Keith Burgess-Jackson

I leave you this fine evening with a column by Christopher Caldwell.

Here is an interesting New York Times story about a proposal to charge Internet users by the amount of bandwidth they use. What do you think? Imagine a world in which everyone paid the same amount of money for municipal water or electrical service, no matter how much water or electricity was used. Is there a relevant disanalogy between the cases?

Here.

To the Editor:

For a strike that lasted a year in the mid-80s, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took on the miners’ union, including its colorful and impassioned leader, man-of-the-people Arthur Scargill, in his spiffy Jag.

I don’t remember her complaining that his scathing treatment of her was sexist. She probably thought that he ought to be afraid of her.

It is disappointing to watch Hillary Rodham Clinton’s supporters wave the white flag of victimization to excuse the loss of their candidate. It’s the worst kind of surrender.

Margaret McGirr
Greenwich, Conn., June 13, 2008

Note from KBJ: Women who can’t stand the heat of American politics should get out of the kitchen.

Steve Sailer says that women with tattoos are “inherently slutty.” Or does he? I’m not sure how to take his comment.

I have drawn the contrast between a regime of terror and the rule of law starkly, but I do not mean to deny that there can be intermediate cases. On the one hand, even the most brutal totalitarian states may need to provide selective relief from terror for certain groups of people in order to achieve their aims. On the other hand, even relatively decent governments may find it irresistible at times to use fear as a way of deflecting criticism or deflating political opposition. A judiciously administered dose of alarm can do wonders in inducing a compliant frame of mind and encouraging people to rally round their leaders. Ironically, the fear of terrorism—which is in part to say the fear of fear—seems to be a particularly effective tool for this purpose. This is one reason why governments are so eager to label their enemies as terrorists; in addition to discrediting them, the very use of the label may help to induce a state of timid docility in an otherwise restive population.

(Samuel Scheffler, “Is Terrorism Morally Distinctive?” The Journal of Political Philosophy 14 [March 2006]: 1-17, at 13-4 [footnote omitted])

Don’t look now, but my beloved Detroit Tigers are roaring. Did you know that 100 years ago, the Tigers played the Chicago Cubs in the World Series? It could happen again in 2008. I hope the Tigers win this time.

This song caused me to be very bad on the highway this morning.