By: Jamie Glazov
http://www.frontpagemag.com/
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Over the weekend, Hamas policemen in Gaza attempted to arrest a Palestinian female journalist, Asma al-Ghul. Her crime? She came to a Gaza beach dressed “immodestly” (not wearing hijab) and was caught laughing in front of others. The police ended up confiscating her passport and she has been living in fear inside her home ever since. The death threats she has been receiving from anonymous callers hasn’t helped much either.
The totalitarianism within Islam in terms of the forced veiling of women is a well-known phenomenon to us in the West. Less known is the terrifying fear within Islam of a woman’s laugh. Female laughter poses such a threat to the despotic misogynist order on which Islam is based that it has to be ruthlessly punished and repressed.
This pathology is very much interconnected with Islam’s rejection of earthly happiness.
Ayatollah Khomeini, for instance, followed this theology obediently and expressed its nature perfectly by rejecting, with furious revulsion, anything that could possibly cause earthly cheer or happiness (i.e. music). He explained:
Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious.
Thus, laughter is especially discouraged on many realms within Islam and it is, not surprisingly, specifically forbidden for women, and especially young girls. Nawal El Saadaw remembers that, growing up in Egypt,
If I laughed, I was expected to keep my voice so low that people could hardly hear me, or better, confine myself to smiling timidly.
When Souad, the Palestinian survivor of an attempted honor killing, was flown to Switzerland, she was shocked to find females dressing as they wished, smiling and laughing without being punished, and having people actually say “Thank you” to her -- which had not happened once her entire life.
The late American journalist Steven Vincent, a warrior for the rights of women under Islam, made a careful study of these phenomena during trips he made, at great peril to himself, to Iraq (he was eventually murdered by jihadis there). In his Iraq memoir, he noted that, at one point, he was sitting by the swimming pool at the Al-Hamra Hotel in Baghdad, where Western journalists stay. He heard two American women laughing, and a “chill” shot right through him. Their laughter made him realize that he had not heard a woman laugh in Iraq, “not in a free and unguarded manner, at any rate.” That laughter, he says, was music to his ears, and at that moment, he reflects, “I became a feminist.”
In an interview I conducted with Vincent, I asked him for his thoughts on Islam’s hatred of women’s laughter. He replied:
Remember Umberto Eco’s "The Name of the Rose?" The murders of the monks in the English monastery were part of an attempt by religious despots to conceal the existence of Aristotle’s lost treatise on Comedy. They knew that laughter is uncontrollable, subversive—especially to the clerical mindset. This is especially true in Islam—which demonstrates no sense of humor whatsoever. Combine the seditious nature of laughter with the equally dangerous—to the patriarchal tyrant—power of femininity and you have a force that can sweep away the kings of the earth.
I have this fantasy that fills me with particular joy. I think of some cranky bearded cleric—say, Moqtada al-Sadr—spouting the usual anti-American, anti-Semitic bilge when suddenly the women in his mosque—laugh. Imagine that moment! All that Islamofascist hatred and resentment and grandiosity washed away in a torrent of feminine amusement and ridicule. How could the cleric’s hold over the imaginations, spirits and desires of his flock withstand the charisma of feminine laughter? Add in the even more volatile force of sexual freedom and you would reduce 90 percent of Islam’s ulema [legal scholars] to pathetic old men in back-street mosques, preaching their misogynistic claptrap to ever-dwindling congregations. And no better fate could befall them.
Vincent’s shrewd and profound analysis crystallizes perfectly why female laughter poses such a threat to Islam.
And so who will be coming to the help of Asma al-Ghul? Will it be leftist feminists -- who are supposedly for women’s rights? They are, so far, deafeningly silent – as they always are when it comes to women suffering under Islamic gender apartheid. Will there be moral indignation expressed about Asma’s persecution in the pages of The Nation? Don’t hold your breath, because The Nation is too busy giving a platform to its columnists like Naomi Klein, a leftist feminist who has reached her hand out in solidarity to Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army in Iraq. Several years ago, she called out to “Bring Najaf to New York.” In her account of the fighting in the Iraqi Shi’ite stronghold of Najaf, she urged leftists to join in solidarity with the Islamofascist terrorists headed by al-Sadr.
Question #1: What has been the fate of women under the power of Muqtada al-Sadr?
Question #2: What would be the fate of Naomi Klein upon contact with al-Sadr and his army?
This is the world of the feminist Left. It’s a world in which feminists such as Dr. Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, offer solutions for the gang rape of women by Muslims by instructing the women to smarten up. Confronted by the high incidence of Muslims raping Norwegian women, Wikan stresses neither punishment of the perpetrators nor repudiation of the Islamic theology that legitimizes such violence against women if they are not veiled. Rather, Wikan recommends that Norwegian women should veil themselves. Wikan writes, “Norwegian women must understand that we live in a multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.”
I would like to pose a question to the leftist feminists of the world:
Have you no sense of decency, at long last?
- Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union and is the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. His new book is United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Monday, July 06, 2009
The Establishment's Palin Panic
By William Kristol
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com
Monday, July 6, 2009 5:14 PM
I like Sarah Palin (though I don't know her well). I respect her (though I'm aware of some of her limitations). I wish her well (though I'm not convinced she should be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee).
I am convinced, though, that she should have a chance to compete and make her case. In this, I seem to differ from many of my friends in the mainstream media and the Republican establishment. They tend not only to dislike and disdain Palin, they also want to bury her chances now as a presidential possibility. What are they so scared of?
It's silly to claim Palin has no chance to win the nomination or the presidency. The fact is, despite a rough campaign in 2008, Palin has been (for what it's worth at this stage) a co-front-runner in polls of GOP primary voters for 2012, along with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. In a recent Pew survey, she had the strongest favorable-unfavorable numbers of the likely candidates among Republicans.
She has fervent supporters, which would presumably help her in primaries and caucuses. Among the general public, she has a not-great but not-unmanageable 45-44 favorability rating.
Will her poll numbers fall because she has opted to step down early from the Alaska governorship? Perhaps. But the short-term effect of that decision will soon be swamped by judgments people make as they see her out and about, speaking and opining on the issues of the day.
She'll be able to make the case effectively that she should be the nominee, or she won't.
The odds are that she won't -- just as the odds at this point are against any one of the GOP candidates. It's a wide-open race. And Palin may not even run. But the panic among mainstream media commentators and the GOP establishment suggests real worry that if she does, she might pull off an upset. Why else the vehement assertions that she's clearly made a terrible mistake? Why else the categorical insistence that her political career is finished? Aren't they all protesting too much?
The media establishment didn't protest much about the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. He gave a good speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, was elected to the Senate that fall, and immediately started running for president. He didn't accomplish much in his four years in the Senate (nor could he have been expected to). But that didn't seem to hurt his standing. Isn't Palin about as well positioned for the 2012 GOP nomination as Obama was in 2005 for the 2008 Democratic one?
I think so -- except that her own party's establishment fears and even loathes Palin, while the Democratic establishment wasn't set against Obama. The hostility of the GOP establishment may be an obstacle to her success. On the other hand, given the performance of GOP operatives and pols over the past few years, maybe their opposition isn't a bad thing.
In any case, this is the same GOP establishment that rallied behind first-term governor George W. Bush in 1997-98 and then propelled him to the nomination in 1999-2000. Had Bush accomplished more than Palin at that point?
Texas has a lot more people than Alaska does, but the Texas governorship is a weaker office -- and some of Bush's first-term initiatives went down in flames, while Palin's have largely succeeded.
It's true that Bush didn't quit as governor and successfully ran for reelection. But why is it more admirable to run for national office while a sitting governor (or senator), spending a fair amount of time out of your state (or away from Congress), necessarily neglecting or delegating some of your duties -- than to turn the office over to your constitutional successor so your constituents have someone working full time on their behalf? Palin will have to endure some fair criticism for abandoning her office before her term ended. But she should also get credit for not using her state office as a means of campaigning for a higher one.
She won't get that credit. For psychological and sociological reasons too deep for me to grasp, a good chunk of elite America hates Sarah Palin and what they've decided she stands for. But if she wears their scorn as a badge of honor, comports herself with good cheer and personal dignity, studies up on national issues and takes the lead in selected debates on behalf of conservative principles against Obama administration policies, she has a shot.
If she's as foolish, erratic and even nutty as her critics claim, then of course she'll fail. If she performs well, she may succeed. If you have an anti-mainstream-media and anti-GOP-establishment bone in your body, it's hard not to root for her at least a bit.
William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, writes a monthly column for The Post.
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com
Monday, July 6, 2009 5:14 PM
I like Sarah Palin (though I don't know her well). I respect her (though I'm aware of some of her limitations). I wish her well (though I'm not convinced she should be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee).I am convinced, though, that she should have a chance to compete and make her case. In this, I seem to differ from many of my friends in the mainstream media and the Republican establishment. They tend not only to dislike and disdain Palin, they also want to bury her chances now as a presidential possibility. What are they so scared of?
It's silly to claim Palin has no chance to win the nomination or the presidency. The fact is, despite a rough campaign in 2008, Palin has been (for what it's worth at this stage) a co-front-runner in polls of GOP primary voters for 2012, along with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. In a recent Pew survey, she had the strongest favorable-unfavorable numbers of the likely candidates among Republicans.
She has fervent supporters, which would presumably help her in primaries and caucuses. Among the general public, she has a not-great but not-unmanageable 45-44 favorability rating.
Will her poll numbers fall because she has opted to step down early from the Alaska governorship? Perhaps. But the short-term effect of that decision will soon be swamped by judgments people make as they see her out and about, speaking and opining on the issues of the day.
She'll be able to make the case effectively that she should be the nominee, or she won't.
The odds are that she won't -- just as the odds at this point are against any one of the GOP candidates. It's a wide-open race. And Palin may not even run. But the panic among mainstream media commentators and the GOP establishment suggests real worry that if she does, she might pull off an upset. Why else the vehement assertions that she's clearly made a terrible mistake? Why else the categorical insistence that her political career is finished? Aren't they all protesting too much?
The media establishment didn't protest much about the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. He gave a good speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, was elected to the Senate that fall, and immediately started running for president. He didn't accomplish much in his four years in the Senate (nor could he have been expected to). But that didn't seem to hurt his standing. Isn't Palin about as well positioned for the 2012 GOP nomination as Obama was in 2005 for the 2008 Democratic one?
I think so -- except that her own party's establishment fears and even loathes Palin, while the Democratic establishment wasn't set against Obama. The hostility of the GOP establishment may be an obstacle to her success. On the other hand, given the performance of GOP operatives and pols over the past few years, maybe their opposition isn't a bad thing.
In any case, this is the same GOP establishment that rallied behind first-term governor George W. Bush in 1997-98 and then propelled him to the nomination in 1999-2000. Had Bush accomplished more than Palin at that point?
Texas has a lot more people than Alaska does, but the Texas governorship is a weaker office -- and some of Bush's first-term initiatives went down in flames, while Palin's have largely succeeded.
It's true that Bush didn't quit as governor and successfully ran for reelection. But why is it more admirable to run for national office while a sitting governor (or senator), spending a fair amount of time out of your state (or away from Congress), necessarily neglecting or delegating some of your duties -- than to turn the office over to your constitutional successor so your constituents have someone working full time on their behalf? Palin will have to endure some fair criticism for abandoning her office before her term ended. But she should also get credit for not using her state office as a means of campaigning for a higher one.
She won't get that credit. For psychological and sociological reasons too deep for me to grasp, a good chunk of elite America hates Sarah Palin and what they've decided she stands for. But if she wears their scorn as a badge of honor, comports herself with good cheer and personal dignity, studies up on national issues and takes the lead in selected debates on behalf of conservative principles against Obama administration policies, she has a shot.
If she's as foolish, erratic and even nutty as her critics claim, then of course she'll fail. If she performs well, she may succeed. If you have an anti-mainstream-media and anti-GOP-establishment bone in your body, it's hard not to root for her at least a bit.
William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, writes a monthly column for The Post.
Roger Federer refuses to blink in fight to finish
By Simon Barnes
The Times of London
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/
July 6, 2009
Salute, then, Roger Federer: the man who broke the unbreakable man. There are all kinds of ways of being a champion. The least sexy, and perhaps the hardest, is simply to stand your ground, simply to outlast the other bugger, simply not to fold and never to compromise. Federer didn’t get to win 15 grand-slam titles — more than anyone else has won — just by pretty shot-making.
The Swiss kisses the Wimbledon trophy after breaking Pete Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slam wins with a sixth title at the All England club
Marc Aspland/The Times
Oh, one’s heart bleeds for Andy Roddick all right. He played 37 service games in this titanic match without being broken once. He would not be broken, no, not him. Not till the 38th game he served, and then Federer showed that he was that tiniest bit better when it came to outlasting.
The scoreline reads like an epic of suffering, and so it was, as Federer won 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14. That final set became a blur: on and on they toiled, taking turns to slap aces at each other. The match was close, the games within it were not. In that final set, each man, as the four-hour mark ticked past, continued to serve with undiminished venom. Love games were common; deuces were rare; break-points almost non-existent. There were three in the first 29 games of that extraordinary set.
You kept saying, well, someone has to break. And break is a big word — in men’s tennis it is like breaking the man himself. To be broken is to surrender a little of your manhood. So this became an old-fashioned bout of male head-butting, and in this department, until the very last game of the match, Roddick had the edge.
He broke Federer in the first set and again in the fourth. And his own serve was a monstrous, inviolable thing. He hit 143mph at one point: more importantly, he crashed down a winner every time the Swiss sniffed a quarter-chance. Federer needed the tie-breakers to get past him. In a normal service game, he just didn’t have a chance. The fifth set looked like a long one from the very first point because Federer had no breaker to wait for.
Graham Hughes/The Times)
Roddick gave his all during the epic Centre Court encounter before finally succumbing to Federer's insatiable winning appetite
Roddick served like a champion, served like he meant to win. But always there was Federer at the other end, never matching Roddick for pace on the serve, but very seldom letting Roddick get close. As the final set rolled on, it was impossible to see a winner, perhaps ever. It looked as if they would still be swapping aces and love games for years to come.
But somebody always does break. You know it, both players know it.
And Federer simply wasn’t prepared for it to be him. And so, in the 30th game of the fifth set — how absurd it feels to write those words — Roddick made a series of small errors, errors that Federer had been waiting for, errors that Federer pounced on without a shred of compassion.
Federer has won Wimbledon before and done so with tennis of beauty and wonder. He has woven a spell, he has entranced, he has created such visions of loveliness that we got all fanciful and called it Art. On Sunday he won by the brilliantly simple tactic of Not Losing. In the second set, he saved four successive set points in the tie-breaker. Had Roddick been two sets to love up, who can say what would have happened.
And in the final set, Federer was mostly outplayed. Roddick was rallying with more aggression, more conviction. But no man would be broken, serve-serve, ace-ace, on and on as the skies grew dark and the sun began to sink.
The end was mercilessly swift. Federer had waited and waited, never buckling. He didn’t beat Roddick, he outlasted him. In the end it was the only ploy that was going to work against a man inspired, against a man who served thunderbolts in the manner of Zeus. Roddick served better, and for much of the match played better, but Federer has another very important weapon in his armoury. He is better at winning championships.
It was a back-to-basics sort of day, a serving duel on a grass court, an eyeballing, antler-crashing battle of the manhoods, an examination of the most basic requirement for winning a championship.
Federer didn’t want it more than Roddick, don’t think that for a second, nobody could have wanted it more than Roddick.
But Federer was better at actually getting it. Federer has won 15 grand-slam tournaments, he won the fifteenth because he is the best at winning.
Only the greatest could have won against Roddick
By Martin Samuel
The London Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/index.html
06th July 2009
Minor royalty presented Roger Federer with the prize that marks his place in history, but Andy Roddick gave him the greatest gift of all.
WIMBLEDON, ENGLAND - JULY 05: Roger Federer of Switzerland and Andy Roddick of USA pose for photographers after the men's singles final match against on Day Thirteen of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on July 5, 2009 in London, England. Federer won 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14. (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
By forcing Federer to endure the longest final set in Grand Slam history, he provided the epic match that puts his achievements into perspective. With his 15th Grand Slam win, the record books state that Federer is now the finest tennis player ever, and if there remained resistance to that announcement it will have ended with a Wimbledon final that wasonly concluded in the 30th match of the fifth set.
Roddick’s bravery, his tenacity, athleticism and some stunning tennis from a player reborn ensured that nobody could be left in any doubt that Federer now stands
alone. The past greats, Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver, were there to bear witness, but nobody could have expected a match of such relentless, mercilessly high quality. Just as there has never been anyone like Federer, there has never been anything like this final.
At the end, before the Duke of Kent could give Federer the trophy, Roddick had to receive his consolation prize. As the guard of honour was forming and the dignitaries
were getting into position, a chant rose from the Centre Court crowd, soft at first, but growing in resonance and fervour until it was taken up by every man, woman and child in the stadium: ‘Roddick, Roddick, Roddick . . . ’
The loser stood and the roar that greeted this acknowledgement of his special part in the making of history was surely louder than has been heard for any beaten finalist, even the favourite sons of SW19. Indeed, when Federer was called forward there was barely a difference in decibel level. Never has the cliche about no man deserving to lose contained more truth.
Many of those who had arrived eager with anticipation of Federer’s 15th Slam were converted to Roddick’s cause by the end. Not just through the British love of the underdog, either; more because Roddick was up against a uniquely mighty opponent, yet had fought with such heart and had raised his game to such a level that he did not deserve to be crushed.
If there was a point at which both men could have shaken hands and agreed to saw the gold cup in half, it would have suited our native sense of fair play. But this is sport and its demands are black and white, a victor and a vanquished. At least nobody plays We Are The Champions, with its crass line about having no time for losers, at major tennis events.
How courageous was Roddick’s performance? Well, at the end of the second set he was as good as given the last rites, in sporting terms. Roddick had already won the first set against expectations 7-5 and was leading 6-2 in the tiebreak, serving for the set and a 2-0 lead. Federer picked up a beautiful crosscourt winner off his feet, then held his service points to take the score to 6-5.
It was at that moment that Roddick missed an easy volley at the net that would have given him the set. Now the score was tied; two points later so was the match, and the rapid demise of Roddick was widely predicted. As the third set was due to begin, he even walked to the wrong end, such was his mental turmoil, and Federer promptly
raced to a 40-0 lead in the first game.
Switzerland's Roger Federer serves a ball to US Andy Roddick in the men's final match on Day 13 at the 2009 Wimbledon tennis championships at the All England Club on July 5, 2009. The event, the third Grand Slam tournament of 2009, runs from June 22 to July 5, 2009. Federer won 5/7,7/6,7/6,6/3, and 16/14 on tie break. AFP PHOTO / GLYN KIRK (Photo credit should read GLYN KIRK/AFP/Getty Images)
Centre Court appeared to be watching one of those sad disintegrations that occur in sport when a lesser player or team knows the chance of victory has passed. To Roddick’s credit, even as he dealt with immense frustration and disappointment, he never saw himself as the support act in another man’s show.
Sages predicted that a Federer win was a matter of time and, while they were right, what could not have been imagined was how much time, the game still in progress almost three hours later.
Far from being mentally diminished, Roddick rallied after another tiebreak defeat to win the fourth set and take Federer, and the final, into areas never considered.
The longest final set of any Grand Slam tournament was in 1927 when Rene Lacoste defeated William Tilden 11-9 in the French Open and then by the same margin in the US Championships (although tennis was very different in those days, the first set of the final against Tilden in the US also ended 9-7 and nobody got to sit down at changeovers).
Presumably, Lacoste was so exhausted after these exertions that he gave it all up to make T-shirts, and who can blame him?
Last year, when Rafael Nadal beat Federer 9-7 in the final here, many thought they had seen the greatest match in Wimbledon’s history, and when Nadal announced he could not defend his trophy through injury it was considered that the spark had gone from The Championships.
It would be too easy for Federer, was the consensus. Unless Andy Murray became inspired on home turf, they might as well begin engraving the trophy now.
Roddick made a mockery of that presumption, of so many presumptions in fact, firstly that it required his A game to beat Murray in the semi-final. As we now know, it was only his B-plus performance. Herewas Roddick’s peak this year, perhaps even in his career, and that Federer still found the wit and strength to defeat him over 30 games in the final set is what puts him apart as a champion.
‘How would you describe what you did here today?’ Roddick was asked. ‘I lost,’ he deadpanned. And, yes, he did, and nothing else matters to such a competitor. Yet, for once, the black and white cannot be allowed to tell the whole story.
Roger Federer is now beyond debate the greatest tennis player there has been and we know this because after four hours and 17 minutes and 77 games on July 5, 2009, he was fractionally better than Andy Roddick. And if he wasn’t the greatest player in the history of the sport he would not have been. It is as simple as that.
The Times of London
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/
July 6, 2009
Salute, then, Roger Federer: the man who broke the unbreakable man. There are all kinds of ways of being a champion. The least sexy, and perhaps the hardest, is simply to stand your ground, simply to outlast the other bugger, simply not to fold and never to compromise. Federer didn’t get to win 15 grand-slam titles — more than anyone else has won — just by pretty shot-making.
The Swiss kisses the Wimbledon trophy after breaking Pete Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slam wins with a sixth title at the All England club
Marc Aspland/The Times
Oh, one’s heart bleeds for Andy Roddick all right. He played 37 service games in this titanic match without being broken once. He would not be broken, no, not him. Not till the 38th game he served, and then Federer showed that he was that tiniest bit better when it came to outlasting.
The scoreline reads like an epic of suffering, and so it was, as Federer won 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14. That final set became a blur: on and on they toiled, taking turns to slap aces at each other. The match was close, the games within it were not. In that final set, each man, as the four-hour mark ticked past, continued to serve with undiminished venom. Love games were common; deuces were rare; break-points almost non-existent. There were three in the first 29 games of that extraordinary set.
You kept saying, well, someone has to break. And break is a big word — in men’s tennis it is like breaking the man himself. To be broken is to surrender a little of your manhood. So this became an old-fashioned bout of male head-butting, and in this department, until the very last game of the match, Roddick had the edge.
He broke Federer in the first set and again in the fourth. And his own serve was a monstrous, inviolable thing. He hit 143mph at one point: more importantly, he crashed down a winner every time the Swiss sniffed a quarter-chance. Federer needed the tie-breakers to get past him. In a normal service game, he just didn’t have a chance. The fifth set looked like a long one from the very first point because Federer had no breaker to wait for.
Graham Hughes/The Times)
Roddick gave his all during the epic Centre Court encounter before finally succumbing to Federer's insatiable winning appetite
Roddick served like a champion, served like he meant to win. But always there was Federer at the other end, never matching Roddick for pace on the serve, but very seldom letting Roddick get close. As the final set rolled on, it was impossible to see a winner, perhaps ever. It looked as if they would still be swapping aces and love games for years to come.
But somebody always does break. You know it, both players know it.
And Federer simply wasn’t prepared for it to be him. And so, in the 30th game of the fifth set — how absurd it feels to write those words — Roddick made a series of small errors, errors that Federer had been waiting for, errors that Federer pounced on without a shred of compassion.
Federer has won Wimbledon before and done so with tennis of beauty and wonder. He has woven a spell, he has entranced, he has created such visions of loveliness that we got all fanciful and called it Art. On Sunday he won by the brilliantly simple tactic of Not Losing. In the second set, he saved four successive set points in the tie-breaker. Had Roddick been two sets to love up, who can say what would have happened.
And in the final set, Federer was mostly outplayed. Roddick was rallying with more aggression, more conviction. But no man would be broken, serve-serve, ace-ace, on and on as the skies grew dark and the sun began to sink.
The end was mercilessly swift. Federer had waited and waited, never buckling. He didn’t beat Roddick, he outlasted him. In the end it was the only ploy that was going to work against a man inspired, against a man who served thunderbolts in the manner of Zeus. Roddick served better, and for much of the match played better, but Federer has another very important weapon in his armoury. He is better at winning championships.
It was a back-to-basics sort of day, a serving duel on a grass court, an eyeballing, antler-crashing battle of the manhoods, an examination of the most basic requirement for winning a championship.
Federer didn’t want it more than Roddick, don’t think that for a second, nobody could have wanted it more than Roddick.
But Federer was better at actually getting it. Federer has won 15 grand-slam tournaments, he won the fifteenth because he is the best at winning.
Only the greatest could have won against Roddick
By Martin Samuel
The London Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/index.html
06th July 2009
Minor royalty presented Roger Federer with the prize that marks his place in history, but Andy Roddick gave him the greatest gift of all.
WIMBLEDON, ENGLAND - JULY 05: Roger Federer of Switzerland and Andy Roddick of USA pose for photographers after the men's singles final match against on Day Thirteen of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on July 5, 2009 in London, England. Federer won 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14. (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)By forcing Federer to endure the longest final set in Grand Slam history, he provided the epic match that puts his achievements into perspective. With his 15th Grand Slam win, the record books state that Federer is now the finest tennis player ever, and if there remained resistance to that announcement it will have ended with a Wimbledon final that wasonly concluded in the 30th match of the fifth set.
Roddick’s bravery, his tenacity, athleticism and some stunning tennis from a player reborn ensured that nobody could be left in any doubt that Federer now stands
alone. The past greats, Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver, were there to bear witness, but nobody could have expected a match of such relentless, mercilessly high quality. Just as there has never been anyone like Federer, there has never been anything like this final.
At the end, before the Duke of Kent could give Federer the trophy, Roddick had to receive his consolation prize. As the guard of honour was forming and the dignitaries
were getting into position, a chant rose from the Centre Court crowd, soft at first, but growing in resonance and fervour until it was taken up by every man, woman and child in the stadium: ‘Roddick, Roddick, Roddick . . . ’
The loser stood and the roar that greeted this acknowledgement of his special part in the making of history was surely louder than has been heard for any beaten finalist, even the favourite sons of SW19. Indeed, when Federer was called forward there was barely a difference in decibel level. Never has the cliche about no man deserving to lose contained more truth.
Many of those who had arrived eager with anticipation of Federer’s 15th Slam were converted to Roddick’s cause by the end. Not just through the British love of the underdog, either; more because Roddick was up against a uniquely mighty opponent, yet had fought with such heart and had raised his game to such a level that he did not deserve to be crushed.
If there was a point at which both men could have shaken hands and agreed to saw the gold cup in half, it would have suited our native sense of fair play. But this is sport and its demands are black and white, a victor and a vanquished. At least nobody plays We Are The Champions, with its crass line about having no time for losers, at major tennis events.
How courageous was Roddick’s performance? Well, at the end of the second set he was as good as given the last rites, in sporting terms. Roddick had already won the first set against expectations 7-5 and was leading 6-2 in the tiebreak, serving for the set and a 2-0 lead. Federer picked up a beautiful crosscourt winner off his feet, then held his service points to take the score to 6-5.
It was at that moment that Roddick missed an easy volley at the net that would have given him the set. Now the score was tied; two points later so was the match, and the rapid demise of Roddick was widely predicted. As the third set was due to begin, he even walked to the wrong end, such was his mental turmoil, and Federer promptly
raced to a 40-0 lead in the first game.
Switzerland's Roger Federer serves a ball to US Andy Roddick in the men's final match on Day 13 at the 2009 Wimbledon tennis championships at the All England Club on July 5, 2009. The event, the third Grand Slam tournament of 2009, runs from June 22 to July 5, 2009. Federer won 5/7,7/6,7/6,6/3, and 16/14 on tie break. AFP PHOTO / GLYN KIRK (Photo credit should read GLYN KIRK/AFP/Getty Images)Centre Court appeared to be watching one of those sad disintegrations that occur in sport when a lesser player or team knows the chance of victory has passed. To Roddick’s credit, even as he dealt with immense frustration and disappointment, he never saw himself as the support act in another man’s show.
Sages predicted that a Federer win was a matter of time and, while they were right, what could not have been imagined was how much time, the game still in progress almost three hours later.
Far from being mentally diminished, Roddick rallied after another tiebreak defeat to win the fourth set and take Federer, and the final, into areas never considered.
The longest final set of any Grand Slam tournament was in 1927 when Rene Lacoste defeated William Tilden 11-9 in the French Open and then by the same margin in the US Championships (although tennis was very different in those days, the first set of the final against Tilden in the US also ended 9-7 and nobody got to sit down at changeovers).
Presumably, Lacoste was so exhausted after these exertions that he gave it all up to make T-shirts, and who can blame him?
Last year, when Rafael Nadal beat Federer 9-7 in the final here, many thought they had seen the greatest match in Wimbledon’s history, and when Nadal announced he could not defend his trophy through injury it was considered that the spark had gone from The Championships.
It would be too easy for Federer, was the consensus. Unless Andy Murray became inspired on home turf, they might as well begin engraving the trophy now.
Roddick made a mockery of that presumption, of so many presumptions in fact, firstly that it required his A game to beat Murray in the semi-final. As we now know, it was only his B-plus performance. Herewas Roddick’s peak this year, perhaps even in his career, and that Federer still found the wit and strength to defeat him over 30 games in the final set is what puts him apart as a champion.
‘How would you describe what you did here today?’ Roddick was asked. ‘I lost,’ he deadpanned. And, yes, he did, and nothing else matters to such a competitor. Yet, for once, the black and white cannot be allowed to tell the whole story.
Roger Federer is now beyond debate the greatest tennis player there has been and we know this because after four hours and 17 minutes and 77 games on July 5, 2009, he was fractionally better than Andy Roddick. And if he wasn’t the greatest player in the history of the sport he would not have been. It is as simple as that.
Film Reviews: The Stoning of Soraya M.
By: David Forsmark
http://www.frontpagemag.com/
Monday, July 06, 2009
The Stoning of Soraya M.
Directed by by Cyrus Nowrasteh
Starring Mozhan Marno and Shohreh Aghdashloo
No matter how much you may have researched, discussed, or even protested the ways in which Sharia Law oppresses women forced to live under its dictates-- and even if you have read every word written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Nonie Darwish— the masterful new film, The Stoning of Soraya M., is invaluable viewing.
Like The Passion of the Christ, (which a number of the Stoning film makers were also involved with) The Stoning of Soraya M. comes harrowingly close to adding experience to something which can be too often relegated to the intellectual.
In his Cairo speech, President Barack Obama proved he needs to take the time to watch this film. While he might admire empathy as a quality for Supreme Court justices, he expressed it in all the wrong places while discussing the role of women in the Muslim world.
Rather than point out that the majority of American military conflicts in the past two decades have protected Muslims from invasion and even genocide-- and brought expanded rights to tens of millions of Muslim women-- Obama bafflingly grabbed this obscure ACLU talking point to illustrate our goodwill:
"The U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal,…’’
To pretend the wearing of the hijab is largely a choice for women that must be defended against Western cultural imperialism goes far beyond the usual crock of diplo-speak. The hijab is merely the outward manifestation of the seamless garment, if you will, of Sharia Law’s enslavement of women, which ultimately results in brutal acts such as the title atrocity of The Stoning of Soraya M.
Obama did have one criticism for the Sharia system, one which (coincidentally, of course) happens to cut close to home for one of his most loyal union constituencies-- “but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous."
A major problem, to be sure. But what about the right of a woman to marry—or not—whom she pleases, to speak and associate with whom she pleases, to make a living, and yes, to dress as she pleases, including not to wear a hijab? How about the right of a woman not to be beaten for neglecting to cater to every whim of a man—and sometimes even when she does?
And ultimately, as this movie so memorably illustrates, to be allowed to at least defend herself in court when her own life is at stake; and not to be killed when she becomes inconvenient to her family or husband?
While many will understandably focus on the climactic act of brutality in The Stoning of Soraya M., the film’s plot, as it unfolds, subtly provides a detailed look at Sharia’s systematic subjugation of women in every aspect of life-- from her place in the home to her place in the public square.
With all the vital issues raised by the film, it seems almost crass to discuss its artistic or commercial merits, as one would Star Trek, or Up. But it is nonetheless important. As the deserved tanking of films like Lions for Lambs and Redacted proves, Americans don’t buy tickets for crude propaganda; and as important as murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh’s Submission may have been, (mainly by bringing world attention to Ayaan Hirsi Ali) the film itself is basically unwatchable.
It might seem shallow to rate Stoning as a piece of “entertainment,” but it must be said that this is a compelling and gripping piece of storytelling that compares favorably to William Wellman’s 1943 anti-lynching classic, The Ox-Bow Incident. Audiences seem to agree. The Stoning of Soraya M. took the Audience Prize at the recent Los Angeles film festival—and not because of any media hype that made it the Thing To Do.
Stoning is based on the 1994 book by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam, who accidentally uncovered the story while stranded by car trouble in a remote Iranian village in the mid-1980s.
Sahebjam, (played by James Caveziel) is approached by Zahra an older, well-off widow who seems to have some stature in the town that protects her from harm. Zahra is powerfully played by Shohreh Aghdashloo, who was an Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actress in House of Sand and Fog, and memorably played a conflicted jihadist mother in Season 4 of 24.
Zahra is determined to tell the world the story of her niece, Soraya, who was falsely accused of adultery by her corrupt husband, Ali, the town jailer who was trading mercy to a condemned prisoner in exchange for taking the man’s 14 year old daughter as his next wife. While Sharia Law allows a man four wives, Ali cannot afford two, and Soraya refuses to give him a divorce as he plans to leaver her and their daughters destitute, taking only their boys with him.
Ali manipulates the corrupt town Mullah, the weak-willed mayor, and intimidates a crucial “witness,” into supporting his plot to legally murder his wife with the consent and participation of the town—and even Soraya’s family.
As encouraging as it may be to see young Iranians marching in the street, they have a lot more to overcome than just the rulers at the top of their culture. The Stoning of Soraya M. reveals the insidious nature of Sharia Law by showing the way everyone is forced or drawn to participate in Soraya’s murder, from officials to her own sons. It takes a village to stone Shorayah.
And that is not the only gutsy decision made by director Cyrus Nowrasteh and his screenwriter wife, Betty Giffen Nowrasteh. Showing the stoning in detail has caused some to cringe; but it is important to show that this is not a quick death, and to realize the savagery of the group mentality necessary to carry this slow torture to its conclusion. Allowing us to look away with a fade to black would not convey the true brutality of what Sharia requires.
The Nowrastehs also had a tough artistic choice to make. A straightforward chronological telling of the story with its inevitable conclusion might have made the film too much to bear. By employing the devise of framing the tale of Shorayah with the efforts of Zahra to get the truth out, they opened themselves to the charge of trivializing the story by giving it a thriller element; but because of this element, the audience is given some glimmer of hope to hang onto.
The device works beautifully. While the film certainly has an agenda, it is a compelling story, not merely a sermon.
I should also say a word about the courage of actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, who has certainly not flinched from taking politically charged—and politically incorrect—roles. She gives another magnificent performance here, giving the film its moral center and keeping it from being just a grim story of victimhood.
Cyrus Nowrasteh, who also was the screenwriter for The Path to 9/11, and The Day Reagan Was Shot, is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. But how big a force depends on the support of everyone who has ever complained about the lack of moral vision in Hollywood.
Don’t be intimidated by the somber subject matter. Get out and see The Stoning of Soraya M. Too many people have risked too much to get the truth out, if we ignore it, their efforts are in vain.
Touch of Evil
Art imitates life, and vice versa, in 'The Stoning of Soraya M.'
by Stephen F. Hayes
The Weekly Standard
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
07/13/2009, Volume 014, Issue 40
The Stoning of Soraya M. is an intense film. It is a beautiful film. It is a disturbing film. Mostly, though, it is an important film--one that reminds us, powerfully and without apology, what evil looks like, what it feels like, and why it's crucial that we recognize and condemn evil when we see it, even when it might be easier to downplay or rationalize or ignore it.
MPower Pictures/Courtesy
Martyr. Soraya (Mozhan Marno) is stoned to death in director Cyrus Nowrasteh's latest film, based on a novel by Freidoune Sahebjam.
For that reason, Soraya might be the best-timed movie release in decades. Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh and produced by Stephen McEveety and John Shepherd of Mpower Pictures, it is set in a rural Iranian village in 1986. It is based on the true story of Freidoune Sahebjam, a French-Iranian reporter who happened upon the town one day after the public stoning of Soraya M., and learned of the horrific act from Soraya's aunt.
Soraya is convicted of adultery after Ali, her abusive husband of 20 years and father of her four children, invents a story about Soraya's supposed liaison with the village idiot, a recent widower. The charges are false. Ali, a jailer, made them up so that he could leave Soraya for the 14-year-old daughter of a local doctor under his watch in prison. Ali blackmails the local sheikh into endorsing the charges and, with this backing, eventually tricks or cajoles several others, including the town's gullible mayor, into joining the harassment of Soraya.
The heroine of the story is Zahra, Soraya's aunt, a feminist anachronism, an outspoken woman who stubbornly refuses to give up her voice in the early years of Iran's post-Revolution theocracy. And it is a haunting voice, both in tone and substance. Zahra, played by the Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, known primarily for her work in House of Sand and Fog and the fourth season of 24, has a deep, gruff voice that ads urgency to her pleas on behalf of Soraya, and adds strength to her confrontations with villagers.
The Stoning of Soraya M. has a curiously suspenseful feel to it, despite the fact that the title eliminates any doubt about Soraya's eventual fate. Will they actually do it? How will they do it? Who will participate?
The stoning scene itself is gruesome. Early in the sequence, Soraya, wearing all white and buried up to her waist, is struck in the forehead with a sharp stone. Blood that begins as a trickle soon pours out of her fresh wound, discoloring her dress and the loose dirt around her. The violence, though difficult to watch, is powerful and essential: This is what evil looks like. It should be uncomfortable.
It has also proven uncomfortable for some critics. The New York Times's Stephen Holden, who once lauded Quentin Tarantino's blood-soaked Reservoir Dogs as a "critic's choice," worries that the violence in Soraya veers off into "lurid torture-porn," and that the contrast between good and evil is too pronounced. Real evil, it seems, is much more difficult to comprehend than the pretend or abstract variety.
We have seen this from the White House as well. Speaking as a candidate, Barack Obama promised to stand for the human rights of Iranian bloggers and to support those who have marched and bled for democracy. Those were nice sentiments that helped him sound presidential at a time in his campaign when sounding presidential mattered most. But for more than a week after Iran's fraudulent elections, as Iranian bloggers were being silenced, and as Iran's marchers for democracy were bleeding in the streets, President Obama was virtually silent. And when the regime dispatched its thugs to smother protests with wanton brutality, Obama praised Iran's "vigorous debate."
The stoning scene was eerily reminiscent of a spectacle that unfolded in Tehran on June 20. A member of the regime's Basij militia gunned down a beautiful young woman standing on the side of the road, near a rally. A shaky video of the immediate aftermath was quickly uploaded and available for viewing on the Internet. It shows Neda Agha-Soltan--whose first name means "voice"--lying on the ground, surrounded by a group of men frantically trying to stop the bleeding from a wound in her chest.
As the camera focuses on her face, her life drifts away. And as her great brown eyes roll backwards, blood begins to flow from her eyes and nose--slowly at first, then in an inexorable flood of death.
President Obama would eventually condemn the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan and others like it. But he did so reluctantly, and only when he had no other political choice. Neda wasn't stoned to death, but she might as well have been. The method of her killing was more technologically advanced and efficient, but that was the only difference between her murder and the stoning of Soraya M.
Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/
Monday, July 06, 2009
The Stoning of Soraya M.Directed by by Cyrus Nowrasteh
Starring Mozhan Marno and Shohreh Aghdashloo
No matter how much you may have researched, discussed, or even protested the ways in which Sharia Law oppresses women forced to live under its dictates-- and even if you have read every word written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Nonie Darwish— the masterful new film, The Stoning of Soraya M., is invaluable viewing.
Like The Passion of the Christ, (which a number of the Stoning film makers were also involved with) The Stoning of Soraya M. comes harrowingly close to adding experience to something which can be too often relegated to the intellectual.
In his Cairo speech, President Barack Obama proved he needs to take the time to watch this film. While he might admire empathy as a quality for Supreme Court justices, he expressed it in all the wrong places while discussing the role of women in the Muslim world.
Rather than point out that the majority of American military conflicts in the past two decades have protected Muslims from invasion and even genocide-- and brought expanded rights to tens of millions of Muslim women-- Obama bafflingly grabbed this obscure ACLU talking point to illustrate our goodwill:
"The U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal,…’’
To pretend the wearing of the hijab is largely a choice for women that must be defended against Western cultural imperialism goes far beyond the usual crock of diplo-speak. The hijab is merely the outward manifestation of the seamless garment, if you will, of Sharia Law’s enslavement of women, which ultimately results in brutal acts such as the title atrocity of The Stoning of Soraya M.
Obama did have one criticism for the Sharia system, one which (coincidentally, of course) happens to cut close to home for one of his most loyal union constituencies-- “but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous."
A major problem, to be sure. But what about the right of a woman to marry—or not—whom she pleases, to speak and associate with whom she pleases, to make a living, and yes, to dress as she pleases, including not to wear a hijab? How about the right of a woman not to be beaten for neglecting to cater to every whim of a man—and sometimes even when she does?
And ultimately, as this movie so memorably illustrates, to be allowed to at least defend herself in court when her own life is at stake; and not to be killed when she becomes inconvenient to her family or husband?
While many will understandably focus on the climactic act of brutality in The Stoning of Soraya M., the film’s plot, as it unfolds, subtly provides a detailed look at Sharia’s systematic subjugation of women in every aspect of life-- from her place in the home to her place in the public square.
With all the vital issues raised by the film, it seems almost crass to discuss its artistic or commercial merits, as one would Star Trek, or Up. But it is nonetheless important. As the deserved tanking of films like Lions for Lambs and Redacted proves, Americans don’t buy tickets for crude propaganda; and as important as murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh’s Submission may have been, (mainly by bringing world attention to Ayaan Hirsi Ali) the film itself is basically unwatchable.
It might seem shallow to rate Stoning as a piece of “entertainment,” but it must be said that this is a compelling and gripping piece of storytelling that compares favorably to William Wellman’s 1943 anti-lynching classic, The Ox-Bow Incident. Audiences seem to agree. The Stoning of Soraya M. took the Audience Prize at the recent Los Angeles film festival—and not because of any media hype that made it the Thing To Do.
Stoning is based on the 1994 book by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam, who accidentally uncovered the story while stranded by car trouble in a remote Iranian village in the mid-1980s.Sahebjam, (played by James Caveziel) is approached by Zahra an older, well-off widow who seems to have some stature in the town that protects her from harm. Zahra is powerfully played by Shohreh Aghdashloo, who was an Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actress in House of Sand and Fog, and memorably played a conflicted jihadist mother in Season 4 of 24.
Zahra is determined to tell the world the story of her niece, Soraya, who was falsely accused of adultery by her corrupt husband, Ali, the town jailer who was trading mercy to a condemned prisoner in exchange for taking the man’s 14 year old daughter as his next wife. While Sharia Law allows a man four wives, Ali cannot afford two, and Soraya refuses to give him a divorce as he plans to leaver her and their daughters destitute, taking only their boys with him.
Ali manipulates the corrupt town Mullah, the weak-willed mayor, and intimidates a crucial “witness,” into supporting his plot to legally murder his wife with the consent and participation of the town—and even Soraya’s family.
As encouraging as it may be to see young Iranians marching in the street, they have a lot more to overcome than just the rulers at the top of their culture. The Stoning of Soraya M. reveals the insidious nature of Sharia Law by showing the way everyone is forced or drawn to participate in Soraya’s murder, from officials to her own sons. It takes a village to stone Shorayah.
And that is not the only gutsy decision made by director Cyrus Nowrasteh and his screenwriter wife, Betty Giffen Nowrasteh. Showing the stoning in detail has caused some to cringe; but it is important to show that this is not a quick death, and to realize the savagery of the group mentality necessary to carry this slow torture to its conclusion. Allowing us to look away with a fade to black would not convey the true brutality of what Sharia requires.
The Nowrastehs also had a tough artistic choice to make. A straightforward chronological telling of the story with its inevitable conclusion might have made the film too much to bear. By employing the devise of framing the tale of Shorayah with the efforts of Zahra to get the truth out, they opened themselves to the charge of trivializing the story by giving it a thriller element; but because of this element, the audience is given some glimmer of hope to hang onto.
The device works beautifully. While the film certainly has an agenda, it is a compelling story, not merely a sermon.
I should also say a word about the courage of actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, who has certainly not flinched from taking politically charged—and politically incorrect—roles. She gives another magnificent performance here, giving the film its moral center and keeping it from being just a grim story of victimhood.
Cyrus Nowrasteh, who also was the screenwriter for The Path to 9/11, and The Day Reagan Was Shot, is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. But how big a force depends on the support of everyone who has ever complained about the lack of moral vision in Hollywood.
Don’t be intimidated by the somber subject matter. Get out and see The Stoning of Soraya M. Too many people have risked too much to get the truth out, if we ignore it, their efforts are in vain.
Touch of Evil
Art imitates life, and vice versa, in 'The Stoning of Soraya M.'
by Stephen F. Hayes
The Weekly Standard
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
07/13/2009, Volume 014, Issue 40
The Stoning of Soraya M. is an intense film. It is a beautiful film. It is a disturbing film. Mostly, though, it is an important film--one that reminds us, powerfully and without apology, what evil looks like, what it feels like, and why it's crucial that we recognize and condemn evil when we see it, even when it might be easier to downplay or rationalize or ignore it.
MPower Pictures/Courtesy
Martyr. Soraya (Mozhan Marno) is stoned to death in director Cyrus Nowrasteh's latest film, based on a novel by Freidoune Sahebjam.
For that reason, Soraya might be the best-timed movie release in decades. Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh and produced by Stephen McEveety and John Shepherd of Mpower Pictures, it is set in a rural Iranian village in 1986. It is based on the true story of Freidoune Sahebjam, a French-Iranian reporter who happened upon the town one day after the public stoning of Soraya M., and learned of the horrific act from Soraya's aunt.
Soraya is convicted of adultery after Ali, her abusive husband of 20 years and father of her four children, invents a story about Soraya's supposed liaison with the village idiot, a recent widower. The charges are false. Ali, a jailer, made them up so that he could leave Soraya for the 14-year-old daughter of a local doctor under his watch in prison. Ali blackmails the local sheikh into endorsing the charges and, with this backing, eventually tricks or cajoles several others, including the town's gullible mayor, into joining the harassment of Soraya.
The heroine of the story is Zahra, Soraya's aunt, a feminist anachronism, an outspoken woman who stubbornly refuses to give up her voice in the early years of Iran's post-Revolution theocracy. And it is a haunting voice, both in tone and substance. Zahra, played by the Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, known primarily for her work in House of Sand and Fog and the fourth season of 24, has a deep, gruff voice that ads urgency to her pleas on behalf of Soraya, and adds strength to her confrontations with villagers.
The Stoning of Soraya M. has a curiously suspenseful feel to it, despite the fact that the title eliminates any doubt about Soraya's eventual fate. Will they actually do it? How will they do it? Who will participate?
The stoning scene itself is gruesome. Early in the sequence, Soraya, wearing all white and buried up to her waist, is struck in the forehead with a sharp stone. Blood that begins as a trickle soon pours out of her fresh wound, discoloring her dress and the loose dirt around her. The violence, though difficult to watch, is powerful and essential: This is what evil looks like. It should be uncomfortable.
It has also proven uncomfortable for some critics. The New York Times's Stephen Holden, who once lauded Quentin Tarantino's blood-soaked Reservoir Dogs as a "critic's choice," worries that the violence in Soraya veers off into "lurid torture-porn," and that the contrast between good and evil is too pronounced. Real evil, it seems, is much more difficult to comprehend than the pretend or abstract variety.
We have seen this from the White House as well. Speaking as a candidate, Barack Obama promised to stand for the human rights of Iranian bloggers and to support those who have marched and bled for democracy. Those were nice sentiments that helped him sound presidential at a time in his campaign when sounding presidential mattered most. But for more than a week after Iran's fraudulent elections, as Iranian bloggers were being silenced, and as Iran's marchers for democracy were bleeding in the streets, President Obama was virtually silent. And when the regime dispatched its thugs to smother protests with wanton brutality, Obama praised Iran's "vigorous debate."
The stoning scene was eerily reminiscent of a spectacle that unfolded in Tehran on June 20. A member of the regime's Basij militia gunned down a beautiful young woman standing on the side of the road, near a rally. A shaky video of the immediate aftermath was quickly uploaded and available for viewing on the Internet. It shows Neda Agha-Soltan--whose first name means "voice"--lying on the ground, surrounded by a group of men frantically trying to stop the bleeding from a wound in her chest.
As the camera focuses on her face, her life drifts away. And as her great brown eyes roll backwards, blood begins to flow from her eyes and nose--slowly at first, then in an inexorable flood of death.
President Obama would eventually condemn the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan and others like it. But he did so reluctantly, and only when he had no other political choice. Neda wasn't stoned to death, but she might as well have been. The method of her killing was more technologically advanced and efficient, but that was the only difference between her murder and the stoning of Soraya M.
Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
The Gun I Didn't Have
by Robert M. Engstrom
http://www.humanevents.com/
07/03/2009
I was walking home a few weeks ago when two young men, one with a knife in his hand, blocked the sidewalk and demanded my wallet and camera. I’m accustomed to having a means of defense other than my fist and an umbrella at hand. I’ve been in Washington, D.C. for three months and had almost gotten used to not having a weapon handy. At home in Arizona, I regularly, and legally, carry a concealed pistol and reluctantly left my guns at home and trusted on instincts and awareness to stay out of trouble.
The hoodlum who tried to rob me was unprepared for resistance and expected compliance to his demands because thugs know that the District of Columbia’s firearm laws and security measures punish law-abiding people who might otherwise carry a defensive weapon. My umbrella didn’t survive the confrontation, but I left the scene with my wallet, camera and the punk’s knife, a cheap piece of junk that is now in a storm sewer.
Foolhardiness on my part and a bit of good luck protected me, but there have been a few nightmares of emergency rooms, lacerated livers, and worse since that night. Training, practice and preparation for carrying a concealed firearm helped me recognize the potential threat before the knife appeared, but having my .45 along that night would have eliminated the danger of the physical contact that ensued.
There are many opinions as to which firearm and accessories is the best choice to carry as there are varieties of pistols and holsters on the market. The choice between a revolver or a semiautomatic pistol depends on the activities I expect to engage in, where I am going, and the weather. It’s difficult to conceal a large semiautomatic and extra ammunition during T-shirt and shorts weather. I do not intend to endorse any manufacturer’s products over another. Each person must make those decisions for themselves based on their requirements. I made my decision to carry a gun after seeking advice, handling and shooting a variety of firearms and testing the accessories available. This is what works best for me.
In urban settings I most often carry a Kimber .45-caliber semiautomatic based on Colt’s Combat Commander version of the 1911 model. The pistol fits my hand and has twice the capacity of the Colt’s seven-round clip. Those, and a good price on a used gun, are the reasons I chose the Kimber to replace a Combat Commander I carried for many years. It is a tried and proven caliber the majority of firearms experts and 100 percent of knife-wielding street punks agree is an effective defense weapon. Because of the size and weight of the gun and two additional magazines, I prefer a shoulder holster. A shoulder rig is, for me, easiest to conceal, comfortable, accessible and protects the pistol from wear and tear and snagging in seatbelts or clothes. I chose a Bianchi shoulder holster because of the way it places the gun in a secure position. I carry the gun loaded, cocked and locked, and after a fair amount of practice, I can release the snap on the holster’s strap, draw the weapon and disengage the safety lock with one hand just as quickly as I can from a side holster. When seconds count, the police are minutes away and there is no time to be fumbling with an ill-fitting holster regardless of whether it’s on my hip or under my arm.
My .380 Walther semiauto fits easily into my back pocket in a wallet holster with a spare magazine. It’s a lighter caliber gun that holds only seven rounds, but is accurate and effective at close range. I carry this double-action gun with a full clip, a round chambered and the de-cocker safety on. Access is slower than a belt or shoulder holster, but the gun is out of sight and on my person. Not a gun for engaging in a prolonged firefight with targets outside of 20 feet away, but a reasonable alternative to being unarmed. Besides, if I’ve got more than twenty feet of space between me and trouble, I’ll be exercising my fundamental right to run away.
Both of my semiautomatic pistols are factory stock guns except for the sights. As a concession to aging eyes, I have tritium dot sights installed. They are highly visible in low light and glow in the dark. Laser-dot sights and frame-mounted flashlights are great innovations and if I were actively hunting troublemakers, I’d consider them, but they do have drawbacks. They change a gun’s contours and balance, and how it fits into and comes out of a holster. Gadgets require batteries, extra complications and expenses I don’t need. Worse, lasers and flashlights work both ways. Shine a light source around and the target can see where you are. If I can’t retreat and a gunfight in the dark is unavoidable, I would prefer that the first indication of my location be announced by the muzzle flash of a well-placed shot.
In rural environments, I carry a double-action revolver. Either a.357 snub nose that holds seven rounds, or a Taurus five-shot pistol that chambers either .410 shot shells or.45 long Colt ammunition. Despite the power of these small cannons, they fit my hand and are comfortable to shoot. Ammunition for both guns is readily available, accurate at close range, and will discourage an assailant, human or otherwise. Revolvers are reliable, even after days of being carried around in adverse conditions that a semiauto might not tolerate. Semiautos require regular cleaning and attention, but revolvers loaded with good ammunition fire every time the trigger is squeezed.
I carry a revolver in an external belt holster set up for a cross-body draw. A belt holster is generally recognized as the fastest draw and when out in the boondocks there is less need for the gun to be concealed. I expect any holster to securely contain the pistol, but readily release it for a one-handed draw.
Fanny packs and shoulder bags are convenient for concealing a weapon, but the physical control of a loaded gun is lost if I am separated from the bag for any reason. That is unacceptable unless secure lockers are available. In public places, you might get to chat with some very nice law enforcement people for inquiring about lockers. Be polite when that happens, because those folks, who are generally decent sorts doing a necessary and hazardous job, get shot at more often than the rest of us average people and they are correctly concerned about people carrying guns.
Shooters are aware of the current shortage of ammunition that appears to be the result of the fear of the change that began after November’s elections. Ammo for the .45, .357, .380, and .410 buckshot rounds have, so far, been readily available. I load the pistols I carry with jacketed, hollow point ammunition and I practice with the same ammunition. That way, I know what to expect in terms of accuracy, noise and recoil should I ever have to discharge the gun in self defense.
The most street-wise punk knows it is stupid to bring a knife to a gunfight. I followed the laws, stayed legal, and left my guns at home when I came here. The gun regulations of our nation’s capitol put me face to face with a criminal who ignores the laws. Law enforcement was not there to protect me and the rules I followed stole my right to protect myself. Where’s the justice in that?
- Robert M. Engstrom graduated Magna Cum Laude with honors from the University of Arizona School of Journalism. He was an award-winning reporter, photographer and editor with The Tombstone Epitaph and part owner, political reporter and photography editor for The Casas Adobes Courier in Tucson. He is an intern at HUMAN EVENTS through the National Journalism Center.
http://www.humanevents.com/
07/03/2009
I was walking home a few weeks ago when two young men, one with a knife in his hand, blocked the sidewalk and demanded my wallet and camera. I’m accustomed to having a means of defense other than my fist and an umbrella at hand. I’ve been in Washington, D.C. for three months and had almost gotten used to not having a weapon handy. At home in Arizona, I regularly, and legally, carry a concealed pistol and reluctantly left my guns at home and trusted on instincts and awareness to stay out of trouble.
The hoodlum who tried to rob me was unprepared for resistance and expected compliance to his demands because thugs know that the District of Columbia’s firearm laws and security measures punish law-abiding people who might otherwise carry a defensive weapon. My umbrella didn’t survive the confrontation, but I left the scene with my wallet, camera and the punk’s knife, a cheap piece of junk that is now in a storm sewer.Foolhardiness on my part and a bit of good luck protected me, but there have been a few nightmares of emergency rooms, lacerated livers, and worse since that night. Training, practice and preparation for carrying a concealed firearm helped me recognize the potential threat before the knife appeared, but having my .45 along that night would have eliminated the danger of the physical contact that ensued.
There are many opinions as to which firearm and accessories is the best choice to carry as there are varieties of pistols and holsters on the market. The choice between a revolver or a semiautomatic pistol depends on the activities I expect to engage in, where I am going, and the weather. It’s difficult to conceal a large semiautomatic and extra ammunition during T-shirt and shorts weather. I do not intend to endorse any manufacturer’s products over another. Each person must make those decisions for themselves based on their requirements. I made my decision to carry a gun after seeking advice, handling and shooting a variety of firearms and testing the accessories available. This is what works best for me.
In urban settings I most often carry a Kimber .45-caliber semiautomatic based on Colt’s Combat Commander version of the 1911 model. The pistol fits my hand and has twice the capacity of the Colt’s seven-round clip. Those, and a good price on a used gun, are the reasons I chose the Kimber to replace a Combat Commander I carried for many years. It is a tried and proven caliber the majority of firearms experts and 100 percent of knife-wielding street punks agree is an effective defense weapon. Because of the size and weight of the gun and two additional magazines, I prefer a shoulder holster. A shoulder rig is, for me, easiest to conceal, comfortable, accessible and protects the pistol from wear and tear and snagging in seatbelts or clothes. I chose a Bianchi shoulder holster because of the way it places the gun in a secure position. I carry the gun loaded, cocked and locked, and after a fair amount of practice, I can release the snap on the holster’s strap, draw the weapon and disengage the safety lock with one hand just as quickly as I can from a side holster. When seconds count, the police are minutes away and there is no time to be fumbling with an ill-fitting holster regardless of whether it’s on my hip or under my arm.
My .380 Walther semiauto fits easily into my back pocket in a wallet holster with a spare magazine. It’s a lighter caliber gun that holds only seven rounds, but is accurate and effective at close range. I carry this double-action gun with a full clip, a round chambered and the de-cocker safety on. Access is slower than a belt or shoulder holster, but the gun is out of sight and on my person. Not a gun for engaging in a prolonged firefight with targets outside of 20 feet away, but a reasonable alternative to being unarmed. Besides, if I’ve got more than twenty feet of space between me and trouble, I’ll be exercising my fundamental right to run away.
Both of my semiautomatic pistols are factory stock guns except for the sights. As a concession to aging eyes, I have tritium dot sights installed. They are highly visible in low light and glow in the dark. Laser-dot sights and frame-mounted flashlights are great innovations and if I were actively hunting troublemakers, I’d consider them, but they do have drawbacks. They change a gun’s contours and balance, and how it fits into and comes out of a holster. Gadgets require batteries, extra complications and expenses I don’t need. Worse, lasers and flashlights work both ways. Shine a light source around and the target can see where you are. If I can’t retreat and a gunfight in the dark is unavoidable, I would prefer that the first indication of my location be announced by the muzzle flash of a well-placed shot.
In rural environments, I carry a double-action revolver. Either a.357 snub nose that holds seven rounds, or a Taurus five-shot pistol that chambers either .410 shot shells or.45 long Colt ammunition. Despite the power of these small cannons, they fit my hand and are comfortable to shoot. Ammunition for both guns is readily available, accurate at close range, and will discourage an assailant, human or otherwise. Revolvers are reliable, even after days of being carried around in adverse conditions that a semiauto might not tolerate. Semiautos require regular cleaning and attention, but revolvers loaded with good ammunition fire every time the trigger is squeezed.
I carry a revolver in an external belt holster set up for a cross-body draw. A belt holster is generally recognized as the fastest draw and when out in the boondocks there is less need for the gun to be concealed. I expect any holster to securely contain the pistol, but readily release it for a one-handed draw.
Fanny packs and shoulder bags are convenient for concealing a weapon, but the physical control of a loaded gun is lost if I am separated from the bag for any reason. That is unacceptable unless secure lockers are available. In public places, you might get to chat with some very nice law enforcement people for inquiring about lockers. Be polite when that happens, because those folks, who are generally decent sorts doing a necessary and hazardous job, get shot at more often than the rest of us average people and they are correctly concerned about people carrying guns.
Shooters are aware of the current shortage of ammunition that appears to be the result of the fear of the change that began after November’s elections. Ammo for the .45, .357, .380, and .410 buckshot rounds have, so far, been readily available. I load the pistols I carry with jacketed, hollow point ammunition and I practice with the same ammunition. That way, I know what to expect in terms of accuracy, noise and recoil should I ever have to discharge the gun in self defense.
The most street-wise punk knows it is stupid to bring a knife to a gunfight. I followed the laws, stayed legal, and left my guns at home when I came here. The gun regulations of our nation’s capitol put me face to face with a criminal who ignores the laws. Law enforcement was not there to protect me and the rules I followed stole my right to protect myself. Where’s the justice in that?
- Robert M. Engstrom graduated Magna Cum Laude with honors from the University of Arizona School of Journalism. He was an award-winning reporter, photographer and editor with The Tombstone Epitaph and part owner, political reporter and photography editor for The Casas Adobes Courier in Tucson. He is an intern at HUMAN EVENTS through the National Journalism Center.
Cap and Trade Dementia
By Peter Ferrara on 7.1.09 @ 6:09AM
The American Spectator
http://spectator.org/
Barack Obama called for House passage of the cap and trade tax bill last Friday by calling it a jobs bill. The bill is designed to raise the price of energy in the U.S. so much that it will reduce the use of fossil fuels by 17% by 2020 and by 83% by 2050. Sentencing the U.S. economy to high cost energy is not a particularly good strategy for creating jobs. The Charles River Associates, a Harvard based economics consulting firm, estimates a net loss of jobs from the bill of about 2.5 million each year.
This is surely a gross underestimate of the net job losses from a bill designed to reduce the use of fossil fuels to the level in 1907. All those soccer moms better get used to riding their horses to the grocery store and back. And their husbands better get used to working the farms again, by hand, as high cost energy will chase remaining American manufacturing out of the country to India and China, which do not suffer from Al Gore's delusions about supposed global warming.
Yet Barack Obama calls it a jobs bill. This reflects a by now well-established pattern of deceptive, misdirection rhetoric, raising broadly appealing ideals in promotion of policies that would do just the opposite. For example, Obama is also trying to sell us a new health care entitlement, larger than any of our already grossly overgrown entitlements we can't finance, with the argument that it will actually reduce costs, even while CBO estimates that it will increase Federal spending by $1.6 trillion (woefully underestimated).
Earlier this year, Obama released his budget with great fanfare about how it would supposedly reduce the federal deficit in half in five years. Hidden in the fine print was the awful truth that his budget, now passed by the overwhelmingly Democrat Congress, explodes this year's deficit to a record busting $1.8 trillion, four times bigger than Bush's largest deficit, and seven times bigger than Reagan's largest, which caused so much caterwauling among liberals. The deficit in the last budget passed by a Republican controlled Congress was $162 billion, less than 10% as much.
Last year, Obama campaigned on proposals to raise the top two income tax rates by over 10%, the capital gains tax rate by 33%, and the tax rate on dividends by 33%, while restoring a permanent death tax rate of 45%, and raising taxes on corporations that already pay virtually the highest tax rates in the industrialized world, all the while focusing on his promise to cut taxes for 95% of Americans. That tax cut turned out to be a puny $400 per worker tax credit that is phased out after next year, when his tax increases will become effective to sink the still sputtering economy.
During the campaign, Obama also pledged that he would never raise taxes in any form on Americans making less than $250,000 per year. But his cap and trade tax is estimated to cost American families almost $2,000 a year when it becomes effective, growing to almost $7,000 a year for a family of four by 2035. That will be paid through higher prices for electricity, oil, gasoline, natural gas, home heating oil, coal, food, and every product that is produced or transported using energy. Remember: when the first President Bush violated his oft-repeated campaign pledge not to raise taxes, voters booted him out in the next election.
Democrats have suggested that the legislation would cost American families only $175 a year, or as little as $80. But fossil fuel use is not going to be reduced by 17%, growing to 83%, through added costs of $80 to $175 per year.
The rationale for this bill is to counter global warming by sharply reducing greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide. But even if the bill works exactly as envisioned, the most radical environmentalists admit that it will only slow temperature increases by 2050 by a ridiculous 9/100th of one degree Fahrenheit! Even after all the costs of reducing the use of fossil fuels by 83%, that is all that would result.
That is because all humans across the planet produce less than 5% of all carbon dioxide emissions. So slashing U.S. emissions won't have much effect in any event. Moreover, don't expect other nations to follow us in this foolhardy policy. Even the Europeans never really enforced their own cap and trade regulations, so their carbon dioxide emissions have actually increased more than ours over the last 10 years. Now nations from France to Poland, Japan, the Czech Republic, Australia, New Zealand and others are turning away from cap and trade policies, and souring on the whole notion of global warming. China, now the world's number one carbon dioxide producer, India, Russia, Africa, and South America have shown no interest in the suicidal economics of global warming fantasy. But the left-wing extremists now running America are too close-minded and religiously dogmatic to even consider an alternative course.
As the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) recently asked:
Does it really make sense to eliminate between 2.3 million and 2.7 million jobs each year, and force families, farmers, and drivers to pay higher power bills, higher heating and cooling bills, higher food and goods prices, and higher gasoline and diesel prices, all for the promise of slowing temperature increases by merely hundredths of a single degree Fahrenheit by 2050?
The Global Warming Hoax
Worst of all, the science behind global warming is now collapsing. The most reliable satellite weather data shows that global atmospheric temperatures have declined over the last 11 years, with the trend downward accelerating. Even global warming advocates are now conceding that this trend may continue for decades.
Moreover, the latest and best science shows that the temperature patterns of the 20th century correlate with natural causes, not global warming theory. Temperatures did not increase steadily throughout the last century, even though carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases did. Temperatures in the U.S., which has the most thorough and consistent temperature record and historically the most CO2 emissions, were stable until 1920, increased some in the 1920s, and then soared to produce the hottest decade of the century during the 1930s (before the later, more rapid increases in greenhouse gas emissions). The climate then cooled during most of the period from 1940 until about 1977. Temperatures climbed upward from 1977 until 1998, except for a sharp downturn from about 1988 until about 1995. Temperatures are down again over the past decade.
This record is more consistent with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a long-term pattern of ocean currents that turns from cold to warm back to cold every 20 to 30 years, and with variations in solar activity, particularly sunspots. Indeed, our current accelerating temperature decline correlates with an extended trend of slowing sunspot activity, which may portend another Little Ice Age, as happened from the early 1400s to the late 1800s. Indeed, a full-blown ice age is now overdue based on historical patterns.
Democrat political rhetoric labels carbon dioxide as pollution, arguing that the bill sharply reduces such pollution, and targets "polluters." But carbon dioxide is a natural substance essential to all life on the planet, not pollution. All plants must take in carbon dioxide to survive, and emit oxygen. Humans and all other animal life need that oxygen to survive, and breathe out carbon dioxide. Moreover, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were several times higher in the past than today, for hundreds of millions of years, with only beneficial effects in the flowering of plant and animal life recorded.
Despite what you have heard from the Democrat party controlled media, the polar ice caps are not melting. The melting of glaciers still going on due to the end of the last ice age, and, therefore, not due to global warming, has caused sea levels to rise by roughly 400 feet over the last 18,000 years! That rise has been decelerating over the past 5,000 years, settling into a stable rate of increase over the last century of about 1.8 mm per year, regardless of global temperature fluctuations. That would result in a sea level rise over the next 100 years of less than 9 inches.
Finally, the latest science shows that the theory of significant man-made global warming has now been definitively proved false. The UN's own climate models, the top source of global warming hysteria, project that if man's emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were causing global warming, there would be a particular pattern of temperature distribution in the atmosphere, which scientists call "the fingerprint."
Temperatures in the troposphere portion of the atmosphere above the tropics would increase with altitude, producing a "hotspot" near the top of the troposphere, about 6 miles above the earth's surface. Above that, in the stratosphere, there would be cooling.
All scientists, both the alarmist warm-mongers and the pacifist cooler heads, agree that this temperature pattern would result if man were causing global warming, reflecting the pattern of CO2 and other greenhouse gases that would prevail in the atmosphere. Warming due to solar variations or other natural causes would not leave such a fingerprint pattern. Higher quality temperature data from weather balloons and satellites now enable us to settle the man-made global warming debate definitively.
The observed result is just the opposite of the modeled global warming fingerprint pattern. The data from weather balloons show no increasing warming with altitude, but rather a slight cooling, with no hotspot. The satellite data confirms this result: no increasing temperature with altitude, no hotspot, no fingerprint.
These arguments are now increasingly accepted by scientists all over the world. Those who argue there is a scientific consensus to the contrary are posturing fakers. As Kimberley Strassel wrote in the Wall Street Journal last Monday:
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming….Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion."
Even a suppressed study from inside the EPA concludes, "Given the downward trend in temperatures since 1998 (which some think will continue until at least 2030), there is no particular reason to rush into decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data." Investors Business Daily reports in a June 26 editorial regarding that study:
What the report says is that the EPA, by adopting the United Nations 2007 "Fourth Assessment" report, is relying on outdated research by its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The research, it says, is "at best three years out of date in a rapidly changing field" and ignores the latest scientific findings….
We have noted frequently the significance of solar activity on earth's climate and history. This EPA draft report not only confirms our reporting but the brazen incompetence of those "experts" that have been prophesying planetary apocalypse.
"A new 2009 paper by Scafetta and West," the report says, "suggests that the IPCC used faulty data in dismissing the direct effect of solar variability on global temperatures. Their report suggests that solar variability could account for up to 68% of the increase in the Earth's global temperatures."
One of the best sources for the true science of global warming is the operation of Dr. Fred Singer at SEPP. Singer is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia, and the founder and first Director of the National Weather Satellite Service. Another top source is the Heartland Institute. There is no collection of scientists in the world smarter and better than those who speak at and attend their regular international conferences on climate change. Heartland has just published the definitive rebuttal to the theory of significant man-made global warming, the 880-page Climate Change Reconsidered.
Probably the most articulate and informed single advocate countering global warming hysteria is Marc Morano. The Competitive Enterprise Institute also does top drawer work on the fallacies of global warming.
Global warming has nothing to do with science. It is about cover for massive increases in government power and taxes at all levels, including UN dreams of becoming a world government with global taxing powers. This is the only reason it is so heartily embraced by liberal/left interests. These people don't know anything about science.
The American People Get It
Recent polls show the truth about global warming has broken through to the American people. A recent Zogby poll found Americans oppose cap and trade 57% to 30%. The latest Rasmussen poll finds that 42% think the House passed cap and trade bill will hurt the economy, with only 19% agreeing with President Obama that it will help the economy. Another Rasmussen poll found that only 34% now believe humans cause global warming, the lowest polling yet and a reversal from a year ago. Gallup says a record high 41% of Americans now say global warming has been exaggerated, and "Gore has failed -- the public is just not that concerned" about global warming. Other surveys find Americans ranking global warming dead last among issues of concern.
In fact, this is the perfect issue to rally around with your own grassroots organizing. Anyone can get up to speed by checking the sources above. Get your friends and neighbors together and lead a discussion on the issue, aimed at taking political action. The 1,300-page bill also includes some shocking hidden provisions. The bill mandates that all houses must pass an energy conservation inspection by a government auditor before they can be sold. It also mandates use of new light bulbs containing poison mercury gas. It includes $300 billion in additional foreign aid spending from 2012 to 2019 for climate change adaptation, clean technology, and forest protection in countries such as Brazil. Maybe you can organize your neighborhood to ask your congressional representatives, "Why are you voting for a bill that will have hugely negative effects on the economy, jobs, and our standard of living, but will not have a measurable impact on the climate?"
Finally, some Democrats insist that the cap and trade bill does not really involve a tax at all. The best answer to them was given by Newt Gingrich at this year's CPAC,
Now I listened carefully to the President's speech the other night… the final educational lesson of the evening came when the President having promised he would not raise taxes on anyone below $250,000 mentioned…that he is for [the cap and trade tax]…. I said to myself, let me get this straight, we are not going to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year, unless you use electricity. And we are not going to raise taxes on anyone under $250,000 per year, unless you buy gasoline, …[or] unless you buy heating oil, …[or] unless you use natural gas…. And I thought to myself how dumb do they think we are that they can pretend that an energy tax is not an energy tax and … that every retired American who uses electricity is not going to pay it, and every person in New Hampshire who uses heating oil is not going to pay it, and every person who drives a car isn't going to pay it. I just want to report to Attorney General Holder and President Obama that this is a nation of people courageous enough…to insist that we not be governed by people who won't tell us the truth.
When considering potential future candidates for President, Republicans and conservatives should think, who do we want on the stage debating Obama in 2012?
- Peter Ferrara is director of budget and entitlement policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation and General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union. He formerly served in President Reagan's White House Office of Policy Development, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under the first President Bush. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.
The American Spectator
http://spectator.org/
Barack Obama called for House passage of the cap and trade tax bill last Friday by calling it a jobs bill. The bill is designed to raise the price of energy in the U.S. so much that it will reduce the use of fossil fuels by 17% by 2020 and by 83% by 2050. Sentencing the U.S. economy to high cost energy is not a particularly good strategy for creating jobs. The Charles River Associates, a Harvard based economics consulting firm, estimates a net loss of jobs from the bill of about 2.5 million each year.This is surely a gross underestimate of the net job losses from a bill designed to reduce the use of fossil fuels to the level in 1907. All those soccer moms better get used to riding their horses to the grocery store and back. And their husbands better get used to working the farms again, by hand, as high cost energy will chase remaining American manufacturing out of the country to India and China, which do not suffer from Al Gore's delusions about supposed global warming.
Yet Barack Obama calls it a jobs bill. This reflects a by now well-established pattern of deceptive, misdirection rhetoric, raising broadly appealing ideals in promotion of policies that would do just the opposite. For example, Obama is also trying to sell us a new health care entitlement, larger than any of our already grossly overgrown entitlements we can't finance, with the argument that it will actually reduce costs, even while CBO estimates that it will increase Federal spending by $1.6 trillion (woefully underestimated).
Earlier this year, Obama released his budget with great fanfare about how it would supposedly reduce the federal deficit in half in five years. Hidden in the fine print was the awful truth that his budget, now passed by the overwhelmingly Democrat Congress, explodes this year's deficit to a record busting $1.8 trillion, four times bigger than Bush's largest deficit, and seven times bigger than Reagan's largest, which caused so much caterwauling among liberals. The deficit in the last budget passed by a Republican controlled Congress was $162 billion, less than 10% as much.
Last year, Obama campaigned on proposals to raise the top two income tax rates by over 10%, the capital gains tax rate by 33%, and the tax rate on dividends by 33%, while restoring a permanent death tax rate of 45%, and raising taxes on corporations that already pay virtually the highest tax rates in the industrialized world, all the while focusing on his promise to cut taxes for 95% of Americans. That tax cut turned out to be a puny $400 per worker tax credit that is phased out after next year, when his tax increases will become effective to sink the still sputtering economy.
During the campaign, Obama also pledged that he would never raise taxes in any form on Americans making less than $250,000 per year. But his cap and trade tax is estimated to cost American families almost $2,000 a year when it becomes effective, growing to almost $7,000 a year for a family of four by 2035. That will be paid through higher prices for electricity, oil, gasoline, natural gas, home heating oil, coal, food, and every product that is produced or transported using energy. Remember: when the first President Bush violated his oft-repeated campaign pledge not to raise taxes, voters booted him out in the next election.
Democrats have suggested that the legislation would cost American families only $175 a year, or as little as $80. But fossil fuel use is not going to be reduced by 17%, growing to 83%, through added costs of $80 to $175 per year.
The rationale for this bill is to counter global warming by sharply reducing greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide. But even if the bill works exactly as envisioned, the most radical environmentalists admit that it will only slow temperature increases by 2050 by a ridiculous 9/100th of one degree Fahrenheit! Even after all the costs of reducing the use of fossil fuels by 83%, that is all that would result.
That is because all humans across the planet produce less than 5% of all carbon dioxide emissions. So slashing U.S. emissions won't have much effect in any event. Moreover, don't expect other nations to follow us in this foolhardy policy. Even the Europeans never really enforced their own cap and trade regulations, so their carbon dioxide emissions have actually increased more than ours over the last 10 years. Now nations from France to Poland, Japan, the Czech Republic, Australia, New Zealand and others are turning away from cap and trade policies, and souring on the whole notion of global warming. China, now the world's number one carbon dioxide producer, India, Russia, Africa, and South America have shown no interest in the suicidal economics of global warming fantasy. But the left-wing extremists now running America are too close-minded and religiously dogmatic to even consider an alternative course.
As the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) recently asked:
Does it really make sense to eliminate between 2.3 million and 2.7 million jobs each year, and force families, farmers, and drivers to pay higher power bills, higher heating and cooling bills, higher food and goods prices, and higher gasoline and diesel prices, all for the promise of slowing temperature increases by merely hundredths of a single degree Fahrenheit by 2050?
The Global Warming Hoax
Worst of all, the science behind global warming is now collapsing. The most reliable satellite weather data shows that global atmospheric temperatures have declined over the last 11 years, with the trend downward accelerating. Even global warming advocates are now conceding that this trend may continue for decades.
Moreover, the latest and best science shows that the temperature patterns of the 20th century correlate with natural causes, not global warming theory. Temperatures did not increase steadily throughout the last century, even though carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases did. Temperatures in the U.S., which has the most thorough and consistent temperature record and historically the most CO2 emissions, were stable until 1920, increased some in the 1920s, and then soared to produce the hottest decade of the century during the 1930s (before the later, more rapid increases in greenhouse gas emissions). The climate then cooled during most of the period from 1940 until about 1977. Temperatures climbed upward from 1977 until 1998, except for a sharp downturn from about 1988 until about 1995. Temperatures are down again over the past decade.
This record is more consistent with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a long-term pattern of ocean currents that turns from cold to warm back to cold every 20 to 30 years, and with variations in solar activity, particularly sunspots. Indeed, our current accelerating temperature decline correlates with an extended trend of slowing sunspot activity, which may portend another Little Ice Age, as happened from the early 1400s to the late 1800s. Indeed, a full-blown ice age is now overdue based on historical patterns.
Democrat political rhetoric labels carbon dioxide as pollution, arguing that the bill sharply reduces such pollution, and targets "polluters." But carbon dioxide is a natural substance essential to all life on the planet, not pollution. All plants must take in carbon dioxide to survive, and emit oxygen. Humans and all other animal life need that oxygen to survive, and breathe out carbon dioxide. Moreover, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were several times higher in the past than today, for hundreds of millions of years, with only beneficial effects in the flowering of plant and animal life recorded.
Despite what you have heard from the Democrat party controlled media, the polar ice caps are not melting. The melting of glaciers still going on due to the end of the last ice age, and, therefore, not due to global warming, has caused sea levels to rise by roughly 400 feet over the last 18,000 years! That rise has been decelerating over the past 5,000 years, settling into a stable rate of increase over the last century of about 1.8 mm per year, regardless of global temperature fluctuations. That would result in a sea level rise over the next 100 years of less than 9 inches.
Finally, the latest science shows that the theory of significant man-made global warming has now been definitively proved false. The UN's own climate models, the top source of global warming hysteria, project that if man's emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were causing global warming, there would be a particular pattern of temperature distribution in the atmosphere, which scientists call "the fingerprint."
Temperatures in the troposphere portion of the atmosphere above the tropics would increase with altitude, producing a "hotspot" near the top of the troposphere, about 6 miles above the earth's surface. Above that, in the stratosphere, there would be cooling.
All scientists, both the alarmist warm-mongers and the pacifist cooler heads, agree that this temperature pattern would result if man were causing global warming, reflecting the pattern of CO2 and other greenhouse gases that would prevail in the atmosphere. Warming due to solar variations or other natural causes would not leave such a fingerprint pattern. Higher quality temperature data from weather balloons and satellites now enable us to settle the man-made global warming debate definitively.
The observed result is just the opposite of the modeled global warming fingerprint pattern. The data from weather balloons show no increasing warming with altitude, but rather a slight cooling, with no hotspot. The satellite data confirms this result: no increasing temperature with altitude, no hotspot, no fingerprint.
These arguments are now increasingly accepted by scientists all over the world. Those who argue there is a scientific consensus to the contrary are posturing fakers. As Kimberley Strassel wrote in the Wall Street Journal last Monday:
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming….Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion."
Even a suppressed study from inside the EPA concludes, "Given the downward trend in temperatures since 1998 (which some think will continue until at least 2030), there is no particular reason to rush into decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data." Investors Business Daily reports in a June 26 editorial regarding that study:
What the report says is that the EPA, by adopting the United Nations 2007 "Fourth Assessment" report, is relying on outdated research by its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The research, it says, is "at best three years out of date in a rapidly changing field" and ignores the latest scientific findings….
We have noted frequently the significance of solar activity on earth's climate and history. This EPA draft report not only confirms our reporting but the brazen incompetence of those "experts" that have been prophesying planetary apocalypse.
"A new 2009 paper by Scafetta and West," the report says, "suggests that the IPCC used faulty data in dismissing the direct effect of solar variability on global temperatures. Their report suggests that solar variability could account for up to 68% of the increase in the Earth's global temperatures."
One of the best sources for the true science of global warming is the operation of Dr. Fred Singer at SEPP. Singer is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia, and the founder and first Director of the National Weather Satellite Service. Another top source is the Heartland Institute. There is no collection of scientists in the world smarter and better than those who speak at and attend their regular international conferences on climate change. Heartland has just published the definitive rebuttal to the theory of significant man-made global warming, the 880-page Climate Change Reconsidered.
Probably the most articulate and informed single advocate countering global warming hysteria is Marc Morano. The Competitive Enterprise Institute also does top drawer work on the fallacies of global warming.
Global warming has nothing to do with science. It is about cover for massive increases in government power and taxes at all levels, including UN dreams of becoming a world government with global taxing powers. This is the only reason it is so heartily embraced by liberal/left interests. These people don't know anything about science.
The American People Get It
Recent polls show the truth about global warming has broken through to the American people. A recent Zogby poll found Americans oppose cap and trade 57% to 30%. The latest Rasmussen poll finds that 42% think the House passed cap and trade bill will hurt the economy, with only 19% agreeing with President Obama that it will help the economy. Another Rasmussen poll found that only 34% now believe humans cause global warming, the lowest polling yet and a reversal from a year ago. Gallup says a record high 41% of Americans now say global warming has been exaggerated, and "Gore has failed -- the public is just not that concerned" about global warming. Other surveys find Americans ranking global warming dead last among issues of concern.
In fact, this is the perfect issue to rally around with your own grassroots organizing. Anyone can get up to speed by checking the sources above. Get your friends and neighbors together and lead a discussion on the issue, aimed at taking political action. The 1,300-page bill also includes some shocking hidden provisions. The bill mandates that all houses must pass an energy conservation inspection by a government auditor before they can be sold. It also mandates use of new light bulbs containing poison mercury gas. It includes $300 billion in additional foreign aid spending from 2012 to 2019 for climate change adaptation, clean technology, and forest protection in countries such as Brazil. Maybe you can organize your neighborhood to ask your congressional representatives, "Why are you voting for a bill that will have hugely negative effects on the economy, jobs, and our standard of living, but will not have a measurable impact on the climate?"
Finally, some Democrats insist that the cap and trade bill does not really involve a tax at all. The best answer to them was given by Newt Gingrich at this year's CPAC,
Now I listened carefully to the President's speech the other night… the final educational lesson of the evening came when the President having promised he would not raise taxes on anyone below $250,000 mentioned…that he is for [the cap and trade tax]…. I said to myself, let me get this straight, we are not going to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year, unless you use electricity. And we are not going to raise taxes on anyone under $250,000 per year, unless you buy gasoline, …[or] unless you buy heating oil, …[or] unless you use natural gas…. And I thought to myself how dumb do they think we are that they can pretend that an energy tax is not an energy tax and … that every retired American who uses electricity is not going to pay it, and every person in New Hampshire who uses heating oil is not going to pay it, and every person who drives a car isn't going to pay it. I just want to report to Attorney General Holder and President Obama that this is a nation of people courageous enough…to insist that we not be governed by people who won't tell us the truth.
When considering potential future candidates for President, Republicans and conservatives should think, who do we want on the stage debating Obama in 2012?
- Peter Ferrara is director of budget and entitlement policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation and General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union. He formerly served in President Reagan's White House Office of Policy Development, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under the first President Bush. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.
Film Reviews: Public Enemies
Seduction by Machine Gun
By MANOHLA DARGIS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Published: July 1, 2009
This movie has been designated a Critic's Pick by the film reviewers of The Times.
Peter Mountain/Universal Pictures
Johnny Depp plays the outlaw John Dillinger in “Public Enemies.”
Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” is a grave and beautiful work of art. Shot in high-definition digital by a filmmaker who’s helping change the way movies look, it revisits with meticulous detail and convulsions of violence a short, frantic period in the life and bank-robbing times of John Dillinger, an Indiana farm boy turned Depression outlaw, played by a low-voltage Johnny Depp. Much of what makes the movie pleasurable is the vigor with which it restages our familiar romance with period criminals, a perennial affair. But what also makes it more than the sum of its spectacular shootouts is the ambivalence about this romance that seeps into the filmmaking, steadily darkening the skies and draining the story of easy thrills.
The thrills are certainly there in the sensationally choreographed prison break that opens the movie under a bright blue Midwestern sky that stretches across the wide screen like a cathedral ceiling. Dappled by fluffy white clouds, it is the kind of sky that tends to show up as a backdrop in paintings of the Madonna and Child, but here offers a sharp contrast to the long-distance image of Dillinger and his friend Red (Jason Clarke), quickly striding toward an enormous, looming prison. Mr. Mann goes in closer once the men enter the prison, where they help disarm the guards, and he pulls back again for the long view as Dillinger fires on the prison with a machine gun while the escapees make a run for the getaway car.
By force of Hollywood habit, you might expect that this vision of the suddenly lone gunman would serve as a prelude to another exciting joy ride about living fast and dying young. Instead it’s followed by a striking short scene of a wounded escapee being dragged alongside the speeding car while Dillinger and another man struggle to pull him up. In the most startling shot, Mr. Mann places the camera right next to the fallen man, pointing it up at Dillinger’s dark, ominous figure as he almost blots out that blue sky. Dillinger holds on until the man’s grip wilts, the dead body slipping away in one direction as the car races off in the other. Laying the blame elsewhere, he next tosses another man out of the moving car.
This, then, is Mr. Mann’s Dillinger: brave enough to stand his ground, loyal, ruthless. There’s a hint of the demonic in this portrait, particularly when the outlaw is gliding through a bank, his long, dark coat fanning around him and a tommy gun in one hand. This is the stuff of legends, of shoot-’em-ups and matinee gangsters with jaunty smiles. Mr. Mann loves this apparition of calculated bravura and initially he frames the first few heists as seamlessly choreographed set pieces. During the first robbery he shows Dillinger and two accomplices from high overhead, the camera peering straight down as the men fan across a black-and-white bank floor like MGM dancers. When Dillinger leaps across a railing, he soars.
It’s a seductive moment — the bad man seems to be defying gravity, not just the law — and much like the other action scenes, it gives the movie a jolt. It also, perhaps in homage, mirrors a similar shot of the escaping serial killer in David Fincher’s “Seven.” Like Mr. Fincher, Mr. Mann makes big-budget art movies that because of their complex pleasures and ambiguities, don’t always hit the box office sweet spot (“Seven” and “Collateral,” Mr. Mann’s movie with Tom Cruise, being exceptions). Despite Mr. Mann’s mainstream bona fides, notably with the 1980s hit TV show “Miami Vice,” and preference for muscular cinematic genres, there’s something resolutely noncommercial about his movies. Among other things, they’re deeply serious (at times to the edge of parody), which is why they rarely pop.
And “Public Enemies” is nothing if not serious, a vividly realistic if fictionalized portrait of a country deep in depression and jumping with bad men. The story centers on two dramatic antagonists, Dillinger and Melvin Purvis (a remote Christian Bale), the F.B.I. agent who doggedly, if often ineptly, led the hunt for America’s most wanted. At first the bureau’s young chief, J. Edgar Hoover (a terrific Billy Crudup, his neck thickened and delivery clipped), ignored Dillinger, deeming him a state problem. Hoover would have been spared embarrassment if the outlaw had remained out of federal jurisdiction because, when the chase was on, it was with agents who didn’t know how to conduct a stakeout or properly fire their guns.
Like Dillinger, Hoover cultivated a public profile that looked good on paper and later up on the screen. They had a lot of competition. Bonnie and Clyde were running wild, as were Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and other hoods with marquee-ready stories, some of whom make appearances here.
Banks made for easy targets, logistically and otherwise, and, as the writer Bryan Burrough points out in a book about America’s inaugural war on crime, these outlaws took advantage of the public’s hatred of those recently failed institutions. Dillinger raided bank vaults and staged prison breaks to increasing approval. He shot one man to death, though didn’t always own up to the killing. It was bad for his image.
He became another kind of America’s most wanted: a star. “Get me the money, Honey,” he instructed one female teller with his crooked smile. The press raised his profile with screaming headlines, and the comic Will Rogers joked about the ineptitude of the authorities. (They were going to shoot Dillinger, Rogers joked, but “another bunch of folks came out ahead; so they shot them instead.”) Mr. Mann, working with incidents drawn from Mr. Burrough’s “Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the F.B.I., 1933-34,” underscores the celebrity angle. But that’s only part of the big picture sketched out in his ambitious screenplay, written with Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, which also makes room for a love story amid the blazing guns and tabloid glory.
The relationship between Dillinger and a hatcheck girl named Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard, holding her own in this man’s world) eats up considerable time, sometimes winningly, though both actors are better when they’re apart. When not in pirate drag, Mr. Depp can be a recessive, even inscrutable screen presence, which is crucial to his strengths and performative limits. He’s a cool cat, to be sure: veiled and often most memorable when he’s staring into space while the camera soaks in his subdued but potent physical charms. He might have made a great silent star, as earlier roles suggest. Part of his initial appeal was that he seemed almost Garboesque in a movie world that increasingly makes no room for sacred idols.
Mr. Depp looks good as Dillinger — few contemporary actors can wear a fedora as persuasively — but the performance sneaks up on you, inching into your system scene by scene. The same holds true of “Public Enemies,” which looks and plays like no other American gangster film I can think of and very much like a Michael Mann movie, with its emphasis on men at work, its darkly moody passages, eruptions of violence and pictorial beauty.
Mr. Mann’s digital manipulations, in particular, which encompass almost pure abstraction and interludes of hyper-realism, is worthy of longer exegesis, one that explores how this still-unfamiliar format is changing the movies: it allows, among other things, filmmakers to capture the eerie brightness of nighttime as never before.
“Public Enemies” doesn’t look like the usual gangster picture, not only because it’s been shot in digital, but also because Mr. Mann is searching for a new kind of gangster story to fit the times, one that makes room for greater ambivalence, and lawmen and outlaws who are closer to one another in temperament and deed. If he doesn’t fully succeed, it’s because he knows that the gangster’s rakish smile is at once a fiction of cinema and one of its great, irresistible lies. During the big finish, Dillinger grins wryly at a black-and-white Hollywood picture with Clark Gable as the kind of gangster who could only have been invented by the movies, a gangster who is as false as the bullets that finally stopped Dillinger were real.
“Public Enemies” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Bloody gun violence.
Public Enemies
Opens on Wednesday nationwide.
Directed by Michael Mann; written by Mr. Mann, Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, based on the book by Bryan Burrough; director of photography, Dante Spinotti; edited by Paul Rubell and Jeffrey Ford; music by Elliot Goldenthal; production designer, Nathan Crowley; produced by Mr. Mann and Kevin Misher; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 13 minutes.
WITH: Johnny Depp (John Dillinger), Christian Bale (Melvin Purvis), Marion Cotillard (Billie Frechette), Billy Crudup (J. Edgar Hoover), Stephen Dorff (Homer Van Meter), Jason Clarke (Red Hamilton) and Stephen Lang (Charles Winstead).
Public Enemies
John Dillinger ignored the future and focused on his work ethic
By Roger Ebert
Release Date: July 1, 2009
Ebert Rating: ***½
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage
Jun 29, 2009
"I rob banks," John Dillinger would sometimes say by way of introduction. It was the simple truth. That was what he did. For the 13 months between the day he escaped from prison and the night he lay dying in an alley, he robbed banks. It was his lifetime. Michael Mann's "Public Enemies" accepts that stark fact and refuses any temptation to soften it. Dillinger was not a nice man.
Here is a film that shrugs off the way we depend on myth to sentimentalize our outlaws. There is no interest here about John Dillinger's childhood, his psychology, his sexuality, his famous charm, his Robin Hood legend. He liked sex, but not as much as robbing banks. "He robbed the bankers but let the customers keep their own money." But whose money was in the banks? He kids around with reporters and lawmen, but that was business. He doesn't kid around with the members of his gang. He might have made a very good military leader.
Johnny Depp and Michael Mann show us that we didn't know all about Dillinger. We only thought we did. Here is an efficient, disciplined, bold, violent man, driven by compulsions the film wisely declines to explain. His gang members loved the money they were making. Dillinger loved planning the next job. He had no exit strategy or retirement plans.
Dillinger saw a woman he liked, Billie Frechette, played by Marion Cotillard, and courted her, after his fashion. That is, he took her out at night and bought her a fur coat, as he had seen done in the movies; he had no real adult experience before prison. They had sex, but the movie is not much interested. It is all about his vow to show up for her, to protect her. Against what? Against the danger of being his girl. He allows himself a tiny smile when he gives her the coat, and it is the only vulnerability he shows in the movie.
This is very disciplined film. You might not think it was possible to make a film about the most famous outlaw of the 1930s without clichés and "star chemistry" and a film class screenplay structure, but Mann does it. He is particular about the way he presents Dillinger and Billie. He sees him and her. Not them. They are never a couple. They are their needs. She needs to be protected, because she is so vulnerable. He needs someone to protect, in order to affirm his invincibility.
Dillinger hates the system, by which he means prisons, that hold people; banks, that hold money, and cops, who stand in his way. He probably hates the government too, but he doesn't think that big. It is him against them, and the bastards will not, can not, win. There's an extraordinary sequence, apparently based on fact, where Dillinger walks into the "Dillinger Bureau" of the Chicago Police Department and strolls around. Invincible. This is not ego. It is a spell he casts on himself.
The movie is well-researched, based on the book by Bryan Burrough. It even bothers to try to discover Dillinger's speaking style. Depp looks a lot like him. Mann shot on location in the Crown Point jail, scene of the famous jailbreak with the fake gun. He shot in the Little Bohemia Lodge in the same room Dillinger used, and Depp is costumed in clothes to match those the bank robber left behind. Mann redressed Lincoln Avenue on either side of the Biograph Theater, and laid streetcar tracks; I live a few blocks away, and walked over to marvel at the detail. I saw more than you will; unlike some directors, he doesn't indulge in beauty shots to show off the art direction. It's just there.
This Johnny Depp performance is something else. For once an actor playing a gangster does not seem to base his performance on movies he has seen. He starts cold. He plays Dillinger as a Fact. My friend Jay Robert Nash says 1930s gangsters copied their styles from the way Hollywood depicted them; screenwriters like Ben Hecht taught them how they spoke. Dillinger was a big movie fan; on the last night of his life, he went to see Clark Gable playing a man a lot like him, but he didn't learn much. No wisecracks, no lingo. Just military precision and an edge of steel.
Christian Bale plays Melvin Purvis in a similar key. He lives to fight criminals. He is a cold realist. He admires his boss, J. Edgar Hoover, but Hoover is a romantic, dreaming of an FBI of clean-cut young accountants in suits and ties who would be a credit to their mothers. After the catastrophe at Little Bohemia (the FBI let Dillinger escape but killed three civilians), Purvis said to hell with it and made J. Edgar import some lawmen from Arizona who had actually been in gunfights.
Mann is fearless with his research. If I mention the Lady in Red, Anna Sage (Branka Katic), who betrayed Dillinger outside the Biograph when the movie was over, how do you picture her? I do too. We are wrong. In real life she was wearing a white blouse and an orange skirt, and she does in the movie. John Ford once said, When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. This may be a case where he was right. Mann might have been wise to decide against the orange and white and just break down and give Anna Sage a red dress.
This is a very good film, with Depp and Bale performances of brutal clarity. I'm trying to understand why it is not quite a great film. I think it may be because it deprives me of some stubborn need for closure. His name was John Dillinger, and he robbed banks. But there had to be more to it than that, right? No, apparently not.
By MANOHLA DARGIS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Published: July 1, 2009
This movie has been designated a Critic's Pick by the film reviewers of The Times.
Peter Mountain/Universal Pictures
Johnny Depp plays the outlaw John Dillinger in “Public Enemies.”
Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” is a grave and beautiful work of art. Shot in high-definition digital by a filmmaker who’s helping change the way movies look, it revisits with meticulous detail and convulsions of violence a short, frantic period in the life and bank-robbing times of John Dillinger, an Indiana farm boy turned Depression outlaw, played by a low-voltage Johnny Depp. Much of what makes the movie pleasurable is the vigor with which it restages our familiar romance with period criminals, a perennial affair. But what also makes it more than the sum of its spectacular shootouts is the ambivalence about this romance that seeps into the filmmaking, steadily darkening the skies and draining the story of easy thrills.
The thrills are certainly there in the sensationally choreographed prison break that opens the movie under a bright blue Midwestern sky that stretches across the wide screen like a cathedral ceiling. Dappled by fluffy white clouds, it is the kind of sky that tends to show up as a backdrop in paintings of the Madonna and Child, but here offers a sharp contrast to the long-distance image of Dillinger and his friend Red (Jason Clarke), quickly striding toward an enormous, looming prison. Mr. Mann goes in closer once the men enter the prison, where they help disarm the guards, and he pulls back again for the long view as Dillinger fires on the prison with a machine gun while the escapees make a run for the getaway car.
By force of Hollywood habit, you might expect that this vision of the suddenly lone gunman would serve as a prelude to another exciting joy ride about living fast and dying young. Instead it’s followed by a striking short scene of a wounded escapee being dragged alongside the speeding car while Dillinger and another man struggle to pull him up. In the most startling shot, Mr. Mann places the camera right next to the fallen man, pointing it up at Dillinger’s dark, ominous figure as he almost blots out that blue sky. Dillinger holds on until the man’s grip wilts, the dead body slipping away in one direction as the car races off in the other. Laying the blame elsewhere, he next tosses another man out of the moving car.
This, then, is Mr. Mann’s Dillinger: brave enough to stand his ground, loyal, ruthless. There’s a hint of the demonic in this portrait, particularly when the outlaw is gliding through a bank, his long, dark coat fanning around him and a tommy gun in one hand. This is the stuff of legends, of shoot-’em-ups and matinee gangsters with jaunty smiles. Mr. Mann loves this apparition of calculated bravura and initially he frames the first few heists as seamlessly choreographed set pieces. During the first robbery he shows Dillinger and two accomplices from high overhead, the camera peering straight down as the men fan across a black-and-white bank floor like MGM dancers. When Dillinger leaps across a railing, he soars.
It’s a seductive moment — the bad man seems to be defying gravity, not just the law — and much like the other action scenes, it gives the movie a jolt. It also, perhaps in homage, mirrors a similar shot of the escaping serial killer in David Fincher’s “Seven.” Like Mr. Fincher, Mr. Mann makes big-budget art movies that because of their complex pleasures and ambiguities, don’t always hit the box office sweet spot (“Seven” and “Collateral,” Mr. Mann’s movie with Tom Cruise, being exceptions). Despite Mr. Mann’s mainstream bona fides, notably with the 1980s hit TV show “Miami Vice,” and preference for muscular cinematic genres, there’s something resolutely noncommercial about his movies. Among other things, they’re deeply serious (at times to the edge of parody), which is why they rarely pop.
And “Public Enemies” is nothing if not serious, a vividly realistic if fictionalized portrait of a country deep in depression and jumping with bad men. The story centers on two dramatic antagonists, Dillinger and Melvin Purvis (a remote Christian Bale), the F.B.I. agent who doggedly, if often ineptly, led the hunt for America’s most wanted. At first the bureau’s young chief, J. Edgar Hoover (a terrific Billy Crudup, his neck thickened and delivery clipped), ignored Dillinger, deeming him a state problem. Hoover would have been spared embarrassment if the outlaw had remained out of federal jurisdiction because, when the chase was on, it was with agents who didn’t know how to conduct a stakeout or properly fire their guns.
Like Dillinger, Hoover cultivated a public profile that looked good on paper and later up on the screen. They had a lot of competition. Bonnie and Clyde were running wild, as were Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and other hoods with marquee-ready stories, some of whom make appearances here.Banks made for easy targets, logistically and otherwise, and, as the writer Bryan Burrough points out in a book about America’s inaugural war on crime, these outlaws took advantage of the public’s hatred of those recently failed institutions. Dillinger raided bank vaults and staged prison breaks to increasing approval. He shot one man to death, though didn’t always own up to the killing. It was bad for his image.
He became another kind of America’s most wanted: a star. “Get me the money, Honey,” he instructed one female teller with his crooked smile. The press raised his profile with screaming headlines, and the comic Will Rogers joked about the ineptitude of the authorities. (They were going to shoot Dillinger, Rogers joked, but “another bunch of folks came out ahead; so they shot them instead.”) Mr. Mann, working with incidents drawn from Mr. Burrough’s “Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the F.B.I., 1933-34,” underscores the celebrity angle. But that’s only part of the big picture sketched out in his ambitious screenplay, written with Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, which also makes room for a love story amid the blazing guns and tabloid glory.
The relationship between Dillinger and a hatcheck girl named Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard, holding her own in this man’s world) eats up considerable time, sometimes winningly, though both actors are better when they’re apart. When not in pirate drag, Mr. Depp can be a recessive, even inscrutable screen presence, which is crucial to his strengths and performative limits. He’s a cool cat, to be sure: veiled and often most memorable when he’s staring into space while the camera soaks in his subdued but potent physical charms. He might have made a great silent star, as earlier roles suggest. Part of his initial appeal was that he seemed almost Garboesque in a movie world that increasingly makes no room for sacred idols.
Mr. Depp looks good as Dillinger — few contemporary actors can wear a fedora as persuasively — but the performance sneaks up on you, inching into your system scene by scene. The same holds true of “Public Enemies,” which looks and plays like no other American gangster film I can think of and very much like a Michael Mann movie, with its emphasis on men at work, its darkly moody passages, eruptions of violence and pictorial beauty.
Mr. Mann’s digital manipulations, in particular, which encompass almost pure abstraction and interludes of hyper-realism, is worthy of longer exegesis, one that explores how this still-unfamiliar format is changing the movies: it allows, among other things, filmmakers to capture the eerie brightness of nighttime as never before.
“Public Enemies” doesn’t look like the usual gangster picture, not only because it’s been shot in digital, but also because Mr. Mann is searching for a new kind of gangster story to fit the times, one that makes room for greater ambivalence, and lawmen and outlaws who are closer to one another in temperament and deed. If he doesn’t fully succeed, it’s because he knows that the gangster’s rakish smile is at once a fiction of cinema and one of its great, irresistible lies. During the big finish, Dillinger grins wryly at a black-and-white Hollywood picture with Clark Gable as the kind of gangster who could only have been invented by the movies, a gangster who is as false as the bullets that finally stopped Dillinger were real.
“Public Enemies” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Bloody gun violence.
Public Enemies
Opens on Wednesday nationwide.
Directed by Michael Mann; written by Mr. Mann, Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, based on the book by Bryan Burrough; director of photography, Dante Spinotti; edited by Paul Rubell and Jeffrey Ford; music by Elliot Goldenthal; production designer, Nathan Crowley; produced by Mr. Mann and Kevin Misher; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 13 minutes.
WITH: Johnny Depp (John Dillinger), Christian Bale (Melvin Purvis), Marion Cotillard (Billie Frechette), Billy Crudup (J. Edgar Hoover), Stephen Dorff (Homer Van Meter), Jason Clarke (Red Hamilton) and Stephen Lang (Charles Winstead).
Public Enemies
John Dillinger ignored the future and focused on his work ethic
By Roger Ebert
Release Date: July 1, 2009
Ebert Rating: ***½
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage
Jun 29, 2009
"I rob banks," John Dillinger would sometimes say by way of introduction. It was the simple truth. That was what he did. For the 13 months between the day he escaped from prison and the night he lay dying in an alley, he robbed banks. It was his lifetime. Michael Mann's "Public Enemies" accepts that stark fact and refuses any temptation to soften it. Dillinger was not a nice man.Here is a film that shrugs off the way we depend on myth to sentimentalize our outlaws. There is no interest here about John Dillinger's childhood, his psychology, his sexuality, his famous charm, his Robin Hood legend. He liked sex, but not as much as robbing banks. "He robbed the bankers but let the customers keep their own money." But whose money was in the banks? He kids around with reporters and lawmen, but that was business. He doesn't kid around with the members of his gang. He might have made a very good military leader.
Johnny Depp and Michael Mann show us that we didn't know all about Dillinger. We only thought we did. Here is an efficient, disciplined, bold, violent man, driven by compulsions the film wisely declines to explain. His gang members loved the money they were making. Dillinger loved planning the next job. He had no exit strategy or retirement plans.
Dillinger saw a woman he liked, Billie Frechette, played by Marion Cotillard, and courted her, after his fashion. That is, he took her out at night and bought her a fur coat, as he had seen done in the movies; he had no real adult experience before prison. They had sex, but the movie is not much interested. It is all about his vow to show up for her, to protect her. Against what? Against the danger of being his girl. He allows himself a tiny smile when he gives her the coat, and it is the only vulnerability he shows in the movie.
This is very disciplined film. You might not think it was possible to make a film about the most famous outlaw of the 1930s without clichés and "star chemistry" and a film class screenplay structure, but Mann does it. He is particular about the way he presents Dillinger and Billie. He sees him and her. Not them. They are never a couple. They are their needs. She needs to be protected, because she is so vulnerable. He needs someone to protect, in order to affirm his invincibility.
Dillinger hates the system, by which he means prisons, that hold people; banks, that hold money, and cops, who stand in his way. He probably hates the government too, but he doesn't think that big. It is him against them, and the bastards will not, can not, win. There's an extraordinary sequence, apparently based on fact, where Dillinger walks into the "Dillinger Bureau" of the Chicago Police Department and strolls around. Invincible. This is not ego. It is a spell he casts on himself.
The movie is well-researched, based on the book by Bryan Burrough. It even bothers to try to discover Dillinger's speaking style. Depp looks a lot like him. Mann shot on location in the Crown Point jail, scene of the famous jailbreak with the fake gun. He shot in the Little Bohemia Lodge in the same room Dillinger used, and Depp is costumed in clothes to match those the bank robber left behind. Mann redressed Lincoln Avenue on either side of the Biograph Theater, and laid streetcar tracks; I live a few blocks away, and walked over to marvel at the detail. I saw more than you will; unlike some directors, he doesn't indulge in beauty shots to show off the art direction. It's just there.
This Johnny Depp performance is something else. For once an actor playing a gangster does not seem to base his performance on movies he has seen. He starts cold. He plays Dillinger as a Fact. My friend Jay Robert Nash says 1930s gangsters copied their styles from the way Hollywood depicted them; screenwriters like Ben Hecht taught them how they spoke. Dillinger was a big movie fan; on the last night of his life, he went to see Clark Gable playing a man a lot like him, but he didn't learn much. No wisecracks, no lingo. Just military precision and an edge of steel.
Christian Bale plays Melvin Purvis in a similar key. He lives to fight criminals. He is a cold realist. He admires his boss, J. Edgar Hoover, but Hoover is a romantic, dreaming of an FBI of clean-cut young accountants in suits and ties who would be a credit to their mothers. After the catastrophe at Little Bohemia (the FBI let Dillinger escape but killed three civilians), Purvis said to hell with it and made J. Edgar import some lawmen from Arizona who had actually been in gunfights.Mann is fearless with his research. If I mention the Lady in Red, Anna Sage (Branka Katic), who betrayed Dillinger outside the Biograph when the movie was over, how do you picture her? I do too. We are wrong. In real life she was wearing a white blouse and an orange skirt, and she does in the movie. John Ford once said, When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. This may be a case where he was right. Mann might have been wise to decide against the orange and white and just break down and give Anna Sage a red dress.
This is a very good film, with Depp and Bale performances of brutal clarity. I'm trying to understand why it is not quite a great film. I think it may be because it deprives me of some stubborn need for closure. His name was John Dillinger, and he robbed banks. But there had to be more to it than that, right? No, apparently not.
Behind the Times
There’s nothing cool about Obama.
By Mark Steyn
http://www.nationalreview.com/
July 04, 2009, 7:00 a.m.
President Obama was supposed to be “cool.” But he isn’t. He’s square. Not just mildly so, but embarrassingly square. He’s squaresville squared. It’s like you’re having a party with your friends and he’s the cringe-making middle-aged parent who wants to show he digs where the young people are at by grooving around in the middle of the dance floor all night long.
How do I know? I’ve been there and I’ve been square. By “there,” I mean I’ve been in places that have tried all the cool Obama dance moves and eventually wised up to what utter clunkers they are.
A week ago, the House of Representatives passed some gargantuan “cap-and-trade” bill designed to “save” “the environment.” Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize–winning economist, accused those Neanderthals who voted against the bill of committing “treason against the planet.” By that standard, most of the planet is guilty of treason against the planet. I don’t mean just in the sense that China, already the world’s Number One CO2 emitter, and India and other rising economic powers have absolutely no intention of doing what the Democrats have done, no way, no how — because they don’t see why they should stay poor just because New York Times columnists think it’s good for them.
No, I mean that most of the developed world has already gone down the paved road of good intentions and is now frantically trying to pedal up out of it. New Zealand was one of the few western nations to sign on to Kyoto and then attempt to abide by it — until they realized they could only do so by destroying their economy. They introduced a Dem-style cap-and-trade regime — and last year they suspended it. In Australia, the Labor government postponed implementation of its emissions-reduction program until 2011, and the Aussie Senate may scuttle it entirely. The Obama administration has gotten to the climate-change hop just as the glitterball’s stopped whirling and the band’s packing up its instruments.
The Congressional cap-and-trade shtick would be tired even if it weren’t the familiar boondoggle of tax hikes, big-government micro-regulation, and pork-a-palooza pay-offs to preferred clients of the Democratic party. Granted that carbon credits were already a dubious racket equivalent to the sale of “indulgences” in medieval Europe, the decision by Congressional power-brokers to give away credits to well-connected Democratic party interests surely represents the environmental movement’s formal Jumping of the Endangered Great White Shark.
Back at the New York Times, Thomas Friedman agreed the bill “stinks” and says “it’s a mess” and he “detests” it, but nevertheless says we need to pass it because his “gut” tells him to. Maybe his gut’s really telling him the New York Times canteen’s daily specials have been adversely affected by the company’s collapsing share price. Who knows? At any rate, for reasons not entirely obvious from his prose style, the eminent columnist believes himself to have a special influence on the youth of today and so directed the grand finale of his gut’s analysis to them especially: “Attention all young Americans,” he proclaimed. “You want to make a difference? Then get out of Facebook and into somebody’s face. Get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon.”
Perhaps it’ll work. Getting into Thomas Friedman’s face, I see the ruddy bloom of late middle-age has not yet faded from it, so maybe, as his command of the lingo shows, he’s hep to the scene. Maybe the kids’ll abandon their Tweet cred for street cred. Maybe they’ll get outta MySpace and into Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s parking space.
I don’t know how Mr. Friedman defines “young” but let’s be generous: If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you’re graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade. There has been no global warming this century. None. Admittedly the 21st century is only one century out of the many centuries of planetary existence, but it happens to be the one you’re stuck living in. Alan Carlin, in a report for the Environmental Protection Racket — whoops, Environmental Protection Agency — that they attempted to suppress, says:
Fossil fuel and cement emissions increased by 3.3 percent per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.3 percent per year in the 1990s. Similarly, atmospheric C02 concentrations increased by 1.93 parts per million per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.58 ppm in the 1990s. And yet, despite accelerating emission rates and concentrations, there’s been no net warming in the 21st century, and more accurately, a decline.
The Obama administration is getting into the global-warming beads and kaftan just as everyone else is beginning to toss ‘em into the recycling bin. Same with government automobiles: Been there, drove that — from Eastern Europe to Northern Ireland.
There’s something weirdly parochial about Obama, the supposed “citizen of the world.” A recent piece of mine about “the Europeanization of America” prompted Randall Hoven of The American Thinker to respond that this was unfair . . . to Europeans. He has a point. While the U.S. is going full throttle for Scandinavia-a-go-go, the Continentals have begun to discern to the limits of Europeanization. In 2007, government spending in Europe averaged 46.2 percent of GDP; in America it was 37.4 percent, of which 20 percent was federal. A mere two years later, federal spending is up to 28.5 percent, so, even if state and local spending stand still, we’re at 46 percent:
the European average. But, as Randall Hoven points out, the real story is that we’re at 46 percent and climbing, the Continentals are at 46 percent and heading down. In 1993, government spending averaged 52.2 percent in Europe, and 70.9 percent in Sweden. The Swedes have reduced government spending (as a fraction of GDP) by almost a third in the last 15 years. Their corporate tax rates are lower than ours. And that’s before Obama’s raised them. Last week, the donut chain Tim Hortons, which operates on both sides of the border but is incorporated in the state of Delaware, announced that it was reorganizing itself as a Canadian corporation to take advantage of Canadian tax rates.
“To take advantage of Canadian tax rates”? What kind of cockamamie phrase is that? And who’d have thought any columnist south of the border would ever have cause to type it?
The Europeans have figured out you can be too European for your own good, and are trying to re-acquaint themselves with the real world. But not Obama. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead! Male unemployment has hit ten percent? The stimulus is a bust? It’s stimulating nothing but non-jobs like Executive Stimulus Coordinator for Community Organization Stimulus Assistance Programs? Hey, let’s spend even more, even faster, even less stimulatingly!
President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and their chums are spending at a rate that threatens American stability. And, except for the scale and the dollar figure, it’s all been tried before, and it’s all failed before. There’s nothing cool about Obama. He’s a non-stop square dance, swinging us around till we’re dozy and he’s got all the dough. Happy Independence Day.
— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone.
© 2009 Mark Steyn
By Mark Steyn
http://www.nationalreview.com/
July 04, 2009, 7:00 a.m.
President Obama was supposed to be “cool.” But he isn’t. He’s square. Not just mildly so, but embarrassingly square. He’s squaresville squared. It’s like you’re having a party with your friends and he’s the cringe-making middle-aged parent who wants to show he digs where the young people are at by grooving around in the middle of the dance floor all night long.How do I know? I’ve been there and I’ve been square. By “there,” I mean I’ve been in places that have tried all the cool Obama dance moves and eventually wised up to what utter clunkers they are.
A week ago, the House of Representatives passed some gargantuan “cap-and-trade” bill designed to “save” “the environment.” Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize–winning economist, accused those Neanderthals who voted against the bill of committing “treason against the planet.” By that standard, most of the planet is guilty of treason against the planet. I don’t mean just in the sense that China, already the world’s Number One CO2 emitter, and India and other rising economic powers have absolutely no intention of doing what the Democrats have done, no way, no how — because they don’t see why they should stay poor just because New York Times columnists think it’s good for them.
No, I mean that most of the developed world has already gone down the paved road of good intentions and is now frantically trying to pedal up out of it. New Zealand was one of the few western nations to sign on to Kyoto and then attempt to abide by it — until they realized they could only do so by destroying their economy. They introduced a Dem-style cap-and-trade regime — and last year they suspended it. In Australia, the Labor government postponed implementation of its emissions-reduction program until 2011, and the Aussie Senate may scuttle it entirely. The Obama administration has gotten to the climate-change hop just as the glitterball’s stopped whirling and the band’s packing up its instruments.
The Congressional cap-and-trade shtick would be tired even if it weren’t the familiar boondoggle of tax hikes, big-government micro-regulation, and pork-a-palooza pay-offs to preferred clients of the Democratic party. Granted that carbon credits were already a dubious racket equivalent to the sale of “indulgences” in medieval Europe, the decision by Congressional power-brokers to give away credits to well-connected Democratic party interests surely represents the environmental movement’s formal Jumping of the Endangered Great White Shark.
Back at the New York Times, Thomas Friedman agreed the bill “stinks” and says “it’s a mess” and he “detests” it, but nevertheless says we need to pass it because his “gut” tells him to. Maybe his gut’s really telling him the New York Times canteen’s daily specials have been adversely affected by the company’s collapsing share price. Who knows? At any rate, for reasons not entirely obvious from his prose style, the eminent columnist believes himself to have a special influence on the youth of today and so directed the grand finale of his gut’s analysis to them especially: “Attention all young Americans,” he proclaimed. “You want to make a difference? Then get out of Facebook and into somebody’s face. Get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon.”
Perhaps it’ll work. Getting into Thomas Friedman’s face, I see the ruddy bloom of late middle-age has not yet faded from it, so maybe, as his command of the lingo shows, he’s hep to the scene. Maybe the kids’ll abandon their Tweet cred for street cred. Maybe they’ll get outta MySpace and into Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s parking space.
I don’t know how Mr. Friedman defines “young” but let’s be generous: If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you’re graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade. There has been no global warming this century. None. Admittedly the 21st century is only one century out of the many centuries of planetary existence, but it happens to be the one you’re stuck living in. Alan Carlin, in a report for the Environmental Protection Racket — whoops, Environmental Protection Agency — that they attempted to suppress, says:
Fossil fuel and cement emissions increased by 3.3 percent per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.3 percent per year in the 1990s. Similarly, atmospheric C02 concentrations increased by 1.93 parts per million per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.58 ppm in the 1990s. And yet, despite accelerating emission rates and concentrations, there’s been no net warming in the 21st century, and more accurately, a decline.
The Obama administration is getting into the global-warming beads and kaftan just as everyone else is beginning to toss ‘em into the recycling bin. Same with government automobiles: Been there, drove that — from Eastern Europe to Northern Ireland.
There’s something weirdly parochial about Obama, the supposed “citizen of the world.” A recent piece of mine about “the Europeanization of America” prompted Randall Hoven of The American Thinker to respond that this was unfair . . . to Europeans. He has a point. While the U.S. is going full throttle for Scandinavia-a-go-go, the Continentals have begun to discern to the limits of Europeanization. In 2007, government spending in Europe averaged 46.2 percent of GDP; in America it was 37.4 percent, of which 20 percent was federal. A mere two years later, federal spending is up to 28.5 percent, so, even if state and local spending stand still, we’re at 46 percent:
the European average. But, as Randall Hoven points out, the real story is that we’re at 46 percent and climbing, the Continentals are at 46 percent and heading down. In 1993, government spending averaged 52.2 percent in Europe, and 70.9 percent in Sweden. The Swedes have reduced government spending (as a fraction of GDP) by almost a third in the last 15 years. Their corporate tax rates are lower than ours. And that’s before Obama’s raised them. Last week, the donut chain Tim Hortons, which operates on both sides of the border but is incorporated in the state of Delaware, announced that it was reorganizing itself as a Canadian corporation to take advantage of Canadian tax rates.
“To take advantage of Canadian tax rates”? What kind of cockamamie phrase is that? And who’d have thought any columnist south of the border would ever have cause to type it?
The Europeans have figured out you can be too European for your own good, and are trying to re-acquaint themselves with the real world. But not Obama. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead! Male unemployment has hit ten percent? The stimulus is a bust? It’s stimulating nothing but non-jobs like Executive Stimulus Coordinator for Community Organization Stimulus Assistance Programs? Hey, let’s spend even more, even faster, even less stimulatingly!
President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and their chums are spending at a rate that threatens American stability. And, except for the scale and the dollar figure, it’s all been tried before, and it’s all failed before. There’s nothing cool about Obama. He’s a non-stop square dance, swinging us around till we’re dozy and he’s got all the dough. Happy Independence Day.
— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone.
© 2009 Mark Steyn
SO MUCH FOR WISE LATINAS
By Ann Coulter
http://www.anncoulter.com/
July 1, 2009
20090701085218.jpg)
With the Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano this week, we can now report that Sonia Sotomayor is even crazier than Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
To recap the famous Ricci case, in 2003, the city of New Haven threw out the results of a firefighters' test -- which had been expressly designed to be race-neutral -- because only whites and Hispanics scored high enough to receive immediate promotions, whereas blacks who took the test did well enough only to be eligible for promotions down the line.
In as much as the high-scoring white and Hispanic firemen were denied promotions solely because of their race, they sued the city for race discrimination.
Obama's Justice-designate Sotomayor threw out their lawsuit in a sneaky, unsigned opinion -- the judicial equivalent of "talk to the hand." She upheld the city's race discrimination against white and Hispanic firemen on the grounds that the test had a "disparate impact" on blacks, meaning that it failed to promote some magical percentage of blacks.
This strict quota regime was dressed up by the city -- and by Sotomayor's opinion -- as a reasonable reaction to the threat of lawsuits by blacks who were not promoted.
That's a complicated way of saying: Racial quotas are peachy.
According to Sotomayor, any test that gets the numbers wrong -- whatever "wrong" means in any given context of professions, populations, applicants, workers, etc. -- is grounds for a lawsuit, which in turn, is grounds for an employer to engage in race discrimination against disfavored racial groups, such as white men.
Consequently, the only legal avenue available to employers under Sotomayor's ruling is always to impose strict racial quotas in making hiring and promotion decisions.
Say, if the threat of a lawsuit permits the government to ignore the Constitution, can pro-lifers get New Haven to shut down all abortion clinics by threatening to sue them? There's no question but that abortion clinics have a "disparate impact" on black babies.
This week, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 for the white and Hispanic firefighters, overturning Sotomayor's endorsement of racial quotas.
But all nine justices rejected Sotomayor's holding that different test results alone give the government a green light to engage in race discrimination. Even Justice Ginsburg's opinion for the dissent clearly stated that "an employer could not cast aside a selection method based on a statistical disparity alone."
Indeed, the dissenters argued that the case should be returned to the lower courts to look for some hidden racial bias in the test. For Sotomayor, the results alone proved racial bias.
The one advantage Sotomayor's talk-to-the-hand opinion has over Justice Ginsburg's prolix dissent is that brevity prevented Sotomayor from having to explain why quotas aren't quotas.
That was left to Ginsburg.
Liberals desperately want race quotas -- as long as quotas never come to their offices.
But they can't say that, so instead they talk in circles for 10 hours straight, until everyone else is exhausted, and then, when no one is paying attention, they announce: So we're all agreed -- we will have racial quotas.
Based on her lifetime of experience working as a firefighter, Ginsburg said: "Relying heavily on written tests to select fire officers is a questionable practice, to say the least." Liberals prefer a more objective test, such as race.
Isn't excelling on written tests how Ruth Bader Ginsburg got where she is? It's curious how people whose entire careers are based on doing well on tests find them so irrelevant to other people's jobs.
In the middle of a fire, it can either be a great idea or the worst possible idea to open a door. An excellent method for finding out if your next fire chief knows the correct answer is a written test.
Unleashing the canard of all race-obsessed liberals, Ginsburg observed that courts have found that a fire officer's job "involves complex behaviors, good interpersonal skills, the ability to make decisions under tremendous pressure, and a host of other abilities -- none of which is easily measured by a written, multiple choice test."
So does a lawyer's job. And yet attorneys with absolutely no "interpersonal skills" get cushy jobs and extravagant salaries on the basis of their commendable performance on all manner of written tests, from multiple choice LSATs and bar exams to written law school exams.
I note that Ginsburg has not shown any particular interest in rectifying the "disparate impact" of legal exams: She never hired a single black law clerk out of the dozens she employed in more than a decade as an appeals court judge. (Her hiring practices on the Supreme Court are a state secret, but I can state with supreme certainty that her clerks do not reflect the racial mix of Washington, D.C.)
But liberals think other people's jobs are a joke, so the testing must also be a joke. That is -- other than their preferred test: "Is the applicant black, female or otherwise handicapped?"
There is no test that can prove all things about an employee and so there is no test that can't be derided by the race-mongers. Which is exactly the point. Get rid of all tests -- except for lawyers who graduated at the top of their law school classes at Columbia, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Then liberals are free to impose racial quotas on other people's jobs without limit.
As crazy as this is, even Ginsburg and the other dissenters made a big point of pretending there was some flaw in this particular test. None adopted Sotomayor's position that unequal test results alone prove discrimination.
This suggests that a wise Jewess, due to the richness of her life experiences, might come to a better judgment than a Latina judge would.
http://www.anncoulter.com/
July 1, 2009
20090701085218.jpg)
With the Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano this week, we can now report that Sonia Sotomayor is even crazier than Ruth Bader Ginsburg.To recap the famous Ricci case, in 2003, the city of New Haven threw out the results of a firefighters' test -- which had been expressly designed to be race-neutral -- because only whites and Hispanics scored high enough to receive immediate promotions, whereas blacks who took the test did well enough only to be eligible for promotions down the line.
In as much as the high-scoring white and Hispanic firemen were denied promotions solely because of their race, they sued the city for race discrimination.
Obama's Justice-designate Sotomayor threw out their lawsuit in a sneaky, unsigned opinion -- the judicial equivalent of "talk to the hand." She upheld the city's race discrimination against white and Hispanic firemen on the grounds that the test had a "disparate impact" on blacks, meaning that it failed to promote some magical percentage of blacks.
This strict quota regime was dressed up by the city -- and by Sotomayor's opinion -- as a reasonable reaction to the threat of lawsuits by blacks who were not promoted.
That's a complicated way of saying: Racial quotas are peachy.
According to Sotomayor, any test that gets the numbers wrong -- whatever "wrong" means in any given context of professions, populations, applicants, workers, etc. -- is grounds for a lawsuit, which in turn, is grounds for an employer to engage in race discrimination against disfavored racial groups, such as white men.
Consequently, the only legal avenue available to employers under Sotomayor's ruling is always to impose strict racial quotas in making hiring and promotion decisions.
Say, if the threat of a lawsuit permits the government to ignore the Constitution, can pro-lifers get New Haven to shut down all abortion clinics by threatening to sue them? There's no question but that abortion clinics have a "disparate impact" on black babies.
This week, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 for the white and Hispanic firefighters, overturning Sotomayor's endorsement of racial quotas.
But all nine justices rejected Sotomayor's holding that different test results alone give the government a green light to engage in race discrimination. Even Justice Ginsburg's opinion for the dissent clearly stated that "an employer could not cast aside a selection method based on a statistical disparity alone."
Indeed, the dissenters argued that the case should be returned to the lower courts to look for some hidden racial bias in the test. For Sotomayor, the results alone proved racial bias.
The one advantage Sotomayor's talk-to-the-hand opinion has over Justice Ginsburg's prolix dissent is that brevity prevented Sotomayor from having to explain why quotas aren't quotas.
That was left to Ginsburg.
Liberals desperately want race quotas -- as long as quotas never come to their offices.
But they can't say that, so instead they talk in circles for 10 hours straight, until everyone else is exhausted, and then, when no one is paying attention, they announce: So we're all agreed -- we will have racial quotas.
Based on her lifetime of experience working as a firefighter, Ginsburg said: "Relying heavily on written tests to select fire officers is a questionable practice, to say the least." Liberals prefer a more objective test, such as race.
Isn't excelling on written tests how Ruth Bader Ginsburg got where she is? It's curious how people whose entire careers are based on doing well on tests find them so irrelevant to other people's jobs.
In the middle of a fire, it can either be a great idea or the worst possible idea to open a door. An excellent method for finding out if your next fire chief knows the correct answer is a written test.
Unleashing the canard of all race-obsessed liberals, Ginsburg observed that courts have found that a fire officer's job "involves complex behaviors, good interpersonal skills, the ability to make decisions under tremendous pressure, and a host of other abilities -- none of which is easily measured by a written, multiple choice test."
So does a lawyer's job. And yet attorneys with absolutely no "interpersonal skills" get cushy jobs and extravagant salaries on the basis of their commendable performance on all manner of written tests, from multiple choice LSATs and bar exams to written law school exams.
I note that Ginsburg has not shown any particular interest in rectifying the "disparate impact" of legal exams: She never hired a single black law clerk out of the dozens she employed in more than a decade as an appeals court judge. (Her hiring practices on the Supreme Court are a state secret, but I can state with supreme certainty that her clerks do not reflect the racial mix of Washington, D.C.)
But liberals think other people's jobs are a joke, so the testing must also be a joke. That is -- other than their preferred test: "Is the applicant black, female or otherwise handicapped?"
There is no test that can prove all things about an employee and so there is no test that can't be derided by the race-mongers. Which is exactly the point. Get rid of all tests -- except for lawyers who graduated at the top of their law school classes at Columbia, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Then liberals are free to impose racial quotas on other people's jobs without limit.
As crazy as this is, even Ginsburg and the other dissenters made a big point of pretending there was some flaw in this particular test. None adopted Sotomayor's position that unequal test results alone prove discrimination.
This suggests that a wise Jewess, due to the richness of her life experiences, might come to a better judgment than a Latina judge would.
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