February 20, 2008 – 6:11 pm
With a hat tip to James Taranto, here’s a story you didn’t see in the New York Times: Bob Geldof, the noted social activist, former Boomtown Rat, and star of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb video, praised George Bush for his commitment to fighting disease and poverty in Africa.
February 8, 2008 – 11:19 am
Thanks to Kevin Kim for bringing to our attention the World’s Stupidest Comment Thread. It includes such gems as: When politicians say they are for Change but never explain what the change is we better all be careful. I think Adolf Hitler was elected in Germany on a platform of “Change”. and A lot of […]
February 2, 2008 – 2:12 pm
About forty years ago I read a science-fiction book called Wasp. I remember it only dimly, but as I recall it was a corking good read, and the central metaphor of the book has stayed with me: that a small insect, buzzing around the inside of an automobile, can so distract the driver as to […]
January 31, 2008 – 11:32 pm
I’ve been nettled for years by the near-worship with which Bill Clinton has traditionally been regarded in these parts; if you ask most of my neighbors in Park Slope or Wellfleet, the man can simply do no wrong. This has always puzzled me, because although he is obviously highly intelligent and possessed of a certain […]
January 30, 2008 – 11:04 pm
By now you’ve probably heard that our ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was recently anointed, amid much controversy, by the waka waka waka editorial board as our favorite, has dropped out of the presidential race.
January 30, 2008 – 10:48 am
In a touching display of mutual link-love, I urge readers to drop everything and read Kevin Kim’s salty critique of the New York chapter of NOW, which recently issued a girly, self-pitying whinge about Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama. Why they should even mind being spurned by a pompous, Falstaffian cad who left an […]
January 23, 2008 – 10:28 am
Having wearied, apparently, of cat-burning the Bushies, Times columnist Maureen Dowd has lately found new sport in that “two-headed monster”, the Clintons. It’s a felicitous choice: I’ve had enough of these two to last a lifetime, Bill in particular. Today’s entry here.
January 20, 2008 – 12:52 pm
Today’s Times features a thoughtful article about the presidential campaign and the struggle in Iraq. It’s by Michael Gordon, who has spent a great deal of time there ever since the beginning of the war, and who undoubtedly has a better understanding of the “facts on the ground” than any of the candidates (not to […]
January 1, 2008 – 11:41 pm
Our friend The Stiletto wonders, in a recent post, how an irreligious voter might go about selecting a candidate, given the way they’ve been elbowing each other aside to crow about their faith: ” Romney Didn’t Win Any Converts: Rarely does someone get the chance truly to see things from another’s perspective. Having read as […]
December 28, 2007 – 6:42 pm
The columnist, author and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan has an item today in the Wall Street Journal in which she rates the current crop of Presidential candidates according to her slogan for 2008: “Reasonable Person for President”. She is herself a reasonable person, and while our assessments diverge in spots, I agree with much […]
December 22, 2007 – 9:22 pm
Following a link from Bill Vallicella, I’ve just read a review of the movie Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, in which the reviewer, the historian Ronald Radosh — who knew Seeger personally, and admires him as an artist and a man of peace, generally — nonetheless calls attention to the unrepentance of those of […]
December 8, 2007 – 12:32 am
It should come as no surprise that Christopher Hitchens had something to say about Mitt Romney’s speech last night. From his latest piece in Slate, a sample: Romney does not understand the difference between deism and theism, nor does he know the first thing about the founding of the United States. Jefferson’s Declaration may invoke […]
December 7, 2007 – 1:26 pm
Well, we’re all still drying off after our dousing last night from Mitt Romney’s Gatorade barrel of holy water. Like JFK in 1960, Romney saw that his campaign was imperiled by a controversial religious affiliation; in this case, however, the risk was not that he was afraid of being seen as some sort of religious […]
November 25, 2007 – 10:56 pm
We note that former world chess champion Garry Kasparov has been arrested in Russia for leading a protest rally. According to reports he has been sentenced to five days in jail.
November 19, 2007 – 11:09 pm
I might as well not keep the media on tenterhooks any longer. At the risk of confirming suspicions that I am nothing more than a Republican tool ((Actually, I am a registered Democrat.)), I hereby let it be known that, as regards the bouquet of presidential candidates on offer this time around, the one most […]
November 14, 2007 – 11:50 pm
You may have noticed that a great many people seem to really, really hate George W. Bush. Here in Park Slope, Brooklyn, one of the “bluest” neighborhoods in America, there’s a tacit assumption on the part of everyone you meet that you, too, really, really hate George W. Bush. And why do all the people […]
October 18, 2007 – 12:42 pm
I’ll chalk it up to natural selection That we won’t see Sam in the next election.
October 2, 2007 – 10:35 am
Violence declined sharply in Iraq last month. This was such unwelcome news at the New York Times that the story, which opened with the sentence “The number of violent civilian deaths in Iraq dropped precipitously in September compared with the previous month”, was presented “below the fold” on page 10, having been knocked off the […]
October 1, 2007 – 11:12 pm
Well, it looks like John McCain is done. I don’t suppose that he had much of a shot at the Republican nomination anyway, but now he’s being roasted alive for some candid remarks he made during an interview at Beliefnet.org. What was McCain’s unpardonable offense? Being a Christian himself, he expressed a wish to have […]
September 19, 2007 – 5:23 pm
One hears a lot these days about a “right” to health care. I bristle at this, because I think the notion of “rights” as anything other than matters of human convention is rubbish. We may, as a society, choose to define our laws such that they include a “right” to those things we deem appropriate: […]
September 18, 2007 – 10:33 am
Our pal The Stiletto takes a pointed look at farm subsidies. Here.
August 5, 2007 – 11:54 pm
Here, from the journal Foreign Affairs, is Barack Obama’s obligatory term paper on foreign policy. (Thanks to my friend Jess Kaplan for sending the link our way.) Though the paper deals mostly in generalities, its tone is encouraging, and although I doubt Obama will get the Democratic nod next year, I was pleasantly surprised to […]
The Washington Post offers us an interesting and disturbing glimpse into the private life of President Bush; it is an odd life of isolation, and, one has to imagine, a kind of desperation as well. From the article: After reading Andrew Roberts’s “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900,” Bush brought in the author […]
Michael Moore is on his (presumably steel-reinforced) soapbox once again. In his newest movie, Sicko, he brings his folksy propaganda style to bear on the American health-care system, which is, he alleges, fundamentally inferior to the socialized arrangements in place in other countries, including even the tyrannized and impoverished nation of Cuba (whose “revolutionary” medical […]
A few days ago we directed waka waka waka readers to a Wall Street Journal piece by Bernard Lewis, in which he explained the psychological boost and doctrinal validation that a US abandonment of Iraq would give to our jihadist foes. Now that article is followed by a politically brave item by the Democrat Bob […]
We note that Jerry Falwell, the prominent religious extremist, sanctimonious prig, and bigot, has died. This is the man who, on September 13th, 2001, said: I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, […]
A few days ago the New York Times offered a revealing glimpse of the august body of solons by whose sage and impartial judgment New Jersey law is made.
March 22, 2007 – 10:33 am
Two things you should never watch being made. Here.
December 23, 2006 – 11:51 pm
Having spent a couple of years working at the tragically self-immolated “prospective Web search” company PubSub, where we were among the first to gather comprehensive real-time statistics about blogs, I occasionally poke around a bit myself to see who is linking to whom — and in particular, to me. In a visit to Technorati a few minutes ago, I saw that I had been linked to, back on December 2nd, by a writer named “Sini”, at a blog called Jusiper. Here is the text of the post, in its entirety:
I suppose this is the adult version of fratboys who party to “Trenchtown Rock”: a Republican, warloving Fela fan.
Presumably the best time to do a line is right after they kill Fela’s mama.
I don’t know anything about “fratboys” who particularly enjoy Jamaican music; presumably there are some, as appreciation of good music transcends political allegiances. I do feel rather misunderstood, however.
December 3, 2006 – 12:49 am
The gist of the essay is that the current administration, rather than being incompetent, or overweening, or imperialistic, or all three, is in fact a gang of Nazis, and we’d better wise up. The author, aghast at our complacency, seeks to rouse us from our stupor by pointing out – breaking news! – that the Germany of the 1930’s became utterly evil, in large extent, of its own volition, and suggests that the same is happening here.
November 30, 2006 – 3:18 pm
Political disagreements, such as those that have been taking place lately in comment threads here at waka waka wakaexhibit a property not unlike that ascribed astrophysicists to the hypothetical “dark energy” that is thought to permeate the cosmos: they exert a mysterious repulsive force.
November 22, 2006 – 1:11 pm
Here’s yet another entertaining website, brought to our attention by my friend Jess Kaplan. It is maintained by an outfit calling itself SurveyUSA, and is an interactive map of the current mood of the nation, taken state by state, regarding possible 2008 Presidential election pairings. Here’s what they’ve done:
November 17, 2006 – 1:58 pm
The front page of today’s New York Times features an outstanding photo, a real peach. In the foreground are the presumptive Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and her intraparty foe Steny Hoyer. Ms. Pelosi, who has yet even to take up the gavel, has already shown outstanding political ineptitude in her attempt to foist small-bore Pennsylvania pork broker and Mideast defeatist John Murtha upon the House as majority leader. The Democratic caucus, in what many see as a telling lack of fealty and sign of party disunity, decisively rebuffed her, installing Mr. Hoyer, currently the minority whip, instead.
November 1, 2006 – 11:49 am
The lugubrious, thatch-crowned Ent John Kerry, who is so in love with his own orotund bombast that he simply cannot, even for the sake of his own sallow hide, keep his gaping pie-hole shut, has made a fool of himself again. This man simply will not go away, and some good Samaritan should find a hammer and a wooden stake and do the right thing.
October 19, 2006 – 11:47 pm
This past Friday, President Bush signed into law H.R. 4411, the Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act, which prevents U.S. financial institutions from transferring money to online gambling services. The bill was sneaked, in typical sausage-and-legislation fashion, into the SAFE Ports Act (H.R. 4954 As Amended) for the Senate vote, where it passed 98-0, with two abstaining (Sens. Chafee and Akaka).
September 27, 2006 – 3:33 pm
I’ve been posting a lot of political items lately; too many, really, as I don’t want political issues to dominate here. I also think I am giving the impression that I am far off on the right, when actually my opinions vary widely on an issue-by-issue basis – I tend to side with the Left on most social issues (gay marriage, church/state, abortion, drug laws, environmental and energy policy), though not all (affirmative action, gun control, border control, and pushing toward socialism generally), and with the Right, specifically the neoconservative right, on one issue only, which is foreign policy, to the extent that US influence is fairly and honestly brought to bear in a struggle against tyranny. I have defended, at length, our our decision to knock Saddam off his perch, but I agree also that the job was catastrophically bungled, and that heads that still issue orders should have rolled. I also share the Left’s low opinion of George Bush generally – his swagger, his smug religiosity, his inarticulateness, his lack of intellectual subtlety, and his inability to admit and correct error – as I have made abundantly clear in any number of posts.
So I’ll try to ease off on the political rants. But not just yet; here’s one more.
August 11, 2006 – 9:54 pm
I wrote yesterday about the irritating tendency of affluent left-leaning types here in Wellfleet and back home in Park Slope to speak in glowing terms of the many blessings that Fidel Castro (whose current status is reminiscent of Schroedinger’s famous Cat) has showered upon the fortunate citizens of Cuba. The fact that the island is an impoverished police state, where dissidents languish in dungeons, and whence people flee by the thousands in leaky boats whenever restrictions on leaving the country are lifted, is usually passed over unmentioned, so that the discussion may focus on Cuba’s fantastic health-care system, which of course puts ours to shame, and which is an enlightening example of the benign vision of the saintly Maximum Leader.
Startlingly, the vaunted Cuban health-care infrastructure actually falls somewhat short of its reputation. Have a look over here.
August 10, 2006 – 10:35 pm
As readers of these pages will know, I spend a good deal of time in the lovely seaside village of Wellfleet, out on the far end of Cape Cod. Demographically Wellfleet is an interesting mixture; its flinty and hard-working year-round population of fewer than 3,000 swells to almost 20,000 in the summertime, as affluent vacationers flock to its sheltered inlets, freshwater ponds, art galleries, theater productions, excellent restaurants, and of course its spectacular Atlantic beaches, framed by towering dunes.
I suppose I’ll weigh in on the situation on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, although I tend to shy away from politics in these pages. In short, my view is that Israel is doing exactly what it ought to be doing, and ought to keep doing it for a little while longer. I offer a few thoughts, none of them particularly original.
In today’s New York Times, former chess champion Garry Kasparov, who has forsaken competitive chess for pro-democratic political activism, challenges the Western democracies to take “a tougher stand” against the increasing trend toward authoritarianism in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Garik writes:
Opposition activists and journalists are routinely arrested and interrogated. The Kremlin, in complete control of the judiciary, loots private businesses and then uses state-controlled companies to launder the money abroad.
Mr. Bush and Europe’s leaders apparently believe it is best to disregard such unpleasantness for the sake of receiving Russia’s cooperation on security and energy. This cynical and morally repugnant stance has also proven ineffective. Just as in the old days, Moscow has become an ally for troublemakers and anti-democratic rulers around the world. Nuclear aid to Iran, missile technology to North Korea, military aircraft to Sudan, Myanmar and Venezuela, and a budding friendship with Hamas: these are the West’s rewards for keeping its mouth shut about human rights in Russia.
Read the entire essay here.
My friend Eugene Jen, whose restlessly curious mind makes him a rich source of interesting material, has sent along a link to a story about the great logician Kurt Gödel. Apparently Gödel, in preparing for his U.S. citizenship examination, made a characteristically analytical reading of the document, and realized that despite the Framers’ aversion to tyranny, they had left in place a weakness that might lead, under the worst of circumstances, to the establishment of a dictatorship. It was Gödel’s intention to mention this at his examination, but his good friend Einstein, who had accompanied him to the proceedings, talked him out of it.
In today’s Wall Street Journal newsletter was a link to a recent commencement speech by John McCain, in which he tries to frame the context of political debate, and reminds us that more unites us than divides us. It’s well worth reading, and you can find it here.
I’ve been getting a little back-channel heat about my tendency, lately, to make unkind remarks about the UN. So, for the record, I’d like to say that I have always felt that the only hope for the world, in the long run, was some sort of universal government, and that I think the historical tendency of “non-zero-sum” cooperative arrangements to emerge at larger and larger scales makes such an arrangement practically ineveitable, sooner or later. I used to be a big defender of th UN, back when US foreign policy seemed to consist mainly of prppoing up whatever foul despot would take our side against the Reds (although we are still cozying up to a few who will take our side against the jihadists).
A story in yesterday’s New York Times brings to our attention once again the fine job that the United Nations is doing to make the world a better place:
Liberian girls as young as 8 are being sexually exploited by United Nations peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers in return for food, small favors and even rides in trucks, according to a new report from Save the Children U.K.
Of course, the entire civilized world, its patience already stretched to the limit by US abuses at Guantanamo, immediately rose up in outrage, and anti-UN rioting paralyzed the world’s capitals.
Oh wait – well, actually, nobody seems to be bothered, particularly, except for Save the Children, who recommends a swift and severe response:
Save the Children said Liberia and the United Nations should set up an office to investigate cases of the sexual exploitation and to work to ensure that the behavior stops, prosecuting the offenders, among other steps.
It also said United Nations workers accused of sexual exploitation should “go through judicial proceedings,” and if found guilty, should not be sent elsewhere as peacekeepers.
That ought to do it.
Johns Hopkins professor Fouad Ajami was on the Wall Street Journal’s television program, the “Journal Editorial Report”, over the weekend, to discuss the recent conference in Philadelphia honoring the 90th birthday of the great Mideast scholar Bernard Lewis.
My friend Mike Zaharee who works in PubSub‘s Granite State Research Kitchen up in Nashua, NH, reminded me the other day that New Hampshire is the only state in which the Right of Revolution is written right into the Constitution. Here it is, Article 10:
Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance ag ainst arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
This is the same state about which Daniel Webster once said, referring to the iconic (and recently departed) Old Man of the Mountain:
Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men.
From the notes for the United Nations’ Disarmament Commission 2006 Substantive Session 269th & 270th Meetings (AM & PM):
In other business, the following delegations were elected as Vice-chairpersons, by acclamation: Chile, Uruguay and Iran.
So now Iran, whose rabid president has declared that his country “doesn’t give a damn” about UN efforts (including possible resolutions) to ensure that it does not arm itself with nuclear weapons, is to be a “Vice-chairperson” of the Disarmament Commission.
(Thanks to James Taranto for pointing this out.)
It is increasingly hard to defend the idea that there is any conceivable value in our continued participation in this feckless and corrupt organization.
April 21, 2006 – 10:32 pm
Here are a couple of photos from Chinese president Hu Jintao’s vist to the White house. During the reception on the South Lawn (we decided to snub Hu and crew by not throwing a state banquet in their honor; after all, he is only the leader of the world’s most populous nation) Hu was manhandled by President Bush, and heckled by an adherent of Falun Gong. While introducing the Chinese national anthem, an announcer mistakenly referred to the People’s Republic of China as the “Republic of China”, which of course is Taiwan. And once everyone went inside, Dick Cheney apparently fell asleep.
I have to wonder if the whole thing was a prank; I rather hope it was. You can just imagine them all trying to keep a straight face. I still don’t think it tops Bush père vomiting in the lap of Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa back in 1992, though.
What a pack of cards.
April 19, 2006 – 12:29 pm
My friend Jess Kaplan has sent me a link to an essay by Carl Bernstein that, not unsurprisingly, calls for a Congressional investigation, possibly leading to impeachment proceedings, of George Bush. You can read it here. While Bernstein’s credentials on the subject of ousting Republican presidents are, of course, unimpeachable, one must be wary to some extent, because of his visceral, Krugmanesque loathing for Bush the man.
April 17, 2006 – 11:04 pm
Today, having been summoned for jury duty, I spent a few hours as a cog in the machinery of American justice. Admittedly, a case could be made that my contribution was actually quite minor: I showed up at 8:45 a.m. at the Supreme Court building at 360 Adams Street in downtown Brooklyn; sat in a large room, reading, until lunchtime; took a very enjoyable stroll (accompanied by an equally enjoyable sandwich) down to the lovely Brooklyn Promenade overlooking New York Harbor, where I dined al fresco in the delightful spring sunshine; returned to the Central Jury room at 2; sat there reading until the end of the day, at which point I was discharged. Still, despite the fact that my name was not called even once other than to send me packing, I exited the building with that special glow of inner satisfaction that only those who, like me, have sacrificed in the service of their country can really understand. Not pride, mind you, but just the knowledge that one has done one’s Duty, and done it well.