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Jonah Goldberg, writing at The Corner:
Studio 60 [Jonah Goldberg]
No, I didn't watch it last night. I had the option of watching a squirrel groom himself, so I went with that. But I hear that Aaron Sorkin bravely spoke truth to power about the Hollywood blacklist last night. Thank God someone in the artistic community finally had the courage to tackle this taboo subject after nearly 60 years. Posted at 10:05 AM
I apologize for the lack of postings lately. Work has kept me hopping, and I spent most of my free time last week preparing a talk.
So, I'm not dead, just busy.
Questus Furore - In Defense of New England
In light of Nate's trip (as he reported Tuesday), I just have to add the following: New Jersey is not part of "New England."
Actually, no one wants to claim it.
Questus Quickie - Nuclear NorKs
Well, he of the Don King hair claims to have tested a nuclear weapon.
While the exact implications of the test, and whether the explosion was an actual nuclear weapon, remain unclear, one would think this event would serve as a great focusing agent on the national debate, what with the election just over three weeks away and all.
But the debate is still focused on the dalliances of an already-departed Congressman.
Questus Quickie - Please Read
I realize many of my links just aren't that interesting. But please read Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Paranoia." This is a growing problem, and will be with us for at least the next couple of elections. Check out the "current events" section of the bookstore - this stuff is everywhere.
Recommended Reading
VDH, "Do We Have a Strategy?"
"Dynamic Capitalism" - a well-written, much-needed defense of the capitalist economy.
Andrew McCarthy, "The Culture of Obstructionism."
A Jonah Goldberg two-fer: "Liberal Paranoia" and "When Multilateralism Falls Short."
As you may recall, I'm not a fan of George Soros. He has an iunternationalist, socialist agenda that I completely oppose. And he has made himself one of the biggest power brokers in the Democratic Party. Ed Whelan reports on "George Soros' Two Left Hands."
Kansas is crazier than you thought.
I'm reading Mark Steyn's new book; you can find a review here.
Thought(s) of the Week
“I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm’s way.”
John Paul Jones
“A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.”
Fredrich August von Hayek
Churchill Quote of the Week
"The price of greatness is responsibility. If the people of the United States had continued in a mediocre station, struggling with the wilderness, absorbed in their own affairs, and a factor of no consequence in the movement of the world, they might have remained forgotten and undisturbed beyond their protecting oceans: but one cannot rise to be in many ways the leading community in the civilised world without being involved in its problems, without being convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes.
"If this has been proved in the past, as it has been, it will become indisputable in the future. The people of the United States cannot escape world responsibility."
Sir Winston Churchill, "The Price Of Greatness"
Questus Furore - The Threat Has Changed, Again
The mind boggles at the events of the past two weeks.
First the man from Denver, who walked into a high school in Bailey, Colorado (basically the equivalent of a man from Salt Lake walking into a school in Oakley, UT), taking a classroom hostage, sending out the teacher and boys, then proceeding to molest the girls left inside. (What exactly he did has not been made clear. I'm not sure if I want to know.) When police reacted, he shot at his hostages, then killed himself, but not before mortally wounding 16-year-old Emily Keyes. Having violated her honor, he then stole her life.
Less than a week later, another one, this time in the heart of Amish country. This attacker had grand plans - but the police arrived too soon. So he attempted to execute his ten hostages, then killed himself. So far, five of his victims have died, and the survival of two more is in question. All were girls, ranging in age from seven to thirteen. Four of them were laid to rest yesterday, the fifth today.
Just as Columbine forced a reassessment in how we look at our security, so these events are forcing another. Once again the threat has changed; where once the worry was basically children escalating their conflicts to the point of violence, now the danger has arrived in the form of well-armed adult sexual predators, seeking to fulfill one last fantasy before ending it all.
The threat has changed again. Now police no longer even have time to wait for the SWAT team.
Perhaps too, this should force another look at how we approach sexual predators in our society. Can those urges ever be suppressed, or will they simply build pressure until the mind erupts? Once we have caught them, can we let them go?
I don't know the answers to any of these questions. But we had better start thinking about them.
Recommended Reading
Susan Konig, "The End of Innocence."
Victor Davis Hanson, "Traitors to the Enlightenment."
Jim Geraghty, "The Other Shoe That Dropped."
TKS - "How Long Until The Clash of Civilizations Becomes a Campaign Issue?"
Thought of the Week
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."
Edmund Burke, Letters on Regicide Peace, 1796.
Churchill Quote of the Week
"All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope."
Sir Winston Churchill
