Blogs for 2007 - Road to the Middle Class

IN BRITAIN’S Daily Telegraph recently Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that his policies on crime and social breakdown hadn’t worked. Although things had really improved and crime rates had gone down during his premiership (a claim that many dispute) there was still more to be done.

[T]he proper answer is to add to the ASB laws measures that target failing and dysfunctional families early, and place those unfold

Go Ahead, Make My Day

by Christopher Chantrill

FORMER SENATOR John “Two Americas” Edwards told Democrats in California that he would raise taxes at least back to the Clinton levels, according to Stephen Dinan. Said Edwards

What I believe is the starting place is to go back to the Clinton levels[.]

Go ahead, Senator Edwards. We Republicans have the reputation of being the stupid party. That means that we really need help from the opposition in order to unfold

Just How Smart Are Dems?

by Christopher Chantrill

EVERYONE seems to think that the Democrats are brilliantly managing the politics of the Iraq war in preparation for the 2008 election. And when the Democratic Senate passed its war-funding bill complete with deadlines, S.A. Miller reports, they had their sound bite ready.

"We hope the president will reconsider his stubbornness and his refusal to listen to the American people," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.

Of unfold

Regulating Speech on a Slippery Slope

by Christopher Chantrill

LIBERALS are all riled up about conservative talk radio. So they want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine and “require "equal time" be given to opposing political views,” as Cal Thomas observes.

That’s an outrage, of course, a direct attack on the First Amendment. But conservatives have their own agenda.

Some conservatives, aided by the FCC, want to regulate violence on broadcast television and, for the first time, cable unfold

Class Warfare Taxes May Sink Dems

by Christopher Chantrill

FIRST THING the Democrats are doing in the new Congress is to exempt most taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). They propose to pay for it by, wait for it, increasing tax rates on the highest income taxpayers.

Cesar Conda says, careful what you wish for Democrats. Leaving aside that economists now agree that high marginal tax rates on rich people hurt the overall economy, there is a political aspect to unfold

Obama: The New Reagan?

by Christopher Chantrill

AFTER THE surprise showing by Sen. Barack Obama in the fundraising stakes, Sean Higgins is ready to call him the “black Ronald Reagan.” That’s because:

Of all the candidates running, only Obama truly exemplifies one of Reagan’s most popular characteristics: his sunny optimism.

But after plowing through Obama’s first major foreign policy speech, Dean Barnett feels that he

has a unfold

It All Dovetails

by Christopher Chantrill

IF YOU’VE ever watched The Larkin Chronicles (the Brit TV series that was the breakout hit for Catherine Zeta Jones) you’ll remember the fatuous woman character, Mrs Jerebohm, who kept insisting that it all dovetailed.

But sometimes it really does dovetail.

Here we are in 2007 and we are up to our keisters in problems:

Murdering hordes from south-west Asia
Welfare state that has wrecked the working class
Dumbed-down unfold

Private Education in the Slums

by Christopher Chantrill

HE WAS IN Hyderabad, India looking at the city’s main tourist attraction, the Charminar, when, as Clive Crook relates in The Atlantic Monthly, education professor James Tooley

came across a school for the children of slum dwellers. To his surprise, he found that this was not a state school but a private one—providing education to the extremely poor and collecting fees (of a few rupees a day, or unfold

Liberal Issues Dems Don't Push

by Christopher Chantrill

IN a rumination on the incompetence of Alberto Gonzales, Mickey Kaus wonders if the incompetence wasn’t deliberate. Gonzales’ incompetence lets President Bush stumble-bum all over affirmative action, helping to end it without seeming to be responsible for the death. And he doesn’t need to do anything anyway.

[R]ace preferences... are being killed anyway, by the voters . That’s even better for Bush. His fingerprints aren’t on unfold

Reform vs. Stagnation in France

by Christopher Chantrill

WHAT a clarifying event an election can be. In France, report the editors of National Review, the first round of the French presidential election has presented the French people with a clear choice.

The battle lines are thus unusually sharp and well-defined. It is liberal economic reform versus socialist stagnation.

Naturally the French are divided between those who think strong medicine is needed, those unfold

When the Tax Cuts Expire

by Christopher Chantrill

YEARS AGO NEOCONSERVATIVE Irving Kristol advised Republicans to cut taxes, cut, and cut again. Apart from the economic benefit, there was the political benefit of forcing Democrats to increase taxes when they wanted to increase spending.

President Bush may be incurious and unintelligent, but it looks like he is taking Kristol’s advice. The talk is all about how to avoid economic damage in the immediate future as taxes are scheduled to increase unless Congress does something. unfold

Murder in America

by Christopher Chantrill

HOW BAD is it? In the wake of the V-Tech mass murder the Europeans are tut-tutting about a US history of violence.

The official story since 1900 is not pretty: two huge murder waves, one peaking in 1933 and one peaking in 1991. See Bureau of Justice Statistics Homicide Trends chart. Interestingly, according to Eric Monkkonen in Murder in New York, murder has not been a unique New York City phenomenon. Murder in New York was unfold

VT: The Tradeoffs in a Free Society

by Christopher Chantrill

THE HORRIFIC Virginia Tech shootings have, as they should, inspired every political activist to use the event as a hook to their perennial issue. As usual, commentator Charles Krauthammer does so in as sensible a way as possible.

There are, we should never forget, tradeoffs that a free society makes in favor of freedom and against safety and security.

It is true that with far stricter gun laws, Cho Seung Hui unfold

Iraq war is 'lost' says Harry Reid

by Christopher Chantrill

THE US “SURGE” is failing to bring peace to Iraq, according to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), and so he believes “that this war is lost.”

as reported by Breitbart.com, Reid said:

"I know I was the odd guy out at the White House, but I told him at least what he needed to hear ... I believe the war at this stage can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically."

Oh, so he doesn’t actually believe that unfold

Liberal Foundations Equals Liberal Costs

by Christopher Chantrill

IT’S not just that charitable foundations often end up doing exactly the opposite of what their founders intended.

The problem is that they spend so much money doing it. As William Rusher writes:

Robert Wood Johnson’s charitable contributions for 2005 were a majestic $419 million. But the "administrative expenses" required to distribute this largesse totaled $69 million. Kellogg contributed $285 unfold

The Adolescent Society

by Christopher Chantrill

DON’T expect a big liberal best-seller like John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Affluent Society. But you and I can talk about the Adolescent Society, you know, as adult to adult. And the epicenter of adolescence, of teenage adolescence verging into adult adolescence, is the modern government mega-university. As Michelle Malkin puts it

There’s no polite way or time to say it: American colleges and universities have become unfold

After VT: Gun Control Doesn't Bark

by Christopher Chantrill

AFTER THE horror of the shootings at Virginia Tech and the innocent lives cut down, two thoughts.

First of all, has nobody thought about just what a cruel place the modern university is? It is perhaps the epicenter of privilege and injustice in the modern world. You cannot just walk into a university like a Wal-Mart and say, here’s my $50; I’d like to take a course. Oh no. First of all, you put on your knee pads. And that’s just the beginning of humiliation.

OK, so we learn that dozens of unfold

Let's Don't Kill All the Lawyers

by Christopher Chantrill

THE Duke “rape” case was won by good defense lawyering, writes lawyer Randy E. Barnett, and don’t you forget it next time you tell a lawyer joke.

When innocent people go to jail is is usually because of an incompetent defense.

In every case I knew about where an innocent person had been convicted, there had been an incompetent defense lawyer at the pretrial and trial stages.

In a competent legal system, moreover, unfold

Kill the Tax Monster

by Christopher Chantrill

IT’S ALL very well for Paul Greeberg to call for the end of the current federal income tax system. No doubt he’s right that

For the average American family, filling out a tax form has become like attacking a puzzle to which, often enough, there is no right answer. But we’re all supposed to swear, on penalty of perjury, that we’ve done our best to find it.

But are people really as upset as he thinks? First of all, only about unfold

Just Who Has the Conflict of Interest?

by Christopher Chantrill

IT WAS NOBLE of Newsweek to allow a climate change denier, climate scientist Richard Lindzen, to write a column in their global-warming scare issue. But they wanted you to know that Lindzen “receives no funding from any energy companies.”

Oh really. So we are to believe, writes Jeff Jacoby, that

Apparently Lindzen’s scientific and professional credentials aren’t sufficient to lend authority to his views; readers must be unfold

The Passing of Unsung Conservatives

by Christopher Chantrill

LIBERALS we know all about. They are celebrated from a thousand MSM mouthpieces. But when conservatives pass on we find, from the reminiscences of friends and acquaintances, that we hardly knew ’em.

Here is Milton Friedman remembered by Charles H. Brunie.

Once when Milton was in New York visiting some of Oppenheimer’s clients, we had a cocktail party after a long day. A young man asked him a question in an exceedingly rude manner—again and unfold

Hypocrisy Week

by Christopher Chantrill

IF shock jock Don Imus went to his reward, what about Malik Shabazz? If it’s an outrage to make a racial joke about some basketball players then what about calling an Asian American woman a prostitute to her face on cable TV? That’s what happened to Michelle Malkin.

Next, one Malik Shabazz, leader of the "New Black Panther Party," refuses to apologize for lynching the innocent Duke lacrosse players—and then proceeds to call me a unfold

How Liberal Censorship Works

by Christopher Chantrill

YOU’D THINK, wouldn’t you, that a documentary focusing on the struggle of moderate Muslims to battle the forces of Islamofascist extremists would be a natural for PBS’s “America at a Crossroads” series.

But you would be wrong.

PBS has decided that the documentary “Islam vs. Islamists” produced by a group including conservative defense advocate Frank Gaffney, Jr. was too extreme and too one-sided to be shown on PBS.

unfold

Let's Abolish Adolescence

by Christopher Chantrill

DID you know? They don’t have adolescence in most societies. At some point children go through a coming-of-age ritual and they become adults.

Now Robert Epstein in The Case Against Adolescence argues that we should abolish adolescence. Instapundit Glenn Reynolds is interested.

Epstein’s new book argues that adolescence is an artificial and unnecessary part of life that people are better off unfold

Freeman Dyson: Optimistic Rebel

by Christopher Chantrill

PHYSICIST Freeman Dyson makes a cameo appearance in Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Dawkins takes him to task for accepting an award from the pro-Christian Templeton Foundation. Dawkins makes it clear that organizations like the Templeton Foundation should be named and shamed. They should not be allowed to appropriate the authority of an eminent physicist.

Now Freeman Dyson has a book out, The Scientist as Rebel, and he talks to unfold

John Edwards' Two Americas

by Christopher Chantrill

CONSERVATIVES and Republicans like to go to bed at night secure in the knowledge that liberals are not the sensitive compassionate people of a thousand puff pieces but snobs and rich bitches. And not just that but mean and stingy, as Arthur C. Brooks suggests in his Who Really Cares.

But our objective media seldom satisfy our deepest yearning.

Which is odd, when you think about it. Imagine the circulation potential in “liberal hypocrite” stories!

But at last we have hit pay unfold

Liberal Censorship! Oh No!

by Christopher Chantrill

IN THE AGE of talk radio it has become much more difficult to bury egregious examples of liberal censorship.

It’s always been a major national problem. But hitherto the power of the mainstream media meant that liberals could always squash anything that made them looke like the bad guys.

Liberals are all in favor of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable as long as no liberal oxen are gored. But you’d better not try afflicting comfortable liberals!

So now PBS has “censored” a unfold

A Liberal Mourns His Favorite Republican

by Christopher Chantrill

JUST what was it about John McCain that liberals loved so much? Was it because he ran against the Republican Party base in 2000? The way columnist E.J. Dionne remembers it:

He spoke out too forcefully in 2000 for campaign finance reform and against "the demands of big-money special interests." He condemned the "self-appointed" leaders of conservative groups — a rather unfold

The Social Work Bullies at Missouri State

by Christopher Chantrill

THIS WOULD be funny if it weren’t so sad. The president of Missouri State University, Michael T. Nietzel, recently publicized a report on the university’s School of Social Work, saying that the report was “as negative a review of an academic program as I have ever seen.”

In the report, according to Anne D. Neal,

the external unfold

Rush Babies: They're Out There!

by Christopher Chantrill

THE DRIVE-BYS aren’t reporting this, of course, but there’s a whole new generation out there brought to adult consciousness by uber-talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. And this morning a young Rush baby checked in:

When I first started listening to you, I was just kinda coming out of high school. I can’t say I was the brightest person in the world, 2.3 GPA. A lot of what you’ve said as far as going above and beyond unfold

After Pelosi, time for some thinking

by Christopher Chantrill

THE TROUBLE with Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Damascus was the thinking behind it, writes Michael Barone,

the thinking that gave Pelosi confidence she could produce progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
At the heart of that thinking is this proposition: We’re the problem.

Crudely put, it’s the Blame America First way of thinking.

(Actually, in the larger view, we are the problem, but not in unfold

Thinking Beyond the Welfare State

by Christopher Chantrill

AS TONY Blair heads for the exits conservative Brits are thinking about what the Conservative Party should offer against the high-tax high regulation, badly-run public services of New Labour Britain.

Iain Martin has a go. From Tony Blair’s expected successor, Gordon Brown, we can expect “a bit less of the same,” the refrain of Clinton and Blair. He’ll continue with the welfare state only it will be better managed.

unfold

Lefties Want to Get Paid To Blog

by Christopher Chantrill

RADIO talk-show host Hugh Hewitt chuckles at the frustration of lefty bloggers that their top dogs don’t link to and promote the the little puppy blogs.

Why, complains Kathy at Shakesville, the right-wing blogs do it all the time. There’s no way, she complains, that “Jihad Watch and LaShawn Barber’s Corner and BLACKFIVE and Mudville Gazette and unfold

No Affirming for Christians in Holy Week

by Christopher Chantrill

A PERMANENT fixture of our calendar is Black History Month in which our media run dozens of affirming little features about the nobility and suffering of African Americans down the ages.

But the climax of the Christian calendar in Lent and Holy Week seems to be an opportunity to run attacks on Christianity, as reported by Brian Fitzpatrick:

Beginning on February 26, the news and entertainment media have fired a stunning barrage of criticism unfold

Let's Talk. About Taxes

by Christopher Chantrill

LET’S TALK, said Hillary Clinton. Of course she wanted to just talk pretty in pink, not actually talk about real things like the real money that the government is taking out of our pockets.

In this blog Michael Barone discusses the coming impact of the Alternative Minimum Tax as a political issue. AMT was a soak-the-rich wheeze back in the late 1960s when Democrats suddenly decided that they were shocked that some unfold

No Pelo-phany on Road to Damascus

by Christopher Chantrill

BOTH LEFT and right agree that Nancy Pelosi’s bumbling journey to Damascus was an embarrassment.

Writes the Washington Post editorial writer:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad.

And from the right unfold

When Christian Students Want a Special Day...

by Christopher Chantrill

IT’S ONE thing to have a “Day of Silence” that celebrates the difficulties and the angst of gay students. But it is quite another when Christian students want to observe a “Day of Truth.”

Writes Michael Johnson:

The idea of the “Day of Silence” is that students and educators go all day without talking, while flashing a card at those around them explaining that the quiet is their unfold

Let's Call It "Hewitting"

by Christopher Chantrill

FIRST it was Fisking. That’s the process, according to Britain’s Observer, of:

savaging an argument and scattering the tattered remnants to the four corners of the internet.

It is named after lefty Brit reporter Robert Fisk, who often deserves it.

But now it is time to talk about “Hewitting.” That’s the interview technique in which radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt interviews an MSM journalist and exposes him (or her, but usually him) as a pompous weasel.

The latest victim of unfold

When Politics is Only About Spin

by Christopher Chantrill

TEN, FIFTEEN years ago in the heady days of the Third Way fashionable commentators were all agog about Spin. Clinton did it. Blair did it. Everyone swooned. It was so cool.

Later, when President Bush made his case for the invasion of Iraq, of course, the swooners were nowhere to be found. It is one thing to do a bit of advocacy for the good guys, but another thing to shill for evil neo-cons.

But now, in a British row about taxing the income of pension funds according to unfold

Partisans Applaud as Bush Bashes Democrats

by Christopher Chantrill

PRESIDENT Bush has finally started to lob a few shells at the Democrats who passed a supplemental funding bill for the Iraq war with a timetable for withdrawal.

Gateway Pundit is encouraged:

This speech today could have been made months ago.

Maybe so. But presidents, at least the ones that are not terminally shameless, have this quaint notion that they are president of all the people.

And a unfold

Are the Mullahs Desperate?

by Christopher Chantrill

WITH the mullahs in Iran staging another hostage incident, you have to wonder if it is deja vue all over again.

Embarrassing as it is for the Brits, maybe that’s all the Iranian mullahs know how to do: Stage another hostage crisis.

That’s what Austin Bay thinks.

But this latest hostage-taking incident smacks of desperation, not revolutionary fervor.
Late spring 2007 finds the Iranian "revolutionary unfold

What About Those Free Trade Deniers?

by Christopher Chantrill

HOW COME that fashionable New York Times columnists are so quick to make moral monsters out of people that question the authority of global-warming enthusiasts?

Nobody seems to give a damn about another kind of denier, the free-trade denier, as Donald Luskin complains.

Such people are in fact standing athwart 250 years of economics, and an overwhelming consensus of living economists. These protectionists unfold

Bigger, Bolder, Brighter for 2007

by Christopher Chantrill

DON’T TELL me. April 1 is a foolish day to launch a site redesign. But what’s a father to do? It’s spring and every young man’s fancy turns to spring cleaning the old site to make it brighter, bolder, and more compelling.

So now we have a new logo and a new top menu with two level menuing.

And we have a blog column, an oped column, and over on the right a list of the latest links that I’ve tagged on del.icio.us.

The new color is firebrick, unfold