National Review articles from June 2007

National Review archives from June 2007

The federal trough.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
June 11, 2007... Ramesh Ponnuru's article ("Against the Porkbusters," May 28) abandons the principles of small government that this country was founded on in favor of a utilitarian argument that measures success by percentages. The Constitution does not...

Like a bread sandwich.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
June 11, 2007... I enjoyed the cover of the May 28 NATIONAL REVIEW. I did, however, notice a glaring error--your Proud Defeatocrat is feasting on a slice of pepperoni pizza. C'mon, guys--know your enemy! It should have been vegetarian (or vegan, though I don't...

Add "enforcing border security" to the list of jobs.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Add "enforcing border security" to the list of jobs Americans won't do.

Possibly next on the list.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Possibly next on the list: voting for John McCain.

The Democrats are still hard at work trying to lose the Iraq War.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... The Democrats are still hard at work trying to lose the Iraq War. The House passed a supplemental that would have split war funding into two parts, with the second chunk contingent on a vote in July. So al-Qaeda would have had an incentive to...

Even the Washington Post says that the Bush administration got suckered.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Even the Washington Post says that the Bush administration got suckered. It reached a deal with top congressional Democrats to require that trade agreements include strict regulations on environmental and labor issues. In return, the Democrats...

The Catholic Church teaches that legislators who deny the protection of the law to the unborn are committing a grave sin.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... The Catholic Church teaches that legislators who deny the protection of the law to the unborn are committing a grave sin. It further teaches that Catholics who obstinately persist in grave sins break the unity of the Church and should not...

"War czar" is too exalted a title for Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the Bush administration's new "assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan".(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... "War czar" is too exalted a title for Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the Bush administration's new "assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan." Lute will not assume overall command of military operations....

Democrats continue to demand habeas corpus rights for jihadists--or, rather, additional habeas corpus rights.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Democrats continue to demand habeas corpus rights for jihadists--or, rather, additional habeas corpus rights. The idea that Guantanamo Bay is a "legal black hole" from which detainees cannot challenge their detention is a fiction, no matter how...

Hot coals.
June 11, 2007... FOR those interested in increasing carbon taxes, a perfect storm has gathered. That storm combines three smaller storms. First, you have those concerned about global warming, who have been worked into a political frenzy by Al Gore and his...

Jimmy Carter said that "as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history".(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Jimmy Carter said that "as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." He was disturbed by Bush's "overt reversal of America's basic values." Bush's support for preemption, the...

To quit or not to quit Iraq, that is the question--and it will face Gordon Brown at the end of June when he succeeds Tony Blair as British prime minister.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... To quit or not to quit Iraq, that is the question--and it will face Gordon Brown at the end of June when he succeeds Tony Blair as British prime minister. For the first time in a decade, the Labour party is regularly behind in the polls, and...

Why did Paul Wolfowitz resign from the World Bank?(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Why did Paul Wolfowitz resign from the World Bank? If you think it had anything to do with a pay raise for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, you've been led astray by the astonishingly slanted mainstream-media coverage. Riza's deal was always a red...

It has been a mere four months since former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega became president, for the second time, of Nicaragua.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... It has been a mere four months since former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega became president, for the second time, of Nicaragua. Already he has pursued a policy of revanche, and gone about wronging old rights. Especially deplorable is his...

Life in Venezuela is going from bad to worse.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Life in Venezuela is going from bad to worse. Having recently seized the last of his country's private oil fields, Hugo Chavez is now moving in force against Venezuela's farmers. They have long had to contend with squatters who assemble on...

The Baath party of Syria nominated President Bashar Assad for a second seven-year term in office.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... The Baath party of Syria nominated President Bashar Assad for a second seven-year term in office. Syrians will go to the polls on May 27. As we go to press, Assad is unopposed. Will he top the 97 percent of the vote that he won in his first...

The Ft. Dix Affair.(The Week)(Poem)
June 11, 2007... THE FT. DIX AFFAIR Kindly note some entered at Brownsville. No one hollered "Scat!" Nor was there a fence back then, Some have Kosovo kinsmen (Are you still there, Harry Reid?); All were subsequently treed. ...

Taliban enforcers in northwestern Pakistan seized cassette players from cars and blew up stores that sold music, saying that such sensuous delights were against sharia law.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Taliban enforcers in northwestern Pakistan seized cassette players from cars and blew up stores that sold music, saying that such sensuous delights were against sharia law. (Also against the law: videos, beardless men, uncovered women, and...

Haleh Esfandiari, 67, is director of the Middle East Program at the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Haleh Esfandiari, 67, is director of the Middle East Program at the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She holds both American and Iranian citizenship. Late last year, she went to Iran to visit her...

The appointment of Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister of France calls for superlatives like "exceptional, incredible, original".(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... The appointment of Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister of France calls for superlatives like "exceptional, incredible, original." Nearing 70 now, Kouchner has led a full and rewarding life. A gastroenterologist by training, he was the moving...

A minion of Zimbabwe's regime will chair the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development.(The Week)(United Nations)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... A minion of Zimbabwe's regime will chair the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development. This is hardly shocking, but we are reminded of the U.N.'s brazenness. Is there any country less suited than Zimbabwe to champion the cause of...

Democrats recently announced that they were backing out of a Fox News-sponsored debate in Nevada.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Democrats recently announced that they were backing out of a Fox News-sponsored debate in Nevada. The reason? Fox's supposed conservative bias. The charge against the network was led by the so-called "netroots," the party's angry Internet base....

The University of Michigan has bestowed on Bill Clinton an honorary doctor-of-laws degree.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... The University of Michigan has bestowed on Bill Clinton an honorary doctor-of-laws degree. Remember that Clinton's Arkansas law license was suspended, and that he was prohibited from appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. But the ex-prez will...

There are countless things wrong and disgusting about our higher education, and one of them is that many universities bar the ROTC from their campuses.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... There are countless things wrong and disgusting about our higher education, and one of them is that many universities bar the ROTC from their campuses. President Bush addressed this the other day: "It should not be hard for our great schools of...

The Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are reuniting after a schism of 80 years.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... The Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are reuniting after a schism of 80 years. While the parent trunk of Orthodoxy made its peace with the Soviet Union, the Church Outside of Russia, headquartered in New...

Like it or not, former vice president Al Gore has become an elder statesman of the Left, elevated mostly by his regular displays of environmentalist piety, including his one-sided documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Like it or not, former vice president Al Gore has become an elder statesman of the Left, elevated mostly by his regular displays of environmentalist piety, including his one-sided documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. And he...

Michael Moore, slimmed down and looking fit as a Funyun, has premiered his newest piece of agitprop to adoring audiences at Cannes.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Michael Moore, slimmed down and looking fit as a Funyun, has premiered his newest piece of agitprop to adoring audiences at Cannes. Sicko, his documentary about the evils of American health care, involves a stunt that has made his movie famous,...

You may have noticed, on forms or posters, the "T" added to "LGB" (lesbian, gay, bisexual).(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... You may have noticed, on forms or posters, the "T" added to "LGB" (lesbian, gay, bisexual). "T" means transgendered: men in women's bodies, or vice versa, before or after corrective operations. "T" is often followed by "Q," questioning: still...

"When our two souls stand up erect and strong, / Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, / Until the lengthening wings break into fire
June 11, 2007... "When our two souls stand up erect and strong, / Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, / Until the lengthening wings break into fire / At either curved point, what bitter wrong / Can the earth do to us, that we should not long / Be...

It was a Saturday during the quietude of "reading period," the weeks that immediately precede Harvard's exam period, when at the Radcliffe Quadrangle a group of 60 people showed up, removed barriers protecting sod newly laid in preparation for commencement festivities, and began, air horns blaring, a raucous celebration that lasted the afternoon.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... It was a Saturday during the quietude of "reading period," the weeks that immediately precede Harvard's exam period, when at the Radcliffe Quadrangle a group of 60 people showed up, removed barriers protecting sod newly laid in preparation for...

The Washington Times celebrated its 25th birthday with a gala at the National Building Museum.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... The Washington Times celebrated its 25th birthday with a gala at the National Building Museum. The Times has been a lifejacket for Beltway conservatives, and an employer for Beltway conservative journalists, since the early Reagan years. But...

In 1979 the conservative political operative Paul Weyrich used the phrase "moral majority" in a conversation with a Southern Baptist minister in Lynchburg, Va.(The Week)(Obituary)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... In 1979 the conservative political operative Paul Weyrich used the phrase "moral majority" in a conversation with a Southern Baptist minister in Lynchburg, Va. The Rev. Jerry Falwell liked the phrase, and decided to mobilize (vociferously) the...

Defeat it.(PUBLIC POLICY)
June 11, 2007... WHAT makes "comprehensive immigration reform" comprehensive is that it would not only strengthen enforcement at the border and the workplace. It would also reduce the demand for illegal-immigrant labor by giving employers access to all the...

Back to tax and spend.(PUBLIC POLICY II)
June 11, 2007... WITHOUT much notice, the Democrats have passed a budget resolution that would allow most of the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of 2010. Allowing tax rates to snap back to their former levels would constitute the largest tax increase in...

Act two.(POLITICS)
June 11, 2007... THE second Republican presidential "debate"--it would be better described as a candidates' forum--was dominated by a dust-up between the front-runner and a minor candidate. Congressman Ron Paul, a libertarian, said that Osama bin Laden attacked...

Memo to GOP: get a grip; Reagan was right for his time, and someone else must be right for our own time.(2008)(Ronald Reagan)
June 11, 2007... ALL the stars are lined up for a horrible Republican defeat in 2008. You know the numbers as well as I. From almost the moment George W. Bush returned to office in 2005, a majority of Americans surveyed have said the country was on the...

Messin' with ballots: no matter what Democrats now say, voter fraud is real.(POLITICS)
June 11, 2007... ON April 15, a New York Times editorial declared that concerns about voter fraud--concerns that lay behind the Bush administration's firings of some U.S. attorneys--are a "fantasy." The Justice Department has investigated fraud allegations for...

Jamestown in the American eye: a colony and its commemorations.(THE NATION)(Jamestown, Virginia)(Viewpoint essay)
June 11, 2007... EVENTS larger than oneself sometimes jostle awake a feeling of awe--my heart atwitter, this must have been the cause, for little could seem as momentous as last month's celebration of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, Va., the oldest...

Branding cigs with 'R': Bogart, Dietrich, and other cinematic smokers would simply die.(CULTURE WATCH)(Humphrey Bogart)(Critical essay)
June 11, 2007... THERE's an old Hollywood story, which may or may not be true, about Humphrey Bogart. He was about to film an "explainer" scene--one of those dialogue-heavy set-pieces, where one character drones on for a page or two of crucial, but eyeglazing,...

Comprehensively awful: what President Bush and Senator Kennedy have wrought.(George W. Bush, Edward M. Kennedy)
June 11, 2007... ODD though it may seem to those following the debate on "comprehensive immigration reform," the most important element in the Senate bill is not whether it amounts to an amnesty for illegal immigrants. More important provisions are the number...

A singular issue: why abortion should doom Giuliani's campaign.(2008 II)(Rudy Giuliani, 2008 presidential campaign)
June 11, 2007... IN April, a reporter overheard Rudy Giuliani explaining his theory of the campaign: "that the other candidates would divide up the 'right-wing' voters, as he called them, leaving him to consolidate the moderates and the economic and military...

Iraq as it is ... and not as individuals might have it be.(AT WAR)
June 11, 2007... THERE are actually two countries between Iran and Syria. One is Iraq, a land caught between al-Qaeda terrorists and Iranian-supported Shiite extremists. Iraq is a country facing a complex set of challenges, run by imperfect leaders with various...

'Live it. Love it!' How Arab nations struggle not to 'lack behind'.(THE MIDDLE EAST)(World Economic Forum on the Middle East)
June 11, 2007... Dead Sea, Jordan KING ABDULLAH seems everywhere in this country, his kingdom, if only in pictures: His portrait hangs in grand buildings and humble shops; often it is accompanied by a portrait of his late father, King Hussein. The young...

Forty Junes ago: the Six Day War marked a terrible turn.(Viewpoint essay)
June 11, 2007... THE Six Day War that broke out on June 5, 1967, just 40 years ago, appeared at the time to be another episode in the ongoing Cold War, alarming but not quite so fraught as the Cuban Missile Crisis five years previously. Out of the blue that...

The long view.
June 11, 2007... Hola! Hello! Welcome to the new Immigration and Naturalization Telephone Customer-Care Center! Open seven days a week, 24 hours a day--just like the border itself! Welcome! We're pleased to be able to help you. Para espanol, oprima el...

No, never.(Help!!!!)(Poem)
June 11, 2007... NO, NEVER Was there ever such a Speaker? For that matter, who has seen-- Ever--such a Senate Leader? One returns to Halloween When black cats, unnerved in alleys, Give in to distressed meows. Get a grip on,...

In the tradition.(In Defense of the Bush Doctrine)(Book review)
June 11, 2007... In Defense of the Bush Doctrine, by Robert G. Kaufman (Kentucky, 264 pp., $35) WHEN he was elected president in 2000, George W. Bush gave every indication that he, like his father before him, was a conventional "realist" in foreign...

Useless meditation.(books, arts & manners)(Poem)
June 11, 2007... USELESS MEDITATION Because we are crass utilitarians all we accept & cherish Crusoe's daybook of accounts But what of Friday's inscrutable dark cry at the core of creation the fury & speech ...

Far from perfect.(The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering)(Book review)
June 11, 2007... The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering, by Michael J. Sandel (Harvard, 176 pp., $18.95) ADVERTISEMENTS offering $50,000 for Ivy League ova; an athlete running a three-minute mile; a deaf lesbian couple...

It has its reasons.(Modern Love: 50 True and Extraordinary Tales of Desire, Deceit, and Devotion)(Book review)
June 11, 2007... Modern Love: 50 True and Extraordinary Tales of Desire, Deceit, and Devotion, edited by Daniel Jones (Three Rivers, 400 pp., $14.95) ONE of my week's guilty pleasures is the "Modern Love" column appearing each Sunday in the New York Times...

Summer reading.(SHELF LIFE)
June 11, 2007... IT was already a bestseller before its appearance on bookstore shelves, but it would be a shame if Jesus of Nazareth (Doubleday, 374 pp., $24.95) ended up like a Stephen Hawking tome--more bought than read, and gathering dust on the coffee...

The Clinton Crack-Up: The Boy President's Life after the White House.(BOOKS IN BRIEF)(Book review)
June 11, 2007... The Clinton Crack-Up: The Boy President's Life After the White House, by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. (Thomas Nelson, 292 pp., $26.99) THE political attack book can be quite artful: So R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. has repeatedly proved, with his tomes...

Monster mush.(FILM)
June 11, 2007... The first Shrek movie kicked off to the strains of Smash Mouth's "All Star," the worst hit song of 1999; Shrek the Third, the latest and lousiest installment in the saga, includes a cover of Heart's "Barracuda" performed by Fergie, a...

The sea! The sea!(THE STRAGGLER)
June 11, 2007... ONE day some years ago I was arguing with a Viennese friend about poetry. Though a well-educated and cultivated person, my friend claimed not to "get" poetry. How could that be? I protested. Don't we all respond quite naturally to strongly...

Affording the dream.(on the right)
June 11, 2007... NEW YORK, MAY 4 THERE is one very undreamy constituent of the American dream, and that is the high cost of college education. The marketplace rule is that competition reduces prices. Well, the marketplace rule is hogwash when it comes...

The cozy "Fascist".
June 11, 2007... NEW YORK, MAY 8 SO Mr. Sarkozy plans a number of reforms in France. And his mandate is pretty impressive, 53-47. But nobody knows better than he that France is only by a tortuous use of language described as a working democracy. For...

Romney's moral thought.(on the right)
June 11, 2007... NEW YORK, MAY 11 THERE is pretty outspoken derision, on the hustings, on the matter of Mitt Romney and his evolved stand on abortion. In Iowa, which Governor Romney recently visited, a county chairman accosted a skeptic. What he said was...

Unmanageable.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... In the cover piece of April 30 ("A CEO for the USA?"), Richard Lowry calls Mitt Romney a proficient manager and CEO. That is precisely what worries informed conservatives. Management expertise is not what America needs from a president,...

Mitt's mitts.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... Thank you for your April 30 cover photo. It helped narrow the field for my primary vote. That little pointing-with-the-fingertip gesture of Mitt Romney's disqualifies him, in my book, as just another phony politician. Why do so many pols...

President Bush says critics of the immigration bill haven't read it.(The Week)(George W. Bush)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... President Bush says critics of the immigration bill haven't read it. Just imagine how angry they'll be when they do.

Fred Thompson got a step closer to entering the presidential primaries by forming an "exploratory committee.".(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... Fred Thompson got a step closer to entering the presidential primaries by forming an "exploratory committee." He has ardent fans--the polls have him in the top tier of the race he has not even entered--but there are off-the-record scoffers in...

We wouldn't have been surprised if God had struck down Rudy Giuliani at the New Hampshire GOP presidential debate for repeating the canard that pro-lifers want to throw women in jail.(The Week)(Republican Party)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... We wouldn't have been surprised if God had struck down Rudy Giuliani at the New Hampshire GOP presidential debate for repeating the canard that pro-lifers want to throw women in jail. Instead, a passing thunderstorm merely interfered with...

The Democrats held a presidential debate where they argued about whether it was better to have voted to authorize the Iraq War and now abjectly apologize for the vote (Edwards); to have never voted for the war (Obama); to have voted for the war and never apologized for it, while doing everything short of that to run from the vote and "George Bush's war" (Hillary).(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... The Democrats held a presidential debate where they argued about whether it was better to have voted to authorize the Iraq War and now abjectly apologize for the vote (Edwards); to have never voted for the war (Obama); to have voted for the war...

Hillary Clinton gave a speech decrying the ownership society as the "on your own" society (and, yes, she considers that a bad thing).(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... Hillary Clinton gave a speech decrying the ownership society as the "on your own" society (and, yes, she considers that a bad thing). She blamed Bush for everything from increasing income inequality to rising gas prices. As remedies, she...

At the recent Democratic debate, John Edwards mused, "I don't know if I know what a rich person is.".(The Week)(Critical essay)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... At the recent Democratic debate, John Edwards mused, "I don't know if I know what a rich person is." This is somewhat surprising coming from a candidate who has staked his presidential aspirations on an updated version of class warfare and has...

Barack Obama isn't promising health care with universal coverage, just a close approximation of it, but it's not for any lack of taxes and regulations in his plan.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... Barack Obama isn't promising health care with universal coverage, just a close approximation of it, but it's not for any lack of taxes and regulations in his plan. Along with a lot of Democrats, he claims that he can pay for part of the plan by...

Critique of pure unreason.(The Week)(The Assault on Reason by Al Gore)
June 25, 2007... I WAS initially looking forward to reading Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason. But after reading an excerpt from it in Time magazine and catching a few of his interviews, I decided there wasn't much of a point. I thought The Assault on...

We said it in March, when I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby became the only person convicted of any crime in the CIA-leak investigation, and we'll say it again now that he has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison: President Bush should pardon Libby, and do it now.(The Week)(George W. Bush)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... We said it in March, when I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby became the only person convicted of any crime in the CIA-leak investigation, and we'll say it again now that he has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison: President Bush should...

Paul Wolfowitz was an excellent--even an inspired--choice to lead the World Bank.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... Paul Wolfowitz was an excellent--even an inspiredl--choice to lead the World Bank. He is principled, insightful, and willing to take on entrenched interests. But a ridiculous "scandal" forced him out, and the entrenched interests celebrated....

With the president politically weak, one might have expected climate fearmongers finally to succeed in forcing Kyoto-style emissions caps on the U.S. Bravo to Bush, then, for making an end run around the whole Kyoto process.(The Week)(United States)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... With the president politically weak, one might have expected climate fearmongers finally to succeed in forcing Kyoto-style emissions caps on the U.S. Bravo to Bush, then, for making an end run around the whole Kyoto process. He announced plans...

"Compassionate conservatism" has not fared well as a presidential slogan.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... "Compassionate conservatism" has not fared well as a presidential slogan. But if it is to have one lasting and worthy legacy, it would be the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Begun in 2003, the program made America into the global...

The reason the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce is not to enable it to intrude into every nook and cranny of our national life, as modern jurisprudence holds, but rather to keep state governments from interfering with that commerce.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... The reason the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce is not to enable it to intrude into every nook and cranny of our national life, as modern jurisprudence holds, but rather to keep state governments from...

Obama's suggestion.(The Week)(Poem)
June 25, 2007... OBAMA'S SUGGESTION It's not a sunburst, quite. He says he saw the light Like Hillary back when She claimed the strength of ten-- Then laid an egg. Barack, Devoid of writer's block, Corns, and/or diarrhea, ...

In 1998, Lilly Ledbetter filed a pay-discrimination claim that was based largely on workplace events that occurred in the early 1980s.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... In 1998, Lilly Ledbetter filed a pay-discrimination claim that was based largely on workplace events that occurred in the early 1980s. Federal statute requires that such claims be filed in a more timely manner. Five justices of the Supreme...

The Justice Department is suing New York City's Fire Department.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... The Justice Department is suing New York City's Fire Department. The department is supposedly discriminating against blacks and Hispanics by requiring applicants to pass tests of reasoning and reading ability. The theory seems to be that...

Four Islamists from Trinidad and Guyana, one of them a naturalized American citizen, planned to blow up fuel-storage tanks at Kennedy Airport in New York City, and the underground fuel line that supplies them, causing, they hoped, mayhem in Queens and a body blow to the airline industry.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... Four Islamists from Trinidad and Guyana, one of them a naturalized American citizen, planned to blow up fuel-storage tanks at Kennedy Airport in New York City, and the underground fuel line that supplies them, causing, they hoped, mayhem in...

Occasionally one encounters evil so insensate, so black, that it bears down on one's soul with an almost physical weight.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... Occasionally one encounters evil so insensate, so black, that it bears down on one's soul with an almost physical weight. So it was, we suspect, for many people who saw the torture manual prepared by al-Qaeda in Iraq and obtained by U.S....

The words "Iran" and "hostage" evoke memories of 1979, but in truth the Khomeinists are still kidnapping minions of the Great Satan.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... The words "Iran" and "hostage" evoke memories of 1979, but in truth the Khomeinists are still kidnapping minions of the Great Satan. In recent weeks, four American citizens have been arrested by Iranian authorities for "spying," and a fifth has...

The Foundation for Democracy in Iran has put photos on the Internet, depicting life--or rather, death--in Tehran today.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... The Foundation for Democracy in Iran has put photos on the Internet, depicting life--or rather, death--in Tehran today. Some of the stormtroopers of the Islamist revolution were photographed descending on Molavi Street in the city district of...

Washington has plans to deploy interceptor missiles in Poland, and to build a radar station in the Czech Republic, as it happens on a site that once was an advanced Soviet base.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... Washington has plans to deploy interceptor missiles in Poland, and to build a radar station in the Czech Republic, as it happens on a site that once was an advanced Soviet base. The missiles are defensive, with the sole capacity of destroying...

President Bush announced that the U.S. was imposing new unilateral sanctions on 31 Sudanese businesses.(The Week)(George W. Bush, United States)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... President Bush announced that the U.S. was imposing new unilateral sanctions on 31 Sudanese businesses. The sanctions are meant to punish Sudan for the atrocities in Darfur, where government-backed forces continue to prosecute a genocide. The...

Before Hugo Chavez shut it down on May 27, Radio Caracas Television was one of Venezuela's few avenues for expressing dissatisfaction with the left-wing strongman.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... Before Hugo Chavez shut it down on May 27, Radio Caracas Television was one of Venezuela's few avenues for expressing dissatisfaction with the left-wing strongman. He apparently forgot that television is an opiate of the masses--not only did...

Beheading is an old practice, performed by all the best people.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... Beheading is an old practice, performed by all the best people. On June 1, Pope Benedict XVI approved recognition of martyrdom for an Austrian who was beheaded by the Nazis. (The man, Franz Jaegerstaetter, had refused to serve in Hitler's...

Syrian president Basher Assad won a second seven-year term in office, by winning 97 percent of the vote in last month's referendum.(The Weeek)(Brief article)
June 25, 2007... Syrian president Basher Assad won a second seven-year term in office, by winning 97 percent of the vote in last month's referendum. Assad's margin equaled his 97 percent sweep in 2000. "Assad kept his base," said U.S. News & World Report...