Here’s a roundup to celebrate our future dietary habits: according to Ted Turner the human race is doomed to cannibalism (due to global warming, of course). Note the sub-headline of this Atlanta Journal-Constitution article: “Billionaire environmentalist says world has too many people.” Solution: eat them!

Hungry? Why wait

Read on…

Incredible. In a Whittaker Chambers-level about face, David Mamet, no longer a “brain dead liberal,” gushes about Thomas Sowell:

I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism.

And that’s in the pages of the Village Voice no less (?!) If your mind is not sufficiently blown you’ll want to read the whole thing.

(Mamet and Alec Baldwin)

Roger Kimball says “it gives one faith in human nature”…

Yes, our authors are buzzing about Eliot Spitzer debacle (one NY Times commenter quickly re-dubbed New York’s ‘Elliot Ness’ as ‘Elliot Mess’.) Who isn’t? And yet, even as the shocking revelations pile up, perhaps the most surprising result of this squalid episode, as Fred Siegel observes, is the sudden ascension of soon-to-be governor - and friend of school choice - David Paterson.

Well he doesn’t look blind…

Part 2 of Peter Robinson’s 5-part Uncommon Knowledge interview is posted on National Review TV…

Thomas Sowell talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about ‘the misleading nature of measured income inequality, CEO pay, why nations grow or stay poor, the role of intellectuals and experts in designing public policy, and immigration.’

Listen to it here.

Or read this recent Wall Street Journal interview with Mr. Sowell…

This week, National Review TV showcases yet another Uncommon Knowledge interview with an Encounter author — this time its Bruce Thornton and his book Decline and Fall. In this first installment, Bruce and Peter Robinson discuss the demise of European civilization:

The symptoms: Economies are less adaptable and competitive because of an enormous regulatory burden; social welfare entitlements are incredibly expensive; and, demographically, Europeans simply aren’t reproducing. At the source of this demise is a loss of the foundational belief system that created the West — that created Europe — in the first place.

This comes hot on the heels of Bruce’s NRO interview just few weeks ago…

Daylight Savings Time: Why?

William Willett invented daylight savings time in 1905 “during one of his pre-breakfast horseback rides, when he observed with dismay how many Londoners slept through the best part of a summer day.^[18]” Plus, Willett, a golfer, “disliked cutting short his round at dusk.”

Willett is also the great-great-grandfather of Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, who dedicated his Grammy award to John Kerry.

It gets worse…

In Saudi Arabia, Friday is the last day of the weekend and Saturday is the first day of the work week. To celebrate tomorrow not being Monday, I am pleased to present the latest Encounter News Digest. Enjoy your weekend (and may you never work on Saturday.)

Europe Loves Obama, City Journal, by Guy Sorman
“Europe’s media and left-wing intelligentsia see Barack Obama as the most appealing candidate for the U.S. presidency. He exemplifies what the French leftist magazine Le Nouvel Observateur calls “the America we like.” Most Europeans deny that they’re anti-American; they argue instead that there are two Americas—the good and the bad. Michael Moore is a good American, honored with the Cannes film festival’s highest prize in 2006 for his anti-Bush fantasy documentary Fahrenheit 9/11…”

New York, Spare Unruly Teenagers the Cockroach Treatment, New York Daily News, by Anthony Daniels
“In Britain, adolescents are the new mosquitoes. Many storekeepers and municipalities now employ ultrasonic devices, of the kind hitherto used to scatter insects and rodents, to disperse young people wherever they habitually gather to make a nuisance of themselves. The so-called “mosquito” devices - there are some 3,500 installed throughout the country - take advantage of the fact that only people younger than 20 can perceive and be discomfited by the high-pitched sounds the devices make, discouraging them from lingering in the vicinity…”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008), Town Hall, by Thomas Sowell
“Writing in 1954, Lionel Trilling said that most conservatives do not “express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” One of the perks of being a liberal is disdaining people who are not liberals. However, as of 1954, Trilling’s dismissive attitude toward conservatives’ intellectual landscape was painfully close to the truth…”

Obama’s Pessimistic Message, RealClearPolitics, by Victor Davis Hanson
“Liberal Democrats from the North haven’t had much success in recent presidential elections — not Hubert Humphrey, not George McGovern, not Walter Mondale, not Mike Dukakis and not John Kerry. Democratic Southerners — Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton — have done quite a bit better…”

and more…

A roundup of Encounter authors in print and online media to get you over the hump.

Rescuing the Rust Belt, Real Clear Politics, by Thomas Sowell
“It is fascinating watching politicians say how they are going to rescue the “rust belt” regions where jobs are disappearing and companies are either shutting down or moving elsewhere…”

The Case for Telecom Immunity, National Review Online, by Andrew C. McCarthy
“It’s been nearly three weeks since House Democrats endangered our national security by effectively rescinding the law that permitted the intelligence community to conduct aggressive surveillance outside the United States. That has sensible Democrats increasingly worried…”

William F. Buckley’s Unmaking of a Mayor, City Journal, by Fred Siegel
“William F. Buckley’s 1965 New York mayoral campaign is perhaps best remembered for a memorable quip: asked what he would do if he won, the Conservative Party candidate responded with a bemused smile, “Demand a recount.” Buckley, a man of Tory manners and radical principles, ran as an intellectual provocateur. But his campaign against Democrat Abe Beame and the eventual winner, then-Republican John Lindsay, was far more than an historical footnote…”

Oil, Iraqi Perfid, and $4 Gas? “I Hadn’t Heard That”, Huffington Post, by Raymond Learsy
“From the very outset the administration’s Iraqi oil policies have been a disaster. There are many such as Alan Greenspan who adjure that oil was the reason for the invasion. If that is indeed the case, the priorities it imposed perverted our mission from the very outset, whether it was detailing our troops to protect the oil ministry while Baghdad’s great museums and their irreplaceable archaeological and historical treasures were being looted…”

and more…

Kick of your week with a roundup of Encounter authors in print and online media:

Obama and Chicago Mores, Wall Street Journal, by John Fund
“On Tuesday, Barack Obama may well wrap up the Democratic nomination. Yet how he rose so quickly in Chicago’s famously suspect politics — and who his associates were there — has received little scrutiny…”

Master of Islamist Doublespeak, The Australian, by Melanie Phillips
“The fact that Australia is allowing Ramadan to enter the country at all will raise eyebrows in security circles elsewhere. Ramadan is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood: the spiritual backers of al-Qa’ida and Hamas and whose goal is to Islamise the world…”

The Indispensable Man, New York Times, by William Kristol
“In my high school yearbook (Collegiate School, class of 1970), there’s a photo of me wearing a political button. (Everyone did in those days. I wasn’t that much dorkier than everyone else.) The button said, ‘Don’t let THEM immanentize the Eschaton.’…”

The Patton of Counterinsurgency, The Weekly Standard, by Frederick and Kimberly Kagan
“Great commanders often come in pairs: Eisenhower and Patton, Grant and Sherman, Napoleon and Davout, Marlborough and Eugene, Caesar and Labienus. Generals David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno can now be added to the list…”

and more…