Archive for March, 2006

AN ARMY OF DAVIDS: The Mark Steyn review. “It’s one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had in a long time.”

Cool. It doesn’t get any better than that.

EUGENE VOLOKH reports on New York University’s extremely lame explanation for its censorship. Read this later post, too.

I just wonder when some anti-abortion, or whatever, group will recognize how easy it is to silence contrary opinions in the literary and academic worlds. When you reward behavior you get more of it. NYU is rewarding thuggery. On the other hand, they’re certainly providing the American public with an education — an education in how little all their talk about free speech and academic freedom means. To NYU, at least.

UPDATE: Perhaps NYU should consider poetry.

A LETTER TO CHARLES TAYLOR. “The letter would be almost comical and childish if the outcome weren’t so depressing.”

BORDERS AND WALDENBOOKS CHICKEN OUT: If you don’t like ideas, don’t bother arguing with them. Just threaten to kill people. They’ll back down. Or at least their booksellers, universities, and governments will. How long before other groups take this lesson to heart?

Advancing toward fascism, one cowardly institution at a time.

UPDATE: More here: “As a former President of the PEN Center USA (western US branch of PEN), I am calling for that organization to stand up against Borders/Waldenbooks.”

THE BELMONT CLUB has a couple of interesting, and somewhat “gloomy,” though he denies it, reports on events in Iraq. But unlike most of the Big Media analysts, he knows what he’s talking about, and has perspective. Just keep scrolling.

UPDATE: Bill Roggio has more here and here.

SO I GET A COPY OF THIS BOOK in the mail, and my secretary’s comment is “Somebody trying to tell you something?” Heh. Nothing I haven’t been told before . . . .

STEVE JOBS IS A GENIUS: The Insta-Wife, who’s not into gadgets the way I am, finally cracked and bought an iPod nano yesterday. She then spent all night happily buying songs off iTunes to fill it. If you can sell gadgets to her, you’re sure to make money.

WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS: My brother-in-law’s benign tumor turns out not to be benign: It’s a “high grade pleomorphic rhabdomyosarcoma, stage III.” Any oncologists out there with special knowledge of this apparently rather rare cancer?

LICHTBLAU SAYS ONE THING: Transcript says another.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN says that “it seems those who claim to despise Bush are secretly so confident in him and his administration . . . that it is they who regard 911 as a lucky blow.”

JILL CARROLL HAS BEEN RELEASED by terrorists in Iraq. Some are speculating that it happened because of last week’s successful hostage rescue.

MICKEY KAUS is blogging up a storm on immigration. And there’s more at QandO.

YES, BLOGGING HAS BEEN LIGHT for the past couple of days, and will likely remain so for a couple more. Sorry.

MYSTERY POLLSTER says the American Medical Assocation is guilty of poll fakery. And read this post, too.

This makes the AMA look rather untrustworthy, and will cause me to entertain additional doubts regarding other public advocacy efforts it engages in.

TROUBLING STUFF AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: Eugene Volokh and Diana Hsieh have more.

UPDATE: Reader Louis Rossetto emails: “Can we officially label this ‘A Crisis in Higher Education’® yet, a la what Time used to be able to do and get away with? Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Yale . . .”

Meanwhile, NYU alumnus Steven Sullivan emails:

I just wanted to write quickly to note the NYU event calendar for today, which is right on the main NYU page at www.nyu.edu. There’s a “coming out chat” and a “sex toy party” in addition to a seminar in the “Sex Work Matters” series going on today and tomorrow. All are open to the public. Now, I find nothing offensive in all this. But I feel certain there are some who might. Is John Sexton going to make sure no one comes in from off-campus who might not agree with the content of those sponsored events?

Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I’ve already written President Sexton a polite letter. I’m sure I’ll get something brief, chilly and condescending in return.

Sexton’s actually not a bad guy. But we’re seeing a distinct lack of backbone here.

porkbustersnewsm.jpgPORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Mark Tapscott reports:

It’s gotten little attention in the mainstream media but a potentially landmark measure authored by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, and Sen. Barrack Obama, D-IL, was taken up by the Senate today. Call it the “Show Us the Money” amendment for Uncle Sam.

The measure is Amendment 3175, which is one of a bunch of amendments to the Lobbying Reform Bill now being considered by the Senate. Odds are very good that every Member of the Senate will have the opportunity to vote for or against the Coburn/Obama amendment.

The Coburn/OBama amendment directs the U.S. Office of Management and Budget to establish a publicly available database of the more than $300 billion the federal government spends each year via contracts and grants to more than 30,000 groups, businesses and organizations.

Trent Lott seems to have killed it. “Put another way, Lott just told taxpayers to butt out.”

HUGH HEWITT’S NEW BOOK seems to be doing quite well.

MORE ON SELF-MADE MEDIA: My TCS Daily column is up.