Steyn: It's The Bars Over The Windows, Stupid

Even though the Brits are highly taxed, they don’t seem to feel it. But
what you can see, by reading the local newspaper and taking a stroll down
a British High Street is that it’s the world capital of crime.
“That’s post-socialist Britain: materially prosperous,
but civically impoverished; wealthy villages and
upscale suburbs full of frustrated and impotent citizens.”
Mark is offering this aperçu to all evil
right-wing politicians, free of charge.

Lefty Naomi Klein Mourns End of Ration Program in Iraq

Lefty activist and author of anti-globalist bible No Logo
Naomi Klein
sees the Iraq invasion as a dark plot to sic the American Enterprise Institute
and the Cato Institure on the Iraqi people so they could practice their radical
free-market ideas on them. Now Iraq is shackled to the IMF
and World Bank that are “demanding the elimination of Iraq’s
food ration program,
upon which 60 percent of the population depends for nutrition,
as a condition for debt relief and for the new loans that have
been made in deals with an unelected government.”

I think the idea, Naomi, is that as the Iraqi people get jobs, it would
be a good idea to free them from direct dependence on the government for
the very food they put in their mouths. They could end up like Americans and
left-wing activists that
go to the store to buy their food.

Bigotry: You'll Find it on the Left

Conservative Jewish pundit
Don Feder
wonders why, if Democrats are anxious
to open a dialog with religious Americans, they are piling on the hate speech
against the “Religious Far Right,” the “far-right fundamentalists,” and so on.
He observes that:

“The cover story in the May issue of Harper’s Magazine screams
of `The Christian Right’s War On America.’
Try to imagine a reputable publication doing a story
about `The Jews’ War On America’ or `The Hispanic War On America.’ ”

Good point. You’d be on your knees to Katie Couric in a moment. But
if you were publishing “The Hasidic Jews’ War On America”
or “The Pentecostal Hispanic War On America,” maybe that would be ok.

Interview with "South Park Conservative" Brian Anderson

Author Brian C. Anderson does an interview with
Jamie Glazov from Frontpagemag.com, telling the story
of how he came to write South Park Conservatives and what to expect
in the culture wars in the near future.

Steyn: Blair Will Win

Überpundit
Mark Steyn
doesn’t really like it, but he figures Tony Blair will win the British election
on Thursday. The voters have fallen out of love with Tone, but they haven’t
fallen in love with anyone else. Not yet. To relieve the gloom, Mark
offers up this:

“The problem with the war on terror is that once it was framed
as an existential struggle for Western civilization,
it was all too predictable that the left would act as it
did the last time we had one of those, the Cold War:
They’d do their best to lose it.”

If we didn’t have Mark Steyn, we’d have to invent him.

Spengler: No Women Priests, Thank You

The commentariat’s chief disciple of Franz Rosenzweig has been exercised
by the changing of the guard at the Catholic Church. Like everyone else,
he has some
advice
for the new pope. The word from Spengler? Don’t open the priesthood to women.
In general Spengler is in favor of equality for women, if for no other reason
that if you don’t give women what they want they will punish you for it.
“Nonetheless, ordaining female priests at this moment in history would
be ill-advised.
A priest’s most important function is to forgive sins.
Women never forgive anything.”

But wait a minute, Spengler, old chum. You’ve got this upside down. It
isn’t priests that do the forgiving in Christianity. It’s God. Does that
mean that Benedict XVI can go ahead and give the girls the go code?

Dems Don't Get Religion

After the election Democrats said that they would start to pay attention
to religious voters. But when religious voters they didn’t like dared to
show up on the public square, Democrats threw a cow. How dare Senator Frist
address a religious rally called Justice Sunday, they complained,
according to
Morton Kondracke.

So Democrats respect religious voters but want to anathematize the Republicans
that speak to them. Writer Alan Wooldridge reports that during the 2004
campaign Bush got his biggest applause when he told his audience that
Bush got his best crowd response by declaring that “the Democratic Party believes
that Hollywood people represent real American values.”