Speaking of oil and conservation… “Still fretting about our dependence on imported oil? The profligate use of gas-sucking behemoths clogging our roads as endlessly decried by the nannies at the New York Times and other media magnificos?” Well, then Tech Central’s Brock Yates points you toward the new generation of diesel engines as one possible solution to your energy concerns: The modern diesel now powers over half of the passenger

Writing in The Weekly Standard, Irwin Stelzer argues that “the key to a sound energy policy is a strong military.” From “Oil’s Well That Ends Well“: American soldiers marched off to World War II singing ‘We did it before, and we can do it again.’ That tune may become appropriate once more should any hostile group make a grab for power in Saudi Arabia. Our energy policy for the foreseeable

I just got through making this point in response to visitor Jack Warburton’s comments on my Chris Patten entry, but Jay Nordlinger makes it far more forcefully in his most recent “Impromptus” column (using The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman as his exemplar): A couple of brief words on the Middle East. It

From Joshua Claybourn of the supremely on-the-ball Hoosier Review: The FBI considers Luke John Helder to be the top suspect for a recent rash of pipe bombs across the Midwest. Apparently Luke was an avid Internet user. Here is his band’s web site. His bio reads, “He digs Nirvana (and Cobain) a great deal, and that’s pretty evident in, well, his life! Most of his songs are very Nirvana-esque, which

Pim Fortuyn update, from the Norwegian Blogger: Pim Fortuyn was killed by a 32 year old animal rights activist and left-winger, who was offended by Fortuyns suggestion to restart the fur trade. Apparently Fortuyn has actively spoken for removing the ban on fur trading in the Netherlands, something that our animal activist, who has participated in the struggle against medical tests on animals, did not like to hear. […]I don’t

In response to George Will’s indictment of the anti-semitism coming out of Europe (“‘Final Solution,’ Phase 2”), European Commissioner for external relations (huh?) Chris Patten carefully crafts this silly rejoinder (“Stop Blaming Europe”), published as an Op-Ed piece in today’s Washington Post: Anti-American prejudice in Europe is repugnant. It comes as a shock to me to find in a country I love and admire the mirror-image of this — a

In response to George Will’s indictment of the anti-semitism coming out of Europe (“‘Final Solution,’ Phase 2”), European Commissioner for external relations (huh?) Chris Patten carefully crafts this silly rejoinder (“Stop Blaming Europe”), published as an Op-Ed piece in today’s Washington Post: Anti-American prejudice in Europe is repugnant. It comes as a shock to me to find in a country I love and admire the mirror-image of this — a

Writing for The American Prospect, Aaron Marr Page counsels conservatives to “tone down the outrage over affirmative action.” After all, observes Page, “the use of racial preferences has been legally sanctioned by the Supreme Court since the 1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke decision upheld ‘the attainment of a diverse student body’ as a compelling state interest. The schools are not breaking the law as it exists

I’ve posted on this type of thing before, but we can never be reminded enough of the role universities play in the suppression of free speech. To that end, here’s University of Alabama professor of English Diane Roberts, writing on “free speech zones” in The New Republic: Free speech zones first emerged in the late 1980s. And since then they have grown increasingly common at America’s public universities. Berkeley, the

“The U.N. General Assembly scheduled an emergency session Tuesday, with Arab and developing nations pressing to condemn Israel for alleged atrocities in the Jenin refugee camp and for blocking a U.N. fact-finding mission from looking into the fighting in the camp. A draft resolution introduced by Sudan on behalf of the Arab Group of nations and by South Africa on behalf of the Nonaligned Movement of developing countries would ask