National Review articles from November 2007

National Review archives from November 2007

Fairtax: an exchange.(Letter to the editor)
November 5, 2007... With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had never mentioned the connection between the FairTax and Scientology in the articles cited by Mark Hemingway ("Comes the FairTax," October 8). The FairTax would still be a crackpot idea even if...

During the presidency of George W. Bush, the Nobel committee has given its Peace Prize to Jimmy Carter and Al Gore.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... During the presidency of George W. Bush, the Nobel committee has given its Peace Prize to Jimmy Carter and Al Gore. We can only ask, "Why have they ignored Michael Moore and the Daily Kos guy?"

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, a former commander in Iraq, called the war "a nightmare with no end in sight.".(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, a former commander in Iraq, called the war "a nightmare with no end in sight." It is hard to argue with his harsh words for the early years of the occupation. A key problem then was that we lacked the troops to impose...

It's a sign of how far gone the Democratic party is on national-security issues that only one of its presidential hopefuls--Hillary Clinton--voted for a Senate resolution that urged the Bush administration to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... It's a sign of how far gone the Democratic party is on national-security issues that only one of its presidential hopefuls--Hillary Clinton--voted for a Senate resolution that urged the Bush administration to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guards...

As Americans contemplate making Senator Clinton their president, they would be wise to consider the company she keeps.(The Week)(Hillary Clinton)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... As Americans contemplate making Senator Clinton their president, they would be wise to consider the company she keeps. Sandy Berger, the disgraced former national security adviser, has reportedly hitched his star to her candidacy. Berger, you...

She has ruled out cutting benefits, raising the retirement age, or establishing personal accounts to fix Social Security.(The Week)(Hillary Clinton)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] She has ruled out cutting benefits, raising the retirement age, or establishing personal accounts to fix Social Security. Barack Obama has followed suit and suggested raising taxes to pay for the program. Social...

Hillary floated the idea of giving every newborn baby $5,000 in stock to be cashed in at age 18, but abandoned it when it was hooted down.(The Week)(Hillary Clinton)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... Hillary floated the idea of giving every newborn baby $5,000 in stock to be cashed in at age 18, but abandoned it when it was hooted down. She has proposed, more seriously, to subsidize investment accounts for low-income workers. In both cases,...

Barack Obama said that he no longer wears a flag pin because it has become a substitute for "true patriotism.".(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Barack Obama said that he no longer wears a flag pin because it has become a substitute for "true patriotism." He added, "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country...

On the campaign trail, Obama told an enthusiastic audience that he hoped to be "an instrument of God.".(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... On the campaign trail, Obama told an enthusiastic audience that he hoped to be "an instrument of God." Fine and dandy. So should we all. But can you imagine if a conservative Republican had said that? Can you hear the cries of "Theocracy!"?...

John McCain is the latest Republican presidential candidate to release a free-market health-care plan.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... John McCain is the latest Republican presidential candidate to release a free-market health-care plan. The tax code favors employer-provided health insurance, which increases costs and causes the market for individually purchased insurance to...

Giuliani told journalist Fred Barnes that if he becomes president and the Democrats send him a bill to repeal the Hyde amendment--which prohibits the federal government from funding abortion in most cases--he would veto it.(The Week)(Rudy Giuliani)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... Giuliani told journalist Fred Barnes that if he becomes president and the Democrats send him a bill to repeal the Hyde amendment--which prohibits the federal government from funding abortion in most cases--he would veto it. Good for the mayor....

It's a depressing ritual.(The Week)(ethanol consumption)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... It's a depressing ritual. Every four years, as Iowans prepare to cast the first votes in the presidential-primary season, candidates descend on the corn-covered state and discover the miraculous properties of ethanol. The latest convert is Fred...

Mankind affects the planet it lives on, and those effects could have profound long-term consequences.(The Week)(Al Gore, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... Mankind affects the planet it lives on, and those effects could have profound long-term consequences. At a time when the Nobel Peace Prize goes to social reformers, it made sense to award it to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change....

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act makes Americans more vulnerable to terrorist attack, particularly as it is currently interpreted.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act makes Americans more vulnerable to terrorist attack, particularly as it is currently interpreted. Several months ago, the FISA court ruled that the executive must seek judicial approval to monitor...

Lucky Lindy and the left.(Charles Lindbergh)
November 5, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN an age when Americans were obsessed with the passing of "Great Men" and the closing of frontiers, Charles Lindbergh was more than a hero--he was a promise of greatness to come. "In the Spring of '27," F. Scott...

When the Social Security number a worker gives his employer doesn't match the Social Security Administration's records, it is usually because the worker is an illegal immigrant.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... When the Social Security number a worker gives his employer doesn't match the Social Security Administration's records, it is usually because the worker is an illegal immigrant. The government was set to send employers with a lot of these...

Back in 1993, Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican national who had spent most of his life in this country, participated in the gang rape and murder of two Texas girls, one 16 and the other 14.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... Back in 1993, Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican national who had spent most of his life in this country, participated in the gang rape and murder of two Texas girls, one 16 and the other 14. The U.S. has signed a treaty, the Vienna Convention,...

American military officials believe, in the words of the Washington Post, that we have "dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq.".(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... American military officials believe, in the words of the Washington Post, that we have "dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq." According to the Post, some generals even favor a declaration of victory over the...

Behind closed doors, the October 12 meeting in Russia between Vladimir Putin and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was reportedly businesslike--as opposed to the public theatrics that immediately preceded it.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... Behind closed doors, the October 12 meeting in Russia between Vladimir Putin and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was reportedly businesslike--as opposed to the public theatrics that immediately preceded...

Are American taxpayers being robbed?(The Week)(Radio and TV Marti)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... Are American taxpayers being robbed? Waste not, fear not--NBC News is on the case. In a recent installment of its "Fleecing of America" series, NBC Nightly News tackled Radio and TV Marti, the Spanish-language stations that broadcast unfiltered...

Oscar Elias Biscet is one of the bravest and most inspiring of Cuba's many political prisoners.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... Oscar Elias Biscet is one of the bravest and most inspiring of Cuba's many political prisoners. He is a symbol for those prisoners in general. Biscet is a physician who takes as his models Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King. He is also an...

Che Guevara was a rootless agitator who helped enslave one country not his own, and was killed trying to enslave another.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... Che Guevara was a rootless agitator who helped enslave one country not his own, and was killed trying to enslave another. He was also a sadistic brute who enjoyed executing prisoners. Forty years after his death he is the poster boy of...

President Bush met with the Dalai Lama, which, among other things, comforted those who object to his planned visit to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.(The Week)(George W. Bush)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... President Bush met with the Dalai Lama, which, among other things, comforted those who object to his planned visit to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. How interesting it would be if he invited the Dalai Lama to sit in his Olympic box. Recently,...

Robert Mugabe is the grotesque tyrant who, having taken power in Zimbabwe in 1980, broke all opposition, white and black, and led his country to abjection.(The Week)(EU-Africa summit)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... Robert Mugabe is the grotesque tyrant who, having taken power in Zimbabwe in 1980, broke all opposition, white and black, and led his country to abjection. Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, announced he would not attend an EU-Africa...

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the latest to find herself in the position of Salman Rushdie, under sentence of death from Muslim extremists, and therefore in need of security guards round the clock.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the latest to find herself in the position of Salman Rushdie, under sentence of death from Muslim extremists, and therefore in need of security guards round the clock. This crisis arose because she had collaborated with Theo...

The liberal reaction to Clarence Thomas's memoir has been fairly uniform.(The Week)(My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... The liberal reaction to Clarence Thomas's memoir has been fairly uniform. He is said 1) to be wallowing in self-pity and bitterness over Anita Hill's allegations, and 2) to have turned his back on his fellow blacks by reading the Constitution...

When we last checked in on the hapless Harry Reid, he and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and 38 other Senate Democrats had just sent a letter to Clear Channel Communications urging its CEO to "publicly repudiate" some comments Rush Limbaugh made on his radio program.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... When we last checked in on the hapless Harry Reid, he and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and 38 other Senate Democrats had just sent a letter to Clear Channel Communications urging its CEO to "publicly repudiate" some comments Rush Limbaugh...

National Review takes a proprietary interest in Dartmouth College, thanks to senior editor Jeffrey Hart and the many veterans of the Dartmouth Review who have worked here.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... NATIONAL REVIEW takes a proprietary interest in Dartmouth College, thanks to senior editor Jeffrey Hart and the many veterans of the Dartmouth Review who have worked here. At long last, it looks like the game is up. Independent alumni, opposed...

The House Committee on Homeland Security advised aides who were to visit health-care facilities at NASCAR tracks in Alabama and North Carolina to get immunizations for hepatitis A and B, tetanus, diphtheria, and influenza.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... The House Committee on Homeland Security advised aides who were to visit health-care facilities at NASCAR tracks in Alabama and North Carolina to get immunizations for hepatitis A and B, tetanus, diphtheria, and influenza. Rep. Robin Hayes (R.,...

In 2004, a new magazine was born: The Western Standard, on the left side of Canada, out in Alberta.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... In 2004, a new magazine was born: The Western Standard, on the left side of Canada, out in Alberta. But the magazine was on the right side: a weekly conservative journal, lively, smart, and fun. It lent color to Canada's monochromatic media and...

The nation's highest battlefield award, the Medal of Honor, was recently bestowed posthumously upon Lt. Michael Murphy for his military heroism.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The nation's highest battlefield award, the Medal of Honor, was recently bestowed posthumously upon Lt. Michael Murphy for his military heroism. A native son of New York, Murphy is the first to receive this honor for...

Stuck in the past.(POLITICS)(Republican Party)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... MITT ROMNEY says he speaks "for the Republican wing of the Republican party." John McCain recently ran through a list of Romney's apostasies, such as not endorsing the Contract with America when he ran for the Senate in 1994, and concluded, "So...

History lesson.(THE WORLD)(Armenian genocide)
November 5, 2007... TURKEY is a country of the greatest strategic importance to the U.S. It is a loyal member of NATO with large and effective armed forces. It has a strong and growing economy. It is an overwhelmingly Muslim country with a democratic system of...

A second look at McCain: could he be the strongest GOPer?(2008)(John McCain, Republican Party presidential candidate)
November 5, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHILE Hillary Clinton is looking like a sure bet for her party's nomination, only the reckless would wager their own money on the likely Republican nominee. With the presence of Fred Thompson and the absence of Newt...

The politics of spending: not much reward for the tightfisted.(PUBLIC POLICY)(national budget)
November 5, 2007... As the immigration debate raged this spring and summer, Republican strategists connected to the White House said that the party would reunite this fall to fight the Democrats over the budget. By holding the line on spending, Republicans would...

Britain's retreat from Basra: for the Union Jack, not a proud moment.(AT WAR)
November 5, 2007... THE British government is denying that the pullout from Basra City to the fortified Basra airport represents defeat of any kind. Supposedly, British troops moved out because Iraqi security forces have suddenly become capable of maintaining...

Doris Lessing wins: but not, of course, for the right reasons.(CULTURE WATCH)
November 5, 2007... TELEVISION has its moments, and one of them was a few days ago when an unsuspecting Doris Lessing returned home from the shops to find the press assembled in front of her house, and hear that she had just won the Nobel Prize. "Oh Christ!" was...

Giuliani and the 9/11 Attacks: the attacks on him, that is.(2008 II)(Rudy Giuliani)
November 5, 2007... RUDY GIULIANI has been leading the national polls in the Republican presidential race for months now, yet no one is entirely sure how much the voters know about him. Are they really aware of his positions on social issues? Do they know the full...

Getting the job done: a report from Iraq.(AT WAR II)
November 5, 2007... Ramadi, Iraq It's a chance encounter that would have been impossible a year ago. A visiting American colonel is walking out of the once-embattled government-center building here, home to U.S. forces and the Anbar provincial council. Akey...

How do you keep them down on the farm ... if all they make is a lousy few mil?(2007 ENERGY)(ethanol)(Cover story)
November 5, 2007... Fort Dodge, Iowa WHEN you're a reporter asking Iowans about ethanol, they tend to ask back, "First of all, where are you from?" If you reply that you're from New York, they chuckle and nod. After I told one Iowan in the ethanol business...

Dealing with warming: an appeal to reason.(2007 ENERGY)(carbon emissions)
November 5, 2007... IF you believe that human emissions of carbon dioxide create a significant risk of negative climate change, the solution seems obvious: reduce emissions. But this conventional wisdom is exactly wrong. The United Nations Intergovernmental...

Fred debates, finally.(Poem)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... Fred Debates, Finally D'Amato coached; he wasn't bad. His poise was pleasing, but let's add The Hunt for Red October was Where Fred bedazzled: That's the buzz From Fox to loopy CNN The morning after. Dobson's...

Hello congressman.(the long view)(Armenian genocide)
November 5, 2007... Hard to believe it's been almost one year since we here at MessageMassage[TM] helped you and your colleagues get elected to Congress. Yes, 2006 was a historic year for Democrats, and as your political consultants, we'd like to take this...

It was a new world.(The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800)(Book review)
November 5, 2007... The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World 1788-1800, by Jay Winik (HarperCollins, 688 pp., $29.95) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN his insightful and brilliantly narrated new book, Jay Winik tells the stories of the...

Time for a redraft?(A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country)(Book review)
November 5, 2007... A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country, by Larry J. Sabato (Walker & Co., 352 pp., $25.95) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] AS I was reading Larry Sabato's earnest...

A Last Word.(books, arts & manners)(Poem)(Brief article)
November 5, 2007... A LAST WORD We are coming to the end. Poems that resemble wild dogs tamed at great cost and made to tremble obediently at my side have now regressed. They need new masters, those who know dogs best. There is a sound...

Vision things.(Democratic Capitalism and Its Discontents)(Book review)
November 5, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Democratic Capitalism and Its Discontents, by Brian C. Anderson (ISI, 225 pp., $25) WITH the fall of the Soviet Union and the effective end of international Communism, and given that radical Islam is a thorn in...

Pleasures of the iconic.(ART)(Edward Hopper)
November 5, 2007... 'ICONIC" seems to be the season's word of choice for the paintings of Edward Hopper (1882-1967). The press material for the Hopper retrospective that just opened at Washington's National Gallery (having been on view all summer at the...

A winning quintet.(MUSIC)(Sound recording review)
November 5, 2007... LET's take a quick look at five young musicians--a conductor, a violinist, a singer, a pianist, and a composer. All of them are winners; I would not waste your time, just now, with mediocrity. We'll save the composer for last, composers being...

Left behind.(THE STRAGGLER)(spinsters, widows)
November 5, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Whenever war is spoken of I find The war that was called Great invades the mind--Vernon Scannell, "The Great War" SOME years ago my colleague Florence King declared her ambition to rehabilitate the word...

Religion marginalized.(on the right)(John McCain)
November 5, 2007... NEW YORK, OCTOBER 2 PITY John McCain, for whom everything has gone sour in the past period, taking him from lead candidate for the Republican nomination to the cellar. Some years ago, after hearing what John McCain withstood in North...

The war, in the vernacular.(on the right)(Iraqi War)
November 5, 2007... NEW YORK, OCTOBER 5 THE flap featuring Rush Limbaugh, Media Matters, and MoveOn.org illustrates the importance not only of keeping facts straight but also of lining up symmetrical perspectives. For instance: An individual soldier...

The bum said ...(on the right)(Robert Novak)
November 5, 2007... NEW YORK, OCTOBER 9 IN days (long) gone by, the tradition was that gentlemen engaged in media work do not disparage other gentlemen engaged in media work. The protocol was blatantly violated from time to time. How, in the age of Drew...

In the trenches.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
November 19, 2007... You would never know from John Derbyshire's "Left Behind" column (November 5) that my campaign to bring back "spinster" is a narrow one concerned solely with usage. No sooner does he mention my name than he gets so exercised about World War I...

Captain president.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
November 19, 2007... I am greatly distressed by the indulgence NATIONAL REVIEW has shown Republican presidential candidates of late ("A Second Look at McCain" by Kate O'Beirne, November 5). It has taken a heroic twisting of logic to produce some of the positive...

Erratum.(letters to the editor)(Correction notice)(Letter to the editor)
November 19, 2007... Your item in The Week concerning LT Michael Murphy (November 5) contained a common but regrettable error concerning military rank. Murphy was in the Navy, and his rank as a lieutenant should therefore be abbreviated LT, not Lt. The latter is...

From the front page of the Washington Post: "In His Wife's Campaign, Bill Clinton Is a Free Agent.".(The Week)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... From the front page of the Washington Post: "In His Wife's Campaign, Bill Clinton Is a Free Agent." Hasn't he always been?

Mike Huckabee's rising poll numbers make him the exciting new face in the presidential race, much as Fred Thompson was in the spring.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Mike Huckabee's rising poll numbers make him the exciting new face in the presidential race, much as Fred Thompson was in the spring. But let's get serious. Huckabee was an undistinguished governor; both Romney and Giuliani had more executive...

In a rare agreement to stop really ridiculous federal spending, the Senate voted to kill Hillary Clinton's $1 million earmark for a museum at the site of the 1969 Woodstock concert.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... In a rare agreement to stop really ridiculous federal spending, the Senate voted to kill Hillary Clinton's $1 million earmark for a museum at the site of the 1969 Woodstock concert. The site is owned by a Clinton donor who is worth a very cool...

Bob Jones III, chancellor of Bob Jones University, endorsed Mitt Romney for president.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Bob Jones III, chancellor of Bob Jones University, endorsed Mitt Romney for president. "I am completely opposed to the doctrines of Mormonism," Jones said. (He has called Mormonism and Catholicism "cults which call themselves Christian.") "But...

Sen. Sam Brownback bowed out of the GOP presidential race.(The Week)(Republican Party)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Sen. Sam Brownback bowed out of the GOP presidential race. It was time: Having peaked at 3 percent in one poll in June, he had sagged down to 1 percent, and there was only $94,000 in the kitty. We have long admired the senator, while...

In a bleak Republican season, Louisiana voters elected Republican congressman Bobby Jindal as their next governor.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... In a bleak Republican season, Louisiana voters elected Republican congressman Bobby Jindal as their next governor. On October 20, in a "jungle primary" featuring a dozen candidates, they gave him 54 percent of their support--enough to avoid a...

Hurricane Katrina and the California wildfires are disasters of vastly different scale.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Hurricane Katrina and the California wildfires are disasters of vastly different scale. The fires destroyed 2,000 homes; Katrina destroyed 300,000. Even in the midst of the fires, San Diego had power and telephone service and passable roads;...

Judge Michael Mukasey's waltz to confirmation as attorney general has ground to a halt.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Judge Michael Mukasey's waltz to confirmation as attorney general has ground to a halt. The issue is waterboarding, the controversial interrogation technique that subjects detainees to simulated drowning. Democrats are threatening to withhold...

Taxes, taxes, taxes.(Charles Rangel's tax plan)
November 19, 2007... SEVERAL Democratic candidates in the current presidential-election season and the last one have informed voters that the world's problems can be solved if only we would repeal the Bush tax cuts. Ever mindful of the median voter, some, like...

Truthers"--those who believe that the World Trade Towers were brought down, not by airliners hijacked by terrorists, but by explosives planted by the U.S. government--are one of the opportunistic infections of free expression.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Truthers"--those who believe that the World Trade Towers were brought down, not by airliners hijacked by terrorists, but by explosives planted by the U.S. government--are one of the opportunistic infections of free expression. They feed off...

Two makes a trend?(The Week ...)(Tom Lantos' response to Dutch politicians' opinion about Guantanamo)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Two makes a trend? Rep. Tom Lantos (D., Calif.) told a group of visiting Dutch politicians, who had suggested that the prison for terrorists in Guantanamo be shut down, that Europe had not been "as outraged by Auschwitz." The 79-year-old Lantos...

The media have portrayed a hung jury in a major terrorism trial as a defeat for the Bush Justice Department's counterterrorism efforts.(The Week ...)(Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... The media have portrayed a hung jury in a major terrorism trial as a defeat for the Bush Justice Department's counterterrorism efforts. But it is not obviously that. The defendants were five operatives of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and...

Sen. Dick Durbin's dream has thankfully died.(The Week ...)(Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Sen. Dick Durbin's dream has thankfully died. He needed 60 votes for the Senate to take up his DREAM Act, and got only 52. The legislation offered citizenship to illegal immigrants who entered the country before age...

Just when we thought federal agricultural policy couldn't get any worse, the Senate Ag Committee passed a farm bill that preserves old bad policies and creates a few new ones.(The Week ...)(Senate Agriculture Committee)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Just when we thought federal agricultural policy couldn't get any worse, the Senate Ag Committee passed a farm bill that preserves old bad policies and creates a few new ones. The Senate bill extends for five more years the massive subsidies...

Close readers of the inside pages of the nation's newspapers will know that violence in Iraq has fallen 70 percent since June, according to the country's interior ministry, and when American combat deaths in October are counted they will probably be at their lowest level in two years.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Close readers of the inside pages of the nation's newspapers will know that violence in Iraq has fallen 70 percent since June, according to the country's interior ministry, and when American combat deaths in October are counted they will...

President Bush slapped new unilateral sanctions on Iran.(The Week ...)(George W. Bush)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... President Bush slapped new unilateral sanctions on Iran. His administration will designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction on the basis of its ballistic-missile program. It will also...

Pakistan has both nuclear weapons and a Talibanist minority: not a happy combination.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Pakistan has both nuclear weapons and a Talibanist minority: not a happy combination. But in Pakistan the U.S. has had six years of good luck. After September 11, general-president Pervez Musharraf cast his lot with us and against the...

"In Cuba it is illegal to change jobs, to change houses, to travel abroad, and to read books or magazines without the express approval of the state.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... "In Cuba it is illegal to change jobs, to change houses, to travel abroad, and to read books or magazines without the express approval of the state. It is against the law for more than three Cubans to meet without permission.... Clinics for...

Not so long ago, a French ambassador declared that Israel is a "sh***y little country.".(The Week ...)(France's view of Israel)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Not so long ago, a French ambassador declared that Israel is a "sh***y little country." A hue and cry followed, but actually the man was only speaking in the open what his colleagues in the Quai d'Orsay have almost always and unanimously...

A few months ago, Scott Thomas Beauchamp--a soldier serving in Iraq--wrote an article for The New Republic in which he claimed to have witnessed (and engaged in) several over-the-top instances of petty and cruel behavior as a consequence of the dehumanizing effects of war.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... A few months ago, Scott Thomas Beauchamp--a soldier serving in Iraq--wrote an article for The New Republic in which he claimed to have witnessed (and engaged in) several over-the-top instances of petty and cruel behavior as a consequence of the...

In this age of Middle East turmoil, global warming, and $90-a-barrel oil, opposition to nuclear power has something quaint and, well, Seventies about it.(The Week ...)(rock-and-roll musicians against nuclear power plants)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... In this age of Middle East turmoil, global warming, and $90-a-barrel oil, opposition to nuclear power has something quaint and, well, Seventies about it. Which suits those whose thought processes stopped in the Carter administration. Here, for...

Iatrogenic ailments are those caused by physicians (e.g., infections caught in hospitals).(The Week ...)(influence of Jena Six case)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Iatrogenic ailments are those caused by physicians (e.g., infections caught in hospitals). We are now suffering from a plague of iatrogenic nooses, thanks to intense media coverage of an alleged hate crime in Jena, La. There, nooses hung from a...

Communist China has big ambitions in space, one of them being the assembly of a permanent orbiting space station by the year 2020.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Communist China has big ambitions in space, one of them being the assembly of a permanent orbiting space station by the year 2020. Now, according to the rules of the Chinese Communist party, the presence of three party members in one "work...

Roma is the proper designation of gypsies, and their language is known as Romanes.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Roma is the proper designation of gypsies, and their language is known as Romanes. Their origins are uncertain, but they seem to have a special connection to Romania, where perhaps as many as a million of them live. Around the countryside there...

Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, whose Khmer Rouge revolutionaries killed around a quarter of their country's population during the five years (1975-79) of their rule, died peacefully in his bed in 1998.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, whose Khmer Rouge revolutionaries killed around a quarter of their country's population during the five years (1975-79) of their rule, died peacefully in his bed in 1998. His automobile was briefly placed for sale on...

Girls in the sixth through eighth grades at King Middle School in Portland, Maine, will now be administered the birth-control patch or pill upon request.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Girls in the sixth through eighth grades at King Middle School in Portland, Maine, will now be administered the birth-control patch or pill upon request. Seven of nine Portland School Committee members voted for this policy. Parents will not be...

James D. Watson shared a Nobel prize for describing the structure of DNA.(The Week ...)(Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's James D. Watson)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... James D. Watson shared a Nobel prize for describing the structure of DNA. He also, age 79, stepped on the third rail of racial difference, telling the Sunday Times of London that "all the testing says" the intelligence of Africans is "not...

Good news from the magazine world: John Podhoretz was named editor of Commentary.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
November 19, 2007... Good news from the magazine world: John Podhoretz was named editor of Commentary. He will begin his duties in 2009. He will succeed Neal Kozodoy, who, in 1995, succeeded Norman Podhoretz, John's father. This has provoked a certain amount of...