An interesting email that speaks to the Anti-Jihadi Manifesto.  I have withheld certain names at the emailer’s request: re: Rushdie and the left. Hold your breath. My uncle [name withheld] is a friend of his, a leftist artist, all that crap. [He] is a politcal creature, a class A sycophant in those circles. He would not sign that [Manifesto] or anything like that. If Salman was not a famous writer,

In response to yesterday’s post about the official Punjab shame practice for preventing the aborting female babies (an impact, certainly, on women’s “choice”), I received a number of interesting responses, including this, from Amba: Contrary to what [other commenters argured], dowry is most prevalent among upper-caste Indians; gender relations among the lower-castes tend to be more egalitarian. The people who practice dowry tend to be well-educated, so the idea that

Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal argues that the Manifesto released by 12 international authors, which appeared yesterday in an English version on the website of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, is rife with defects that he believes undercuts its impact.  As an example, he points to the anti-religious beliefs (and in Belian’s opinion, these are beliefs that would necessary destroy educational freedom) of one of its signataries, Ayaan Hirsi Ali,

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism. We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

Just back from Best Buy, where I picked up Lady and the Tramp for the kid (he especially likes the stuffed Tramp that comes along with it) and Threat for myself.  I’m interested to see what a bunch of teens and twenty-somethings (the oldest, who wrote the script at 21, turned 22 on the day filming began) can do with an indie project that is purported to make Kids look

Okay, not quite.  But still. From the WSJ/AP:  “New York Times Sues Department of Defense For Eavesdropping Records”:

From the UK Telegraph comes this story of a Punjab anti-abortion/choice campaign that, ironically, is designed to shame pregnant women into carrying girl babies to term:

From the Economist: A wave of cross-border mergers is sweeping across Europe. But as globalisation and no-holds-barred capitalism gather strength on the continent, France and others are trying to stiffen the barriers to economic integration on “strategic” grounds. The latest example of this is the attempt by Dominique de Villepin, the French prime minister, to prevent an Italian bid for Suez by merging it with another French utility. Reached for

me: “Wow.  You’re really heavy on the sodium, aren’t you?” ramen:  “You’re right, I’m sorry.  Should I give you back your fucking dime, Mr. Rockefeller?”

[note:  follow-up post here] Looks like the National Review itself is the latest to throw the noose around Bill Buckley’s useless, weathered neck: