In ordinary commercial transactions, for the seller's interest to completely over-ride the buyer's interest would be to risk losing that customer to someone else. But, in academia, almost by definition, the student does not fully understand the nature of the product being sold. If a student already understood the content of a course, there would be no point taking that course. What a student can judge is how well the professor conveyed the information in the course— how clearly the material was presented and how interesting it seemed— but what the student is not equipped to judge is what contrary information and conflicting analysis was left out.

Thomas Sowell, Economic Facts and Fallacies, p. 96

From The Lede, a (an?) NYTimes.com blog:

Keith Bradsher, a Times correspondent, sent The Lede updates from his BlackBerry as he watched a commando operation taking place at the Nariman House, home to the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad Lubavitch, and around Mumbai.

James S. Robbins writes,

I wonder if it occurred to Keith Bradsher that his extremely precise, minute-by-minute accounts of the locations of the security forces trying to free the hostages in the Chabad House in Mumbai provided very useful tactical information for any terrorist who might be reading it. E.g., "Fri, 28 Nov 2008 03:32:15: At least five commandos are on the rooftop balcony of Nariman House, trying to look over the row of small red flowerpots at the side of the building." Who benefits from knowing that information in real time, other than the terrorists?

What outrageous narcissism (Bradsher's). I can only hope that the terrorists were as oblivious as the rest of us to The Lede's existence.

Each poet's deepest test is different, and what we call risk in one may be the mildest sort of security in another. A poet who finds it too easy to bleed onto her pages may need a sort of verse tourniquet; a poet who finds it too difficult may need a knife. There are poets who ought to be locked in libraries for years without pen or paper, and some need nothing so much as a decade at Disneyland.

Christian Wiman, Poetry, 11/01, p. 92

Dear CAIR:

I know virtually nothing about Islam. When events such as the recent attacks in Mumbai occur, I look to experts such as you for help in interpreting them.

Though unable to find a copy of your statement on the attacks, I have read excerpts from it. And while I'm glad that you consider the attacks to be "senseless and inexcusable acts of violence against innocent civilians," there are certain declarations from you that I'm still waiting to hear:

That the attacks are a crime against Islam and a sin against Allah;

That unless they sincerely repent their actions, the attackers will spend eternity in Hell;

That any Muslim who approves of the attacks likewise commits a crime against Islam and a sin against Allah;

That any imam who expresses approval of the attacks should be removed from his position and replaced with one who disapproves of them.

I reiterate that I know virtually nothing about Islam. Much of what little I do know about Islam, I've learned from you. Here's what I'm learning from your silence on the matters I raise above:

That the attacks are permitted in Islam and sanctioned by Allah;

That the attackers will spend eternity in Paradise;

That any Muslim who approves of the attacks is behaving properly according to Islam;

That any imam who expresses approval of the attacks is behaving properly according to Islam and should retain his place.

I hope that I've misunderstood you, and that soon I'll see your spokesmen on television denouncing as betrayers of Islam all who participated in the bombings and all who support them. If I'm to be honest, however, I must confess that I expect you to offer no such condemnations. I expect instead more blather such as "American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens of all faith in repudiating acts of terror wherever they take place and whomever they target."

Both in what you state and in what you don't, you teach me a great deal. Here's what you teach me now: Islam condones mass murder. I see no other reasonable inference from what words you've chosen to omit.

It's an uncomfortable lesson, one that shows the world to be more frightening and perilous than a peaceable man would wish. I thank you for it nonetheless, and I promise to take it to heart.

David Pryce-Jones eulogizes General Faisal Alvi, who "lately commanded the Pakistani Special Services Group, or SSG, that spearheads the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban":

Not so long ago Faisal was sitting in my house. We spoke about the sad state of the Muslim world where violence rules and reforms seem impossible. Gunmen had previously shot and killed Shabbir Bokhari, his own brother-in-law and head of the Pakistani electoral commission. Youthful in his early fifties, Faisal made a formidable impression, a man with information, a practical intelligence, and a cosmopolitan outlook. Tall and handsome, he was also every inch a soldier. He spoke about his time in Waziristan, and described scenes of combat in Wana in the tribal areas. In his eyes, terrorists are cowards who don’t dare face you out in the open. He had nothing but contempt for them, and was himself evidently without fear. But now, alas, they are gloating.

We owe more than we know to General Faisal for fighting the good fight.

AINA.org:

One thousand Christians were today trapped inside the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in West Ain Shams,Cairo, after more than twenty thousand Muslims attacked them with stones and butane gas cylinders. The Church's priest Father Antonious said that the situation is extremely dangerous.

The Muslim mob that attacked the church blocked both sides of the street and encircled the church building, broke its doors and demolished its entire first floor. The mob were chanting Jihad verses as well as slogans saying "we will demolish the church" and "We sacrifice our blood and souls, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Islam", while the entrapped Christians chanted "Lord have mercy".

(Via Jihad Watch.)

Hugh Fitzgerald urges that we address Somalia's turmoil

by doing nothing, by allowing chaos and confusion, by showing to the Muslims of Somalia, and to Muslims elsewhere, and to non-Muslims all over the world, that the natural condition of people raised in societies suffused with Islam, societies in which there is no non-Muslim population to exploit or from which to extort the jizyah, direct or disguised, and no outside Infidels to constantly rescue Muslims, through infusions of aid and a bringing of a semblance of good government and order (and sometimes this has been the legacy of the very brief period of what is called, quite inaccurately in the case of the Arab states,"Western imperialism") the natural state of homo islamicus, which is despotism or incessant warfare, or sometimes both at the same time.

The best "humanitarian assistance" is to recognize that Islam is the problem, and that until Islam has been exposed, shown up, as the true source for the political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral failures, of Muslim states and societies, any attempt to rescue Muslim states from the consequences of Islam will only weaken the West (and use up its own money, and distract itself from a proper analysis of the threat of Islam) and do nothing, in the long run, to help rescue Muslims from Islam.

Heather Mac Donald:

The problem for the nonbeliever is not that there is no one to thank for our good fortune but that there are more targets of gratitude than we can possibly acknowledge.

That's Andrew Stuttaford's apt comment on this story from Britain:

POLITICALLY correct NHS bosses in Birmingham are battling to ban a smoking room for terminally ill patients – forcing them to be turfed out into the cold to enjoy their final cigarettes.

The Sheldon Unit, a palliative care home for patients dying from lung cancer and other diseases, in Northfield, is one of only two health centres in the region that has escaped rigid Smoke Free legislation on ‘sympathetic grounds’.

But when board members of South Birmingham Primary Care Trust, in charge of the unit, heard of plans to upgrade the smoking room with a new ventilation system, the whole scheme went up in smoke.

Bureaucrat Dr Chris Spencer-Jones, South Birmingham public health director, ranted against the renovation plans, saying he did not care if lifelong smokers were dying, he still didn’t want them smoking indoors.

“It doesn’t matter if patients might be terminally ill,” said Dr Spencer-Jones, who also heads the British Medical Association’s (BMA) national committee for public health.

Smug, officious bastards. And in case the board includes women, I use the term "bastards" in a non-gender-specific way.

Joseph Brean in the National Post:

Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., has hired six students whose jobs as "dialogue facilitators" will involve intervening in conversations among students in dining halls and common rooms to encourage discussion of such social justice issues as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability and social class.

"If there's a teachable moment, we'll take it," said assistant dean of student affairs Arig Girgrah, who runs the program. "A lot of community building happens around food and dining."

Joanne Laucius for Canwest News Service:

The Carleton University Students' Association has voted to drop a cystic fibrosis charity as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, supporting a motion that argued the disease is not "inclusive" enough.

Cystic fibrosis "has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men" said the motion read Monday night to student councillors, who voted almost unanimously in favour of it. The decision caused heated reaction and left at least one member of council calling for a new vote.

(Via Steve Sailer.)

A resonant thought, and image, from Despair.com.

(Via AskMen.com.)

Maclean's has an enjoyable piece on celebrity George Hamilton, whose memoir was published last month:

Easy and breezy, his life reads like one big, coconut-scented Palm Beach cocktail party.

And so you might wonder, what's the payoff of a memoir with no hard-earned lessons? The point is that George Hamilton — the man with the perpetual tan — is a philosopher of sorts. You may not know it to look at him on the cover (the ascot, dinner jacket, and Cloroxed chompers betray him), but the lessons are there for the taking. "I did have problems, anyone does," he told Maclean's, "but it was always in the way I looked at them. That's my interpretation of genius: to take the difficult and make it simple." By his own definition, Hamilton is a genius.

This line from Hamilton sums up his attitude:

If you get lemons, you make lemonade, and find a girl who's got a bottle of vodka.

Abe Greenwald, commenting on an op-ed by James K. Glassman:

“An effective anti-terrorist strategy must both undermine the ideology of a violent extremist group and disrupt its flow of recruits by offering productive alternatives for young people.” This is why the political dimension of the War on Terror is more than a neoconservative pipedream or a fanciful “democracy crusade.” With enough ingenuity, time, and firepower, U.S. forces can crush an endless succession of Salafist and Mahdi groups, but the victories won’t stick without the national institutions that make people “productive citizens.”

This is my third consecutive post linking to Contentions, Commentary's blog. It's spectacularly good (Contentions, not my post), and I'm rooting for it to gain popularity and influence rivaling The Corner's.

Gordon G. Chang:

[W]e [in the US] have been essentially writing blank checks for decades with notoriously little to show for it. . . . So maybe we should take some advice from China’s leaders, who say their contribution to solving the global financial crisis is handling their own affairs well. I don’t often praise them, but this time they are absolutely right.

It is simply amazing what people can do when they realize they are on their own. And it is astounding how they can continue to fail when they know someone will bail them out.

That's Max Boot's assessment of Obama's likely national-security team, "most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain." Boot declares himself "gobsmacked" and concludes, "Only churlish partisans of both the left and the right can be unhappy with the emerging tenor of our nation’s new leadership."

The time, effort and imagination this must've required exceed my comprehension.

If so, I'd bet they laughed writing this:

The newest fracking technology allows access to deeper, denser shale.

(Via Greg Pollowitz.)

Melanie Phillips, prompted by this horrible story:

Twenty years ago, I started writing about the breakdown of the family, the systematic undermining of moral constraints and the ascendancy of ‘lifestyle choice’, a doctrine which forbade condemnation of any lifestyle as harmful. . . . I warned repeatedly that the fragmentation of family life was in general a source of pain, damage and acute danger for children in particular but also the women in whose name modern feminists were promoting female independence from men; that mass fatherlessness was creating deserts of depravity and highly damaged children who were growing up to become highly damaged parents; that the collapse of social and moral controls was destroying the most fundamental values of civilised behaviour, with individuals raised in such emotional and moral chaos that they were incapable even of feeling the empathy with other people that is the very foundation of social relationships of the most basic kind; and that the welfare system was actually incentivising such wholesale destruction of individual lives and society itself. . . .

Then as now, I was scorned and vilified by the ‘progressive ‘ intelligentsia. I had become reactionary, right-wing, ultra-right-wing, a harker-back to some mythical golden age of the fifties, a moraliser, an extremist, a bigot, a fascist, demented. . . .

I also wrote years ago about the institutionalised incompetence of social work, in the grip of a political correctness so extreme that it was wholly incapable of responding to situations on the facts that plainly presented themselves, with catastrophic results. . . . Then as now I was vilified as a heartless social worker-basher, extreme right-wing lunatic etc etc.

And now we can all see the truly terrible results. This week we have been presented with the life, systematic torture and death of baby P, a case so harrowing that many of us can hardly bear to read the details and cannot do so without weeping. . . .

Of course the book should be thrown at Haringey council.

But we also read this week of another household in Manchester where a baby and his two year-old brother were stabbed to death by a mother suffering from mental illness.

And we read of Shannon Matthews’ mother and her boyfriend’s uncle, on trial for abducting that poor child and keeping her locked up in order to extract a reward for her safe return.

The truth is that it is all far, far too late. Britain has simply undone the fabric of civilised life. And the most bitter reproach of all must be for the people at whose door the ultimate responsibility for this catastrophic state of affairs must really be laid -- not the wretched politicians, not the council officials or Ofsted inspectors or other negligent or incompetent professionals, not even the sadists who actually killed baby P or who murder or maim countless other children, but the amoral and criminally self-regarding so-called ‘progressive’ intelligentsia, who have bullied, smeared, intimidated and manipulated Britain into a truly dark age of barbarism.

From Dave Barry:

You know what I miss? I miss 1960. Not the part about my face turning overnight into the world's most productive zit farm. What I miss is the way the grown-ups acted about the Kennedy-Nixon race. Like the McCain-Obama race, that was a big historic deal that aroused strong feelings in the voters. This included my parents and their friends, who were fairly evenly divided, and very passionate. They'd have these major honking arguments at their cocktail parties. But unlike today, when people wear out their upper lips sneering at those who disagree with them, the 1960s grown-ups of my memory, whoever they voted for, continued to respect each other and remain good friends.

What was their secret? Gin. On any given Saturday night they consumed enough martinis to fuel an assault helicopter. But also they were capable of understanding a concept that we seem to have lost, which is that people who disagree with you politically are not necessarily evil or stupid. My parents and their friends took it for granted that most people were fundamentally decent and wanted the best for the country. So they argued by sincerely (if loudly) trying to persuade each other. They did not argue by calling each other names, which is pointless and childish, and which constitutes I would estimate 97 percent of what passes for political debate today.

What I'm saying is: we, as a nation, need to drink more martinis.

No, you know what I'm saying. I'm saying, now that this election is over, whatever the hell happened, can we please grow up and stop being so nasty to each other? Please?

OK, I didn't think so.

Please pass the pitcher.

Mark Steyn:

On this 90th anniversary of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day, Jennifer Lynch, Queen's Counsel, the hack bureaucrat who presides over my tormentors at the Canadian Human Rights Commission, decided to gatecrash the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Ottawa. Or as she puts it:

This year, for the first time, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has the honour of laying a wreath at the National Remembrance Day Ceremony. The wreath will be placed by Chief Commissioner Jennifer Lynch, Q.C, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Well, fine. If you want to commemorate the 60th anniversary of that, why don't you push off and organize your own ceremony? But that's not what Remembrance Day is about - in Ottawa, London or even in the tiny colonial backwater of Grand Turk (where I was yesterday, as the locals made their preparations). November 11th is a day to honor the sacrifice of soldiers of the Queen who fought for their country in brutal bloody wars Commissioner Lynch's self-serving press release can't even be bothered to mention, as Ezra Levant notes.

This is one of the signature techniques of the left: The co-option of historical memory. You still have the same outward dress — the cenotaph, the dignitaries, the poppies, the old stooped veterans — but the meaning of the event is hijacked and inverted. The contamination of Remembrance Day by this ghastly woman is disgusting even by her standards.

That's Don Boudreaux's belief, and not his alone:

No less an authority than FDR's Treasury secretary and close friend, Henry Morganthau, conceded this fact to Congressional Democrats in May 1939: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong ... somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... And an enormous debt to boot!"

Jason Maoz at Contentions:

John F. Kennedy was a president of questionable character and relatively meager accomplishments, but his untimely and violent death, followed by decades of unceasing image control by the Kennedys and their media groupies, has helped sustain the popular standing of a president who almost certainly would have been impeached or forced to resign the presidency had even a fraction of what we now know been made public while he was still alive and in office.

Jay Nordlinger expresses it here: "Too few people appreciate what risks Iraqi politicians take when they step up to serve."

If I did, I'd share the joy in this poem by Derek Walcott. As it is—as Obama is—what I feel instead is worry. No matter his race, a president with Obama's beliefs, aligned with a solid Congressional majority, is likely to do enormous harm.

(Via Gwen Orel at About Last Night.)

A story of abuse, bias and bureaucratic neglect, via David Pryce-Jones.

Lou Reed (full piece not yet available online). Some of his replies to David Marchese's questions:

Are you joking me? You can't handle it? You ever read Hamlet? Who are you talking to that's so stupid? Are you joking? You're kidding me.
 
* * * * *
 
[Reed stares and remains silent.]
 
* * * * *
 
You save this question for last? I don't know why you brought it up, seeing as we got along fine. Unless I'm mistaken. What answer do you want?
 
* * * * *
 
You're not interested in music. We're done talking.

Marchese deserves combat pay. And Reed's appeal, like Dylan's, eludes me.

Maybe they shouldn't, but they do, from these sources. Ralph Peters: Our efforts in the Middle East "should recall our bygone campaigns against the Mafia" by reducing our enemies' capability to that of "a nuisance." (I'd expect Peters to urge their utter defeat.) Bret Stephens: Obama deserves a year of "political grace." Max Boot: Hillary Clinton is "serious, incisive, and nonpartisan" in her approach to foreign policy, and her appointment as secretary of state would be "a smart move."
 
I respect all three writers, so I'm disposed to take their views seriously.
 
(Peters link via The Corner.)

Jim Manzi:

Constant work has paid off — the U.S. has a very competitive manufacturing sector. The problem is that, like agriculture before it, manufacturing can support fewer and fewer employees. As this sector continues to mature, it becomes more asset-intensive and less people-intensive. Further, the jobs that it provides tend increasingly to be either low-skill/low-wage or high-skill/high-wage. The world of “get out of high school, work in a factory and have a middle class life” are pretty much gone, because the economic world of 1955 is gone. Our international position no longer allows this, and in fact, other than for those like auto workers who are protected by legacy institutional arrangements, it’s been over for many years. I take no joy in the need for restructuring the auto industry. I wish that world still existed, but it does not.

This change (including, but not limited to, manufacturing) is what “globalization” really means for America, and it is not pretty. It is the root of growing income inequality and middle-class wage stagnation. There are practical things that we can do to address these problems, but sticking our head in the sand is not one of them.

Russell Roberts:

And who's going to pay for all of this? Those who lived within their means, who went with the smaller house, who waited a few more years to get that new car, who took a part-time job rather than borrowing even more money to pay for college. Suckers. You missed out on the thrills and now you're going to be paying the bills. The prudent will be paying for the imprudent for a long time.

Jennifer Rubin:

Her vice-chairmanship of Fannie Mae–and her role in erecting the wall between security agencies (much discussed in the 9-11 aftermath)–didn’t disqualify Jamie [Gorelick] for consideration as Attorney General? Good grief.

By "leftist media" I mean the New York Times, The Daily Show, The View, Chris Matthews, NPR, etc.—entities that address politics and lean decidedly left. Their mission isn't to make money. Making money is only the means by which they survive. Their mission, which was to put Democrats in control of Congress and the presidency, is now to keep Democrats in control of Congress and the presidency. Even if they sometimes criticize their own side, the overarching purpose of the leftist media is to protect Democrats and to maintain, and if possible to extend, Democrats' power.

I realize that anyone reading this probably knew it without my stating it, but I wanted it stated. I suspect I'll be referring to this post often between now and November 2012.

Terry Teachout:

I was born in 1956 and grew up in a small town whose public schools were segregated well into the Sixties. My father witnessed a lynching in the streets of that same town a quarter-century earlier, one whose perpetrators were never brought to trial.

A few weeks ago I finished writing the biography of Louis Armstrong, who even at the height of his fame continued to be treated by some Americans not as the culture-changing genius that he was but as a menial--an inferior, if you will. Barrett Deems, who played in Armstrong's band in the Fifties, spoke years later of one terrible episode that had burned itself into his memory:

The [road] manager and I were the only two white guys in the organization, and here's Louis with five or ten grand in his pocket, his wife with a twenty thousand dollar mink coat, and they both had to sleep in a gymnasium in North Carolina because they couldn't find any accommodations. That was a killer. It takes the heart out of a man.

Henry James said it: we shall never be again as we were.

Australian columnist Michael Duffy:

Someone else who's looked closely at scientific journals [. . .] is epidemiologist John Ioannidis of the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. He reached the surprising conclusion that most published research findings are proved false within five years of their publication. (Lest he be dismissed as some eccentric, I note that the Economist recently said Ioannidis has made his case "quite convincingly".)

Why might this be so? Later work by Ioannidis and colleagues suggests that these days journal editors are more likely to publish research that will make a splash than that which will not. They do this to sell more copies of their publications and of reprints of papers in it. Ioannidis believes these publication practices might be distorting science.

(Via Edward John Craig.)

That's Spengler's view. He offers a bleak list:

With the collapse of the oil price, subsidies for essential items [in Iran] will disappear and the regime will face economic collapse. Before it does so, I believe Iran will undertake an adventure to assert its hegemony in the region, probably at the expense of Iraq.

* * * * *

The Islamist government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan now faces the worst of all possible worlds. The Turkish lira has lost a third of its value in the past month, and almost all of the devaluation will turn up in higher domestic prices. Credit availability for Turkish businesses will vanish, and Turkey will enter a profound economic crisis.

* * * * *

A belt of ungovernability now stretches from Lebanon to Pakistan, with incalculable political and military consequences. I believe that a Shi'ite-Sunni version of Europe's 17th-century Thirty Years' War will engulf the region.

* * * * *

Argentina is now effectively broke, and the government of Cristina Kirchner has expropriated the country's private pension plans to obtain cash. Its foreign credit has collapsed completely.

* * * * *

Brazil's central bank still has formidable reserves, but the fragile political compromise that has kept a nominally leftist government in power cannot hold under present circumstances. Brazil's enormous underclass is ruled by drug gangs that are better armed than the police. A Brazilian congressional committee was told in February 2006 that corrupt elements in the Argentine army were selling heavy weapons to the Brazilian drug mobs, including anti-tank missiles.

* * * * *

Mexico in some ways is the most worrying place in the Western hemisphere. A low-level civil war between the drug cartels and the federal government has been fought over the past two years, and the cartels are winning. Senior Mexican officials charged with suppression of the cartels have been moving their families quietly out of the country.

* * * * *

"The risks of a hard landing are highest in Eastern Europe," warns the International Monetary Fund in its just-released Global Financial stability report.

I hope he's wildly over-pessimistic, but I lack the expertise to judge.

Greg Pollowitz notes that their summary of Rahm Emanuel's career omits the period "when he was a director of Freddie Mac during their accounting fraud."

And keyboard. Robert Bidinotto, citing this post:

Voter turnout this year — contrary to initial media hoopla — was the same or only slightly greater than 2004, up only about one percent at most. What happened?

“A downturn in the number and percentage of Republican voters going to the polls seemed to be the primary explanation for the lower than predicted turnout,” the report said. Compared to 2004, Republican turnout declined by 1.3 percentage points to 28.7 percent, while Democratic turnout increased by 2.6 points from 28.7 percent in 2004 to 31.3 percent in 2008.

Got that? Obama succeeded in motivating more Democrats to go to the polls; McCain didn't. Fewer Republicans showed up to support McCain; more Dems showed up to support Obama.

That is consistent with everything we know of the mood of the GOP "base" after McCain won the nomination. It was only his desperation selection of a conservative, Sarah Palin, as his running mate that re-energized the base sufficiently to get to the polls in the numbers that they did. Had he not picked Sarah, imagine how many conservative Republicans would have stayed home, and the full dimensions that an Obama landslide would have taken.

But had Palin been the running mate of, say, Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney, we can only imagine how differently the election might have played out.

Romney couldn't have won; too many Republican voters are Christians who consider Mormonism heresy. But I still think Thompson could've taken it. I expect to mourn his absence for about fifty months.

Mark Steyn:

John McCain was so accustomed to running against his party the old dog was incapable of learning the entirely novel trick of running for it.

It's not over. It'll never be over:

"There is an acceptance among wide segments of the population that a qualified African American (Obama) can be accepted in the highest office," said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, author of a recent book on race and presidential politics.

"But that does not magically make the problems go away for the average person of color. Nothing has changed and for many the negative stereotypes are still very much there," Hutchinson said.

Chuck D, regarded by many as the godfather of politically-conscious rap music, said Obama's election could radically change the debate about race in the United States but in some ways could be unhealthy.

"People will say: 'You guys have got a black president so it's cool. It's straight.' But it does not erase the discussion (about race) that you need to have," said Chuck D, the main force behind the rap group Public Enemy.

In an interview, he warned against the election of Obama being "a weapon of mass distraction" from an attempt to tackle problems facing African Americans.

(Via LGF.)

Mark Townsend in the Guardian (UK):

Dozens of suspected terrorists have attempted to infiltrate Britain's top laboratories in order to develop weapons of mass destruction, such as biological and nuclear devices, during the past year.

The security services, MI5 and MI6, have intercepted up to 100 potential terrorists posing as postgraduate students who they believe tried accessing laboratories to gain the materials and expertise needed to create chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, the government has confirmed.

It follows warnings from MI5 to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that al-Qaeda's terror network is actively seeking to recruit scientists and university students with access to laboratories containing deadly viruses and weapons technology. . . .

The findings raise questions over how many terrorist suspects may have already infiltrated the UK's laboratory network. . . .

[T]he government [is] consider[ing] plans to build a new pathogen research facility in central London, between King's Cross station and the British Library. Experts have warned that a terror attack would prove catastrophic to the surrounding area.

(Via Candace de Russy.)

Jim Manzi:

I think that living in an extended, law-bound, commercial society is deeply unnatural, and the product of many generations of work. Aspects of human nature are an acid that constantly undermines its foundations. Hordes of violent men are always outside the city gates ready to sack it, and those inside always threaten to turn into a mob and destroy it from within. One of many bulwarks against these threats is social cohesion, which is undermined by extreme inequality.

In my somewhat glib post on the subject, I was addressing the distance between comfortable middle-class life and more-comfortable upper-middle-class life (which is why I put the term "income inequality" in quotation marks). Manzi's looking at the gulf between poverty and wealth, and I think he's right that it's a serious and ever-present concern, as is the question of what if anything to do about it.

Larry Elder tells his father's story.

According to Andrew Stuttaford, it's to reverse the leftward shift of self-described "moderates." Nice idea; how to effect? By making Sarah Palin and her ideological ilk conservatism's standard-bearers, as Rush Limbaugh urges? Through "a renewed libertarian-conservative coalition," as Ilya Somin hopes? With an approach "less overtly religious, less negligent with policy, and less polarizing on social issues," as David Frum suggests?

Any of these strategies would be fine with me as long as it contains the three elements I most want in a party platform: strong national security, defense of property rights, and protection for free speech. McCain scored maybe 1.5 by my tally (three-quarters on national security—securing our borders is an urgent need; three-quarters on property rights—the "bailout" warranted more caution; and McCain-Feingold—enough said). I voted for him because Obama looked (and looks) to be dreadful on all of them.

Once the election's won we can and should argue about other policies (abortion, immigration, drug laws, gun rights, health care, free trade . . .), but give me a candidate solid on my three greatest concerns and I'll offer enthusiasm I couldn't muster for either McCain or Bush.

(Somin link via Glenn Reynolds.)

Peter Kirsanow:

In many cases, the congressional math may preclude Republicans from little more than voicing principled opposition. But that's not nothing. It's imperative. Republican politicians for too long have been spectacularly inept in communicating their ideas, principles and positions. They've been unconscionably silent in defending their own. They shouldn't then be surprised when they get their hindquarters handed to them.

Last night was Obama's night. January 20th too. Watch for genuine opportunities to work together for the betterment of the country. But on every other occasion fight. Fight every attempt to entrench a new entitlement. Fight every attempt to redistribute wealth. Fight every attempt to radicalize the courts. Fight every attempt to weaken our defenses. Fight every attempt to restrict political speech. Fight every attempt to revise history. Fight for what's best about America.

Entry #112 at Stuff White People Like:

All white people like hummus. In fact, if you find a white person who does not like hummus then they probably just haven’t tasted it or they are the wrong kind of white person. In either case, they are probably not someone that you want to know.

Putting out a plate of hummus and pita makes white people very comfortable. It reminds them of home since at any given time a white person has hummus in their fridge. Even the most barren white refrigerator will have a package of the stuff next to an empty Brita filter.

To the Left: Congratulations. You've won a historic victory.

To non-Leftists who voted for Obama: You're idiots. May the next four years induce in you the shame you deserve to feel for your starry-eyed foolishness.

To the Right: Republicans are now likely to retake the White House in 2012. Let's be ready.

Later: I need to clarify. The non-Leftists I'm so annoyed with are those who think Obama would make a better president than would McCain. But I can see why someone who thinks like Perry de Havilland or Oliver Kamm could've reasonably voted for Obama.

(De Havilland link via Glenn Reynolds.)

Dave Barry takes questions:

Q: Dave, what's the best voter recruiting tool, muscatel or crack?
A: They are both effective. An honest candidate.
 
Q: David, how do you feel about the candidates running against you for president this year?
A: The what?

Michael Rubin reports (five days ago, actually) "on Turkey's backslide from democracy and pluralism": "Prime Minister Erdogan's appointee shuts down television stations owned by a media magnate whose newspapers reported on corruption within the ruling party."

As Denis Boyles explains, no matter the praise from European intellectuals, politicians and media, Obama's leftism on economics and abortion, his inexperience and his, um, "racial and ethnic background" would block him from the presidency (or its equivalent) in any European nation. (Boyles's opening sentence: "From the moment Barack Obama walked onto a stage in Berlin in front of 200,000 adoring journalists and some curious German passers-by, Europe has been transfixed by the man they think should be president of America.")

This successfully:

Sheen, of Lincoln, Nebraska, says his vote is coming down to one issue: abortion. Sheen says he's "definitely pro-life" and he's trying to decide whether Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain is more in line with his views.

(Remember: while Obama voted against Illinois's Born Alive Infant Protection Act, McCain, as this February NPR report put it, "has not attempted to keep his pro-life views a secret.")

(Via Jonah Goldberg, who prefaces the CNN quote with the single word "Wow." Can't argue with that.)

Grim and learned stuff from Richard Fernandez. Be sure to read the first comment as well. Because we've all seen quotes falsely attributed, I Googled until I found both passages (here and here) in what look to be reputable sources.

Amnesty International:

A girl stoned to death in Somalia this week was 13 years old, not 23, contrary to earlier news reports. She had been accused of adultery in breach of Islamic law.

Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was killed on Monday 27 October, by a group of 50 men in a stadium in the southern port of Kismayu, in front of around 1,000 spectators. . . .

[S]ources told Amnesty International that she had in fact been raped by three men, and had attempted to report this rape to the al-Shabab militia who control Kismayo. It was this act that resulted in her being accused of adultery and detained. None of men she accused of rape were arrested.

I know little about Christianity, but I know that Christianity forbids Christians to stone to death a thirteen-year-old girl.

I know little about Judaism, but I know that Judaism forbids Jews to stone to death a thirteen-year-old girl.

Does Islam forbid Muslims to stone to death a thirteen-year-old girl? Is so, why don't Muslims everywhere denounce this murder? If not, why don't they renounce their faith?

(Via Tom Gross.)

Because it encourages hard work. This is from an article about young Japanese who choose not to rise in their professions:

[G]etting a promotion no longer means getting such a big pay raise. The wage difference between managerial and rank-and-file positions has shrunk over the past decade as companies cut compensation amid restructuring. In 2005, division managers were paid about 2.2 times the rank-and-file worker, down from about 2.7 times in 1985.

No surprise if Japanese companies have trouble filling higher-level posts.

(Via Glenn Reynolds.)