But, sadly, Neil Young has

lost all hope that music can change the world …

He made the remarks while presenting a documentary about a 2006 antiwar tour that he took with Crosby and Stills and Nash, reports the New York Times.

Wait. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young had a reunion tour in 2006? Oops! Missed it!

Anway,

“I know that the time when music could change the world is past,” Mr. Young said. “I really doubt that a single song can make a difference. It is a reality.”

Indeed it is. Sad, that.

Mr. Young made no distinction between the Vietnam War, during which Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young earned a reputation for political activism, and the war in Iraq, which their tour condemned with songs like “Let’s Impeach the President.”

Hmmm, was it music that ended the Vietnam War? No difference between Vietnam and Iraqa? Eh, never mind. I still love ya, Neil.

Keep on rockin’ in the free world.

The Archbishop of Canterbury gets the Pope “he’s too nuanced for you all” Benedict defense:

Christina Rees said: “I am angry and frustrated at the way he has been treated. He has been vilified. Nobody is responding to what he said at the lecture, which was highly nuanced and complex, and delivered to a sophisticated audience.”

…

The Bishop of Gloucester, the Right Rev Michael Perham, said he felt the remarks had been taken out of context and should be studied more carefully. “The archbishop did not advocate the adoption of sharia law. What he did plead was for an understanding of it … He doesn’t deal in soundbites, but in careful rather scholarly discussion. That doesn’t easily transfer into popular news coverage, so he gets himself into trouble with people who get a distorted picture of what he is saying.”

All the more reason for (professional) death to come to the Archbishop.

You’re living in our real world, punk. In this world, when the media tries you and finds you wanting, you’re out—on this side of the Pond, at least. We’ll see what comes of you on your home turf.

How does it feel? Mark Helprin illustrates:

Photo illustration [no shit!  --ed.]

Team Clinton wasn’t just spinning – February’s caucus and primary contests are all tough for her.

Helprin’s got ten tips for Hillary. You can read ‘em here.

One of Glenn Reynolds’s emailers describes Obama-swooners as your typical fans—wrestling fans, that is [e.a.]:

I am in medical school now, but I remember when I used to watch the WWF (WWE as it is called now) about 10 years ago and I have to say Obama’s victory/campaign speech tonight in Virginia is utterly reminiscent of any “face” (good guy) speech as he arrived in the ring in a new town.

“My it’s good to be back to (insert city/state)…I’ll tell you you guys have the best (insert sports team/governor)…” the speech then goes on about being an underdog and more importantly winning against the odds et cetera, et cetera. The best part about it is that the crowd in both instances, fake wrestling and politics, always screams and applauds in the same spots and eventually breaks into chanting the hero’s name. I understand this isn’t a speech meant to unveil any type of policy specifics (when are his speeches ever about that really?) but the similarities were striking for about five minutes.

Just a friendly reminder that depression usually follows mania.

Bush is certainly wasting no time in trying to burst the bubble:

“I certainly don’t know what he believes in. The only foreign policy thing I remember he said was he’s going to attack Pakistan and embrace Ahmadinejad,” Bush said.

Obama hit back, you’ll be happy to know.

“Of course President Bush would attack the one candidate in this race who opposed his disastrous war in Iraq from the start. But Barack Obama doesn’t need any foreign policy advice from the architect of the worst foreign policy decision in a generation,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

He’ll need something better than Kos and Pelosi talking points, though.

The Daily Mail attacks the British Olympic Association for its ourtrageous coddling of the Chinese with a vivid reminder of Britain’s shame and dishonor in the run-up to World War II:

National disgrace: In a picture from a German archive never before published in Britain, the England football team give Nazi salutes in Berlin in 1938  [e.a.]

Here are the facts, from the Mail:

British Olympic chiefs are to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China’s appalling human rights record – or face being banned from travelling to Beijing.

The controversial clause has been inserted into athletes’ contracts for the first time and forbids them from making any political comment about countries staging the Olympic Games.

It is contained in a 32-page document that will be presented to all those who reach the qualifying standard and are chosen for the team.

From the moment they sign up, the competitors – likely to include the Queen’s granddaughter Zara Phillips and world record holder Paula Radcliffe – will be effectively gagged from commenting on China’s politics, human rights abuses or illegal occupation of Tibet.

Here’s the argument against, from David Mellor, also writing in the Mail:

The Chinese have no right to a free ride this summer. And it isn’t just because China isn’t a democracy or that basic human rights and fundamental freedoms are denied to its citizens.

China is a menace to the civilised world for many other reasons, ranging from its support for renegade regimes such as the government of Sudan, who used Chinese weaponry to commit the Darfur massacres, to its shameless emergence as the number one polluter.

The Chinese deserve as much criticism over their contributions to global warming as over their suppression of human rights.

Long live the British tabloid media!

[reposted to correct a typo in the title] 

Will sharia come to Britain? The notion certainly has a lot of people up in arms.

Ali Eteraz makes the case against (in case you need to hear it).
As for me, I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. For one thing—though it’s not PC to bring this up, but it does reflect reality—there most certainly is a supernationalist streak in Britain, most obviously represented by its soccer hooligans. Potentially violent, uncontrollable “Islamophobia” is a real concern among this demographic, and it is not to be ignored.

Perhaps it was those, er, “blokes” who the otherwise sharia-loving (and enemy of culture) Tariq Ramadan was thinking of when he nixed the Archbishop’s idea:

“These kinds of statements [about the addition of sharia in Britain] just feed the fears of fellow citizens. I really think we, as Muslims, need to come up with something that we abide by the common law and within these latitudes there are possibilities for us to be faithful to Islamic principles.”

For another thing, on one side of the front page of its website, the Daily Mail tears to shreds the sharia-embracing Archbishop of Canterbury:

Officials at Lambeth Palace told the BBC Dr Williams was in a “state of shock” and “completely overwhelmed” by the scale of the row.

It was said that he could not believe the fury of the reaction.

On the other side of its front page, the Daily Mail goes about its business, advertising its other typical features:

Femail

Bedraggled and bra-less: Britney back to her old tricks after hospital release
A spell in a psychiatric hospital seems to have done little to change Britney’s lifestyle - or her dress sense

Cheek to Cheeky…the girls bare all for a good cause
Cheeky Girl Gabriela Irimia has never much cared for the twinset-and-pearls image of an MP’s consort - but this pose with her identical twin sister Monica - is risque by even her raunchy standards

Rehab star Amy is all smiles after getting her teeth fixed ahead of Grammy performance tonight
Amy Winehouse is all smiles these days after finally being granted a US visa - and getting her teeth fixed

‘Sadistic Wife Swap nearly cost me my sanity’ says TV presenter Anna Courtenay
On last week’s Channel 4 show Wife Swap, businesswoman Anna Courtenay, 42, was seen trading her privileged expat life in Marbella for nine days with another family on an ‘eco-friendly’ tugboat. She was not prepared for the lengths to which producers were prepared to go in the name of entertainment

When the Mail is forced to clean up its lurid act, let me know. Likewise, satellite TV in Europe (which is a mixture of lecturing imams and soft-core pornography). Then I’ll get nervous about sharia.

In the meantime, I take comfort from the sensible attacks on the mental defective masquerading as the Archbishop of Canterbury:

The most damaging attack came from the Pakistan-born Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali.

He said it would be “simply impossible” to bring sharia law into British law “without fundamentally affecting its integrity”.

Sharia “would be in tension with the English legal tradition on questions like monogamy, provisions for divorce, the rights of women, custody of children, laws of inheritance and of evidence.

“This is not to mention the relation of freedom of belief and of expression to provisions for blasphemy and apostasy.”

from Will Shakespeare:

Peace, peace, and give experience tongue.
They do abuse the king that flatter him:
For flattery is the bellows blows up sin;
The thing which is flatter’d, but a spark,
To which that blast gives heat and stronger glowing;
Whereas reproof, obedient and in order,
Fits kings, as they are men, for they may err.
When Signior Sooth here does proclaim a peace,
He flatters you, makes war upon your life.

—Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act I, Scene 2