A blog dedicated to who will be the next World Bank President.

Nod to Dan Drezner.

From a reader in response to the latest column:

Thomas More on incremental relativism:

"When the king remarried even after failing to secure a lawful annulment,
More was asked not to be such a stickler for law. But, he answered,
if we allow one law to be felled like a single tree in the forest, why
not the next, and the next, until soon the whole forest is flattened,
and there remains nothing to protect us from the north wind?"

Your article speaks to my condition. Thank you.

I don't think this is an ideological point: You can tell where a pundit or blogger resides on the ideological spectrum based upon what he or she assumes is self-evidently damning.

So, here is Atrios compiling what he apparently considers to be a bunch of self-evidently damning statements on my part.

Anyway, without getting into the weeds, I guess I just think Atrios is a bore.

Michael Newdow is at it again:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- An atheist who sued because he did not want his young daughter exposed to the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance has filed a suit to bar the saying of a prayer at President Bush's inauguration...

Militants abducted three senior Iraqi officials, beheaded a man who worked for the U.S. military and killed at least four others, officials said Saturday, a day after a U.S. general warned that insurgents may be planning "horrific" attacks ahead of Jan. 30 elections.

"I thought we in the media were supposed to be watchdogs, not lapdogs," Bryan Monroe, an official of the black journalists' group and an assistant vice president at Knight Ridder, said in the statement.

But public relations executives said that the government distribution of prepared news segments without on-air disclosures of their origin was a bipartisan practice that predated the Bush administration.

"The Clinton administration was probably even more active than the Bush administration" in distributing news segments promoting its policies, said Laurence Moskowitz, chairman and chief executive of Medialink, a major producer of promotional news segments. After the Government Accountability Office decision last spring, he said, his firm began advising government clients to disclose each tape's nature in its script.

I'm sorry I ever linked to this Gilliard guy. Not because I take back anything I said. If anything I was probably kind. But because Gilliard's making a fool of himself. He's now calling me, Rich Lowry and NR racists, comparing us to Klansmen and writing what would be called a sophomoric racist parody of a thin-skinned black liberal having a hissy-fit -- if it weren't actually written seriously. I don't really take offense because I can't take this guy seriously. All of his language is hackneyed (Oh how clever! An uncle Tom barb! Never heard one of those). His "ideas" are a caricature and, judging from his (several) fans' email to me, all he's got going for him is a rather sad persecution complex. How else to interpret this sort of hysteria but as a perfect -- if trivial -- example of the moral exhaustion of black liberalism. Am I supposed to cry because he called me a racist over something like this?

Seriously, Steve, take a few deep breaths. If you're going to call me a Klansmen for criticizing you and Armstrong Williams, how do you expect to have any moral authority for, well, anything? Maybe someone else can explain this to him?

But I think this guy's post about Armstrong Williams is flat-out racist, and it's not like I throw that around lightly.

I found it while searching Technorati for what the blogosphere was saying about Armstrong Williams. I don't know much about Steve Gillard. Okay I don't know anything execpt I've come across the name in searches before and Technorati says it's fairly well-known.

Anyway, I find the Williams thing to be a total trainwreck, but I don't think it warrants lame slave jokes and the like. Then again, I don't think anything warrants even non-lame slave jokes. Shame on this guy whoever he is.

) Two network anchors treated as a noble and credible cause, not as an unworthy publicity gimmick without any factual basis, the move by a few far-left cranks in the House and Senate to object to the certification of the Electoral College vote in Ohio in favor of President George W. Bush. ABC's Peter Jennings noted that "the Democrats knew that it was a pretty ceremonial objection," but he stressed how they "regarded it as important." Brian Williams, from Singapore, teased Thursday's NBC Nightly News by assuming facts not in evidence as he presumed there were "problems" in Ohio, "Protesting the vote: Congress forced to interrupt its ceremonial counting of the electoral votes because of problems on Election Day in Ohio." NBC's Chip Reid proceeded to relay, without citing any evidence, how "the objectors cited irregularities in Ohio from alleged intimidation of minority voters to too few voting machines."

Peter Jennings held his January 6 World News Tonight coverage to this short item: "In the Congress today, they officially certified the results of the presidential election. It was not without incident. One Democratic Senator joined a Democrat from the House in objecting to the results from Ohio, which forced reconsideration in both houses. The Democrats knew that it was a pretty ceremonial objection, but regarded it as important."

Those whacky census bureau guys:

A small lake southeast of Lake Stevens has two different names, Bevis and Butthead - almost identical to snickering characters in TV's "Beavis and Butt-head" show.

"That means someone is playing a joke, I think," said Ken Brown, a land surveyor with the state Department of Natural Resources.

Brown said the department calls it Bevis Lake. The U.S. Geological Survey uses that name on its topographic map.

But the U.S. Census Bureau calls it Butthead Lake in its records.

Someone's actually been cataloging my monkey references:

Should Cosmo be concerned?

From your Pragmatic G-File:
"Holmes defended free speech on the grounds that more voices in the marketplace of ideas would be more likely to yield a more concrete answer to the central problems of life (think of a billion monkeys banging on typewriters: the more monkeys you add, the more likely it is they'll write something worthwhile)."

From the G-File you link to in your Pragmatic G-File:
"Just because Bill Clinton always lies doesn’t mean that at some point — like monkeys banging on typewriters — he’ll never stumble on the truth. But in both cases, more than a little skepticism is in order."

It's more than just a favorite analogy: You helped make the cheese-eating surrender species famous. There's the Flying variety to which you've referred on many occasions. It was at this point I got curious and Googled NRO:

12/28/99: "'Well Chuck, there is an outside possibility that mutant computer monkeys will eat your brains and evil hamsters will try to take over the government.'"

Another from '99: "Then, when I return to find the Statue of Liberty poking out of Jones Beach, I will be prepared to start society all over again — I will not let Dr. Zeus make a monkey out of me."

2001: "I can just imagine the Susan Sontag readers of my native Upper West Side on a cultural safari, 'Oh, look how the Shaman shows the monkey pancreas to the bride before he eats it! That's to show the demons are gone. Isn't that marvelous honey?'"

A 2-fer from 10/29/01: "George has been added to our team of web monkeys" and "I don't want to be hyperbolic, but you should click on these ads like a monkey in a cocaine-addiction study trying to get one last pellet. "

I could go on, but my lunch break's almost over and the point is made. Admit it: You just like monkeys. Now, back to Pragmatism. (This is clearly the response you had in mind when you wrote it....)

Please don't send me email explaining why this guy is wrong. I just thought you'd be interested in knowing that I really do hear from people like this guy:

Subject: Insurgents Are NOT Terrorists...!!!

Ask yourself this: What would YOU do if the U.S. was invaded by the Chinese on false pretenses in a grab for natural resources, and the Chinese built permanent bases all over the U.S.--making it very clear that they had no intention of EVER leaving?

Then, what would you do if the Chinese shut down your religious newsletter, destroyed your church, took over your town, broke into your house in the middle of the night, arrested, tortured and sexually abused your friends, and killed your childen and your parents at a checkpoint because they did not slow down enough?

As a patriot, would you fight them any way you could? Or do I overestimate you?

The people resisting the occupation in Iraq are NOT terrorists. They are fighting against an invasion and an occupation by whatever means necessary. When the colonists in the young United States fought against the British during the American Revolution, the colonists were considered "terrorists" by the British, because they used unconventional hit and run tactics, and because they would not stand in a straight line and fight like the British had been doing for centuries. And in case you did not know it: The colonists also attacked and killed American civilians who were working for the British---and there were many.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. If we were invaded by the Chinese on false pretenses, I hope YOU would fight hard and smart enough to be called a "terrorist" in China.

When your children and grandchildren ask you what you did to speak up against this insanity, what will you tell them?

Communist Woman: Are you two looking for work?

Ernesto: No, we’re not looking for work.

Communist Woman: No? Then why are you traveling?

Ernesto: We travel just to travel.

Communist Woman: Bless you…Blessed be your travels.

The fog of time and the strength of anti-anti-Communism have obscured the real Che. Who was he? He was an Argentinian revolutionary who served as Castro's primary thug. He was especially infamous for presiding over summary executions at La Cabaña, the fortress that was his abattoir. He liked to administer the coup de grâce, the bullet to the back of the neck. And he loved to parade people past El Paredón, the reddened wall against which so many innocents were killed. Furthermore, he established the labor-camp system in which countless citizens--dissidents, democrats, artists, homosexuals--would suffer and die. This is the Cuban gulag. A Cuban-American writer, Humberto Fontova, described Guevara as "a combination of Beria and Himmler." Anthony Daniels once quipped, "The difference between [Guevara] and Pol Pot was that [the former] never studied in Paris."

Noah Millman has an epic-length response to my G-File today and I'm delighted for it. I was hoping for more feedback as this Pragmatism stuff is something of a hobby-horse of mine these days. That said, I've got to work on something else right now and this is way too long to respond to now.

But I will quibble now with his first quibble. He says that "pragmatism" doesn't have a positive connotation. He makes this case by coming up with words which mean the opposite of pragmatism -- principled, for example -- which we like and words which he says are synonyms with pragmatic that we don't like -- "mercenary," for example. That's all find and dandy. But this guilt-by-association really doesn't disprove my assertion that pragmatism is a well-liked word in political discourse. Sure, there are some of us who don't like "pragmatic" any more than we like it when politicians are celebrated for "growing" in office, since both terms are often code for liberal agendas. But this is a rarefied interepretation carrying a lot of ideological freight. In common usage, even among conservatives, the word is well-liked and well-meant.

Update: Okay, I've now just read the whole post. I must say that rumors of Millman's brilliance have received further confirmation. This isn't to say I agree with him on all points, but this is a very impressive bit of insta-philosophizing. Substantive response still to come.

Aaaaargh!

My great pleasure as a child was to cycle around the countryside near my
home town, Northampton, in the east midlands of England. The villages had
fine old names, some of them colorful and curious: Yardley Gobion,
Bugbrooke, Chapel Brampton, Stoke Bruerne.

Well, one of those villages -- it boasted the part-excavated site of a Roman
villa -- was Buttock's Booth, three or four miles out of town on the
Kettering road. Browsing on Mapquest last night, I discovered to my dismay
that Buttock's Booth has DISAPPEARED!

Is this yet another example of Geographical Correctness? -- like all those
American names with "squaw" in them being scrubbed from the maps? Or what?
I note from Google that Buttock's Booth still shows up in bus timetables and
the like. So why doesn't Mapquest know about it?

Anonymous American and British diplomats increasingly suggest that elections cannot be held in the deteriorating security situation, but it is the worsening atmosphere that is driving the Iraqi desire to vote. Iraqis look forward to the January 30 poll, the first free elections Iraq has seen in 50 years. Not only those in the Shia south, but also many Baghdadis talk about voting 169, the position of the Iraqi National Alliance on the ballot. Many others say they plan to vote for President Ghazi al-Yawar's list. Most Kurds will support Masud Barzani and Jalal Talabani's Kurdish list. Few if any Iraqis say they will support Allawi. He has failed them. Re-Baathification may win King Abdullah of Jordan's approval and Syrian President Bashar al-Asad's consent, but the policy will not improve Iraq's security. Insurgents and terrorists may kill Iraqis lining up to vote. They may assassinate winning candidates. But only through voting, can Iraqis choose their own government, one that will have the moral authority to undertake remedies forbidden by professional diplomats and intelligence operatives who have had trouble letting go of the old order. It is time to listen to the Iraqis.

In the meantime, the lessons Bush draws from his victory are the ones that matter most. The man who in 2000 promised to unite and not divide now sounds as though he is prepared to leave as his second-term legacy the Death of Compromise. "I've got the will of the people at my back," he said at the moment of victory. From here on out, bipartisanship means falling in line: "I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals." Whatever spirit of cooperation that survives in his second term may have to be found among his opponents; he has made it clear he's not about to change his mind as he takes on Social Security and the tax code in pursuit of his "ownership society." So unfolds the strange and surprising and high-stakes decade of Bush.

I'm getting a lot of flack for my point in my syndicated column that Air Force Academy cadets get water-boarded in their training and that therefore it might fall somewhere short of actual torture. Here's a typical email:

dont you think its a bit preposterous to cite torture simulation as a reason that torture is acceptible? "Our soldiers experience torture simulation as part of their training. Thus it's okay to torture prisoners." Do you actually see no difference between a simulation and the real thing? This is not just a ridiculously bad argument as a simple matter of rhetoric, it's a morally despicable argument that reveals some seriously warped thinking.

Me: Of course I see the difference between the two: it's a psychological difference. And while I don't want to be categorical about this and say "as long as it's only psychological, it's not torture" I do think this is an important distinction. For example, I think Ted Kennedy made a very good point yesterday when he denounced the "torture memo" because it would allow cutting off fingers because that doesn't amount to organ failure. Good point. That counts as torture in my book.

Well, you can't "simulate" cutting off fingers either. Telling a prisoner you're going to do really terrible things to him in order to get him to give up the goods doesn't bother me nearly as much as doing those things. Electrocuting the privates of a cadet would be torture, period. I think we're all on the same page on that. In other words, the fact that something can be simulated accurately without offending our sensibilities suggest that when we do it in reality it might not be as terrible as something we would never dream of even simulating. Depriving terrorists of sleep to get them to spill the beans is not torture it's interrogation.

I've never had any beef with Armstrong Williams before. Good guy. Nice guy. Smart guy. But what the hell is this about?

White House paid commentator to promote law

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

Williams on being paid to boost NCLB: "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

The top Democrat on the House Education Committee, Rep. George Miller of California, called the contract "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that is "probably illegal." He said he will ask his Republican counterpart to join him in requesting an investigation....

Me: I mean come on. Why do this? Did someone need an operation? Unless some major facts are being left out this just dumb. It looks bad because it is bad.

Update/Clarification:
Sorry if I seemed to be critcizing only Williams. I think it was stupid and unacceptable for the Administration to give him the money. If the Clinton Administration had been paying off liberal pundits to promote his policies we would have gone batty, and rightly so. A better explanation is required. The whole thing seems gross to me. I posted this up top too.

A blogger offers a flattering theory of the universe in which Virginia Postrell and I are the Alpha and the Omega:

Postrel and Goldberg represent the two urges that have created the America we know today, optimism and caution. Both are adherents to a philosophy of process instead of ideology: In Postrel, the unwavering vector towards the future. In Goldberg, a belief that many things were superior in the past, and all movement towards to future (no matter how valuable) must be taken in small increments, lest it overwhelm our sense of where we came from. To Goldberg, the most crucial question in any political debate is "what will anchor us to our values."

Interesing and, again, flattering. But I don't think it's right. First of all, I agree with a lot of what Postrel has to say. Second, for the dichotomy to work I would need to be far more opposed to change than the author -- Darren -- suggests. I'm not afraid of technology, a point I tried to convey, perhaps to subtley, in my column "I'm Not Afraid of Technology" (long time readers will remember it as the column I wrote before I went under the knife). Also, I don't know that Postrel dismisses the wisdom of the past as all this would suggest. It's been a while since I read her book, but I can't imagine she doesn't think important knowledge is cumulative.

Lastly, this guy completely misses my real reason(s) for disliking Pragmatism. One reason I will share here because it is the most relevant to this discussion: Pragmatism is not Hayekian (while Postrel most certainly is).

While Holmes may have liked markets -- philosophically -- this shouldn't be misunderstood to mean Pragmatists were anything like Hayekians. Dewey particularly had contempt for the notion of accumulated, collective, wisdom which might be unknowable to the individual. The whole "Pragmatic razor" was designed to dismantle institutions and dogmas without concern for all of the hidden social attachments and meanings they might have. I think it's very unlikely that any Pragmatist (again, everybody note the capital P) would be opposed to gay marriage.

Hayekians are obviously in favor of change and experimentation, but they are also respectful of the limits of an individual person to see all the angles. Now, Pragmatists might say to this "we are too" respectful of all that stuff. Maybe some are in faculty lounges and editorial boards. But when it came to the political project of the Pragmatists in the 20th century such respect was left in the locker room while the contempt for tradition, hidden law, custom and dogma was brought out on the field.

Note: Link fixed/added.

Tim - did they really call it the "death" of compromise? I mean what are they going to do in, say, 2068 when some President cuts a deal with Congress, issue a retraction? "At the begining of the century we reported that compromise was dead. These reports appear now to have been premature."

Dayton Daily News
Friday, December 3, 2004
EDITORIAL


Jesse Jackson wrong to keep hope alive
By the Dayton Daily News

The effort of some diehards to prolong a sense of uncertainty about the outcome of the presidential election in Ohio is pathetic.

Most Democrats, including Sen. John Kerry, have long since come to terms with reality. But there's a small, hard-core group that trades alleged horror stories over the Internet and that wants to fight on. It has found a high-profile spokesman: the Rev. Jesse Jackson. He's calling Ohio "the "Florida of 2000."

The spokesman is speaking nonsense. For example, he wants Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to recuse himself from the whole post-election process.

"You can't very well be a team owner and referee the process," Rev. Jackson says of the Republican secretary of state.

But he needs to take that problem up with the Ohio Constitution. It makes the secretary of state an elective office. And the secretary's main job is to oversee the administration of elections. If he is going to recuse himself now, he might as well recuse himself from office.

Anyway, however much some Kerry supporters might need a partisan monster to point to - a Katherine Harris of 2004 - Mr. Blackwell does not qualify. He has made decisions favoring both parties. His office was instrumental in keeping Ralph Nader off the ballot, something a Democratic secretary of state would have been eager to do. And, just before the election, he tried to keep Republican challengers out of the polling places.

True, he fought for a strict interpretation of the law about counting provisional ballots, taking a position the Democrats didn't like. But the courts upheld him. (And, anyway, the vast majority of those ballots are being counted.) And, yes, at one stage he did make an embarrassing fuss about the kind of paper that could be used for voter registrations; but he backed off.

He was also the Republican who tried after 2000 to replace the punch-card system that Democrats had railed against. And now he is complying with the legal demand of the two minor-party candidates for a recount.

At any rate, the sense in which Secretary Blackwell administers elections is very sharply restricted. Elections are essentially run, and votes are counted, by local election boards that are evenly divided between the two parties. Partisan checks and balances are the essence of the system, prevailing down to the precinct level.

Says Rev. Jackson, "We can live with winning and losing. We cannot live with fraud and stealing." By whom? Are the Democrats at elections boards and the polling places complaining about the Republicans? No.

At one stage, some Kerry supporters were hoping that the provisional ballots - those cast by would-be voters whose names weren't showing up on the lists at polling places - would help their candidate. That isn't happening to any large-enough degree.

So the problems that are showing up here and there - 8,000 provisional ballots being rejected in Cuyahoga County, for example - don't have the potential to overturn the 130,000-vote margin that President George W. Bush came out of Election Day with.

Still, a little more "process" is in order, some examination of problems that arose, with an eye, if nothing else, to avoiding such problems in the future.

What's not in order is the suggestion of some great fraud where there is none. Some people will take advantage of the inevitable flaws of elections to confuse other people, to sow doubts. Those people do harm, not good. They undermine the legitimacy of every close election outcome. The fact is, the system worked pretty well. People should know that.

"Some senators . . . have gone to Ukraine to investigate that election," Jackson said. "They've gone to Iraq. But not one has gone to Columbus, Ohio."

COMSTOCK: the geneva conventions require things beyond humane treatment like monthly pay and uniform to interact with the other al qaeda and get and say don't tell them about los angeles or the bomb plot in chicago.

MATTHEWS: why did the candidate say today the geneva conventions do apply to the fighting in iraq?

COMSTOCK: because they do. they always have.

MATTHEWS: the people fighting in iraq are not terrorists?

COMSTOCK: when we went into iraq, we were met with soldiers.

MATTHEWS: the people over there now, are are they terrorists?

COMSTOCK: we've gone under geneva conventions. you have a situation where people aren't wearing uniform. they're going and the, that is a problem. because iraq is a signer of the geneva conventions.

MATTHEWS: may be you can help here. we watched the fighting in fallujah. we watched our gi's getting kill. we see the other side getting slaughtered. we captured their people are they covered by the geneva convention?

COMSTOCK: we are complying with geneva soldiers, for the iraqi soldiers. i don't know if there is a different situation.

MATTHEWS: let's find out. we're not fighting guys in uniform. we're fighting militia.

COCCO: could i raise this historical point? because barbara has referred to history a couple of times. during vietnam war, this issue of whether we should treat the viet cong who were an indigenous gorilla, insurgent group integrating themselves in villages, wearing civilian clothes and hiding in rice paddies. the united states decided then as a matter of principle, not as a legal requirement but as a matter of principle, we would apply the prescribes to captured viet cong. why? because our soldiers were at risk of being capture. and one of the main reason we have the geneva conventions is so that when our military personnel and civilian personnel are captured by the enemy, we want them treated humanely. and we want them treated in acore with the geneva congress geneva convention. we said we'll do the right thing.

COMSTOCK: and we do it in iraq even though they behead us.

MATTHEWS: you're right on everything. i mean it. i'm trying to get the facts on one thing. alberto gonzales said he is against torture today unoads. the senate judiciary hearing. we also have a memorandum that he had a role in. we're be sure what the role is in term of the august memo 2002 where he clearly delineates what is in and what is acceptable. like cruelty, humiliation. that sort of thick. do you consider those categories, do you call that torture? are those things your idea of torture?

COMSTOCK: that memo is not in effect anymore. the memo that's in effect is the december memo where they've taken out some of the language because people have misconstrued that as being a policy when all that was was looking at what the senate had defined as the haw. that was a legal interpretation of what the senate said.

MATTHEWS: so alberto gonzales was a hard liner in terms of trying to get information out of prisons. the phrase used often was forward leaning. that's obviously a rumsfeld phrase. in this case, getting information out of them. is that your understanding?

COMSTOCK: everybody in the administration after 9/11, when you captured someone like….you want to get the maximum information out. that was the policy of the american people.

COCCO: why were so many f.b.i. agents so shocked, apalled -- appalled, blanching at the conduct at guantanamo bay that there is now a flood of memos by f.b.i. agents. i have met a lot of f.b.i. agents and none of them are pansies. they don't blanch at blood. they blanched at what was going on at guantanamo bay.

COMSTOCK: now you're mixing apples and oranges.

MATTHEWS: your position is that this administration is not formally or informally turned its side or ignored cases of torture.

COMSTOCK: no we're investigating them now. the geneva conventions do not apply in gitmo.

MATTHEWS: i didn't know it was part of our interrogation process. i had no idea that we're not allowed to torture people to get information out of them.

COMSTOCK: that's the legal guy up in harvard, that's his policy that we should do that. but that's never been the policy.

MATTHEWS: i feel much better. thank you. i'm serious. i hope it's true. thank you. i really mean it.

But in several instances, Kerry attacked what he called the "horrendous judgments" and "unbelievable blunders" of the Bush administration. The mistakes, he said, included former U.S. occupation leader Paul Bremer's decisions to disband the Iraqi army and purge the government of former members of Hussein's Baath Party. Both moves are widely believed to have fueled the largely Sunni insurgency.

"What is sad about what's happening here now is that so much of it is a process of catching up from the enormous miscalculations and wrong judgments made in the beginning," he said. "And the job has been made enormously harder."

He added, however, that it was time to move forward.

So many readers have made variations of this point, many, many from personal experience:

After I was captured, my hands were tied behind my back and I was struck repeatedly in the face with an open hand. After enduring the beating I was thrown on the water board, where under questioning the enemy would drown you till the verge of losing consciousness, only to revive you and start all over again. Then a black bag was secured around my head and throat which made it difficult to breathe. I was confined to a three by four foot tiger cage with a coffee can for a toilet. Loud music blared from speakers in the compound and I was repeatedly dragged from my cage for more beatings and interrogation. At night when it was freezing the guards would pour cold water on me. I was deprived of any food for five straight days.

Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? Well that is only part of what EVERY U.S. Navy and Air Force pilot and flight crew goes through in survival school. The Army does it for their special forces guys as well. We do this to our own people for training but we can't do it to terrorists?
Incredible.

For nearly three years, the Bush Administration has been harshly criticized by various media and legal elites for its interpretation of the Geneva Convention and its legal conclusion that al Qaeda fighters are not POWs and thus not entitled to the privileges afforded to POWs by that convention – despite overwhelming legal evidence and international scholarly support favoring the Bush interpretation.

Yet, at today’s confirmation hearing for Judge Alberto Gonzales, both of the two legal experts called by Senator Leahy to testify against Judge Gonzales conceded that al Qaeda fighters are indeed not POWs. Due to the extensive questioning of Judge Gonzales, the two legal experts did not begin their testimony until very late in the afternoon.

Following that testimony, Senator Cornyn asked the two professors: if someone is determined to be an al Qaeda fighter, “would they be entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention?”

Dean Harold Koh gave a somewhat wordy response that eventually concluded with this clear, unequivocal statement: “they are not POWs.” Following Dean Koh’s response, Dean John Hutson said: “I take the same view.”

To be sure, Deans Koh and Hutson vociferously disagree with other aspects of the Administration’s war on terrorism policies and legal positions. But this concession – by Senator Leahy’s two legal experts no less – that Geneva POW privileges and protections DO NOT APPLY to al Qaeda fighters constitutes a remarkable and important concession. Unfortunately, this concession could be missed by the general public, however, due to the lateness in the day of the questioning by Senator Cornyn.

Dear Feminist Activists,

Today Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) will join Representatives John Conyers (D-MI) and Stephanie Tubb-Jones (D-OH), as well as several other African-American members of the U.S. House, in objecting to the Ohio presidential election results as Congress certifies the 2004 election. Representative Conyers has issued a 100+ page report documenting serious election irregularities in Ohio in the 2004 presidential election.

If you recall in Fahrenheit 911, no Senators in 2001 stood with African-American members of Congress who objected to the Florida presidential election results.

Senator Boxer, in a historic and courageous move, will stand with the House members today so the Senate and House will be forced to discuss for two hours the election irregularities, which disproportionately disenfranchised African-American and minority voters, women, and students.

We believe Senator Boxer will be targeted by the right-wing for her courageous stand. The women’s movement and progressives must vigorously support her.

Please send an email thanking Senator Boxer for her courage and vision. And please send an email to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) expressing your support for Senator Boxer and urging them to take a leadership role in election reform.

We also believe Senator Boxer will be targeted by talk shows and newspapers. Please show your support for Senator Boxer by writing letters to the editor and calling radio and TV talk shows.

The Ohio election irregularities led to the discarding of some 92,000 ballots, principally in inner city districts. Lack of voting machines in, again, inner city districts led to lines of 4-6 hours where voters who could stay were often forced to stand in the rain. On college campuses, lines were also long, with one college reporting lines that were 11 hours long. For more information on the many problems in Ohio, click here.

We must have election law reform to guarantee a paper trail and to guarantee that voters in metropolitan areas and college communities have the same number of voting machines per number of voters as do voters in the suburbs and exurbs.

Please, send an email now to Senator Reid and Congresswoman Pelosi urging them to support Boxer and lead the fight to reform our election system. And do not forget to thank Senator Boxer for her courage. With champions like Senator Boxer, we can make a difference.

For Equality,
Eleanor Smeal
President

NATION SEEKS WEB EDITOR

The Nation seeks a full-time web editor with progressive politics, boundless energy and a strong commitment to help amplify the influence and scope of the magazine's online presence.

The web editor will work closely with magazine editors as well as business staffers in developing the site. Major responsibilities include planning, creating and implementing new Nation online features; Conceiving and executing the creation of online enhancements to articles originating from the print magazine; Assisting in outreach to other online media; Coordinating breaking online news coverage, and editing original Nation online articles.

Ideal candidate has at least three years experience working at a political website, closely follows the news media--print, broadcast and online, has broad familiarity with the progressive community, keeps abreast of alternative and youth culture, works well with a wide array of individuals, internal departments and outside organizations, and is comfortable with very tight deadline pressure. Familiarity with HTML, and online production and content management a plus. Applicant must work in The Nation's New York City office. 

Position offers generous benefits and a convivial work atmosphere. The Nation is an equal opportunity employer, people of color and other minorities strongly encouraged to apply.  Email resume, cover-letter and salary requirements to: webjob@thenation.com. No calls please.

It is too late.
Sending them out now has the following effect:

1. If you already received a card from the person, it looks like you sent cards to everyone but them, because they were unimportant, and that you grudgingly sent them a card only because they sent you one.

2. If you did not receive a card from the person, you cause them to feel like a schmuck because they know it's now too late to send you one and you defeat the whole "happy" experience of sending out cards as a way to renew ties with those to whom you don't communicate with during the rest of the year.

But in a phone interview yesterday, the senator said his comments should not have been interpreted as a promise to support all of Bush's nominees. "I never gave him a blank check. I expect to conduct this hearing like I've conducted a lot of others," Specter said, adding that he was not feeling pressure to act differently because of the chairmanship controversy.

He also noted that while the hubbub surrounding the Gonzales hearings had focused on the interrogation policy memos, the committee has a responsibility to explore how Gonzales would handle many other issues.

"There's a lot more to this confirmation hearing than torture," Specter said. "There's the issue of the Patriot Act. ... There's questions about how aliens have been detained, immigration laws, what he's going to do on terrorism to protect the country. He heads a very powerful department, and the media attention has all been on torture, but there's a lot more to ask him about."

Rep. Maxine Waters on the House floor just now (paraphrased slightly) - "Mr. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio Sec. of State, who I am ashamed to say is an African-American man..."

[Sigh] At least once a week for two and half years I've gotten at least one email from some leftwinger (often from Germany or even more far-off Berkeley, California) demanding, imploring, pleading that I apologize for attacking Cynthia McKinney. This or that revelation, they insist, proves that she was right all along. She is a hero. A Nubian goddess. A truth teller. And I am a bigot, a fool, an apologist for murder, a conspirator. Seriously, the emails never stop.

Anyway, I tell all of these people the same thing. She's awful and I don't retract a word. Here's the column that started it all. It begins reasonably, I think:

"I don't mean to be such a pain in the ass to Cynthia McKinney (D., Ga.), but it appears this is the fastest route to her brain."

There are multiple responses:

1) First and foremost: from a legal standpoint, the delay and any voter suppression caused by those who were discouraged from voting did not make any difference as to the outcome of the election, and therefore it is not a basis for any remedy—such as failing to count the electoral votes. The margin of victory in Ohio was more than 118,000 votes. Kerry supporters simply can’t meet their burden of demonstrating that there were more than 119,000 discouraged Democratic voters.

2) Picking up on the italicized language, in the materials that I have seen, the objectors fail to take into account delays in polling places that were more heavily Republican, or to address the simple statistical reality that even in Democratic strongholds like Cuyahoga County, there would be a reasonable number of Republican voters who were also discouraged by long lines.

A little more on the topic:

Part of the problem with this entire line of reasoning is that it assumes the possibility of perfect elections. In every election, there will be some errors--generally about a 3 percent error rate. In 2000, the local error rate mattered because the margin of victory was razor thin. This year, however, the election was not close enough for any errors to make a difference, but the Michael Moore left is still clinging to errors--both real and largely imagined--in the vain hope that it proves the election should have gone otherwise.

It is also worth noting that voting problems can arise from the best of intentions. For example, in recent elections, some of the longer delays have been attributable to the use of newer voting systems (such as touchscreen systems), which were put into place to assure greater accuracy, but which led to delays because of technical problems or user unfamiliarity.

it’s unfortunate, but as I understand it local county boards of elections are responsible for that sort of thing – not the Republican Party or Ken Blackwell or whatever – and many of the local county boards are in Democratic strongholds, so how can it be Republicans’ fault?

It’s bad that people had to wait a long time – just as it was bad that networks called Florida for Gore before the polls closed in the panhandle – but it is legally irrelevant.

Dear Kathryn,

I hate hockey, but I must nevertheless offer a brief reply to Jonah Goldberg's correspondent:

Every conservative I know of who has supported the Administration's detainee policies was shocked and angered by the abuses which took place at Abu Ghraib. Those with access to the media have said so publicly. The men and women who perpetrated those abuses behaved in an unacceptable and criminal manner, outrageously mistreating men for whose welfare they were, at least at that time and place, responsible. Further, they did great harm to their country's interests in time of war. Their punishments should be harsh, and there is every reason to believe that this will be the case. The same is true of others who have abused prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere, including deaths in custody. In fact, the U.S. has a very elaborate and efficient military justice system designed to address just such problems during wartime, and it is working.

If these points do not get a lot of discussion among conservatives, it is because they are not in issue -- they are agreed. Beginning every discussion with, "I abhor torture" or "I abhor Abu Ghraib" is just politically correct pablum and a waste of pulp. You don't need to say everything you know in everything you write, and, usually, it's better not to.

What the reader really appears to be saying, however, is that the revelation of these abuses should have changed our minds with respect to the Administration's detainee policies. Well, they might well have done exactly that if there was any evidence that it was the policies which caused the abuse. There is none. It is only if you accept the proposition that the policies themselves, denying Geneva POW status to unlawful combatants and using stress methods of interrogation, are inherently abusive that some sort of connection appears -- and most of the Administration's supporters simply do not accept that proposition. My guess is that what is really so scary to this individual is that there are people out here who do not tow the "progressive" line, and who cannot be intimidated into silence by the kinds of ridiculous ranting that Judge Gonzales has had to endure today. That should be scary to the Left.

Best,

Lee Casey

From a reader:

This morning, as I walked up First Street from Union Station, I passed the Dirksen Senate Building and there were three people standing on the corner with homemade, anti-Gonzales signs getting the attention of tv cameras and assorted newspeople. Further on, in front of the Supreme Court a lady held a homemade sign proclaiming that she was seeking justice because she was the daughter of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe . . . . And it's not even the 20th of January.

From a reader:

In regard to your request for info on torture reports. Here are a few sample cites:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-abuse21dec21,0,7615137.story?coll=la-home-nation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25962-2004Dec25.html?sub=AR

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23372-2004Nov30_2.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4944094/ (dealing with broader Abu Ghraib abuses than those in the photos)

The stories on the FBI documents were front page news in every major paper. It is somewhat astounding to me that the folks at the Corner seem unaware that they exist.

One final inquiry on your WWII abuse postings: I am not sure what your point is. Is it that these practices are acceptable, or that they are understandable. If the former, than Sullivan is correct that the right has simply fallen off the deep end on this issue. If the latter, I have never been in combat, so I cannot say how I would act under these conditions, and you may be right. But if that is true, perhaps you should just ponder for a moment what effect these practices might have on those Iraqis who went through Abu Ghraib - the great majority of whom appear to have been wholly innocent (see the last citation) - or on the feelings that they or their families might have to the US presence in their country. You might also consider, to the extent you believe such abuses to be "understandable" and therefore inevitable, at least to some degree, in war time, what that says about the wisdon of fighting wars premised on winning over the very population that would be the subject of such abuses.

Me: I don't think folks at the Corner were unaware of such reports, just that anecdotes seem to be translated into data pretty easily.

As for my point about the WWII atrocities it's exactly what I said it was, regardless of the "either or" debating trap the reader sets. The notion that America has lost the high moral ground because of what has been alleged strikes me as absurd and offensive. All of the clichés about how we become "like the terrorists" if we do this or that, are rhetorical bits of moral bullying and self-righteous blather. None of these atrocities from WWII I've recounted makes me think that America became "like the Nazis" or that we'd lost the high moral ground in that war. And I've never heard all of these Greatest Generation-and-FDR-worshipping liberals qualify their love of Roosevelt and support for WWII with any such language. But today there is a knee-jerk tendency to do precisely that when it comes to these (I would guess) far more isolated cases in the War on Terror. I mean most of the evidence this reader cites was unearthed by the US military and government in the course of investigating and prosecuting the abuses.

The characters are thinly drawn. Standard Crichton

The inventions are preposterous. For example, an electronic circuit that effectively turns a thunderstorm into a targeted death-ray generator? C’mon. Why not generate non-polluting, renewable thunderstorm power with this device and have the characters all go home?

Too many medical miracles. Crichton thrillers always feature a small band engaged in a race against time, but this time the resilience of our heroes is unbelievable. For example, Sarah and Evan are nearly frozen in Antarctica but back in action within hours. Evan is paralyzed and nearly dies, only to attend a conference the next day. Most incredibly, Sarah survives cardiac arrest and isn’t even kept in hospital overnight.

Redemption
Yes, it’s a crummy novel but, as a public service, the book is fantastic. Thanks to Crichton, millions of members of the general public are going to learn their first-ever facts about “global warming.” This is only possible because the key data are presented within the context of an entertaining story. As a bonus, Crichton, in Appendix I, picks apart the eugenics movement and appropriately cites Margaret Sanger for opprobrium. (Unfortunately, he omits describing her founding role in Planned Parenthood and the abortion movement generally. But I suppose you can’t have everything.)

From a reader:

I think it was in the Band of Brothers book (and wasn't in the HBO mini series), that Ambrose told this story...

If a German were caught by a paratrooper (this happened in the dead of winter) with US Army boots on, they were shot on the spot. The paratroopers felt this probably meant that a US POW was walking around a German prison camp with no boots on.

If they caught a German with a pair of their US paratrooper boots on, the Germas was marched around in the snow in his bear feet until his legs froze. Then, he was taken to the hospital where, to save the German, the surgeon would have to cut off the Germans legs. Thus sending them home to Germany after the war as cripples.

In the abstract I guess I've been more sympathetic to torture under very specific circumstances. Indeed, I still don't think anyone can deny that there are obvious hypotheticals where no sane person would oppose using torture. But I guess, at the end of the day, I'm in Derb's camp. If those hypotheticals are ever translated into reality -- God forbid -- nobody's going to care about the Geneva Convention. If we know there's a nuclear bomb en route to an American city and we have someone in custody we know has information on how to intercept that bomb, my guess is we'll get that information no matter what the missives and memos from the White House say. And anyone who thinks that's a bad thing is a fool in my book.

That said, short of those incandescantly clear cases I think torture should be ruled out. But as I've written several times and as Andy McCarthy perfectly summarized yesterday, I think applying the Geneva Convention to al Qaeda detainees is batty.

Moreover, I have no problem with playing a little smacky-face with prisoners. Think about it. The standard being put forward by Sullivan and others on all this would rule the tactics of Detective Andy Sipowicz on NYPD Blue unacceptable. For years, Sipowicz has been smacking suspects around in order to force them to confess. He threatens to "beat their balls off" every other show.

It is beyond me why this should be considered beyond the pale for terrorists.

McAuliffe met privately Wednesday with several Democratic senators on Capitol Hill, and was asked again to consider serving for another year or two, Democrats say. McAuliffe's response was not immediately known, but he has been cool to such overtures in the past.

Dayton Daily News
Monday, December 20, 2004

EDITORIAL

Did votes vanish in Miami Valley?

Specific complaints about the Ohio vote count keep getting aired - especially on the Internet - and keep getting laid to rest, but then just keep on getting cited by some diehard Democrats.

The supposed outrage in Republican Warren County? There the authorities closed off the vote-counting site on election night. Turns out, however, the local Democratic authorities were there, inside the building, and were fine with what went down, seeing no shenanigans.

The fact that many ballots in Montgomery County showed no vote for president? Turns out there was an electrical malfunction, and the counts have been changed, with Republicans benefiting.

Votes showing up late in the process in Miami County? Turns out the original state reports were wrong.

Similar phenomena in other parts of the state have similarly turned out not to amount to much.

Yet 12 Democrats on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee have posed questions about these alleged irregularities to Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. The strategy seems to be throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.

Several Miami Valley issues are at the center of this national squabble.

Some committee questions are just nonsense: How can the secretary of state explain that Sen. John Kerry did no better in Warren County than Al Gore did in 2000, even though Sen. Kerry spent more money and Ralph Nader wasn't on the ballot this time? Please. This is nothing. Republicans are leaving central urban counties for places like Warren, making the places they leave bluer and the new places redder.

Perhaps the most intriguing question is the one about the race for chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. Democratic challenger C. Ellen Connally ran worse than Sen. John Kerry statewide, by about 3 percentage points. But in some counties in Southwest Ohio - Miami, Darke, Butler, Claremont, Brown - she ran ahead of him. Why?

Is it possible, as has been charged, that some 60,000 Kerry votes somehow disappeared in those counties?

Consider: Party labels do not appear on the ballots for judicial candidates. So, in these very Republican counties, one would not expect Judge Connally to have the kind of problem that Sen. Kerry had.

But why did Judge Connally run behind Sen. Kerry statewide if she ran ahead of him in these counties? Probably because the Moyer campaign - the only well-funded one - focused its commercials and mailings someplace other than small, Republican counties.

To ask the secretary of state to explain these things is absurd. Any response he offers will be treated by the Democrats on the House committee as partisan. Nonpartisan think tanks could do this work more credibly and with more expertise.

The partisan Democrats know that. They're just playing games.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Conyers overlooks Detroit's election problems
By Thomas Bray / The Detroit News

John Conyers, the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is demanding an investigation into Ohio's voting. "We're talking ... about thousands of complaints about failure of process, coercion, suppression of the vote," Conyers asserted on public radio last week.

On its face, it's the effort of a bitter-ender to deny the obvious. Ohio's voting, like the voting in most states in every election, wasn't perfect. Local election officials failed to plan adequately for the increased turnout -- some 900,000 more voters than in 2000, creating long lines in many precincts. But nothing has surfaced to suggest systematic fraud. George Bush won Ohio by more than 118,000 votes, a comfortable margin as these things go.

If Conyers was so concerned about voting problems, where was he in 1998 when election officials in his hometown of Detroit took a disgraceful two weeks to count ballots due to lost poll books and miscounting of precinct totals?

Where was he in 2001 when the counting of absentee ballots in Detroit had to be halted in midstream by state officials after it was discovered that the city clerk was simply ignoring state requirements for the use of software that would eject ballots that couldn't be read by machine?

And where was he when a memo allegedly drafted by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's aides in 2002 claimed that Detroit's voter rolls were overstated by about 150,000 people -- a strong hint that something may be seriously amiss in the Detroit election process, threatening the value of the ballot for people who are genuinely qualified to vote?

Conyers' outrage appears to be highly selective. The target of his investigative demand -- a demand in which he has been joined by Jesse Jackson and others -- is the Ohio secretary of state, Kenneth Blackwell, who is black and Republican. In other words, he is one of those non-conforming minorities who is threatening to bust up the liberal plantation from which Conyers and others earn a handsome living.

Moreover, Blackwell has said he plans to run for governor of Ohio -- and is leading in the polls among GOP candidates. That would transform him from a relatively minor state functionary into a national figure.

Conyers and Jackson have criticized the fact that Blackwell chaired the Bush re-election effort at the same time he presided over the Ohio election, but that's not unusual. Local election officials in Columbus and Cincinnati headed the Kerry campaigns in those areas.

So the left is trying to muddy up the Blackwell record, connecting him with the paranoid fears of voter suppression that are supposedly denying blacks of a basic civil right. This paranoia was fanned nationwide by the ill-considered remark of a Michigan state representative, John Pappageorge, who was trying to say higher black turnout could be fatal to GOP hopes. Pappageorge later apologized for having appeared to suggest the remedy lay in suppressing the black vote.

But if Blackwell was trying to suppress the black vote in Ohio, he didn't do a very good job. Black turnout more than doubled in Ohio.

Claims of voter suppression may also help to divert attention from the real problem in most states, including Michigan, which is that election officials have a hard time purging voter rolls of dead or otherwise non-qualified voters, mainly in the big cities. In the past, any effort to do so brought cries of racism. In 1998, Michigan started to tackle this problem by developing a computerized, statewide list of voters. This eliminated double entries, but it hasn't solved the problem of matching death rolls and other data bases -- including driver licenses -- with voter listings.

If John Conyers were serious about protecting the rights of voters, particularly in the area he represents, he would be demanding faster action on this front, not wasting time harassing the Ohio secretary of state.

From a professor:

Jonah,

Here's a story a colleague of mine told me just yesterday. His father served on a transport ship in the Navy during WWII. For example, he picked up men as they got off of Guadalcanal. They also picked up Japanese POWs at various times. It was not uncommon to put some prisoners on the fastest boat available, tie a rope around one, throw him off the back and speed around the water at high speed, bouncing the prisoner off the water. They would reel him in, take prisoner #2, and do it again. They would do this to five or six prisoners, at which point it would be clear to all prisoners that they had better not act up. I don't know if this counts torture in a technical sense, but it is inhumane. And the more I learn about life of the average GI and Marine in the South Pacific in WWII, the less I blame them.

From a reader:

Mr. Goldberg:

I've heard of two "atrocities" in WWII from guys who were there.

1. My dad's division (U.S. 7th Armored, then under operational control of the British 2d Army) overran one of the satellite concentration camps (near Belsen, I think) in April of 1945. He's said very little about it, but I gather that while many of the SS camp guards surrendered to the Americans, none were taken prisoner. Violation of the Geneva Convention? Probably. Am I bothered by my father's participation in a "war crime?" Not in the least. There's law, and there's justice.

2. A friend's father was in the 101st Airborne. After they discovered evidence of the Malmedy massacre, he said they extracted a bit of vengeance on the SS. He related one incident in which a detail was told to march some SS prisoners to a collection point several miles away, "and be back in five minutes." Interestingly enough, this is probably not a "war crime:" the Geneva Convention specifically permits reprisals.

Hope this is helpful.

Justin Katz asks a question a lot of others have been asking me too:

Regarding the email that Jonah posted as well as some claims that Andrew Sullivan has made on his blog, I'm wondering if y'all know what official reports Sullivan is referring to. My guess is that these claims blow up the worst individual events as representative, and I wouldn't be surprised if they mix accusations with confirmed incidents to make the latter act as slippery confirmation of the former.

The document to which Rich Lowry just linked doesn't appear to be it;
I'm sure I'm not alone among bloggers (and others) who would find a nod
in the right research direction in the Corner to be helpful.

Guidance anyone?

Does anyone doubt that more "atrocities" and atrocities were committed during FDR's prosection of World War II? Never mind the wholesale internment of the Japanese and how you think that compares to Abu Ghraib. It seems beyond doubt that there were summary executions, beatings, torture and generalized cruelty throughout the European and Pacific theaters. How much of this sort of thing was officially sanctioned and how much wasn't would be interesting to know. If any of my military history guys want to shoot me some 411 on this I'd like to see it. But I find it pretty hard to believe that things didn't get out of hand from time to time.

Anyway, I understand that the two wars are different in very practical senses. For example, we weren't fighting a battle for many hearts and minds back then and there was no equivalent of al Jazeera. But if we're talking about absolute morality, I'd like to know if any of the folks -- like Senator Graham -- who say that we've lost the high moral ground in the war on terror also think we lost the high moral ground in WWII when some GI shot a bunch of German prisoners or when the President of United States rounded-up 100,000 Japanese families?

Let me just drop this email from a reader like a hockey puck and see what you guys do with it:

What's most disturbing about reading the NRO Corner thread today is how little it seems NR writers have actually dealt with reports of torture in the war on terror. This is not just noogies and name calling; people have actually been murdered in custody. Not to mention cigarettes extinguished in ear canals, anal rape, and dog bites. I'm just breathless to read how little this seems to move conservatives, the annointed repositories of the Jesus light.

Not to mention, a majority of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib were not terrorists, so their torture gained no strategic defensibly advantage. Is Andrew Sullivan the only conservative willing to flat out say that these events are morally reprehensible. I guess it just sends a chill down my spine to read how blithely the intellectual elite of conservatives take violence against prisoners of war. It's f***ng spooky.

From DefenseTech.org:

Instead of using guns and bombs, let's attack the enemies of freedom with bugs, rats, and horny gay men.

That seems to be the sentiment behind a 1994 Air Force proposal, unearthed by bioweapons-watchers at the Sunshine Project.

The document -- entitled "Harrassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals" -- strings together a couple of ideas for non-lethal agents that could mark an opponent, temporarily change his behavior, or "attract annoying creatures to an enemy position."

Were any of these proposals every approved? I doubt it. But, boy, do I love the idea of Pentagon program managers dreaming up ways to use "sex attractant chemicals for bugs" as weapons. Or employing a "'sting/attack me' chemical that causes bees to attack." Such an agent "would especially effective for infiltration routes," the paper observes.

"Rodents and larger animals would [also] be candidates to be drawn to enemy positions," according to the proposal. So would other "stinging and biting bugs."

There's more.

An unpleasant issue that Americans need to begin to discuss: How far should interrogators go when questioning terrorists and terrorist suspects – those who flagrantly violate the rules of war and have therefore forfeited Geneva Convention protections? I'd argue that there is a line that shouldn't be crossed ... I'd argue that interrogators should not kill or maim suspects. They should not gouge out eyes or chop off fingers. They should not apply electrodes to suspects' genitals. …

To elicit the maximum information … experts say, requires not torture but rather “coercion” -- a sustained regimen of rewards and punishments that leads the subject to decide to cooperate. Experts say the subject must be made to feel that his interrogators are in absolute control of his life -- that they alone are the key to all comfort and discomfort, pressure and relief, imprisonment and release.

For maximum effect, an uncooperative subject would be punished with isolation, sleep deprivation, cold or heat, monotony, the playing of annoying music. He might be forced to sit or stand in uncomfortable positions for long periods of time. He might be served only unappetizing foods.

But the same subject also would be rewarded for even small acts of cooperation, in order to establish psychological patterns that, over time, lead the subject to decide it is in his interest to reveal what he knows. …

Is that really beyond what Americans are prepared to stomach -- even when we're fighting an enemy whose ambition is to randomly massacre as many innocent civilians as possible?

There has been some interesting discussion of how it might play out in 2008. At this point, all we can do is speculate. But it seems to me our analysis goes off track if we think that the problem is limited to evangelical Christian Republicans' alleged dislike for anyone who is not "born again." Evangelicals alone can't explain why only one non-Protestant has made it to the presidency.

I suspect that it's the interplay of the social issues and Romney's Mormonism that will matter. It may be, that is, that a pro-choice Mormon can't win the Republican nomination and that a pro-life Mormon can't win the general election. Evangelicals are hardly the only Americans who find Mormonism a bit strange. As for whether a Republican will ever be able to win the party's presidential nomination without being "born again": I think the answer to that question is obvious, at least if a conventional definition of the phrase "born again" is being used. It was only nine years ago that a Republican who wasn't born again won his party's presidential nomination, and the influence of evangelicals on the party wasn't much lower then than it is now.

A Catholic, or non-born again Protestant, can win the nomination, especially if he has solid conservative credentials. If Jeb Bush had a different last name, he would already be the leading contender for the nomination, and he's a Catholic.

Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war

The three-member appeals court took exception to the testimony of prosectutors' psychiatric witness, Dr. Park Dietz, who told the jury he had served as a consultant on an episode of the television drama Law & Order in which a woman drowned her children in the bathtub and was judged insane. He testified the show aired shortly before Yates drowned her five young children.

Prosecutors referred to Dietz's testimony in his closing arguments of the trial's guilt or innocence phase, noting that Yates regularly watched the show and that she had alluded to finding "a way out" when Dietz interviewed her in the Harris County Jail after the drownings.

But defense attorneys discovered no such episode was produced. As a result, both sides agreed to tell jurors that Dietz had erred in his testimony and to disregard that portion of his account.

Dietz later said he had confused the show with others and wrote a letter to prosecutors Thursday, saying, "I do not believe that watching Law & Order played any causal role in Mrs. Yates' drowning of her children."

It's time for Mr. Nader's medication. He's debating the puppets again.

From: John Kerry [mailto:info@johnkerry.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2005 4:30 PM
To: Kathryn Lopez
Subject: Counting On You to Make Sure Votes Get Counted

Dear [X],

No American citizen should wake up the morning after the election and worry their vote wasn't counted. No citizen should be denied at the polls if they are eligible to vote. And, as the greatest, wealthiest nation on earth, our citizens should never be forced to vote on old, unaccountable and non transparent voting machines from companies controlled by partisan activists.

Tomorrow, members of Congress will meet to certify the results of the 2004 presidential election. I will not be taking part in a formal protest of the Ohio Electors.

Despite widespread reports of irregularities, questionable practices by some election officials and instances of lawful voters being denied the right to vote, our legal teams on the ground have found no evidence that would change the outcome of the election.

But, that does not mean we should abandon our commitment to addressing those problems that happened in Ohio. We must act today to make sure they never happen again.

I urge you to join me in using this occasion to highlight our demand that Congress commit itself this year to reforming the electoral system. A Presidential election is a national federal election but we have different standards in different states for casting and counting votes. We need a national federal standard to solve the problems that occurred in the 2004 election. I will propose legislation to help achieve this.

Florida 2000 was a wake up call. But the Republicans who control Congress ignored it. Will they now ignore what happened in 2004?

There are nearly 3,000,000 of you receiving this email. We accomplished so much together during the campaign. Now let's use our power to make sure that at least one good thing comes from the voting rights problems of the 2004 election. If we want to force real action on election reform, we've got to demand that congressional leaders hold full hearings. Make sure they hear from you and help hold them accountable.

Speaker Dennis Hastert: 1-202-225-0600
Leader Bill Frist: 1-202-224-3135

And please report that you've made your call right here: http://www.johnkerry.com/signup/electoral_reform.php

I want every vote counted because Americans have to know that the votes they stood in line for, fought for, and strived so hard to cast in an election, are counted. We must make sure there are no questions or doubts in future elections. It's critical to our democracy that we investigate and act to prevent voting irregularities and voter intimidation across the country. We can't stand still as Congressional leaders seek to sweep well-founded voter concerns under the rug.

Please join with me in calling Speaker Hastert and Leader Frist and telling them that you want action on election reform now.

A recent report from Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) reveals very troubling questions that have not yet been answered by Ohio election officials. I commend the Democratic National Committee for its announcement this week that the DNC will be investing resources and reaching out to non-partisan academics in a long term study of Ohio voting irregularities. I am only sorry that we haven't seen the same from Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell and GOP officials.

Congress must play a positive, proactive role on this issue. That's why I will soon introduce legislation to reform our election system, ensuring transparency and accountability in our voting system and that all Americans have an opportunity to vote and have their vote counted.

Please remember to let us know that you made your call when you're done. We're hoping to ensure House and Senate leaders' offices hear our demand for action on election reform in meaningful way. Please take a moment to let us know you have made your call here: http://www.johnkerry.com/signup/electoral_reform.php

Thank you,

John Kerry

P.S. Thanks to all those who participated in our USO "phone home" campaign last week. The totals are coming in from the USO, and they are thrilled with your generosity and support for our brave men and women in uniform. We will send you totals as we get them.

Paid for by Friends of John Kerry, Inc.

Look if I can't have one afternoon to talk about my ideal candidate four years out before I have to pick a compromise candidate then we're in really sorry shape. Yes, I know Gramm is very, very unlikely run and even more unlikely to win. But dagnabbit a socially conservative libertarian foreign policy hawk is my kind of guy.

Anyway, I agree that Allen was very impressive and certainly he was the biggest surprise of the bunch I saw back at those NR-meetings during the GOP Convention. I don't know enough about his campaign style or his record. As for Jeb. I do think it's sad that he's got such a headwind against him, but I think it's a real headwind. George W. Bush has exhausted his and his family's credibility with so many Democrats and the media (fairly or not) that I think a Jeb candidacy would be dominated with Bush family themes and would of necessity have to be a 100% referendum on GWB -- in the primaries and the general -- at a time when people are going to be naturally looking for a change. That just sounds like a tough hurdle, even if Iraq is looking great by then.

Sir/Madam:

The frame you put Prime Minister T. Blair into may differ somewhat from the view held here in the U.K. Blair and his cronies have bled this once great country financially almost dry, while the whole pack of them fill their pockets with salaries few can dream of, and fat pensions.

Illegal immigrants pour into the country, get paid and accommodated for free, with millions of pounds spent on their "rights" to enable them to remain. This money goes to the associates of Blair's wife, who is at this moment ripping off suckers in the U.S.A. on a so-called lecture tour at $40,000 a throw! Further, Blair is hell bent on selling out this country lock, stock and barrel to the E.U.

Many of your finest young servicemen fought to help save Europe from the very situation Blair and his cohorts are driving us headlong into. You have few friends in Europe, so do not kid yourselves. We here have no wish to be governed by unelected individuals in Brussels.

You have an excellent news sheet in U.S.A. Today. I have noticed, though, you choose to ignore the fact that our first class troops, both male and female, are serving in Iraq. As our military have considerable experience in the Middle East over the past hundred years, your service chiefs may reflect, and take a few notes of advice. I served 1950-3 in the Suez Canal Zone. One thing I took on board: "If you kick one Muslim, you kick them all," and there are a hell of a lot of them in the world!

Your country has a medal for Blair? Do us a favor: stick it in his mouth!

Yours sincerely,

R.N. Derbyshire

A strong majority of readers say it's not ethnicity but gender which is the great dividing line. But within that majority opinions differ wildly. The two biggest camps are what I will call the Darwinians and the Freudians. The Darwinians believe that women of child-bearing age are more immune to the ravages of the common cold. The Freudians believe that boys are spoiled by their mothers when they're sick and so men revert to boyhood when they get a cold. I think there might be merit to both theories. On the one hand, women really do seem to handle colds better than men and I find it hard to believe that men -- who are normally so adverse to showing weakness to women -- break down entirely for psychological reasons when they get colds. On the other hand, even if we do suffer more that doesn't mean we don't whine about it too much.

From areader:

Inspired by your post of the Nash poem, (and probably inspired in part by the medication):

Oh Comtrex! may I be so bold,
To thank thee for relieving my cold?
You work in pairs, both day and night,
Against my symptoms you put up a fight.
Now the pain in head, back, and knee,
Has subsided most completefully.
And how, praytell, can you so cheaply,
Relieve my ills and not make me sleepy?
It's a miracle of modern medicine,
I no longer fear catching cold again.

And Zicam! from whence you came?
What marvelous mind do I have to blame
For making such a wonderful gel,
That in my nose doth love to dwell?
And while there to my cells bind,
So cold germs arriving find,
A most unwelcome sign:
"Be gone from me, ye terrible beast!
There is no welcome here, not in the least!"

Regards,
David Schmitt

Given the fate of Bill Owens, Howard Dean, etc. perhaps NR should put Bill Frist on its cover and wipe him out now!

The thought of Frist as our Presidential nominee. Ugh!

Armey said GOP leaders had received assurances by Wednesday that there would be no serious objection to the count. House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), whose aides consulted with Gore's staff, urged the Black Caucus members not to raise an objection because the vice president did not support such a move.

Andrew -

Great word: uxorious.
(Figures you'd use it considering how you Brits think American men are too beholden to their wives).

Of course, I think you're wrong about Clinton. You may call it "routine hypocrisy," but that begs the question of how you would define astounding, jaw-dropping hypocrisy. Moreover, while I agree that the perjury raised the stakes, they did not raise them from zero to impeachable, as you suggest. They raised them from huge scandal to impeachable scandal. Nobody wants to revisit all that stuff. But I reject the standard you -- and many others -- put forward that because Clinton wasn't breaking the law, his behavior was irrelevant. At least two of the pertinent events which illustrate my point: his famous 60 Minutes interview in which he and his wife swore to the public that such behavior was behind them and that if it happened again it would be a huge deal. It happened again. The second event was his strengthening of sexual harassment laws which made what he did technically illegal whether he lied about it or not and incandescantly -- not routinely -- hypocritical. The guy had an intern under his desk while he was on the phone talking about deploying troops.

As for your point about Lincoln, I think your real disagreement is with Ramesh. I find the campaign against Lincoln tacky because of the obvious motives and questionable history behind it. But if it's true, it should be discussed, put in context and dealt with.

An unlikely heading to say the least...

Jonah, I'd differ with you on both these gentlemen. On Clinton, the fact that he was so publicly uxorious and privately well, you know, was nothing more than routine hypocrisy, and should not have been grounds to turn his private life into a national circus. Where it was relevant was over the allegations of perjury. As for Lincoln, I don't think it's inappropriate to discuss whether this rather notable historical figure was or was not bisexual. If he was, it doesn't take anything away from his character and any family members who might be hurt by its disclosure are long dead.

From a friend of mine:

Jonah,

As you know, my mother died of heroin addiction related causes. In other words, her body failed due to the ravages of chemicals being introduced to the body before an overdose would have killed her. My family wasn’t a high-income or middle-class family, nor was most of my family particularly supportive during my mother’s recovery efforts. She went through one rehab program, paid for by a government grant, and as most people know one program is rarely enough with heroin. But I can say this. The program my mother went through was because Nevada is a state with a Drug Court. That’s right, no tolerance Nevada has a Drug Court, at least it does in Washoe County. I think it is a great idea. I am not particularly fond of the “disease” model when it comes to addiction, but I am also not comfortable with the “blame” model either. Regardless of initial responsibilities, which are often a mixed bag of contributing factors anyway, in the end addiction (particularly physical addiction) is an overwhelming thing. I don’t have any solutions here, but I do think that a hate the sin love the sinner approach is necessary if you value saving the life of addicts. If you merely seek punishment for violation of the social contract, then the discussion ends there (and that is a legitimate argument). But saying hate the sin and love the sinner isn’t enough. My father and grandparents thought that was what they were doing, but they spent more time blaming and accusing than asking if mom was okay. I don’t mean to judge them for this, I understand how difficult it was for them to watch my mom spiral down a destructive path, but it takes action and not words in practicing this idea. Kind of like “tough love.” Sometimes we are really tough, but we leave out the love.

Anyway…short point. If as a society we value bringing people out of addiction and into society with a good chance of succeeding in mainstream society, then Drug Courts are a good idea. Especially given the clean legal slate, I have personally witnessed how criminal records affect hiring policies (whether legal or not). If you view drug use as no different from any other crime, then they are unnecessary. But I view the world the first way and not the second, though I think that drug dealers should be punished to the full extent of the law. In fact, I think their punishments should be sterner.

From a reader:

As a criminal defense lawyer, I have seen how drug additions can devastate lives of the addicts and others. If a well-off person gets nailed for a drug-related crime, he'll hire a good lawyer. The first thing a good lawyer will do is get the addict into a real treatment program and be brutally frank about what happens if the addict fails. Those programs cost $$$$, but the well-off addict will have the resources to pay.

Specialized drug courts are starting to become popular, and they may help level the playing field for less well-off addicts. A well-run drug court will offer drug addicts a carrot-and-stick way out. The addict pleads guilty, but if the judge withholds sentencing pending treatment. If the addicts succeeds over time, they can get the charge wiped clean. If they fail, the judge can impose sentence based on the guilty plea. I'm an appellate lawyer, so I have not seen how these work first hand, but they are a worthy experiment.

From what I can see, one of the biggest factors for addict recovery is family and friends. A middle class person is more likely to come from a strong network of friends and family. That network can offer its own set of carrots and sticks to help the addict get back on the straight and narrow. In the cases in which I seek early release for my clients, I make it a point to pack the courtroom with my clients' family and friends. I want to show the judge that my client will have this kind of informal supervision.

Please withhold my name if you publish,

In response to today's column on the The Odious UN, a reader sent me two interesting links. The first is to the following story from New Zealand about how the UN stinks at disaster relief. Here's how it opens:

While the United Nations appears to be adept at having meetings, the organisation is hopeless on the ground say career foreign service officers in tsunami-affected regions.

As news media are increasingly dominated by footage of US, Australian and regional military forces actually delivering aid to stricken survivors of the Boxing Day tsunami, UN officials are carping about housing in major cities far removed from the front lines and passing around elaborate business cards.

Organising to organise seems to be the word of the day for the UN, say career US foreign service officers anonymously, who fault the international organisation for taking credit where none is due and proving hopeless at actually delivering relief.

The second link is the anonymous blog run by foreign service officials The Diplomad which has some fun first hand evidence of the UN odiousness.

So many thoughts.

First of all, I hope nothing he does discredits in any way the important mission of airborne laser volcano lancing.

Second, given this guys monumental stupidity, I have to hand it to his wife for being willing to hold his hand at the courthouse. For better, for worse, for chronically idiotic.

Third, several readers have asked me if I think it's overkill to go after him with the Patriot Act. Shannen or Andy McCarthy would be better qualified to answer that. But it seems to me that precedent probably matters. Mucking around with the air-traffic system is something we really, really want to discourage. Yes, this might lend credence to critics of the Patriot Act who worry about mission-creep (a somewhat fair concern, if you ask me). But I just don't know enough about the laws on the books to answer the question intelligently.

Ramesh - I think I share your inclinations. But just to take an example we are all familiar with, Bill Clinton invoked his private life and his marriage constantly when it suited his purposes but then claimed any negative attention paid to either was completely and entirely unfair. It seems to me that at some point invocations of a right to privacy cannot only come when they are self-serving.

As for the history thing. Yeah, I think this Lincoln stuff is inappropriate. But as you say you're not sure "we" need to know about Lincoln's sexual habits. That's an argument -- or sentiment really -- about the needs of the living not the rights of the dead. I think historians should always go for the truth, put it in the right context, and then move on. What offends me about the Lincoln stuff is that it stinks of propaganda and agenda-driven "history."

From a reader:

One of my favorites:

Go hang yourself, you old M.D.!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
I'm not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.

By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!

Why does it afflict people so differently? My father and I both expect to see the Grim Reaper pointing his bony finger of damnation at us when we get a cold. Stipulating that I'm giant baby about these things, it's nonetheless true that everytime I get a cold I feel like I spent the night in a Bolivian jockey bar drinking tequilla-and-sewer water and fighting-off a dozen little dudes who eventually beat me about the head and chest with fire extinguishers. Meanwhile, the missus -- of hardy Alaskan stock, to be sure -- can function at about 50% efficiency. Do certain ethnic groups suffer more than others? Is it partly a male-female thing? It vexes me.

You should know that in today's International Herald Tribune (100% owned and published by the NYT), the same picture appears "above the fold", but on page 4, and the caption beneath simply says "An injured child from a coastal area arriving at the military airport in Banda Aceh, Indonesia" -- no mention at all of the American nationality of the officer in the picture.

I think it is safe for you to resume criticism of the NYT.

Dear EmailNation Subscriber,

Yesterday, a dozen high-ranking retired military officers took the rare step of signing a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing "deep concern" over the nomination of White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general.

They understand, as Robert Scheer writes in his weekly column at TheNation.com, that what's at stake with the nomination is whether Congress wants to absolve Gonzales of his attempt to have the President subvert US law in order to whitewash barbaric practices performed by US interrogators in the name of national security. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050110&s=scheer0104

Gonzales ignored the objections of State Department and military lawyers to strongly endorse the determination of Justice Department lawyers that neither the Geneva Convention nor corresponding US laws on prisoner protections should be applied in the "war on terror."

Gonzales's Senate hearings begin this Thursday. Take a minute to send a letter to Senators Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter, the co-chairmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee who will be leading the hearings asking them to make sure the nominee receives a thorough vetting. http://capwiz.com/thenation/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=6754881

The VICE PRESIDENT. For what purpose does the gentlewoman from California (Ms. WATERS) rise?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Vice President, I rise to object to the fraudulent 25 Florida electorial votes.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Is the objection in writing and signed by a Member of the House and a Senator?

Ms. WATERS. The objection is in writing, and I do not care that it is not signed by a Member of the Senate.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair will advise that the rules do care, and the signature of a Senator is required. The Chair will again put that part of the question: Is the objection signed by a Senator?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Vice President, there are gross violations of the Voting Rights Act from Florida, and I object; and it is not signed by a Senator.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair thanks the gentlewoman from California. On the basis previously stated, the objection may not be received.

3 USC 15

Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision; and no electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified to according to section 6 of this title from which but one return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified.

CHRIS FARLEY, A MODERN DAY NOSTRADAMAS?
Why has it taken us over two months to remind readers that the movie “Black Sheep” (a not-as-funny-as-Tommy-Boy-followup-featuring-Farley-and-David Spade) is about a ridiculously close race for WA GOV between an establishment-backed-woman candidate and a rising star man from the legislature? The fictitious race is decided by “found” ballots.

I actually approve of the Stalinist-chic decor -- not because I'm a closet Bolshie, but because using Bolshie iconography is a way of reminding oneself that the good guys won the Cold War. It's like using their dead as a trophy; Achilles dragging the corpse of Patroclus around Troy.

Andrew Sullivan supports Social Security reform, but thinks Bush should push tax reform first: something like the 1986 reforms, closing loopholes and cutting tax rates, or something "even more ambitious." But this isn't just a question of sequencing. There isn't a chance that Bush would seek the kind of tax reform that Sullivan has in mind. Sullivan worries that Social Security reform would make Bush, and conservatism, look like a servant of Wall Street and rich people. The tax reform he favors, on the other hand, would end corporate tax shelters to lower people's tax rates--so Bush and conservatism would take on a more populist cast.

But the kind of tax reform Bush himself favors--judging from his record, the published and unpublished thoughts of his advisers, and plenty of reports (including my own)--would cut taxes on saving and investment, certainly by individuals and probably by corporations too. That kind of tax reform would be just as easily caricatured as Social Security reform will be. Nor would Sullivan's version of tax reform be a boon to the party: If the 1986 reform benefited either Republicans or conservatism, it isn't obvious.

Finally, I don't think that the appeal of conservative economic policies has declined since the 1980s because those policies have become less populist. I think it has declined because of changed conditions. The income tax has grown more progressive in respects that reduce the popular appeal of tax cuts. And the politics of the economy has favored Democratic candidates for four straight presidential elections. If economic conditions are perceived to be very good in 2008, conservative and Republican policies may become more popular. The increase in the number of investors is another changed circumstance that has affected the appeal of conservative economic policies, of course, in the other direction.

From a reader:

Dear Jonah,

This is one subject that makes my blood boil. Two of my friends are now widowers because of Acetomenophen poisoning. The threshold level between efficacy and toxicity is just 4 grams per day. That's just 8 extra strength tabs a day. It is very easy to go past that with so many combination products. This was how both of my friends died. They both were taking cold medication and then went on Vicodan for broken bones. Within 5 days, they were dying and did not live another week.

It is awful. The ubiquity of this medication is alarming, and the overdose limit is so low. Why is this drug allowed on the market for over the counter use? Name another that can come close to the low toxicity threshold. There aren't any.

Please, please be careful. L'il Lucy needs both parents.

Love your stuff, Pete

I normally wouldn't write about this sort of thing, but my post about taking a lot of Thera Flu has prompted more than a few emailers to share stories about booze and various cold and flu remedies. One fellow reccomended a hot toddy of Thera Flu and bourbon.

I do not advise this. I am not a doctor and I do not play one on TV or in the blogosphere. But my understanding is that booze and acetaminophen-based products (Tylenol, Nyquil, Thera Flu etc) do not mix. Now admittedly this is mostly advice for people who drink every day or almost every day. But acetaminophen and regular boozing can cause serious liver damage and even death. As someone who enjoys and respects his liver and the hard work it does, I've been wary of Tylenol et al. for quite a while. Anyway, if you're not a regular drinker you don't have much to fear. But if you like the sweet, sweet taste of a cocktail on a regular basis, stick with aspirin.

Note: Nothing in this post should be considered sound medical advice. Here are two websites ( 1 & 2) if you want to know more.

I live in the greater La Crosse area and thought you would get a kick out of know that you and the Corner scooped the local media and City Attourney on this decision. I read your posts yesterday and dutifully tuned into the local TV news broadcasts last night for more information but to my surprise there was no mention in either local affiliates broadcast. I emailed them inquiring about the ommission last night and got an email this morning letting me know they had not heard about it nor had the City Attorney (both were very curious how I got this information before they did).

It finally made the news today at noon. As you can imagine in a city of 50,000 this has been a fairly big story for some time and I guess we have you and the corner to thank for the fact that we found out the decision had been rendered.

Mark Levin should be mostly happy, I would think:

"Our first responsibility above all else is to do our constitutional duty. Nothing should come before it. Nothing should stand between it. Not party, not ideology, and certainly not politics. And yet in the last Congress, I believe the Senate failed to perform in an essential constitutional duty. It failed to offer advice and consent to the president by filibustering ten judicial nominees and threatening to filibuster another six.

"These filibusters were unprecedented. Never in the history of the Senate has a minority filibustered a judicial nominee that had clear majority support. This was an abrupt and an unfortunate break in more than 200 years of Senate tradition, of Senate history. This tradition must be restored, not merely because we honor the traditions of the Senate, but because this tradition reflects the proper role for this body, the Senate, as designed by our Framers in the constitutional arrangement.

"Next month we'll have the opportunity to restore Senate tradition. I'll bring one of the president's very capable and qualified judicial nominees to the floor. We can debate that nomination. We can vote to support it or to oppose it. And we must offer the president advice and consent by giving this and future judicial nominees who are brought to the floor up-or-down votes.

"Some, I know, have suggested that the filibusters of the last Congress are reason enough to offer a procedural change today right here and right now. But at this moment, I do not choose that path. My Democratic colleagues have new leadership, and in the spirit of bipartisanship, I want to extend my hand across the aisle. I have a sincere hope that we can move forward past difficulties, beyond the past difficulties we saw in the last Congress, and look forward to a future of cooperation. I seek cooperation not confrontation. Cooperation does not require support for the nominees. Cooperation simply means voting judicial nominees brought to the floor up or down.

"So let me say this: if my Democratic colleagues exercise self-restraint and don't filibuster judicial nominees, Senate traditions will be restored. It will then be unnecessary to change Senate procedures. Self-restraint on the use of the filibuster for nominations, the very same self-restraint that Senate minorities exercised for more than two centuries will alleviate the need for any action.

"But if my Democratic colleagues continue to filibuster judicial nominees, the Senate will face this choice. Fail to do its constitutional duty or reform itself and restore its traditions and do what the Framers intended. Right now we cannot be certain judicial filibusters will cease, so I reserve the right to propose changes to Senate Rule 22 and do not acquiesce in the carrying over all the Rules from the last Congress.

"As a public servant who has twice taken an oath to support the Constitution, I cannot stand idly by, nor should any of us, if the Senate fails to do its constitutional duty. We as United States Senators have our constitutional duty to offer the president advice and consent."

Seth Mnookin has an interesting memoir of his years as a heroin addict up at Slate. It's blissfully free of public policy conclusions. Reihan of the American Scene (one of Sullivan's guest bloggers last week) has a response which is not. He concludes a long post (which Ross Douthat concurs with) by saying:

What angers me, and I realize that I haven’t been very coherent, is that a middle-class person can mess up again and again, falling through safety net after safety net, and still thrive, given time and a bit of gumption and stick-to-it-iveness. If you’re not middle class, and you’re not from a stable, intact, literate, ambitious family, you will have a very, very hard time. Your likelihood of death is vastly higher, as is the likelihood that you’ll live at the mercy of a criminal justice system you scarcely understand. (That I, in my infinite idiocy, scarcely understand.) This is a grave injustice, and it derives at least as much from a cultural breakdown driven by middle-class people who’ve suffered virtually none of the consequences as from the unconscionable stinginess of a social policy oriented primarily towards social control.

Me:As someone who has seen loved ones destroyed and brutalized by drugs, I can certainly understand where Reihan is coming from. But I just can't quite get where he's going with this. Is it a shock that the Middle Class have more resources than the lower class? Is it news? Is it unique to the issue of drug addiction? The answer is no on all fronts. Kids with gambling problems, alcohol problems, health problems, problems stemming from their sexual preferences, family problems .... people with problems have more opportunities -- over all -- to overcome their problems if they're from the middle class, all else being equal. It was ever thus and shall be ever thus. Maybe it's a "grave injustice" but if it is, than grave injustices are simply baked into the cake of life.

That said, the picture is more complicated than the class-centric view Reihan seems to embrace. For example, I would rather be born into a stable two-parent family with fairly traditional values then an upper-class family with only one parent and messed-up values. And, last I checked, the social science backed me up on this.

In that last clunky sentence Reihan seems to be implying that a public policy which was less stingy and less geared toward "social control" would result in a world where poor drug addicts get as many second-chances as well-to-doo ones do. How would that work? Exactly? It seems to me that a public policy which involved more social control -- if by social control you mean the tightening of morals in this country -- would do far more good than a less stingy one.

On a positive note about this art work... The artists are picking up the tab for all costs including labor, materials, security around exhibit (according to NYT). . unlike the federal $$ forked over for the controversial stuff that few would call art and is often offensive. Translation: Free market art! I like it and my taxes don't fund it!

The two-week tour for "It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America," to be published Jan. 31, takes her to the District as well as to New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois and California -- not a red state in the bunch.

wanted to make his idea for a coalition of academics and evangelicals sound less "nuts," he has not succeeded. The two groups can come together on free trade with poor countries? Well, that's a terrific idea. But many liberal elites already support free trade--liberal academic economists, for example. The Washington Post's editorial page has also been quite good on the subject. That hasn't made Stuntz's coalition a winning coalition. There's a reason that John Edwards trumpeted his opposition to such free-trade pacts more loudly than Bush discussed his support.

On abortion, Stuntz's theory is that his two groups can join forces--or at least that the issue won't block their joining on other issues--so long as the evangelicals give up their opposition to Roe v. Wade. That's not going to happen. And his argument for why they should be willing to give up their opposition to Roe is simplistic, depending on the notion that law and culture occupy two distinct, hermetically sealed boxes. Stuntz argues that without the force of the law behind them, pro-lifers have been better able to affect the culture. "Back-alley abortions are no longer a story; partial-birth abortions are." How does Stuntz suppose that partial-birth abortion became a story? It was because a political movement made a priority of changing the law to ban them--and was not willing to stand down because legal academics (and later the Supreme Court) said that a ban would violate Roe. Stuntz writes that "the [pro-life] movement is likely to keep doing what works -- finding ways to encourage young women to 'choose life.'" That isn't a complete description of what the movement does--certainly in its political guise--nor of its proper goals. And as long as evangelical conservatives continue to believe that it is necessary to change unjust laws that permit the killing of innocents, Stuntz's coalition will not materialize.

I didn't even know that Susan Sontag was in, or out, or whatever. Very interesting post from Andrew Sullivan:

THE INNING OF SONTAG: I have to say I'm amazed at the fact that almost all the obituaries for Susan Sontag omitted her primary, longtime relationship with Annie Leibovitz, the photographer. Of 315 articles in Nexis, only 29 mention Leibovitz, and most of them referred merely to their joint projects. Leibovitz was unmentioned as a survivor in the NYT and Washington Post. It's striking how even allegedly liberal outlets routinely excise the homosexual dimension from many people's lives - even from someone dead. But perhaps it is reflective of Sontag's own notions of privacy and identity. She championed many causes in her day, but the gay civil rights movement was oddly not prominent among them.

In the current print NR I've written presumably my last take on the Beinart "Fighting Party" essay. It's more historically minded than the other stuff I wrote about it. But, even though no one has pointed this out, one could read it as a bit of a contradiction of my stem-winder against Kevin Drum from last month. In the G-File I'd criticized Drum for saying that Beinart should have first explained why liberalism should consider islamic totalitarianism an "existential threat." The reason this annoyed me so was that Drum and others had been complaining for so long that the war in Iraq was a distraction from the war on terror and that "whistle blowers" like Richard Clarke were heroes, even though they criticized Bush from the hawkish right. If you don't think terrorism is an existential threat why would you make such criticisms your own?

Well, in the current NR (reachable through NR Digital) I basically make the case that the Democrats are only capable of standing up to existential threats when the Democratic Party itself is facing an existential threat. Beinart wants the Democrats to emulate the Americans for Democratic Action from 1947. But, the problem with Beinart's history is that the ADA was formed first and foremost not to fight Communists abroad, but to fight Communists in the Democratic Party. For the rest of its history, the Democratic Party and liberalism is general never purged the "softs" from the party or the movement. In that sense Drum is right. In order to make the case Beinart wants to make he does need to explain why Islamic totalitarians are a threat -- a threat to the Democratic Party.

Many physicians put partial blame on federally funded abstinence-only education programs that by law prohibit discussion of contraceptives, except to detail their failure rates.

"We are spending an enormous amount of money on something that hasn't been shown to work," Trussell said. "It's a giant step backwards."

Sorry, pessimists, we didn't lose hope in Iraq yet
And we didn't decide to surrender
The churches still ring their bells and the car bombs couldn't stop my people
from going there and hold their prayers
We just placed a block on the street
To stop the terrorists, not the visitors

I have the utmost respect for life; I appreciate that life starts early in the womb, but also believe that I'm ending it for good reasons. Often I'm saving the woman, or I'm improving the lives of the other children in the family. I also believe that women have a life they have to consider. If a woman is working full-time, has one child already, and is barely getting by, having another child that would financially push her to go on public assistance is going to lessen the quality of her life. And it's also an issue for the child, if it would not have had a good life. Life's hard enough when you're wanted and everything's prepared for. So yes, I end life, but even when it's hard, it's for a good reason.

Nobody uses the term "posse" anymore. The term du jour is "crew". However, the "crew" must have a name.

I'd propose:

Mr. Buckley and the Non-Immanent Eschaton Crew.

Matsui dies, Pelosi gets in a dig about Social Security:

Pelosi mourned the loss of Matsui on Sunday, calling him a dear friend, respected leader and dedicated family man. Matsui is survived by his wife, Doris; son, Brian; daughter-in-law, Amy; and granddaughter, Anna.

“In recent days, Bob spoke often of his parents, whose fortitude during his youth and grace during his adulthood shaped so much of his respect for America’s seniors and his resolve to preserve their retirement security,” Pelosi said in a statement. “With dignity, integrity and passion, Bob Matsui served his family, his community and his country. He will be sorely missed and long remembered.”

According to the Washington Post, she "is violating the omerta of Bush alumni with a memoir that touts the importance of moderates to the future of the Republican Party and flays Bush and his team for ignoring the country's middle. Whitman charges on Page 3 that Bush's three-percentage-point margin in the popular vote is the lowest of any incumbent president ever to win reelection."

It is possible, I suppose, that she will have something interesting to say in the book. But let's not forget that Whitman got only 47 percent of the vote when she ran for re-election as governor of New Jersey in 1997. During the '90s, she was often touted as the great hope for the Republican future. Her enthusiasm for abortion would bring women to the GOP. But she never won a majority of women in any of her statewide elections. If she knows anything about how to build a lasting electoral majority, it's not from practical experience.

Legal requirements

Not everyone was so enthusiastic.

"The Americans have to understand our culture here," said Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, vice-chairman of the Jakarta-based Islamic Defenders Front, which is mobilising relief efforts of its own.

"If they are not sensitive to local issues then there will be problems. If American women come to Aceh, they must wear dilbab for example. There is Sharia law in Aceh and that is what is dictated."

USAid's Bok said it was unlikely US service personnel would adhere to a Muslim dresscode.

"I don't think the practice of Islam in Aceh is such that it forces all people to wear dilbab," said Weiss. "This is not Saudi Arabia."

In addition to the helicopters, American forces have committed six C-130 transport planes to the relief effort. Four Australian aircraft have been flying supplies between Banda Aceh since Tuesday. Both nations are flying C-130 transport planes on a regular run between Medan and Band Aceh.

WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (AFP) - President George W. Bush has picked former presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton to spearhead efforts to raise private US funds to help Asian nations struck by the tsunami disaster, the White House said Monday.

Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee said he would hard to "ensure quick action" on the nominees who, if given the chance for a vote, would all gain lifetime seats to the federal bench. But conservatives have heard this before, only to be sorely disappointed. This will be an early test for Mr. Frist, as well as Sen. Arlen Specter, the liberal Pennsylvania Republican who squeaked through a primary challenge from conservative Rep. Pat Toomey and now owes his political survival to the overt support and campaign help of President Bush.

If Mr. Frist can't lean on Mr. Specter to break any logjam, the White House -- which knows it has only about 18 months to set its domestic legacy before lame-duck disease strikes -- will apply the pressure itself. Mr. Bush rightfully thinks he's owed a favor. Mr. Specter must fight hard for these first-term holdovers or risk the wrath of angry conservatives from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

I think the oil-for-food issue was a unique issue. It was a unique scheme. Yes, there may have been some corruption. There may have been some mismanagement. But the program acheieved its results. It was effective against— The sanctions were effective. Iraq was disarmed. Iraq is well-fed. We will make sure that they get their basic necessities with regards to health and others. And, in fact, the distribution system was so effective that today we use the distribution cards as the basis for voter registration for the elections. So, yes, there were, there has been some wrongdoing, which is being looked into, but we should not forget that it achieved its results.

WASHINGTON -- Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday he is not interested in becoming President Bush's national intelligence director or homeland security chief, shooting down speculation he might be under consideration for those jobs.

"I'm not. I appreciate the floating. It's a quadrennial game here in Washington when a new administration takes shape," Lieberman told ABC's "This Week."

Lieberman, who was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000, was a leading congressional negotiator in writing the law that created a national intelligence director.

Bush also needs to replace Tom Ridge, who is leaving the job of homeland security secretary. Bush's first choice, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, withdrew in controversy.

"I do have some fundamental agreements with President Bush on America's foreign policy, and I want to give bipartisan support to those elements of the foreign policy, like what we're doing in Iraq today," said Lieberman, D-Conn. "But I think I can do it better in the United States Senate."

One of the members of the group had prepared for the session by finding out if the Bush administration was siding with those in Congress who were calling for Mr. Annan's resignation or whether it would support his resolve to stay in office until the end of his term in December 2006.

The official, a onetime senior government figure in Washington with close ties to the Bush administration, said he concluded that "they were not going to draw the sword against Kofi."

My viewpoint on this matter comes from prior experience as a scientist with a wide variety of lasers, up to and including the high-power Class IV Nd:YAG lasers. Also, I'm an instrument-rated private pilot. My two cents on the topic? It might be a bunch of kids or misanthropes but then again, it could very well be terrorists in action. Many folks seem to forget that the point of terrorism is to cause terror and you don't have to hit an aircraft with a missile to do it. Scare enough pilots and civilians with these incidents and you've achieved a goal at very minimal cost and effort. The first e-mail you listed seems to twig on to this but the second doesn't and the writer displays only a passing familiarity with lasers and their safety issues. Another point is that the physiology of the human eye/brain is a funny thing. My personal experience is that getting strobed with a laser can do funny things with one's perception in how long a beam has impinged on the eye, where it is and how it's moving, *especially* in a dark environment where the brain loses much of the external reference needed to make those kind of judgements..

Long story short? There's no definitive answer here yet but my take is that the readers who're dismissing this out of hand are operating with insufficient information, to put it politely. It's going to take more time for the jury to come in on this one.

K-Lo: I'm no military expert (unless you count reading Aviation Week) but I don't see why knowing the range to that level of accuracy would be so important. If you are going to fire a missile you need to know when the plane is in range. The flight paths and glide scopes are known. Do the math and you're done.

I think it's either misanthropic civilians or there is no other goal beyond terrorism. Taking down the WTC wasn't geared merely towards affecting way more than the 3,000 people in the buildings, but the 290 million people of our country. They wanted to terrorize a country and did it by affecting a small part of one city. If terrorists are behind the lasers, they use the are using the press and a few planes to terrorize the entire flying population. Not nearly as terrifying as the WTC, the the cost is absolutely minimal! My money says it's kids or misanthropes.

Just my $0.02

I live in Wichita, KS in the heart of Airplaneland. We have Boeing, McConnel Air Base, Raytheon, Bombardier, Cessna, Textron, AirBus et al here and several large airports for all their repair, development, military, testing etc. There are B-52, AWACS, G5 execs, et al flying low all over the city day and night along with all the FedEx, and commercial.

They fly from 500 to 5000 feet all over the city. B52 make practice bomb runs all over any industrial complexes on a regular basis. I could set on the back deck and shoot a GREEN laser at all of them on an hourly basis. The flights are quite impressive I might add.

Im guessing that is what is going on. Besides they are NOT harmful. All these are approved wattage etc. You can buy them all over the net or at Office Max. Im sure its a bunch of kids or other dimwits doing this. Its just that the green ones are more visible to the human eye since the eye is more sensitive to that frequency and the entire beam can be seen and is used in astronomical watching due to this fact. They seem to shoot to the point you are looking at. The red DO NOT and the beam is not visible .

Since its now ALL over the news there will be many more...

Cliff's Zarqawi-Saddam post is a good one. The idea that ideological rivals can't strikes deals has always struck me as comic book logic. In the real world it's a very common tale. Does nobody remember the Hitler-Stalin Pact of Steel?

Besides, Zarqawi is now officially a "prince" of al-Qaeda. You would think that all of the folks who want us to get out and soon would at least account for the fact that we'd be running from al-Qaeda attacks which would be an inconvenient fact for those who claim that Iraq is a distraction from the war on terrror, i.e. the war on al-Qaeda.

Correction I meant the Hitler-Stalin Pact, not the Pact of Steel which was between Mussolini and Hitler. See above.