Jingoists: "Love That Guy!"

Here's one assessment of John Bolton's performance thus far:

"What supporters loved about John Bolton, and what worried his critics, was that he would push for structural change at the UN. The new ambassador has confirmed both sides' expectations... Bolton has occupied his Turtle Bay office just a few weeks and already he's tipped over Kofi Annan's bureaucratic apple cart. The secretary general had scheduled a Sept. 14 summit for the heads of 175 nations. The agenda? Ratifying the 2000 Millennium Summit, which put the UN squarely in the business of not just arbitrating global conflicts but ending poverty and curing disease. Global utopianism of this sort—the Bush administration rightly believes—does not set the UN on the right course. It simply invites more of the monumental corruption into which the body—once touted as 'the last, best hope for mankind' —has been sinking. So Bolton introduced 175 amendments to the plan. The U.S. version eliminates much of the sappy, socialistic language and demands attention be paid to terrorism, human rights and the curbing of weapons of mass destruction. It strikes any mention of the International Criminal Court, that hobbyhorse of world government enthusiasts in the Democratic Party. The bold stroke prompted The Washington Post to report that the administration had 'thrown the proceedings into turmoil,' a lead intended to excite anti-Bolton sentiments on the Hill. But such pot-stirring, even UN fans understand, is long overdue." —Investor's Business Daily

I don't get it. That's not "reform." If your M.O. is obstruciton, obstruction, and more obstruction, why not just not send anyone to Turtle Bay at all?

Role-Reversal

Are Democrats in the California legislature trying to obstruct Arnold's green agenda?

Keeping It Legal

Memo to New Orleans residents: if you want to make money off other people's suffering, at least try to do it legally, like my friend Scott here.

The Binomial Universe of Prayer and Action

How best to respond to Katrina's devastation? Well, there's PRAYER on the one hand and then there's ACTION on the other. And who would know better than Jim Wallis?

Double Standard

I don't recall Prince Harry being hauled up before this preposterous Inquisition when he had his little storm-trooper debut...

Katrina-Blogging

Tulane's website is still down... Pretty shitty back-to-school for those kids, eh?

Unsafe AND Ugly?!

While I thought the consensus was that perimeter safety "sculpture" was tasteful (or something), Rybczynski begs to differ... (To be fair, he DOES like bollards, but I say that's bollocks.)

Sex in the City-of-London

Another Anonymous Lawyer-like scam/hubbub ("scamabub"?)???????????

But Is It Good For the Jews?

It's been a summer of tsores for the Orthodox: first the withdrawal, then they're going to take away metzizah b'peh! (Naturally, Hitchens wants Mayor Mike to confront the 'Judeo-fascists'...)

Rowland on the River (and the Tide Is Going Out)

More bad news for embattled former CT governor John Rowland, who looks like he might be headed from one slammer (federal) into another (state). (Maybe he got screwed by Dick Blumenthal in a bogus plea deal -- just what happened to Brooklyn mobster Lou Lepke, at least in the movie.) His family is "concerned for his safety" if he's remanded to the CT correctional system. Really? Do the inmates really hold graft against you the same way they do with pedophilia?

But Tell Us What You Really Think!

Leon Wieseltier faces down Israeli settler movement (and boss Peretz?):

Even faced with the idea of Greater Palestine, it is impossible not to rejoice in the defeat of the idea of Greater Israel. It was always a foul idea, morally and strategically. It promoted the immediate ecstasy of the few above the eventual safety of the many; it introduced the toxins of messianism and mysticism into the politics of a great modern democracy; it preferred chosenness to human rights; it subordinated laws to visions, and the Jewish state to the Jewish millennium; it worshiped soil in a primitive, almost un-Jewish way. The settlers of the West Bank and Gaza are not a Jewish vanguard, they are a Jewish sect; and in their insistence that the destiny of their state and their society should be held hostage to the fulfillment of their metaphysical and historical conceptions, they have always displayed a sectarian self-love.

Meanwhile, Peretz wonders about the fate of the last great Attic democracy.