The Scrutinator

Peter Collier and David Horowitz, leftist radicals who eventually had second thoughts about the left, published a magazine called Heterodoxy. In it, they took political correctness to task in its various forms. Though I've never read the magazine, everything I've read by these authors has been outstanding.

In the authors' own words...

And our publication should therefore resemble the counter cultural underground papers of our wicked youth--irreverent and provocative and willing to enter the house of power and rearrange its furniture. Heterodoxy therefore set out, in the famous formula of A.J. Leibling, to comfort the oppressed and oppress the comfortable.

Now available on the web. I can't wait. But where to find the time?!?!

Heterodoxy Archive coming soon.

By The Scrutinator @ 11:21 PM  ::  0 comments

Experience has taught Deep Vote that it is transiency which provides Democrat political operatives with the most golden of opportunities to steal votes. In depressed urban areas an inordinate number of residents move in and out every year, with some taking up residence for only a brief time.

HT: Two Minute Offense

By The Scrutinator @ 8:14 PM  ::  5 comments

...And although her thoughts were vague, she voiced them with something that sounded like conviction.

She said, "I don't believe in war. I can't imagine anything that would make someone want to fight another human being, let alone kill one. I don't believe in war and if everyone wouldn't believe in it, then we could all be at peace."

Of course, you can never be sure what someone means when they talk about peace or belief or most anything else, but I wasn't too sold on the idea that disbelief in war would bring about peace. ... I can imagine, remember, and presently see a lot of things that would make someone want to fight another person. And worse, I suspect that a world emptied of these things would be no more peaceful--it would just be more dead.

The person who doesn't believe in gravity is no more apt to fly than the person who does believe in it. Chances are, the person who believes in gravity (who recognizes it, studies it, appreciates its power and properties and comes to terms with them) is more likely to discover the secret of flight than the person who denies the reality of weight.

By The Scrutinator @ 8:19 PM  ::  2 comments

Ronald R. Griffin, a grieving father, brings perspective.

Hat Tip: LGF

More: Mark Steyn speaks.

By The Scrutinator @ 6:58 PM  ::  0 comments

Headline: Roberts scoffed at equal-pay theory

As an assistant White House counsel in 1984, John Roberts scoffed at the notion that men and women should earn equal pay in jobs of comparable importance, and he belittled three female Republican members of Congress who promoted that idea to the Reagan administration.

That's the headline & first paragraph of yesterday's USA Today article (via Yahoo! News). On the face, it sounds like he's against equal pay for equal work. But a closer look reveals something different.

In fact, he was responding to a concept promoting unequal pay for equal work--described as comparable value pay: "The women had said that the concept of 'equal pay for equal work' had not sufficiently boosted women's wages..."

Roberts characterizes it as "a radical redistributive concept," and that's exactly what it is.

Consider this, from CAMERA.org:

Headlines are the first, and sometimes only, news items seen by readers and should provide the essence of a news story. While they must capture the reader's attention, headlines should always be accurate and specific.

Accurate headlines would be "Roberts scoffed at comparable-value theory"; "Roberts calls comparable-value theory a radical redistributive concept"; "Roberts rejects controversial equal-pay theory"; etc.

CQ documents another media smear.

8/20, Powerline: Washington Post takes the same cheap shot.

By The Scrutinator @ 11:31 AM  ::  0 comments

In a story filed at 7:10 PM, the Associated Press is now confirming all the particulars of what will now forever be called the Able Danger disaster. The 9/11 Commission staff did hear about intelligence-gathering efforts that hit pay dirt on the whereabouts of Mohammed Atta -- in 1999 -- and deliberately chose to omit word of those efforts.

Stay tuned for more, though at this point there's a lot of speculation, and no firm evidence that this bears directly on the Iraq-al Qaida connection (as many think).

Pundits are divided.

Links:

• National Review's The Corner blog's early speculation, quoted above.
• AP: Atta Intelligence Omitted From Report
• AP, via NY Times: 9/11 Commission's Staff Rejected Report on Early Identification of Chief Hijacker
• Powerline: Whitewashing the wall? I.e., Commission member Jamie Gorelick's wall of separation between foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement.
• The 9-11 Public Discourse Project, founded by all the 9-11 Commission members. (The Commission follow-on.)
• Captain Ed speculates about Able Danger and how it relates to the Iraq-al Qaida connection.
• Dr. Sanity revisits Sandy Berger's actions in light of this new story.
• Fox News: 9/11 Panel Staffers Probing Documents on 'Able Danger'
• Fox News: 'Able Danger' Intel Could Rewrite 9/11 History
• [8/15] FrontPage Magazine weighs in.
• [8/15] National Review's Blog The Corner is warning away from the whole story. And getting more condemning for Rep. Curt Weldon.
• [8/16] Time Magazine: Penagon says, "This is much ado about nothing."
• [8/16:] Jack Kelly is still interested, despite that NRO "is in full crawlback mode". His article is here.
• [8/16] Powerline: Able Danger's anonymous source is now in the open: Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer.
• [9/2] Powerline: Looks like it's true

By The Scrutinator @ 9:49 PM  ::  0 comments

...the fingerprint machines are recording voters’ choices, something that could lead to retribution for those whose choices do not win, and other setups that should lead to a rigged result. It’s a sad picture.

Here's a debate we had not long ago on Venezuela.

HT: Instapundit

Update, Aug 9: Chavez rails against the U.S.

Update, 8/16: Chavez, the new sugar daddy, from PubliusPundit.

By The Scrutinator @ 8:22 PM  ::  2 comments

Zing, zing, zing, zing, zing! Don't miss it. But he ends on a serious note...

Two-party systems need two parties, not just for the health of the loser but for that of the winner, too. Intellectually, philosophically, legislatively, it's hard to maintain the discipline to keep yourself in shape when the other guy just lies around the house all day.

I agree completely. Curiously, the media's liberal bias, by holding liberal friendlies to lower standards, has stunted their own growth. It shows again and again, from the astonishingly nuanced John Kerry, to the astonishingly free-spirited Howard Dean.

By The Scrutinator @ 11:32 PM  ::  0 comments

I'm not sure what the lesson is here... but I am certain it is something we need to keep in mind as we go about the War on Terror. The day will come when we will all rush off to aid Iranians trapped in a mine, and we will cheer when they are rescued.

HT: Instapundit

By The Scrutinator @ 2:48 PM  ::  1 comments

Watched this documentary this evening. These film-makers, following a rookie firefighter in NYC, wound up shooting the only video of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center.

The story is riveting and touching. The images give some indication of the magnitude of the destruction.

That people in this world would carefully plan these attacks, and revel and rejoice in the pain they caused, is mind-numbing. And the main reason they carried out these attacks is because they couldn't come up with a way to murder more U.S. civilians.

Let us never forget.

By The Scrutinator @ 10:32 PM  ::  1 comments

Yesterday, President Bush appointed John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., using his recess appointment privilege. To give some context (particularly relevant in light of the upcoming supreme court vacancy), Joe's Dartblog gives us this story.

HT: Powerline

By The Scrutinator @ 12:21 PM  ::  0 comments

This interview, from Britain's Prospect Magazine, is a must-read. It takes you inside the mind of a British Muslim extremist. It was conducted before Britain's 7/7 attacks.

Neuro-Conservative contrasts the speaker's own words with the Left's misconceptions.

HT: Roger L. Simon

By The Scrutinator @ 12:41 PM  ::  1 comments