National Review articles from May 2009

National Review archives from May 2009

We're warning you.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 4, 2009... In "The Week" (April 6), the Editors take issue with the Supreme Court's ruling in Wyeth v. Levine. The Court held that when a drug harms a patient, the patient can sue in a state court, even if the drug's maker followed the Food and Drug...

Bo joins the ranks of famous White House hounds.(The Week)
May 4, 2009... Bo joins the ranks of famous White House hounds: Barney, Checkers, Bill...

Three Somali pirates found out the hard way that the most dangerous thing in the water is a seal: Navy special-operations sharpshooters killed three of the four brigands who had hijacked the Maersk Alabama and held its captain hostage.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Three Somali pirates found out the hard way that the most dangerous thing in the water is a SEAL: Navy special-operations sharpshooters killed three of the four brigands who had hijacked the Maersk Alabama and held its captain hostage. A fourth...

President Obama tacked a surprise trip to Iraq on the end of his foreign tour.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... President Obama tacked a surprise trip to Iraq on the end of his foreign tour. He was mobbed by star-struck soldiers, which made for stirring images. More important, Obama forthrightly acknowledged what has been accomplished in the war, hailing...

Obama bowed before the Saudi king Abdullah--bowed literally, and obsequiously.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Obama bowed before the Saudi king Abdullah--bowed literally, and obsequiously. The Arab world took notice: Supporters of the dictatorial status quo openly applauded, while would-be reformers murmured, as loudly as was safe. Saudi Arabia is an...

Isn't Obama a little young to be so overcome with regret?(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Isn't Obama a little young to be so overcome with regret? On his world tour, the president pronounced himself sorry about American "arrogance" and our national failure to consult adequately with the Danes and Finns before acting in our national...

No new president has elicited such different reactions from Republicans and Democrats.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... No new president has elicited such different reactions from Republicans and Democrats. The partisan gap in presidential approval is at record levels for this stage of a term. Republicans are chortling that President Obama has failed to fulfill...

The Obama administration's unattractive habit of taking frequent potshots at George W. Bush took a turn for the absurd when Vice President Joe Biden tried to portray himself as an unheeded adviser to the former president.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... The Obama administration's unattractive habit of taking frequent potshots at George W. Bush took a turn for the absurd when Vice President Joe Biden tried to portray himself as an unheeded adviser to the former president. Biden told a CNN...

Sen. Chuck Schumer recently said: "The world has changed.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Sen. Chuck Schumer recently said: "The world has changed. The old Reagan philosophy that served them well politically from 1980 to about 2004 and 2006 is over. But the hard Right, which still believes when the federal government moves chop off...

On April 7, a federal judge overturned the conviction of former Republican senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, citing prosecutorial misconduct.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... On April 7, a federal judge overturned the conviction of former Republican senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, citing prosecutorial misconduct. Six Department of Justice lawyers now face a well-deserved probe into their own actions, which may have...

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is the skeleton at the feast.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is the skeleton at the feast. The budgetary problem for practically every other member of Obama's cabinet is how to spend an unprecedented bonanza quickly enough. For Gates, it is how to make do with less--at a...

Is President Obama really committed to pushing for an amnesty and a guest-worker program in the middle of a recession, when resistance is likely to be at its peak, business isn't hiring, and illegal immigrants are leaving the country on their own?(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Is President Obama really committed to pushing for an amnesty and a guest-worker program in the middle of a recession, when resistance is likely to be at its peak, business isn't hiring, and illegal immigrants are leaving the country on their...

Congress is considering whether health-care reform should include a "public option" that would allow all Americans to sign up for government-provided insurance.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Congress is considering whether health-care reform should include a "public option" that would allow all Americans to sign up for government-provided insurance. Proponents of this idea cite the low administrative costs of Medicare and Medicaid....

President Obama hopes to stabilize the U.S. housing market, and thereby the broader economy, by helping struggling homeowners renegotiate their mortgages on more favorable terms.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... President Obama hopes to stabilize the U.S. housing market, and thereby the broader economy, by helping struggling homeowners renegotiate their mortgages on more favorable terms. ("Helping" here means coercing the banks to go along with it.)...

In 2008, the Supreme Court manufactured a constitutional right for enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay to challenge their detention in court.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... In 2008, the Supreme Court manufactured a constitutional right for enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay to challenge their detention in court. Critics warned that once the Court abandoned the boundaries of the U.S. as the outer limit of judicial...

At an Ohio State University law symposium, liberal Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg defended the practice of citing foreign law in U.S. court decisions.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... At an Ohio State University law symposium, liberal Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg defended the practice of citing foreign law in U.S. court decisions. Her argument sounded innocent enough: U.S. courts are not bound by foreign law,...

The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel recently released a report finding that it's unconstitutional to give congressional representation to the District of Columbia.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel recently released a report finding that it's unconstitutional to give congressional representation to the District of Columbia. This conclusion is of course correct, and fairly obvious....

Last year, Obama indicated a willingness to approach school choice with an open mind: "Let's see if the experiment works," he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Last year, Obama indicated a willingness to approach school choice with an open mind: "Let's see if the experiment works," he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. On April 3, Obama's Department of Education released new findings on the D.C....

New York governor David Paterson's plan to raise taxes on high earners led Rush Limbaugh to declare his intention to abandon the state.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... New York governor David Paterson's plan to raise taxes on high earners led Rush Limbaugh to declare his intention to abandon the state. (Limbaugh maintains a residence in New York City, where he occasionally works.) Paterson said he was happy...

Which is not to say that Texas politics is free of anti-market folly.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Which is not to say that Texas politics is free of anti-market folly. The interior designers' lobby has been on a decades-long campaign to require licenses for their profession--i.e., to organize themselves into a state-sanctioned cartel with...

Romancing the state.(The Week)
May 4, 2009... FURTHER on in these pages I've offered a modest meditation on Albert Jay Nock. In the course of my research, I looked up Nock's obituary in the New York Times. He died on Aug. 19, 1945, and the Timesran its remembrance of him the next day...

Kim Jong Il, the mini-Mao of North Korea, is very pleased that his scientists and technicians "with their own wisdom and technology" have successfully developed and fired a three-stage missile.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Kim Jong Il, the mini-Mao of North Korea, is very pleased that his scientists and technicians "with their own wisdom and technology" have successfully developed and fired a three-stage missile. And well he might be. The missile flew over Japan...

For years, the U.N. Human Rights Commission was dominated by the worst human-rights offenders in the world: China, Cuba, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia--everybody.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... For years, the U.N. Human Rights Commission was dominated by the worst human-rights offenders in the world: China, Cuba, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia--everybody. They spent most of their time condemning Israel, which is probably the favorite...

Black American political figures have long had a romance with Fidel Castro and the Communist dictatorship on Cuba.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Black American political figures have long had a romance with Fidel Castro and the Communist dictatorship on Cuba. There are reasons for this, but no excuses. In 1960, when Castro visited the U.N. in New York, he showily decamped from a plush...

Pakistan has its own version of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and it is all too successful.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Pakistan has its own version of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and it is all too successful. In the Swat Valley, only a couple of hours by car from the capital, these Islamists have been taking power, beheading local officials, and closing...

A crackdown on tax havens was on the agenda of the recent G20 meeting.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... A crackdown on tax havens was on the agenda of the recent G20 meeting. French president Nicolas Sarkozy believes that the financial crisis justifies action on this front, even though tax havens have had zilch to do with the present financial...

The Pet Shop Boys, a British pop-music duo, were recently approached by PETA, the animal-rights organization.(The Week)(People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals urges band to change name to Rescue Shelter Boys)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... The Pet Shop Boys, a British pop-music duo, were recently approached by PETA, the animal-rights organization. Pet shops, whined the activists, represent the commercialization of animal suffering. Pop-music fans should rather be encouraged to...

Automobile license plates in Saudi Arabia carry three letters of the Arabic alphabet and three numbers.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Automobile license plates in Saudi Arabia carry three letters of the Arabic alphabet and three numbers. There has been a recent fashion for adding the Latin-alphabet equivalent of the Arabic letters. Some bold spirits have gotten themselves...

The Poznan Zoo, in western Poland, has a problem.(The Week)(sexual behavior of elephant in zoo)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... The Poznan Zoo, in western Poland, has a problem. Alocal parliamentarian, Michael Grzes, complains: "We didn't pay 37 million zlotys [$11.4 million] for the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there." Zookeepers had...

The New York Times editorial board is a great champion of organized labor.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... The New York Times editorial board is a great champion of organized labor. Lately, the board has forcefully advocated the Employee Free Choice Act, a law that would achieve the opposite of its name by allowing union organizers to dispense with...

A Colorado jury recently found that Ward Churchill, a tenured professor at the University of Colorado, had been improperly fired.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... A Colorado jury recently found that Ward Churchill, a tenured professor at the University of Colorado, had been improperly fired. Churchill sparked a nationwide controversy with his remarks after 9/11: specifically those in an essay, "Some...

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.".(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." Thus the opening sentence of a new bestseller by Los Angeles novelist Seth Grahame-Smith. With blithe disrespect for a great literary...

What do you give to the person who has everything--really everything, including several palaces, a large stable of racehorses, an art collection worth billions, and a jewelry collection no one has even attempted to value?(The Week)(Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... What do you give to the person who has everything--really everything, including several palaces, a large stable of racehorses, an art collection worth billions, and a jewelry collection no one has even attempted to value? This is Her Britannic...

The greatest service President Obama has rendered the nation thus far came when he hired the actor Kal Penn as associate director of the White House Office of Public Liaison.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... The greatest service President Obama has rendered the nation thus far came when he hired the actor Kal Penn as associate director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. No more Harold and Kumar movies! Let joy be unconfined. Penn, who is...

Madonna is the pop star known as "the Material Girl.".(The Week)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Madonna is the pop star known as "the Material Girl." But she has other values than materialism. She has two biological children and one son adopted from Malawi. She has sought to adopt a second child from Malawi--not a spanking-new infant but...

Marriage and civilization.(PUBLIC POLICY)(same-sex marriage)
May 4, 2009... ONE of the great coups of the movement for same-sex marriage has been to plant the premise that it represents the inevitable future. This sense has inhibited even some who accept that marriage is by nature the union of a man and a woman. They...

The innocent abroad.(FOREIGN POLICY)(G-20 Summit)
May 4, 2009... DURING a busy week overseas, President Obama attended three major summits--of the G20 industrial countries, NATO, and the European Union--and met with the leaders of Russia, China, India, Turkey, and the main European nations. On a personal...

The cost of audacity: Obamanomics means less growth.(economic and health policy)
May 4, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ADDRESSING Congress in February, President Obama argued that the recession was no reason to hold off on his signature initiatives. It was, instead, all the more reason to act on them. "The fact is, our economy...

Laissez-faire is French: there is much that's right in Europe's thinking on the financial crisis.
May 4, 2009... PRES. NICOLAS SARKOZY desires to create a new global finance cop, or gendarme--is enforcer would speak with a Continental accent. At the G20 summit, Sarkozy even threatened to walk out over this demand. American conservatives, jealous of...

A recession's import: the economic troubles were not made in America.
May 4, 2009... MUCH unnecessary confusion arises from using such phrases as "housing crisis" and "financial crisis" to mean "recession." That confusion is compounded by wrongly equating the phrase "financial crisis" with the alleged contraction of bank...

Social security myths: they are vanishing along with the surplus.
May 4, 2009... 'WHEN something is unsustainable," so goes the aphorism, "it tends to stop." Usually invoked about tangible phenomena, the old saw is equally true about unsustainable arguments. If a conception is unsustainable in the face of overwhelming...

Budget defense: President Obama proposes to spend dangerously little on the military.
May 4, 2009... BY any measure, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has had a long honeymoon, but it may be coming to an end. The new Pentagon budget was released on Monday of Easter Week, when Congress was dispersed about the country for the recess. Gates may...

Global kohordinates: meet the radical transnationalist preparing to take up residency at state.(Harold Hongju Koh)
May 4, 2009... PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH ordered a robust government-wide response to the 9/11 attacks, and did so fortified by an authorization for the use of military force approved overwhelmingly by the American people's elected representatives in both houses...

Cruz control: a Republican star rises in Texas.(Texas attorney Ted Cruz)
May 4, 2009... FOLLOWING two brutal election cycles, Republicans are adrift and nearly everyone fingers the same fundamental problem with the party: lack of leadership. Even Democrats have had trouble choosing an elected GOP leader as a target of national...

Mortal remains: the wisdom and folly in Albert Jay Nock's anti-statism.(writer)(Brief biography)(Critical essay)
May 4, 2009... THERE is a stock character in fiction, particularly science fiction, who might be called the Immortal. Whether he be vampire or angel, alien or just some everyman blessed--or cursed--with Methuselah-like longevity, certain traits define the...

Why constitutions matter: examining the legal root of the financial crisis.(Critical essay)
May 4, 2009... THE current financial meltdown has exposed the myth that our nation's sophisticated, multilayered scheme of government regulation immunizes us from systemic failure. We are realizing that shocks, from both home and abroad, will exact their...

Piracy and civilization: a lesson for our time.(military operations against piracy in modern times)
May 4, 2009... WHEN U.S. Navy SEAL snipers killed three Somali pirates and rescued Capt. Richard Phillips off the coast of East Africa, they struck a blow for civilization in general and for the liberal civilization of the West in particular. Pirates took an...

Larry King live!(humor and anecdotes on piracy and pirates)
May 4, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] TRANSCRIPT: APRIL 12, 2010 LARRY KING: Tomorrow night! Ryan Seacrest and last year's American Idol! From Edmund, Oklahoma, hello! CALLER: Hi Larry. I just wanted to know if your guest has any regrets about...

Western civ.(ex-president Ronald Reagan and his liking on the works made by the writer Louis L'Amour)
May 4, 2009... WHEN the Reagan Ranch went up for sale in 1996, Nancy Reagan left behind most of the furniture and linens but removed a number of personal items. She didn't want them falling into the hands of strangers. After Young America's Foundation bought...

Trail Blazer.(Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown, by Jennifer Scanlon (Oxford, 288 pp., $27.95) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WE live in the age of the full disclosure, so I am obliged to issue one about this biography of Cosmopolitan...

Trinity.(Poem)
May 4, 2009... TRINITY I saw a small boy on a back lot in New York, Crouched, burning flies alive in a sealed jar With a magnifying glass he held up high, Focusing the fire of our companion star. Dispassionate, like mischievous...

A Dutch master rediscovered.(Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered)
May 4, 2009... IN his classic essay "Of the Standard of Taste," David Hume asked how we could tell whether a given work was a masterpiece. "Durable admiration" was the criterion he offered. Which is to say, it's not so much our judgment as the judgment of the...

The hills are alive.(media coverage of the golf Masters Tournament shown in Austria)
May 4, 2009... Augusta, Ga. I WOULD be embarrassed to admit how big a part the Masters has played in my life: in my mental life, and, to a degree, my writing life. I'm talking, of course, about the tournament held every April at the Augusta National Golf...

Epic in miniature.(Sin Nombre)(Movie review)
May 4, 2009... IF you wrote a capsule summary of Sin Nombre, a riveting melodrama set in Honduras, Mexico, and (ever so briefly) Texas, it would be easy to make the movie sound like an earnest snooze. "In a film made without professional actors and shot...

Juvenal delinquent.(Samuel Johnson's poem The Vanity of Human Wishes)(Critical essay)
May 4, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I HAVE just recently finished writing a book about pessimism. Spare me the jokes, please. "A book about pessimism? Oh, that'll never sell..." etc. By way of background research into some of the leading lights...

Government-sponsored fiscal crisis.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 25, 2009... Chuck Blahous certainly mounts an impressive case against those who downplay the Social Security crisis ("Social Security Myths," May 4). As for me, I'm not going to push the panic button until Congressman Barney Frank says that the system is...

Disregard the tip jar.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 25, 2009... Rob Long--I hear you! One of the most important decisions I make each day is where I will purchase my midday repast. I take into account the quality of the sandwich and the visages that serve it to me. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Twice...

It's the little things.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 25, 2009... I was happily reading your publication for the first time this afternoon, enjoying the insight, the perspectives, and even the advertisements--and looking forward to returning to the library to read the next issue. That is, until you misspelled...

In a recent press conference, a New York Times reporter asked President Obama what had "enchanted" him the most during his first 100 days as president.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... In a recent press conference, a New York Times reporter asked President Obama what had "enchanted" him the most during his first 100 days as president. Obama might have answered: his press coverage.

The national odometer that measures taxing and spending has ticked from billions to trillions, but don't be alarmed.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... The national odometer that measures taxing and spending has ticked from billions to trillions, but don't be alarmed: Although we are in the Worst Crisis Since the Depression, we are led by the Best President Since FDR. Right? Thousands of...

Even though the Clean Air Act was designed to address conventional forms of pollution, the Supreme Court held in 2007 that its language could be read to authorize the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... Even though the Clean Air Act was designed to address conventional forms of pollution, the Supreme Court held in 2007 that its language could be read to authorize the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases. (It was a 5-4...

Chrysler declared bankruptcy, despite President Obama's attempts to avoid that outcome.(The Week)(Chrysler L.L.C, Barack Obama)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... Chrysler declared bankruptcy, despite President Obama's attempts to avoid that outcome. The administration's auto task force attempted to browbeat Chrysler's creditors into taking a terrible deal in order to spare the United Auto Workers union...

Several large banks, including J. P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs, have announced that they would like to repay the funds they took from the government as part of the TARP, but the Obama administration is discouraging them.(The Week)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... Several large banks, including J. P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs, have announced that they would like to repay the funds they took from the government as part of the TARP, but the Obama administration is discouraging them. A senior administration...

President Obama, thrifty as always, has ordered his staff to go through the federal budget "line by line" and find $100 million worth of wasteful spending that can be cut.(THE WEEK)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... President Obama, thrifty as always, has ordered his staff to go through the federal budget "line by line" and find $100 million worth of wasteful spending that can be cut. For the large group of Americans who can't tell a million from a billion...

It seems military commissions might not be so bad after all.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... It seems military commissions might not be so bad after all. In one of its recent Friday-night inconvenient-news dumps, the Obama administration let slip that trials by commission--the Bush military-justice model for war crimes that was...

Joe Biden has calmed the American public during the flu crisis by saying, "I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now....(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... Joe Biden has calmed the American public during the flu crisis by saying, "I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now.... In a confined aircraft, when one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft.... I would not be......

Hidden crisis.(THE WEEK)(social security)
May 25, 2009... RAHM EMANUEL notoriously captured the spirit of Washington when he said that "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean is that it's an opportunity to do things you could not do before." But a little-recognized corollary...

Any new president's cabinet is something like a field of horses coming out of the gate.(THE WEEK)(Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... Any new president's cabinet is something like a field of horses coming out of the gate. Some will not make it to the finish line. If the race is a steeplechase, some will fall at the first fence. To anyone running a book on Barack Obama's...

The less said about former senator John Edwards, the ... oh, who are we kidding?(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The less said about former senator John Edwards, the... oh, who are we kidding? He is vile, he is the personification of preening liberal self-regard, and he is under federal investigation for using campaign funds...

Opposed by Republicans such as Arlen Specter, and by Democrats such as Arlen Specter, "card check" provisions are expected to be stripped from the cynically named Employee Free Choice Act.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... Opposed by Republicans such as Arlen Specter, and by Democrats such as Arlen Specter, "card check" provisions are expected to be stripped from the cynically named Employee Free Choice Act. In the matter of union-representation votes, card check...

The Justice Department finally dropped its espionage case against two officials from the pro-Israeli lobbying group AIPAC.(THE WEEK)(American Israel Public Affairs Committee)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... The Justice Department finally dropped its espionage case against two officials from the pro-Israeli lobbying group AIPAC. The case involved a criminalization of Washington's stock-in-trade, the exchange of information. Under the Justice...

ABC News revealed the identities of two CIA contractors--covert agents--who allegedly oversaw the harsh interrogations of terrorist detainees.(THE WEEK)(Central Intelligence Agency)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... ABC News revealed the identities of two CIA contractors--covert agents--who allegedly oversaw the harsh interrogations of terrorist detainees. The disclosure served no public purpose, but exposed the contractors and their families to the...

If Charles Hurley, currently nominated to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, gets his way, the law will forbid Beltway commuters and Montana ranchers alike to drive faster than 55 mph.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... If Charles Hurley, currently nominated to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, gets his way, the law will forbid Beltway commuters and Montana ranchers alike to drive faster than 55 mph. Just in case the federal government...

The Supreme Court ruled in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations that the FCC could fine broadcasters who allowed even fleeting expletives to be aired.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... The Supreme Court ruled in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations that the FCC could fine broadcasters who allowed even fleeting expletives to be aired. The case examined only the mechanics of the original ruling; the...

Pakistan is on the edge.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... Pakistan is on the edge. The reason for is clear: Pres. Asif Ali Zardari made the mistake of negotiating a deal with the local Taliban. He has promoted himself as a democrat, and democrats make deals, do they not? The Taliban were permitted to...

President Obama put on an amazing performance at the Summit of the Americas, held in Trinidad and Tobago.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... President Obama put on an amazing performance at the Summit of the Americas, held in Trinidad and Tobago. He was exceptionally friendly with Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan strongman: giving him several handshakes, including one that was "soul...

Jimmy Carter is a democrat, and a former American president.(THE WEEK)(Quotation)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... Jimmy Carter is a democrat, and a former American president. Fidel Castro is an absolute dictator and monster: If you doubt this, consult with his many political prisoners, and others. The other week, Carter commented on the Cuban situation,...

Lewis Carroll brilliantly represented a collection of people who had lost touch with reality as a mad hatter's tea party, and that is the exact metaphor for the U.N. conference known as "Durban II" but actually held in Geneva.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... Lewis Carroll brilliantly represented a collection of people who had lost touch with reality as a mad hatter's tea party, and that is the exact metaphor for the U.N. conference known as "Durban II" but actually held in Geneva. The subject was...

You may remember our old friend "Asian values": the phrase used by Asian dictators and their apologists.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... You may remember our old friend "Asian values": the phrase used by Asian dictators and their apologists. The West may have elections, a free press, and all that democratic jazz, went the line; but we have "Asian values." In fairly short order,...

The arrest in Tehran of Roxana Saberi is a nasty slap in the face for President Obama.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... The arrest in Tehran of Roxana Saberi is a nasty slap in the face for President Obama. That's how the mullahs repay an open hand. Saberi has dual American-Iranian nationality, and has worked as a journalist in Iran for several years. The...

Gao Zhisheng is one of the many remarkable people who do China proud.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... Gao Zhisheng is one of the many remarkable people who do China proud. A lawyer, he has defended Falun Gong practitioners, "house church" activists, and other citizens who are targeted by the Communist government. He himself has been targeted....

Since tobacco came into general use four hundred years ago, compulsory smoking has not been a prominent feature of civilized life.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... Since tobacco came into general use four hundred years ago, compulsory smoking has not been a prominent feature of civilized life. The only instance we know of was at English boys' boarding schools in the 1660s, when pupils were required to...

Ireland's constitution requires punishment for blasphemy, and Irish statute law is framed accordingly.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... Ireland's constitution requires punishment for blasphemy, and Irish statute law is framed accordingly. A 1996 commission recommended changing Ireland's constitution in the direction of free speech, but that would involve a referendum, which the...

In Aristophanes' play Lysistrata, the women of Greece go on a sex strike in hopes of forcing their menfolk to end the Peloponnesian War.(THE WEEK)(Brief article)
May 25, 2009... In Aristophanes' play Lysistrata, the women of Greece go on a sex strike in hopes of forcing their menfolk to end the Peloponnesian War. The first week of May saw a real-life Lysistrata strategy being acted out in Kenya. Recall the disturbances...