The Recipe for Tyranny

I'm a skilled amateur chef and, indeed, one of the many (many) jobs I've held over the years is that I've worked as a cook. Given that background I can say with confidence that it's very disconcerting when the recipe you've got in hand lists an ingredient that's not mentioned in the preparational steps. This morning Venezuelan Moisés Naím, editor ...

Munich Revisited: Is Putin Hitler?

Andrew Sullivan lambasts John McCain's bellicosity on Russia as displayed in his "Today We Are All Georgians" speech: Sully retorts: All of this is quite potty. Russia is no longer the Soviet Union. You'd think conservatives would understand this distinction. There is a difference between totalitarian states seeking world expansion and authoritarian petro-states in demographic collapse bullying neighboring states because of perceived ...

Authoritarian Schmauthoritarian

Alex Tabarrok muses, There's nothing like visiting a foreign country like China to get an appreciation of what it's like to live under an authoritarian regime. I was reminded of this when I arrived home and found that the TSA had rifled through my baggage. That's the entirety of his post. I presume he means to shed perspective (we complain about ...

Obama = Charismatic = Hitler = Armageddon

Arthur Silber is, as am I, fascinated by the cult of personality surrounding Barack Obama.  He notes some anecdotal creepy gushing on a local radio show and then Reactions of this kind to Obama are fairly common. No, they are not this extreme much of the time, but such statements are far from unusual. And many of Obama's less obviously deluded ...

Manhattan Dirtier than Singapore

The lovely and talented Belle Waring is visiting her native New York from her home in Singapore and was shocked to find how dirty Manhattan, and in particular the Pulaski Skyway (pictured right), is. Old metal that's just black with soot! And graffiti! Man, if I fully acclimatize to the level of cleanliness, safety, and well-built massive public ...

“Storm Troopers In Clown Shoes”

That's how Instapundit refers to James Hansen, apparently the most intemperate of the global warming alarmists (yes, he's worse than Gore because he's Gore's science advisor). Here's Hansen's latest proposal: James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against ...

McCain the Interventionist

I've long thought that American politics and the fact that we have an activist/interventionist government when it comes to economic policy leads to a race to see who can pander the most to voters, or at least a sub-class of voters. John McCain's new "plan" to bail out the greedy and stupid when it comes to mortgages is another ...

The Real McCain vs. the Newspaper McCain

Matt Welch has an excellent, link-filled article asking newspaper editorial boards to, if they are going to endorse McCain, endorse the real McCain, rather than the "straight-talking", "maverick", "Iraq war skeptic" that newspaper editorialists tend to tag with the name "McCain".Considering that McCain in New Hampshire this month railed against "negative ads" while running them, and then bragged in his ...

Fallout From NIE Iran Nuke Assessment

Yesterday's release of a National Intelligence Estimate reporting that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 has, as Steven Lee Meyers points out, dramatically shifted the landscape. Rarely, if ever, has a single intelligence report so completely, so suddenly, and so surprisingly altered a foreign policy debate here. An administration that had cited Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons ...

Putin Wins Big in Undemocratic Election

Chávez Narrowly Loses Referenda Votes

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez will have to make do with the powers he currently has after voters narrowly rejected two packages of constitutional amendments proposed by Chávez and the Chavista-dominated national legislature: Venezuelan voters narrowly rejected a constitutional referendum that would have bolstered President Hugo Chavez's embrace of socialism and granted an indefinite extension of his eligibility to serve as president, ...

The More Things Change…

America's greatest journalist, Radley Balko, has an excellent piece on why a Clinton II Presidency would differ very little from the Bush II Presidency.For seven years, the left has been up in arms about President Bush's aggressive foreign policy, his secrecy, his partisanship, and his expansive claims on executive power. It's odd, then, that they're prepared to nominate Hillary Clinton ...

France to Rejoin NATO Military Command

All signs point to France rejoining NATO's military structure more than forty years after declaring its independence and kicking the alliance headquarters out of Paris. Norman Polmar provides some background: France is expected to soon rejoin NATO's military command after a 40-year absence. The French government withdrew from the NATO military structure in 1966 (although remaining a member of NATO's political-policy ...

O’Reilly: Blacks Order Tea without Cursing!

Bill O'Reilly made some, um, interesting comments on his radio show Wednesday that have sparked some controversy in the blogosphere after being highlighted by Media Matters. Here, in context, is what he said. All emphases from the Media Matters transcript: O"REILLY: Now, how do we get to this point? Black people in this country understand that they've ...

Edwards Opposes Medical Choice

If John Edwards is elected president, Americans will have no choice but go to the doctor when told. Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care. "It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting ...