Final Protective Fire

Friday, January 31, 2003

Glenn Reynolds points to this story about Daimler-Chrysler revising a Bill Mauldlin cartoon in tribute to Mauldin. The cartoon takes the classic Mauldin cartoon of a GI in anguish about to shoot a broken-down Jeep with his Colt sidearm and remakes it into an image of the same GI picking up a box of tissues from the hood of the same Jeep. I'm more conflicted about this story myself. It appears to me that Daimler-Chrysler wasn't reworking the image because they didn't think the original PC enough, rather my guess is that they were trying, and failing, to do an image similar to Warner Brothers' heart-breaking cartoon "Speechless" on the occasion of Mel Blanc's death. Unfortunately, they failed.

Robin 8:58 AM

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Iain Murray informs us that the excellent Claremont Institute now has its own blog.

Robin 4:34 PM

Clayton Cramer points us to this story of the abuses of the Canadian gun registration scheme.

Robin 10:51 AM

Tim Blair does Osama Bin Laden's version of the State of the Union and it is hilarious. Link shamelessly stolen from Vodkapundit.

Robin 10:28 AM

Byron York addresses Sen. Schumer's dishonest campaign against the judicial appointment of Miguel Estrada.

Robin 10:19 AM

Monday, January 27, 2003

I have been outclassed in the dry humor department by the Prof.

Robin 4:48 PM

Howard Bashman points out that the Ninth Circuit has removed references to Michael Bellesiles' discredited work in its recent opinion on California's assault weapons ban. Unfortunately, for Judge Reinhardt, it adds no credibility to his opinion.

Robin 1:56 PM

Sunday, January 26, 2003

Michael Fumento is one of my favorite writers on junk science, here he writes about Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. I've long been a skeptic about the prevalence of these diseases, so Fumento is making me think hard here.

On another subject, if you hadn't noticed, Michael has been laying into the Atkins diet nonsense and as usual, his hate mail is hilarious.

Robin 10:11 PM

Iain Murray points us to this Lancet piece about a study of single-parent households in Sweden and effects on children. As Iain points out, the researchers try to blame the economic differences, but the money quote is:
However, even when a wide range of demographic and socioeconomic circumstances are included in multivariate models, children of single parents still have increased risks of mortality, severe morbidity, and injury.

Fascinating article both in what it concludes and the way in which the authors try to both present the data and wish it away.

Robin 10:06 PM

Well, I seem to be commenting on Glenn Reynolds' posts a lot lately, the result I guess of this. However, in this post of Reynolds', he points us to the latest stupidity by Atrios in attacking the Instapundit and others by claiming association with the Reverend Sun Myung Moon through the Washington Times. Evidently, there isn't anything silly enough for these people to reach their own embarrassment level. What's most amusing is that someone actually tries to claim that returning the argument to that of A.N.S.W.E.R.'s leadership of the anti-war protests is "changing the subject". No, Atrios' attempt to start a discussion of the Moonies is "changing the subject". Hey, Atrios, the subject is war with Iraq. Iraq - you know - nasty little country in the Middle East.

By the way, Meryl Yourish reminds us of the kind of slime which Atrios is trying to change the subject away from.

Robin 9:38 PM

Saturday, January 25, 2003

Glenn Reynolds takes some to task for their silly overreactions regarding John Lott and his survey of defensive firearms uses. The allegation is raised by some, and Reynolds seems to somewhat concede, that Lott's admitted use of a pseudonym for some comments in internet forums is "weird". I strongly disagree. There are a lot of actually "weird" people on the Internet, including quite a few who are simply internet stalkers. Use of a pseudonym to contribute to some internet forums is not only not "weird" but often quite a wise idea.

Robin 8:53 PM

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

Jonathan Adler demolishes the nonsense about SUV's in NRO. Link via the Volokh Conpiracy.

Robin 10:40 AM

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Let's hope that article that Drudge references about gay men deliberately seeking to be infected with HIV is a lot of nonsense, because its a revolting idea.

Robin 7:47 PM

Don't miss this discussion by Trent Telenko of a recent Seymour Hersh article on North Korea and Pakistan's cooperation on nuclear weapons development. Trent highlights how Hersh is carrying Clinton's water in the spin department.

Robin 10:41 AM

Monday, January 20, 2003

Trent Telenko uses the capture of Aachen in WWII as an illustration of proper urban combat tactics. But the real lesson as Trent ends is that we need general officers ready to put their men first. Its a good read and up to Trent's usual high standards.

Robin 8:31 PM

While refering to Eric Alterman seeing the light on the issue of communists like A.N.S.W.E.R. leading the anti-war protests, Glenn Reynolds used the term "slagged". He's copying from me of course.

UPDATE: Odd how many people don't see that this was just a parody of some of Reynolds' attackers...

Robin 2:30 PM

Jane Galt asks the question about why the anti-war protestors allow themselves to be led by communists politely. But Tacitus puts it more bluntly.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds mentions the discussion on his new MSNBC blog. Beat Donahue's ratings yet, Glenn? Hehe.

UPDATE: Michael Kelly weighs in.

Robin 10:32 AM

Saturday, January 18, 2003

Another example of how the Democrats are putting partisanship above the national interest.

Robin 10:40 PM

Who are those organizing the "anti-war" protests this weekend? Communists of course. As an aside, I hadn't seen Powerline before but it seems at first glance to be an interesting blog.

Robin 2:33 PM

One of my three readers emailed me asking for my comments on the Eldred copyright case from the Supreme Court.

Intellectual property law is an area of great interest to me, but this case didn't get me as excited as you might think. I have a few quick thoughts, you'll find more comprehensive commentary at Eugene Volokh's blog.

My own thoughts are that those who have called this a "blow" to the limited government ideology on the Supreme Court are wrong. That group on the Supreme Court have several important beliefs, one of which is that of deference to Congress in its role in creating legislation. The Constitutional provision provides that Congress may grant copyrights for terms of "limited time" but puts no bounds on how long otherwise. So there is no textual basis for striking down the term extension in general. There is no part of the ideology of limited enumerated powers in the Constitution that allows the Supreme Court to invent an actual number as time limit where the Constitution doesn't have one.

I believe that Congress shouldn't have extended the copyright act's terms. That said, I think that the decision to consider extending terms of existing works that same as extending the terms of future works more troubling. "Juan " on Eugene Volokh's blog discusses the constitutional argument about this in more detail.

UPDATE:Man Without Qualities has a large number of interesting posts on Eldred. I am too lazy to link to all of them so just scroll down as he has quite a few. I think that this was his first. Much of his discussion involves treatment of the economic questions such as here. I must admit that I find the economic discussions unexciting, which is unusual as economics is an interest of mine. So I can't say that I endorse MWQ's positions but there is much there to think upon. But as I said, there are more discussion on his blog - don't miss them.

Robin 10:41 AM

Thursday, January 16, 2003

Ted Barlow has been accumulating and writing topical and blogger-related light bulb jokes over the last few days. Great stuff. I found this via Jane Finch and Tim Blair.

Robin 8:03 PM

Speaking of Glenn Reynolds, the recent link from Glenn evidently surged my traffic five-fold ( meaning from 2 to 10 - ed Stop that. ). Among my visitors was one who decided to send me a long, bizarre and incoherent screed which I will not copy here both because of my policy of not posting emails without permission and because of its incoherence. Said person made several weird accusations; one of which was a rant about right-wing conspiracies that supposedly included Prof. Reynolds and myself. Evidence that Prof. Reynolds and I were in league with the famous "VRWC"? That I never criticized him, so I must agree with everything he posts. ( I think the term "dittohead" got reused for some bizarre reason ).

Knowing that Glenn and I are really not in a conspiracy, and that I'm probably much more conservative than he, I thought back to the times that there was a disagreement between the professor and myself and wondered why I didn't blog it. The answer was simply that those disagreements were not very interesting. As an example, my impression is that Glenn Reynolds is more likely to support drug decriminalization than I would. But since I don't want to talk about drug policy, I haven't blogged a comment when he's made such a reference.

Similarly my email correspondant made some references to sucking up to the Instapundit for links. This one actually brought up some annoyance in me. I've seen a lot of people who chose to attack Glenn Reynolds not for his opinions but for things he's not even said. Others, the example that comes to mind I refuse to link to at all, seem to want to insult him just to collect hits. There are weird threads where people pick through his traffic to try to cheer themselves up with every dip. Through all that, I've seen Glenn Reynolds still link to those people, throwing traffic their way far more generously than I would, despite their pettiness. Why does the professor do this? Evidently because he's a nicer guy than them - not to mention a much nicer guy than I. I appreciate the links that Glenn Reynolds has put my way but those say more about him than me.

Robin 7:40 PM

Wednesday, January 15, 2003

Good lord, Glenn Reynolds has moved to the Dark Side. Someone else to get better ratings than Phil Donahue ... Just kidding, Glenn, I wish you good luck with the new weblog.

Robin 11:24 PM

In this post, Glenn Reynolds starts Fisk'ing a Washington Monthly article that dishonestly tried to tie the D.C. area shootings to the "evil" NRA stopping the poor, wittle innocent ATF from enforcing the gun laws. Dave Kopel joins in and when finished, we see more dishonest gun-hater propaganda revealed for the mass of lies and misrepresentations that it always is.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds adds to his list of articles parroting VPC press releases. The gun control extremists are currently obsessed with .50 BMG caliber sniper rifles as their next target despite the fact that this is a type of rifle that is so expensive that only a few dedicated hobbyists in long-range target shooting can afford them. It is almost never used by criminals. So instead, the VPC attempts to link their discredited gun control policies to terrorism. The attempt of the article to which Reynolds links to associate these rifles as a anti-aircraft threat is ludicrous, real terrorists obviously have access to real anti-aircraft missiles these days.

UPDATE 2: Evidently, someone read something I didn't write in the email Glenn Reynolds quoted. There are all kinds of threats to airliners, as we've learned, including box cutters. There is a limit to the extent to which I'll discuss viable terrorist tactics on this blog, but the very idea that an unguided .50 caliber bullet weighing less than a tenth of a pound is more of a threat to an aircraft than a self-guided warhead of more than two pounds of high explosive is quite amusing. Not to mention exaggerating the effective range of the .50 rifle and ignoring the more than 3 mile slant range of even the older MANPADS he scorns. This is nothing more than the usual exaggeration of gun control groups as Glenn Reynolds points out. Why Flit decides to fall for it, I don't know. The gun control groups do not have your safety in mind as established by their hysterics at the idea of arming pilots. What they have in mind is demonizing their target of the day. UPDATE 3: Suman Palit has similar thoughts. As further support for Glenn Reynolds' observation that this is not a real discussion about security but about gun control politics, notice how often the fact that the caliber of these rifles is that same as the military machine gun is brought up. The machine gun in question, the classic Browning M2, is strictly controlled in this country because its a machine gun - capable of fully automatic fire unlike the rifles at issue - not because of its caliber. But deliberately blurring that distinction is just further evidence of the inherent dishonesty of the discussion.

Robin 1:41 PM

Monday, January 13, 2003

A gentleman named Sean Scarry sent me an long and thoughtful posting in reply to my rant below about DEBKA:

Robin,
I found your blog through Glenn Reynolds comments about your piece on the DEBKA comments on an airborne assault in Iraq. I enjoyed and learned quite a bit reading it. I added it to my favorites.
As a former paratrooper, I both agree with you and disagree with you at the same time. Your reasoning is cogent and based on a firm understanding of the current "state of the art" military strategy, but I think misses some of the subtleties of current airborne doctrine.
First of all, I think that DEBKA is to the Internet as the Weekly World News is to the newsstand. They obviously don't have a corporate drug testing policy. A Airborne assault on a major city or its environs by an entire division is today ludicrous, you are absolutely correct there. And the 101st is an Air Assault division certainly. However, I feel that there are both tangible and intangible qualities that would argue that a conventional (as opposed to Special Operations) airborne force is a tremendous and useful force multiplier today.
INTANGIBLE
1. Show of National Resolve
Sending in the 82nd Airborne Division is a clear sign to foreign governments that the US government is taking a serious step. Part of the airborne reasoning is the ready units of the division can be wheels up in 18 hours and on the ground in the combat zone shortly thereafter. All of the combat equipment can be dropped and therefore carried by a transport aircraft. After the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in August of 1990, the first major Army combat units to arrive were from the 82nd. Now if the Iraqis were going to invade Saudi Arabia, they certainly could have. The light Airborne units of the 82nd would only have been a speed bump to the incompetent, but heavily armed, Iraqi armored and motorized rifle formations. But they would have killed American forces and taken pretty serious casualties in the process. No one in this country would care what happened to Iraq if they assaulted American soldiers in a defensive posture. This also lets our allies know how serious about a particular engagement. The only other way to do this would be to deploy an MEU, but that might certainly take longer than 18 hours depending on the locale and how spontaneous the incident was. A secondary use (and one I disagree with) is a Peacekeepers. A unit from one of the US's premier units, Airborne or otherwise, shows we mean business.
2. Uncertainty
I am sure that many tin horn dictators go to bed at night wondering if there are C-141s heading their way from Pope AFB. The Airborne (and all rapidly deployable light forces) are a wild card. The whole world knows where we have POMCUS sites and what they contain as well as where our MSPRON ships are and what they contain. Now, 1 brigade is not a lot, but it is something falling from the sky in the middle of the night.
TANGIBLE
1. Tactical Exploitation, Bridgeheads, Airheads
There never will be another Airborne assault like that that took place in Normandy, but it will continue to be an exceptionally useful tactic for two purposes. First, most of the combat actions that this country will face will not be against 1st or even 2nd world forces. Most of the places where the Army will wind up fighting will be lucky to make 3rd world status (Iraq and N. Korea being among the exceptions, at least in terms of their militaries, sadly). These countries will have neither the Air Defense capability to detect, deter, or combat the Airborne assault. These assaults will not be large scale divisional operations, but smaller operations designed to secure specific objectives, chiefly airfields. With airfields seized and suppressed ADA, you land in forces. They need to hold for reinforcement by the heavy units (or the IBCTS, if they prove useful). The second use will be to vertically envelop, act as a blocking force to the enemy's rear, and cut and disrupt supply and C3I to the enemy's rear. These operations would obviously be carried out in conjunction with deployed forces of the heavier units of the XVIII Airborne Corps. The 101st did this to great effect in the Gulf War by conducting an air assault to 150 KM into Iraq, holding a blocking position to the rear of the retreating Iraqi forces.
2. The Airborne Doesn't Operate in a Vacuum
The 82nd Airborne is designed in its present configuration to operate as a part of the XVIII Corps, which includes both heavy and light units. The lighter units, like the 82nd, 101st and the 10th Mountain, establish the "airhead" and the heavier forces, from the XVIII and other formations follow on and reinforce. Here is a listing of the units assigned to the XVIII:
           

                + XVIII Airborne Corps (Ft Bragg, NC)
                      # 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Ft Stewart, GA)
                            * 1st Brigade (Ft Stewart, GA)
                            * 2nd Brigade (Ft Stewart, GA)
                            * 3rd Brigade (Ft Benning, GA)
                            * 3rd Aviation Brigade (Hunter AAF)
                            * Division Artillery (Ft Stewart, GA)
                            * Engineer Brigade (Ft Stewart, GA)
                            * Division Support Command (Ft Stewart, GA)
                      # 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) (Ft Drum, NY)
                            * 1st Brigade (Ft Drum, NY)
                            * 2nd Brigade (Ft Drum, NY)
                            * 10th Aviation Brigade (Ft Drum, NY)
                            * Division Artillery (Ft Drum, NY)
                            * Division Support Command (Ft Drum, NY)
                      # 82nd Airborne Division (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * 1st Brigade / 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * 2nd Brigade / 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * 3rd Brigade / 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * 82nd Aviation Brigade (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * Division Artillery / 319th Field Artillery Regiment (Airborne) (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * Division Support Command (Ft Bragg, NC)
                      # 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) (Ft Campbell, KY)
                            * 1st Brigade / 327th Infantry Regiment (Ft Campbell, KY)
                            * 2nd Brigade / 502nd Infantry Regiment (Ft Campbell, KY)
                            * 3rd Brigade / 187th Infantry Regiment (Ft Campbell, KY)
                            * 101st Aviation Brigade (Ft Campbell, KY)
                            * 159th Aviation Brigade (Assault) (Ft Campbell, KY)
                            * Division Artillery (Ft Campbell, KY)
                            * Division Support Command (Ft Campbell, KY)
                      # 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light) (Ft Polk, LA)
                      # (11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (OPFOR) (Ft Irwin, CA))
                      # 229th Aviation Regiment (Attack) (Ft Bragg, NC)
                      # 18th Aviation Brigade (Airborne) (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * 449th Aviation Group (Lift) (NC ARNG) (Kinston, NC)
                      # XVIII Airborne Corps Artillery (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * 18th Field Artillery Brigade (Airborne) (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * 54th Field Artillery Brigade (VA ARNG) (Virginia Beach, VA)
                            * 103rd Field Artillery Brigade (RI ARNG) (Providence, RI)
                            * 113th Field Artillery Brigade (NC ARNG) (Greensboro, NC)
                            * 130th Field Artillery Brigade (KS ARNG) (Topeka, KS)
                            * 135th Field Artillery Brigade (MO ARNG) (Sedalia, MO)
                            * 138th Field Artillery Brigade (KY ARNG) (Lexington, KY)
                            * 142nd Field Artillery Brigade (AR ARNG) (Fayetteville, AR)
                            * 147th Field Artillery Brigade (SD ARNG) (Sioux Falls, SD)
                            * 151st Field Artillery Brigade (SC ARNG) (Sumter, SC)
                            * 169th Field Artillery Brigade (CO ARNG) (Aurora, CO)
                            * 196th Field Artillery Brigade (TN ARNG) (Chattanooga, TN)
                            * 197th Field Artillery Brigade (NH ARNG) (Manchester, NH)
                      # 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade (Ft Bliss, TX)
                      # 16th Military Police Brigade (Airborne) (Ft Bragg, NC)
                      # 20th Engineer Brigade (Combat) (Airborne) (Ft Bragg, NC)
                      # 30th Engineer Brigade (Theater Army) (NC ARNG) (Charlotte, NC)
                      # 525th Military Intelligence Brigade (Airborne) (Ft Bragg, NC)
                      # 35th Signal Brigade (Airborne) (Ft Bragg, NC)
                      # 1st Corps Support Command (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * 2nd Corps Material Management Center (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * 24th Corps Support Group (Ft Stewart, GA)
                            * 46th Corps Support Group (Airborne) (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * 101st Corps Support Group (Ft Campbell, KY)
                            * 507th Corps Support Group (Airborne) (Ft Bragg, NC)
                            * 30th Corps Support Group (NC ARNG) (Durham, NC)
                      # (350th Civil Affairs Command (USAR) (Pensacola, FL))
                      # 44th Medical Brigade (Ft Bragg, NC)
                      # Dragon Brigade (Rear Operations Headquarters) (Ft Bragg, NC)
                      # 18th Air Support Operations Group (Pope AFB, NC)
The above was such a well-written discussion that I decided to post it essentially unchanged, although I'm to blame for the bizarre formating. Well, blame me and Blogger.
At the risk of appearing to have the last word, I would point out that Sean's "Show of National Resolve" can translate to "tripwire" which implies something of a Forlorn Hope at times. And I would point out that serious SAM systems are showing up in a lot of 3rd World countries besides Iraq and North Korea these days. Sean lists the many units in XVIII Airborne Corps but note how few of them are really air transportable, much less airborne. My thanks to Sean for taking the time to write such a long and thoughtful reply.

Robin 9:21 PM

A lot of people have done a good job of rebutting the claims that the Bush administration is hypocritical regarding its treatment of the North Korea situation versus Iraq. Orson Scott Card has a good contribution to those rebuttals as well.

Robin 9:09 PM

Sunday, January 12, 2003

Frank Gaffney cuts down the attempts to push the North Korean situation off of Clinton's "legacy".

Robin 10:20 PM

Saturday, January 11, 2003

The Tax Foundation has this fascinating breakdown of the Bush Tax proposal. Its breakdown shows that this tax cut is quite dramatic in its benefits to the middle incomes.

The Tax Foundation has a good website with a lot of interesting data such as this chart which shows how ( using FY2000 data ) the "rich" are already getting well soaked by taxes. Note that the top 5% of filers by AGI have 35.3% of income but pay 56.5% of income taxes. That is certainly not "fair".

Link to the Bush Tax cut story stolen shamelessly from Ricky West.

Robin 11:46 AM

Thursday, January 09, 2003

Steven Den Beste has another good one on the "Why do they hate us?" nonsense.

Robin 3:51 PM

Debka once again shows the low quality of its "reports" with a report titled "Road to Baghdad Goes Through Tel Aviv". There is a lot of nonsense in this piece mixed with some obvious observations but what I found expecially hilarious was:

The US is expected to launch the coming war against Iraq with parachute drops on Baghdad, together with commando landings in the city from the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.

This is hilarious because the age of parachute drops into combat zones ended a long long time ago. Further, Debka refers to the 101st as "101st Airborne Division". The 101st is only called "Airborne" for historical purposes, it is an "Air Assault" division ( better called "Airmobile" as it is helo-borne ) and isn't a parachute formation.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds was kind enough to forward an email from a Ranger fan taking me to task for saying that the day of parachute drops into combat zones was ended. Included were several links to the Ranger website with descriptions of Ranger operations in Grenada, Panama and Kuwait City. While I don't wish anyone to misconstrue my remarks as being at all critical of the immense courage of the Rangers in those operations, there is room to criticize the military rationale for those operations. ( Some argue that its possible to misunderstand why the Panama operation was successful ). But the key is that I'm bit by my own sloppy prose. My intention was to state that the kind of operation implied by DEBKA's silly article, reminiscent of others' discussion of an "inside-out" strategy, is long retired. Indeed we will see small units, Rangers and Joint SpecOps, placed by airborne drop during the upcoming war, ( although they won't be from 101st which is as I mentioned organized for helicopter operations). We will not see brigades of the 82nd Airborne nor the 101st arrive in Baghdad by parachute atop Republican Guard mechanized divisions ala Eben Emael or Crete. There are two reasons for that. The first is the most obvious; the dangers of flying a large formation of air transport aircraft into the teeth of a real anti-aircraft network. The second is just as important; the lessons of more than a half-century ago that airborne forces cannot survive long against regular forces with the airborne's light equipment and slender logistics.

But as I said, the sloppy prose was my fault and I am corrected.

Robin 2:22 PM

When I wasn't paying attention, Man Without Qualities has been going bonkers fisking and slagging left and right. Here he deals with Paul Krugman's piece on North Korea quite skillfully. Here he has some fun applying Krugman's "logic" to the announced candidacy of Senator John Edwards. Here and here he discusses the implications of President Bush's proposed tax changes.

Robin 1:43 PM

Iain Murray has some interesting links regarding crime rates in the UK. Note his comparison between white male homicide rates in the UK and the US.

Robin 9:07 AM

Wednesday, January 08, 2003

There is a fascinating article in the Globe and Mail about the history of Canada's failed gun registration scheme. Glenn Reynolds first blogged to it but Clayton Cramer has pulled some other interesting information from it. Besides the cynical adoption by Chretien's government of a multi-billion dollar boondoggle knowing it was a failure in advance, I think the most interesting information is that Canada's earlier firearms owner registration scheme had already been secretly abandoned by their RCMP. Keep that in mind when people try to cite gun control schemes of other nations like Canada.

UPDATE: Evidently my sloppy prose got me again. Jane Finch of The Daily Rant suggests that I'm giving Glenn credit for something she wrote about. I was attempting to write that Glenn posted a link to that piece and that then Clayton added some thoughts. What I found interesting in this instance was the discussion about motivations for adopting the gun registration scheme. I believe I did first see Jane mention the stories about its failure.

Robin 10:45 AM

Tuesday, January 07, 2003

On NRO, John Fonte discusses modern civil rights legislation and Republican support for it.

Robin 2:52 PM

Clayton Cramer has a piece in History News Network recapping the Bellesiles affair from his point of view.

Robin 1:10 PM

Did you think that Michael Moore was finished making a flaming ass of himself? Bad guess. The author of the piece went to see Michael Moore's one-man show in London.

What we did not expect was to feel so enraged at one point that we almost walked out. It was when Moore went into a rant about how the passengers on the planes on 11 September were scaredy-cats because they were mostly white. If the passengers had included black men, he claimed, those killers, with their puny bodies and unimpressive small knives, would have been crushed by the dudes, who as we all know take no disrespect from anybody.

The author of the piece goes on to discuss the current problems of the black community in Britain and how in that light the author finds Moore's comments offensive. In discussing the violence of the black community, the author mentions a proposal to add a mandatory 5 year sentence to gun possession, see Iain Murray's take on that.

Tim Blair has some other observations of Moore in London.

Robin 7:52 AM

Monday, January 06, 2003

Junkyard Blog has some interesting points about North Korea and South Korea.

Robin 3:30 PM

NRO's The Corner has a fragment of a transcript of an Ari Fleischer news conference where Helen Thomas once again spouts her bizarre Leftist rhetoric.

Robin 2:11 PM

An upbeat view of the state of our economy from the Wall Street Journal. Link thanks to Pejman.

Robin 11:29 AM

Man Without Qualities has some excellant points about the media failure to address Sen. John Edwards' lack of experience with the same vigor as George Bush's supposed inexperience was repeatedly trumpeted.

Robin 11:20 AM

I try to separate my feelings toward Islamic radicals/terrorists from my opinions on mainstream muslims, but silliness like this make it more difficult to believe there is a difference. The Muslim community has a long way to go toward learning how to live in a modern secular society. If they don't wish to learn that, and adopt the radical's intent to destroy our society, then they only change the bigots into prophets. Link shamelessly stolen from Glenn Reynolds, Tim Blair also comments.

UPDATE: A reader supplies this full-length image of the cover to Glenn Reynolds.

Robin 11:12 AM

Iain Murray discusses a CDC report about "binge" drinking and Glenn Reynolds uses that article to discuss the related issue of the descent of MADD ( Mothers Against Drunk Driving ) into the modern version of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. This really is a shame because at one time, MADD did fine work to reverse the apathy our society had toward drunk driving.

UPDATE: Charles Murtaugh brings some other viewpoints into the discussion, including the Onion.

Robin 11:09 AM

Wednesday, January 01, 2003

Pejman has a great list of "awards" for 2002.

Robin 7:36 PM

Ha'aretz reports on an explosion in Hesbollah controlled territory in Lebanon. The arms involved are said to be from Iraq. This is more evidence of Iraq's sponsorship of terrorists ( not to mention more evidence that Syria is in league with Iraq ). Link shamelessly stolen from Little Green Footballs.

Robin 6:46 PM