John Derbyshire writes a long, playful, and often meandering book review of Party of Death, by Ramesh Ponnuru. The book apparently claims that the Democratic party is the party of death. According to amazon.com, the inside flap assures us that “It’s not just abortion-on-demand. It’s euthanasia, embryo destruction, even infanticide—and a potentially deadly concern with […]
Archive | Language/Lit
More Civil War (Still Not Iraq)
I recently read Frederick Douglass’s autobiography. I have previously wondered whether the Civil War was worth the human cost to stop American slavery a generation before it would have stopped anyway. I’m sure I’ll wonder that again after the emotional impact of the book has worn off. But in the meantime, I say that no […]
Nothing New under the Sun
Recently, while reading about Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980’s, I was struck by the way that Israeli politicians ignored, or cherry-picked, intelligence in order to achieve a political goal. Sound familiar? Israel’s Secret Wars, about Mossad, IDF Intelligence, Shin Bet, and the rest, is an amazing look into the kinds of stuff […]
In God We Disagree
I’m reading Divided by God, by Noah Feldman. I just started it, so this post isn’t really a review or discussion about his book, but he did make me think about a few things right from the get-go. He’s trying to come up with a compromise between people (like me) who would have no overtly […]