Mar
19
2007

URLs du Jour

2007-03-19

  • Kathryn Jean Lopez extracts a quote from a recent Hillary Clinton speech:
    "I turn off a light and say, 'Take that, Iran,' and "Take that, Venezuela.' We should not be sending our money to people who are not going to support our values," she said.
    Otherwise sensible people have wondered out loud if Hillary "might be more ruthless against terrorists than the other Democratic contenders." That's a low bar to clear, obviously, but it seems she's doing her very best to prove them wrong.

    [The HRC quote has also made an appearance in Taranto's "Great Orators of the Democratic Party" series. Heh!]

  • I became a Virginia Postrel fan when she was editing Reason magazine a number of years ago; whenever she said something I disagreed with, it was a virtual certainty that she was right and I was wrong.

    She has a thoughtful essay today over at Cato Unbound titled "An 18th-Century Brain in a 21st-Century Head", and it's well worth reading if you're interested in or concerned with the future of liberty.

    (Actually, there's a number of articles at Cato Unbound on that topic, generating quite a bit of blog discussion over the past couple weeks. So if you've missed out, it's a good time to catch up.)

  • Neal Stephenson had an op-ed in yesterday's NYT about 300. Begins:
    A week ago Friday, moments before an opening-day showing of the movie "300" at Seattle's Cinerama, a 20-something moviegoer rushed to the front of the theater, dropped his shoulders, curled his arms into a mock-Schwarzenegger pose and bellowed out a timeless remark of King Leonidas of Sparta that has in the last week become the catchphrase of the year: "Spartans! Tonight we dine in hell!"
    Well, tonight I dine in Rollinsford, New Hampshire; nevertheless, I have to catch this movie pretty soon. (Via Lileks.)