Postmodern classic?

Friday, August 25, 2006

A few excerpts of the week in news

Google must have bought Blogger/Blogspot, since I see their logos when I sign in now. I don't really like that, the idea that they control and track certain aspects of searching, and now blogging. For example, LGF has a longstanding feud that they decide which of the blogs they list by partisan screening. So I use Yahoo search for my primary now.

What's going on here... well, there have been some great articles on TCS. Arnold Kling talks a little more about the increasing populist differences with elite opinion (and which supports my devaluation of language argument below), and Josh Manchester has an excellent article creating a new voter demographic which we should look out for- the 'Unfrozen Caveman Voter'. I think his barbecues might be a bit different from the ones I've been to, but the point still holds. Because vote they will, and it will be interesting to see the results. Michael Steele's race for the Senate in Maryland is definitely one to watch, because people are relooking the issues of race and economics. Feminism is another side issue, and while I might not agree with everything, I always like to look at articles like this as a relief from the majority of emasculating man-hating trash you see in other places. It raises common-sense objections to the haughty moralizing that passes for 'social science'. Another interesting series to see is the Bag Blog's series on home schooling (1, 2, 3).

And into the international arena we find people discussing Iraq and Iran. It's important not to raise strawmen- substituting weak arguments as representative of an opposition as a way to discredit them, but I must include this article as a peculiarly poor example of shoddy logic and sloppy reasoning. Mr. Karetsky of The Times (UK) seems to think that we should admit defeat and let Iran get the bomb as a way to integrate them into the international system. He makes a major errors in his assumption that we seem to have no real options, and that the military option is no good. Don't get me wrong, it's the last option- when negotiations fail. But since I don't see negotiations doing too much right now, I find myself thinking a lot about the military option. And only a fool would concede the use of arms to a low antagonist like Iran.

How are things in Iraq? Not as bad as some say, but not great either. I really appreciate the candor of this book review by Max Boot, discussing Tom Ricks 'Fiasco'- a good book with a bad title, as he says. Obviously, mistakes were made, but we should try to keep perspective when looking at the facts. In the meantime, VDH has an interesting article on the problems we're encountering in the prosecution of the current campaign. A related note is relevant at QandO, discussing terrorism in the context of Dr. Barnett's theories of globalization. And also interesting is George Will's look at Koizumi, in the context of my recent post on Japan's martial ethic and their future as our ally.

Soon I'll be working again and have no time to read all these articles. Can't wait.

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