Always Right

Ah, academia...

Nathaniel Frank is a senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara. (emphasis mine) NYT

You've got to be kidding me! California taxpayers are financing a center for "the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military"? I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Thank the Lord that I don't live in California - as if those loons don't support enough weird things already - now this?

How much research could there possibly be in this area? And I'm sure by "sexual minorities" they are including pedophiles, hermaphrodites, etc., right? No, of course not. The Center only "promotes the interdisciplinary analysis of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and other marginalized sexual identities in the armed forces." What about their "marginalized" brethren that love children or animals? No analysis of them?

Not only does today's NYT offer the above nugget of hilarity ("not funny ha-ha, but funny queer"), but it also offers an article on an upcoming book that discusses Abraham Lincoln's homosexuality. That is right people - according to the author, C. A. Tripp, Honest Abe "was a gay man." Will wonders never cease? And people argue that the gay community doesn't have an agenda - ha.

They use taxpayer dollars to study "sexual minorities" in the military and claim that the man historians generally rank as the most important President in U.S. history was one of them. Unbelievable...

A fascist Russia is a good thing?

Ross Douthat points out that in years past one would not have found a NYT columnist stating:

"a fascist Russia is a much better thing than a Communist Russia."

Judge wears Ten Commandments on Robe"

Only in Alabama, indeed. Howard Bashman links to this story on a judge from Andalusia, Alabama who (upset that the Ten Commandments were removed from the Alabama Supreme Court lobby - remember Roy's Rock) has taken to wearing a robe with the Ten Commandments embroidered on it. Here are a few select quotes from the article:

[Judge] McKathan said he is aware there could be court battles over his robe because "there is a potential constitutional issue." He said he does not want a legal fight, but is prepared should one come.

"I approved of the placement of the monument in the judiciary building," McKathan said. "It took a lot of courage for Judge Moore to go through all he did. I just hope I will be able to give an articulate defense. I don't want a court battle -- but you know, all that's in the Lord's hands."

I'm not so sure that courage is the right word to use for Moore. I prefer "vanity." As for McKathan, wearing the Ten Commandments on your robes can do nothing to help in the larger fight to keep the Left from completely separating church and state. McKathan's actions, like Moore's before him, serve only himself.

So as a Christian I'd like to thank McKathan for setting our cause back another year or so. As a resident of Alabama I'd like to thank him for once again reminding the country that Alabama breeds some of the weirdest judges in the country.

"What's New in the Legal World? A Growing Campaign to Undo the New Deal"

Adam Cohen wants us to believe that if SCOTUS were to overturn Wickard v. Filburn and its progeny children would be forced into factories, workers would be exploited, all old people would be poor, dithering idiots, minimum wage laws would disappear, and FDR would roll over in his grave.

As for the last two - great! Minimum wage laws inhibit on the freedom to contract. Thanks to FDR we're stuck with a nanny state, so it would be wonderful to begin to "undo the New Deal" and send FDR 'a spinnin'.

As to kids in factories - we have another horrible law called "No Child Left Behind" - and I don't think it stands for the proposition that kids are gonna be forced into manual labor in "polluted" factories. It is safe to say that the kiddies will be protected even if SCOTUS were to overturn Wickard.

Our standard of living has increased exponentially since the Great Depression. The life expectancy has increased and our citizens are capable of working longer than they were in the 30s and 40s. Today's economy is more service oriented than labor intensive. In other words, we're not gonna see Grandpa out there building houses if we overturn Wickard.

Cohen is simply adhering to the Left's long time practice of trying to scare people into complacency. America is tired of this sort of abject paternalism. Hopefully, SCOTUS is as well.

This guy is brilliant...

Found in today's NYT World Briefings section:

Swaziland's 36-year-old playboy king, Mswati III, absolute monarch of a land where two-thirds of the population survives on an average income of less than $11 a month, has purchased a $690,000 Maybach 62, the ultraluxury Mercedes sedan from DaimlerChrysler, equipped with a television, refrigerator, heated steering wheel and sterling silver champagne flutes, the automaker's South Africa spokesman said. The purchase adds to the fleet of 10 BMW sedans he bought on his birthday in April. Opposition leaders criticized the Maybach purchase, saying it sent the wrong message to foreign donors seeking to help a nation with 40 percent unemployment and the world's highest H.I.V. infection rate. DaimlerChrysler's spokesman in South Africa, where rich financiers have bought the region's remaining three Maybachs, said the king's purchase "shows that our product has arrived."

The world's highest H.I.V. rate and the dude is buying a $700k car! With that many people unemployed one would think that the hoi polloi could find the time to "overthrow" the king, huh?

The "living tree" doctrine

I urge you to read Bruce Fein's op/ed piece in today's Washington Times. He eviscerates the Supreme Court of Canada's decision to recognize gay marriage on the grounds that that "nation's constitution was an organic "living tree," not a petrified forest incapable of new limbs and climbing treetops."

The majority on the Supreme Judicial Court in Mass. (which last year ruled that that state's constitution contained a right for same-sex couples to marry) is kicking itself for not having thought of the "living tree" argument themselves. First Canada recognized gay divorce, now they recognize their constitution as a "living tree" - those wily Canadians have beaten our liberals to the punch yet again...

"The Anti-Anti-Americans"

Jonathan Tepperman's essay The Anti-Anti-Americans found in today's NYT Book Review section is very interesting. Tepperman compares recent writings by anti-Americans such as Anatol Lieven, Will Hutton, and Arundhati Roy to the writings of so called anti-anti-Americans such as Barry and Judith Colp Rubin,  Paul Hollander, and Jean-Francois Revel.

The anti-Americans argument is basically this: America and Americans (with Pres. Bush as lead antagonist) are arrogant, imperialistic, "excessively religious", nationalistic, and un-cosmopolitan.

The anti-anti-American argument can be summed up as: "the resentment of once-great societies eclipsed by Yankee upstarts, and of those unable to participate in America's bounty." Tepperman says, "Add to this a few other ingredients -- ''a romantic as well as Marxist anti-capitalism . . . the personal and cultural problems peculiar to intellectuals; the specter of standardization and homogenization associated with the spread of American mass culture'' -- and the picture starts to seem complete."

So what can we as Americans do to counter this rampant anti-Americanism? Sadly, Tepperman acknowledges that little can be done.

"A more conciliatory American tone in the years ahead might quiet the country's critics somewhat. But nothing Washington could realistically do would be likely to change the minds of those determined, for their own reasons, to hate it. Anti-Americanism is something we're stuck with for at least as long as America remains pre-eminent. Perhaps the most Americans can hope for is that the animosity won't intensify any time soon. But if it doesn't, that's probably only because, as all these books agree, it couldn't get much worse."

Is Tepperman correct? Should we resign ourselves to being hated the world over? I'm not so sure. Anti-Americanism is certainly popular amongst the intelligentsia around the globe (think French, German, British intellectual circles), but that does not necessarily correlate into anti-Americanism with the masses. Think about it.

The American intelligentsia - the academics, Hollywood, the literary "elite" - is arguably as anti-American as any neo-Communist in Europe. This obnoxious "elite" may be loud, and in some circles influential, but 59 million Americans voted to re-elect Pres. Bush on Nov. 2. 99% of the 55 million voters that voted for Kerry are not part of the elite, chattering class. We have our Michael Moore's, and our Noam Chomsky's but they do not reflect the typical American's view of America.

Similarly, the editors of The Daily Mirror, The Guardian, Le Monde, etc. do not represent all of European opinion towards the U.S. Anti-Americanism is given a voice by the European intelligentsia - their media. The average European may not agree with all, or even most, of the U.S.'s policy positions, but policy disagreements do not equal anti-Americanism or hatred of America.

The anti-Americanism Tepperman cites comes from a small but vocal contingent. The U.S. remains the world's standard-bearer for democracy, freedom, and opportunity. The rest of the world recognizes this, even if the world's intelligentsia does not.

Lack of posts

The lack of posts recently is due solely to final exams. Both Andrew and I are smack in the middle of exams. However, after Tuesday I'm home free....

Kinda funny...

Have you ever read a newspaper article and gotten the feeling that the author was more than a little pleased with him/herself for having written the article?

Well, I had that feeling this morning when I read Linda Greenhouse's article 'Justices Give Second Hearing in a Texas Death Row Case' in the NYT. She was reporting on the Thomas Miller-El case argued before SCOTUS yesterday.

"When Justice Antonin Scalia, who did an energetic job of reinforcing the state's argument at every turn, told Mr. Waxman that the state had an explanation for each juror and that "a buckshot attack" on the jury selection "has to be examined pellet by pellet," the lawyer responded:

"Let me switch metaphors on you. It is pointillistic. It's like walking up close to a Seurat and looking at a red dot and saying it's not necessarily a handbag. As a reviewing court, you have to step back and look at this."

I get the feeling that Greenhouse did a dance in her cubicle after she wrote the paragraphs above. I can hear her now: "Take that, Scalia - let us see you come back from the famous Seurat defense." What a goof...

Irish eyes are indeed smiling...

The Economist, in its special edition The World in 2005, places Ireland atop its list of the world's best countries in which to live. The Economist uses surveys and regression analysis to rate 111 countries by their "quality of life" index. Why is Ireland #1:

Ireland wins because it successfully combines the most desirable elements of the new (the fourth-highest GDP per head in the world in 2005, low unemployment, political liberties) with the preservation of certain cosy elements of the old, such as stable family and community life. Offsetting its poor climate and, by rich-country standards, gender inequality are a higher political stability and security. Even if GNP—not available for all countries, but in Ireland’s case significantly lower than GDP—is used to measure income, Ireland still wins.

After living in Dublin this summer I can attest to the fact that Ireland would indeed be a wonderful place to live. I loved the weather, the food, the people, the countryside - everything about Ireland actually. If only I could convince my wife to move there....

N.B. - The U.S. is 13th on the list (just ahead of Canada), the U.K. - 29th, France and Germany are 25th and 26th respectively. Russia is 105.