Looks like an interesting book.

It seemed to me as a historian that the concept of extremism begged a question: how do certain ideas, movements and political impulses come to be considered extremist? As a citizen whose political identity was shaped by the late twentieth century, I saw the militias’ assertion of a right to use armed force to change government policy as new, threatening, and beyond the pale of legitimate politics. But as a historian of early America I found achingly familiar their assertion of a right to take up arms to prevent the exercise of unconstitutional power by the federal government. As a historian, then, I was faced with a more specific question: how has the United States as a political society come to view the assertion of that right as extremist?

By conventional media wisdom, all of the Founders were “extremists.” But they have no problem with the big-government fascism taking hold of the country.

The story of Ezra Levant’s battle for freedom of speech in Canada. It still seems amazing that he went through this. These Human Wrongs Commissions are a travesty against liberty.

…before it’s remaindered. I love the reviews of Pelosi’s book:

The book portrays Speaker Pelosi as vapid, prideful, arrogant, and as an elitist.

There’s probably a good reason for that. They’d have to waterboard me to get me to read it.

What is it with these gay marriage opponents?

And yes, let’s destroy Carrie Prejean for agreeing with the president.

I wonder if she agrees with the president that this officer should have been fired for being gay?

[Saturday-morning update]

Who is the rube?

why aren’t leftists upset at Obama for holding the same beliefs on gay marriage as Carrie Prejean? [h/t Instapundit]

Easy, they assume that he is lying. They think his Christianity based justification for opposing actual marriage for gays is simply a lie to fool the rubes on a hot-button issue. They know he might have lost critical support from left-of-center religious conservatives if he had really stated his true beliefs on the matter, so he just lied about his real beliefs to bamboozle the rubes.

Their comfort with this assumption that Obama is lying reveals a lot about contemporary leftists’ mores and their systematic contempt for their fellow citizens. They’re so full of themselves that they believe that the important thing is for them to have power, and that it really doesn’t matter how they get it. If Obama has to lie about his real beliefs about gay marriage then that’s acceptable in the cause of the greater good.

Have to break eggs to make the omelette.

I’ve never been as impressed by Elizabeth Edwards as the media has wanted me to be (of course, the gulf between my perception of John Edwards and the media’s desires has been even wider). Kaus says that the media continues to be too soft on her:

You’re understandably focused on your own family. You won’t say Hunter’s name. She’s “irrelevant to your life.” You don’t know if Hunter’s child–which you call “it”–is John’s. You just know “It doesn’t look like my children.” You say Hunter had no right to disrupt your marriage. “Women need to have respect for other women.” But during the campaign an aide and friend of John Edwards, Andrew Young, stepped up and claimed paternity of Hunter’s child. Andrew Young has a wife. How do you think she feels about this? How do her children feel about it, and what other kids say about it, when they go to school? Do you really not care if she’s going through whatever she’s going through because she’s playing her part in a lie constructed in service to your husband’s, and your, unstoppable ambition?. How are you respecting her and her marriage?

Both of these people are complete hypocrites, and made for each other. Fortunately, though, they weren’t made for the White House.

And he doesn’t seem to mind:

The USNS Lewis and Clark was chased for about an hour on Wednesday morning by two pirates skiffs, but neither came closer than about one nautical mile to the U.S. vessel, the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet said in a statement.

The small arms fire fell well short of the U.S. ship which speeded up to evade the skiffs.

So let me get this straight. A US Navy ship is fired upon by a ragtag gang, and instead of sending them to the bottom, they run away? What ROE have they gotten from the White House? Would this have happened during the previous administration? And if so, is this bipartisan stupidity?

If you want to discourage piracy, you have to make the costs higher than the rewards. This was a perfect opportunity to make an example of them. Instead, we seem to be doing just the opposite.

[Update a few minutes later, after a lot of discussion in comments, some of it useful]

If the L&C didn’t carry standoff armament that could take out a skiff at the range of a mile, it seems like they should at least be able to call in a chopper air strike. We should have a policy that one does not fire on US vessels with impunity and without consequence.