13 May 2008 @ 9:01AM >>
For years, universities have worked to increase diversity of appearance. Now, it seems like the one form of diversity most important in a marketplace of ideas—diversity of thought—is finally getting some attention. At least at one school:
How liberal is the University of Colorado at Boulder?
The campus hot-dog stand sells tofu wieners. A recent pro-marijuana rally drew a crowd of 10,000, roughly a third the size of the student body. And according to one professor’s analysis of voter registration, the 800-strong faculty includes just 32 Republicans.
Chancellor G.P. “Bud” Peterson surveys this landscape with unease. A college that champions diversity, he believes, must think beyond courses in gay literature, Chicano studies and feminist theory. “We should also talk about intellectual diversity,” he says. So over the next year, Mr. Peterson plans to raise $9 million to create an endowed chair for what is thought to be the nation’s first Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy.
Mr. Peterson’s quest has been greeted with protests from some faculty and students, who say the move is too — well, radical. “Why set aside money specifically for a conservative?” asks Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. “I’d rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective.”
Even some conservatives who have long pushed for balance in academia voice qualms. Among them is David Horowitz, a conservative agitator whose book “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America” includes two Boulder faculty members: an associate professor of ethnic studies who writes about the intersection of Chicano and lesbian issues, and a philosophy professor focused on feminist politics and “global gender justice.”
While he approves of efforts to bolster a conservative presence on campus, Mr. Horowitz fears that setting up a token right-winger as The Conservative at Boulder will brand the person as a curiosity, like “an animal in the zoo.” We “fully expect this person to be integrated into the fabric of life on campus,” replies Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
[...]
“That’s what a good university does — look for an area where they don’t have depth or diversity and start investing,” Mr. Gleeson says.
10 May 2008 @ 11:44AM >>
Politicians sometimes misspeak. George W. Bush is well-known for it. And if it had been the current president who claimed to have visited 57 states—with one more to go—you’d probably have heard a few dozen jokes about it by now.
Perhaps Obama is planning an imperialist presidency, and he accidentally let it slip that we’ll soon have a few more states. If so, then maybe he wouldn’t be the pushover president I worry he’d be.
I’m sure Barack Obama knows how many states there actually are. The coverage of this quote (or the lack thereof) is more telling about the media than anything else.
8 May 2008 @ 10:01PM >>
The Associated Press reports:
A Malaysian Islamic court allowed a Muslim convert Thursday to return to her original faith of Buddhism, setting a precedent that could ease religious minorities’ worries about their legal rights.
Lawyers said the Shariah High Court’s verdict in the northern state of Penang was the first time in recent memory that a convert has been permitted to legally renounce Islam in this Muslim-majority nation.
A rising number of disputes about religious conversions has sparked anxiety among minorities — predominantly Buddhist, Christian and Hindu — because in the past courts virtually always ruled against people seeking to leave Islam.
Penang’s Shariah court, however, granted Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah’s request to be declared a non-Muslim. She embraced Islam in 1998 because she wanted to marry an Iranian, but claimed she never truly practiced the religion.
“I am very happy,” Siti, a 39-year-old ethnic Chinese cake seller, told The Associated Press by telephone. “I want to go to the temple to pray and give thanks.”
The Shariah court, which governs Muslims’ personal conduct and religious lives, ruled that Siti’s husband and Islamic authorities failed to give her proper religious advice.
“So you can’t blame her for her ignorance of the teachings and wanting to convert out,” said Ahmad Munawir Abdul Aziz, a lawyer for the Islamic Affairs Council in Penang.
5 May 2008 @ 9:20AM >>
While food costs continue rise, the role of government is getting more attention:
With high food prices prompting grocery-store apologies to customers and raising fears of starvation in impoverished countries, Congress suddenly faces renewed pressure to cut subsidies to the wealthiest farmers and incentives for ethanol production.
The American farmer, long an untouchable political icon, has even become something of a political embarrassment on Capitol Hill, with President Bush earlier this week demanding an end to crop subsidies for “multimillionaire farmers.”
Congress just last year required that more ethanol be added to the gasoline supply. The mandate is now blamed for inflating the price of corn and other staples.
[...]
In Congress, some lawmakers are calling for changes in the nation’s commitment to ethanol as the biofuel of choice to replace oil. “This is a classic case of the law of unintended consequences. Congress surely did not intend to raise food prices by incentivizing ethanol, but that’s precisely what’s happened,” said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who introduced legislation this week that would end federal support for ethanol.
[...]
At the Santa Ana Food Market in Orange County, owner Ken Lau said he has had to raise his prices. Small tortillas that once sold for 69 cents for three dozen are now 99 cents. “We have lots of customers with low-paying jobs and they are struggling now just to make it,” he said. High food prices have inspired critics, including the president, to renew their attacks on subsidies for farmers. The nearly $300-billion, five-year farm bill, delayed for months, has become an easy target for opponents who cite a new outrage: Many farmers are making record incomes while consumers are shocked by dramatic price increases.
“They’re talking about continuing $25 billion in these subsidies over the next five years at a time of record commodity prices and food prices,” said Rep. Ron Kind, a Democrat from Wisconsin.
The Agriculture Department forecasts that the average farm household will earn more than $89,000 in 2008, up 6.3% from 2007. That’s a third higher than the average U.S. household income, which is projected to be $67,000.
Despite that, farm-bill negotiators are fighting to keep $5.2 billion in direct payments, which go to farmers regardless of how much they earn or whether they are growing a crop.
I wish I could get paid not to work. I guess I’m just in the wrong business.
1 May 2008 @ 9:11PM >>
Get ready to start surrendering more of your rights to government. You knew the Nannycrats wouldn’t stop at smoking, fast food and foie gras. Now they’ve got their crosshairs zeroed in on that modern-day horror, the thing most of us dread and fear... you guessed it...
[Baltimore City Councilman James Kraft] equated using plastic bags with Nazi extermination tactics at a City Council meeting earlier this week.
“We don’t want to be criticized by future generations for not doing enough now as were those who dealt with the Germans then,” Kraft said.
So what follows? Should those who use plastic bags be charged with murder? Genocide?
No one can claim plastic bags help the environment. But he hurts his cause by outsizing their danger by orders of magnitude - especially when similar plans have failed throughout the rest of [Maryland].
Bills in both Anne Arundel County and the state legislature failed to make it into law in the past year. And studies show plastic bags are cheaper and require less energy to make than paper bags.
They are also much less environmentally-unfriendly than people like Councilman Kraft believe, according to the London Times:
Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims.
The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds.
[...]
Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals.
They “don’t figure” in the majority of cases where animals die from marine debris, said David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject. Most deaths were caused when creatures became caught up in waste produce. “Plastic bags don’t figure in entanglement,” he said. “The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.”
[...]
The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags.
Fifteen years later in 2002, when the Australian Government commissioned a report into the effects of plastic bags, its authors misquoted the Newfoundland study, mistakenly attributing the deaths to “plastic bags”.
The figure was latched on to by conservationists as proof that the bags were killers. For four years the “typo” remained uncorrected. It was only in 2006 that the authors altered the report, replacing “plastic bags” with “plastic debris”.
Oops.
Nevertheless, knowledge of this error will not quell the Nannies’ desires to meddle more.
Bored people seeking the tingle of power are drawn to becoming Nannies because they get to feel morally superior while also controlling the behavior of others. It’s a win-win.
So I predict, the campaign against plastic bags will continue.
27 April 2008 @ 11:49AM >>
Senator Barack Obama’s “spiritual advisor” and pastor of 20 years is the gift that keeps on giving... to the Senator’s opponents:
We cannot see how what we are doing is the same thing al-Qaeda is doing under a different color flag, calling on the name a different God to sanction and approve our murder and our mayhem.-Reverend Jeremiah Wright
Called “Worst Email Ever: The Internet’s Inbox,” what the site chronicles is fairly obvious.
Had I known there would eventually be an appropriate venue for airing some of the venomous missives sent my way, I would have made a practice of hanging on to many more of them.
Still, I was able to dig up a few, and I’ve sent them along to Mr. Malice. These e-mails are now publicly available for all to enjoy.
P.S. For you Harvey Pekar fans out there, here’s the scene from David Letterman that couldn’t make it into the film American Splendor. Yikes.
26 November 2007 @ 11:21PM >>
“The dogma of multiculturalism holds that all cultures are equal, except Western culture, which (unlike every other society on the planet) has a history of oppression and war is therefore worse. All religions are equal, except Christianity, which informed the beliefs of the capitalist bloodsuckers who founded America and is therefore worse. All races are equal, except Caucasians, who long ago went into business with black slave traders in Africa, and therefore they are worse. The genders, too, are equal, except for those paternalistic males, who with their testosterone and aggression have made this planet a polluted living hell, and therefore they are worse.”More >>
27 October 2007 @ 6:58AM >>
Matthew Sheffield of NewsBusters recently interviewed me on a wide range of topics. His extensive interview, the first in what will soon be a series on the website, has now been posted.
It is quite apparent from reading the transcript that I must have spoken with Sheffield after a few cups of coffee.
31 July 2007 @ 12:01PM >>
Over at the Indoctrinate U film website, we are starting to post some of the scenes we loved but ended up having to cut from the film.
This less-than-five-minute video may prove embarrassing to the administration of Columbia University, which very clearly did not want me filming—unless I could convince them that my film would paper over the truth and make the university look good.
11 January 2007 @ 9:26PM >>
There’s something about our psyche which seems to make self-criticism the new national pastime. Naturally, our political leaders know this. They know that when hundreds of newspapers and television stations align in a daily tearing-down of the war effort, the American people will eventually lose their nerve and want to give up. Others know this, too, which is why al Qaeda distributed copies of Black Hawk Down as a means to understand how the media can be used to amplify a relatively minor military failure and drive the United States from the field of battle. If terrorists provide enough negative footage to our media, they know we’ll turn and run. But if we fight too vigorously, that will be held up by our own media as evidence of our inherent evilness.More >>
5 September 2006 >>
On a remarkably clear morning five years ago, New York City came under attack. This video memorial, taken from footage shot by eyewitness David Vogler, shows New Yorkers waking up to that grim reality. Crystal Morning tells the story of September 11th, 2001 through fire and ambulance radio calls, the 911 call of a trapped World Trade Center worker, and the lens of local resident who saw an explosion while walking to work.More >>
30 June 2006 @ 2:36AM >>
If you as a private citizen came into the exact same information that the Times eventually published, but instead of publishing it, you passed it along to an al Qaeda operative in a dark alley somewhere, you would be guilty of treason and could be executed. Yet, Bill Keller seems to think that “freedom of the press” amounts to one huge legal exemption—the espionage laws do not apply to him!—and by being chosen by a handful of old-money New Yorkers to edit a newspaper, he is somehow in better position to decide what is in the public interest than the government officials that we the people elected to act on our behalf.More >>
23 May 2006 @ 3:10AM >>
First, let’s define “they.” For the purposes of this article, “they” refers to Jihadists: a radical subset of Muslims who believe it is their duty to kill anyone who refuses to abide by their religious law. Coincidentally, “they” are responsible for a disproportionate share of the terrorist attacks around the world, as un-politically-correct as this might be to recognize.
Now that we know who “they” are, who’s “us”? Even though the “us” that “they” hate pretty much amounts to all of Western society, I will take “us” to mean the United States, since in the eyes of many in the non-Western world, the U.S. symbolizes Western society. But as the ongoing terrorist attacks worldwide prove, people are grossly misinformed if they believe the United States is the only country the Jihadists wish to destroy.More >>
17 March 2006 @ 11:40AM >>
One of the reasons the nation is so divided politically is that we can’t even agree on the exact nature of the War on Terror. Some people recognize it as a war, others see it as a law enforcement matter, and some believe the whole thing is a sham.More >>
9 January 2006 @ 1:35PM >>
The Republicans campaigned to bring their philosophy of limited government to Washington and pledged to clean House, literally. And they did, for a while, but over time, certain principles seemed to disappear. (Whatever happened to the idea of term limits? Oh yeah, bad for incumbents, so let’s forget about that.) Now that the Republican Party has controlled Congress for over a decade, it seems that they have morphed from the party of limited government into the party of, simply, government.More >>
16 September 2005 @ 12:00PM >>The Times of London’s Higher Education Supplement profiles Evan Coyne Maloney: “You need to leave or you’re going to jail,” intones the policeman. The camera pans down to a holstered gun at the officer’s waist. Evan Coyne Maloney, scourge of the Establishment, is clearly not welcome.”More >>
15 August 2005 @ 4:09PM >>The Daily Telegraph of London profiles Evan Coyne Maloney: “Undercover film-maker Evan Coyne Maloney is making a name for himself as the fresh-faced tormentor of the American Left. He tells Damian Thompson about his new documentary, in which he exposes the tyranny of political correctness on US Campuses.”More >>
8 July 2005 @ 2:42PM >>
There’s a real war going on out there, and the enemy isn’t each other. If we can just stop assuming we’re the problem, we might actually stand a chance of victory. But if we waste time navel-gazing in a world that contains wealthy terrorists and starving nuclear powers, we will ultimately be killed in our own streets in a way that’ll make September 11th look like a verbal reprimand. And if you don’t think that’s a possibility, then you really don’t know the enemy.More >>
11 April 2005 @ 10:06AM >>
Many colleges and universities have permanent political offices staffed by paid university employees. These offices exist to push their views on students, and if you’re a student, parent, alumnus or taxpayer, you’re paying for it.More >>
26 January 2005 >>
President Bush’s re-election left some Americans distraught and depressed. And with Inauguration Day set to rub salt in those still-healing wounds, I decided to act in the interest of national unity and extend an olive branch across the great Red/Blue divide. The election may not have gone the way the Inaugural protesters wanted, but at least I could make sure they didn’t leave Washington empty-handed; thanks to the folks at HeroBuilders.com, I had some nice consolation prizes to give away. Would my overtures of peace be rebuffed? Can simple kindness stave off the revolution that some disgrunted Democrats predict?More >>
13 December 2004 >>
Any tech junkie who travels extensively is undoubtedly familiar with the pangs of withdrawal suffered when decent Internet access is nowhere to be found. There are many folks like me whose work depends on frequent, reliable access to e-mail and the web. Most of my business communication, in fact, is done by e-mail. Even the voicemail from my home phone gets sent to my e-mail inbox, freeing me from having to constantly call in and check for messages.More >>
23 November 2004 >>
What if, instead of paying taxes in money, the government forced you to work on a chain gang in order to pay taxes? If you have to work until 5PM every day, but everyone else gets to go home at noon, would that be fair?More >>
29 June 2004 >>
Bill Clinton’s latest attempt to define his legacy is a 957-page book called My Life. Though panned by the New York Times as “sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull,” thousands of people still stood on line for eight hours or more to have the former president sign their copies. As the line snaked around the corner of Broadway and Wall Street in lower Manhattan, I asked the autograph-seekers for their thoughts on Bill, his book, and his legacy.More >>
13 May 2004 >>
For us to achieve a just victory, it is important to hold ourselves to a higher morality. And when we fall short, the rest of the world should see that we can confront our own mistakes. If airing the Abu Ghraib prison pictures helps us do that, all the better. But we must not let terrorists take it as a sign that we don’t have the stomach for war. That’s why it’s important to show the rest of the world that we’re not afraid to kick some ass. And if seeing the gruesome images of Nick Berg’s beheading gives us the mettle required to win this war, then he will not have died in vain.More >>
8 April 2004 >>
Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission made for riveting listening. The political fireworks were on full display when the Democrats on the panel pressed Rice, asking why President Bush had not developed a pre-September 11th plan to preemptively attack Afghanistan and disrupt al Qaeda. These questions, of course, come from the same folks who criticize Bush administration for acting preemptively against Iraq.
The inconsistencies of the Democratic arguments against the Bush Administration make it impossible for them to put forth any alternate vision, because anything they propose will conflict with some of their previous criticisms. Even that they’ll deny, though; they’ll sweeten their waffles with the syrup of nuance, the word they use to cover up the fact that they’re holding several completely contradictory stances simultaneously.
According to principles of quantum mechanics, it is possible for a subatomic particle to occupy multiple positions at the same time. Perhaps the Democrats hope to become the quantum party. If so, it explains why John Kerry, the consummate Quantum Candidate, is the perfect person to head the Democratic ticket this fall.More >>
24 March 2004 >>
Some people would like you to think President Bush lied when he talked about Saddam Hussein’s weapons. The funny thing is, many of the president’s current critics are politicians who made strikingly similar claims about Iraq in the not-too-distant past. When Bill Clinton was in office, his fellow Democrats had much to say about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. But if you listen to them now, you might conclude that the entire party suffers from collective amnesia. Democrats used to talk tough about Iraq. They did when one of their own was in the White House. And they did when polls showed it was politically helpful to support President Bush. But now, it’s campaign season, and they’ve changed their tune. To find out if the spin was sticking, I impersonated a game show host and quizzed a few protesters about some particularly hawkish quotes from notable Democrats.More >>
17 February 2004 >>
United Press International recently reported the discovery of documents from Saddam Hussein’s oil ministry that show the Iraqi dictator “used oil to bribe top French officials into opposing the imminent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.” And according to ABC News, allies of Saddam Hussein profited by pocketing the difference between the price of oil under the U.N.’s “Oil for Food” program and the price of oil on the open market. Some of these allies included “a close political associate and financial backer of French President Jacques Chirac”, “Russian political figures” including “the Russian ambassador to Baghdad” and “officials in the office of President Vladimir Putin”, “George Galloway, a British member of Parliament”, and even some—gasp!—”prominent journalists”. So why haven’t you heard about this story yet?More >>
19 January 2004 >>
On January 15th, New Yorkers awoke to single-digit temperatures and a few inches of new snowfall. Al Gore chose the day to give a speech on global warming. The speech—delivered at the Beacon Theatre on Manhattan’s Upper West Side—was sponsored by MoveOn.org, a website-turned-political-action-committee that recently gained notoriety by hosting two political ads equating President Bush with Adolf Hitler. Although such comparisons were common at anti-war rallies, I still wasn’t sure whether this mindset was now infecting the Democratic base—the sort of folks who’d brave the cold to hear Al Gore speak. To find out, I spent a few shivering hours outside the Beacon.More >>
17 December 2003 >>
At some point, changing babies where people are eating food and drinking coffee became acceptable. For some reason, I was not notified.More >>
20 October 2003 >>
This video is the follow-up to last week’s posting about the pro-Palestinian conference and rally at Rutgers University:
I was now completely encircled. When I tried to escape, the protesters then started smacking the camera with their signs, while others were shoving me from different directions. I started retreating, pushing my way back from the loudspeaker, all the while leaving the camera running and asking the protesters why they weren’t letting me film. Just when the scuffle between me and the protesters seemed like it was about to take a turn for the worse, I remembered that there were some cameras present from a few mainstream media outlets. I started yelling, “Why are you trying to censor me?” The idea was to attract the other cameras, thinking that the protesters would back off if their actions were captured by the news media. The gambit worked: we were soon surrounded by cameras.
19 September 2003 >>
While Michael Moore was delivering his infamous speech at the Academy Awards, every single documentary filmmaker nominated for an Oscar stood behind him in solidarity. The fact that liberals dominate the industry is even more significant given the recent changes in campaign finance laws. Moore and his fellow filmmakers are free to embed their opinions in movies, but citizens who want to finance political ads will discover new limits to their freedom of speech. What would Mr. Moore have to say about this? To find out, I staked him out over the course of four days.More >>
27 August 2003 >>
“Stop the presses! Decades after retirement, Walter Cronkite can still break a major story. Saying he believes ‘most of us reporters are liberal,’ Cronkite is admitting what many on the left have denied fervently for years: that there is a bias in the news media, and that it tips to the left noticeably.”More >>
25 July 2003 >>
Some in this country still want our intelligence analysts to err on the side of caution, because doing so could thwart future attacks and would therefore save lives. Others believe that no action should ever be taken unless every scrap of intelligence data is unimpeachable and unambiguous. But if you complain that the administration wasn’t vigilant enough in interpreting pre-September 11th intelligence, you can’t credibly claim that the administration was too vigilant in interpreting the data pertaining to Iraq.More >>
12 June 2003 >>
Saddam and Osama must not exist. Why? Because they cannot be found. And, as we all know from witnessing the recent hyperventilation about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, if something can’t be found, it must not exist.More >>
4 April 2003 >>
Anti-Israeli sentiment ran strong at the San Francisco protest, in some cases suggesting an undercurrent of anti-Semitism. Is support for a Jewish state the same as ethnic cleansing? Should the Israelis be shipped to Madagascar? Some of the protesters thought so...More >>
10 February 2003 >>
“We, the free people of the world, in recognition of the fact that freedom is a gift given to us through the selfless sacrifice of our ancestors, and in agreement on the belief that it is our moral obligation to share this gift with those who were not fortunate enough to be born into it, declare ourselves united in an Alliance of Liberty, whose purpose is to secure the freedom of every human everywhere.”More >>
29 January 2003 >>
“Sometimes, there is no choice but to meet danger with force. To resort to war is not the sign of ultimate failure, as some argue, it’s just the sign of diplomacy’s failure. But we shouldn’t let failed diplomacy fester while stealthy enemies strengthen and scheme. Now that we’ve seen how easily terrorists can bring death to our door, we must prevent them from acquiring weapons from thugs like Saddam Hussein. The best way is to make sure there aren’t any thugs like Saddam Hussein.”More >>
4 December 2002 >>
“If you don’t share Tom Daschle’s view of the media, you’re a right-wing nut. If you characterize his blocking of legislation as obstructionist, Daschle will compare you to a mullah stirring the passions of terrorists. And Gore believes it is so unthinkable for the media to present conservative viewpoints that it must really be part of some grand conspiracy secretly funded by evil fascist billionaire capitalist pigs whose wallets are made out of people who died because they couldn’t find affordable prescription drugs.”More >>
20 August 2002 >>
As the Democrats spend the days leading up to the election trying to convince you that they are the party of the people, here are a few things to remember.More >>
3 June 2002 >>
“How would you feel if you went to your local music store, bought a tape of your favorite band’s latest release, and discovered that playing it in your car damaged the stereo so severely that your entire car needed to be brought in for servicing? Or what if the tape you just bought were incompatible with your walkman, so you couldn’t listen to it at the gym or while jogging? What would you think if you found out that the music industry intentionally manufactured tapes so that their customers would suffer this damage and inconvenience?”More >>
27 March 2002 >>
“Bill Clinton is a low-life thief, a petty swindler, and a smooth-talking scam artist more suited for Tammany Hall than the White House. He’s shallow because he was given remarkable gifts and the opportunity to do great things with them, yet he achieved nothing substantial. In the end, his presidency amounted to little more than talk and corruption. The man who spent the final days of his presidency fretting about his legacy will find it to be recorded quite accurately by history: Bill Clinton is a shallow, failed man.”More >>