Dennis Thatcher, Hebie Mann, Budy Hackett

Respectful note is made of the passing of Sir Dennis Thatcher, husband of Lady Margaret Thatcher. His funeral was today in England.  Sir Dennis was 88.

And a nod of respect as well to Herbie Mann, who joined Heaven’s band on July first. He was 73.

And as if to comfirm the concept that these things always come in threes, note is made of the passing of comic Buddy Hackett, at age 78. I’m sure Buddy would think of a wisecrack to toss in here, in that unique style of his, but frankly I can’t think of one at the moment.

“Black politicians and civil rights organizations’ loyalty to the education establishment means academic doom to black youngsters. Washington, D.C,. politics and its schools, among the worse in the nation, are a case in point. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, along with most members of the Congressional Black Caucus, use private schools to educate their children. But, when D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams broke ranks with most black elected-officials and endorsed recently proposed education vouchers, Norton blasted him as being “a sell-out.” “

So writes Doctor Walter Williams. It’s about time someone took his advice. This is a particularly noteworthy column in light of the UNEQUAL JUSTICE column I wrote last week.

IF YOU PLAN not to read this summer, (Hillary Clinton’s Ghost written) “Living History” is just the book.

Gotta love anyone who comes up with that line. P.J. O’Rourke, in this case.

Larry Kudlow says Americans think the Economy is on the right track. Then, he goes ahead in today’s column and makes a strong case that their perception is correct.

One of the better bits I’ve seen this week, comes from Doctor Thomas Sowell. It’s required reading.

From the article:

Last week, the Million Mom March had a shindig on the front steps of West Palm Beach City Hall to commemorate national ASK Day, a day designed to remind parents to ask whether guns are in the houses where their children play.

Four people came.

My guess is, that reality is finally settling in.

Diana West has come up with an excellent article which asks some questions which are bound to be uncomfortable for Howard Dean… If he ever makes it to the final round, these questions ought to send him packing easily enough.

Questions like:

…how come Gov. Dean, who is campaigning on his state record, sealed his own archive? “Well, there are future political considerations,” the former governor told Vermont Public Radio. “We didn’t want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a critical time in any future endeavor.”

I’m saving these up, in case you’re curious. This is the best they’ve got?

A while ago, on usenet, I made the statement that one of the objects behind our action in Iraq was Palastinian peace.

Conformation of this came up this morning:

BY JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, July 1, 2003 3:27 p.m. EDT
We Told You So
Did we not say, back in March 2002, that the road to Middle East peace goes through Baghdad? At least one Palestinian official now agrees with us. The New York Times reports on the current “road map” and cease-fire between Israel and various terrorist groups:

There’s ample reason to be skeptical of the road map’s prospects for success, especially in the short term. But no one can deny that removing from power the most intransigent Arab dictator enhanced the prospects of eventually resolving the Israel-Arab dispute.

In case you’ve not heard from our usual news suspects, there’s a revolution going on in Liberia.  Our president, George W. Bush has been asking Charles Taylor, the President there to step down. Thus far, the request has been refused.

A bit of a twist, here, though. The revolutionaries trying to overthrow the government there are mostly, Muslim.  So much for the charges that our actions against SoDamn Insane constitute the start of a war on Islam.

But what is really interesting to me is who in the rest of the world wants what. France and Russia and of UN… You remember them, the ones who didn’t want us involved against Saddam… are asking us to get involved with our military. one presumes, to dethrone Charles Taylor, thus helping the Islamic militants trying to overthrow the Liberian government, succeed.

So much for the claims that France, Russian and the UN are not trying to aid the Islamic crazies against the West.

And they expect us to HELP them in this?

Salon is in debt… bigtime. Here’s the figures

— By way of Drudge…

You’ll recall I promised to keep you up to date on the outrage at Oxford.
Here’s an update on that.

Isn’t it amazing how a New York Times writer, Diana Jean Schemo has to go outside the Times to get stories about anti-Jewish racism printed?

Jeff Rosen in The New Republic this morning, makes an excellent case against the Lawrence case in Texas; one of the better ones I’ve seen. Interestingly, he makes the same comments as regards judicial activism as I did a few days ago while responding to Andrew Sullivan.

An interesting article this mornng from the Telegraph.  Among other things, the writer, Janet Daley, points up the prevailing attitude at the BBC:

What is most disturbing about encounters with BBC current affairs people is not that one has disagreements with them, but that they regard their own quite narrow frame of reference as the only rational one. …..There isn’t their opinion and your opinion: there is their opinion and you’re insane…….. As far as the BBC is concerned, the notion that freeing markets might produce more equitable and beneficial circumstances for more people more of the time is simply off the register: it is not just wrong; it is crazy and malign……  Since the toppling of Saddam, the amount of airtime that has been given to the question of whether the Government had sufficient evidence of WMD has been far, far greater than that given to the almost daily discovery of hideous mass graves in Iraq that give another kind of credence to the war effort. That is the BBC’s chosen priority.

Hmmm. Not unlike the Times. She goes in to raise what seems to me a question that’s been raised here recently:

….should the BBC, which has a virtual monopoly on serious news and current affairs coverage, the budget of a small country and enormous influence on the democratic process, be setting the parameters of reasonable political opinion in such a pre-determined and partial way?

Here in the States, that question has been partially answered by Fox News and others who have been gaining in popularity at levels the leftist outlets can only have wet dreams about. Which, in turn explains the visceral behavior of leftists when the subject of those news outlets comes up; They understand that for the first time in several decades, they don’t have a monopoly on the debate any longer.

Strongly suggested reading. Particularly, those of you in Canada and here in the States, who think CBC/PBS/NPR/CPB etc aren’t leaning left along with their commerical cousins, CBS/CNN/ABC/NBC.

An interesting take from Mona Charen today.

There’s a number of people who think (As usual) that it’s all the Bush administration’s fault. Charen, though takes a different view, and, unlike the usual idiots in the Bush Bashing camp, what she says has a ring of truth to it.
Her basic idea here is that the press, because of it’s traditionally leftist leanings, wants to show women in a good light in combat, and so bought into the story that was spead at the time of her capture. She suggests that story had unique propaganda value for the feminst left.

The 9th Circus court has come up with a ruling I’m not convnced is a fully GOOD thing.
I have to think about this one a bit.