December 1, 2007
The Chinese Army has targeted British companies that do business in China for Internet espionage. MI-5 has sent warning letters to over 300 firms, advising them that they run the risk of losing vital proprietary secrets through Chinese hacking. The warning casts a pall over Sino-British trade -- and perhaps trade with other nations as well: The Government has accused China of carrying out an internet spying campaign against vital parts of the economy, it has been reported. The head of the MI5 sent a letter to more than 300 senior executives at banks, accountants and legal firms earlier this week warning them of a web-based attack from Chinese state organisations. The letter warns that British firms doing business in China are being targeted by the Chinese army, which is using the internet to steal confidential information to benefit Chinese companies. It is believed to be the first time the...
Vladimir Putin continues his saber-rattling with his withdrawal from the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty. He signed into law the suspension, which will take place on December 12th, that will throw out the final Cold War treaty that kept Europe and Russia from flooding the borders with heavy arms and allowed the decades-long standoff to wind down peacefully. Putin says he wants a new treaty, one that allows Russia to defend itself: President Vladimir Putin signed a law Friday suspending Russia's participation in a major conventional arms treaty that had limited NATO and Russian military deployments in Europe. The Kremlin had been threatening all year to scrap the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, and on Friday Putin signed a law passed this month by parliament providing for that step. The suspension takes effect Dec. 12. Putin's decision comes two days before parliamentary elections and after a...
Everyone expressed gratitude and relief at the end of the hostage crisis yesterday in Rochester, New Hampshire, when police arrested the disturbed man who created it. No one got hurt and a sick man will get the care he needs, and the community will receive protection from him as well. It demonstrated the competence and patience of the Rochester police department in resolving a standoff that only gained national attention because it took place in the campaign headquarters of Hillary Clinton. Somehow, later that evening, the Clinton campaign decided this makes Hillary look presidential, at least to Larry Sabato and the AP: And as soon as it ended, Clinton took full advantage of the opportunity she had unexpectedly been handed. In her New Hampshire press conference, she stood before a column of police in green and tan uniforms. She talked of meeting with hostages. She mentioned that she spoke to...
Hugo Chavez, facing a potentially embarrassing defeat on his dictatorship referendum this weekend, has declared the opposition a CIA operation. He now says those voting against a potential lifetime presidency for himself will have cast a vote for George Bush, and threatened to cut off oil sales to the US if the CIA continues its operations against him: A threat by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop oil exports to the United States has raised the stakes over a Sunday referendum he has called in a bid to expand his powers. Chavez told tens of thousands of supporters late Friday he was putting Venezuela's oil field and refineries under military "protection" and would halt the exports "if this (referendum) is used as a pretext to start violence in Venezuela." He accused the US Central Intelligence Agency of preparing to spread unrest during the plebiscite in an effort to topple him,...
Everyone knew that the marital woes of Rudy Giuliani would get some play in the presidential race, but the extent of official expenses involved in the extramarital affair that led to his second divorce and third marriage may come as a surprise. New York newspapers have begun to dig into the expenses of Giuliani's security details to see how much the affair cost the Big Apple -- and so far, the results have not helped Rudy put the affair behind him. First, his explanations for spreading the billings to other offices didn't wash with other NYC officials, as ABC News reports: New questions were raised today about Rudy Giuliani's explanation for submitting police security expenses to obscure city agencies while he was mayor of New York and carried on a secret affair with his mistress, who also was given use of a police driver and city car. Giuliani said Thursday...
The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be on the air today, with our six-hour-long broadcast schedule starting at 11 am CT. The first two hours features Power Line's John Hinderaker and Chad and Brian from Fraters Libertas. Mitch and I hit the airwaves for the second shift from 1-3 pm CT, and King Banaian and Michael Broadkorb have The Final Word from 3-5. If you're in the Twin Cities, you can hear us on AM 1280 The Patriot, or on the station's Internet stream if you're outside of the broadcast area. Today, Mitch and I will cover a lot of ground, including the CNN YouTube debate, the admission from Jack Murtha of the surge's success, and much, much more! Be sure to call 651-289-4488 to join the conversation!...
Plenty of accusations have flown against CNN since the YouTube debate on Wednesday, but Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten may have the most serious charge. The LA Times' media critic levels charges of corruption against the network, claiming that its emphasis on illegal immigration as a lead topic -- and the large percentage of the debate's time it took -- intended on bolstering its Lou Dobbs show against tough competition (via Hugh Hewitt): Corruption is a strong word. But consider these facts: The gimmick behind Wednesday's debate was that the questions would be selected from those that ordinary Americans submitted to the video sharing Internet website YouTube, which is owned by Google. According to CNN, its staff culled through 5,000 submissions to select the handful that were put to the candidates. That process essentially puts the lie to the vox populi aura the association with YouTube was meant to...
The New Republic has published its findings in its internal investigation -- and it goes into great detail before finally retracting the stories of its Baghdad Diarist, Scott Beauchamp. The journey fascinates far more than the destination, a point we all knew they would eventually reach. In the long and meandering path Franklin Foer recounts, some interesting assumptions take place that will not go unchallenged. Meanwhile, here's the money quote: Several weeks after the monitored call in September, we finally had the opportunity to ask Beauchamp, without any of his supervisors on the line, about how he could mistake a dining hall in Kuwait for one in Iraq. He told us he considered the detail to be "mundane" given the far more horrific events he had witnessed. That's not a convincing explanation. If the event was so mundane, why did he write about it--and with such vivid detail? In accounting...
December 2, 2007
Earlier this week, the leading Shi'ite cleric in Iraq issued a fatwa that has largely gone unnoticed by the world media, but could have an impact on reconciliation and the political gridlock in Baghdad. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani forbade the killings of Sunnis by Shi'ites on Tuesday while meeting with Sunni clerics in an ecumenical council, and called for a renewed sense of Iraqi nationalism to replace sectarian divides in the country (via SCSU Scholars): Leading Shiite cleric in Iraq Ali Sistani Tuesday banned the killing of Iraqis, particularly the Sunnis, and urged the Shiites to protect their brother Sunnis. Sistani bans the Iraqi blood in general the blood of Sunnis in particular. His announcement came during a meeting with a delegation from Sunni clerics from southern and northern Iraq. The clerics are visiting Najaf to participate in the first national conference for Ulemaa of Shiites and Sunnis. Sistani called...
Britain's navy cannot reliably handle a medium-scale operation, let alone a major war, after decades of decline and neglect. The shocking report on the Royal Navy comes as a shock to the island nation, whose navy not only defended it for centuries but came to define the British. The current government, already embroiled in a data-loss scandal, may suffer the consequences: The Royal Navy can no longer fight a major war because of years of underfunding and cutbacks, a leaked Whitehall report has revealed. With an "under-resourced" fleet composed of "ageing and operationally defective ships", the Navy would struggle even to repeat its role in the Iraq war and is now "far more vulnerable to unexpected shocks", the top-level Ministry of Defence document says. The report was ordered by Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, who had intended to use it to "counter criticism" on the state of the Navy in...
The Des Moines Register poll, the most reliable indicator for likely Iowa caucus-goers, shows major shifts in both parties for the presidential caucuses that will take place in five weeks. Iowa apparently has gone populist in both parties, with Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee surging to new leads in the state. For the national frontrunners, this may actually be good news: Barack Obama has pulled ahead in the race for Iowa's Democratic presidential caucuses, while the party's national frontrunner Hillary Clinton has slipped to second in the leadoff nominating state, according to The Des Moines Register's new Iowa Poll. Despite the movement, the race for 2008's opening nominating contest remains very competitive about a month before the Jan. 3 caucuses, just over half of likely caucusgoers who favor a candidate saying they could change their minds. Obama, an Illinois senator, leads for the first time in the Register's poll as...
In my post below, I postulate that losing Iowa will cause little heartache for Hillary Clinton. She leads in the delegate-rich states of the coast, and Barack Obama will not be able to pick up any momentum from his opening-night win, if in fact he pulls it off. However, there is a much more substantial reason why Hillary will win the nomination -- the party Establishment: The Associated Press contacted 90 percent of the 765 superdelegates, mostly elected officials and other party officers, who are free to support anyone they choose at the convention, regardless of what happens in the primaries. Hillary Rodham Clinton leads Barack Obama by more than a 2-1 margin among those who have endorsed a candidate. But a little more than half of those contacted — 365 — said they haven't settled on a Democratic standard bearer. "The fact that under half have publicly committed shows...
A couple of commenters on the latest TNR thread wonder whether we will hold National Review Online's The Tank to the same level of scrutiny as Franklin Foer and Scott Beauchamp. I had not actually heard about this controversy until I read the comments last night. Michelle Malkin covers this topic, though, and issues some rather scathing criticisms while noting the completely different approaches between TNR and NRO: W. Thomas Smith, Jr., a former Marine and milblogger who writes at National Review Online’s The Tank (and whose work in Iraq I’ve praised and linked to here), posts a long-winded defense of bogus, shoddy reporting he published while he was in Lebanon earlier this fall. It’s painful to read because he takes nearly 1,400 words to get to the main points: 1) He claimed he had seen “some 200-plus heavily armed Hezbollah militiamen” at a “sprawling Hezbollah tent city” when, in...
December 3, 2007
Hugo Chavez suffered a humiliating defeat at the polls for his referendum on dictatorship. He unexpectedly lost a narrow plebiscite that would have made numerous changes to Venezuela's constitution, including those that would have allowed him unfettered ability for re-election and personal control over most of Venezuelan public life. But did he become the ultimate winner in this loss? President Hugo Chavez suffered a stunning defeat Monday in a referendum that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely and impose a socialist system in this major U.S. oil provider. Voters rejected the sweeping measures Sunday by a vote of 51 percent to 49 percent, said Tibisay Lucena, chief of the National Electoral Council. She said that with 88 percent of the votes counted, the trend was irreversible. ... Chavez said his respect for the outcome should vindicate his standing as a democrat. “From this moment on, let’s be calm,”...
Pakistan has waited to see whether former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would boycott the upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for January 8th. As it turns out, the Election Commission has insisted that Sharif do so, ruling him ineligible to run for office, thanks to his convictions for corruption that followed the coup d'etat of Pervez Musharraf: Pakistan's Election Commission on Monday barred former prime minister and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif from a January 8 general election because of his criminal record. "His nomination papers are rejected because of his convictions," presiding election official Raja Qamaruzaman told Reuters in the eastern city of Lahore, Sharif's power base where last week he registered to run in the election. The two-time prime minister says the convictions secured against him in the wake of his 1999 ouster by the then army chief, Pervez Musharraf, were politically motivated. Sharif, who returned from seven years of exile...
The NFL and its fans have a rare opportunity to follow two teams pushing for perfection in the same season. Tonight, the New England Patriots take on history again as well as the Baltimore Ravens in tonight's Monday night game, hoping to extend their unbeaten record in 2007. Yesterday, the Dolphins managed to clear the most significant hurdle in their quest for another kind of perfection: It's going to be tough to stop the Miami Dolphins now. The last realistic obstacle in their path to imperfect immortality -- the New York Jets -- came and went Sunday, dropping a 40-13 defeat on the Dolphins as easily as Miami quarterback John Beck dropped the football -- twice -- when he wasn't throwing it to Jets defenders. After three interceptions and two lost fumbles by Beck, the Dolphins were left at 0-12 with four games to play. They are the seventh team...
Mitt Romney has decided to give "the speech" -- an address he prepared earlier this year to explain his Mormon faith and why it presents no threat to the Republic. He will deliver this oration at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library on Thursday, hoping to dispel the remaining vestiges of doubt over his qualifications for the presidency. Entitled "Faith in America", the speech will bring the Mormon question directly into the mainstream of political commentary. At Heading Right, I question the timing of this speech. It should have come much earlier in the campaign, not at a time where it looks like a defensive maneuver against a surging Mike Huckabee in Iowa. Also, is it a mistake to try to undo bigotry with apologetics, especially when the defender of the faith is running for President? Even if it is a mistake, though, "Faith in America" will be an...
Don Imus made his return to the airwaves this morning, diminished but mostly unbowed, on WABC in New York City. The radio cowboy returns to the saddle months after his termination for using racially-insensitive criticisms of the Rutgers' women's basketball team, after which CBS Radio and MS-NBC both dumped him. While he says he learned his lesson, Imus also promises that the show itself will not change: Don Imus returned to the airwaves Monday eight months after he was fired for a racially charged remark about the Rutgers women's basketball team, introducing a new cast that included two black comedians. As he did several times in the days after his comments, Imus condemned his remarks and said he had learned his lesson. ... While Imus pledged to use his new show to talk about race relations, he added: "Other than that, not much has changed. Dick Cheney is still a...
In what would qualify as satire, the Washington Post reports that Hillary Clinton's new strategy in Iowa will focus on Obama's character rather than his policy positions. Hillary has fallen behind Obama in recent polling in Iowa, and has decided to campaign against him more aggressively. However, given the track record of the Clintons, character hardly appears to be a winning forum for the national frontrunner: With a new poll showing her losing ground in the Iowa caucus race, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) mounted a new, more aggressive attack against Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Sunday, raising direct questions about his character, challenging his integrity and forecasting a sharp debate over those subjects in the days ahead. Clinton has hammered Obama recently over his health-care proposal, arguing that he is misleading voters because it omits millions of people and would not lower costs. But Sunday, in a dramatic shift,...
With Mike Huckabee rising unexpectedly in Iowa against a huge Mitt Romney organization, can he duplicate that success elsewhere against Rudy Giuliani? Will his squeaky-clean Baptist minister image get a boost from a recent ethics eruption that has Team Rudy struggling to answer? USA Today paints a picture of a candidate finding his footing just as the front-runners seem to have lost theirs: Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, the Republican long shot who in a new Des Moines Register poll has surged to the lead for the Iowa caucuses, could hardly be more different from the candidate who has led the GOP field nationally all year. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani entered politics as a big-city prosecutor; Huckabee as a rural preacher. Giuliani is out of synch with the GOP's social conservative core; Huckabee is its most consistent champion. Giuliani's calling card is his leadership against terrorism after the...
That's the promise Rudy Giuliani makes in his Wall Street Journal column on fiscal conservatism today. Calling pork the "broken windows of the federal budget" and promising to restore accountability and common sense to federal spending, Rudy makes his case that his brand of fiscal conservatism provides the answer for Republican electoral woes, and America's financial health: With economic uncertainty weighing on the minds of many Americans, Congress is preparing to recess after another year of profligate spending, protectionist talk and promises of higher taxes. No wonder some people feel like we're moving in the wrong direction. But I'm optimistic as I look to the future. It's not our country that's moving in the wrong direction -- it's Congress, and Washington's culture of wasteful spending. Over the last decade, nondefense spending has increased by 65% -- the federal government currently spends $24,000 per household -- while the number of earmarked...
The Norm Coleman campaign takes Al Franken seriously, at least seriously enough to do their homework on the former comedian, author, and talk-radio host. If Franken wins the nomination from Michael Cerisi to challenge Coleman in the general election, he will not find Coleman unprepared. The campaign has already readied its first ad, and this one -- on Franken's attempts to triangulate on Iraq -- will leave a big mark: Here are the key parts of the transcript, all of which come from video or audio recordings of Franken over the past eighteen months: “We have to start a withdrawal, I believe, and have a timeline." (10/5/07) “I’m not sure we should set a timetable myself. I may actually, oddly enough, agree with Bush here." (6/16/06) “I neither spoke out advocating the war or against the war." (8/21/07) “Well, first of all, I never spoke out in favor of this...
Note: This post will remain on top until show time. Newer posts can be found below. Tomorrow on Heading Right Radio (2 pm CT), we have two great guests joining us. First, David Keene from the American Conservative Union joins us to discuss his personal endorsement of Mitt Romney, plus the tough season it has been for conservatives and how we can regain momentum. In the second half of our show, Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online will discuss the controversy raging over the posts at NRO's The Tank and NRO's response to it. We'll get into the details and discuss what NRO can and will do from this point forward, and how its response stacks up against that of Franklin Foer and The New Republic. UPDATE: I'll be asking about Andrew Sullivan's post regarding Mitchell Prothero, too. I'd like to get more detail on the entire controversy, so...
Earlier this afternoon, Kathryn Jean Lopez joined me on Heading Right Radio to discuss the continuing controversy over reporting at The Tank by Thomas Smith. Smith wrote two posts at The Tank in September which got events spectacularly incorrect, as recapped ably by retired Washington Post journalist Thomas Edsall at the Huffington Post. Both Michelle Malkin and Rick Moran wrote highly-linked articles on NRO's reaction to the exposure of the blown stories, both castigating Smith; Michelle praised Kathryn's reaction to the challenge, while Rick insisted that Smith be fired. Andrew Sullivan added a series of posts challenging Kathryn's response, noting claims that she and NRO had been notified of the problem weeks earlier and had ignored it. For full disclosure, Kathryn has on occasion asked me to contribute to NRO for on-line symposiums on specific topics. I don't believe I've ever done anything for pay at National Review, although I...
Some have expressed frustration at the slow pace of diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program. A recent setback in Europe created more calls for targeted military strikes against Iran's known nuclear facilities, and military-intervention advocates wondered why the Bush administration didn't strike at once. Wait long enough, and the Iranians would produce a mushroom cloud for a smoking gun. The intelligence community has a different analysis of the situation: A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb. The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy. The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of...
All right, I know a great satire site when I read it. Scott Ott must have contracted with the Hillary Clinton campaign for this argument, right? Only a true satirist or a complete idiot would go after a campaign opponent for his academic record -- in kindergarten! Claiming that Barack Obama didn't tell the truth when he said that his presidential run wasn't the result of some long-held plan, Hillary dug up the evidence after checking the Crayola signatures (via Best of the Web): In third grade, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want To Be a President.' His third grade teacher: Fermina Katarina Sinaga "asked her class to write an essay titled 'My dream: What I want to be in the future.' Senator Obama wrote 'I want to be a President,' she said." [The Los Angeles Times, 3/15/07] In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want...
December 4, 2007
To hear CAIR tell the story, Americans have conducted a wave of hate crimes against Muslims that put them at greater and greater risk as time goes on. They highlight every perceived injustice as a means of shaming Americans into believing that Muslims in our midst have been the greatest victims of terrorism, thanks to our innate bigotry. However, as Investors Business Daily discovered when they looked at the FBI's numbers, anti-Muslim hate crime has dropped dramatically since 9/11 -- and another group remains far more likely to be victimized: Not only are anti-Islamic hate crimes way down, but they're a fraction of overall religious hate crimes. The overwhelming majority of such crimes target Jews, something CAIR and other Muslim groups don't seem all that concerned about. In 2006, a whopping 66% of religiously motivated attacks were on Jews, while just 11% targeted Muslims, even though the Jewish and Muslim...
It looked as though the New England Patriots would lose their perfect season in Baltimore last night. On a desperation fourth-down play, Tom Brady couldn't execute the sneak to get the final yard, and the Ravens took over on downs -- except that their bench had called a time out just before the play to ice the Patriots. That one misstep encapsulated a quarter in which the Ravens gave the game back to the Pats in a nailbiter that kept New England perfect for at least another week: The New England Patriots, pushing for the first undefeated season by an NFL team in 35 years, marched into Baltimore on Monday night and nearly ended up with a bruised ego and an embarrassing loss. Thanks to willpower and sheer luck, the Patriots defeated the Ravens, 27-24, and walked off with their 12th straight victory. Behind, 24-20, with less than three minutes...
The New York Times offers an unusually pessimistic appraisal of Hillary Clinton's effect on the 2008 down-ticket races. Carl Hulse reports that Congressional incumbents and candidates have begun to fear that her nomination will energize a dispirited opposition and could cost the Democrats the seats they gained in 2006. It's not exactly a new thought, but usually it gets expressed as Republican optimism (via Memeorandum): Nancy Boyda, a Democrat who ran for Congress in this district last year, owed her upset victory partly to the popularity of the Democratic woman at the top of the ticket: Kathleen Sebelius, who won the governor’s seat. Now, with a tough re-election race at hand in 2008, Ms. Boyda faces the prospect that her electoral fate could be tied to another woman: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mrs. Clinton is a long way from winning the Democratic presidential nomination, and over the last few weeks...
After yesterday's release of the declassified National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, a number of pundits assumed that the White House had suppressed the report for months. The conclusions of the NIE -- that Iran had stopped pursuing nuclear weapons "years earlier" -- led people to believe that the Bush administration had kept it locked away so it could pursue a policy of war against Iran. As the Washington Post reports this morning, the conspiracy theorists have overreached again (via Rick Moran): While concluding that Iran's weapons program is now halted, the NIE presents a mixed view of Tehran's nuclear ambitions. It portrays Iran's ruling clerics as susceptible to international pressure, having abandoned an extensive and costly covert nuclear program in the face of threatened economic sanctions and global censure. But the report also depicts Iran as cleverly preserving its options, by making steady strides toward a civilian nuclear energy capability...
Yulia Tymoshenko will likely return to the position from which Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko dismissed her in a split amongst the reformers last year. Tymoshenko, seen by some as the poster woman for the Orange Revolution, reconciled with Yushchenko enough to see their parties garner a two-vote majority in parliament. Her return as Prime Minister effectively benches the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich: A coalition of two parties linked to Ukraine's pro-Western "Orange Revolution" proposed Yulia Tymoshenko on Tuesday as their candidate to be restored in her old job as prime minister. Members of parliament representing Our Ukraine, the party of President Viktor Yushchenko, and Tymoshenko's bloc unanimously approved the proposal in a room inside the parliament building. The coalition will now submit Tymoshenko's nomination to the president, who has 15 days to consider it and send it to the 450-seat parliament for approval. With Vladimir Putin extending his stay at the...
Activists for the campaign to spring Mumia Abu-Jamal from Death Row for his murder of a Philadelphia police officer plan to protest outside Rockefeller Center Thursday morning. The widow of the victim has written a new book, Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain, and Injustice, and NBC will interview her on the Today show. The Free Mumia activists want "equal time" (via Michelle Malkin): SUPPORTERS of cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal are threatening to storm the streets of Rockefeller Center Thursday morning to protest the "Today" show. The New York-based "Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition" is infuriated that Maureen Faulker [sic] - the widow of Philadelphia police office Daniel Faulker [sic], whom Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering 25 years ago - is scheduled to appear on the show Thursday to promote her new book, "Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Pain, Loss and Injustice." The activists - who...
Congress has little courage in an election year. The Los Angeles Times reaches this startling conclusion today in a report on the prospects for fiscal responsibility in 2008. With all of Congress, a third of the Senate, and the White House up for grabs, it looks like pandering will take the place of discipline, to no one’s great shock. Fiscal responsibility means more than just jacking up taxes to match an increased spending level, as the Democrats believe. It’s more than just the Republican plan of cutting taxes, too, although that’s at least a start in the right direction. At Heading Right, I explain the option that Congress and the media have forgotten, and one on which voters must insist in the next election....
Recall the pushback when we linked to the Zogby poll that showed Hillary's support eroding at the end of November? The numbers showed Hillary losing ground against all Republican contenders, and had some correlation with Rasmussen's numbers as well. Nonsense, came the response; Gallup's polling in November -- two weeks earlier -- showed Hillary maintaining her momentum. Oops: Though both candidates maintain their leads, Rudy Giuliani continues to lose support and Hillary Clinton drops nine points in Gallup's latest poll. No text report has been posted by Gallup, but the trend for Hillary looks bad and seems to be accelerating. She had polled at 50% this summer, when she appeared invincible and her competition couldn't quit making mistakes. Now, after a gaffe-filled month capped by her attack on Barack Obama's kindergarten ambitions, Gallup has her at 39%, dropping eight points in a month. The news doesn't look good for Rudy...
At some point in our lives, most of us will have a personal encounter with someone who seems innately evil or cruel. They go out of their way to hurt people, or at least appear not to care whether they do damage with their actions or words. Most of us will assume that the person had a miserable life or some traumatic incident that turned them into a misanthrope, and with luck will avoid their destructive wake. Barbara Oakley has a different theory, one backed by some scientific research into the cerebral structure of unpleasant people -- and she believes it explains a lot about how Rome fell, Hitler rose, and her sister stole her mother's boyfriend: My sister stole my mother’s boyfriend. It wasn’t as if the boyfriend, Ted, was any great catch. At 85, he trundled about with a nose tube and oxygen tanks, hacking and snorting as...
Note: This post will remain on top until show time; newer posts may be found below. Today on Heading Right Radio (2 pm CT), we welcome Barbara Oakley, author of Evil Genes. Barbara will explain how her sister's misanthropy led to Barbara's quest to find how some people cannot avoid doing evil, both grand and petty. Her research raises intriguing ethical and moral dilemmas about the nature of self, accountability, and society's need to protect itself from predators. We'll also talk to Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union, who joins us to discuss the latest initiatives in Congress, especially on energy. As Vice President for Communications, Pete Sepp has helped to develop the 362,000-member NTU's public relations and promotional strategies. He maintains a library of information on tax and spending issues for use by the media, NTU members, elected officials, and the general public. He has written and edited...
The influx of former refugees into Iraq has reached a level that concerns the UN and the central government in Baghdad. Hundreds each day return from Syria and Jordan, enough to raise concerns about the "fragile" security in areas just now recovering from sectarian violence. The UN wants to start a returning-refugee fund to ease the transition: Iraq's government acknowledged Tuesday that it cannot handle a massive return of refugees, as the U.N. announced a $11 million relief package to help the most vulnerable Iraqi families trickling back to their war-ravaged homeland. The return of refugees is a politically charged issue in this country, where the embattled government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is eager to point to recent military gains against al-Qaida in Iraq and other militants as evidence that Iraq is now a relatively safe place. But the U.S. military has warned that a massive return of refugees...