Did my matzos come?

In the New York Sun (sub. may be req.), Edward Glaeser looks at John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society, first published fifty years ago:

The book's main observation was that America has become unbelievably prosperous. In the 1930s, America wasn't so rich, and by the 1970s, America's wealth wasn't so remarkable anymore. Galbraith beautifully captured that moment in the late 1950s when rising prosperity freed the median American from having real fears about basic necessities.

Galbraith wanted government to use people's wealth to better society. Fiscal conservatives and libertarians (and Libertarians) such as I want government small, and philanthropy left to private citizens. An example of the latter approach: the Gates Foundation's project in partnership with the African Agricultural Technology Foundation to develop drought-tolerant types of maize. As political scientist Robert Paarlberg explains in this interview, African farmers need such crops, and Western bureaucrats aren't supplying them. I hope that more of this kind of work moves from the public to the private sector.

(Paarlberg link via Instapundit.)
 

Mark Steyn gives his reasons for taking on Canada's "human rights" bullies. Very much worth reading.
 

Quin Hillyer:

Eliminate the federal corporate income tax.

Yes, kill it entirely.

The problem with the economy right now is not a lack of liquidity -- the whole world is awash in dollars -- but a lack, instead, of anything good to do with those dollars rather than hoard them. The problem, in short, is that nobody has any incentive to invest those dollars, or to lend them for investment, here in the United States.

Eliminate the corporate income tax and, immediately, every American corporation becomes more profitable by as much as a third. All the pensioners who own stock in those companies get richer -- immediately. All the workers with company stock-share plans get richer. Prices will drop as companies can make more money, net, even with lower prices. Companies also would save billions of dollars spent in tax-form preparation, and in time spent figuring out tax-avoidance schemes. The economy will get more efficient when tax considerations no longer distort decision-making.

He gives other good reasons. I'm sold.
 

Daniel Pipes:

I have complained for five years now that the U.S. government assumed responsibilities in Iraq – constitution writing, school textbooks, inter-tribal relations, dam conservation – that rightfully belong to Iraqis. The purest symbol of this usurpation, however, is the provisioning of utilities. In particular, Americans have for five long years assumed responsibility for, and Iraqis have griped about, the inconsistent supply of electricity. . . .

This is the worst combination, with American taxpayers paying through the nose for the welfare of Iraqis – and to no avail, as the money is squandered. One wonders when Washington will end this unhappy dependence.

The dam situation remains deeply worrisome.
 

Tom Bethell:

I came to America in the first place because I was enamored of New Orleans jazz. The best of the pioneers were almost all black. I wanted to meet these men, some of whom were still living when I first went to New Orleans. I wrote a book about a jazz clarinetist named George Lewis. He was not just black but dark black. There was no white mother or grandmother in his background.

One of the things he told me that I never forgot was that the worst discrimination he ever encountered in the city was from the light-skinned "Creoles," or mulattoes, who considered themselves superior to their darker-skinned brethren. If George played at their clubs and wanted a drink of water he was denied a regular glass but was told to drink out of a jam jar. Years later, in about 1995, I mentioned this little discussed aspect of race relations to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He gave me a look of recognition, smiled and said he knew exactly what George Lewis was talking about.

One lesson we might like to draw is that people with mixed-race background probably do find it harder to "go beyond" issues of race than those who are either black or white.
 

John Derbyshire:

The older I get, the more convinced I am that the English are a very peculiar race of people indeed. We may in fact be space aliens; I wouldn't be surprised. Neither would Clarke, I think. He actually once made some speculations along these general lines. At any rate, he was very English in his enthusiasms. He had that strange combination of mysticism and matter-of-fact practicality that is the gift of the English — the yogi who works as an auto mechanic. There has never been anything like this strange race of engineer-dreamers; and now that they have decided to extinguish themselves and hand over their country to foreigners, there never again will be. It's a loss, though Clarke would have said there's likely some cosmic purpose to it, and everything.
 

Mark Steyn in National Review (no free link yet):

When they’re sufficiently hectored by the likes of David Horowitz, [Susan] Faludi and her sisters can be temporarily roused to express some pro forma objection to “honor killings” and the like. But only for a moment, and then it’s back to the usual dreary myopic parochial preoccupations. I appreciate that to Ms. Faludi I will always be as revoltingly patriarchal as a 1950s sitcom dad. Yet there is something not just boring but grotesque in Western feminists’ inability to prioritize. They seem implicitly to have accepted a two-tier sisterhood, in which white, upscale, liberal women twitter about NR columnists’ appalling misogyny in criticizing a female Bush-administration official, while simultaneously the women of the fastest-growing population group in the Western world are forced into clitoridectomies, forced into burqas, forced into marriage, forced into psychiatric wards, forced into hiding — and, if all else fails, forced off the apartment balcony by their brothers and fathers to fall to their deaths, as has happened to at least seven Muslim girls in Sweden recently. This is the real “war against women” being waged across the Western world, but, like so much of the Left, a pampered and privileged sisterhood would rather fight pseudo-battles over long-vanquished enemies.
 

Amir Taheri:

[T]he Islamic Republic has gone the way of many other Third World regimes by shedding most of its early populist illusions and is increasingly relying on the military and security services. Like other revolutions, the Khomeinist revolution has sold its soul to the military in the hope of ensuring its own security. . . .

[T]he message from Tehran is clear: If you wish to deal with the Islamic Republic, you have to deal with the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]. Although no Iranian Bonaparte has emerged yet, the military cap clearly is replacing the turban at the summit of Tehran politics.

(Via The Corner.)

John Derbyshire:

The Tibetans at least have a clear goal, which I am sure they will attain one day: the repossession of their ancestral homeland. For black Americans there is no such hope. No hope, either, for us nonblack Americans, that the hatred felt by the likes of Jeremiah Wright and his congregants towards us and towards the country we love — by most of them only some of the time, but by some of them most of the time — can ever be extinguished. It cannot even be completely contained, only part-contained. There will always be those occasional explosions. Our nation was born with this. It is our birthright. We have no choice but to struggle on as best we can under this great burden of "diversity" and mutual dislike.

We should, at least, though, in the interests of clear thinking and intellectual integrity, acknowledge this burden as a burden, and stop the absurd and dishonest pretense that this “diversity” our nation was born with is a blessing. It is no blessing. How on earth is it a blessing? It is a congenital and incurable defect, which can be arrested and contained, but never healed.
 

StrategyPage:

Iraq is a wet place, at least where most of the people live, and where a lot of the fighting takes place. As a result, it's fairly common for U.S. troops to find themselves in water over their heads. An automobile accident is the usual culprit, although it has happened in combat, especially at night. About three dozen soldiers and marines have died that way, and a simple and quick training exercise was developed to reduce these casualties.

Basically, the training consists of lecturing troops on what to do (shed as much gear as you can quickly and paddle to safety). Then the troops are taken to a base swimming pool, in full battle gear, and, with lifeguards standing by, jump into the deep end of the pool. Most are able to shed gear and paddle to safety. Those who don't, are hauled out, and get to try again later. The troops learn several important things from all this. Most find that they can handle a dunking, and how effectively. Nothing like some practical experience. Also important is that troops discover which of their buddies have problems with the water thing. Thus if they ever find themselves in the water, they know who may need help.

Some equipment was redesigned to deal with the drowning risk. For example, the new, quick release protective (armor) vest is a big help, because that gets rid of most of the weight a soldier is carrying.
 

Too many Muslims share the sentiments of "Dr. Walid Al-Rashudi, head of the Department of Islamic Studies at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia":

One of the important things that we must tell people is that what is going on in Palestine today is a real holocaust. This is the real holocaust. A holocaust is not the burning of 50-60 Jews in Germany or Switzerland, but the Jews continue to call it the Holocaust. In case you don't know, let me tell you that more than 90% of the Muslims in the world do not know that the Jews receive reparations from Germany and Switzerland for the so-called Holocaust affair. We believe that there was indeed a holocaust, but how many died? 50-60 people? Afterwards, they used it to blackmail these two countries.

So what are we supposed to say in the face of the Gaza holocaust? What compensation will satisfy us? By Allah, we will not be satisfied even if all the Jews are killed.
 

Forget this "Open Letter to White People." Walter Williams has it right.

(First link via LGF, via Instapundit.)
 

John Derbyshire (10/07), replying to Kathryn Jean Lopez:

Read Chapter 9 of Sam Huntington's Who Are We?[.] Almost any page should give you pause to reconsider your insouciance. Page 232, for instance:

Overwhelming majorities (66 percent to 85 percent) of Mexican immigrants and Hispanics have emphasized the need for their children to be fluent in Spanish. These attitudes contrast with those of other immigrant groups. "There appears," as one study concluded, "to be a cultural difference between the Asian and Hispanic parents with respect to having their children maintain their native language." In part, this difference is undoubtedly a result of the size of Hispanic communities, which creates incentives for fluency in the ancestral language. Although second- and third-generation Mexican-Americans and other Hispanics acquire competence in English, they also appear to deviate from the usual pattern in maintaining their competence in Spanish. ... Spanish-language competence, Professor F. Chris Garcia of the University of New Mexico has said, is "the one thing every Hispanic takes pride in, wants to protect and promote."

Or p. 247:

If this trend continues, it could produce a consolidation of the Mexican-dominant areas into an autonomous, culturally and linguistically distinct, economically self-reliant bloc within the United States. Given "the unique coincidence of Hispanic ethnicity with specific regional territoriality and with an ideology of multiculturalism," Graham Fuller warns, "we may be building toward the one thing that will choke the melting pot: an ethnic area and grouping so concentrated that it will not wish, or need, to undergo assimilation into the mainstream of American multi-ethnic English-speaking life."

Or p. 256:

The continuation of high levels of Mexican and Hispanic immigration plus the low rates of assimilation of these immigrants into American society and culture could eventually change America into a country of two languages, two cultures, and two peoples. This will not only transform America. It will also have deep consequences for Hispanics, who will be in America but not of it.

You can happy-talk all you like, Kathryn, but sixty-six percent? If we must have mass immigration, can we please return to the fine old American tradition of taking people from (A) lots of different places, none of which are (B1) contiguous to our territory and (B2) make historical claims—propagated, for instance, in their school textbooks—on that territory?
 

In a column about how silly women can be, Charlotte Allen mentions research showing that women are worse at math than men are. She also inadvertently provides supporting evidence:

A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that women clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to men's 5.1, even though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than women.

Allen's confusing the number of accidents with the rate of accidents. If men drove more miles than women and suffered a smaller number of accidents, then the number of miles driven would be significant. But if we're measuring the rate of accidents, then the number of miles driven doesn't matter. Here's an analogous statement: "Women eat soup two out of three lunches while men eat soup one out of three lunches, even though men eat more lunches." What difference does it make that men eat more lunches? Allen's sentence has a similar flaw.

(To any woman reading this post: find a man and ask him to explain it to you.)*

*A joke! I'm joking! Seriously, don't bother asking a man. You still wouldn't understand.**

**Another joke!

(Via Kathryn Jean Lopez.)