Vox Popoli

John Hawkins polls the right-wing of the blogosphere about its most popular columnists:

20) William F. Buckley (14)
18) Jeff Jacoby (17)
18) David Limbaugh (17)
17) Michael Barone (18)
16) Christopher Hitchens (19)
14) John Podhoretz (20)
14) David Brooks (20)
13) John Leo (22)
12) Walter Williams (23)
11) Rich Lowry (28)
10) Peggy Noonan (30)
09) James Lileks (36) — 1
08) Ann Coulter (45) — 4
06) Michelle Malkin (48) — 1
06) George Will (48) — 1
05) Thomas Sowell (58) — 3
04) Victor Davis Hanson (72) — 3
03) Charles Krauthammer (75) — 4
02) Jonah Goldberg (76) — 3
01) Mark Steyn (96) — 24

There’s some interesting things here. First, it seems remarkable that when the 2004 Jewish vote went overwhelmingly for Kerry, a solid 25 percent of the most popular columnists on the “right” – including two of the top three – should be Jewish. Second, it’s even more remarkable that a Democrat, Victor Davis Hanson, should come in at number four. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like VDH and have several of his books, but I do wonder if the bloggers polled have ever read anything but his war-cheerleading on NRO. And, of course, Christopher Hitchens is very far to the left as well. Somehow, I doubt that ten percent of the left-wing bloggers’ most popular columnists lean rightward.

My votes are below. I find it amusing that except for the inimitable Miss Coulter, none of my top five even made the list. I would have voted for Thomas Sowell as recently as two years ago, but he’s slipped quite a bit of late. VDH is one of the better writers, but I realized that I’ve been skipping his column more and more since his repetitive war-cheerleading went from being tiresome to instant REM generation over the last year. Also, PJ O’Rourke and Camille Paglia are still my favorites but neither are actively writing commentary and while I do have two favorite Italian columnists, I assumed they didn’t really count. Do keep in mind that the determinative factor was “favorite” not “best”, because Will, Buchanan, Brooks, Reed and Ponnuru would top my list if it were based on pure quality.

1. Vox Day (the greatest love of all)
2. Fred Reed
3. Ann Coulter
4. Jay Nordlinger
5. John Derbyshire
6. George Will
7. Jonah Goldberg
8. Pat Buchanan
9. David Brooks

It’s really funny to see that the lefties couldn’t even find 20 columnists THEY find worth supporting. Krugman, Hitchens and Alterman, despite their various flaws, are the best of the lot. The left is clearly in complete disarray; the reliably buffoonish Arianna Huffington was nearly able to crack their top ten. She makes Maureen Dowd look astute and educated by comparison.

Who’s your favorite right-wing and left-wing columnist, present company excluded?

From the Onion:

ACTUAL EXPERT TOO BORING FOR TV

Dr. Gary Canton, a professor of applied nuclear physics and energy-development technologies at MIT and a leading expert in American nuclear-power applications, was rejected by MSNBC producers for being “too boring for TV” Monday….

MSNBC chose Skip Hammond, former Arizona State football player, MBA holder, and author of Imprison The Sun: America’s Coming Nuclear-Power Holocaust. Hammond is best known for his “atomic domino” theory of chained power-plant explosions and his signature lavender silk tie.

“Absolute Armageddon,” Hammond said when asked about the dangers increased reliance on nuclear power might pose. “Atoms are not only too tiny to be seen, they’re too powerful to be predicted. Three Mile Island? Remember it? I do. Don’t they?”

“Clouds of radiation, glowing rivers, a hole reaching to the earth’s core—that’s what we’re facing, ” Hammond continued. “Death of one in four Americans! Count off, everyone: one, two, three, you. Millions of people gone. And no one’s even mentioned terrorism yet. You have to wonder why not.”

It is always important to keep in mind that the vast majority of anchors and commentators don’t know a damn thing about almost anything except selling themselves. Thus, they honestly have no ability to distinguish between a genuine expert and someone who’s blathering on in ignorance. Consider the seemingly diametrically opposed pair of Michelle Malkin and Maureen Dowd. The former studied English at Oberlin College, the latter has a degree in English from Catholic University. No wonder neither one of them knows anything about military or political history.

The TV commentariat in particular is filled with third-rate minds from fourth-rate universities who studied nothing but English and journalism. Most of them don’t even speak a second language much less have any detailed knowledge of a serious liberal arts, technical or engineering field. They have refined their ability to communicate, to be sure, but they have little meaningful to say. In high school and college, I dated a girl who was on the journalist track; she was pretty and possessed an intelligence above average, but she was utterly uninterested in anything genuinely intellectual. She never made it above the bottom tier – as a political reporter for a minor newspaper – and ended up going back and getting a law degree, but I have recognized her attitude in many male and female journalists I’ve encountered since, from NPR to the Star and Sickle.

The problem is that while they may not know much, they are adept at using their connections and verbal skills to make it appear as if they do. The easy way to expose them, of course, is to ask them simple but specific questions, like “how many aircraft carriers did the US Navy possess in 1942” or “how do you compute GDP?” Actually, you probably could stump most commentators outside of Thomas Sowell and Paul Krugman by simply asking “what does GDP stand for?” They will desperately seek to avoid being forced to answer such questions because they can’t and their failure will expose them as the frauds that most of them are.

I’d like to see a celebrity Jeopardy dedicated to newspaper and cable news commentators one day. It would be interesting to see if their performance would be closer to the normal contestants or the actors and rock stars.

The U.S. government is considering a plan to force farmers, feedlots, and packinghouses to track every cow, pig, and chicken from birth to slaughter by 2009, the Associated Press reported….

Meat producers, concerned about privacy issues, have resisted a mandatory government-run identification system, the wire service said. They prefer the idea of a voluntary database to which state and federal officials have limited access.

But surely someone will explain to these poor, confused meat producers that it wouldn’t be safe for the US government to begin tracking every man, woman and child from birth to slaughter without first testing the process on animals.

My big concern: how to properly deal with parents and the community? I know that issues has gotten most of the coaches I’ve know into some type of hot water… Is there a ‘rule of thumb’ out there for coaches that works?

My answer is necessarily incomplete, because there are fewer potential problems for the little kids with whom I have experience than there are for high schoolers. But the one thing will inevitably come up at all ages is playing time.

I tend to favor the rather brutal approach of demonstrating to everyone the foolishness of their ideas by applying them ruthlessly. For example, I decided to invite all of the kids, not just the tournament team, to our first tournament this spring so the little ones could see what they were like. This proved to be a bit of a mistake, as the parents of the young ones were upset that their kids weren’t playing at all and many of them were complaining about having to waste their morning there.

Their kids weren’t even close to being ready to play, of course, and all the children knew it. The older kids in particular were aghast when I announced the starting lineup for the last game, which consisted of the five youngest kids on the squad. The little ones gave up three goals in the first twenty seconds, at which point my best midfield raised his hands to the skies and howled with heartfelt anguish, “what are you doing?”

“Making a point,” I answered, loudly enough for all the parents to hear. After another minute and a few more goals, one of the smaller kids blocked a shot with his chest and went down crying. The parents then began begging me to take the little ones out, which I did, although I kept our starters sitting since I’d already decided to concede the game and I wanted the substitutes to get more tournament experience. They did pretty well, actually, and we ended up losing by only a goal after spotting the other team six or seven.

I haven’t heard a peep out of a parent about playing time since. Once you demonstrate that you know exactly what you are doing, people are significantly less likely to question you, much less argue with you.

A good tactic is to pull a few of your better players early, when you go up by two goals. Let the team coast a bit with the substitutes, and the starters are usually fired up to get something done as soon as they get back on the field. Once the game is put away, either by your team or your opponents, take out all your starters and let the substitutes finish the game out. When everyone is confident that they’ll get to play, they don’t complain if you leave the stars in longer on the few occasions that it’s required.

To conclude on a tangential note, most coaches from the kiddy to the college level make the mistake of regularly overplaying their best players, leaving them exhausted just when you need them most. Even my track coach at the NCAA D1 level used to do this at every major meet. It’s interesting to note how often professional teams make substitutions in comparison with teams at lower levels; sure the substitutes may be better, but the margin for error is smaller as well.

The Evolution of Character
by The Crystal Lake Observatory

A rare event it is when I – out of boredom – view a program with such vapidity as I did The O’Reilly Factor the other night. O’Reilly and a Catholic priest was discussing the new pope and, in their discussion, the lack of integrity and character was exalted to the highest realms for the sake of institutional survival and conformity. O’Reilly felt that Catholic doctrine needed to be changed (on such issues as contraception, for example) in order to make the Catholic church more palatable to those of us who disagree. Thank you, O Reilly, for reducing the Catholic Church to a social club where changes in policy can be made in order to draw in more members.

To some there is a seductive pull to this kind of compromise. It isn’t just an issue of liberal and moderate seminarians, clergy members, or even the laity of any church – whatever the denomination. It exists everywhere. There’s nothing wrong with changing one’s mind after sincere, internal, and rational deliberation upon discovery of some error; there is nothing wrong with conscientious hearts attempting at least to remedy that error. It is vile to change one’s position on anything for self-serving reasons or to please others. Politicians are famous for it, but the current state of things in this world has put even the church in the position of politician.

How weak we must be to bow before the storms of trial, to sell our souls in order to gain something for ourselves! It is admirable to remain true to one’s principles and despicable to abandon them. Of what worth will any of our values be if we are too afraid to keep them? How trustworthy does that make us? And if we love God, family, and our neighbours, isn’t it hypocritical to give up our mores and beliefs in order to satisfy some urge to become like everybody else? In a way, it would have been better – in a moral sense – for us to have always been selfish in both word and deed. At least, we wouldn’t be hypocrites and cheats. Admittedly, it is difficult to remain standing in the face of harsh criticism, hard times, and persecution. The temptation to just give it up is very real. Such empathy does not absolve the compromisers as ‘faithless’, though.

O how seductive that reasoning is. It almost makes sense. The church is told to change or die. It has been said by the likes of heretic Bishop Spong and there are many, many others who say this every day. It really sounds like something the devil would say. People seem to assume that our culture will become more and more ‘liberal.’ Giving up ‘truth’ for evolution, they fall into the progressive mentality that the church will become mired in obscurity, the fringe, and then down into nothingness if it remains so fundamentalist. We are told everyday to get with the twenty-first century and conform to the greater culture, but true religion is not only to take care of the poor but also to remain unstained from this world. The narrow way is not the popular, nor is it always easy.

The days are dark and the nights are death itself. We throw away spouses because it is convenient and children because we don’t want the responsibility. We steal for utopia in the form of mandatory taxation. Morals and ethics are whatever we want them to be and isn’t it grievous? We are treacherous and live for ourselves..

and..here I am, the moralist excoriating the sins of others, the sins of this world.

Such a moral slide doesn’t just exist within the church. It is just an issue that is closest to my heart, and bothers me to no end when people in the church behave as if God’s truth is no truth.

Loyalty has always been very important and the greatest guilt I’ve felt comes when I behave treacherously. I hate betrayal in others; I hate it in myself. I’ve had to ask myself the question of what is really important in my life – everyone’s approval, convenience, or personal excellence? I guess that is up to each one of us to determine. Who or what will you serve?

When I left the house on Thursday, Spacebunny was anticipating that she’d seen the last of the monstrous trophy that the kids had won for our soccer club last spring. It’s a traveling trophy, retained by the winning team for a year, then returned to the sponsoring tournament. As a rule, it stays in the coach’s house, preferably in a conspicuous place where it can be admired by all and sundry.

Last year, the boys from our little club shocked the two biggest clubs in the state, defeating the local professional squad’s kiddy adjunct twice in claiming the tournament championship. Repeating was going to be tough since our goalie had moved up and the professional team asked our two best players to join them after seeing how they played in last year’s tournament. One was too old to play for our team this year anyway, but our little captain wasn’t and I encouraged him to go play for them. It’s a wonderful opportunity for him, but even so, he insisted on finishing out his last season at this level with us before switching clubs.

After last year’s debacle, the professional squad declined to show up but the other big team, Blue, was there and they were pretty heavy favorites since they’d won a major tournament the week before, one in which we’d only finished seventh. But I finally managed to find a goalie, a third-string kid from the pro team who never got to play in tournaments and was delighted to hook up with us, and I was convinced that it was an unusually small field shutting down our open passing game that had been our problem.

We were a little nervy in the first game, winning 2-1, but the kids soon settled down and cruised 3-0 and 8-1 over the next two squads. Blue was cruising too and most of the parents were pretty pessimistic about our chances against them after seeing how they were effortlessly dismantling their opponents. Being in the same group, we met in the fourth game and it was a hard-fought battle that finished as a scoreless tie. I was pretty sure we had been the better team, though, as our attackers blew four or five solid chances created by our midfielders, while their two or three chances were more mistakes on the part of our defense. But the sheer individual skill of their players was a little intimidating.

Either way, it was clear that our two teams were the best in the tournament, as the other group looked relatively weak, so I told our kids to be ready to play Blue again in the finals. They weren’t frightened by the prospect, although some of the parents – two of whom are very soccer-savvy as they played and coached professionally in Holland and Switzerland, respectively – were still less than optimistic since the skills of the Blue players were clearly superior to ours.

But I’ve coached these kids for three years now, I know them well, and the difference between them and every other team I’ve seen is that we don’t have a quitter in the bunch. An all-day tournament takes a lot out of 6 to 8-year olds, so I was confident that our spirit and tactics would prove more important in the end than their technical ability. Both teams finished up with three wins and one tie in the group, with both scoring 13 goals and allowing three for a tied goal difference as well. I offered to give Blue first position in our group since I wanted my guys to go into the final with the confidence of having beaten the top team in group B, but the tournament director insisted of flipping a coin instead. Fortunately, we lost and ended up in second position anyhow.

The boys came out ready to spit fire and I was reminded of why I absolutely hate women in sports. The top team in group B was a girl’s team, most of whom stood about a head taller than my players. Nevertheless, four girls managed to get hurt over the course of the game, we had a goal disallowed because our player’s head hit the goalie’s jaw AFTER he’d already kicked the ball into the net and nearly every foul was called against us, even when a girl pulled down one of our players down to the ground by the shirt and then tripped over him trying to get to the ball. But the ref couldn’t make up for how we destroyed them in every other aspect of the game and we won 5-0. Even better, I was able to pull three of my starters halfway through and let them rest for the final, which was thirty minutes instead of the usual twenty.

Seeing how Blue barely survived a scoreless game that resulted in a penalty shootout against the second-place team in the other group gave the guys plenty of confidence going into the final. The Blue players looked more than a little worn out after squeaking out a 6-5 win in the shootout, so I modified our lineup to go with two midfielders instead of our usual two defenders. With that more offensively minded set, we hit them hard from the onset, scored two goals in the first ten minutes and had them on their heels.

They’re a good team, though, and they have a good coach. He instructed their little Brazilian forward to jump on the ball being passed out to our defenders from the goalie and they stole a goal that way right before halftime. When we gave up a handball in the area early in the second half, it looked as if they’d even the score, but our goalie made a great save on the penalty and their heads began to hang.

Their heads hung even lower when I instructed our goalie to beat their press by punting the ball – he can kick it almost the length of the little field – and our bright little captain anticipated the bounce and headed it past their goalie. The kids were scenting blood and a second header, this one on a corner, made it 4-1 to trigger the rout. By the time the final whistle blew, we were leading 6-1 and our substitutes were aggressively taking the game to their starters.

I couldn’t be prouder of those little guys, each and every one of them. Two years ago, in their first tournament, these very same boys lost to Blue 14-0. But they didn’t quit then and I’ve never seen them do so since, no matter what the score. This tournament was just a small step in the long journey of their lives and they may not even remember it by the time they grow to adulthood. But to me, they will always be lion-hearted champions, twice over.

And it was, of course, a pleasure to walk in the door with a certain silver monstrosity under my arm. “Honey, I’ve got some bad news for you….”

Morgan of the Lake reveals a few gaps in her knowledge:

No, in Vox’s defense I didn’t read Nathalie’s original comment. But still, I expect someone who touts his Mensa credentials like [supersecret identity deleted] does to be so willing to roll in the gutter with his detractors. And you got me, Crystal. I can’t help but like someone who treasures the right of women to vote. On this board I think that makes two of us.

1. Tout: Definition: brag
Synonyms: acclaim, ballyhoo, boost, herald, laud, plug, praise, proclaim, promote, publicize, push, show off, steer, tip, tip off, trumpet

I don’t think a single mention at the bottom of my WND bio fits this definition at all. Do you see any prominent mention of it on my web site or my blog? I find it interesting how I am always considered to bragging about one of my memberships, but never the other two which are mentioned in the same sentence. It is, of course, nothing more than simple insecurity on the part of my critics.

2. It may come as a surprise to her, (assuming that Morgana left out the word “don’t” before “expect”), I will cheerfully engage with pretty much anyone at pretty much any level. I’ve engaged in public debates with famous authors, fought on stage in front of a crowd in night clubs and interviewed the man I consider to be the greatest living novelist. Steel sharpens steel both intellectually and physically.

3. Voting is vastly overrated as it takes place in most recognized tyrannies, is not a right and is suspiciously similar to the form of brainwashing that involves forcing the victim to confess what the brainwasher intends to become his reality. Two-party representative democracy is a sophisticated form of tyranny disguised as freedom that one will find nowhere in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Depriving women of this “right” is very much akin to refusing to allow them to sell themselves into slavery; that, too, is a restriction on their ability to act.

I daresay that the majority of people on this blog disagree with me on this issue. That’s fine, if all my ideas were warmly embraced by all and sundry, I’d be shocked.

4. Follow the Latin into Greek, my little maleducated donnicciola. The very name is not only an announcement, it’s a joke. On would-be outers like yourself.

George steps over the line in asserting his heterosexuality:

“What would be your response be if I my planted my hand on Space Bunny’s well proportioned and firm rear end? Better yet, what would be her response?”

I’m extremely relaxed about such things. I expect most guys to be attracted to her; if you weren’t, I’d assume there’s something wrong with you. In any case, I’d likely ask you what the [insert offensive word of your choice here] you thought you were doing and inform you that she was with me, giving you the chance to extricate yourself from the situation. Spacebunny would probably slap your hand automatically, then ask the same question, albeit in a more heated manner.

If you did not back down, I’d inform you that you’d been warned and serious injury was imminent. If that did not suffice, I’d immediately render you unconscious or so badly injured that you were incapable of getting off the ground unaided.

I have administered three violent beatings in my life, the worst of which left me covered in the other guy’s blood from my fingertips to my elbows. The experience was intoxicating at first, but somewhat sickening after the adrenaline wore off. In my opinion, a simple proposition, however inappropriate, does not call for that level of immediate response.

I understand that some men flip out irrationally over homosexual advances. My brother certainly does, but I’ve always found such responses to be overly dramatic.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?

I think this is a poorly worded way of asking: what fictional universe would you most like to inhabit? The answer is simple. John Norman’s Gor.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Camille Paglia.

The last book you bought is?

The Return of Depression Economics by Paul Krugman.

What are you currently reading?

Assassin of Gor by John Norman
15 Decisive Battles of the World by Edward Creasy
The Song of Roland

I just finished David Brin’s Uplift books three days ago. The first three were quite good, the second two rather less so.

Five books you would take to a desert island

Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
Magister Ludi by Hermann Hesse
The Cambridge Medieval History Series
Watership Down by Richard Adams

There has been a minor uproar about Bill Maher’s recent comments about the recent Fox News obsession, wherein he put forth the notion that children being “gently serviced” by a pop star was preferable to receiving a savage beating such as he had once received in the schoolyard.

I think there’s a few interesting points there. It is at least arguable that such service, even if one is talking about Michael and not Janet or LaToya, might be preferable to a savage beating, if one is simply looking at the short term consequences. Maher is a left-liberal – he calls himself a libertarian but he has no idea what one actually is – and so naturally he has the liberal’s complete inability to foresee even the most predictable long-term effects.

For while the short-term effect of a hand job is rather enjoyable, the longer term effects can be problematic when the servicer is of the same sex. The sexual imprinting that takes place at a young age can be very difficult to overcome, which is part of the plot of the movie Mysterious Skin, in which homosexual childhood abuse eventually results in the young victim becoming an amoral gay prostitute as an adult.

Given the possibility of lifelong sexual confusion, even Maher might consider the savage beating to be preferable, since the eventual consequences of being taught a painful lesson about being smaller and weaker tend to manifest themselves in a positive determination to grow stronger and less defenseless. I ran into the smallest guy in my high school class a few years ago; he’s now the state powerlifting champion.

In summary, I don’t think Maher said anything outrageous, I simply think he made an understandable but incorrect and superficial point.