Glenn Reynolds brought us "Hot Lebanese Protest Babes" in 2005; John Hinderaker at Powerline provides regular coverage of swimsuit competitions at beauty pageants around the world, so the least NLT can do is bring you Hot Babes of the Israeli Military.

The problem with blogging from the West Coast during the month of August is that Knippenberg gets a three-hour head start on linking to the best stuff like the Marty Peretz article linked on the previous post. (Of course, I’ve long started referring to NLT as "Knippenblog" anyway.) Peretz is a reasonable liberal who has learned from mistakes, including some of his own. After all, Peretz was one of the primary funders of the 1967 "New Politics" conference in Chicago that was a shot in the arm for the nutty New Left. Bet he wishes he could get his money back on that escapade.

My sentiments exactly:

Finally, the contest in Connecticut tomorrow is about two views of the world. Mr. Lamont’s view is that there are very few antagonists whom we cannot mollify or conciliate. Let’s call this process by its correct name: appeasement. The Greenwich entrepreneur might call it "incentivization." Mr. Lieberman’s view is that there are actually enemies who, intoxicated by millennial delusions, are not open to rational and reciprocal arbitration. Why should they be? After all, they inhabit a universe of inevitability, rather like Nazis and communists, but with a religious overgloss. Such armed doctrines, in Mr. Lieberman’s view, need to be confronted and overwhelmed.

Almost every Democrat feels obliged to offer fraternal solidarity to Israel, and Mr. Lamont is no exception. But here, too, he blithely assumes that the Palestinians could be easily conciliated. All that it would have needed was President Bush’s attention. Mr. Lamont has repeated the accusation, disproved by the "road map" and Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza, that Mr. Bush paid little or even no attention to the festering conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. And has Mr. Lamont noticed that the Palestinians are now ruled, and by their own choice, by Hamas? Is Hamas, too, just a few good arguments away from peace?

The Lamont ascendancy, if that is what it is, means nothing other than that the left is trying, and in places succeeding, to take back the Democratic Party. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Maxine Waters have stumped for Mr. Lamont. As I say, we have been here before. Ned Lamont is Karl Rove’s dream come true. If he, and others of his stripe, carry the day, the Democratic party will lose the future, and deservedly.

Would this count as prejudiced?

Congratulations to this month’s winners of a No Left Turns mug! The winners are as follows:

Debra Krupp
Carmen Beeding
Deanna Fraizer
Sandy Howe
Andrea Kushner

E.J. Dionne, Jr. asks whether--hopes that?--conservatism is finished. Not as an intellectual movement, mind you, but as a political force. Why? Conservatives can’t govern without moderates. Was it ever really any different?

Update: This paragraph is interesting:

Conservatism was always a delicate balancing act between small-government economic libertarians and social traditionalists who revered family, faith and old values. The two wings were often held together by a common enemy, modern liberalism certainly, but even more so by communism until the early 1990s, and now by what some conservatives call "Islamofascism."

Michael Medved has a very clear and very short (so read it all) article in USA Today on the Mel Gibson meltdown in Malibu. I agree with everything he says in it but I think the most important point he makes is this:

The "Mad Mel" Moment might change how we perceive Gibson’s character, but it alters nothing about the images and messages he put on screen in The Passion of the Christ. It’s still the same movie, frame for frame, line for Aramaic-and-Latin line. The millions of people who felt inspired and uplifted by a remarkable piece of cinema need not feel guilty because its creator insults a cop with ancient hatreds. In the same sense, moviegoers who are moved by the upcoming World Trade Center, with its stirring (and apolitical) story of heroes of 9/11, shouldn’t question their reaction because of past outrageous, America-bashing off-screen statements (and drug busts) involving its director, Oliver Stone.

I would only add that this all points to an irritating and counterproductive intellectual development in our culture. Why is it that we’re always looking for deep-seated psychological explanations for people’s behavior? Worse, why do we assume that once we have pegged down a person’s psychological profile (nevermind the question of whether we’re qualified or justified in doing that), we can view everything that person does through the prism of the profile? Gibson behaved very, very badly. He will be judged accordingly and he so he should. He did some very stupid things and said some hateful and outrageous things. Clearly, the dude has issues.

But don’t we all have issues?

If everything that everyone does must be viewed through the prism of their "issues" is rational conversation or dialogue even possible? Must every author be deconstructed and every artist given an enema before we can look at his work?

Is it possible that a person’s deep-seated hatreds or nuttiness could have some impact on his work? Sure. If it does, by all means we should point that out. But it is also (thank God!) possible to overcome one’s passions and prejudices and reach for truth in one’s work and art.

I guess the NYT’s Jason DeParle wanted to spend some time in SoCal, so he pursued his apparently long-standing interest in the conservative cultivation of intellectual heritage by visiting the Reagan Ranch. There’s gobs of Russell Kirk floating around the article, but little mention of anything older. (The shining exception is Claremont’s Publius Fellows program.) Otherwise, one gets the impression from DeParle that there’s a lot of reading about old things through lenses supplied by Kirk and his rough contemporaries. I hope that’s not all there is.

DeParle quotes Charles Kesler and James Ceaser, the latter discussed here, here, and here.

This is an interesting interview (available as a podcast and transcript) with Marshall Wittmann on the political impact of the blogosphere. Not surprisingly, he’s not happy with the left blogosphere.

This Rasmussen poll (taken July 27, 2006) shows Ken Blackwell 11 points behind Democrat Ted Strickland in Ohio’s governor race. That sounds bad and, certainly, it’s not good news for Blackwell. Or is it? A July 23, 2006 poll done by The Columbus Dispatch showed Blackwell 20 points behind. So either something is terribly wrong with somebody’s polling or Blackwell made a 9 point jump in 4 days. It is still pretty early to be calling this either way--though Blackwell has some unfortunate numbers to overcome in Ohio that really have nothing to do with him (i.e., the popularity or, rather, unpopularity of Taft and Bush).

A reporter for a local newspaper asked me to watch last night’s debate between Cynthia McKinney and her challenger, former County Commissioner Hank Johnson. That spurred me to write this week’s TAE Online column on what I hope is McKinney’s last election campaign.

Here’s the AJC’s account of the debate and the current state of the campaign. I think that McKinney performed better than Johnson in the debate, since she stuck to her talking points. Her goal was simply to attack him relentlessly, driving fence-sitters away from him (though how anyone could be sitting on the fence with a polarizing figure like McKinney around is beyond me). Johnson, who isn’t terribly forceful or fast on his feet, responded moderately well, but not well enough to score points effectively. Of course, all that matters to those for whom McKinney is anathema is that Johnson is the anti-McKinney, which seems to be true. He comes across as decent, well-meaning, and hard-working--a conventional liberal who will work pragmatically to get things done for his district.

Everything will turn, I think, on who turns out. Will McKinney, with little new money since the primary, be able to get her supporters to the polls? (She has in the past had a pretty good organization.) Will Johnson be able to make effective use of the money that has rolled in since he earned a spot in the run-off? My crystal ball has never been very good, but I think voters will give McKinney the boot.

Update: Here’s a blow-by-blow account of the debate, written by a Weekly Standard guy who thought Johnson won, barely. As I said, I don’t think the debate matters.

In a now notorious bungle, back in 1986 the CIA judged that real per capita income in East Germany was higher than in West Germany. In 1986. 1986. As Pat Moynihan mordantly noted, "Any taxi driver in Berlin could tell you that was utter nonsense." The trouble, of course, is that the CIA didn’t employ any taxi drivers in Berlin. Instead, they hired Harvard, Yale, and Princeton graduates who thought the idea that socialist economy in eastern Europe could produce a higher standard of living than West Germany was perfectly plausible. And in recent years the CIA thinks. . . well, no need to go there.

This week Nature magazine offers another example of science laboring to prove what anyone with some shoe leather to burn will notice in one evening of bar-hopping: Nicotene ’Sobers Up’ Drunk Rats. As the old saying goes, you have to read it, not to believe it. A sample from the lead:

A new study helps to explain why smokers tend to have boozier nights out than non-smokers. The work, done in rats, shows that a heavy dose of nicotene can cut blood alcohol levels in half. If cigarettes lower intoxication in people, it could mean that smokers need to drink more than non-smokers to get the same buzz.