The Inequality Taboo

"Elites throughout the West are living a lie, basing the futures of their societies on the assumption that all groups of people are equal in all respects". If you don't know who Charles Murray is, the author of Losing Ground, The Bell Curve and (more recently) Human Accomplishment, it's your own business. But if you don't read his last (long) essay published on Commentary, you're just nuts. Analysis, comments (and abstracts) by NoSpeedBumps, Armed and Dangerous, Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, Parapundit, Spartacus, Steven Donohue, Steve Sailer, I Ectomorph, The Citizen Journal, Old Right, Gene Expression, Tjic, Sweet and Sour, Mahalanobis, Dustbury, Random Thoughts, Begging to Differ, Kaiser, Mads Kvalsvik and Nozick (in finnish!). In the meanwhile, on the left coast, reactions are always the same: insults and old stuff. (italian version)

Eurosocialism

NYgirl's interview to swedish blogger Fredrik is a must-read. All around Europe, in spite of the differences, socialist cancer seems to have a shared characteristic: antiamericanism. (italian version)

Polls

According to Rasmussen, President Bush's job approval is at 49% again. Cindy Sheenan is at 35%. So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. (italian version)

Weekend Round-Up

►It's avalaible online, in pdf, the August iussue of "The New Libertarian". Click here to download the past iussues. ►Paul Krugman is not only biased and unfair. He's also out of luck, because he crossed Patterico on his way. ►Sami Al-Arian, the terrorist professor: at FrontPage Magazine (via PowerLine). ►Expert diagnonis on anti-war left: at The American Daily, via My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. ►At Hugh Hewitt's blog, a round-up of reactions to the astounding work in Iraq of Michael Yon. ►Only few hours to The Grand Old Portal launch (via Musing Minds). ►Associated Press criticizes Bush (via Wizbang!) for travelling by airplane too often, increasing America's oil dependency. Independent Sources makes the math. ►According to the New York Sun, Evan Montvel Cohen, former Air America's financial manager, is missing. In the meanwhile, Michelle Malkin and Brian Maloney continue to investigate on the scandal that exposed the deep hypocrisy of American Left. ►Again by Michelle Malkin, the incredibile story of an anti-war hoax. ►Captain's Quarters wonders how long the Washington Post will take to announce its opposition to the nomination of John Roberts for the Supreme Court. ►Disturbing disclosures by Hyscience about Terri Schiavo's case. ►Morning Jawa and Common Folks Using Common Sense (via The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler) ponder on Cindy Sheehan and comrades. Read and take notes. ►By Wizbang! the last madness of anti-tobacco crusade. ►How to make a trackback without installing trackbacks. ►A Rasmussen Report's poll shows that only 12% of Americans believe that withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq will stop terror attacks. Republicans and Independents have no doubts. Democrats are splitted. ►Michael Crowley at The New Republic (via Andrew Sullivan) explains how mp3-revolution saved us from "Rock Snobs". (italian version)

Rudy Wins the Big One

It's time for the first results of the online poll organized by Patrick Ruffini (webmaster for the Bush-Cheney '04 presidential campaign) to find out who's the favorite presidential candidate for 2008 between the readers of right-wing American blogs. And the outcome is very interesting: leading the pack with 30.0% of the votes is the former New York major, Ruby Giuliani, followed by former Virginia governor, George Allen (20.2%) and former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich (14.3%). In the "fantasy ballot" (with candidates not expected to enter the race), Condoleezza Rice is dominating with 37.7%. Vicepresident Dick Cheeney with 14.0% and Florida governor, Jeb Bush (9.2%) follow her. Patrick Ruffini's analysis of the results is a must-read. (read the original post in italian)

French-Style

This cartoon by Cox&Forkum, with a post written yesterday by Little Green Footballs, broke out the harsh reaction of American right-wing blogosphere against Italian Red Cross, the attitude of our government and Italians’ reliability in general. Basically, we looked like the French. Here it is a quick round up: The Jawa Report, The New Editor, Daily Pundit, Gall & Wormwood, bRight & Early, Captain's Quarters, Flopping Aces, Nif, Two Babes and a Brain, The Digital Brownshirt, NYgirl, Salient Points, North Sea Diaries, Benny's World, In the Bullpen. (read the original post in italian)

Foreign Aid

High Fidelity

Italian Red Cross healed (and hid from US Army) four Iraqi terrorists in order to free Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, the two italian aid workers kidnapped in Iraq last september. The former commissioner of Italian Red Cross, Maurizio Scelli, disclosed it on an interview with the Turin newspaper La Stampa (via Mattinale). The Italian government denied any involvement, confirming its will to cooperate "frankly and loyally" with the American ally. Clearly, italian government has a peculiar understanding of what fidelity is. More details (in Italian) at Robinik, A Conservative Mind, JimMomo, Il Megafono, Liberali per Israele and Mattinale. In English: Little Green Footballs and Foreign Object Damage. (read the original post in italian)

Welcome to the Right Nation

Welcome to all Michelle Malkin's readers. Many thanks to Brian Maloney of Radio Equalizer for posting this on Michelle's blog (the Empress of the Ecosystem) and to Independent Sources for reporting our blog to its readers (including Brian). You can find an english-only version of this blog here. I hope you all enjoy your stay. UPDATE. Thanks to Musing Minds and Patterico's Pontifications too, which are instantly added to our blogroll. (read the original post in italian)

TocqueVille is Back!

The first TocqueVille's after-vacation day is dedicated to the removal of israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip. While recalling to every citizen that the aggregator is now fully working (and that blogs without feeds should report their posts on this page), we would like to welcome, in the City of the Free, Fausto Carioti with his A Conservative Mind (we especially liked the reference to Russell Kirk). We are good friends with Fausto, managing editor at the newspaper Libero, since almost twenty years. So our judgment may appear a bit suspect, but we really think that his blog is starting on the right foot. (read the original post in italian)

Weekend Round-Up

►Scott Randolph was a democrat. But now he left his party for good to become a republican. Thanks to Cindy Sheehan (via The Corner). ►If you never read Day By Day by Chris Muir, just know that it is the best conservative comic-strip in the whole planet. ►From All Things Conservative, a wonderful news: ten tons of steel recovered from the ruins of the World Trade Center will be used to build the warship USS New York. According to The Right Place this is a case of “poetic justice”. ►To face the highly numerous requests from its readers (and with a skilful move of digital marketing), The New York Sun decided to publish online one special page, free of charge, with all the paper’s articles on Air America scandal (via Captain's Quarters). On Imao, the ten reasons (in Letterman’s style) that suggest why The New York Times is not dealing with the event. ►According to Tapped, blog of the liberal (or progressive?) magazine The American Prospect, the candidacy of George Allen (Republican senator and former governor of Virginia) to the presidential elections in 2008, perhaps on a ticket with Condoleezza Rice, would be practically unbeatable. In Begging to Differ’s opinion, Allen would be the worst of all possible candidates. ►Four days ago The Washington Post foresaw that John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court would not had faced any resistance from the Democrats. But on today’s Post, the publication of a memo dating back to 1984 puts some shades on Roberts’ past: the Jude chosen by Bush never liked... Michael Jackson. Roberts has to be worried much more for the critics coming from the right. ►A chemical arsenal discovered in Iraq? To the mainstream media it does not appear interesting. Not even when it is written by mainstream media. ►Today's brunch at Basil's Blog is not bad, but yesterday's lunch was better (only because we were in there). ►If this hack to make Mac OS operate on not-Apple personal computer really works, Steve Jobs would better dedicate himself soul and body to iPod. ►Hearty thanks to Richard of Hyscience, Beth of My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, Rachel of A Commonplace Blog, TJ of Nif and the mythical Master of Otimaster for pointing out the birth of the English version of The Right Nation. Otimaster and Robinik (that today changes url and moves to www.robinik.net) became officially my twin-blogs. A hug to both of them. (read the original post in italian)

The Right Side of the Theater

A couple of months ago we missed this article by James Ulmer for The New York Times (via Cinemocracy), bearing the title "The Right Side of the Theater", that tells (with a good deal of haughtiness) about the emerging phenomenon of Hollywood directors and screenplay writers who didn’t sell their soul to the anti-Bush liberal elite. You have to pay for the article, but BrothersJudd offers us a broad excerpt. We can’t as well miss Barbara Nicolosi’s report on Church for the Masses, interviewed by the Times’ journalist while drafting his article. On the same topic (and more than that), Francesca Oliva (full disclosure: she is my sweet better half) wrote on Ideazione (January-February 2005 issue). Next October, in Hollywood, the second edition of the Liberty Film Festival promises fireworks. (read the original post in italian)

Air America/2

Radio Equalizer and Michelle Malkin keep on hitting hard on the Air America scandal. And this time, thanks to the last developments of their (outstanding) investigative job, they accomplished to breach the wall built by mainstream media to protect Al Franken & Co, by deserving the attention of New York Sun and Philadelphia Enquirer. While The New York Times keeps on ignoring the story, we find out that not only children and elderly ones assisted by Gloria Wise Boys & Girls are knocking to Air America doors looking for justice (and money): Multicultural Radio Broadcasting Inc. has charged the radio network and his present owners of Piquant LLC with having used "fraudulent conveyance" to avoid the payment of a debt exceeding one million dollars. Maybe Michelle Malkin was right indeed when, a couple of weeks ago, started talking about Air Enron. The blogswarm continues on Captain's Quarters, The Anchoress, Macho Nachos, Bore America, Daily Pundit, Rightwingsparkle, Powerline, What Attitude Problem?, Powerpundit, Evil Conservative, NewsBusters, Iowa Voice, Swanky Conservative, Clayton Cramer, Brainster, Doc Rampage, Conservative Outpost, Instapundit, Sons of the Republic, California Conservative. (read the original post in italian)

Air America

Even though mainstream media are trying desperately to make public opinion forget this story, every day the blogsphere provides us with new details of he scandal that is sweeping away Al Franken, Evan Montvel-Cohen and Air America, the radio network which (in the forbidden dreams of America democrats) should have put to an end to the conservative overwhelming power in the talk-radio world. In extreme synthesis: Cohen, who up to a few years ago was the manager of both Air America and Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club – a philanthropic organization that helps children and aged poor ones in the Bronx – used funds raised by the charity institution (an amount close to one million dollars) to finance the birth of the network, leaving destitute the Gloria Wise. This ugly story, that appears to have been broadly know in the milieu of New York liberal elite, came afloat just thanks to the investigative job of Brian Maloney on Radio Equalizer (which published on July 27 the first post on the event and since then keeps on monitoring closely any new development). An important backing to Malony was provided by Michelle Malkin, who also today publishes a new contribute on the subject in her very popular blog and an article on Townall.com. Again today, and again on Townhall, talks about Air America scandal also Brent Bozell, chairman of conservative media watchdog Media Research Center. The blogswarm is marching on unrelentingly in the last two weeks, after having been fed during the first days by (among the many others) Captain's Quarters, It's A Pundit, Basil's Blog, Decision '08, JunkYardBlog, Red State Rant, The Llama Butchers, Ace of Spades HQ, Commonwealth Conservative, Say Anything, Almost Daily, Independent Sources e Mark in Mexico (author of one of the first complete round-ups on the event). But besides the usual exceptions (New York Sun e New York Post on top of all of them), mainstream media continue to ignore the scandal. Just think what would have happened if Rush Limbaugh, the most popular radio anchorman of American right, were caught stealing a million dollars to children and elderly ones of the Bronx... (read the original post in italian)

Truth Hurts

Cindy Sheehan conquered the front pages of American (and Italian) newspapers, moving blogsphere’s left side to tears (including some libertarians that do not make even the smallest effort to distinguish themselves from the vulgate of the peace movement), But now, at the end, some more news are leaking about this “desperate American mother” who, after losing his son Casey during the first days of the Iraq War, has been camping in front of George G. Bush’s Texan ranch to meet him and convince him to withdraw the troops. And it looks like that the anti-Bush bloggers, with the usual complicity of mainstream media, decided to hide from the general public a very consistent part of the story. For a detailed report about this event, we suggest the reading of this article from FrontPage Magazine (or the ones published by American Thinker and American Spectator - via Nif). For the laziest ones, we can just recall four simple facts: 1) Mrs Sheehan, in 2004, already met president Bush (the same bad guy who not even slowed down the presidential limousine coming back to Crawford!); 2) Mrs Sheehan’s sit-in was not at all spontaneous, but carefully planned by some of the most militant (and rich) US peace organization, under the watchful direction of Joe Trippi (manager of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004) and Bob Fertik (in charge of Democrats.com, the home of aggressive progressives); 3) Mrs Sheehan closeness to the position of the most radical left dates back to many years before the tragic death of his son (by the way, dead in an action of outstanding heroism); 4) The other relatives of Casey Sheehan are disgusted by Cindy’s behaviour and decided to write a white-hot email to Melanie Morgan, anchorwoman of the radio show Move America Forward, in which they say “not to agree with the political motivations and the pubblicity tactics” made hers by Casey’s mother. “She now appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the expense of her son's good name and reputation” – grandfathers, nephews, uncles, aunties of Sheehan family write in their message, making clear that “the rest of the Sheehan Family supports the troops, our country, and our President, silently, with prayer and respect.” For the gurus of digital left, as well as for the belly dancers of mainstream media, pointing out these facts means participating to a defamation campaign. But, using Albert Einstein’s own words: “If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor”. Round-up: Hyscience, The QandO Blog, Wizbang!, The Jawa Report, Iraq the Model, Very Small Doses, Confederate Yankee, Point Five, Ace of Spades, My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, Michelle Malkin, Protein Wisdom. (read the original post in italian)

Digging for Dirt

Amazing column by the Wahington Times about the "witch-hunting" organized by the New York Times against the judge John Roberts, nominated by President Bush to substitute Sandra O'Connor at the Supreme Court. It's worth remembering that without the Drudge Report, probably, we wouldn't have had the chance to find out that the NYT was digging for dirt, looking for something that didn't exist. The background of this dirty story on Protein Wisdom, Ace of Spades, Wunderkraut (via The Jawa Report), Hugh Hewitt, Captain's Quarters, Professor Bainbridge, The Sundries Shack, Michelle Malkin and Powerline. (read the original post in italian)

Goldwater 2. The Revenge

As Camillo reminded a few days ago, Don Goldwater - Barry Goldwater's nephew - announced his decision to run for Governor of Arizona at the next elections scheduled for 2006. To know more on the importance of Barry Goldwater in the process of building the contemporary U.S. right, beside reading "The Right Nation" (by Adrian Wooldridge and John Micklethwait), we suggest these (one and two) articles written by Marco Respinti for "Ideazione" and we remind you that in the issue of the bimonthly review, still on sale in the newsstands, there's a wonderful essay by Antonio Donno (professor of North American History at the University of Lecce), bearing the title "Barry M. Goldwater. The Root of Fusionism". As regards Don Goldwater's outlook at the Arizona elections, we point out the articles by Associated Press, East Valley Tribune, Arizona Capitol Times and the following posts: Captain's Quarters, GOP Bloggers, ElectricDesert, Commonwealth Watch, Morning Java, Arizona Watch, The Computer Curmudgeon, Slant Point. At the end, again from Arizona Watch, the full text of the speech with which - on August 3 - Don Goldwater announced his candidacy. (read the original post in italian)

The Right Nation [english version]

Starting from today, every (or almost every) post written on The Right Nation will be also avalaible in english (including a couple of recent posts like this one and this other one). It is also officially open The Right Nation [english version], wholly written in english. We hope that our beloved friends in the american blogosphere (like Hyscience, Scared Monkeys, A Commonplace Blog, Nif, My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and all the other friends at Freedom's Zone and the Neolibertarian Network) will help us to keep english language in this blog the less outrageous as possible :) (read the original post in italian)

State of Fear

If there is a book that TocqueVille's citizens cannot afford to ignore, that is "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton, better in the original English version. It is not just the usual, wonderful thriller by the author of Andromeda, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Timeline, Rising Sun, Disclosure and Congo. It shares with the preceding works by Crichton, other than the divine writing style (700 pages go down as smoothly as a vodka&peach in a couple of days), the excellent work of research and localization that is a real trademark of the Crichton-team and of course a plot that seems built just to be transformed, without much effort, into a solid film script. But what raises "State of Fear" at least one step above the other commercial novels is, incredibly, its devastating and unmistakable political message. Yes, because Crichton's book is a powerful, detailed and extremely courageous accusation against environmental fundamentalism, rich in charts, footnotes and bibliography (Bjørn Lomborg, without any doubt, the most cited author). In "State of Fear", in short, the "bad guys" are the managers and lawyers of the environmental agencies and lobbies, the eco-terrorists and Hollywood stars that raid the world (using super polluting private jets) to defend tropical forests from the attacks by multinational corporations. Dying, in the development of the action, lay on the ground some of the most embarrassing myths of radical ecologism: ranging from the theories on global warming to those concerning exhaustion of natural resources. Further on, it cannot be missed the postface and the appendix where Crichton compares the pseudo-scientific theory of global warming to the theory, as well pseudo-scientific, of eugenetics that was very popular at the beginning of the 20th century, No excuses, then: get out of home and rush to the bookstore. "State of Fear" is the book of the summer. Moreover: of the year. (read the original post in italian)

PeaNut

Iraq? A "useless and unjust" war. Guantanamo? A "disgrace" that was used by the terrorists to "justify" their slaughters. Who is speaking, on occasion of a conference in Birmingham, is not a militant of the multicoloured no-global galaxy but - we feel ashamed just saying it - is a former US president: Jimmy Carter. The one famous for his peanuts plantations, for wetting his underpants during Khomeini's revolution, for being massacred by Ronald Reagan in 1980 and for having certified Chavez's victory at the last farcical elections in Venezuela. As The Jawa Report writes, this man "is the perfect negative barometer. If he is on one side of an issue, you can bet the farm the other side is the place to be". Details and comments on Protein Wisdom, Captain's Quarters, OpiPundit, Renew America, Left Noose, Jonathan and Wanda Rantings. (read the original post in italian)