If you want to read my review of The Conservative Mind please click here. Excerpt: Reading The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot by Russell Kirk was one big adventure for me, and for anyone interested in the conservative philosophy. Russell Kirk goes back all the way to British statesman Edmund Burke to determine what the conservative philosophy or theory exactly is, and then spends attention to other conservative in the following centuries such as John Adams (the entire Adams family and several...

Marc Moore writes at The Gazette: The Center for America Progress’ (CAP) recent study entitled “How to Redeploy: Implementing a Responsible Drawdown of U.S. Forces from Iraq” (PDF alert) features a quote from Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War: “No nation has ever benefited from protracted warfare.” This is meant to lead us into the center’s belief that America should abandon Iraq to its own destruction in a year’s time. That’s the thesis of How...

This is very, very interesting; In 2004, history professor Naomi Oreskes performed a survey of research papers on climate change. Examining peer-reviewed papers published on the ISI Web of Science database from 1993 to 2003, she found a majority supported the “consensus view,” defined as humans were having at least some effect on global climate change. Oreskes’ work has been repeatedly cited, but as some of its data is now nearly 15 years old, its conclusions are becoming somewhat...

Did General Musharraf agree to step down as head of the Pakistani military? Kevin Sullivan looks at the situation in Pakistan and offers some thoughts of his own.

The Jerusalem Post reports: The teams of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas met in Jerusalem Tuesday, ahead of a private meeting between the two leaders. Israel Radio reported that during the extended meeting the Israelis gave their Palestinian counterparts general offers on core issues. An unnamed official was quoted as saying that the points on which the sides reach some degree of accord would then be taken up for detailed negotiations in higher levels… Among...

Providing drug addicts with clean needles: a good or a bad idea? What do you all think? On the one hand it seems to me that this way the government may be able to prevent certain people from getting HIV, on the other hand I also worry that it may make it more easy for people to do drugs.

Please say hello to Turkey’s new President, Abdullah Gül: Beaming as the votes were counted, a veteran government figure with roots in political Islam won a parliamentary vote to become Turkey’s president Tuesday, in defiance of the country’s strongly secular military. Abdullah Gul’s triumph presented Turkey’s generals with a choice: overthrow Gul in what would be a deeply unpopular coup or accommodate the rise of political Islam in the Muslim world’s most...

and Jason Steck (edited to add as co-signatory) Some people seem to think that we may be considering resigning at TMV and simply to continue work at The Gazette. Just to make sure that these rumors will not spread we decided to publish this post as to say that we are not considering doing such a thing. We are proud to be on staff at TMV and plan to contribute here for a long time to come – as long as Joe allows it / TMV exists. There are some things we criticize – mostly in the comment...

Pieter Dorsman wrote a fascinating post at my own blog about – what he calls – culture of death. It is Pieter’s first post for The Gazette (my blog) and, when you read it, I am sure you will understand why I asked him to co-blog (again at my blog not at TMV). A small excerpt in an attempt to persuade you to read the post: Diana’s death accelerated the emergence of a new and very public culture of death, now an integral part of the lives of the ‘commoners’. Personally...

US President George W. Bush is stepping up the rhetoric (directed towards Iran). He said that Iran is playing a destabilizing role in the region and that a nuclear holocaust could be the result of Iran’s nuclear program. Obviously, the US is determined to prevent such a nuclear holocaust from happening. Meanwhile, Raw Story has a fascinating article up: it seems that the US has already done the necessary planning for a military strike against Iran. According to two respected scholars and experts,...

Newsweek published an highly interesting article today. Retired Vice Admiral John Scott Redd, head of the National Counterterrorism Center explains that the US is going to get hit again by terrorists in the (near) future (no matter what the US does) and he explains what the nature of the war against terrorism is. He also talks about Osama Bin Laden. It is remarkable to hearread him say with such a high confidence level that Osama Bin Laden is (99% sure basically) still alive. He explains that if...

Today, Turkish Daily News published an OP-ED written by yours truly. In the column I argue that it is time for the CHP (as you all should know by now: Turkey’s main opposition party) to change its course. If it does not, I write, it will become increasingly irrelevant. A couple of the points I make: Although as an outsider I certainly understand why many secularists are worried about the reforms Gül and Erdogan might try to introduce once in shared power, the CHP and its supporters also...

A fascinating article was published recently at the Wall Street Journal about affirmative action. As far as I am concerned, this article is an absolute must read for all those interested in this issue. The author, Gail Hariot (professor of law at the University of San Diego and a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights), starts by writing: Three years ago, UCLA law professor Richard Sander published an explosive, fact-based study of the consequences of affirmative action in American law schools...

Real Clear Politics will occasionally feature a blogpost on their frontpage linking to the article republished at Real Clear Politics / blog page, or so I was told. They will only do this every once in a while, but it is a great initiative – in my opinion. Although this is of course good news, there is even better news: for today they selected my Progressives Unite! post. Hopefully, other major websites will follow RCP’s lead and feature bloggers every now and then.

Earlier today, I received an e-mail from someone who works for The Issue telling me that they linked to my article about the resignation of Alberto Gonzales on their frontpage. I checked out the website of The Issue and found it to be highly interesting: it is a newspaper that basically keeps an eye on the blogs. They call it: “The Blog Newspaper.” The goal of The Isssue is to introduce “more people to the blogosphere by linking to top content each day.” If they keep on doing...

Neo-neocon writes at Pajamas Media: Some Democrats in Congress were for the Iraq war before they were against it. But that was before some of them were for it again—at least, sort of. If that sounds confusing, just think how confusing it must be for them. A number of those Democrats who originally voted to invade Iraq but then opposed the surge back in January—and even a few who had opposed the invasion of Iraq from the start—have been doing some fairly energetic scrambling lately...

Roger L. Simon writes at Pajamas Media that he will not blog about the Olympic Games in Beijing (summer of 2008). The reason, of course, is that China’s government is not exactly one of the most tolerant open governments in the world. The Communist Party oppresses its people, torture is still practiced, freedom of speech does is virtually non-existent, etc. Roger rightfully criticized American companies like Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft in the past, for working with the Chinese government...

This article at Newsweek does not exactly make one feel good: The Americans were getting close. It was early in the winter of 2004-05, and Osama bin Laden and his entourage were holed up in a mountain hideaway along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Suddenly, a sentry, posted several kilometers away, spotted a patrol of U.S. soldiers who seemed to be heading straight for bin Laden’s redoubt. The sentry radioed an alert, and word quickly passed among the Qaeda leader’s 40-odd bodyguards...

Thomas Friedman wrote a heck of a column for the New York Times. His basic point is that George W. Bush – and thus America – are losing the propaganda war, at least in the Middle East. “One thing that has always baffled me,” Friedman writes, “about the Bush team’s war effort in Iraq and against Al Qaeda is this: How could an administration that was so good at Swift-boating its political opponents at home be so inept at Swift-boating its geopolitical opponents...

There is something strange going on in the progressive blogosphere these days: instead of uniting against Republicans, progressive bloggers like Matt Stoller have decided to declare war on every Democrat who they consider not to be progressive (read anti-war) enough. Seemingly frustrated that there are actually Democratic Congressmen that do not necessarily always vote along party lines – but make up their own minds – they have decided to ask their readers to make profiles of so-called...