Around The ‘Sphere

Links are from sites with varying viewpoints. Opinions expressed do not necessarily express the views of TMV or its co-bloggers.

A New Conservative Blog Promises To Have Lots Of ORIGINAL Writing: The blog is American Cicero. It promises to get right-to-the point and vows to be stylistically different than most blogs:

The American Cicero is still able to think for himself, and his thoughts are presented here for your perusal, comment, and argument. His interests are wide-ranging and include politics (he is a member of the Conservative Party); religion (he is an orthodox Roman Catholic loyal to the Magisterium but also faithful to the Tridentine Mass); history; music; and art. These pages consist of genuine commentary on all these topics; they are not the cut-and-paste jobs that one finds on so many sites today. He hopes that you will be informed, amused, enraged, entertained, or moved by them.

Cut and paste? All blogs don’t do that. Us? Why, pshaw! We aim for good writing and don’t need to cut and past. Here’s one tip from Writing With Clarity:

Words are the writer’s principal tool. When you hear or see a word you are unsure of, jot it down, look up the definition, and put it in a vocabulary notebook or in a file in your PC. You also can go a step further and check a thesaurus for synonyms for that word. The deeper and richer your vocabulary, the more precise you can be when writing and the less time you will spend scrambling to find the right word while you are on a deadline. Suggestion: Do crossword puzzles and write down the words that are new to you.

I’m looking up a word now. A reader apparently likes what I write: he complimented me and said I write “like a real schmuck.” (Does anyone know what that means? It must mean Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, or something. I can’t find it in the dictionary…)

Did Analyists Simply Project Their Own Political Biases In Looking At France/Denmark Votes Against The New EU Constitution? Oxblog’s David Adesnik (in his as-usual solid analysis) thinks so. READ IT ALL but here’s part:

At the heart of this confusion is the remarkable ability of pundits of almost every stripe to project their own identity on to that of the victorious anti-constitution majority. The American center-left has persuaded itself that the ‘no’ vote represents a backlash against laissez faire Anglo-Saxon capitalism….In contrast, American conservatives are celebrating the defeat of the constitution as the rejection of everything represented by the left-leaning European elite.

He offers you some quotes and analysis then concludes:

To a certain extent, I am puzzled by the fact that the relatively bland E.U. constitution has become the Rorshach-style ink blot onto which European citizens have projected all of their resentments. Yet there are few things that antagonize democratic citizens more than an institution that threatens to take away their control of even some small part of their own lives and hand it over to unelected bureaucrats.

Indeed: every decision cannot be explained through an ideology. Sometimes the REAL answer to what’s going on is more basic. (Adesnik and Oxblog are required reading for anyone who wants to read thoughtful analysis and pointer links to thoughtful links).

A Fascinating Case In Spain: Spain granted a foreign woman amnesty for an unusual reason. Spain-based Barcepundit has the details.

Job Discrimination In Oregon Schools? Politicians aren’t going to be allowed to teach in Oregon schools..WAIT! We had that wrong! But it’s the same difference…

The Danger Of Eye For An Eye Killings In Israel: Jewschool has a short but eloquent post giving you the shocking paragraphs from a news story. After one quote about how enjoyable it was to wipe people out the blog asks:”I wonder what he’s studying in school?”

We Thought (And Agreed With) Conservatives Said The Word Nazi Was Thrown Around Too Much To Discredit People Part XIVIIXXI: Read Latino Pundit for the latest verbal atomic bomb used when a thoughtful argument would have been more effective (we live 15 minutes from the San Diego-Tijuana border).

Is The Press Today Far Less Courageous Than During The Days Of Watergate? The Locust Fork has a long analysis making the case that today’s press can’t measure up to what it was during the Nixon administration.

A Liberal Group Is Warning About Conservative Bias but the ever-lively A Little More To The Right (one of our favorite conservative blogs) makes the case that it’s a bogus issue and also defends Rush Limbaugh.

More Incredible Stupidity Involving A Student In A School: We won’t even describe that inane situation involving this second grader. John Cole does it better than we could..

There’s A Definite Energy In Group Blogs and The Volokh Conspiracy looks at it.

Is Zimbabwe About To Explode In Mass Killings? Dave Koppel (who we had the pleasure of meeting and being with on a blogging panel at Stanford University) gives us a great overview. READ IT ALL but here is a small taste 4 U:

Back in 2001, Paul Gallant, Joanne Eisen, and I warned that Zimbabwe was “ripe for genocide.” We also detailed how the Mugabe tyranny has used gun licensing and registration laws, inherited from British colonial times, to disarm the people of Zimbabwe, leaving them helpless against government-controlled gangs of young thugs…..

But if the people of Zimbabwe had not been disarmed under the pretext of “gun safety”, they would be able to help themselves. A revolution would not be guaranteed to succeed, but fighting to live is much better than passively starving to death.

After the Holocaust, the international community said “Never again.” Yet in Zimbabwe, as in so many other nations in the last 60 years, the combination of citizen disarmament and international indifference has made democide a reality again and again and again.

Pat Buchanan The Inconsistent: Oh!pinion decimates the former Nixon administration staffer in an analytical post.

OUR VIEW: Buchanan was a great Crossfire co-host and a wonderful columnist. But he became a problem for his own party and there are some who say he’s….well, let’s say just some some claim he isn’t invited to many bar mitzvahs. That never bothered TMV, who loved his writing and TV appearances, even though he disagrees with him. But he (like Peggy Noon and Ben Stein) seems to have come unhinged with the Deep Throat story, writing bile-filled pieces which show their repressed fury over what happened to their old boss. They are GRUNTLED former employees. Oh!pinion’s piece is must reading.

Is Democratic Senator Robert Byrd In Re-Election Trouble? Polls say yes and James Joyner has a prediction about what will happen yes (we think he’s right).