Category: Internet

Speaking of Kunstler, Frank Furedi puts him on context in this essay for Spiked Online:

The Malthusian objective of reducing populations is alive and kicking. For deep ecologists, the issue is straightforward – their starting point, as spelled out by leading ecologists Arne Naess and George Sessions in 1984, is that a ‘substantial reduction in human population is needed for the flourishing of non-human life’. Numerous commentators embrace these Malthusian sentiments. ‘The current world population of 6.5 billion has no hope whatsoever of sustaining itself at current levels, and the fundamental conditions of life on Earth are about to force the issue’, warns Kunstler (8). The Australian academic David McNight has tried to reconcile neo-Malthusianism with his version of ‘new humanism’, arguing that ‘creating a sustainable society based on human values will necessitate stopping the growth of human population and accepting limits on human material desire’ (9).

Furedi takes some good shots but doesn’t really go anywhere. Yes, there’s a lot of hysteria in the enviro movement, and there’s also a great deal of denial in the anti-enviro movement. That being as it is, what’s a poor boy to do? Considering the tasks that probably have to be done:

* reducing human population by half
* reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80-90%
* stopping (and reversing) topsoil erosion
* alternate energy sources
* clean air and water in the Third World

It’s hard to see democracies taking action until it’s too late to avoid serious damage. Oh well, it’s time for lunch.

Here’s a nice web page devoted to Danish stuff that you can buy to defy the hate-mongers’ boycott. My personal preferences are and

The US Curling team lost a critical medal-round match to the evil Canadians today:

The U.S. skip couldn’t lead the United States to the Olympic gold medal game, losing to Canada 11-5 in the men’s curling semifinals Wednesday night.

Canada clinched at least a silver medal and forced the Americans to play Britain in the consolation game for third place. That would be the first Olympic curling medal – men’s or women’s – for the United States.

This is a total bummer because the critical end was won by the Canucks after Rojeski violated the Hog Line. That’s the kind of thing you’d expect from Bode Miller if he was a curler, but for Shawn it was a big surprise.

I have to go get drunk now.

Cathy Young and Jeff Goldstein have been discussing a peculiar case of false rape allegations for a few days, and now we have the official response from the feminist establishment. It’s not pretty.

It seems to me that the trouble with rape laws in America today is that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of easy convictions. This was accomplished by expanding the definition of rape toward the “informed consent” standard and limiting evidence that can be introduced in court with rape shield laws. So we have a fundamentally different dynamic in rape cases than in all other criminal prosecutions.

How to remedy that situation – to put the pendulum on dead center – is a hard problem, but it’s not something that we’re going to make much progress on until those who advocated our out-of-balance condition stop pouting and throwing tantrums.

It is certainly the case that women in Islamic Republics don’t have the rights they should, but the nexus between their condition of that of the middle-class American white women who make false allegations of rape after a bad date is non-existent.

In order to fully appreciate Olympic half-pipe, you got to know the lingo, so go check out the glossary for such terms as these:

McTwist
An inverted aerial where the you perform a 540 degree rotation and a flip. When done in the halfpipe, you approach the halfpipe wall riding forward, becomes airborne, do a backside 540 degree rotation while performing a front flip, and land riding forward. When done off a straight jump it’s called a Misty flip.

and this:

Fakie
Riding backwards. Also called riding switch.

There’s no choking in snowboarding.

What a horrible game. The officiating was criminal, Holmgren coached like a rookie, the gimmick plays worked and the Steelers caught all the breaks. If I cared about the outcome of this game I’d be throwing up.

The Rose Bowl was way better than this travesty.

The New York Times urges Democrats to filibuster Alito:

It is hard to imagine a moment when it would be more appropriate for senators to fight for a principle. Even a losing battle would draw the public’s attention to the import of this nomination.

And I agree. Of course the man is qualified, and of course the Democratic attacks in the hearings were lame, but this guy creeps me out. He’s just too deferential to government power and just doesn’t seem to be sufficiently impressed by the Bill of Rights. A conservative President is surely entitled to nominate a conservative judge, but said nominee needs to be a little more ballsy when it comes to striking down examples of Congressional over-reach.

Bush can do better than Alito, and he should be encouraged to try again. Third time’s a charm.

This is really a classic of having-it-both-ways feminism. Cindy Sheehan complains about people telling her to take care of her kids have made her a victim of sexism:

We as mothers need to stop buying into the load of misogynistic crap that our children need our constant presence in their lives so they can thrive and grow…It is up to us Moms to make sure our children are whole and safe.

Yet she only has an audience because she’s a Holy Mom. This is one strange woman.

The ultimate question here, leaving aside Sheehan’s hypocrisy, is whether the US is safer in the long run with a democratic regime running Iraq or with Saddam in charge. As long as I can remember, the American left has argued that you can’t have peace without justice, and Saddam was anything but just.

It’s sad that so many of my former comrades have abandoned their principles for cheap shots at the Republican president who beat their candidates at the polls. Democratic elections don’t always produce the results we like, but they’re generally better than the alternatives.

I can only hope that I will live to see a day when the American left breaks ranks with the Buchananite isolationists and returns to its core values.

Patrick Frey’s op-ed on Cindy Sheehan in the Los Angeles Times is deeply disturbing:

But in its apparent zeal to portray Sheehan as the Rosa Parks of the antiwar movement, the Los Angeles Times has omitted facts and perspectives that might undercut her message or explain the president’s reluctance to meet with her again.

Could it be that one of nation’s largest newspapers has a bias?

Check out my favorite blog carnival, the one that Glenn Reynolds doesn’t want you to see.