National Review articles from April 2006

National Review archives from April 2006

A message from Ronald S. Lauder.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... A little more than a year ago, Jewish National Fund embarked on a challenge, a long-term vision: developing the Negev into a hospitable, habitable, profitable environment that would become home to an additional 250,000 people. Blueprint...

Crunchy contretemps.(Letter to the editor)
April 10, 2006... I understand that what I call "crunchy conservatism" is not Jonah Goldberg's cup of tea, but I can't let his cheap and unjust description of my work go unchallenged ("Living in the Real World," March 27). In my book, Crunchy Cons, I go to great...

Chunky contretemps.(Letter to the editor)
April 10, 2006... We obviously don't want our government policing our eating habits, but making light of obesity, as Dave Shiflett seems to do, is also not wise ("Chief of the Fat Police," March 27). We are a country of "fatties," and it is a matter of concern:...

A work of charity.(Letter to the editor)
April 10, 2006... Could Theodore Dalrymple's meditation, "Tolerance, If Not Respect" (March 13), be titled incorrectly? Mere tolerance (vide Mr. Dalrymple's father) is content that its object remain an opaque bizarrerie. It cannot move the moral imagination to...

What Susan Sarandon may look like in her turn as 'Mother Sheehan'.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Susan Sarandon will play Cindy Sheehan in a biopic. Could they just mail her the Oscar now?

We hesitate to read too much into the presidential straw poll at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Memphis--but since everyone else is, this is how we see it: Bill Frist won with 36 percent, but in his home state that showing was merely adequate.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * We hesitate to read too much into the presidential straw poll at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Memphis--but since everyone else is, this is how we see it: Bill Frist won with 36 percent, but in his home state that showing...

The best way to cut Washington down to size would be to encourage the presidential ambitions of more members of Congress.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * The best way to cut Washington down to size would be to encourage the presidential ambitions of more members of Congress. In Memphis, the Los Angeles Times reported, the 2008 hopefuls "mostly echoed one another" as they "called for lower...

The Dubai ports controversy ended, with the United Arab Emirates-owned company succumbing to congressional browbeating and agreeing to sell its U.S. operations to an American entity.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * The Dubai ports controversy ended, with the United Arab Emirates-owned company succumbing to congressional browbeating and agreeing to sell its U.S. operations to an American entity. Politically, this issue was unrecoverable for Bush once...

Some liberals are encouraging the Catholic Church to defy the law.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Some liberals are encouraging the Catholic Church to defy the law. They claim that a Republican bill going through Congress will prohibit soup kitchens from serving illegal immigrants. Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles has announced that...

Looking for a reason to be gloomy about the economy? Really looking? New York Times economics reporter Louis Uchitelle has just the thing to get you frowning.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Looking for a reason to be gloomy about the economy? Really looking? New York Times economics reporter Louis Uchitelle has just the thing to get you frowning. He tries to debunk the idea that the economy has been creating about 200,000 new...

Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was handed a bombshell--and opportunity--right before that Tennessee straw poll: Catholic Charities in Boston announced that they would end their adoption work rather than continue it under a state law requiring them to place children with same-sex couples.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was handed a bombshell--and opportunity--right before that Tennessee straw poll: Catholic Charities in Boston announced that they would end their adoption work rather than continue it under a state law...

It was an anti-climactic end to the great Patriot Act debate.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * It was an anti-climactic end to the great Patriot Act debate. After all the heated rhetoric, opponents bowed to public will and voted for reauthorization in overwhelming numbers. The across-the-board renewal of all provisions that were...

Two more women's deaths have been linked to RU-486, the combination of two drugs used to induce abortion.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Two more women's deaths have been linked to RU-486, the combination of two drugs used to induce abortion. It may be that the fatalities are the result of the way Planned Parenthood clinics have been using the drugs rather than inherent...

"Islamic Prison Chaplain Accused of Hate Speech" is one of those headlines the newspapers should keep at the ready.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * "Islamic Prison Chaplain Accused of Hate Speech" is one of those headlines the newspapers should keep at the ready. The most recent case involves Umar Abdul-Jalil, who is head of Islamic chaplains in the New York City Department of...

Re-enter, James Baker.(Republicans)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... Known for a masterful touche (He handed Gore his head that day), Jim's reappearance at this point Implies a war so out of joint, The House Republicans sweat like Hans Brinker fingering that dike. If Baker pulls it off, I've got Stocks to run by...

Off the dole, ten years later.
April 10, 2006... A CENTRAL precept of free-market economics is that incentives matter. If you raise the minimum wage, employers will hire fewer workers. If you raise the tax on income, individuals will work less. In retrospect, some of the most "radical"...

The Bush administration issued a new National Security Strategy, a usefully chastened version of the 2002 document.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * The Bush administration issued a new National Security Strategy, a usefully chastened version of the 2002 document. The original strategy emphasized democracy promotion and the U.S. right to preempt emerging threats. The new version retains...

After years of delay, the intelligence community has begun sharing with the public the millions of files from the intelligence haul amassed in the War on Terror.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * After years of delay, the intelligence community has begun sharing with the public the millions of files from the intelligence haul amassed in the War on Terror. These include files from Saddam Hussein's regime. With scholars and analysts now...

Many Old Blues (and many Americans) want to know why Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the former Taliban spokesman with a fourth-grade education, is now an undergraduate at Yale. Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) wants to know how he got into the country.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Many Old Blues (and many Americans) want to know why Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the former Taliban spokesman with a fourth-grade education, is now an undergraduate at Yale. Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) wants to know how he got into the...

Abdul Rahman, 41, is on trial for his life in a Kabul court for the crime of converting to Christianity 16 years ago.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Abdul Rahman, 41, is on trial for his life in a Kabul court for the crime of converting to Christianity 16 years ago. When Rahman converted, he was working with Afghan refugees in Peshawar, Pakistan; he then moved to Germany before returning...

A new U.N. human-rights council has been created by a General Assembly vote of 170 to 4.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * A new U.N. human-rights council has been created by a General Assembly vote of 170 to 4. The U.S. was one of the four. How could it vote otherwise when the council fails to bar from membership even states under U.N. sanction for humanrights...

Sleaze is swamping Tony Blair and his Labour party.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Sleaze is swamping Tony Blair and his Labour party. During his tenure, one minister after another has had to resign over abuses of power and financial irregularities. Tessa Jowell, one of his most loyal ministers, saved her job only by...

They're rioting on the streets of Paris, and tear gas is the scent of the season.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * They're rioting on the streets of Paris, and tear gas is the scent of the season. Deja vu all over again, isn't it? Only a few weeks ago, the violence was countrywide, led by disaffected Arabs and Muslims. This time, the students are at it,...

They're rioting on the streets of Paris, and tear gas is the scent of the season.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * The Netherlands is blessed with an organization named the Institute of Multicultural Development, whose purpose, one must assume, is to advance the development of multiculturalism. To this end, the institute has sponsored a soccer match...

Last year the socialist government of Spain legalized samesex marriage and adoption.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Last year the socialist government of Spain legalized samesex marriage and adoption. The licensing authorities of that country have now brought their documents into line, replacing the words for "father" and "mother" on Spanish birth...

With the debut of HBO's new polygamy television drama, Big Love, it's getting tougher to laugh off the argument that same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy, polyamory, and ultimately to the replacement of marriage itself by an infinitely flexible partnership system.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * With the debut of HBO's new polygamy television drama, Big Love, it's getting tougher to laugh off the argument that same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy, polyamory, and ultimately to the replacement of marriage itself by an infinitely...

It's Frist!
April 10, 2006... The news from Memphis wasn't good. The doc did not, as winners should, Burst from the gates with nostrils flared: Touts in the stands routinely stared, Then left to sample tailgate fare. His gallop's slow; the old gray mare--But let's not get...

V for Vendetta, produced by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the brothers who gave us The Matrix, is, like that flick, a paranoid futurist thriller.(The Week)(Movie review)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * V for Vendetta, produced by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the brothers who gave us The Matrix, is, like that flick, a paranoid futurist thriller. Parsing its politics is like asking Hannity and Colmes to grill H. P. Lovecraft. Yet politics there...

With Sarandon playing Sheehan in that biopic, there is yet more reason to feel sad when you replay your mental DVD of Bull Durham.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * With Sarandon playing Sheehan in that biopic, there is yet more reason to feel sad when you replay your mental DVD of Bull Durham. What's next: Sean Penn as the Yale Taliban? Denzel Washington as Moussaoui? If that is far-fetched, it's only a...

"You'd scarce expect one of my age / To speak in public on the stage," began the traditional school declamation exercise.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * "You'd scarce expect one of my age / To speak in public on the stage," began the traditional school declamation exercise. Little Autum Ashante, seven years old, is well accustomed to public speaking, as she demonstrated when invited to...

The city of Calabasas, in southern California, has banned smoking outdoors.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * The city of Calabasas, in southern California, has banned smoking outdoors. The city's anti-smoking ordinance, the first of its kind in the nation, forbids smoking in city streets, parks, and playgrounds, and in the common areas of apartment...

Students of corporate law learn about the celebrated British case of Salomon v. Salomon & Co. (1897) in which a shoemaker successfully sued a corporation whose only shareholders were himself, his wife, and his children.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Students of corporate law learn about the celebrated British case of Salomon v. Salomon & Co. (1897) in which a shoemaker successfully sued a corporation whose only shareholders were himself, his wife, and his children. Well, here is a fellow...

Once upon a time the press was so proud of its skepticism.(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Once upon a time the press was so proud of its skepticism. That has gone out the window when it comes to anyone willing to speak ill of the U.S. military. Case in point: New York Times reporter Hassan M. Fattah, who on March 11 penned a...

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick ... Mike Wallace, 87, retired from 60 Minutes.(60 Minutes)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick... Mike Wallace, 87, retired from 60 Minutes. How long has it been? Wallace was with the show when it started in 1968, having been at CBS continuously since 1963, though he served an earlier stint that began in...

Slobodan Milosevic was one of the many monsters spawned by Communism.(The Week)(Obituary)(Brief article)
April 10, 2006... * Slobodan Milosevic was one of the many monsters spawned by Communism. Growing up in President Tito's Yugoslavia, he learned to follow the Party's one great rule: that the ends always justify the means. And the ends were the simple ones of...

Year three.(AT WAR)(Iraq War)
April 10, 2006... THE American-led invasion of Afghanistan was so quick and crushing--scarcely had R. W. Apple written the word "quagmire" than the Taliban fell--that many supporters of the Iraq War expected a similar sweep. American and British troops rolled up...

Fool's gold.(POLITICS)(Russ Feingold)
April 10, 2006... RUSS FEINGOLD has thrown down the gauntlet, and Republicans should be eager to pick it up. The Wisconsin senator wants to censure President Bush for the National Security Agency surveillance program. This should be the occasion for a...

Dear Mr. Buckley: November 16, my first visit to New York City.(notes & asides)
April 10, 2006... * Dear Mr. Buckley: November 16, my first visit to New York City. I landed at JFK around 1 P.M. and drove straight into Manhattan. First stop: NATIONAL REVIEW offices. Do you give tours? I sheepishly corrected the assumption that I am a...

Enforcement first.(Immigration policy)
April 10, 2006... IN December, the House of Representatives passed an immigration bill based on the principle of "enforcement first": There should be no amnesty or guest-worker program until real immigration enforcement is in place. The Senate Judiciary...

To stifle or to compete: that is the question of 527s.(POLITICS)(campaign finance)
April 10, 2006... IN June 2005, after the last financial-disclosure reports from the 2004 election had been filed and the final totals calculated, a group of Republican insiders gathered in a conference room at the National Republican Senatorial Committee's...

Bush is your soft drink: republicans 'distance' themselves at their peril.
April 10, 2006... GEORGE W. BUSH'S sagging approval ratings have been accompanied, not coincidentally, by an increasing amount of criticism from his allies in Congress. But while some Republicans have decided that it's time to declare independence from the White...

Every man's burden: will the Voting Rights Act be necessary ... forever?(POLITICS III)(Cover story)
April 10, 2006... 'THERE has been a transformation," said Democratic congressman John Lewis of Georgia four years ago. "It's a different state, it's a different political climate, it's a different political environment. It's altogether a different world we live...

The threat Saddam posed: a dictator and his WMD.
April 10, 2006... FOR almost three years, the anti-war protesters have kept up the drumbeat: "Bush lied and people died." Because weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were not found in Iraq, an endless stream of commentators continues to declare that Saddam Hussein...

'Isolationism!' They cried: mainstream journalists misunderstand conservatives (big surprise).(FOREIGN POLICY)
April 10, 2006... IT was a typical New York Times article. Among the themes: Iraq is a disaster; it's the neocons' fault; the GOP is flirting once more with its dark addiction to "isolationism"; proof that George W. Bush is growing in office can be found in his...

Terror on trial: thinking about shining path, and those like them.(THE WORLD)(Abimael Guzman Reynoso)(Biography)
April 10, 2006... EVERY so often, the world relearns the difficulty of trying a certain kind of monster in court. Nuremberg stands as the eternal example; some people still think they should have been lined up and shot. In The Hague the other day, Milosevic...

Get ready for Senator Bernie: a letter from Vermont.(THE 2006 ELECTIONS)(Bernard Sanders)
April 10, 2006... Burlington, Vt. BARACK OBAMA, who has become a U.S. senator, millionaire, best-selling author, and Grammy Award winner in just the last year, came to Vermont the other day for what the Burlington Free Press described as a "rock-star-like...

Help!!!!(Brief article)(Cartoon)
April 10, 2006... BADGER... VAIN, AGENDA DRIVEN, EGG-SUCKING PREDATOR APOLOGIST... HERDING ANIMALS, SMALL GROUPS CAN BE SPOTTED ON OPEN GROUND, MIGRATING TO THE LEFT OR MOVING IN CIRCLES, EXPLAINING TO EACH OTHER THAT "IT'S ALL OUR FAULT,...

The long view.(satire)
April 10, 2006... Wachtell & Zabel 300 Park Avenue New York, N.Y. IN RE: Resolution of side-agreement dispute between Clinton and Clinton Dear Mike: Many thanks for your prompt response to my letter of 9 March 2006. In that conversation,...

A better deal.(books, arts & manners)(In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State)(Book review)
April 10, 2006... In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, by Charles Murray (AEI, 222 pp., $20) IN the late 1980s, Charles Murray engaged in a thought experiment. He had already, in Losing Ground, proposed doing away with welfare on the theory...

A brutal constant.(books, arts & manners)(Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare)(Book review)
April 10, 2006... Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare, by Colin S. Gray (Cassell, 440 pp., $35.02) THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT has just issued its third Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), a congressionally mandated document laying out the assumptions that...

Seeking God's face.(SHELF LIFE)(God's Revolution: World Youth Day and Other Cologne Talks)(Book review)
April 10, 2006... CHERISHED ideas die hard. True, the favored image of the erstwhile Cardinal Ratzinger as a brutal Grand Inquisitor has not survived the first year of the pontificate of Benedict XVI--but a residual miasma of mainstream suspicion prevents the...

Getting America Right: The True Conservative Values Our Nation Needs Today.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 10, 2006... Getting America Right: The True Conservative Values Our Nation Needs Today, by Edwin J. Feulner and Doug Wilson (Crown Forum, 231 pp., $26.95) IT's a frustrating time for conservatives. Although Republicans have held the reins of the...

The capital burns.(FILM)(Thank You for Smoking)(Movie review)
April 10, 2006... WASHINGTON is Hollywood for ugly people, the saying goes, which is probably why it's so hard for Hollywood to get Washington quite right: The two cities are like fraternal twins, similar but not quite the same, and the devil always lurks in the...

On Fire.(Poem)
April 10, 2006... ON FIRE If all I'd ever seen in life Were the oaks on fire, their predawn Darkness suddenly into flame, Glowing leaves a testament To what the sun need not explain, Then like the ancient lawgiver Who brought...

The year that was.(THE STRAGGLER)(John Profumo)
April 10, 2006... NEWS of the death of Jack Profumo the other day had the same effect on me as the scent of a cookie famously had on one of Marcel Proust's characters. The years fell away, and I was, in imagination, back in the mother country at the time of the...

South Dakota's monkey wrench.(on the right)(abortion)
April 10, 2006... NEW YORK, MARCH 7 THERE is furtive glee in the eyes of such as Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. The reason for it is that she calculates that the effrontery of South Dakota's legislature will bring on massive...

Ports without a home.(on the right)(US ports and security)
April 10, 2006... NEW YORK, MARCH 10 ANALYSIS of the aborted ports deal begins and ends with political questions. Vin Weber, former congressman and now a lobbyist for the emirates, acknowledged that public pressure in the matter was "unprecedented" in his...

Milosevic cheats death.(on the right)
April 10, 2006... NEW YORK, MARCH 14 THE inside story: The date was October 15, 1946. The Nazi war criminals would be hanged the next day. It was an event so momentous that the president of United Press announced to his staff in New York City that he...

Tailor-made justice.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
April 24, 2006... Kudos to Jay Nordlinger for pointing out the parallels between Baathist/jihadist terrorists in Iraq and Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru ("Terror on Trial," April 10). Mr. Nordlinger mentioned that the first trial of Abimael...

Like father like son.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
April 24, 2006... I just finished reading The Week (April 10) and was struck by the paragraph on Spain's legalization of same-sex marriage last year. Like NR, I hail the archbishop who blasted his country for replacing "mother" and "father" on its birth...

An impossible deal.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
April 24, 2006... In the April 10 issue, Ramesh Ponnuru reviews Charles Murray's new book, In Our Hands ("A Better Deal"). The book's fascinating premise is this: If we were to eliminate the welfare state in toto, every citizen over the age of 21 could instead...

Political commentator/actress Sharon Stone: "I think Hillary Clinton is fantastic.(The Week)
April 24, 2006... Political commentator/actress Sharon Stone: "I think Hillary Clinton is fantastic. But I think it is too soon for her to run. This may sound odd, but a woman should be past her sexuality when she runs. Hillary still has sexual power, and I...

Congress is losing a man of principle.(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... Congress is losing a man of principle. Tom DeLay spent ten years in the House leadership, helping to win victories on welfare and tort reforms, the pro-life agenda, tax cuts, and defense. Those wins put notches on his belt--and a target on his...

For weeks, President Bush's congressional allies have grumbled that the White House is too insular, arrogant, and worn out to remedy what ails the GOP.(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... For weeks, President Bush's congressional allies have grumbled that the White House is too insular, arrogant, and worn out to remedy what ails the GOP. Bush has now made clear that he disagrees with his critics. If he had meant to replace...

The 2004 presidential campaign brought to light one of John Kerry's less attractive character traits, his habit of asking lesser mortals: "Do you know who I am?".(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... The 2004 presidential campaign brought to light one of John Kerry's less attractive character traits, his habit of asking lesser mortals: "Do you know who I am?" There seems to be a lot of this in the party of the common man. Most recently,...

We're old enough to recall a time when the GOP mainstream was against restricting campaign finance.(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... We're old enough to recall a time when the GOP mainstream was against restricting campaign finance. That was about four years ago. Republicans cried bloody murder over McCain-Feingold's regulations on broadcast ads that mention candidates...

The Senate has voted 90 to 8 to approve a lobbying-reform bill.(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... The Senate has voted 90 to 8 to approve a lobbying-reform bill. We're pleased to report that it's still illegal to defraud your clients of millions of dollars, as Jack Abramoff has admitted doing. Of course, it has always been illegal to do...

A lot of companies have not set aside enough money to pay for promised pensions, and the federal government is on the hook for a lot of the gap.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... A lot of companies have not set aside enough money to pay for promised pensions, and the federal government is on the hook for a lot of the gap. President Bush asked Congress to shore up the pension system, getting companies to increase their...

Mike Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, says that America needs illegal immigrants.(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... Mike Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, says that America needs illegal immigrants. He told a radio host: "You and I both play golf. Who takes care of the greens and the fairways in your golf course?" They don't call them country-club...

An old statute in Massachusetts keeps couples from coming to the commonwealth to get married in violation of their home states' laws.(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... An old statute in Massachusetts keeps couples from coming to the commonwealth to get married in violation of their home states' laws. The highest court in Massachusetts--the same court that rewrote the commonwealth's marriage laws--has...

An Unprintable Reaction.(Poem)
April 24, 2006... AN UNPRINTABLE REACTION When Jack and Condoleezza (that's The U.K.'s Jack Straw) both Turned up in bleeding Baghdad, one Tried to suppress an oath; But judging from their faces when This duo met the press, A...

Scientists have been able to take cells from the testes of mice and transform them into "pluripotent" stem cells--the same kind of stem cells that can be derived from embryos.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... Scientists have been able to take cells from the testes of mice and transform them into "pluripotent" stem cells--the same kind of stem cells that can be derived from embryos. Their work suggests that it may be possible to obtain the benefits...

When it comes to global warming, the mainstream media have never met a hysterical prediction of doom they didn't like.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... When it comes to global warming, the mainstream media have never met a hysterical prediction of doom they didn't like. Time magazine took the fear-mongering to a new low with a global-warming cover package complete with the banner "Be worried....

The U.N. Security Council has approved a resolution demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment within 30 days or else ... or else ... what?(The Week ...)(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... The U.N. Security Council has approved a resolution demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment within 30 days or else... or else... what? Russia and China succeeded in blocking any language that even hinted at consequences for...

Last fall French cities blazed with the light of burning cars.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... Last fall French cities blazed with the light of burning cars. This spring they are snarled by demonstrations against the First Job Contract law, a baby step by the government in the direction of freeing up the labor market. The two episodes of...

Columbia University held a two-day conference to discuss democracy with Libyan academics, culminating in a lecture by Moammar Qaddafi himself.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... Columbia University held a two-day conference to discuss democracy with Libyan academics, culminating in a lecture by Moammar Qaddafi himself. Among his illuminating revelations: "There is no state with a democracy except Libya on the whole...

What does the world need?(The Week ...)(nuclear energy)(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... What does the world need? Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, knows: At a recent summit of that group in Khartoum, he called on Arab states "to enter into the nuclear club and make use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes." We...

Abdul Rahman, the Afghan convert to Christianity who was not a poster child for interfaith dialogue in his native country, has been granted asylum in Italy.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... Abdul Rahman, the Afghan convert to Christianity who was not a poster child for interfaith dialogue in his native country, has been granted asylum in Italy. Rahman was on trial for apostasy, a crime under sharia law. After the United States and...

Nutty while black.(Cynthia McKinney)
April 24, 2006... AS you may have heard, Rep. Cynthia McKinney is once again speaking out and sounding moronic. Here's what happened, according to witnesses. McKinney failed to wear her congressional lapel pin. She barreled past the metal detectors at a House...

In other news from the region, Mr. Ibragim Ismatullayev, a farmer in the republic of Kyrgyzstan, was about to dispatch a rooster so he could put it in the pot for his dinner when the rooster suddenly crowed "Allah! Allah!".(The Week ...)
April 24, 2006... In other news from the region, Mr. Ibragim Ismatullayev, a farmer in the republic of Kyrgyzstan, was about to dispatch a rooster so he could put it in the pot for his dinner when the rooster suddenly crowed "Allah! Allah!" The rooster was...

Gripped by principle, four Christian peace activists traveled to Iraq to protest the war, up close and personal.(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... Gripped by principle, four Christian peace activists traveled to Iraq to protest the war, up close and personal. For their trouble, they were abducted last November and held hostage by a gang of terrorist thugs. Tom Fox, the only American among...

Jimmy Carter has charged President Bush with many shortcomings and crimes, but he recently came up with a new one--new to us, at least.(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... Jimmy Carter has charged President Bush with many shortcomings and crimes, but he recently came up with a new one--new to us, at least. Of our efforts in Iraq, he said, "It was an unjust war." That is a weighty charge: an unjust war. Unjust for...

The European Union may be hesitant over such issues as tyranny in Africa or China, and distracted about Iraq, Hamas, or Iran's nuclear program, but it is decidedly firm on the question of the pipes in church organs: These must be banned forthwith.(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... The European Union may be hesitant over such issues as tyranny in Africa or China, and distracted about Iraq, Hamas, or Iran's nuclear program, but it is decidedly firm on the question of the pipes in church organs: These must be banned...

Sometime around 1950, the clock stopped in the corner of the former Soviet Union known as Belarus.(Brief article)
April 24, 2006... Sometime around 1950, the clock stopped in the corner of the former Soviet Union known as Belarus. This chip off the Communist bloc is kept in a time warp by its boss, Aleksandr Lukashenko. A gloomy, balding man with a heavy moustache and a...