graduation job markets in many, many years….
Towards Something Sensical on Illegal Immigration (10:00 AM) - I have not on this page yet opined thoroughly on illegal immigration. Not too much time just now, but I will say this: I believe that illegal immigration is illegal, and that, as a nation based on justice under the…
Freedom Rings Through Smoke (09:42 AM) - New Hampshire’s full-blown identity crisis (wherein we confound ourselves as Vermont to the east) has been temporarily averted, albeit by two guarding, lonely votes: the state-wide smoking ban proposal has been struck and felled….
Who Is The Most Selective? (09:05 AM) - At National Review Online, John Miller points out a Washington Post article that concatenates the most selective institutions this year. Verdict: it is harder than ever to gain admission to the vaunted Ivy League.Many of the best-known and most-selective universities…
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Charm Offensive Continues (10:49 PM) - Associated Press reporter Ali Akbar reports: “Iran Says It Can Handle Any Invasion.”…
State: U.S. Will Not Seek A Seat on U.N. Human Rights Council (10:41 PM) - The State Department has announced America’s intention not to “run” for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, which is a non-reformed (and, in fact, mostly worse) version of the failed United Nations Human Rights Commission. The statement…
Academic Bill of Rights at Princeton (06:43 PM) - Without actually explaining what the bill contains, the Daily Princetonian reports on efforts to pass for Princeton students an academic bill of rights….
Cash-strapped Hamas struggles even to find bank (06:25 PM) - The Palestinian Authority in large part survives by the financial largesse of the Western world some of its more radical elements actively and continually seek to destroy. Now that those very radical terrorists are at the front of the sleigh,…
“Homophobic Hazing” at University of Vermont? (06:24 PM) - The Chronicle of Higher Education bloggers are uppity about charges that Phi Delta Gamma fraternity at the University of Vermont were said to have required pledges to “wear cowboy outfits, as in the recent movie Brokeback Mountain, and then endure…
Isn’t It Boring to be Left-Wing in Madison, Wisconsin? (11:19 AM) - Students at the University of Wisconsin revel in the passage of their “Bring the Troops Home” bill last evening….
Two Notes (10:01 AM) - The perils of tucking in one’s shirt at college: Someone—probably my senior—just said “Excuse me, sir” to ask me to move my seat in so that he could get into the aisle in which I’m sitting, waiting for this lecture…
The Duke Accusal & The Presumption of Guilt (08:24 AM) - USA Today refers to “the school’s embattled men’s lacrosse team,” and there lies the tip-off. The word ‘embattled’ means that the actual thing isn’t outrageous enough to recapitulate in the first or second paragraphs and would undermine the sensationalism of…
On The Civil War Talk (07:40 AM) - Dafydd ab-Hugh responds to John Kerry’s loosey-goosey charges of civil war: “It’s like saying a man is a rapist and murderer, when what you really mean is he beds his wife, and he sometimes kills his own chickens for eats.”…
“Famous One-Eyed Kitten to Go on Display” (06:53 AM) - Here is something not seen every day….
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Vee Vill See If You Get Avay Visout Health Insurance, Ja? (06:29 PM) - The Commonwealth of Massachusetts—and that, the very name of this place, almost tells the story for us—has decided that each of its denizens must have health insurance. Insuring one’s own physical health is now a legal requirement in that state.BOSTON,…
Hanover Hearts John McCain (05:25 PM) - Union-Leader opinion editor Drew Cline, on his newly-reformatted blog, observes that John McCain’s New Hampshire base is decidedly liberal….
01-02-03-04-05-06 (03:10 PM) - The experts aren’t impressed, but I think this is pretty neat….
Say Wha? (01:28 PM) - States seem eager these days to adopt terrible new monikers. The latest is Washington, whose motto is now: “Say WA.”…
The Television Spot Chevy Should Put On the Air (01:04 PM) - Chevy’s ad folks launched an intrepid new idea when they decided to allow customers to build their own truck commercials using an web-based Flash interface. Predictably, plenty of snarky anti-sport, anti-utility, and anti-vehicle spots were made. But Chevy has refused…
Hamilton Petition Trustee Candidates Lose Bid (11:50 AM) - Although the final vote tally was close, petition candidates supporting governance reform have failed to win seats on the Board of Trustees of Hamilton College in New York. I have not been following their story closely enough, and should have,…
The Dawning of the Age of Campbell (11:19 AM) - I don’t know about you, but I cannot fathom a handsomer couple than Campbell Brown and Dan Senor, who finally were married last week in Colorado. I hope ardently—although nothing, really, will ever convince me to watch network news on…
“Everything is racism to her.” (09:57 AM) - That’s Tom DeLay, saying sooth, on Fox News this morning. He’s referring of course to embarrassingly self-unreliant legislator Cynthia McKinney, who took an unprovoked swing at a police officer (not that any other is acceptable), is now facing arrest, and…
“Group Calls For Columbia Divestment” (09:23 AM) - Student activists at Columbia are calling for their university to divest wholesale from large companies with a small portion of their business taking place in a region where genocide is being perpetrated. They understand this won’t stop the genocide, but…
UMass-Amherst Legacy Floors Embroiled in Imbroglio (08:54 AM) - At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, if you are white and would like to live on a floor of a dormatory with only other white people, you can do that under the university’s “legacy floor” program. Actually, you can’t;…
Venezuelan Oil Primacy (08:44 AM) - Over at Opinio Juris, Chris Borgen has a startling framing of Hugo Chavez’s current oil play. Borgen seems to me unnecessarily excitable over his conclusion that “one hundred million dollars a day” will be flowing from the United States to…
The Tower, She is Closed Because of the Disaffected Youths (08:18 AM) - Leon Bertrand is France’s minister of tourism. That means that, when he has a bad day, a goodly portion of the French economy also has a bad day. He feels pinpricks whenever someone lifts from the store a bottle of…
“Then Again” (08:13 AM) - As a Republican, I urge all Democrats to read and adopt the views, strategies, and rhetoric contained in this article on the Daily Kos website. They have [not] worked in the past, and they can [not] work again!…
One of the World’s Great Wonders (08:05 AM) - Yogurt. Specifically, Colombo yogurt. And not the product itself, but an interesting piece of marketing that has been so efficacious in spite of all the reason and sense mankind can make of this world. Since 1929—a time, let us not…
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Video: Super Duper Can-Beat-Anything-You-Have Missile (06:19 PM) - The Iranians are very publicly celebrating their new missile—which evidently is now invisible to radar as well—as this latest clip at Power Line Video shows. Meanwhile, from elsewhere in the thick of technological progress that is the mullahs’ backyard, reader…
“Democrats are smarter, so they get all the advanced degrees.” (02:55 PM) - Finally, a university professor has come clean….
What Kind of a Man is Jack Straw? (02:34 PM) - Jack Straw, Britain’s foreign secretary, flew with Condoleezza Rice on a State Department jet to Baghdad, and when it came time for a diplomatic doze, Straw allowed her to sleep on the floor whilst he took the bed in Condi’s…
Briefly (Sadly) Noted (12:13 PM) - It is noontime on April 4, 2006, and it is snowing in Hanover, New Hampshire….
Monday, April 03, 2006
Reviewed: ‘Coca Cola BlăK’ (10:21 PM) - Paul Sand: “The idea is that it’s Coca-Cola with some coffee extract thrown in. And, gosh, that’s pretty much what it tastes like.”…
Election Advice From Louise (09:19 PM) - I thought you, dear reader, would be interested to know that actress Susan Sarandon has a vision for future elections in the United States: “I believe our next election should be monitored by international entities, just like it happened in…
The Supreme Court Denies Padilla Appeal (11:24 AM) - Only three of the Supremes—Breyer, Ginsburg, and Souter—voted to hear the plaints of Jose Padilla, as an appeal hearing was denied in Padilla v. Hanft . The Court, however, declined to dismiss the case as moot, which the government had…
Who’s Afraid of Edward Albee? (11:05 AM) - The writer behind Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Edward Albee, is a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth this Spring and will be giving a lecture called, appropriately, “Theater Talk with Edward Albee”. It is on Tuesday, April 25, at 4:30 p.m….
Is There Value to Prudence? (09:02 AM) - It is being billed as the first of its kind: a scientific study that connects childrens’ exposure to sex in the mass media to their actual age of first-intercourse. It appears that the correlation is significant, with sex-soaked television viewers…
Iran’s Super Duper Can-Beat-Anything-You-Have Missile (08:43 AM) - Over at Big Lizards, it is supposed that, when Iran speaketh, perhaps Iran does not always speaketh the truth….
“with his singular dexterous fusion of academic theory, political activism and pop cultural commentary” (08:12 AM) - Cornel West explores race in America at Cornell. But one student is upset at his $22,000 price tag….
The Taliban “Man” — Still at Yale University (07:46 AM) - I have elected to put the word “man” in incredulous-quotes when referring to Yale student and former propagandist for the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban government Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, since men as defined through the ages generally do not support the forced…
Contentious Sexual Assault Policy Fails at Columbia (07:38 AM) - Columbia University students were harried and agonized over a highly controversial amendment to that illustrious university’s sexual assault policy. An amendment to the thing—proposed by hapless students Kacy Redd and David Bornstein—would have allowed Columbia students accused of a crime…
The Problem With College April Fools Jokes… (07:35 AM) - The daily newspaper of Brown University reports: “Following on the heels of Yale University’s decision to admit former Taliban spokesman Rahmatullah Hashemi, Brown has awarded an honorary doctorate to reclusive North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il.”…
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Natalie Portman’s Surprise Visit to a Columbia Class (04:04 PM) - The dear bonny trouper that is the object of this page’s unbidden affection made a surprise visit to a terrorism class at Columbia University, which was showing the morally ambiguous V for Vendetta to see if any educational value could…
“Rummy Was Right” (01:47 PM) - This is just too funny. Whether you agree with the causal argument, these guys are stunningly informed about recent world events….
Daylight Saving Time and International Law (01:13 PM) - Roger Alford at Opinion Juris looks at the international law behind daylight saving time….
Through: Alcatel and Lucent (01:06 PM) - The AP reports….
At Ramstein Airbase: Jill Carroll, Smiling, with Fatigues (10:01 AM) - How dread an army hath enrounded [her]; Nor doth [s]he dedicate one jot of colour Unto the weary and all-watched night; But freshly looks, and over-bears attaint With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty; That every wretch, pining and pale…
Fear the “Outsiders” (09:50 AM) - Quoted in a report from Inside Higher Ed on the Yale Taliban, Zachariah Victor, a member of Yale’s Graduate and Professional Student Senate, opines that “The outsiders [who oppose Yale’s admission of the Taliban propagandist] are largely right-wing commentators. They…
Headline of the Day (09:44 AM) - There is nothing like a little rampant subjectivity in wire reports to set one’s Sunday morning in full bloom. Consider today’s example, from the house of Reuters: “Rice awkward as she meets Iraq PM.” That is the news: That Secretary…
Saturday, April 01, 2006
He Sired the Symphony (11:57 PM) - Today is celebrated the 274th birthday of Joseph Haydn, one of the greatest music-makers ever to have graced this green Earth. Although the world is captivated these days by Mozart—and this entire year, of course, is dedicated to his birth’s…
New Video Clips are Live at Power Line Video (04:07 PM) - At Power Line Video can now be seen clips of Congressional Representative Cynthia McKinney contravening the recruitment efforts of the United States military during war time, a prisoner release process at Abu Ghraib, as well as some raw footage from…
George Mason Revisited (12:14 PM) - George Mason is perhaps the least-remembered of the founding fathers of the United States of America, although that may be changing with the ascendance of George Mason University in the academic (not to mention athletic) firmament. What kept George Mason…
Wheelock’s New Guard (10:20 AM) - Dartmouth announces some of the fresh faces on the faculty of arts and sciences….
Free Speech, the Wringer, and New York University (08:54 AM) - Dartblog has obtained a copy of an e-mail from NYU Spokesman John Beckman, reprinted in full in the extended, explaining the university’s almost—almost—comically oppressive view of the series of events that led to a censored Objectivist Club meeting, where the…