Category: Uncategorized

Thomas Sowell plays the players: Readers sometimes ask why I am seldom seen or heard on television or radio. Mainly it is because I turn down 90 percent of the invitations I get. A recent radio interview shows why. I was invited on as a guest to talk about my new book, “Affirmative Action Around the World.” But when I phoned in for the interview while the program was on the air, I discovered that another guest was already waiting in ambush, talking about a wholly different topic, minimum wage laws. When I asked the hostess whether I was on the program to discuss minimum wage laws and she said that I was, I knew that this was the old bait-and-switch game that I had encountered many times over the years…. So I hung up the phone. Apparently the people who run the program became angry that I would not play along with their game. They phoned me. They phoned the Hoover Institution, where I work, demanding to speak to the director. But the Hoover Institution includes people who know what the media are like, so this ploy didn’t get very far.

Sowell has the right of it. I’d blow them off in a heartbeat too. If nothing else, you have to establish that you are not to be messed with in the future. I figure radio’s safer for me than television. There are a few TV types that the urge to Frankenize would be too overwhelming. I don’t know if I could even formulate complete sentences, as I’d be sitting there silently debating whether a few weeks in jail and the inevitable lawsuit would be worth it.

Doesn’t turning the other cheek mean that it’s okay to pop them one first?

From the Washington Times: Mr. Toomey, a conservative who had limited himself to three terms in the House, came from far behind in polls to run almost even with Mr. Specter, a liberal four-term incumbent supported by President Bush, fellow Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum and other key Republican lawmakers in the state. With outside groups spending freely in the race, it became a referendum on the strength of each wing of the party.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you your Republican Party! Not that I was before, but it’s now impossible to be sympathetic to arguments that the president is hamstrung by Congress. I have to believe that Mr. Bush’s endorsement was worth more than the 16,000-vote margin of victory for Senator Specter of Scotland nee’ Pennsylvania. What’s that again about George Delano being a secret conservative? My guess is that he moves even further to the left after he wins re-election, which he will do thanks to the increasingly hapless Jean-Francois.

I must say that Kerry is simply magnificent to watch from afar. He’s the Keystone Kandidate that we’ve been missing ever since Perot hung up his charts.

From WND: Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner and Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk informed a special Parliament meeting in Amsterdam of their actions to remove from the shelves a Muslim book distributed by the Dutch Lel Tawheed mosque promoting the stoning of homosexuals and female circumcision. The book is titled in Dutch “De Weg van de Muslim” – “The Way of the Muslim,” according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin. The book contains shocking instructions in support of female circumcision, beating of wives and the murder of homosexuals. A Dutch parliamentarian, Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim, demanded the closure of the mosque and any other facility offering the book.

I wouldn’t be surprised if within five years, the Koran is banned in Holland and Muslims are being forcibly deported across Europe. What will happen to cause the likely European deportations, I don’t know, but I’m quite confident that unless the global jihad gives up – which doesn’t seem likely – Europeans will respond more harshly to the jihad than have Americans in this one regard. Europe wears multiculturalism poorly and precisely because they have no taste for war they will turn towards an internal policing option. Lackign a strong regard for freedom of religion and with an ethos that collective rights trump individual rights, the long-term implications of this action are hard to escape.

The Pan-Gargler writes on his blog: The problem with any IQ test is that it identifies not intelligence, but a pre-determined thought process, a way of thinking and working out puzzles. Taking a measure of one’s ability to perform the card trick of finding patterns in colors and shapes, to one’s ability to learn is just shamefully ignorant. The IQ tests have a great deal like the Austrian Economics Quiz. It can’t tell you what economics is right or wrong, but it can tell you who you agree with.

Oh dear. It looks as if Nate took my advice on arguing like a liberal too seriously. He begins, as recommended, with step 1 – make an absurd statement, preferably about something of which you know nothing. It’s clear that either he’s writing tongue-in-cheek or he’s never read THE BELL CURVE, which delves into the statistical analysis of a number of different concepts using intelligence as measured on IQ tests as the variable.

The results are quite striking. Low-IQ is the best predictor of criminality, better than poverty, illegitimacy or other popularly ascribed root causes. High-IQ is also one of the best predictors of success, whether one is engaged in a job that is considered to be one that requires intelligence or not. This is why the SAT, which until 10 or 12 years ago was an IQ test, was used to determine the likelihood of success – graduation – in college, and did so admirably until the PC forces demanded its modification.

Most people have a very poor understanding of what intelligence is. Intelligence is not some kind of grand, multi-faceted mystery, the EQ BS notwithstanding. Intelligence is nothing more than intellectual firepower, the ability to engage in abstract thought. This does not mean it is necessarily well-directed, well-prepared or even used at all; a loaded M-16 in the hands of someone trained to use it is far more lethal than an empty 152mm artillery piece that is rusted-out from lack of care and use. A wise and well-trained mediocre mind will always argue circles around the brainwashed, ill-trained brilliant mind, but that says nothing about the base intelligence of either.

Furthermore, positing that other well-known personal attributes are actually alternative forms of intelligence does nothing more than pollute the language. There are plenty of low-IQ, high-EQ individuals out there; claiming that social butterflies are just differently intelligenced is as silly as the notion of the handicapable. But the best way to dismiss Nate’s assertion is to point out that it ignores the fact that a person who scores highly on a general intelligence test will almost always score highly on ANY test that is based on anything but direct personal experience or memorized knowledge. This is because the test merely reveals inherent cognitive ability, it does not create it. As THE BELL CURVE showed, this “test-taking ability” has wide and effective real-world application.

This doesn’t mean that the high-IQ are necessarily successful, as judged by third parties. However, one judges another’s notion of success at one’s peril. As Mises writes, an individual’s actions can only be judged by the parameters assigned by the acting individual.

I may be a member of MENSA, but I, too, scoff at those who are excessively proud of it. To me, it is nothing more than a recognizable warning to my critics. If I was particularly proud of such things, I’d join those intelligence societies that actually are exclusive. One in fifty isn’t much of an elite, after all. In the USA alone, there are six million potential members. I rather doubt those six million think very much alike, either.

Katherine Lopez writes on NRO:The first time I saw and heard Jack Black, true story, I thought “He would have to play Jonah in a movie.” I’m pondering the Stuttaford. I think I’d pick more of a Hugh Grant. Derbyshire as Derbyshire is perfect. I think I’d actually want Walken for Derb if Derb were unavailable. I’d lol hysterically at the J-Lo if it weren’t so predictable. The list isn’t all-inclusive of course. Steve Martin for Brookhiser (thinking academic yet adventurous type). Sharon Stone as KOB. DeNiro as Ed Capano. Keanu Reeves as Ramesh. Keith Oberman as Peter Robinson. Robin Williams as WFB.

Is there a thinking man’s Vin Diesel? With Italian shoes, of course.

Will2 asks: The cluster-F seems to have been made in the long-term post-war planning due to the recent supply shortages. If it was a consistant problem I feel certain that the media would have picked up on it before the Fallujah standoff escalated. Is it something that we can blame on attacked supply lines or is it planning miscalculations that are getting us into trouble now?

According to the officer whose letter was quoted in Jed Babbin’s article on NRO, the problem goes back to original planning miscalculations by the Army generals responsible for the war effort. In this, he echos the other officer who wrote to me yesterday, who blames Clinton-era officers.

Keep in mind that neither generals McKiernan nor Franks planned at all for the post-conflict environment. There is also no evidence that Abizaid once on hand as Franks’ deputy addressed this requirement. What ensued was Army thinking that has not changed in 50 years….While the violence increased, the Army generals remained committed to HUMMV mounted light infantry guaranteeing hundreds of maimed and dead soldiers. The Army senior leaders continue to behave like the US Army Air Corps generals from 1942-1943 who insisted that the bomber would always get through without fighter escort. After thousands of dead airmen and destroyed planes, they conceded the need for fighter escorts. Today, the marines and Army are still throwing men with automatic weapons into action against Iraqis with automatic weapons when armor is badly needed. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

The Army GOs in accordance with the new CSA’s “light infantry-centric visions” have been busy shipping out the armor and the newly arrived marines left their armor at home and are using borrowed army tanks. When generals Abizaid and Sanchez both saw the true dimensions of the resentment and violence, they panicked and asked that the only armor left in the theater – from 1 AD because 1st CAV brought only 1 in 6 tanks and 1 in 6 Brads – be extended for 90 days. Their panic knew no limits. They then insisted that the newly formed fledgling Iraqi formations go in and kill their own people when we had been trying to permanently erase the praetorian past of the Iraqi Army and persuade both the soldiers and their countrymen that the Iraqi army will never again be used against the people of Iraq. To the credit of the Iraqi soldiers, they refused to kill their own countrymen.

Could we have done better? Yes, but until the GOs are held accountable for their missteps and failures, nothing of substance will change or approve[sic].

An active-duty officer writes: I just got back from Iraq a couple months ago. One of the things that Ricardo Sanchez had done with the interrogators was to limit which psychological approaches we could use. Some of the better ones we normally use were determined to be too mean, and would be looked on unfavorably by the public or allies. Nobody from the administration TOLD Sanchez to limit the approaches we could use – he came up with that on his own. Another example where these officers are screwing up is in our ‘take it for a while, then get tough policy’ – that has been a tactic that has been generated on the ground by the commanders on the ground – not dictated from above. I’ve got dozens of horror stories about what these officers are doing over there that don’t make the press – all stuff the administration has no idea about.

So, I fully believe that the administration probably does have the will to fight and the desire to win – but they, and the senior level Clinton Era officers are trying to do this in a politically correct way so as not to offend Arabs or to look bad in the press. I guess, what I’m saying is that you are not seeing a lack of will to fight – just massive incompetence.

This officer points out that much of the senior staff consists of those who survived the cuts of the Clinton years. He notes: “Going from 900,000 to 480,000 troops means that to have stayed in as an officer, you had to be a very good boot licker.” I consider an unwillingness to offend or look bad to be tantamount to lacking the will to fight myself, but I nevertheless appreciate his perspective.

Jed Babbin writes on NRO:Part of the essence of the warriors’ creed is that they will die for their country, trusting that their lives may be spent but not wasted. We are in the process of wasting some of these precious lives in a tactical situation that is unacceptable by any measure. We’re extending a phony “ceasefire” while Marines are fighting and dying. On Sunday Gen. Mark Kimmet — our chief military spokesman in Iraq — announced that our effort to end the insurgency in Fallujah and capture or kill the barbarians who killed and mutilated four Americans almost a month ago is now on a “political track”…. The future of Iraq cannot be won on this political track. We are adrift, and our enemies are taking full advantage of it. One of my pals, an active duty military intellectual whose name I cannot use, sent me a message last weekend. Part of it says:

We are struggling to tip toe through the tulips in Fallujah when it is no longer possible to do so. Fallujah should already have been an object lesson that if handled decisively and quickly would make further operations in the south unnecessary. We have lost the equivalent of two marine infantry companies precisely because of our over-reliance on light infantry again. Sad for the parents’ whose sons have died valiantly, but needlessly

Does it make a difference if a pro-war, pro-Bush cheerleader says it? I wonder if the “we are at war” crowd is going to throw hissy fits at these NROniks with bona fide pro-war on method credentials in the same manner that they threw them at me when I was pointing out the same thing a week or two ago? It is entirely possible to be simultaneously pro-troops and against the military strategy being pursued by the political leadership. To assert that it would have been pro-troops to support the strategy that led to massacres like the Somme and Gallipolli would be idiotic. No more should anyone blindly assume that the Bush administration knows how to fight this war – evidence is quickly piling up that they do not.

It’s time to pull the troops out. Once the politicians start interfering with the generals, you’re on the path to defeat. There are those who would say that pulling out will send a message that America lacks the will to fight and win this war. That message, I submit, has already been sent.

DM writes: At first, I thought you might be worth reading but alas whatever intelligence you may possess you have allowed it to be corrupted…as soon as I saw your use of sweeping generalizations – as you do to characterize ‘liberals’ and using “all” so very frequently, I realized you could not be taken seriously…..many will however and -as has been said “You can fool some of the people all of the time”

I have no idea if DM is a left-liberal or not, but this is a favorite tactic of theirs. To pretend to be disappointed at the actions of an opponent, and to act as if there was any chance in Hell that if only for X, they would have supported them. What a crock of bovine ejectus! First, DM reveals that he’s barely familiar with my writing as I almost never use the term “liberal”, favoring instead the terms “leftist” and “left-liberal”. Second, I defy anyone to prove that I frequently use the word “all”. In fact, I seldom use that either. DM has clearly read the word into my generalizations about the left when it is not, the vast majority of the time, there at all.

I do often write critically about the left-liberal mind and about left-liberals. And I often use sweeping generalizations, certainly. But it is silly, even downright stupid, to expect anything but generalizations when one is discussing a group that consists of over one-tenth the population in a country of 300 million. Does DM mean to insist that these people have nothing in common? Can “liberals” truly not be characterized? Interesting. DM, with his disingenous pretensions and weak logic, shows every sign of belonging to that group of logically-challenged individuals known colloquially in this country as liberals.

Doug Grow writes in the Star and Sickle: This grab for mediocrity isn’t unique to the marathon. I got my first unapologetic introduction to it a year ago in a conversation with Dan McElroy, who was then the finance guru for Gov. Tim Pawlenty and now is the governor’s chief of staff. We were talking about the state’s financial cuts to cities, including Minneapolis. “Your spending is not stupidly high,” McElroy said of Minneapolis financial management. “But it’s at or above the levels being spent per capita in comparable Midwest cities.” The cities McElroy found “comparable” to Minneapolis? Des Moines, Omaha, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City, Indianapolis and — gasp — Toledo. Fine places all, but not exactly the world-class spots Minneapolis and the rest of Minnesota once aspired to be.

Please. Minneapolis will be lucky if it manages to hang onto mediocrity in the next 20 years. It’s got the classic insecurity of a city that knows it’s second-tier, but without the wisdom to accept the fact and deal with it. One thing that Space Bunny loves about the Premiership is watching the teams get relegated and promoted; one common theme is a second-rate team with delusions of grandeur goes into debt by overspending in the hopes that it will finish in the top four. The idea is that it will make so much money from its success and a subsequent infusion of Champion’s League cash that it will be propelled into the league’s elite with Arsenal and United. This never works, of course, and after a run of two years, the team usually collapses and is relegated to the Nationwide league, where it struggles to avoid bankruptcy and liquidation.

How do I know Minneapolis is second-rate? Because neither it nor St. Paul has any confidence to recognize its home-grown talent until it is established as being considered worthwhile by the national media. My old band did not rate so much as a mention in the local alternative rags, much less the major newspapers, until Billboard magazine was writing about us. Then, suddenly, we were big enough to rate the front page of the Entertainment section. The same thing happened to Information Society, who weren’t even recognized as local until Kurt had already left for the Bay Area. The book editors will write reams of reviews about books by obscure local press writers instead of the successful local genre writers selling 50x more books- accomplished, award-winning writers such as Rosenberg, Bujold, Dickson, Bethke, Brust, Wrede, (and to a lesser extent, me). Furthermore, if I recall correctly, I am only the sixth writer in the history of the St. Paul Pioneer Press to ever get nationally syndicated, and yet they don’t run my column. Instead, they fill their pages with unknown locals and the rehashed leftovers of the Boston Globe and New York Times. I have no doubt they’ll pick it up once I’m in ten major newspapers and then brag about the local connection.

The danger Minneapolis faces is not toiling amidst second-tierdom, but spending itself into ruin by trying to transform itself into something it can never be. I’m not optimistic. A three-day business piece in the Pioneer Press lamenting the fact that Minnesota had missed the dot com boom didn’t see fit to once mention that the state has very high income taxes. “But so does California,” protested an editor when I called them on this. Sure, and California also has Stanford, Caltech, Silicon Valley, silicone blondes and beaches. Minnesota has freezing cold winters, mosquitos and natural blondes. Do the freaking math.