National Review articles from April 2009

National Review archives from April 2009

Girly from the start.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In "Governor Girly-Man" (March 9), Steven F. Hayward does a very fine job detailing California's recent budgetary history and the disappointing fiscal performance of Governor Schwarzenegger. However, I wish Hayward...

Movies with messages.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
April 6, 2009... Your piece on "the best conservative movies" (February 23) was cute. It was also a little silly. The whole idea of a "conservative movie" is a little silly. So is the idea of a "liberal movie." Sure, movies express ideas; and sure, the value...

Perhaps somebody should advise the suave diplomats in the Obama administration.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Perhaps somebody should advise the suave diplomats in the Obama administration that the most reassuring symbol of U.S.-Russia relations is not a big red button.

David Broder sounded the call, just before the spring peepers: "The Obama honeymoon is over.".(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... David Broder sounded the call, just before the spring peepers: "The Obama honeymoon is over." Other establishment commentators and pollsters--Howard Fineman, David Brooks, Douglas Schoen, Scott Rasmussen--have weighed in with similar judgments...

In his first weeks on the job as chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele has been a gaffe-production factory.(The Week)(Republican National Committee)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... In his first weeks on the job as chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele has been a gaffe-production factory. In the latest incident, he made garbled remarks on abortion that sounded pro-choice and then had to explain that he is still, as he has...

The Rush wars continue with a Newsweek cover story by David Frum ("Why Rush Is Wrong").(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... The Rush wars continue with a Newsweek cover story by David Frum ("Why Rush Is Wrong"). It is hard to jump into a bar fight when both contestants are old friends. Rush Limbaugh assumes special political stature when politicians themselves are...

Charles Freeman withdrew his name from consideration for the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council after being criticized, mostly for his ties to the Saudis and his support for China's crackdown on democracy activists in Tiananmen Square.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Charles Freeman withdrew his name from consideration for the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council after being criticized, mostly for his ties to the Saudis and his support for China's crackdown on democracy activists in Tiananmen...

On the matter of insurance giant AIG, President Obama has been milking two issues--employee bonuses and payments to foreign counterparties--but he is talking through his hat.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(American Insurance Group Inc.)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... On the matter of insurance giant AIG, President Obama has been milking two issues--employee bonuses and payments to foreign counterparties--but he is talking through his hat. AIG was contractually obliged to pay its bonuses; if Obama had wanted...

As usual, Congress failed to pass its annual appropriations bills on time.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... As usual, Congress failed to pass its annual appropriations bills on time. Instead, it rolled up all of its overdue work into what's known as an "omnibus spending bill." This one, a 1,130-page, $410 billion monstrosity, increased domestic...

Obama's new Math.(The Week)(President Barack Obama)
April 6, 2009... I SHARE this little cubby at the front of the magazine with an economist of national renown. He uses lots of charts and graphs, and when he adds up percentages, the sum actually comes to 100. So the last thing I want to do is poach on his...

Obama's budget director, Peter Orszag, said the administration might be open to taxing employer-provided health benefits.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Obama's budget director, Peter Orszag, said the administration might be open to taxing employer-provided health benefits. When John McCain proposed the idea last year, Obama denounced it in a series of ads as a middle-class tax increase. But...

Mexico threatened to impose new tariffs on American products in response to a move by Congress to block Mexican truckers at the border.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Mexico threatened to impose new tariffs on American products in response to a move by Congress to block Mexican truckers at the border. Obama is scrambling to find a solution that satisfies everyone, but trying to have it both ways on trade is...

While rescinding President Bush's stem-cell-research funding policies, President Obama congratulated himself for keeping politics out of science.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... While rescinding President Bush's stem-cell-research funding policies, President Obama congratulated himself for keeping politics out of science. The boast is empty. Obama did not lift all restrictions on human experimentation, and he spoke...

At his March 10 speech on education, Obama was not so bold as to take credit for inventing the Internet.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... At his March 10 speech on education, Obama was not so bold as to take credit for inventing the Internet, but he did claim that federal funding of science and engineering education "made possible somebody like a Sergei Brin to attend graduate...

Obama's wartime detention policy takes cynicism to new heights.(The Week)(President Barack Obama)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Obama's wartime detention policy takes cynicism to new heights. It is not a new policy; it is the Bush administration's old policy. There are some crumbs to satisfy those in Obama's hard-Left base who actually believed the hopey-change campaign...

During the campaign, then-Senator Obama ripped Bush's use of executive signing statements, issued upon the signing of legislation into law.(The Week)(President Barack Obama)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... During the campaign, then-Senator Obama ripped Bush's use of executive signing statements, issued upon the signing of legislation into law, as a brazen snub of Congress on the road to an imperial presidency. Now, in signing that omnibus...

For decades the Voting Rights Act has been read to forbid any changes to the borders of congressional districts that would "dilute" the political power of blacks and Hispanics.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... For decades the Voting Rights Act has been read to forbid any changes to the borders of congressional districts that would "dilute" the political power of blacks and Hispanics. The Supreme Court has just ruled that the act forbids such dilution...

Not many people get excited about "federal preemption," but what is at issue is how much of the national economy trial lawyers get to carve up.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Not many people get excited about "federal preemption," but what is at issue is how much of the national economy trial lawyers get to carve up. The Constitution limits federal power, but it also limits the power of state governments to...

With at least 3 percent of the population infected with HIV, possibly twice that number, AIDS stands at epidemic rates in Washington, D.C.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... With at least 3 percent of the population infected with HIV, possibly twice that number, AIDS stands at epidemic rates in Washington, D.C. The story is bleak, and it is familiar: Black men and men in their forties have the highest rates of...

China has enjoyed a surge of growth comparable to the biblical seven fat years, fueled largely by exports to the United States.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... China has enjoyed a surge of growth comparable to the biblical seven fat years, fueled largely by exports to the United States. It has plowed its savings back into U.S. Treasuries--a symbiosis nicknamed Chimerica. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao...

The first foreign-policy crisis of George W. Bush's presidency came in April 2001, when the Chinese forced down a U.S. surveillance plane.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... The first foreign-policy crisis of George W. Bush's presidency came in April 2001, when the Chinese forced down a U.S. surveillance plane. History seemed about to repeat itself on March 8, this time at sea. The unarmed U.S. Navy surveillance...

When British prime minister Gordon Brown called on Barack Obama.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... When British prime minister Gordon Brown called on Barack Obama, he brought rare and thoughtful gifts: a pen holder and a framed commission from Royal Navy ships used against the slave trade, and a first edition of Martin Gilbert's biography of...

France is rejoining NATO, Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy has announced.(The Week)(North Atlantic Treaty Organization)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... France is rejoining NATO, Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy has announced. He claims to be the heir of Gaullism, but General de Gaulle must be turning in his grave. He it was who in 1966 kicked Americans out of their bases in France and withdrew from the...

Two British soldiers stationed in Northern Ireland were members of a unit on the eve of being posted to Afghanistan.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Two British soldiers stationed in Northern Ireland were members of a unit on the eve of being posted to Afghanistan. Their kit was ready. For a last-minute party, they ordered pizzas. As they waited outside the barracks, gunmen opened fire,...

Obama has sent what the New York Times describes as a "secret letter" to Russian president Dmitri Medvedev.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Obama has sent what the New York Times describes as a "secret letter" to Russian president Dmitri Medvedev. Its not-so-secret contents threaten to undo several of the Bush administration's most significant gains in the area of missile defense....

There are few U.S. ambassadorships as important as the one in Iraq.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... There are few U.S. ambassadorships as important as the one in Iraq. And we have enjoyed in that post three highly qualified men: John Negroponte, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Ryan Crocker. President Obama has nominated an ambassador of his own:...

You know what the Obamites say about their predecessors, the George W. Bushies: They were a bunch of diplomatic blunderers, when they were deigning to try diplomacy at all.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... You know what the Obamites say about their predecessors, the George W. Bushies: They were a bunch of diplomatic blunderers, when they were deigning to try diplomacy at all. By contrast, they, the Obamites, are all understanding and smoothness....

Our great friends the Saudis have a way of setting the highest standards in cruelty.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Our great friends the Saudis have a way of setting the highest standards in cruelty. In the city of Jeddah, an unmarried woman of 23 was abducted and gang-raped. Finding that she was then pregnant, she desperately tried to have an abortion....

For years, people have feared that Pakistan is about to become a failed state.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... For years, people have feared that Pakistan is about to become a failed state. This latest crisis might indeed push it over the edge. What's happening is the kind of personalized test of strength that constitutes the political process in...

Back in 1985 the Hanshin Tigers, a Japanese baseball team, won their first Central League championship in 21 years.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Back in 1985 the Hanshin Tigers, a Japanese baseball team, won their first Central League championship in 21 years. In accordance with one of those incomprehensible Japanese traditions, ecstatic fans dressed as...

Our bathroom correspondent alerts us to the growing popularity in East Asia of the Modern Toilet restaurant chain.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Our bathroom correspondent alerts us to the growing popularity in East Asia of the Modern Toilet restaurant chain. In a Modern Toilet franchise, patrons sit on a tastefully decorated bathroom pedestal (lid down), eat from a miniature model of...

Adidas has been marketing a hat showing the hammer and sickle.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Adidas has been marketing a hat showing the hammer and sickle. How do they sell you the hat? They say, "Show your love for the former USSR during training time." Yeah, feel the burn, show your love--for a brutal system that killed tens of...

Through her 50 years on toy-store shelves, Barbie, the ectomorphic doll who goes Hollywood starlets one better by being made entirely of plastic.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Through her 50 years on toy-store shelves, Barbie, the ectomorphic doll who goes Hollywood starlets one better by being made entirely of plastic, has been a vehicle for girls to act out their fantasies--and for adults to project their...

Great hopes have been invested in President Obama, and those hopes can be a little creepy.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Great hopes have been invested in President Obama, and those hopes can be a little creepy. There is a bumper sticker that says, "One Nation Under Obama." There is also one that says, "Obama Saves." Is that second sticker meant to be tongue in...

It's an age-old story: A law is passed; bureaucrats devise a blizzard of rules to enforce it.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... It's an age-old story: A law is passed; bureaucrats devise a blizzard of rules to enforce it; lawyers and judges widen their scope; and citizens end up shying away from anything even remotely questionable for fear of a lawsuit. A New York City...

Ross Douthat, a former NR intern and our current film critic, was tapped to be an op-ed columnist for the New York Times.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Ross Douthat, a former NR intern and our current film critic, was tapped to be an op-ed columnist for the New York Times. Douthat has done many other things than write for us in his 29 years--senior editor of The Atlantic, blogger on their...

Ron Silver had a splendid career on screen (Reversal of Fortune, Enemies: A Love Story), on stage (Speed-the-Plow), and on TV (The West Wing).(The Week)(Obituary)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Ron Silver had a splendid career on screen (Reversal of Fortune, Enemies: A Love Story), on stage (Speed-the-Plow), and on TV (The West Wing). Then 9/11 changed the world. Silver was a rare actor who recognized it, and his recognition changed...

Schuyler Chapin was many things in life: Jascha Heifetz's tour manager, head of the Metropolitan Opera, dean of the Columbia School of the Arts, and so on.(The Week)(Obituary)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Schuyler Chapin was many things in life: Jascha Heifetz's tour manager, head of the Metropolitan Opera, dean of the Columbia School of the Arts, and so on. He was also a friend of WFB. They attended the same school, the Millbrook School, in...

Did NR, Inc., ever have a more cheerful employee than Jerry Garvey?(The Week)(Obituary)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Did NR, Inc., ever have a more cheerful employee than Jerry Garvey? Driver extraordinaire to Pat and Bill Buckley, various dogs, and countless human beings for over two decades, the retired New York City fireman had the noive needed to navigate...

Signs of life.(THE ECONOMY)(United States economic conditions)(Editorial)
April 6, 2009... HAS spring arrived? Stocks, especially bank stocks, are up. The velocity of money, which dropped calamitously during the financial panic of the fall, continues to pick up. The Fed's loose money is having its expected stimulative effect on the...

Diplomacy by bumper sticker: the Obama administration should reset its Russia policy.(Barack Obama)
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LESS than two months after his inauguration, President Obama's Russia policy has gone badly awry. His errors bode poorly for important American interests challenged by Russia, but there are broader implications as...

University aid: it is education bureaucrats, not students, who will profit from the president's proposals.(Barack Obama)
April 6, 2009... AMERICA'S higher-education lobby has enjoyed spectacular success over the past three decades. By zealously marketing their degrees as indispensable to employment and a ticket to personal fulfillment, universities have convinced millions of...

Bush's India triumph: an overlooked achievement.(George W. Bush)
April 6, 2009... SHORTLY before George W. Bush left office, Harvard historian Sugata Bose told me that strengthening U.S. relations with India "may turn out to be the most significant foreign-policy achievement of the Bush administration." It is an achievement...

Eastern exposure: the economic downturn will be much worse for China than for America.
April 6, 2009... WHEN JIABAO was confident, even smug, at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year. The Chinese premier relished criticizing America's "unsustainable model of development" and touting his own country's prospects. He was not alone in his...

Black and white and dead all over: the decline of newspapers--and what it portends for conservatives.
April 6, 2009... THE American Society of Newspaper Editors canceled its April convention, explaining that "the challenges editors face at their newspapers demand their full attention." It seems likely that the event would have proven gloomy. One imagines wooden...

Democrats and businessmen, sitting in a tree ... big corporations love free enterprise, as long as it isn't too free.
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Big business is lining up to support President-elect Obama's plan to stimulate the economy with the biggest spending spree on roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects since the Eisenhower administration. ...

Media realism: how the GOP should handle increasingly biased journalists.(Republican Party)
April 6, 2009... OVER the past few months, a steady stream of journalists from mainstream-media outlets--at least eight, led by Time Washington-bureau chief Jay Carney--have abandoned journalism for positions in the Obama administration or with congressional...

Out of the freezer: at last, some questions on in vitro fertilization.
April 6, 2009... LOUISE BROWN, the world's first "test tube baby," was born in 1978, ten years to the day after Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae. It was a resonant coincidence. The papal encyclical is best known for reaffirming the classical Christian...

'The war that has to be won': but will our soldiers be given the chance to win it?(United States foreign military relations)
April 6, 2009... IN Afghanistan, President Obama has pledged to "wage the war that has to be won." To accomplish that, the administration will unveil a new strategy in April. Recently the doughty Sen. Joseph Lieberman published an op-ed in the Wall Street...

The long view.
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] TO: nancy.pelosi@houserep.gov FROM: staffer@speakersoffice.gov RE: AIG bonuses pushback Madam Speaker: Need to arrange a conference call soon about the new AIG employee-bonus controversy. We're getting...

The truth of Chile.(Books, Arts & Manners)(Biography)
April 6, 2009... ONE of the most unfortunate aspects of American book publishing is the extremely limited scope it provides for works translated from foreign languages. We speak here not just of Chinese, Arabic, or Afrikaans, but of a tongue far closer to us in...

Golden idyll.(Books, Arts & Manners)(Wind in the Willows)(Critical essay)
April 6, 2009... WHEN Charles Scribner was shown a copy of the manuscript that would become The Wind in the Willows, he experienced a sense of profound disappointment. This wasn't at all, he felt, what American readers would want from Kenneth Grahame, the noted...

Take five.(Music)(concerts)(Concert review)
April 6, 2009... THE big musicians, most of them, blow through New York. And, usually, they come with records--CDs, recordings-sometimes signing them after the performance. We'll examine five recent performances, and CDs, to boot. Lang Lang, the young...

Shelf life.(The Wine of Certitude: A Literary Biography of Ronald Knox)(Book review)
April 6, 2009... ONE of Chesterton's most frequently quoted jokes was his answer to the question, Which book would you most want to have on a desert island? He said, "Thomas's Guide to Practical Shipbuilding"--and there was much of his personality in the...

From Sonnets from the Dark Lady.(Poem)
April 6, 2009... FROM SONNETS FROM THE DARK LADY 24. "The more I hear and see just cause of hate..." The more I hear and see just cause of hate Within this wanting world, the more I see Just cause to warranty at bargain rate My...

Who will watch them?(Film)(Watchmen)(Movie review)
April 6, 2009... I'M not sure whether to be glad or sorry that I buckled down and read Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen, the mid-1980s graphic novel that looms over the genre like the Colossus over Rhodes, before I saw the movie. I'm glad because I went...

Shooting like a gentleman.(The Straggler)(bird shooting)
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE luckiest bird in the world lives in a wood near Reading, Pa. He popped up out of the tall grass 30 yards in front of me. "Popped" isn't quite right. These were farm-bred pheasants, well-fed and not much keen on...

Keeping the peace.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
April 20, 2009... In the April 6 issue's "The Week," you ran a paragraph about the recent attacks on soldiers and policemen in Northern Ireland. The piece unfairly and incorrectly stated that the "Troubles" have never really ended. True, tensions still exist...

The reality is much worse.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
April 20, 2009... In the March 9 issue I read "The Long View," by Rob Long, which consisted of excerpts from the unread parts of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Was this a joke or a serious article? I was appalled at what I read and wanted to find...

Correction.(Letters)(Correction notice)
April 20, 2009... In "Democrats and Businessmen, Sitting in a Tree..." (April 6), Jonah Goldberg stated that GE had spent $20 billion on lobbying in 2008. The correct figure is $20 million.

Carter-era Fiat.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * Carter-era Fiat: Fix It Again, Tony. Obama-era Fiat: Fix It Again, Taxpayers.

"What's good for the country is good for General Motors," Charles Wilson, the company's president in the 1940s and early 1950s, is supposed to have said.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * "What's good for the country is good for General Motors," Charles Wilson, the company's president in the 1940s and early 1950s, is supposed to have said. But it was not until TARP that General Motors and the country were fused, as GM and...

The special election in New York's 20th congressional district, for a seat vacated by newly appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, won't be decided for a while.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * The special election in New York's 20th congressional district, for a seat vacated by newly appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, won't be decided for a while. Democrat Scott Murphy had a 65-vote edge over Republican Jim Tedisco, but 6,000...

First, the House passed a 90 percent tax targeted at AIG bonuses.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * First, the House passed a 90 percent tax targeted at AIG bonuses. Obama was right to resist that mob maneuver, which has faded. Now, Rep. Barney Frank is attempting an even bigger power play: Recently introduced legislation would give...

The president continues to say that he wants Congress to enact a cap on carbon emissions this year.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * The president continues to say that he wants Congress to enact a cap on carbon emissions this year. But the Senate looks less and less likely to give him what he wants. In part, that is because the Democratic majority includes many lawmakers...

We once called Arlen Specter "the worst Republican senator.".(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * We once called Arlen Specter "the worst Republican senator." We're still not fans, but we did breathe a sigh of relief when the "moderate" senator decided he'd vote against the Employee Free Choice Act--denying Democrats the 60 votes they'd...

The Social Security surplus has vanished, not that anyone has noticed.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * The Social Security surplus has vanished, not that anyone has noticed. In February, the program paid out more in benefits than it received in payroll taxes. When the economy recovers, a surplus may reappear temporarily. But the decades of...

Everyone knows that the Catholic Church opposes abortion, but the basis and implications of its teaching are surprisingly unfamiliar to many people and even many Catholics.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * Everyone knows that the Catholic Church opposes abortion, but the basis and implications of its teaching are surprisingly unfamiliar to many people and even many Catholics. They see that the Church considers abortion immoral but not that it...

House Republicans stumbled into a PR disaster when they rushed out a half-baked budget blueprint in response to the Obama administration's taunts that they were the "Party of No.".(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * House Republicans stumbled into a PR disaster when they rushed out a half-baked budget blueprint in response to the Obama administration's taunts that they were the "Party of No." The 19-page document contained no numbers or deficit...

Overstimulated.(The Week)(global economic crisis)
April 20, 2009... THE radicalism of the Obama administration has startled even European lefties. Writing in the Guardian, Jonathan Freedland remarked on the spectacle: "[Obama] and Brown stand together, supposedly the representatives of Anglo-American...

George Bush saw an "axis of evil": America confronted by a trio of rogue nations.(The Week)(Harold Hongju Koh)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * George Bush saw an "axis of evil": America confronted by a trio of rogue nations. Now, Barack Obama gives us the "axis of disobedience": America as part of a rogue trio--with Saddam Hussein's terrorist regime and Communist North Korea. That's...

Though reputed to be extremely bright, Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) has made a fool of himself in attacking Justice Antonin Scalia as "homophobic.".(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * Though reputed to be extremely bright, Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) has made a fool of himself in attacking Justice Antonin Scalia as "homophobic." Representative Frank maintained that he was not just hurling epithets at his opponents:...

At a news conference held by retired admiral Dennis Blair, our new director of national intelligence, the issue of terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay came up.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * At a news conference held by retired admiral Dennis Blair, our new director of national intelligence, the issue of terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay came up. What's the administration going to do with them? the DNI was asked. He replied,...

The first to go was "enemy combatants.".(The Week)(Barack Obama on the war on terrorism)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * The first to go was "enemy combatants." The Obama administration eliminated that term and made sure that everybody knew; after all, Americans don't want "enemy combatants" released into their neighborhoods, as will soon be done with some of...

According to Obama administration lawyers, the McCain- Feingold campaign-finance law empowers the federal government to censor books and films if their content and funding do not conform to its stipulations.(The Week)(John McCain and Russ Feingold)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * According to Obama administration lawyers, the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law empowers the federal government to censor books and films if their content and funding do not conform to its stipulations. At issue is a film called Hillary:...

New Hampshire, which already has civil unions for same-sex couples, is considering treating such couples as though they were married.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * New Hampshire, which already has civil unions for same-sex couples, is considering treating such couples as though they were married. The Democratic governor, John Lynch, has said he may veto a same-sex-marriage bill. We hope that it does not...

New York governor David Paterson and the state legislature have agreed to undo the last vestiges of the Rockefeller drug laws: 1970s legislation that imposed draconian penalties on drug offenders.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * New York governor David Paterson and the state legislature have agreed to undo the last vestiges of the Rockefeller drug laws: 1970s legislation that imposed draconian penalties on drug offenders. The tough penalties went by the wayside five...

The trial of abortionist George Tiller resulted in no conviction, but it did serve to remind any who needed reminding of the seediness of the abortion racket.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * The trial of abortionist George Tiller resulted in no conviction, but it did serve to remind any who needed reminding of the seediness of the abortion racket. Tiller, who performs late-term abortions that kill viable babies, is required by...

Bill "We Didn't Do Enough" Ayers was invited to speak at Boston College by two student groups (one of them was the College Democrats), but after talk-radio host Michael Graham kicked up a fuss, BC administrators cancelled the event, "out of concern for the safety and well being of our students.".(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * Bill "We Didn't Do Enough" Ayers was invited to speak at Boston College by two student groups (one of them was the College Democrats), but after talk-radio host Michael Graham kicked up a fuss, BC administrators cancelled the event, "out of...

Mickey Kaus, sprightly e-pundit, posts a thread from JournoList, the secret online barbershop where liberal pundits share story ideas, but so much more.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * Mickey Kaus, sprightly e-pundit, posts a thread from JournoList, the secret online barbershop where liberal pundits share story ideas, but so much more. How much more? Well, the thread--called "Breaking: Marty Peretz is a crazy-a**...

In Mexico, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke of America's "shared responsibility" for the horrific drug violence now plaguing that nation: "We know very well that the drug traffickers are motivated by the demand for illegal drugs in the United States, that they are armed by the transport of weapons from the United States.".(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * In Mexico, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke of America's "shared responsibility" for the horrific drug violence now plaguing that nation: "We know very well that the drug traffickers are motivated by the demand for illegal drugs in...

Clinton also visited the basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, where she was given a special up-close viewing of the cloak on which Catholics believe that an image of the Virgin Mary was miraculously imprinted almost 500 years ago.(The Week)(Hillary Clinton)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * Clinton also visited the basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, where she was given a special up-close viewing of the cloak on which Catholics believe that an image of the Virgin Mary was miraculously imprinted almost 500 years ago. Said Mrs....

Daniel Hannan is one of a number of conspicuously bright young Conservatives in Britain.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... * Daniel Hannan is one of a number of conspicuously bright young Conservatives in Britain. He happens to be a member of the European Parliament in Brussels, a splendid irony as he is a preeminent critic of the whole European project and deploys...

Watch the skies over the Pacific these days and you are likely to see an intercontinental missile with a range of 6,000 miles winging from North Korea over Japan and towards Hawaii.(The Week)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... Watch the skies over the Pacific these days and you are likely to see an intercontinental missile with a range of 6,000 miles winging from North Korea over Japan and towards Hawaii. Satellite photos have confirmed that this missile has been on...