Quick Roundup 229

Thank God for New Hampshire

I don't know what I found more ridiculous about this bit of GOP primary news: The question this moron asked or the fact that it apparently succeeded in upsetting Rudy Giuliani.

Katherine Prudhomme-O'Brien says she was just curious about the apparent lack of support for their father's candidacy by Giuliani's son and daughter from a previous marriage, but that query and Giuliani's dismissive reply have been the buzz of the political world all weekend.

"I asked him how he'd expect the American people to give him loyal fellowship if he was having a hard time getting it from his own family."

Giuliani's response: "There are complexities in every family in America. The best thing I can say is kind of leave my family alone, just like I'll leave your family alone."

Keller: What did you think of his answer?

Katherine: I thought it was a little defensive. I guess he's still not ready to talk about the whole thing because it's very uncomfortable for him. [bold added]

This has got to be one of the most inane questions I have ever heard get this amount of attention. So what if a candidate doesn't see support from his family? I defy anyone to make a believable claim that if he ran for office, he'd have the unified support of his family. This could be, as this woman wants to imply, because of a bad relationship (which may or may not be in some part the candidate's fault) or it could be (gasp!) because people within the same family often have different opinions about politics. There are people in my own family I wouldn't support for office and I am sure many of them wouldn't support me. Big deal.

Anyone who thinks that families march in lockstep on political matters is either a liar or the droning idiot everybody tunes out during the holidays. And after hearing the full interview, my vote is for "droning idiot".

Oh yeah. I almost forgot the punchline: The great advantage of the New Hampshire primary -- and its boon to America according to this crackpot -- is that it allows people to ask questions like this of the candidates.

My sarcasm aside, this last strikes me as -- next to hurting Giuliani any way it can -- the way the Left might hope to gain from playing up this otherwise completely unremarkable episode. Namely, by making a big deal out of this encounter between an "ordinary person" and a candidate, the table is set to dismiss (with the help of how conservatives will react) the next pertinent question asked of a Democrat by an ordinary person. Furthermore, the value of freedom of speech, which the Left routinely attacks these days, is made to appear to be less than it is.

Neoconservative Foreign Policy: An Autopsy

I finally got around to reading the last issue of The Objective Standard on a flight Sunday and have to say that this article by Yaron Brook and Alex Epstein is a must-read.

Why is the Weekly Standard practically celebrating the slaughter of thousands of Americans? Because the slaughter created "the potential of Americans to join in common purpose -- the potential that is the definition of a nation." Even if a "long, expensive, and arduous war" were necessary to defeat the enemy that struck on 9/11 -- and we will argue that it is not -- it is profoundly un-American and morally obscene to treat such a war as a positive turn of events because it generates a collective purpose or "horizon." Observe the scorn with which this editorial treats the normal lives of individuals in a free nation. Pursuing our careers and creative projects, making money, participating in rewarding hobbies, enjoying the company of friends, raising beloved children -- these are desecrated as "trivial concerns" and "parts in the casual comedy of everyday existence." The editorial makes clear that its signers think the exalted thing in life is "the potential of Americans to join in common purpose" -- not the potential of individual Americans to lead their own lives and pursue their own happiness. This is the language of those who believe that each American is merely a cog in some grand collective machine, to be directed or discarded as the goal of "national greatness" dictates. [bold added]

Anyone who thinks the guy I blogged recently who wants another set of Islamic atrocities to visit our nation is some sort of anomaly would do well to read this article.

Google's Paucity of Storage Space

Darren Cauthon discusses a happy result of competition in the free market:

I just read an article that pointed out that out of the four big email providers, Google's Gmail now offers the least amount of storage. This is interesting because just a few years ago when most providers were offering between only 2 MB to 10 MB, Gmail jumped on the scene by offering 1 GB of storage. That made the storage for other email services look pretty pathetic, so they had to step up their game. Now that Microsoft has announced that they’re bumping their storage up to 5 GBs, now Google is the one that's behind everybody else. [links dropped]

And if you want to contemplate what the lesson he takes looks like when applied to medicine, stop by Reason Pharm.

-- CAV