World

John J Miller at The Corner: I’ve always had some fondness for the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens because their team name is a literary reference. Last weekend, while visiting the in-laws in South Carolina, I went to an NCAA baseball game featuring the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers. Literary references in team names don’t get much better than that. Up to a point Lord Copper. Turns out the Chanticleers have only been so-nicknamed since the 1960s when the University tired of being just one more bunch of Trojans. Still, not bad but not nearly as good, obviously, as Heart of Midlothian FC, Edinburgh’s finest. Now if only the club favoured a more literate,

Add this to the reasons to be skeptical of Barack Obama… Vice-President Bloomberg*? I want to thank Mayor Bloomberg for his extraordinary leadership. At a time when Washington is divided in old ideological battles, he shows us what can be achieved when we bring people together to seek pragmatic solutions. Not only has he been a remarkable leader for New York –he has established himself as a major voice in our national debate on issues like renewing our economy, educating our children, and seeking energy independence. Mr. Mayor, I share your determination to bring this country together to finally make progress for the American people. Because obviously what the United

Britain has lost its identity and its sense of nation, says David Selbourne. The citizen is treated as a mere ‘consumer’, liberty reduced to the ‘freedom to choose’, politicians held in contempt and hostile forces such as Islamism appeased. The stakes could scarcely be higher. The ills of Western democracies are afflicting the most liberal societies known to history. Among other things, Britain suffers from growing inequality, housing shortage, a falling quality of health provision, rising rates of many types of crime, a failing pedagogy, agricultural impoverishment and a huge scale of ‘consumer debt’. Yet, for many, we are not free enough, being allegedly threatened by encroachments upon our personal

Hillary’s latest*: On saying last week that she landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996, when she was first lady: “I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke.” That’s what will happen when you insist upon answering the telephone at 3am. *Of course, her story was in her prepared remarks.

It’s the little fabrications that tell you all you need to know about a Presidential candidate. This, then, is very entertaining. [Via Mr Yglesias]

Motion: The West is provoking a new cold war with Russia Chair: Jonathan Freedland For the motion: Alexei Pushkov Anatole Kaletsky Professor Norman Stone Against the motion: Edward Lucas Dr Lilia Shevtsova Ronald D. Asmus Russia and the West came head-to-head at Intelligence Squared on Tuesday night. Chairman Jonathan Freedland hailed the aptness of the subject. ‘Just after a new Russian president has been democratically elected. Although some might feel,’ he added, ‘that two of those words aren’t entirely accurate.’ First into the bear-pit, a super-smooth Muscovite with silvery hair and piercing blue eyes. Alexei Pushkov is both a professor of international relations and the presenter of Russian TV’s most

Lord knows there’s no shortage of stupidity swishing around Barack Obama’s candidacy. But this, from Victor Davis Hanson – the Cincinnatus of the National Review – is as dumb as a bag of spanners: Whence Obama’s problems? It is not that he believes in the venom of Rev. Wright, or that when he says something stupid like a “typical white person” he means to imply a stereotyped distasteful race. He doesn’t. The problem is instead the environment that he heretofore has navigated in — prep school, the Ivy League, the regional identity politics of Chicago, or Illinois liberalism — is hardly representative of his own country. So what he can

It’s striking how refreshing Mike Huckabee’s reaction to the Jeremiah Wright frenzy is. We’re so used – and too many conservatives have demonstrated this again this week – to the grinding tedium of knee-jerk My Party Rules, Your Party Sucks* political discourse that it’s almost astonishing when a leading figure (from either party) can come out and say something like what Huckabee said about Reverend Wright: And one other thing I think we’ve gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say “That’s a terrible statement!”…I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to

Highly entertaining developments from our old pals at Daily Kos. Seems the Clintonites are taking their ball home and boycotting the site. What larks! DailyKos is not the site it once was thanks to the abusive nature of certain members of our community. I’ve decided to go on “strike” and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution.  I will not be posting at DailyKos effective immediately.  I will not help drive up traffic or page-hits as long as my candidate – a good and