Following up on Jared Taylor’s article, the Ricci reverse discrimination lawsuit now before the Supreme Court is not one of those “hard cases” about which law students are warned. There is nothing anomalous about the discrimination against the New Haven firemen who had their top scores in the 2003 civil service exam thrown out by the city because no blacks scored … [Read More]

Thanks to a group of disgruntled firemen, the question of what it means to be white is back in the news. By late June, the Supreme Court will decide whether the city of New Haven, Connecticut was right to throw out the results of a promotions test for lieutenant and captain only because the top scorers were white. The city badly … [Read More]

New Zealander K.R. Bolton has sent for my benefit a self-published work, Thinkers of the Right: Challenging Materialism, which is one of the most enlightening studies of the interwar Right I’ve encountered in years. Its author, who explained to me that no New Zealand academic or commercial press would touch his “extremist” material, lives in a corner of the world that … [Read More]

If there are no peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians for an independent Palestinian state, war next year is inevitable. So King Abdullah II of Jordan has told the London Times: “If we delay our peace negotiations, then there is going to be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12 to 18 months.” Whether the … [Read More]

The term “financial security” is usually used to describe economic well being. The term “national security” is used to describe foreign policy or domestic protection. But what if actions taken in the name of “financial security” actually weakened our economic well being? What if actions taken in the name of “national security” actually hurt the nation’s security? In his first 100 … [Read More]

Under Discussion: American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile, Richard John Neuhaus, Basic Books (2009), 270 pages. Richard Neuhaus, the recently deceased editor of First Things, acquired in his life a remarkable number of famous friends, as well as a few enemies. He knew Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, and Avery Cardinal Dulles was a close collaborator. His … [Read More]

Notre Dame taught a clear lesson today, in its decision to have President Obama as a commencement speaker and to award him an honorary degree. That lesson is this:  American politicians can freely embrace abortion and face no negative consequences at all. Any pro-abortion politician who climbs to the top of Benjamin Disraeli’s “greasy pole” will get nothing but applause and … [Read More]

Not that I had any doubts about how pig-headed, stubborn and ungrateful George W. Bush is, but confirmation of it never hurts. A friend of long standing revealed to me how Brian Mulroney, the ex-prime minister of Canada, and Tony Blair both went to see Dubya in order to plead Conrad Black’s case during the closing days of the Bush presidency. … [Read More]

I like FOX-News broadcaster Glenn Beck. The man exudes goodness and has a visceral feel for freedom.  From this scrupulous soul I’d like to hear less about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and more of the original Lockean phrase, from which Thomas Jefferson drew when writing the Declaration of Independence. “No one ought to harm another in his life, … [Read More]

Escape has been the theme for U.S. moviegoers in recent months, but audiences aren’t avoiding attending good, serious films; Hollywood is avoiding making them. The newly released, highly derivative thriller Obsessed finished first at the U.S. office this past weekend, bringing in a surprising $28.5 million. That’s twice what industry analysts had expected and a good deal more than the film’s … [Read More]