As a long-time reader of That Happy Corner on NRO, I've often thought about writing to say how much I appreciate and enjoy you, Jonah, Derb and the rest of the Gang. However, I've never wanted to bother you with another e-mail (I'm sure your box is always overflowing) -- until now.

I cannot let pass all these accolades for Diet Coke. I have never been able to drink coffee for caffeination, but I also draw the line at Diet Coke. I am confident that REAL conservatives drink Diet Pepsi! I will drink almost any cold caffeinated beverage; though I prefer Diet Pepsi, I also willingly guzzle Diet Mountain Dew, Diet RC Cola, and Diet Dr Pepper (take that, Mr. Stuttaford!) -- but I refuse Diet Coke. I'll suffer through a caffeine-fasting headache before I'll choke down that swill.

I am sure that the Diet Pepsi/Diet Coke divide is as wide as Red States/Blue States, and Diet Pepsi is for The Good Guys in Red. (Though I will concede that regular Coke's movie-theater commercials with the NASCAR drivers is thoroughly Red State.)

I therefore make the following offer: if you could endorse Diet Pepsi in The Corner, I will carry out my long-intended, never-completed resolve to subscribe to NR. (You might, for example, see if someone could talk about Diet Pepsi going best with Marmite or haggis, sort of like red with meat, white with fish . . . .)

Do you remember while campaigning Bush had a incident with a dump truck while jogging and a member of his security detail was hurt? The archived story is here, ....

''Governor Bush is in good condition and good spirits and hopes that Agent Hughey has not sustained any serious injuries,'' she said.

A witness, Ernest Bedford, 50, a pipeline inspector for the city who was working nearby, said he didn't hear any brakes squeal, just ''a big, loud bang.''

Bedford said he saw Bush in the clear but ''the other guy was reaching his hand up out of the debris.''

Bush used Hughey's cellular telephone to call DPS officials at the Governor's Mansion, and they called 911, Ms. Edwards said. ''The governor stayed with Roscoe until he was in the ambulance,'' she said.

I realize the conditions are not exactly the same, but Bush's immediate reaction was to tend to his security detail remaining by his side till EMT's took him to the hospital. Additionally, I could find no reporting of Bush berating the dump truck driver for almost accidently mowing right into him had he not jumped out of the way or boasting later that he doesn't fall while jogging . Kerry's reaction to his silly spill was to ensure there were no photo's taken by the accompanying photographer, then to blame the SS agent. Bush's incident was certainly a window into his character and I suspect the Kerry's is too. Why elect Kerry president when already thinks and acts like he is a king.

Members of the reliably worthless European ‘parliament’ like nothing better than mocking America’s ‘Enron capitalism,’ but what do these crusaders for honesty do when they are asked to vote on the EU’s Commission’s accounts, accounts so tawdry that they have been rejected by Brussels’ own auditors?

Yup, they approve them.

Part of the reason, of course, is that the EU parliament, a cesspit notorious for graft, greed and cronyism, is in no position to face much scrutiny of the way that it manages its own affairs, but part of the reason too is the fanatic belief of so many MEPs in ‘Europe’.

Blogger Terrance Coyle takes up the story:

“When I interviewed Diemut Theato MEP, Chairman of [the parliament’s budgetary] Committee, on this subject she put it in a nutshell for me. "European Parliamentarians have a duty to Europe, not just to their electors", if they attack the Commission they undermine the project, and that will never ever do.”

The EU’s bureaucracy has never been very tolerant of dissent, but even by Brussels standards, the arrest of a leading investigative journalist (he was held for ten hours without access to a lawyer, something that’s normal in Belgium, apparently) is something of a low point.

The EU 'constitution' (much more likely to be forced through, incidentally, in the wake of the change of government in Spain) is filled with highminded boilerplate, but the plight of Hans-Martin Tillak shows what this misbegotten 'Union' really stands for.

Here’s a charming little party being hosted today by Al-Muhajiroun, an Islamic extremist group based in the UK:

“This Saturday's LIVE talk on Paltalk will discuss one of the greatest forgotten obligations in Islaam - Hating false religions. Allaah (swt) orders the believers to hate all other religions, way of lives, creeds, doctrines and beliefs that contradict with Islaam, and one cannot be Muslim without to declare animosity and hatred towards kufr, bid'ah, shirk and nifaaq (Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Democracy, Freedom etc.).”

That’s just something to remember the next time that you read that the British police are cracking down on ‘hate speech’. This sort of event, presumably, does not count.

"I certainly agree with you that the plain meaning of the Constitution is silent on the question. But at the same time I sincerely doubt many heterosexual readers would feel that their basic rights were being infringed upon if the state told them they couldn't marry the woman or man of their choosing."

Vietnam, the Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America’s Most Disastrous Military Conflict by Michael Lind

A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last War in Vietnam by Lewis Sorley

A Grand Delusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam by Robert Mann

The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam by Bruce Palmer

I'm asking myself what I would say to a man who has pledged to lay down his life for me, to take a bullet for me, if he accidentally knocks me down on a ski slope *while* trying his best to protect me.

I think that I say: "Don't worry about it. You're doing your job. I appreciate it."

And to onlookers: "Got tangled up with my guardian angels up there and went down. We need more practice at this."

But: "I don't fall. That blankety-blank knocked me down"?

E-mail:

Rich,

I'm a regular NRO reader and NRODT subscriber. However, as much as it pains me to say it, I think Franken's phrasing of the SCHIP income limits is actually more correct than yours. 200% above the poverty line is in fact 3 times the poverty line (It is the poverty line level plus an additional 2 times that level). 200% of the poverty level is 2 times the poverty line level (i.e., 100% above the poverty level). When Franken says it was limited to families below 200% of the poverty line, he is saying that the families had income less than twice the poverty level. You seem to be reading this to mean 200% below the poverty line which would imply families with income one-third of the poverty level (or an in fact negative income depending upon interpretation). This is just my reading...perhaps math whiz John Derbyshire can authoritatively resolve this.

Regardless, this is largely a semantic argument. You have him nailed otherwise. Keep up the good work.

Kerry curses out one of his secret service agents on the slopes because men like John Kerry don't fall down:

The image-conscious candidate and his aides prevailed upon reporters and photographers to let him have a first run down the mountain solo, except for two agents and Marvin Nicholson, his omnipresent right-hand man.

His next trip down, a reporter and a camera crew were allowed to follow along on skis — just in time to see Mr. Kerry taken out by one of the Secret Service men, who had inadvertently moved into his path, sending him into the snow.

When asked about the mishap a moment later, he said sharply, "I don't fall down," then used an expletive to describe the agent who "knocked me over."

The incident occurred near the summit. No one was hurt, and Mr. Kerry came careering down the mountain moments later, a look of intensity on his face, his lanky frame bent low to the ground.

Burkholder, Amy 7/22/2003 $250.00 New York, NY 10021 Fox News Channel/SR Producer -[Contribution] DEAN FOR AMERICA

Feldman, Suzanne Mrs. 6/26/2003 $2,000.00 Santa Monica, CA 90402 Fox News Channel/Sales Executive -[Contribution] BUSH-CHENEY '04 INC

Jenkins, Griffin Mr. 6/30/2003 $2,000.00 Washington, DC 20007 Fox News/Producer -[Contribution] BUSH-CHENEY '04 INC

SOLIVAN, BERT A 7/21/2003 $240.00 GUTTENBERG, NJ 07093 FOX NEWS CHANNEL -[Contribution] NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE

SOLIVAN, BERT A 11/18/2003 $240.00 GUTTENBERG, NJ 07093 FOX NEWS CHANNEL -[Contribution] NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE

I attended an embassy party last night. Speaking to European diplomats, you get a gist of two things:

1) They are terrified that the Spanish elections, and subsequent announcement of a pull-out of Iraq will lead to terrorist attacks around election dates in Europe - and they are terrified that it will, like Spain, lead to appeasement votes.

2) John Kerry does not have any fans over here. Although most of the diplomats hate Bush, and hate the Iraq intervention, the following quotes were used "You just can't take him seriously"; "He's sort of a joke, isn't he?"; "Can anyone actually believe anything he says?" Most diplomats seriously doubt any member of their governments have had any contacts with him or his campaign.

I was wrong about something big in my post yesterday about Andrew Sullivan and Federalism. I wrote about the Rhea County anti-gay initiatives: "If you read Andrew Sullivan today, he makes it sounds as if he thinks this measure is completely illegitimate even though it seems its actual intent is to ban gay marriages in their county."

This is entirely my fault and I was wrong. Andrew is right to think that the Rhea County measure is totally illegitimate. Okay maybe not illegitimate in the strict meaning of the word in that illegitimate basically means illegal and it has always been my position that sodomy laws and the like may be wrong but that doesn't mean they're unconstitutional. Regardless, Rhea County's "crime against nature" law is wrong and stupid. My mistake was in conflating two different efforts while reading too quickly and while trying to do too many things at once. In my defense I did post an email very shortly afterwards which corrected me on this point, which Andrew probably missed.

That said, despite Andrew's comment that I'm being gob-smackingly obtuse, he's being sand-poundingly obstreperous. My main criticism stands. Not just on Rhea County but on all measures he considers to be "anti-gay" Andrew invokes the rhetoric of anti-Federalism and moral absolutism. Andrew ignores my point about his use of the word "pogrom" to describe what Virginia is doing. He didn't use that word about Rhea County. He used it about the legislature of Virginia. As readers know I'm a fan of Sullivan's but it seems impossible to ignore the fact that on matters gay, he's grown less tolerant of those who disagree with him and more willing to use Manichean rhetoric in which all of those who disagree with him to his right are purely dark and evil forces: "right wing fanatics," "theocons" "religious zealots," and, of course, "bigots." Having been in the middle of the road on this stuff for a while now -- with the the tire marks on my back from some social conservatives to prove it -- I find this truly dismaying. Merits aside, Andrew increasingly tends to argue his worldview with the same totalitarianism of the very people he so clearly despises. He may not be all the way there yet, but no one can doubt which way the trend lines point.

I'm pretty sure this isn't what the Senator had in mind, but I'm a Pennsylvania Democrat who he's convinced to switch parties. For years I've remained a registered Democrat because I hoped that I could help pull the party back toward rationality by supporting moderate candidates. My fellow Democrats generally disappoint me by nominating a leftist, so I invariably end up voting Republican in the general election. I nearly re-registered as a Republican in '00, but by the time the Pennsylvania primary was held the presidential nomination was already decided, so I didn't bother.

This year I've been considering making the switch because I agree with most of what Toomey stands for, but have held off because I find him a bit too conservative on some issues. Your Corner post this morning made up my mind for me. Senator Specter's habit of frequently voting like a liberal Democrat is bad enough, openly courting their support is going way too far. Thanks to his bi-partisan outreach program, the ranks of Toomey voters have just grown by 1.

Things have been getting a bit interesting over here for the last few days. I had dinner with a few members of the Spanish contingent here in Baghdad and they were not at all pleased with their new Prime Minister's directive to pull out. They realized that the only way to fight terrorism is to find the terrorists where they live and kill them, but they were also concerned that their government had already alienated the French and the Germans by joining the coalition and now the government was going to alienate the U.S. It was a very interesting discussion. None of the ones at the table wanted to leave and realized that what we're doing here is important for not only the future of this country, but also could demonstrate that democracy can succeed in this region.

I went to one of the local markets looking around at what the locals are trying to sell. It's heartbreaking because the instant you walk in you're accosted by children trying to sell you pirated DVDs or packets of money with Saddam's picture on it. The DVDs are $5 and the money is usually $1/package. The problem is that the instant you show any interest in purchasing from them 10 more kids come out of the woodwork. Then the adults peek out from their booths to see who's buying. Don't know whether the kids were associated with the booths or were selling on their own, but I just pulled out some singles and gave them to the kids. I wish the security situation here would get better soon so that companies could set up operations here and start to employ people. All in good time I guess.

Well I hope all is well back at NRO World HQ and tell Mr. Derbyshire that I'm going to order one of the "Pop Culture is Filth" shirts and use it on my runs here.

“I have caused my somewhat liberal (but turning conservative) wife to now have some doubts about the “conventional” wisdom of Vietnam – “unjust war”, blah blah…

“Can you recommend a good book about our Vietnam saga?”

Jonathan Riley-Smith, who is Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University, said the plot was "complete and utter nonsense". He said that it relied on the romanticised view of the Crusades propagated by Sir Walter Scott in his book The Talisman, published in 1825 and now discredited by academics.

"It sounds absolute balls. It's rubbish. It's not historically accurate at all. They refer to The Talisman, which depicts the Muslims as sophisticated and civilised, and the Crusaders are all brutes and barbarians. It has nothing to do with reality."

Around 15 members of the left-wing Basque nationalist movement Abertzaleen Batasuna (AB) clambered over the gates and let off fireworks and firecrackers during a 20-minute raid on [Paul Bremer’s summer home].

"We wanted to symbolize the war the United States imposed on the Iraqi people," said a spokesman for the group who did not want to be identified.

"We wanted to carry out this operation on the holiday home of Paul Bremer because this is where he comes to forget the war in Iraq, and we want to remind him that when he comes here to rest, the bombs continue to fall on the Iraqi people."

There's no 11:00 for several reasons. One is there isn't enough equipment because our rail system has been undercapitalized for decades. Amtrak has position its equipment for the morning rush, where the greatest demand is northward in the morning, so sending an extra train out of Washington late at night cuts into that capacity.

There's also the need to cover a reasonable amount of the operating costs. There may be lots of people who want to take a train out of DC at 11:00, but they wouldn't be using it every day. As a result, daily ridership would be low, and conservatives would scream that the train should be cut. Those earlier trains do better for ridership because they're getting a good chunk of the Philly-New York market (the 9:00 is out of 30th St at 11, and into Penn at 12:25 am) as well as travel out of Washington.

Your 10:00 is scheduled to accommodate overnight travel to Boston (a great way to go), and there's a 3:00 because Amtrak has (and has had for a long time) the contract to haul mail between Northeast Corridor cities. That mail contract (which Amtrak wins in competitive bidding) is quite profitable.

From a reader:

On Seuss and appeasement: He may have some guts himself in the '40s, but read "The Butter Battle Book" from his twilight years where he presents the struggle between American freedom and Communist tyranny as really no different than what side of bread one chooses to butter.

On Trump and the Apprentice: The show never would have worked with a Bill
Gates or a Warren Buffet. We needed Donald Trump's slo-mo strut set to the
bass riff from the O'Jays. That smug demeanor, that coon-skin cap trembling
in any breeze, that toughguy New Yawk accent heaping praise on himself every
episode. It all makes the show.

Best,
John

CLOSE, BUT NOT CLOSE ENOUGH 100-foot-wide asteroid to have near-miss with Earth today

From a reader:

Jonah,

I have heard that the origin of the term “fired” came from the English landowner’s tendency to burn the hovels of tenant farmers when their services were no longer desired.

Maybe Derb will know more about that.

From a reader:

Hi Jonah,

Perhaps if more of Dr Seuss' cartoons like that got out, Hollywood will revile him and stop making horrible movies out of good stories.

I can't tell you how many emails I get like this one (which frames the issue nicely):

Notice how the Dowdy leftists now call Spain "our ally" and treat the country as if it is the epitome of civilization since it tucked its tail between its legs and slipped over to the dark side. Wasn't it just last week they were scoffing at the idea that the US could call any of those 'also-ran' countries who sided with us an 'ally'? Aren't we lucky that they don't politicize the war on terror?

As a FORMER employee of Amtrak, and knowing something about train operations, your comment about privatizing Amtrak is well heard. But, if Amtrak were to privatize, you wouldn't get an 11 PM train or even a 10 PM train leaving DC or NYC, because the ridership numbers are not there on a consistent basis to make any money (or break even). Trust me, Amtrak could do better operationally (they do have the right man in there now, David Gunn), but when your are forced to work with a track system infrastructure (rail beds, tunnels in Baltimore, which by the way are about 100 years old, and have leaks from the Baltimore City storm sewers, which the city has refused to pay to fix) originally built over 100 years ago, and a catenary system over 70 years old (on the south end DC-New Haven, CT), many funds are needed to just band-aid the infrastructure. Just be happy that Amtrak is subsidized in part, because if it wasn't you would have probably left at 8 PM to get back home (1.3 or 1.8 billion ain't much out of a 2 Trillion Dollar budget). Just some food for thought, not defending Amtrak, just giving a little lesson in transportation economics. I know your arguments are for privatizing, but please name one privatized passenger railroad in the world that is successfully making money owning there own infrastucture? It may work here, but not really to sure it would (some of the privatization proposals are comical), based on the British Rail fiasco.

Fair objection from a reader, but my larger point stands:

Jonah,

You say: "he makes it sounds as if he thinks this measure is completely illegitimate even though it seems its actual intent is to ban gay marriages in their county."

I think you've misunderstood the article. The state (the state Senate Judiciary committee) is moving against civil unions and domestic partnerships. Rhea County is trying to criminalize sodomy and to prohibit gays from living in the county. The state legislators delicately kept their distance from the county's resolutions.

The *state's* intent is to ban gay marriages. The *county's* intent is very different-- and, I would venture to say, completely illegitimate.

Michael - It sounds to me that the Tennessee folks are getting a bit carried away with some of this. But I think you hit on the right point. If you read Andrew Sullivan today, he makes it sounds as if he thinks this measure is completely illegitimate even though it seems its actual intent is to ban gay marriages in their county. Andrew has been saying time and again that he favors federalism. But you wouldn't know that from the way he's talking about the various anti-gay marriage movements in the states. He calls efforts in Virginia along these lines a "full-scale anti-gay legislative pogrom." Now, I haven't followed what Virginia is doing exactly and I am opposed to sodomy laws generally speaking. But the use of the word "pogrom" speaks volumes, I think, about Andrew's analysis these days. What is a legislative pogrom anyway? Presumably it's not very similar to an actual pogrom since those are usually defined as the organized, state sanctioned massacre of a whole community. Last I checked, nobody was riding around on horseback burning gay homes and killing homosexual men, women and children.

If there were actual pogroms against gays in this country, obviously I would be against them. Moreover, I wouldn't argue that federalism protects the "right" of local communities to commit violence against homosexuals. This is an important point, because when Sullivan and other gay activists use language like "pogroms" and invoke a direct analogy to Jim Crow and the 1960s Civil Rights movement they are using the rhetoric of anti-Federalism. Obviously, it's fine to criticize what Tennessee or San Francisco or any other community does. But there's criticism and then there's argumentation whose logic demands federal action. Lynchings and the like are examples of activities where the national government has the right and obligation to intervene in states and local communities. If Andrew really believes there's no moral difference between denying gay marriage rights and Jim Crow, he should stop saying he's a federalist because clearly he's -- at least not morally. If I say I'm in favor of federalism for X but then in the same breath say it's akin to murder if a state does not-X, I'm not really making a federalist argument.

Similarly, I think Sullivan all too often sounds like what he's really saying is federalism for thee, but not for me.

In short: federalism demands that you accept the legitimacy of local policies you disagree with, otherwise you're not a federalist, you're an opportunist.

Matt Lauer: "The President is hammering away at Senator John Kerry about his record of voting on military issues. Do you think Senator Kerry is weak on defense and should it be a concern for American voters?"

John McCain: "Both sides have been beating up on the other in the most negative campaign earlier than I've ever seen. I'd like to see it stop. I'd like to see a serious discussion about Medicare, Social Security, education, what we're gonna do about the deficit and overspending."

Lauer: "But is John Kerry weak on defense, Senator?"

McCain: "I, I do not, no. I do not believe that he is quote, 'weak on defense.' He's responsible for his voting record as we all are responsible for our records and he'll have to explain it. But no, I do not believe that he is necessarily weak on defense. I don't agree with him on some issues, clearly. But, I, I decry this negativism that's going on, on both sides. The American people don't need it and the end result will be lower voter turnout particularly amongst younger Americans."

From a reader:

Mr. Goldberg,

I just thought you'd like to know that besides the obvious perusal of Jane Austin's classic, Ms. Dowd has apparently been sipping on the sweet nectar of Jonah Goldberg...

"Mr. Kerry is Pride.

He has a tendency toward striped-trouser smugness that led him to stupidly boast that he was more popular with leaders abroad than President Bush - playing into the Republican strategy to depict him as one of those 'cheese-eating surrender monkeys.' "

Of course you know where to find the whole thing, but just to save you some time here's the link.

Oh, and I'm well aware that it's quite possible that Ms. Dowd heard your Simpsons quote somewhere else, but it's so much more fun to imagine her secretly reading your column...sneaking it as though she were a kid with candy that she's not supposed to have. Yummy! Maybe you're her own personal Willie Wonka...

Shelby Steele has a very interesting piece on gay marriage and how the fight for gay equality is not directly analogous to the fight for black equality. Obviously, I agree with him. But I find Steele's owenrship of an argument largely owned by the far gay left to be a very interesting new development in the Right's opposition to gay marriage. In the past -- and still -- most conservatives have decried homosexual relationships because they were temporary or polyamorous or simply alien to the traditional norm. Here Steele is essentially arguing these alien or unconventional relationships deserve social approval, acceptance or even celebration. I think it's an interesting perspective, with considerable merit, even if I'm not ready to buy it entirely. Here's the relevant part:

The true problem with gay marriage is that it consigns gays to a life of mimicry and pathos. It shoehorns them into an institution that does not reflect the best possibilities of their own sexual orientation. Gay love is freed from the procreative burden. It has no natural function beyond adult fulfillment in love. If this is a disadvantage when children are desired, it is likely an advantage when they are not -- which is more often the case. In any case, gays can never be more than pretenders to an institution so utterly grounded in procreation. And dressing gay marriage in a suit of civil rights only consigns gays to yet another kind of mimicry. Stigma, not segregation, is the problem gays face. But insisting on a civil rights framework only leads gays into protest. But will protest affect stigma? Is "gay lovers as niggers" convincing? Protest is trying to hit the baseball with the glove.

The problem with so much mimicry is that it keeps gays from evolving institutions and rituals that reflect the true nature of homosexuality. Assuming, as I do, that gays should have the option of civil unions that afford them the legal prerogatives of marriage, isn't it more important after that to allow quiet self-acceptance to lead the way to authentic institutions?

The stigmatization of homosexuals is wrong and makes no contribution to the moral health of our society. I was never worried for my children because they grew up knowing a gay couple that lived across the street, or because several family friends were gay. They learned early what we all know: that homosexuality is as permanent a feature of the human condition as heterosexuality. Nothing is gained in denying this. But neither should we deny that the two are inherently different. The gay marriage movement denies this difference in order to borrow "normalcy" from marriage. Thus, it is a movement born more of self-denial than self-acceptance, as if on some level it agrees with those who see gays as abnormal

For hearing Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi voices, the best forum is the blogosphere. I have to praise Jonah Goldberg and Kathryn Lopez of National Review Online, even though they are my friends. They serve the function that The New York Review of Books did for Eastern European dissidents in the last days of the Soviet empire: letting them speak truth to indifference, with the result that the indifferent become concerned.

In the most important struggle in the world now and for years to come, these are heroes in one of the most important fronts. We cannot listen to them, praise them, help them too much.

K-Lo,

I meant to send this yesterday, but had not yet sampled my own attempt at this cheesecake until this morning. (I don't like to submit anything I can't personally vouch for!)

I make a "double" recipe of this (for a 3" high slice!) and brought it to the office this morning--by 10:00 am, it was gone and all who had partaken of it stopped by my office to offer their praise and to display their flushed cheeks.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bailey's Irish Cream Marbled Cheesecake

Crust:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa, sifted through a small strainer
1 package graham crackers, ground to crumbs in food processor
Combine butter, sugar and cocoa powder. Stir in crumbs. Press evenly over bottom of greased 9-inch springform pan and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. I use a piece of Saran Wrap to press the crumbs in and work them up the side of the pan a bit. Keeps the crumbs from getting stuck on your hands! Cool pan and grease sides. (I just spray it with Pam).

Filling:
3 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup Bailey's Irish Cream
2 squares (2 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate, melted (I use chocolate chips, microwaved on low for about 1 1/2 minutes.)
Beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually beat in sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Blend in Bailey's. Pour into cooled crust. Drop melted chocolate on top in dollops, then use a knife to swirl it around. Bake 10 minutes at 450, then 55 minutes at 250.

This makes a cake about 1 1/4 inches high, so I double it because I don't like wimpy, short cheesecakes. If you are going to make and eat cheesecake, do it up in style! Double the crust recipe, but only use about 75% of the crumbs and push them up the sides of the pan. I bake the double recipe for about 11-12 minutes at 450, then turn the oven down to 250 and bake for another 50-60 minutes (until the center is not soupy, but not too firm). Then just turn the oven off completely and let the cake sit in there until it's cooled. Be sure to put some foil on the outside of the springform pan so it doesn't leak into your oven.

Kathryn -- my husband and I took both our daughters, aged fifteen and nine, to see The Passion of the Christ the first weekend it was out. Taking Anne, the younger, was my husband's idea and at first I was very much against the idea. However, it turned out that he was right. She took away from the movie as much as a nine-year-old could, without being at all traumatized by it. I think at that age, it strkes them more as iconography than reality. At least, Anne was much more concerned about some of the abstract ideas than about the physical reality of all the blood. The images that interested her the most, which she wanted to talk about later, were the snake in the garden, Satan's baby, and the tear that fell from heaven and rent the temple veil.

Also, at her age she has not really suffered any intense physical pain, and so probably translated what she saw Christ suffer to her own knowledge of suffering. (I myself, although I kept my eyes on every moment of the scourging, only had one gasp-out-loud moment: when the Roman soldier separates Jesus's shoulder to get him to fit on the cross. Probably because I have never been scourged, but I have dislocated my shoulder, and I knew exactly what it felt like.)

Re: Today's Kerryism, from a reader:

Mr. Goldberg,

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,"

Kerry's explanation could make things much worse for him, if it is pursued. His stance is that he voted for an amendment that would have approved the $87 billion if the tax cuts were rolled back. Without that in the bill he voted against it.

This should be spun "Kerry valued raising taxes more than he valued giving our troops the support they needed."

We have him taking both sides. We have a tax increase. We have a vote against the troops. All in one baker's dozen of words.

But a lot of Hampden-Syndey students are mighty peeved by the idea that W&L is more conservative. One of many similar emails:

Slanderer! The two most conservative colleges in the U.S. are Hampden-Sydney and Hillsdale. Washington & Lee looks conservative, but is really pretty light in it's well-shined loafers. What would the Princeton Review know about conservative schools anyway. Hillsdale is pretty doctrinaire, but it's in the middle of the tundra. How can you read your Austrian economics with mittens on? The litmus test for conservative colleges in the south is the shotgun to student ratio, and Hampden-Sydney has got everyone beat. It must be something like 3:1. Plus, it never went co-ed, unlike the nancy boys at Washington and Leigh.

From a reader:

Mr. Goldberg,

I have nothing constructive to add to todays column except to say that me and a bunch of other like minded individuals here in the belly of the beast of the people's republic of Massachusetts are so sick of our honorable junior senator J. Alfred Flipflop's (mis)use of the word nuance that we have lately used it in place of the very adaptable word "sh*t", i.e., "You are so full of nuance it's pathetic!" Or, person 1 - "Grady Little was correct in keeping Pedro in for the 8th inning" person
2 - "BULLLLNUANCE!!!" And, "Officer, I didn't have any drinks", officer - "tell it to the judge, in the meantime you're NOL", etc. (I told you I didn't have anything constructive to add).

This timewaster has a message and little else going for it.

I know that a lot of liberals, particularly at places like Slate and TNR, are deeply invested in the idea that Bush's "Bushisms" are very significant. That's fine. I can't imagine conservatives would say similar verbal fumbles were irrelevant if they came out of a liberal president's mouth. But I would like to know what the principled argument would be for holding that Kerryisms are less revealing, less significant, less damning than Bushisms. So W. mispronounces nuclear. So he sometimes pops the clutch when trying to finish a sentence. His meaning is clear and even his detractors concede he rarely waffles. Meanwhile Kerryisms, I think, reflect a serious character flaw and a seriously troubling view of democracy and democratic accountability. Kerry refuses to give straight answers. Very often he refuses to say steadfastly he believes one thing to the exclusion of another thing. He almost never wants to be on the wrong side of an issue, so he not only denies that he's on the wrong side but he denies that a wrong side exists.

The only argument I can think of that Bushisms are more damning than Kerryisms is the one which says they reveal Bush is too dumb to be president. But that's an argument nobody but the liberal choir believes at this point.

I guess were gonna have to start collecting them just like the other side collects Bushisms. The definition of a Kerryism should be pretty obvious: A statement motivated by a desire to get all possible credit while leaving oneself immune to any possible blame. Both sides of an issue, no sides of an issue, a denial that there are any sides to an issue: these all qualify as Kerryisms for he follows the advice of Yogi Berra who once said "When you come to a fork in the road -- take it!" The first Kerryism (nod to Andrew Sullivan) comes from today's New York Times:

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it," -

Democratic nominee, John Kerry. In some ways, that small sentence completely sums him up.

From a reader of my syndicated column:

It's quite simple actually... Al Qaeda fights Israel and its American lackey. America, directed by Israel through its neocons, apart from keeping Israel alive it now also occupies an Arab country. This by itself is enough for Al Qaeda to keep the war going and any other country which supports the US will pay a price. Spain just did. But as you very well know, there's nothing else that binds Saddam's Iraq and Al Qaeda but both being Islamic and Arab. For America there's no way back to independence from Israel, Jews are in control. In Europe, where I live, many decades ago we were also heading that way, toward Jewish control. Someone took care of that problem.

Please do not refer to the incident with the Wold Bank president as getting "paintballed". Yes, some paint was tossed at them, probably in the form of a balloon filled with the stuff, but it is obviously not the work of a paintball gun, or marker, that would be used in the sport.

1. Paintballs do not make that big a mess. A break is typically the size of a quarter.

2. A paintball marker fires at 300 feet per second. At close range it is enough to bruise. Contact on or near the eyes as pictured in your link will likely result in lost vision.

I wouldn't normally be such a harpie, but I play paintball recreationally. Paintball players are constantly fighting for recognition as a legitimate sport and pasttime. It is the third most popular "extreme" sport in North America. Despite this, we are constantly harrassed due to the irresponsible actions of the few who run to Wal-Mart, buy a cheap off the shelf marker and literally paint the town red. Statistically, baseball bats are used in more violent acts than paintball markers, but there's no restrictions on baseball bats, is there (mind you, a baseball bat does not resemble a HK MP5 like my Tippmann A-5 does, so for the sake of not getting shot by a police officer, it only leaves the house when I got to the field). Having acts of vandalism refered to generically as "paintballed" does not help, either.

On Jonah, I think we can kill two birds with one stone. SPPLAT - the Society of Paintball Players, Leagues, and Teams - hosts an annual paintball scenario game - William Shatner's Spplat Attack. I attended the first one - which is available on DVD - and had a, no pun intended, blast. There were about 1500 people. It was Star Trek themed - mock uniforms included in the registration. If you can convince Jonah to go to this summer's, I'll be happy to join the other side and paintball him - in the proper, read: safe, prescribed maner.

”ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PADDY’S DAY YOU LEARNED IN COLLEGE”

Step 1. Buy as much of your favorite beverage as you think you'll need to

get you through the day.

Step 2. Put another case into your cart.

Step 3. Start drinking

Step 4. Repeat Step 3.

Step 5. Check on supplies in fridge. If enough, repeat Step 3.

Step 6. Call pizza/Chinese place that delivers.

Step 7. Enjoy your day.

My mother, whose parents immigrated from Ireland in the late 19th century to escape crushing poverty and hunger, and who, herself, grew up very poor here during the depression likes to say that the traditional Irish meal is an empty plate.

This is a delicious one, and very traditional. And tell Rick Brookhiser that it's tough to develop a national gourmet cuisine when your cottages are being razed, your agricultural products are being shipped overseas by tyrannical landlords during a famine, and your young men are being shipped off to Australia in prison barges. (I'll stop my ranting now.)

There are many fabulous restaurants in Ireland. Of course, the sandwich shops insist on putting corn in their tuna salad and corn on their pizza, so you have to be discriminating.

Colcannon

Ingredients:
* 1 lb potatoes
* 1 lb kale (cabbage may be substituted)
* Onion, or leek or scallion (green onion)
* 1/4 cup milk
* Butter, salt and pepper

Directions:

Peel and boil the potatoes. Chop the kale or cabbage fairly small, discarding the large stems. Steam until tender, about 8 minutes. Gently saute the onion (if desired) until golden but not too brown. Mash the potatoes well, and mix with the kale and onion. Add the milk (not too much, until moistened but not wet), and the butter, salt and pepper to taste.
Bake in a medium oven for about 15 minutes.
Enjoy,
Mary Dudasik, Nutley, NJ

Corned Beef Dinner

3 - 4 lb. Corned beef brisket
2 Sliced onions
10 Cloves minced garlic
6 Whole cloves
5 Bay leaves
1 tsp. Peppercorns
6 Small to medium Potatoes
3-4 Carrots, pared
1 head Cabbage, cut into wedges

Cover brisket with water in Dutch oven. Add onions, garlic cloves, bay leaves and peppercorns. Cover and simmer about an hour per pound of meat.

Remove meat from liquid and cover or wrap in foil, add potatoes and carrots, bring to boil and cook for 10 minutes. Add cabbage and cook 20 minutes more.

Slice brisket thinly on angle against grain. Serve on a platter or return brisket to the pot. Serve vegetables from the pot.

J. Shenk, Harrisburg, PA

I had a very nice time down in Lexington last night. The campus is beautiful. I gave my remarks in Lee Chapel which is stately, impressive and contains the remains of the whole Lee family from what I gather (the horse is somewhere nearby too). Giving a speech in a chapel, never mind this particular chapel, was a bit inhibiting when it comes to the usual porn jokes and what not. But I told them in Latin so only the really cool kids got them. My one regret is that I didn't get to make likee Cyrus in the "Warriors" and shout "Caaaaannnnn youuuuuu diiiiiiggggg it!?" even once. (Also, just for the record since I hear the W&L administration is fixated on Williams College, their chapel is nicer looking though less historic).

The crowd wasn't as big as I would have expected from a school which is allegedly the most conservative in the country (#2 actually after Grove City according to Princeton Review). Other impressions: as I anticipated, the students at first were painfully polite in the finest southern tradition (Mr. Goldberg this, Mr. Goldberg that) almost -- but not quite -- reaching that children-of-the-corn uniformity. But once they loosened up they were a very impressive bunch of kids and at least the ones I met are disturbingly up-to-speed on all things NRO. Brett Kirwan the young man who introduced me might as well have been parked outside my house in a gray Buick with a parabolic mic taking notes, he had so many G-philic details (that's G-phillic with two "i"s, one "l" an no "a"s). Lexington is a very charming little town from what I saw of it (which wasn't much). And, man, what a thriving gay community!

Anyway, thanks very much to Brett, Victoria Guroian (Chairwoman of the ominously titled "Welcoming Committee") and to the Young Americans Foundation and W&L Hillel (go figure!) for bringing me to campus.

HUMANE SOCIETY: "Do you have any pets that have made an impact on you personally?"

KERRY: "When I was serving on a swiftboat in Vietnam, my crewmates and I had a dog we called VC..."

ISNA - The Islamic Students News Agency, which is to a large extent affiliated with the Islamic Republic, who does have students roaming the streets in Tehran and reports pretty regularly about street events, but with an eye to government sensors, also reported the events in the streets of Tehran.

According to them also, many parts of Tehran were ablaze, with sounds of explosions heard all over town.

The ISNA article (link below) mainly reports from hospitals where casualties of the fires and explosions have been reported and decries the will of those who are disrupting the peaceful celebration of a Persian tradition! But it basically does report on the unrest and the explosions all over Tehran. This from a source that is pretty close to the government!!!

ISNA report on Tehran events (in Farsi).

My fiancee and I ate at the Lemon Tree restaurant in Temple Bar, Dublin in May 2002. Best lamb I ever had, her salmon was also extremely good. Note that neither beast nor fish was boiled -- grilled and smoked, respectively. Veggies were also good (not boiled, except rice). All foods had appropriate hues.

Yes, food [in Ireland] has dramatically improved [since you were there with Vice President Bush]. In fact, I would put the best chefs of Ireland up against the best from anywhere else nowadays. This is especially true in Dublin and down in Kerry and the resort areas, and on the West Coast, where the fresh seafood is spectacular.

The food is often better than good, it can be great. My wife and I were just there in Sept and we had some very fine meals. We stayed at the Merrion and had a wonderful dinner next door (French) and at the hotel itself. We also had great Italian food with my children nearby. And in the country, we had an amazing 2 1/2 hour, 5-course meal in Gorey at a small inn.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said, "It's time to come clean fully, unequivocally and completely." (Which are supposedly resuming on March 27.)

I am listening to KRSI (Radio Sedaye Iran) right now. There are many Iranians calling (from Tehran, and Gorgan, etc.).

All reports indicate that almost every neighborhood in Tehran is on fire. People are throwing home-made bombs, Molotov cocktails, etc. into the homes of mullahs, and burning pictures of Khamenei in complete defiance of his recent edict to mourn during the month of Muharram.

Background: Khamenei delivered a declaration (not really a fatwa, although some say it was) to Iranians to honor the month of Muharram, which started about two weeks ago, and to mourn and not have any parties of merriment. Well, the problem is that the Iranian New Year (Nowrouz), March 20th (totally non-religious and cultural event -- although Zoroastrian in origin) falls in the middle of this, and Iranians were enraged about this edict.

Tomorrow is the last Wednesday of the Iranian calendar year (called Chahar Shanbeh soori), and traditionally Iranians burn small bonfires and jump over them and celebrate the ending of the old year and welcome the new.

As a measure of defiance of Khamenei's Islamic Rule, and in celebration of ancient (non-Islamic) Persian customs, Iranians have taken to the streets in complete defiance of Khamenei's edict, saying that they will 'burn the mullahs out of their homes'. They are celebrating Chahar Shanbeh Soori. There are huge bonfires, bomb-throwing, merriment and the welcoming of the last days of the mullahcracy. In their own way Iranians are making a huge statement.

You can listen to the news yourself (in Farsi of course) everyone is very happy and celebrating defying the mullahs and burning of Khamenei's picture and trying to burn all mullah's houses. There are people calling from all over Tehran, from Gorgan, and northern provinces... It is amazing!

KERRY: No, wait, wait, wait, wait you asked me if I'd met with any leaders. Yes. I have had conversations with leaders, yes, recently. That's not your business, it's mine. I've met with foreign leaders for any (inaudible) purpose - I never said that. What I said was that I have heard from people who are leaders elsewhere in the world who don't appreciate the Bush administration approach and would love to see a change in the leadership of the United States. I'm talking our allies, I'm talking about people who were our friends nine months ago, I'm talking about people who ought to be at our side in Iraq and aren't because this administration has pushed them away in its arrogance, that's what I'm talking about. Are you a registered Republican? Are you a Republican? You answer the question. That's not an answer. Did you vote for George Bush? Did you vote for George Bush? Thank you.

The New York senator said Kerry is now in the crosshairs of the sane ``vast, right-wing conspiracy'' that came after her husband, and urged Kerry to ``counterpunch.''

To tide you over. First, on ebay we've got Kerry's foreign leader endorsements for sale.

And another timewaster.

Technically, I believe that Germany declared war on the United States, after the USA declared war on Japan, in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Germany and Japan had a pact that Germany was honoring.

Josh Marshall often has intelligently persuasive things to say and even when he doesn't he at least says them succinctly. In his discussion about Spain, Iraq and al Qaeda he does neither. The upshot of Marshall's long argument is that Iraq and al Qaeda aren't linked because al Qaeda would smack Spain for helping the US invade any Arab country. He writes:

Just because you’ve inflamed or emboldened your enemies doesn’t mean you’ve used the most effective means of attacking them. Indeed, quite the opposite can be true.

For instance, consider this thought experiment. What if the US, Britain and Spain had attacked and occupied Egypt or Jordan? Do you suppose that Islamic radicals wouldn’t strike at the sponsors of that war much as they seem to have last week?

I suspect there’d be little if any difference.

I think Marshall's right. But I also don't care. Hitler would have been just as happy if the Chinese beat the stuffing out of America instead of the Japanese, too.

Of course al Qaeda's opportunistic. Of course, it's exploiting the Iraq war. Of course Saddam wasn't Bin Laden's kind of tyrant. This is all beside the point. The fact of the matter right now is that al Qaeda will suffer a big setback if American succeeds in Iraq and it will celebrate a huge victory if America blows it. We are trying to defeat Islamic radicalism from behind Islamic radicalism's own frontlines. The complexity of al Qaeda's motives or the motives of Spanish voters are interesting, sure. Let's have a seminar about all that some time. In the meantime, the important thing is not giving the radicals the sorts of victories they had in Spain or putting Iraq in their column.

I am constantly amazed by the tendency of the nuance brigrades -- i.e. Marshall, Blix, Kerry, Prodi et al -- to hang on to their past objections to invading Iraq as if those past objections are relevant to the current situation. The war happened. And whether you were for it or against it, matters as little as whether it was right or wrong for the US to declare war on Germany after Pearl Harbor.

Bush was asked about the controversy Tuesday morning during a brief Oval Office appearance. "If you're going to make an accusation in the course of a presidential campaign, you ought to back it up with facts," he told reporters.

Khaled Hajj Qaeda chief in Saudi Arabia’

RIYADH: The “real” chief of Al-Qaeda cells in Saudi Arabia is Yemeni national Khaled Hajj rather than Saudi Abdul Aziz al-Megren, who is identified as the leader in the literature of the terror group, a Saudi newspaper reported on Monday.

Asharq Al-Awsat, a leading pan-Arab daily, said in a front-page report that Al Qaeda had designated Megren, 31, as the nominal leader of the group in Saudi Arabia because he is Saudi and this would help ensure the continued support of its sympathisers in the kingdom. The newspaper did not give a source for its report, datelined Dammam in Saudi Arabia’s eastern Province. Asharq Al-Awsat noted that Megren tops the list of militants wanted by authorities for presumed links with a series of suicide bombings that killed 52 people in Riyadh last year. —AFP

According to a new poll. It sounds like security is still job #1:

LONDON (Reuters) - A majority of Iraqis believe life is better now than it was under Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), according to a poll released on Tuesday.

A total of 2,500 Iraqis were quizzed for a group of international broadcasting organizations including the BBC in a poll to mark the first anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion.

Almost half (49 percent) of those questioned believed the invasion of their country by U.S. and British troops was right, compared with 39 percent who said it was wrong, the poll commissioned by the BBC and other broadcasters found.

Some 57 percent said that life was better now than under Saddam, against 19 percent who said it was worse and 23 percent who said it was about the same.

Iraqi people appeared optimistic about the future, with 71 percent saying they expected things to be better in a years time, six percent predicting it will be worse and nine percent the same.

Overall, 70 percent said that life was good now, compared with 29 percent who said it was bad.

Some 85 percent identified restoration of public security as a major priority, against 30 percent who wanted elections for a national government and 28 percent an economic revival.

This just in:

Jonah, I'm a student at W&L and a member of the committee that invited you. The speech is most definitely open to the public. Please tell everyone you know to come. Feel free to bring the missus, Lucy and Cosmo.

See you tomorrow,
Brett

Brett T. Kirwan
Washington and Lee University '04

From a reader:

Jonah,

You can console yourself with the knowledge that the Funniest
Washingtonian award is about as authoritative as the Nobel Peace Prize.

From a reader:

Jonah,

While I agree with the rest of The Corner that the election of appeasing socialists in Spain should be viewed as capitulation to terror, it also illustrates your point about the dangers of increasing voter turnout for turnout's sake. If you read some of the quotes of Spanish voters, it appears that there were many who voted for the first time in this election. It seems like a significant portion of the Spanish electorate actually viewed voting as a way to show that they would NOT be cowed by terrorists. It is not clear from my reading how many of these people changed their minds about voting for the Popular Party in the 4-day period after the election, but I'll bet many would have voted Socialist anyway.

David

Recall Ramesh's -- and others' -- critique of Krauthammer's AEI speech? The upshot was that Krauthammer doesn't care enough about allies. I think the criticism was valid, but the Spanish election has me re-thinking the value of allies like Spain.

I salute the courage of the Aznar Government, the Spanish troops in Iraq and no doubt countless individual Spaniards who see the war on terror for what it is. But at the end of the day it's clear that the Spanish people were never with us. Public opinion was always against Aznar -- which makes him all the more courageous -- and this one attack was all it took for public opinion to have its way.

So, the question is, what good was it to have Spain as an ally at all? Yes, there was some political cover, but clearly not very much in the eyes of the "world community." Spain's membership in the Coalition didn't sway any Americans to support the war who otherwise wouldn't have. And, Spain didn't alleviate a very significant share of the military burden.

Meanwhile, if terrorists learn the lesson that blowing up a few trains will cause nations like Spain to drop out of the Coalition, that helps nobody.

"Multilateralists" like Kerry insist we should have had more allies like Spain. Yes, I know. Kerry says if he had been president he would have won the "significant" support of allies -- i.e. securing whole divisions for the fight etc. But I think Kerry is lying to us or himself. How could he have won more support if he was less supportive of the war than Bush himself. I know he's got a lot of juice with these foreign leaders who want him to win, but his quest for allies would have been eternal.

But, the more important question is Why grovel for allies in the first place? If, at the end of the day, only those nations which truly want to be with us can be relied upon to stay with us then why jump through so many hoops to get allies in the first place? If something needs doing, it needs to be done. If we've got help, great. If not, so be it.

I'm not going to get back into the whole "Mel's Profits" thing. However since I had to read so many emails making similar arguments, let me respond to one point en masse.

To summarize: People say my "comparisons" of Gibson to Michael Moore or Oliver Stone are inappropriate because Gibson's a good guy -- for want of a better term -- while the other two are crapweasels.

Well, first of all, I didn't really compare Moore and Stone to Gibson so much as use their examples to illustrate my point. Nevertheless these readers illustrate it just as well when they say Gibson's a good guy (which I still think is probably true).

If you think Gibson's a good guy you're "judging" him just as much as you would be if you thought he's a bad guy. If Gibson had announced he was going to give all of his profits to orphanages, how many of the readers pounding their keyboards about how I have "no right to judge Gibson or what he does with his money" would have still complained if I said the guy was a hero? In other words, it seems like most of the readers who say I have no right to judge Gibson have judged him too. They just think he shouldn't be judged poorly.

If we have no right to judge people, then it must be absolute. Otherwise, we live in the sort of cultural sewer which says we can celebrate everything but condemn nothing.

K-Lo,

in case you want a bulletin, there is a new wrinkle in the Spanish terrorism story. After the arrest of 5 suspects was announced a few hours ago, we all waited hushed to see whether they were Basques or Islamists or some other group. The bombings were obviously timed to have maximum effect on the elections. Then it came, we are determining their nationalities...3 Moroccans and 2 Indians. What next? As we’ve all read, if it’s Basques, it breaks well for the PP, if Islamists, better for the Socialists. I had some skepticism about whether a nation in mourning would have the stomach for such low demagoguery as to blame a political party rather than the real authors of this crime. I was wrong. The Socialist leader has spoken, “Spain deserves a government that doesn’t lie”—rich, after the covered-up meetings with ETA leaders—now central Madrid is full of people banging on pots and pans and shouting “Mentirosos!”(=Liars!). It is believed that because the government—at the behest of leaders in the city’s Moroccan community—took the time and effort to determine precisely who the suspects really are, that they were trying to delay the release of info that might affect tomorrow’s election. All they have is a press-supplied motive, but already it’s enough to bring the demagogues out in droves. Rajoy’s victory tomorrow now appears anything but certain, and the terrorists already seem to have had a pronounced effect on the Spanish electorate. God help us, if after such a tragedy, people can’t put such demagoguery away. –Mike in Madrid (same guy who wrote to Peter earlier). PS: it’s lovely to see again the leftists’ lack of imagination: as in America, a conservative leader presides over a wounded nation, and the unimaginative dis-loyal opposition has no better contribution than to call him a liar.

It’s not difficult to see how the arrests in Spain (as well as a videotaped claim of ‘credit’) could point to the involvement of an Islamist group in the Madrid atrocity. It will be a while, doubtless, before we know for sure. Sadly, finding out the truth may be also be complicated by domestic political considerations in Spain (today is an election day). If ETA was responsible for the murders this may well be seen as justifying the government’s tough line on Basque separatism. If al Qaeda (or a related group) turn out to be the perpetrators, the argument is bound to be made that the government have brought this tragedy upon Spain by supporting the US in Iraq. To think that would be a mistake. The aim of the Islamic extreme is, quite simply, the destruction of western civilization: our books, our learning, our culture, our freedoms, our everything. It’s all of us. It’s you, and it’s me. The order in which these terrorists select their victims is just a detail, just part of a greater plan.

Writing in the London Observer David Aaronovitch sees an analogy:

“How shall we imagine [the bombers], though? Sitting around a kitchen table in a suburban apartment perhaps, with glasses of apple juice or tea, pieces of paper scattered about, covered in diagrams and sketch maps. How many devices? Thirteen should do it, packed with nails, because that really increases their effectiveness. Where placed? All on suburban trains timed to get into the central station in the same period. If it goes to plan we should be able to kill or maim possibly hundreds of commuters. Which will be a great victory. Good luck! God bless!

”This is a picture of a minor Wannsee that must have happened in some form, a conference of technicians planning the deliberate deaths of innocents. Where the whole point was the deliberate deaths of innocents.”

So Rumsfeld is under attack for having a piece of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on display in his office. Blogger Jeff Jarvis says what needs to be said:

”Well, I say he should keep it there. And he should give it to his successor, who should never forget whom we're fighting and what we're protecting. And I'll go farther: Take a piece of debris from the Towers and put it in the lobby of the FBI under a sign that says, "Remember." Take a piece of the debris and put it in the Office of Homeland Security under a sign that says, "Never again." Take a piece of that day and put it in the Oval Office and drill it into the wall so every President from now on will remember his or her first and most important job: protecting the people of America. And while we're at it, why not take a piece and put it in a frame and give it to every congressman and every newspaper editor and every network news head and send one to every delegate in the U.N. with a sign that says, "This is what we are fighting for.""