I saw a French film tonight that I enjoyed. One puzzle, though. The original title is Fauteuils d'orchestre. The English-captioned version is called Avenue Montaigne. Am I wrong, or did the producers translate from French into French?
Regardless, it was very pleasant viewing. No violence or other grittiness; just Paris as one likes to imagine it.
First, I've updated the blogroll. A few sites off, more sites on.
Second, if I post something of someone else's and don't note how I found it, chances are that either an NRO site (most likely The Corner) or Instapundit led me there. But I should keep better track, and I'll try to improve in that area.
Climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball is featured in the new documentary debunking global warming, titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle." For this heresy, Ball has received hate mail with such messages as, "If you continue to speak out, you won't live to see further global warming." [. . .]Global warming is supposed to be "science." It's hard to imagine Niels Bohr responding to Albert Einstein's letter questioning quantum mechanics with a statement like: "If you continue to speak out, you won't live to see further quantum mechanics."
I don't watch Neil Cavuto regularly, but I always like him when I see him. I didn't realize the extent of his health problems, which he faces with admirable fortitude:
Ten years later, Cavuto both accepts his MS and defies it. Doctors marvel at his MRI scans because they indicate a man unable to walk or talk. Yet while he sometimes has difficulty doing both, the Fox News anchor is remarkably fit, exercising on a stationary bike and treadmill to stave off muscle atrophy of the legs, a common problem in MS patients. Cavuto, 48, has the secondary progressive form of the disease, meaning it steadily worsens over time.He has fatigue, headaches, trouble walking, some vision loss, and — occasionally — hoarseness. "Having difficulty talking isn't good in my profession, but my wife welcomes it," jokes the anchor, who memorizes scripts for his program, Your World With Neil Cavuto, in case he can't read the teleprompter during taping.
Cavuto chose to be upfront about his MS with Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes. His boss asked for the worst-case scenario, to which Cavuto responded: "I'll need a wheelchair." Ailes said simply, "Fine, we'll build a ramp."
(Via Stephen Spruiell.)
No matter how much evidence of Iran’s determination to destroy or dominate us, no matter how many times Khamenei or Ahmadinejad leads the chant of “Death to America,” no matter how many American fighters and Iraqi citizens are killed as a result of Iranian support for the terrorists, [Condoleezza Rice] and the [Henry] Kissingers of this world continue to convince themselves that things are getting better, that Iran shares our goals for peace in the region, and that if we only make one more generous offer, the whole unpleasant situation will work out for the best.It is not so. They are not like us, and they do not share our dreams. Diplomacy will not tame them. Only our victory will.
Faster, Please. Our kids are getting killed every day by these people, and we’re next on their list.
If you like Monty Python at all, try the first five minutes of this clip from the British spoof Look Around You.
Last night: "Kill him! Kill him!"
Tonight: "Go in. Go in." (No exclamation point, but more deeply felt.)
(A MONTH LATER: This kind of post always seems a good idea at the time and idiotic soon afterward.)
Mark Krikorian on two studies analyzing the relationship:
For policymakers, the real story is the one the immigration lawyers study downplays: There is a massive increase in criminality from the first to the second generation. The study may exaggerate the shift due to its amateurish mistakes, but it found that native-born Hispanic male high-school dropouts are 11 times more likely to be incarcerated than their foreign-born counterparts. This suggests that as the sons of the current immigration wave (which is mostly Hispanic — a lack of diversity unprecedented in American history) reach the peak ages for criminality, we may well see a reversal of the past decade's decline in crime.
I won't anger many by pointing to this piece by David Frum:
[I]n an important way, women's votes are more important than men's, and not just because there are more of them.Men have much stronger political opinions than women do, and they make up their minds much earlier in the election cycle. Women take much longer to decide. And that is why most campaign events and most campaign advertising is aimed at women rather than men: Women are more persuadable.
Here's a passage to thrill feminists:
Women voters are only about two-thirds as likely as male voters to read the newspaper. In 1996, only about half of female voters could name the vice president of the United States.
Mark Steyn on a murder in New Orleans:
This was the story of Paul Gailiunas, raised in Edmonton, and his wife Helen Hill, whom he met at Harvard. On January 4th, at their home in the Big Easy's Faubourg Marigny neighbourhood, Ms. Hill was shot and killed, and Dr. Gailiunas was wounded by four bullets while shielding their two-year-old son. The couple had moved to New Orleans from Dalhousie in 2001 because the doctor, according to the Globe, "wanted to work in a Third World environment." His wife was a filmmaker who showed her work at the Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center. Dr. Gailiunas also has his artistic side, as a vocalist and guitarist with a band called the New Orleans Troublemakers. According to the paper, "his lyrics explore universal health care, flag burning and early anarchist Emma Goldman." One gets the strong impression the doctor was in favour of all three. [. . .]Underneath the ton of clapped-out countercultural clichés, Dr. Gailiunas and Ms. Hill are real people and what happened to them was monstrous and evil. I would rejoice if her killer were found, tried and hanged like Saddam--though I doubt whether the experimental cello-playing community feels the same. But, if this is (as the Globe's headline says) a "tragedy," it's in the proper sense of the word--of a fatal flaw leading inexorably to disaster. In the face of the obvious all around them, the dopey naiveté of the couple was indestructible. Their wish to help "the community" was no doubt sincere, though what would really help New Orleans is a non-corrupt city administration and an end to multi-generational welfare. Instead, like most "nice" people, the Gailiunas were most agitated about Bush, Republicans, capitalism, the military, et cetera. They were so eternally worried about phantom threats they were blind to the genuine ones out there. The real "New Orleans Troublemakers" were not playing in Dr. Gailiunas' Emma Goldman nostalgia band.
Paul Belien interviews Theodore Dalrymple (9/06):
PB: You are also very familiar with the United States. [. . .] Is the pathology as bad there or is it less obvious?TD: It is better in the United States. It is not that the pathology where it exists is not severe – and it is very severe in parts of America as well. The difference is that in America it has not entered the core of the population. There is more resistance to it. I think, and this is very important, that Americans still believe in their own country. Americans believe that they are part of a larger project – that is that of the United States. This can sometimes have bad as well as good effects, but it does actually keep the civilization together. I think the United States is more civilized than Europe now.
* * * * *
PB: Do you see a way to remedy the situation in Europe?
TD: It will be very difficult. It would help if the government would get out of the way. It is necessary to reduce the welfare state. I think it is also necessary to halt the so-called “European project,” which in my view is a vast pension-fund for politicians who are thrown out of power in their own country. The European Union is fundamentally undemocratic, but it is worse because EU policies are actually obstructive of productive work. Underlying it all, however, we need to persuade people intellectually. If we do not persuade people that there is something valuable in our culture and our tradition – artistic, scientific, philosophical – then I do not see how we can preserve ourselves.
PB: And is there a role to be played by religion, for instance?
TD: I find this a difficult question because I am not myself religious. However, I am not anti-religious. I am pro-religion provided that it is not theocratic, so long as there is still a division between church and state. In Britain it has de facto been like this for a long time. Officially Britain is a Christian country with a state church but de facto it has been a secular society.
PB: You would not see secularization as cause of the problem?
TD: I think it is part of the cause of the problem, because if people cease to believe in a transcendental purpose in life then they seek it elsewhere. If, however, at the same time you have destroyed all other possible sources of transcendental meaning to life, then the destruction of religion is a problem. I personally do not have much of a problem with not being religious, because I have a belief in trying to contribute to the culture of my country. But if I did not have anything like that, or if I were not a doctor who felt that by research I could contribute something, or if I had no cultural interests, then what would be the purpose of my life other than the flux of day to day existence?
* * * * *
PB: What is your view? Is Islam inherently unstable?
TD: I personally think it probably is, because it does not have anybody to define the doctrine. There is no hierarchy in Islam.
PB: There is no Pope?
TD: There is no Pope, there is nothing to be laid down. A moderate person can always be outflanked by someone who claims to be more Islamic than he is. That is a very serious problem. Of course if you have a pope who himself is a theocrat, then that is a problem, too. But there are two things about Christianity which mark it out. The first thing is that it actually started out, and for quite a long time was, in opposition to a state and not itself a state. The second thing is that there has always been a theoretical divide between the Christian church and the state: the “render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.” It has of course not always been in existence, but it has always been there in the doctrine as a potential space between church and state. And that does not exist in Islam.
That "A moderate [Muslim] can always be outflanked by someone who claims to be more Islamic than he is" strikes me as one of the most important observations I've read lately.
There's much more I'd like to quote. Highly recommended.
Daniel J. Mitchell of the Heritage Foundation, 4/2/97:
Jumping through all the tax hoops might not be so painful if taxpayers could at least be confident that the effort led to accuracy. The ultimate insult added to their injury, however, is that even "expert" advice is no guarantee of correct answers to tax code questions!50 = The number of different answers that 50 tax experts gave Money magazine in 1988 when they were asked to estimate a hypothetical family's tax liability. Under a flat tax, taxpayers would not need to consult tax preparers, much less run the risk of paying penalties for wrong answers.
50 = The number of different answers Money magazine received in 1989 when it asked 50 different tax experts to estimate a hypothetical family's tax liability.
48 = The number of wrong answers Money magazine received in 1990 when it asked 50 different tax experts to estimate a hypothetical family's tax liability.
49 = The number of different answers Money magazine received in 1991 when it asked 50 different tax experts to estimate a hypothetical family's tax liability.
50 = The number of wrong answers Money magazine received in 1992 when it asked 50 different tax experts to estimate a hypothetical family's tax liability.
41 = The number of wrong answers Money magazine received in 1993 when it asked 50 different tax experts to estimate a hypothetical family's tax liability. (Nine of the original volunteers did not even bother to respond.)
At last weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference, Ann Coulter used the word "faggot" in reference to John Edwards. Last night on Hannity & Colmes she described the epithet as "a schoolyard taunt." That's exactly what it was. I remember kids calling one another "faggot" in elementary school, with exactly Coulter's meaning: a boy who isn't tough and fusses over his appearance. It had nothing to do with sexuality. If Edwards were gay, it would've been an anti-gay slur. But Edwards isn't gay, so it was only a childish insult. (Coulter says she was referring to the trouble Isaiah Washington got into for using it. In Washington's case it seems to have been a genuine slur.)
The reaction on left and right has been, respectively, opportunistic and overwrought. I've written before that though I respect Coulter's intelligence I find her injudicious. This controversy hasn't changed my opinion.
When National Review Online ended its association with Coulter in 2001, Jonah Goldberg explained NRO's side of the story. He closed the column with a nice bit of understatement:
We're delighted that FrontPageMagazine has, with remarkable bravery, picked up Ann's column. [. . .] They'll be getting more than what they're paying for, I'm sure.
Yes indeed.
Usually when I go to a movie it's more because I want to go out somewhere than that I expect to love what I see. This week, though, I found one that enthralled me: The Painted Veil. Thoroughly recommended.
