Jan 8 (Reuters Life!) - New Jersey is to consider cutting the word 'idiot' from its constitution so that people with some mental disabilities won't be barred from voting...Codey wants to eliminate a section that says "no idiot or insane person should enjoy the right of suffrage" and substitute with a reference to "a person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting."
"NEW JERSEY: Don't Eat the Squirrels, State Warns"--headline, Courier News (Bridgewater, N.J.), Jan. 25
Don't worry if you ate one, though. You can still vote.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Noonan's Got Brains
Just kidding. I think she's now completely lost it. (as an interesting contrast, read Lowry here .)
Thursday, January 25, 2007
A Modest Proposal
HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED. In a 1956 review of “The Republicans: A History of Their Party” by Malcolm Moos (Random House. 564 pp. $5.95) published in Commentary Magazine, the recently deceased sociologist Martin Seymour Lipset observed that Moos was “a representative of that new tendency in American life: the conservative intellectual.” Since that bygone era, (and along with the rise in the price of books) has come the rise of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” of conservative intellectuals. No longer does anyone doubt the existence of the conservative intellectual. Instead the question has become: Where is the liberal American Enterprise Institute? The Democratic Party, which in 1956 was in the beginning of its decades-long unchallenged control of Congress, one half century later discovered that its newly gained majority is as fragile as one man’s (Sen. Tim Johnson’s) brain condition. What has happened?
Some see the beginning of the rise of the modern conservative movement in another event that took place just over a half century ago: the founding of National Review, in 1955. Founding Editor William F. Buckley’s declaration of the magazine’s purpose, “standing athwart history, yelling ‘Stop!’” in the magazine’s first issue, became a rallying cry for conservatives perpetually pessimistic about the onslaught of statism and socialism and their more sinister sister, totalitarianism. But whatever impact Buckley’s magazine may have had on the organization of formerly disparate conservatives, the cultural revolution just over the horizon gave the movement a cause to fight for or, more accurately, to fight against. The 1960’s is not a decade usually associated with conservatism, but it is the decade that probably had the most influence on the formation of modern conservatism’s strongest, and now infamous force: “neo-conservatism”.
Another thing that has changed since fifty years ago, again, to quote 1956 Lipset:
“Conservative political parties have always been unattractive subjects for modern scholars and intellectuals. There are many more books dealing with leftist parties and labor movements than with parties of the center or the right or with business organizations.” Now, not only has there been an increase of conservatives writing about their movement, but a new genre of liberals asking, as in the title of one recent book, “What’s the matter with Kansas?” meaning: why would any state be so silly as to vote Republican? As a postscript, Lipset himself, once a Trotskyite, increasingly found himself out of step with the New Left, and although according to his colleague Nathan Glazer, he continued to identify as a liberal, he invariably associated more with the neoconservative publications. He also probably never voted Republican.
Some see the beginning of the rise of the modern conservative movement in another event that took place just over a half century ago: the founding of National Review, in 1955. Founding Editor William F. Buckley’s declaration of the magazine’s purpose, “standing athwart history, yelling ‘Stop!’” in the magazine’s first issue, became a rallying cry for conservatives perpetually pessimistic about the onslaught of statism and socialism and their more sinister sister, totalitarianism. But whatever impact Buckley’s magazine may have had on the organization of formerly disparate conservatives, the cultural revolution just over the horizon gave the movement a cause to fight for or, more accurately, to fight against. The 1960’s is not a decade usually associated with conservatism, but it is the decade that probably had the most influence on the formation of modern conservatism’s strongest, and now infamous force: “neo-conservatism”.
Another thing that has changed since fifty years ago, again, to quote 1956 Lipset:
“Conservative political parties have always been unattractive subjects for modern scholars and intellectuals. There are many more books dealing with leftist parties and labor movements than with parties of the center or the right or with business organizations.” Now, not only has there been an increase of conservatives writing about their movement, but a new genre of liberals asking, as in the title of one recent book, “What’s the matter with Kansas?” meaning: why would any state be so silly as to vote Republican? As a postscript, Lipset himself, once a Trotskyite, increasingly found himself out of step with the New Left, and although according to his colleague Nathan Glazer, he continued to identify as a liberal, he invariably associated more with the neoconservative publications. He also probably never voted Republican.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
In a heated debate on Crankydocs, one Daniel Goodman wondered out loud if ""anonymous" works for Senator Inhofe or the Bush administration's environment dept., scouring blogs for mentions of 'belief' (or acceptence of the scientific consensus) of global warming..."
It seems that "anonymous" has taken Goodman's advice. OpinionJournal reports:
"As the former Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Republican Jim Inhofe was a coruscating critic of climate change alarmism. Now in the minority, he plans to make sure his voice is heard over the din of the media-savvy environmental groups through a new blog."
The blog can be accessed here
It seems that "anonymous" has taken Goodman's advice. OpinionJournal reports:
"As the former Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Republican Jim Inhofe was a coruscating critic of climate change alarmism. Now in the minority, he plans to make sure his voice is heard over the din of the media-savvy environmental groups through a new blog."
The blog can be accessed here
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Immanent Books
Monday, January 15, 2007
Ford Impressive in First 100 Days as Dead President
By Scott Ott, Editor-in-Chief, ScrappleFace.comNews Fairly Unbalanced. We Report. You Decipher.
(2007-01-13) — President Gerald R. Ford, who since his death last month has released a barrage of personal opinions about U.S. presidents and their policies, today announced a new program to overcome the devastating inflation that plagued his brief time in the White House.
Early on in his first 100 days as a dead president, Mr. Ford has already racked up a series of “impressive” accomplishments, including questioning the rationale for invading Iraq, calling former President Jimmy Carter a “disaster” and saying President Ronald Reagan was ignorant of government and a bad manager.
The late former president, best known for pardoning President Richard Nixon, said his new economic proposal would build on his previous ‘Whip Inflation Now’ campaign, that attempted to beat back consumer prices with distribution of attractive red buttons bearing the acronym WIN.
“I’ve always felt that a president can accomplish more from the casket than from the Oval Office,” Mr. Ford said. “That’s why I’ve waited until now to unleash my courageous opinions about Reagan, Carter and Bush.”
The 38th president said he enjoys leading the nation from the grave, “because there are no elections to lose, and no term limits.”
We at immanent eschaton would like to add that Ford has also done much since his demise to contribute toward national healing and hope that he takes the courageous step of pardoning President Bush.
By Scott Ott, Editor-in-Chief, ScrappleFace.comNews Fairly Unbalanced. We Report. You Decipher.
(2007-01-13) — President Gerald R. Ford, who since his death last month has released a barrage of personal opinions about U.S. presidents and their policies, today announced a new program to overcome the devastating inflation that plagued his brief time in the White House.
Early on in his first 100 days as a dead president, Mr. Ford has already racked up a series of “impressive” accomplishments, including questioning the rationale for invading Iraq, calling former President Jimmy Carter a “disaster” and saying President Ronald Reagan was ignorant of government and a bad manager.
The late former president, best known for pardoning President Richard Nixon, said his new economic proposal would build on his previous ‘Whip Inflation Now’ campaign, that attempted to beat back consumer prices with distribution of attractive red buttons bearing the acronym WIN.
“I’ve always felt that a president can accomplish more from the casket than from the Oval Office,” Mr. Ford said. “That’s why I’ve waited until now to unleash my courageous opinions about Reagan, Carter and Bush.”
The 38th president said he enjoys leading the nation from the grave, “because there are no elections to lose, and no term limits.”
We at immanent eschaton would like to add that Ford has also done much since his demise to contribute toward national healing and hope that he takes the courageous step of pardoning President Bush.
Oddly Enough!
Bob Dylan bores me to tears -- Simon Cowell
Fri Jan 12, 2007 9:25am ET
LOS ANGELES, Jan 11 (Reuters Life!) - Don't expect to see Bob Dylan joining the celebrities on "American Idol" anytime soon.
One of the show's judges, Simon Cowell, says he has never bought a Dylan record because he "bores me to tears."
The British pop impresario says in the February issue of Playboy that he would "plug my ears and run in the other direction" if he were to see a 21-year-old Dylan singing "Blowin' in the Wind."
Fri Jan 12, 2007 9:25am ET
LOS ANGELES, Jan 11 (Reuters Life!) - Don't expect to see Bob Dylan joining the celebrities on "American Idol" anytime soon.
One of the show's judges, Simon Cowell, says he has never bought a Dylan record because he "bores me to tears."
The British pop impresario says in the February issue of Playboy that he would "plug my ears and run in the other direction" if he were to see a 21-year-old Dylan singing "Blowin' in the Wind."
Thursday, January 11, 2007
The True Orthodoxy Test
The immanent eschaton staff has been divided over the following story from the Jerusalem Post. We therefore wish to submit the issue to our readers to decide: which side is right?
(Briefly, the two sides of the debate are: 1. if the guy now going to jail would have been a member of a religion where one can't wear wristbands on Tuesdays, he wouldn't be going to jail; he should not automatically be assumed to be worse than the Tuesday Wrist Worshipper.
2. The second argument, termed by its major proponent "The Reflexively-Anti-Ultra-Orthodox-Argument", goes as follows: he's ultra-orthodox, therefore the other side must be right.)
Please submit your thoughtful comments.
(Briefly, the two sides of the debate are: 1. if the guy now going to jail would have been a member of a religion where one can't wear wristbands on Tuesdays, he wouldn't be going to jail; he should not automatically be assumed to be worse than the Tuesday Wrist Worshipper.
2. The second argument, termed by its major proponent "The Reflexively-Anti-Ultra-Orthodox-Argument", goes as follows: he's ultra-orthodox, therefore the other side must be right.)
Please submit your thoughtful comments.
Monday, January 08, 2007
In fulfilling our creed, (see side for details) we have always attempted to exhaustively pursue second-order distractions--John Kerry always providing useful material--while leaving underexamined more fundamental issues, say, Iraq. Well, since Kerry has not yet announced his candidacy for the 2008 election, we would like to take this oppurtunity to aquaint our readership with another great thinker of the Democratic party, who in the past may have been overshadowed by the Sage of 2004. From Best of the Web: "John Edwards may be running for president again in 2008, but his latest effort is hardly a repeat performance of the 2004 campaign that catapulted him to the Democratic vice presidential nomination," reports the Buffalo News:
The former North Carolina senator says circumstances have changed, America has changed, and he has changed.
"In 2004 I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could be the best candidate possible," he said in Buffalo Saturday. "Now I think about being the best president I could be." . . .
He has taken his campaign to the next level, he said, by moving beyond identifying problems to identifying solutions.
"My thinking as a leader has evolved," he said. "Identifying a problem is not good enough, but taking action to solve it is key. . . ."
Wow, this "solutions" thing is going to revolutionize politics! And you thought Edwards was just another pretty face.
The former North Carolina senator says circumstances have changed, America has changed, and he has changed.
"In 2004 I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could be the best candidate possible," he said in Buffalo Saturday. "Now I think about being the best president I could be." . . .
He has taken his campaign to the next level, he said, by moving beyond identifying problems to identifying solutions.
"My thinking as a leader has evolved," he said. "Identifying a problem is not good enough, but taking action to solve it is key. . . ."
Wow, this "solutions" thing is going to revolutionize politics! And you thought Edwards was just another pretty face.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Friday, January 05, 2007
Best of the Week
In a slow news week like this one, finding good stories can be rare. Immanent eschaton has therefore taken it upon itself to sift through what's out there and provide links to some of the finest:
On the Angry Left
On John Edward's "Populism"
We also recommend Jonah Goldberg on certainty (although technically its from last week)
Then there's this piece about Rush Limbaugh and Jon Stewart (we think its OK, although it only got a B+)
For Worst of the Week we nominate that NY Times article about free will (& we won't provide link)
On the Angry Left
On John Edward's "Populism"
We also recommend Jonah Goldberg on certainty (although technically its from last week)
Then there's this piece about Rush Limbaugh and Jon Stewart (we think its OK, although it only got a B+)
For Worst of the Week we nominate that NY Times article about free will (& we won't provide link)
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
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