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A reader writes, apropos this post: “But part, I think, might be the tendency of some people — at least in some circles — ” In the spirit of light hearted Friday afternoon banter, I offer the following suggestion: You might, under some circumstances, evaluate, consider, or at least entertain the possibility of limiting, restricting […]

My friend Jim Lindgren, who is a law professor and a demographic researcher, writes: In the 1972-2002 NORC General Social Surveys of the US public, approximately equal numbers of Asian women (23%) and non-Asian women (24%) think that “Women should take care of running their homes and leave running the country up to men” (FEHOME, […]

There has undoubtedly been a marked change in American Jewish attitudes toward immigration since 9/11, with a much larger percentage of Jews expressing ambivalence or hostility toward liberal immigration policies. The unease Jews feel about immigration these days, with fears that American cities will become more like Paris or even Toronto or Montreal in terms […]

Hussein’s Information Minister was trying to arrange uranium purchase. From the Washington Post: It was Saddam Hussein’s information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as “Baghdad Bob,” who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade — an overture the official saw as a […]

A reader writes: I just wanted to write in and take you to task for the quote, “While I wouldn’t have excluded Communists, past Communists, or Communist sympathizers from all federal jobs (not because I like them, but because of the First Amendment), I surely think it’s perfectly constitutional and proper to exclude them from […]

A reader writes: I wonder if you really meant this: If there were witches, in the standard sense of people who could use black magic to harm the rest of us, then of course we ought to hunt them. The reason I ask is that you’re suggesting hunting witches because they could harm us, not […]

At The Right Coast, Thomas Smith is criticizing New York Times ethicist Randy Cohen for, among other things, “[advising] a man who finds himself exclusively attracted to Asian women [that] he get help for his racism.” I haven’t read that Cohen item, but if Smith is characterizing it correctly, Cohen’s advice is indeed bunk. There’s […]

In response to my “Was Oppenheimer Indeed a Communist?” post, historian Jerome Sternstein passed along the following: I noticed you called attention to the piece in the SF Chronicle about Oppenheimer. You might want your readers to see this link where they can parse the new, fascinating documents uncovered by Gregg Herken and mentioned in […]

From Jim Holt’s review of Debunked! by Georges Charpak and Henri Broch (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press) in today’s Wall Street Journal: Have you ever had a premonition? Did you once have, say, a passing thought about an uncle, only to receive a phone call five minutes later informing you that the beloved relative has dropped […]

That’s what James Taranto (Best of the Web) says, and it seems to me he’s right: “Former US first lady Hillary Clinton said the “stubborn” policies of President George W. Bush’s administration were endangering stability in the Middle East,” Agence France-Presse reports: The New York Democrat senator told the London-based Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat that […]

No sex, please, we’re astronauts: Dr Rachel Armstrong, speaking yesterday at a British Interplanetary Society symposium on the Human Future and Space, said the US space agency Nasa was considering how to deal with the natural urges of astronauts travelling on long journeys such as a three-year trip to Mars, where the six-strong crew would […]

“Haiti doesn’t really have the choice of missing this new last chance.” That’s from James Foley, U.S. Ambassador to Haiti. Here is the New York Times article. As an aside, I am struck by how words such as “really” and “essentially” alter or reflect the true meaning of sentences. They are almost words of negation. […]

David Brooks has a column in Tuesday’s New York Times expressing a feeling I have been having for some time. Here is the gist of it: These are the crucial months in Iraq. The events in Najaf and Falluja will largely determine whether Iraq will move toward normalcy or slide into chaos. So how is […]

I’ve tried not to keep beating the Randy “Ethicist” Cohen horse; I’ve had my say, and he’s still a famous syndicated and NTYM columnist and I’m not, so I guess the market has spoken. I try to exercise the willpower not to check up on him, sometimes lapse, and am sometimes annoyed and sometimes bored. […]

The ever-insightful Randall Parker has much to say about these issues. First, by 2040 China will have a higher proportion of elderly than will the United States. This will create fiscal problems, but on the bright side such a China is unlikely to be militarily aggressive. Yet there will be other problems: “In 1993 and […]