Sam Boyd

FOR $300,000 YOU TOO CAN BE PRIME MINISTER OF IRAQ. Over at TPMMuckraker Spencer Ackerman has the goods on the $300,000 lobbying contract Iyad Allawi gave to a prominent DC firm in return for its help in building support for installing him, once again, as prime minister of Iraq (because it went so well the […]

MORE UNHINGED CONSERVATIVES. It’s easy to forget that there’s a large contingent of conservatives who think we’re at war with an entire religion. Really. Over at the National Review, Mark Krikorian makes the following prediction (via Josh Patashnik at The Plank): When Iran’s Islamic regime finally unravels, some significant number of nominal Muslims will quickly […]

AT LEAST HE’S HONEST. This essay, published by Family Security Matters (an arm of the influential Center for Security Policy) really has a to be read in its entirety to be believed, but a few quotes should give you a feel for it: By elevating popular fancy over truth, Democracy is clearly an enemy of […]

MORE INSOLENCE. Over at the Washington Monthly, Paul Glastris responds to my criticism of the Monthly‘s college rankings at the behest of Kevin Drum, who agrees with me. My criticism was that the “research” component of the rankings is not scaled by size and so penalizes small schools for being small even if they produce […]

HEIGHTEN THE CONTRADICTIONS! Now that Michigan may be moving its primary to January 15th, causing New Hampshire to move to, at the latest, the 8th and Iowa to move into December, it’s worth noting that, crazy as this is, it has an upside. The runaway rush to be the first is unsustainable, having the ultimate […]

THE LEVEL OF ANALYSIS WE’VE COME TO EXPECT FROM THE NATIONAL REVIEW. Victor Davis Hanson, writing at The Corner, has the following completely vapid observation: The world is not as you read. Here in Hillsdale, Michigan, teaching, and reading an alarmist account about global warming — while freezing in an August downpour. Then turned to […]

SHOOTING FISH IN A BARREL. Stanley Fish evidently doesn’t know anything about politics. His column yesterday was filled with bizarre assertions. First, he claims that Hillary Clinton inevitably will win the nomination because… well because he says so. No actual evidence is offered. This, of course, means that “the only remaining big question is, Who […]

THE WASHINGTON MONTHLY’S COLLEGE RANKINGS ARE RIGGED. As part of TAPPED’s continued commitment to counter-counterintuitivism I should point out that the “research” component of the Washington Monthly‘s much ballyhooed alternative college rankings are deliberately rigged in favor of large schools: A school’s research score is also based on three measurements: the total amount of an […]

THE COURTS UPHOLD MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO KILL ZOMBIES (ON MY COMPUTER). The New York Times reported yesterday that, despite their continuing popularity, laws restricting the sale of violent video games have universally been found to be unconstitutional. This is, I think, a good thing. As Richard Posner, who wrote one early opinion, put it: […]

COUNTER COUNTER COUNTER COUNTERINTUITIVISM. Over at The Plank Josh Patashnik criticizes Scott Lemieux and Matt Yglesias for their mockery of Ben Wittes‘s TNR piece in support of the much-derided warentless wiretapping bill. The only problem is that he doesn’t actually disagree with them. No, he just wants “more hand wringing”: I’m not entirely convinced by […]