John Derbyshire on Enron on National Review Online Mr. Derbyshire rips into the whining, puling Enron investors. I find it difficult to have much sympathy for people who bought the stock, or over invested in it.

Economic Scene: Smaller Classes Don't Necessarily Equal Better Education-- Virginia Postrel points out Professor Lazear's findings. Very, very interesting...

Rich Lowry on the Saudis on National Review Online I agree, Rich. The Saudis are not our friends any more. They ceased to be our friends when the USSR died.

Black October, from the Weekly Standard. Apparently, anti-semitic violence is on the rise again in Europe. This is a topic of special interest to me -- my In-laws to be are Jewish. It worries me that we seem to be sliding into the 1930s in Europe, a time when the persecutions began in earnest. What's particularly troubling is the French government's response -- essentially nothing.

TCS: Tech - Rights and Wrongs, by the Omnipresent Mr. Glenn Reynolds (or possibly his clone) of Instapundit fame, covers some good territory regarding intellectual property.

NYPOST.COM Entertainment: NPR JOCK SHOCK By MICHAEL STARR Heh-heh-heh... NPR host Terry Gross gets her feathers ruffled by Gene Simmons, the axeman for Kiss.

Hollywood Whitewash of the Cold War's Shameful Red Stain On Ronald Reagan's 91st Birthday, The LA Times prints a wonderful commentary on Mr. Reagan's and Mr. Brewer's early fight against the Communists, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences exhibit on the Red invasion of the 1940s and 1950s. Thank you, Mr. Reagan. Thank you very much.

There's a young Hero in Indiana (link Courtesy WSJ's Best of the Web.

TCS: Tech - Dumb, But Pretty Joanne Jacobs, Education Maven, shreds classroom techno. Excellent work, Ma'am.

America Too Patriotic, Says Norman Mailer Further proof that Norman Mailer is an idiot.

Workers choose to gamble on 401(k) (2/02/2002) According to Margaret Steen, Enron workers are to blame for losing their 401Ks, since they invested it ridiculously heavily in Enron stock. I said this a few weeks back, right here. (Search for Enron on this archive; I don't have all the bookmarking sorted out yet...)

Dynamist.com: The Scene (vpostrel.com) Virginia Postrel has a terrific collection of bits and pieces relating to the Target-Walmart-KMart intrigues.

OpinionJournal - Featured Article Today, they cover the situation in Iran. It's a good, and necessary, read.

Mark Krikorian on Islam on National Review Online Mark Krikorian proposes letting teh Mullahs take over... until they're ousted. In a way, it makes sense. I don't think it would be good for the shorter term -- it would kill many people and ruin nations -- but it would, like the eventual fall of the Soviet Union, toatlly discredit Islam and Islam's radical factions, as the fall of first the Nazis then the Communists have discredits Socialism, Fascism, and Communism.

FOXNews.com rips on Sheils Jackson Lee (D, Texas), literally a limosine liberal. She thinks she's a queen after becoming a member of the HOR. Houston, we have a problem...

Linda Gorman & Dave Kopel on national I.D. cards on National Review Online A great read. Larry Ellison and the other ID card idiots (oh mys, such a harsh word) live in an illusory world where criminals will actually follow the law. Well, guess what! Criminals are not known to be law abiding. Much like gun control laws, ID laws will only affict the innocent.

OpinionJournal - Extra on anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe. It's no wonder that Europeans act the way they do towards Isreal...

OpinionJournal - Thinking Things Over is thinking over the Keynesian economic model. And generally shredding it. I've always wondered why people didn't question Keynes early on. It's one of those intriguing ideas that doesn't make sense if you follow it through to the end.

I have a slight revision to make regarding yesterday's commentary that the US is the only Principled Nation -- Isreal, and to a lesser extent, Great Britain, are also Principled Nations. Italy has a Prime Minister who could turn that nation into a Principled Nation, but they are apparantly too close to France for such a wondrous event to occur.

Jonah Goldberg has an excellent Goldberg file from yesterday.

This morning's columns (okay, some are last week's... sheesh) got me thinking... It appears that the United States really is the only Principled Nation. Or, at least a majority of Americans are Principled, and our government reflects that. Consider what one famous Communist said -- I beleive it was Lenin, but I may be wrong -- "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we shall hang them." Well, when Europe was living in fear of the Soviet threat, what did they do -- they treated with the Soviets, they wanted the US to appease the Soviets, and they kowtowed to Moscow to try and keep Soviet tanks in Eastern Europe, but not in Western Europe, and to keep US missiles out of Europe. Well, we reacted differently. Other than a short spate of detente in the 1970s, under the post-Vietnam/pre-Reagan malaise, we more or less told the Soviets "Bring it on. We'll beat you fair and square. We're smarter than you, and more determined, and most of all, we're right and you're wrong. We're good and you're Evil. We're Freedom, you're Oppression. We cannot co-exist with you, but we can kick your ass." Well, eventually, the Soviets fell, thanks to the United States standing strong and scaring them into collapse. We refused to sell the Soviets the rope with which to hang us. Instead, they chose to hang themselves. When Iraq invaded Kuwait -- Europe as a rule wailed and gnashed their teeth, then prepared to do business with the Butcher of Baghdad. We, the United States, looked him in the eye and said "Get out. Now." We brought in an impressive array of hardware, and excellent Corps of Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines, and we drove him back to Baghdad, crushing an army impressive in numbers if not proficiency. We stood tall, and for the moment, Iraq was humbled. President Clinton squandered that over the following decade by following the European model of foreign crisis management, but we had Saddam on the ropes for a while there. Now we come to the current War, the War against Terrorism. Had we followed the European model, we would have ineffectually sat on the sidelines, begging the Taliban to turn over Bin Laden. In the meantime, Bin Laden would have wreaked further havoc, prompted by lackadaisical US response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. But we didn't beg and plead. We issued an ultimatum. "Taliban, hand Bin Laden over. Now." They didn't, and down came the bombs, followed by the collapse of the Taliban and the end of their murderous regime. We stood by our Principles. We are a great nation, by virtue of those Principles we stand by. Europe is slowly falling by the wayside because they neglect the principles that could make them great. As long as we stand on out Principles, our footing shall be solid. Our founders expressed those principles so very well in the Declaration of Independence, and later in the US Constitution -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..." That statement, expanded in the Constitution, provides the main principle of our stand in the world -- that governments derive their rights from the governed, and that governments that do not respect the will of the governed -- whether by invading other lands and placing others under their forced rule, by establishing an autocracy or kleptocracy which destroys those who oppose it, or by establishing a Theocracy that crushes other religions -- that government must be opposed, whether it is an Ancient Empire of millions in Asia, or an island Autocracy ninety miles from our shores.

Anarchy as a Matter of Apples -- These 'anarchists' are not Anarchists, they are communists. Read on, McDuff! (link courtesy Ms. Postrel -- see below)

Victor Davis Hanson on war on National Review Online Excellent piece...

Dynamist.com: The Scene (vpostrel.com) Butter her up, Ms. Postrel is on a roll. Hmmmm...I think I've been watching too much ESPN...

David Pryce-Jones on Saudi Arabia on National Review Online -- More Saudi Shredding(tm). The Saudis should be kissing our asses about now. They should be on their knees in the desert sand, praying to Allah that we let them keep the Kingdom. Historically, the Arabian Peninsula has never been under single rule until the Brits put the Saudis in charge. There is little historic basis for their rule, and a lot of recently arisen reasons to kick them out. With their support of Wahhabism, and their exportation of terror, intentionally or otherwise, the Saudis should be shaking in their, um, sandles.

A Beginners' Guide to Globolog (washingtonpost.com)... Micheal Kinsley has an interesting perspective on last week's New York gatherings.

Backfence: The Force was (sort of) with Enron This is just eerie...

Inappropriate has some scathingly beatific remarks on the Euroweenies. (link courtesy Instapundit). Update My typing is horrible this morning. I'm running about two cups low of the black mambo morning juice. My apologies for the incoherency.

TNR Online | Cambridge Diarist: Foresight by Martin Peretz -- Take a read; it's a good one.