Someone has finally put forth the case that only Ivy Leaguers should really be on the Supreme Court: The gatekeeper power of such institutions is why it was so important to desegregate them (using affirmative action, among other tools) and why virtually all leaders of great universities talk about diversity and access. For about 40 …
Does the Obama Administration Think Being Lesbian is Wrong?
That's exactly what they're implying in their defence of Elena Kagan: The White House declared publicly, even before President Obama nominated Elena Kagan, that she is not a lesbian. "False charges," White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said after a conservative blogger wrote last month on a CBS News Web site that Kagan would be the …
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Elena Kagan's Most Principled–and Idiotic–Position
Yet Peter Beinart at the Daily Beast wants her to apologise for it: The day after the story appeared, I received an email from a prominent Democratic lawyer offering me the same kind of assistance that the Obama administration seems to have provided the Times. In a previous Beast column, I had criticized Kagan’s action …
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Obama Shouldn't Bemoan the Diversions of the Technological World
He did anyway, in his address to Hampton University: US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media. Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets for obsessing with political horse …
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Our Government's Real Intentions: Obama Dodges Breaking Up Big Banks, and the Continuing Threat to 401(k)'s and 403(b)'s
The first, from Mother Jones: Late on Thursday night, an effort to rein in the mega-banks that brought the American economy to the brink of disaster died on the Senate floor. Sens. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) had offered an amendment that would have broken up the biggest banks and forced them to …
American Exceptionalism Thrives in the Obama Administration: It Refuses Foreign Help on BP Oil Spill
Which says they're too proud for their own good: When State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley refused to tell reporters which countries have offered assistance to help respond to the BP oil spill, the State Department press corps was flabbergasted. "As a policy matter, we're not going to identify those offers of assistance until we are …
Robert Gibbs: When Conspiracy Theories Are Easier to Take Than the Truth
That's one way to deflect the sorry reality of the situation: "I would not be surprised if the White House said, you know, we might be able to, guess what, do what? Use this crisis to our advantage. Let this crisis get really bad, and then we will step in," Brown told Neil Cavuto. "We …
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If the Cricket Team Wears Green, It Must Be an Islamic State
As the Qur'an would say, it's a clear sign: Pakistan was carved out of the Muslim-majority areas of British India in 1947, the world's first modern nation based solely on Islam. The country's name means "Land of the Pure." The capital city is Islamabad. The national flag carries the Islamic crescent and star. The cricket …
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Millions of Dead Fish
I've documented on this blog and related ones some of the "interesting" business trips I have taken, especially outside the US. One of those took place in 1980, when my brother and I, fresh from an offshore technology exhibit at Earl's Court, took a plane to Hamburg to meet with a prospective German representative for …
It Is Gordon Brown's "Joe the Plumber Moment," Only Worse
Janet Daley at the Telegraph is right about this: What Gordon Brown did was to insult a quintessential Labour supporter for expressing opinions that are probably held by three quarters of the white working class core vote. That is a whole different ballgame – and its consequences are likely to be irreversible. It's one thing to insult …
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Positive Infinity 