Free Republic

The Internet Archive has lost a legal battle which could see the whole web get a lot less freaky. The Second Circuit US Court of Appeals upheld a previous ruling in favor of Hachette Book Group. Hachette sued the Internet Archive over a project which scanned library books and lent infinite copies. Hachette and other publishers argued this was “tantamount to piracy,” as Wired phrases it.

Michael Rubin The U.S. is losing in Iraq because American politicians and the general public have not decided they want or need to win. Many congressmen look at Iraq through the lens of the 2006 election: They care neither how their words embolden the enemy nor how their grandstanding impacts Iraq. Meanwhile, many commentators have cast accuracy aside to cater to, and cash in on, public ennui. Iraqis are now as pessimistic as they have ever been. Corruption and organized crime run rampant. True, some metrics are positive: Oil production is on the rebound, shops are opening, agricultural production is...

THE PRESIDENT believes and often states, as if it were a self-evident truth, that "democracies are peaceful countries." This claim, which has been advanced in the past in regard to Christianity, socialism, Islam and ethical culture, is the postulate on which the foreign policy of the United States now rests. Balance of power, deterrence and punitive action have been abandoned in favor of a scheme to recast the political cultures of broad regions, something that would be difficult enough even with a flawless rationale because the power of even the most powerful country in the world is not adequate to...

Literary Warrior Mark Helprin's fictional marvels and political heterodoxies by Craig Lambert The study where Mark Helprin writes his novels and short stories, essays, speeches, letters, and Wall Street Journal columns is a spectacular room. Fifty feet long and nearly 30 feet wide, it holds two desks; there's a fireplace at one end, and some fishing rods hang aloft on display. Everything is in immaculate order.The ceiling stretches upward almost two stories; one towering wall is a mammoth bookcase that dominates the space with 19 vertical stacks, each one 15 shelves high and all of it patrolled by a rolling...

Defend Civilization Itself Mark Helprin Mark Helprin, a novelist and a contributing editor of the Wall Street Journal, was raised on the Hudson and in the British West Indies. After receiving degrees from Harvard College and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, he did postgraduate work at the University of Oxford, and he has served in the British Merchant Navy, the Israeli infantry, and the Israeli Air Force. He was published in The New Yorker for almost a quarter of a century, and his stories and essays appear in the New York Times, Commentary, American Heritage, Forbes ASAP,...