They do these things better in France. Volokh Conspiracy has posted on a news item which reflects one of my favourite little-known facts. Namely, if one holds fundamentalist-libertarian views about when it's ok to lock terror suspects up (i.e. virtually never), to the extent that one regards the Patriot Act as proof of America's slide into authoritarianism, and also entertains the uncritical Francophilia nowadays prevalent on the left, then one is in an awkward position intellectually...
(On a related theme, Chicago Boyz suggest how blogs could impact on classic European elitism in profound and unpredictable ways.)
But enough. The Marvellous Marxists do a better job of skewering leftish piffle than a mere reactionary ever could. Time to seek out some rightish piffle instead. Difficult to find any, though: I've now given up reading the Spectator as well as the New Statesman. At length, I found this: Damian Penny has a ripe case of right-wing homophobic silliness to report, which, as he says, should remind us that leftists aren't totally without grounds for their beliefs.
But I've never really liked knocking anyone.
Instead, I'd rather recommend good stuff. Squander Two has some sensible things to say about the Middle East. Oxblog has a thoughtful piece about the degeneration of traditions of civility in the public sphere. And Belgravia Dispatch has an interesting discussion about what to do about Iran. I think Ledeen is way too sanguine about the chances of popular revolt in Iran, but given the practical impossibility of the military options his ideas are probably worth a try. The words 'theocracy', 'terrorist sponsor' and 'atomic weapons' really don't belong in the same sentence, or indeed in the same paragraph. Or library.