Weekly Links: NYC, Neoconservatism, Secret Intelligence, John Bolton, Teh Panty Bomber, Tea Parties, Chessmasters, & Paul Krugman

In any given week, I collect so many links to good articles on which I'd like to opine, I'm unable to get to all of them. Thus, these weekly link dumps. If you're looking for something good to read, read one or all of these, listed in no particular order of priority.

(these aren't all political)

In NYC, old real estate families are getting back in the biz after the bubble burst on the new comers. (h/t Scott L.)

Father/dean of neoconservatism, Norman Podhoretz, answers questions about his ideology and why Jews tend to be liberal, among other things. (h/t Matt L. or Scott L.)

The Binyam Mohamed trial last week in London resulted in the release of secret American intel given to their British sources. According to high ranking British sources whom I personally questioned, the real concern is over the day to day sharing of intelligence between the middle management types. This will inevitably affect the long term development of intelligence.

My favorite ex-diplomat, John Bolton, makes the case for a military strike against Iran to preempt their development of a nuke.

Michael Mukasey, former US Attorney General, breaks down, point by point, why the administration's handling of the "panty bomber" did not have to be handled the way it was--Miranda rights, etc.

Glenn Reynolds reports on what he saw and heard at the Tea Party convention.

Russian opposition leader, Garry Kasparov, updates and warns us about current US policy towards Russia & Iran.

Finally, Paul Krugman makes an interesting argument on the one hand, if the Euro is to succeed, for greater EU political union and on the other hand, against the hubris of adopting an single currency. (h/t Taylor B.)

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Conservatism 2.0

Billed as "a discussion about the future of conservatism," Pajamas Media's TV outlet, the aptly named, PJTV, will broadcast a round table discussion featuring Mike Huckabee, Glenn Reynolds, Dr. Helen Smith, Michelle Malking and some college conservatives & Young Republicans.

If you're a subscriber, check it out. I don't know if it will be made available to non-subscribers or not.

I'm meant to contribute in some manner, but it remains to be seen exactly how much I'll be seen--that is to say, my part might get cut. If it does, I'll update later and fill you in on what I said that they thought wasn't worth airing.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

College Blog Follow-up

In the aftermath of the college blog contest, we hoped for a greater level of connectivity between the contestant blogs--a sort of federation of conservative college bloggers. We may not all support the same issues or candidates in exactly the same way, but we hoped that there could be a sort of collaborative effort.

To that end, we weekly linked to our competitors' blogs. To their credit, a few of them linked to the rest of us a time or two. We sent emails to the judges asking for links not only to our blog, but to all the blogs, and a couple three of them obliged. Most recently, Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com posted a link. Thanks, Glenn.

We've made a joke of the fact that we got 4th place in the contest (only the top 3 spots are known). When the contest was first announced, we wrote an email to the contest administrators suggesting that perhaps they could get the judges to give each of the bloggers a little post-contest evaluation. We all know the top 3 are the bestest ever, but what about the rest of us? We wanted to know what we could do to improve.

Fortunately, though none of that end of it has materialized, a number of you have written in comments or sent us emails or even talked to us over the phone and in person about some of the things you'd like to see done on this site. You've made suggestions and critiques to help make this place better. And you know what? We really do appreciate it. It's easy to get tunnel vision and think everything is copacetic.

Your critiques have helped make us much more aware of this blog's deficiencies and given us a clearer vision of what we can do to make this website the best it can possibly be (again, given obvious limitations). Thanks for that.


If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.