Blogs for 2005 - Road to the Middle Class

CONSERVATIVES have always distrusted the liberal line on diversity and inclusion. Because it has always seemed to be about empowering liberals and silencing conservatives. But Gandhi and Martin Luther King taught us long ago that we can use our distrust about our opponents to test their sincerity. Invite them to honor their noble principles and see what they do. David Horowitz has been inviting liberal professors to live up to their avowal of free unfold

"Lifestage" Conservatism

by Christopher Chantrill

WE ALREADY knew that President Bush led by 20 points in the last election among married parents with children. Now we have an explanation. It´s the concept of “lifestage” conservatism, people that started out liberal but grew up fast when they became parents and no longer wanted a public square that pandered solely to the interests of twentysomething singles. Suzanne Fields delivers the news. Details at the unfold

The Katie Crisis

by Christopher Chantrill

CONSERVATIVES have waited a long time for the day that Katie Couric would start to get into trouble. Now it has happened, and, in accordance with the media Blood in the Water theory, the sharks are rushing in to take a chunk out of pretty Katie´s shapely legs. It´s funny how power corrupts, isn´t it? Give someone a chunk o´ cash and a modicum of power, and watch the inner beast come out to play. Myrna Blyth dishes the unfold

Steyn Week: Tories Too Strident and Too Timid

by Christopher Chantrill

THIS WEEK IT´S all Steyn, all the time. And today Mark Steyn takes after Britain´s Tories for being too strident on immigration when anyone could have known that a whisper on immigration would have been magnified by the lefty media into a trumpet blast. And any Tory Party worth its salt would have come out with some “Thatcher-sized themes,” you know, smaller government and lower unfold

It's The Culture Stupid

by Christopher Chantrill

THOMAS SOWELL trots out the basic finding of his Race and Culture trilogy for the benefit of Opinion Journal readers. The reason that blacks (and also Southern red-neck whites) have fared poorly in the United States is their violent, illiterate culture.

“The culture of the people who were called `rednecks´ and `crackers´ before they ever got on the boats to cross the Atlantic was a culture that produced far lower levels of intellectual unfold

Conclave or Congress: Which Gets the Job Done?

by Christopher Chantrill

MARK STEYN chooses the College of Cardinals as the more serious institution. Why, it took them only a couple of days to elect a new pope, but the Senate Foreign Relations Committee takes all month just to worry about John Bolton yelling at a bureaucrat in a hallway in central Asia ten years ago? You´d think that they would applaud him for encouraging better performance. You´d think the Democratic Party was more serious. You´d think the Republican Senators would unfold

Not What They Had In Mind

by Christopher Chantrill

A ROUNDUP OF comment on the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI in the Weekly Standard gives us a flavor of fashionable opinion on the new pontiff. There´s no doubt about it. People don´t like their ox being gored, and a traditional Catholic Church is a threat to their peacefully grazing cattle. But one man´s peacefully grazing ox is another man´s rampaging bull. The Church and its traditionalist allies think that their traditional Christian ox is unfold

Not What They Had In Mind

by Christopher Chantrill

A ROUNDUP OF comment on the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI in the Weekly Standard gives us a flavor of fashionable opinion on the new pontiff. There´s no doubt about it. People don´t like their ox being gored, and a traditional Catholic Church is a threat to their peacefully grazing cattle. But one man´s peacefully grazing ox is another man´s rampaging bull. For the Church and its traditionalist allies think that their ox is sorely threatened unfold

British Election: Tories Should Lose

by Christopher Chantrill

THE SUNDAY Times´ Minette Marrin thinks that the Conservative Party needs a few more years in the political wilderness to allow the New Labour project to come to fruition.

“And until the new Labour project has discredited itself thoroughly the Conservative party will never have the political courage — or rather the political chance — to declare what it truly stands for,”

which is, or which ought to be “that less unfold

Steyn: Westerners are All Teenagers

by Christopher Chantrill

JOKE-A-GRAF Mark Steyn gets serious for a moment and reflects that we westerners are all grown-up teenagers:

“Free citizens of advanced western democracies are increasingly the world´s wrinkliest teenagers: the state makes the grown-up decisions and we spend our pocket money on our record collection,” our cars, and our porn site subscriptions. And that´s the way we like unfold

Ancient Scrolls Deciphered. Philologists Go To Heaven

by Christopher Chantrill

THE ANCIENT Oxyrhynchus Papyri, discovered years ago in Egypt have succumbed to modern technology, and are being rapidly deciphered, according to a report in The Independent.

“In the past four days alone, Oxford´s classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are unfold

Steyn: Don't Put Your Hands on Hips Around Me Young Man

by Christopher Chantrill

MARK HAS HAD it with this anger management thing. So John Bolton in not qualified to be Ambassador to the United Nations because he once spoke to an underling with his hands on his hips. Pu-leez! Democrats like Barbara Boxer are starting to parody themselves. And anyway, growls Mark, does this mean that government underlings can underperform as much as they want and not deserve a reprimand? Is that what the Democratic Party has come unfold

Steyn: Don't Get Flushed Down the Eurinal

by Christopher Chantrill

IS NOTHING sacred? Now they are outsourcing tax returns to India! And that´s not all. Even Steyn Global Enterprises is outsourcing. Mark Steyn is outsourcing “certain administrative and managerial functions” of Steyn Global Enterprises across the world, and he´s willing to forgo the chance to hit on the help at the office Christmas party. He´d rather likes the help to be working hard while CEO Mark is sleeping it off. Better wake up Europe/Canada, before unfold

Spot the Fascist

by Christopher Chantrill

ON WEDNESDAY, conservative advocate David Horowitz took his campaign for the Academic Bill of Rights to the University of Texas. Here is the report on the event in The Daily Texan, and here is the report from conservative bloggers. But let us let our minds wander a little. How would such a disturbance have been reported if conservative unfold

Cheerleading Hits Britain

by Christopher Chantrill

HAVE THE EVIL Bush Neocons no shame? They are taking over Britain by exporting cheerleading to the land of Edmund Burke and punk rock. Michele Kirsch reports on a sport that is growing by 30 percent a year in the UK. And yes, the cheerleaders are on the sidelines cheerleading for their college rugger unfold

The Tax Code Foments Conflict

by Christopher Chantrill

AS WE ALL RAIL about the tax code and snigger as we take our special tax deduction, let us not forget that the politicians are laughing all the way to the bank. When Americans are fighting each other, they are leading the troops. As Edward Hudgins reminds us, the complexity of the tax code is the result of hundreds of special interest battles to use some of your tax money for their special subsidy. The only way out is to refuse to benefit at the expense of a unfold

If Liberals Hate Wal-Mart...

by Christopher Chantrill

THEN IT STANDS to reason that there must be something good and noble about Wal-Mart that they are trying to destroy. The funny thing about liberals is that, as often as not, their idealistic campaigns to help the little guy turn out to be cynical attempts to bolster the status quo and the established interests—pure power plays. Here´s one writer´s look at the Wal-Mart unfold

Republicans in Better Shape Than You Think

by Christopher Chantrill

MICHAEL BARONE runs the numbers, the hard numbers from the last election. He finds that electorally, Republicans are in good shape. Many Democrats represent districts that voted for the president last November. And voters agree that “something” should be done about Social unfold

Parents Pushing Back on Wacko Colleges

by Christopher Chantrill

PARENTS AREN´T too pleased about college tuition and wacko left-wing politics. This college consultant warns the colleges that there are unhappy clients out there and that they had better get their act together or face the unfold

NYT on Einstein in 1905

by Christopher Chantrill

AT ITS BEST The New York Times can be really good, as this oped recapping the annus mirabilis of Einstein in 1905 reminds us. In four papers, Einstein remade physics, and no more so than in the paper that proposed that light was “stream of tiny packets or bundles of energy that have since come to be known as photons.” It was that discovery that led twenty years later to quantum unfold

Campus Bias by "Anonymous"

by Christopher Chantrill

SO YOU DIDN´T really believe all that conservative whining about liberal bias in the university, eh? Thought that it reflected more on the paranoia of conservatives rather than the transgressions of tenured professors? Here is the story of a European professor who came to teach in the United States and was shocked by what he found on campus. It makes rather exciting reading. Of course, he could be lying, but the telling theme is how conservative students unfold

Steyn: JPII, The Scourge of the Secularists

by Christopher Chantrill

IT´S ODD, OPINES the oracular Mark Steyn, that Jim Callaghan, a former British prime minister who, held all four great political offices in Britain—and failed at all four—should get a better send off on his death than the remarkable John Paul II. But then, it´s not odd, is it? John Paul II stood like a bulwark against the entire secular world view and all its works, like, oh, socialism and unfold

Steyn: The Importance of a Cracked-up Name

by Christopher Chantrill

DO YOU WONDER what Princeton Lyman, Monteagle Stearns, and Spurgeon Keeny Jr. have to do with Norman Lear and the Republican crack-up, then Mark Steyn is your man. He´ll explain it all to you. Having fun with people whose first names sound like last names always used to be a Democratic parlor game. Now that Republicans are doing the sneering, it has to mean something, unfold