I love internecine ideological squabbles, as any longtime reader knows. I love arguing about what is or is not the correct position for conservatives, libertarians, trekkies and trekkers and everything in between. But I usually expect a minimum level of argumentation. Why is this or that the conservative position? Why do you say Hayek or Burke or Strauss would like this or dislike that? Why do you claim there's a conservative position on X or Y at all? Etc, etc.

Maybe that's why I find this sort of thing so lame.

The "cunning realist" writes:

Apparently, there is some sort of virus going around that affects ostensibly Conservative media outlets. Over at The Corner, it seems they've overstepped their literary charter a bit, forgotten their ideological roots, and perhaps taken leave of their senses in the process. From Jonah Goldberg:

"Lastly, the death penalty. Again, this guy is guilty. There are many witnesses, including this poor woman who was shot in the fact, the pistol-whipped AJC reporter, the dozen or so people in the courtroom who were held at bay etc. Nichols apparently went considerably out of his way -- postponing his escape -- to shoot down a judge. Opponents of the death penalty who make their arguments on procedural grounds -- as opposed to strictly moral or ideological grounds -- need to explain why this man should not be executed. Fine, fine, there may be others on death row somewhere who shouldn't be. Or, there may not be. But none of that is relevant to whether this guy should get what he deserves."

Everyone ready to go out to Stone Mountain and find a tall tree?

Proclaiming a suspect's guilt the day he is arrested is the absolute antithesis of Conservative ideology, and is a basic part of the judicial systems of some of the "evil" nations in which the United States is currently trying to effect change.

Me: Note there's no argumentation here whatsoever. He simply asserts that my statement is not merely "un-conservative" but the "absolute antithesis of Conservative ideology."

Nonsense. I am not going to waste much time arguing with someone who doesn't even try to make an argument. But one would expect someone who calls himself a realist would at least understand the realism of my point. I am all in favor of the man getting a fair trial. Then I'm all in favor of him being executed once the reality of the situation is comfirmed by a court of law.

Regardless, I am a commentator, an opiner, a journalist, a citizen. There's nothing in conservatism or in America's judicial system which says I cannot proclaim my opinion on anything I choose. Stalin was never convicted of a crime, nor Hitler. I do not call them "alleged" criminals either. And, O.J. Simpson was cleared by a jury and I think he's guilt of murder and I see nothing wrong, never mind unconservative, in saying so. Frankly, I don't know what this guy is talking about and since he makes no effort to explain himself, I see no need to explain myself further.

Andy, by the end there you seemed to have almost embraced a kind of cosmic pessimism that makes tactical questions moot. Nil desperandum. Republicans have managed to have a few political successes over the years even with their flaws, the Democrats' wiliness, and the media's bias.

You are right to suggest that we don't have the kind of precise exit-poll data that would make it possible to speak a bit more confidently about the role of judicial-confirmation fights in recent Senate elections. That's why I tried to make sense of what evidence we have. I think it is reasonable to view the social issues and the judicial issues as politically intertwined. It is simply the case that the judicial-confirmation issue has what political punch it does, on both sides, because of the way it intersects with the social issues. And it is also the case that a good chunk of the time the social issues come up in the Senate, it's in the course of the judicial-confirmation wars. Pro-lifers and pro-choicers did use the judicial-confirmation issue to rev up their troops, and, as I said before, it appears that the pro-life/conservative side did so more successfully--and not just in South Dakota. Also, to repeat a comment I made in our last go-round: The fact that Senate Republicans have been far more likely to exploit this issue when trying to get votes suggests that the practical understanding politicians on the stuff they know best--what works for them politically--aligns with my view. (I know from my reporting that President Bush believes that the judicial issue was a major reason the Republicans took back the Senate.)

Finally, a word on the AG/Supreme Court question. I argued that the reason Daschle refused to filibuster Ashcroft in 2001 was that he figured that it would be too politically costly; and the reason that calculation was correct was that the public thinks it important that the job be filled. I argued further that a Supreme Court vacancy would play out similarly--the public would want that position filled. But appellate courts just don't command the same attention, and can be filibustered at lower cost (but still a real cost). Andy says that the real difference here is involvement in national security: That's why the public wants the AG spot filled, and it means that the Supreme Court is more like the appellate courts than like the AG slot. All I can say was that nobody pressed the national-security argument hard back in early 2001. But we may find out who's right about this point fairly soon.

As a close student -- and sometime practitioner -- of the genre, I must say Matt Labash has introduced a new standard of excellence. A very, very strong showing.

Three quick points. Fair or not many readers have commented that the fact the deputy who was overpowered was a woman is relevant. I agree to a point, but I've seen plenty of scrawny dudes working in similar roles. Still, if there are physical requirements for the job, they should be enforced regardless of the "disparate impact" on women or anybody else.

However, I find it astounding that it is against the law for a defendant to be brought into the courtroom in handcuffs on the grounds that it might influence the jury.

Lastly, the death penalty. Again, this guy is guilty. There are many witnesses, including this poor woman who was shot in the fact, the pistol-whipped AJC reporter, the dozen or so people in the courtroom who were held at bay etc. Nichols apparently went considerably out of his way -- postponing his escape -- to shoot down a judge. Opponents of the death penalty who make their arguments on procedural grounds -- as opposed to strictly moral or ideological grounds -- need to explain why this man should not be executed. Fine, fine, there may be others on death row somewhere who shouldn't be. Or, there may not be. But none of that is relevant to whether this guy should get what he deserves.

Rick - This conversation shall be continued.

Oh, yes. It shall be.

Andy McCarthy is asking me (among others) to justify the claim that Senate Democrats have paid a price for filibustering Bush's judicial nominees, and arguing that even if they did lose some Senate seats they would find that a price worth paying. The question is good and the argument interesting.

First, on Daschle. Here's McCarthy: "Had Daschle won, which he came very close to doing, could it really credibly have been said that this signalled that the filibusters were a a winning Democratic strategy? We would have scoffed at such a contention, and I don't think the counterclaim is any more persuasive just because he lost." I think the counterfactual doesn't work. If Daschle had won, we could confidently have said that filibustering judges didn't hurt him enough to cost him the election--but we would still have said that it hurt him. Why? Because we know from national polls taken during the election that voters, by a ten-point margin, preferred Bush to appoint judges rather than Kerry. Because we can see that in red states, it's Republican Senate candidates rather than Democrats who have been raising the issue on the stump. Because we have plenty of reason to think that the social issues such as abortion have been helpful to Republicans in Senate elections in 2002 and 2004 in Missouri, North Carolina, Georgia, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Louisiana--I'm probably leaving a few states off the list--and we know that those social issues are deeply entangled with the judicial-confirmation issue.

McCarthy is of course quite correct to point out that most people don't pay close attention to politics--and that's an understatement. But I'm not sure how far this gets you. People don't have to be consciously aware of the details of candidates' positions on issues for those positions to affect their votes. If Daschle had gone along with, say, the Estrada nomination, it would have made it much harder for the Republicans to portray him as an obstructionist opposed to conservative values. Given how close the vote was, I'm inclined to say that the obstruction made the difference in that race (which, of course, could also be said of other issues).

I don't think it's true that Ashcroft was confirmed without a filibuster because his job is seen as a national-security job or that his confirmation therefore holds no lessons for a Supreme Court confirmation fight. The position simply wasn't seen as primarily or even largely national-security-related in January 2001; it was debated in terms of race and religion. I think what's crucial is that the public thinks that the AG position is important and has to be filled for the government to run. They think that also about the Supreme Court. They don't think that about appeals-courts nominees.

Finally, on the question about Democrats' being willing to give up Senate seats in return for justices: that's a perfectly reasonable point when it comes to liberal activists or donors. But it's not obvious that the Democrats who hold those seats are always going to have those same priorities.

Interesting perspective, from a lawyer:

Jonah: Strange coincidence: A little while ago I was discussing the proposed bankruptcy reforms with a partner of mine who does recovery work. We talked about how the credit card companies want to limit access to relief under a personal bankruptcy filing - for fairly obvious reasons. Not two minutes later, I see your post on the HBO drug addict documentary. Another two minutes, and I get a call from my mom about a relative with a drug habit. It seems this relative (22 years old, no income), following what she describes as a common practice of drug addicts, obtained credit cards from several department store chains. She then purchased gift cards up to the limit of each store credit card (several thousand dollars under each card). These gift cards were then exchanged for drugs at about 50 cents on the dollar. She now wants to use bankruptcy to clear the debts. So on the one hand, I'm completely sympathetic with the argument that this kind of irresponsible build up of debt is not the type of situation where the bankruptcy laws should be used for a "fresh start". On the other hand, how much sympathy can one feel for the credit card companies if this debt were wiped clean - what were they all thinking in giving several thousand dollars in unsecured credit to a young unemployed person? Easy access to bankruptcy may make borrowers less responsible, but this seems to be one case where the lenders were hardly more responsible in extending credit. But either way, it also shows another negative social harm caused by drug addiction. Anyway, I thought it was strange to have the two themes collide like that while both were fresh on my mind. Keep up the great work.

Re your "Independent" post -- I think Cornerites can fairly say we are of the "Cosmo" generation of conservatives. And I don't mean "that" magazine, either.

The average 29-year-old now hankers for a return to the lifestyle of a 1950s housewife. The daughters of the "Cosmo" generation of feminists want nothing more than a happy marriage and domestic bliss in the countryside, according to a survey.

Research into the attitudes of 1,500 women with an average age of 29 found that 61 per cent believe "domestic goddess" role models who juggle top jobs with motherhood and jet-set social lives are "unhelpful" and "irritating". More than two-thirds agree that the man should be the main provider in a family, while 70 per cent do not want to work as hard as their mother's generation. On average, the women questioned want to "settle down" with their partner by 30 and have their first child a year later.

A team of U.S. doctors, headed by a University of Virginia professor, secretly flew to Vienna in mid-December to assist in the treatment of then-Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, according to U.S. officials, two of the doctors and the head of the Austrian clinic visited by Yushchenko....

Conservatives believe, not without reason, that private accounts will offer an invidious comparison to traditional Social Security. Workers will note that the taxes they send off to the traditional program disappear, while the money in their own accounts grows before their eyes. The private accounts will, in most cases, also appear to provide a higher rate of return. As noted above, the comparison is deceptive--traditional Social Security will be bearing the weight of the legacy debt, disability benefits, and, for affluent workers, redistribution to those earning less. But the comparison will create a constituency clamoring for expansion. Conservatives once proclaimed this unabashedly. The 1983 Cato Journal paper, which advocated what it called a "Leninist Strategy" for undermining Social Security, argued, "This mechanism for demonstrating the individual gains and losses that occur under Social Security is a key step in weakening public support for our present system."

Today's privatizers offer assurances that private accounts will be strictly limited and regulated. But those promises can't easily be reconciled with one of their key selling points--namely that workers would own them. "Under a privatized Social Security system, workers would have full property rights in their retirement accounts," writes Cato's Tanner. "They would own the money in them, the same way people own their IRA's or 401(k) plans." The comparison with IRAs and 401(k) accounts is instructive. These, like the proposed Social Security accounts, were created for the very narrow purpose of retirement savings. But their owners saw them as their own property and demanded the right to use them for children's educations, buying homes, and other purposes. Congress has steadily acceded to those demands, and the Bush administration has already proposed expanding IRAs into all-purpose tax shelters with even fewer restrictions.

As conservatives well understand, once a group of voters has been given a property right by Washington, they will never allow it to be taken away. The individual rights will be a ratchet, one that can be expanded but never contracted. The pressure for expansion would be especially strong during extended bull market runs, such as during the late '90s, when the public (and even some economists) tends to delude itself into thinking that stocks will rise forever. This is why conservatives are so insistent upon establishing individual accounts. They have uncharacteristically volunteered compromises--even offering to violate their theological opposition to tax hikes--in order to insert their opening wedge. Privatizers understand full well that any concessions they make can be legislated away in the future, while private accounts cannot.

Totally meaningless comment, but I read "you're at a cybermag" as "you're a cybernag". Sorry. Funny how the brain works.

Now that Frank Rich is being shifted back to the opinion pages, maybe he'll finally start giving us some actual arts coverage.

I write this with all respect, but I think you're being just a touch myopic in believing that the issue of judicial filibusters could ever have resonated with the general population. Most people-including intelligent, educated, folks who consider themselves to be politically aware-not only don't know who Arlen Specter is, they don't know what a filibuster is.

Whenever the question of the public's knowledge of politics comes up, I always think of Orrin Hatch's presidential campaign. Hatch recounted that he was "stunned" by how many people had never heard of him despite his years of ubiquity on Meet the Press and Face the Nation.

I pay far too much attention to this stuff myself, but I live and work in a city remote from D.C., and everyday I interact with professional people (lawyers, executives, etc) who couldn't name a U.S. Senator unless the Senator (1) is a "star" (Kennedy, Hillary), (2) is from the person's home state (and that's spotty) or (3) has had some direct effect on the person's business. I hear the words "Sarbanes-Oxley" (or maybe it's just one word by now) around the office about as frequently as "good morning" but I'll bet not a fifth of the folks who use it could tell you that Sarbanes is from Maryland.

No one will give a hoot what Mitt Romney's father did in 1964 or in 1968, when the elder said he had been "brainwashed." Only political junkies care.

This is like saying that liberals today care that Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater Girl in '64.

FLASH: Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D), longest-serving Senator in Maryland history, is expected to announce this afternoon that he will not seek a sixth term in 2006, ROLL CALL reporting... Developing...

This blogger says my post about Dope Sick Love is "rote nonsense" and he sent me the link with the subject header "you're dead wrong." He writes:

As for Goldberg and his rote nonsense: I would remind him that even in the political/legal climate as it is now, with all attendant corrosion of American culture beyond the immediate circle of this sort of thing (let's see who can distinguish between the actual dopers and everybody else who has to live with the widespread destruction of liberty that the War on Drugs has wrought), people still choose this way of death, and there is nothing on earth that he or anyone else can do about it when they do.

Suppress your liberal impulse, Jonah. Stop trying to save everyone. You can't, and you certainly have no right to attempt it at my expense.

Me:I find this not only to be childish table pounding, but completely off-point. When did I say we could "save" everyone? When did I suggest such was my goal? In fact, which of my points is this guy actually refuting? Or even trying to refute? The fact that these people are drug addicts despite the War on Drugs is a point I would make for my case. That some water makes it over the dam is not an argument against having the dam. That some people choose this "way of death" despite all of the barriers we throw up, does not demonstrate that there would not be many, many more people like this if we took those barriers down. Easier access to cheaper drugs would not create fewer addicts -- at least not in the short run (I am open to the argument that in the long run society might find an equilibrium). There are some people who become slaves to drugs very quickly and the only reason many do not become so enslaved is that it is a relative hassle to get them and use them in the open. Take away the hassle factor -- i.e. lower the price -- and you will increase the consumption.

And, as this documentary demonstrates, for some irreducible percentage of the population once they are addicted they cannot be un-addicted.

I have had this argument too many times to count now. I don't dispute that some people are simply self-destructive (I've known more than my share). But drugs like crack and heroin -- but not pot, which I favor decriminalizing -- make some people self-destructive who otherwise might not be. The economic model so many legalizers emphasize assumes people are rational actors without accepting that drugs by definition transform you into an irrational actor -- some permanently, others just for an evening. I'm not being "liberal" in pointing out that there are costs and benefits for both policy options. Legalization will have horrible costs in my opinion. Mature advocates of legalization admit this. They simply think the current costs of the drug war are greater and the benefits of ending it would outweigh the downside. All I disagree with is their accounting.

The Church report proves those assertions wrong. It says, "We found, without exception, that the DoD and senior military commanders responsible for the formulation of interrogation policy evidenced the intent to treat detainees humanely, which is fundamentally inconsistent with the notion that such officials or commanders ever accepted that detainee abuse would be permissible . . . [and] it is clear that none of the pictured abuses at Abu Ghraib bear any resemblance to approved policies at any level, in any theater."

But what about Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay? Weren't the interrogators just turned loose? In fact, no. Church wrote, "We found no link between approved interrogation techniques and detainee abuse."

Church found that most of the abuse cases didn't even come out of interrogations. "Of the 70 cases of . . . substantiated abuse, only 20 of these cases, or less than one-third, could be considered 'interrogation-related.' " The rest occurred in situations such as at the "point of capture" — where soldiers who've captured people they believed had caused the deaths or wounding of their pals got emotionally carried away.

As the Church report shows, the terrorists are trained in our interrogation methods and how to resist them. When we use more aggressive techniques — as we did in the case of two "high-value" detainees at Guantanamo who resisted standard interrogation for months — the new techniques "successfully neutralized the two detainees' resistance training and yielded valuable intelligence."

Church said in a conference call Wednesday that our interrogators are now "clamped up" — declining to push interrogations as hard as they legally and morally can and should for fear of the next investigation that will come along.

All Americans owe a debt of gratitude to the men and women of the agency who executed these presidentially requested and approved operations, often at the risk of their lives. Unfortunately, rather than receiving thanks, the C.I.A. officers are again learning the usual lesson: to follow orders, make America safer and prepare to be abandoned and prosecuted when the policy makers refuse to defend their own decisions.

As the bankruptcy bill emerged, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, sought to rally members of his party around a series of amendments that would offer special protection for those whose bankruptcy was attributed to health care costs or other unexpected expenses. But on that and nearly every other attempted change, solid Republican opposition, bolstered by a handful of Democrats, prevailed.

On the call to cut off debate on the bill, 13 Democrats joined Republicans, some of whom said privately that they were astonished that Democratic opponents of the bill were losing so many from their own party.

To TechCentralStation. They celebrated their 5th anniversary last night here in DC. For five years our friend Nick Schulz has done a stupendous job in making an indispensable site only better and better -- despite the hardship of what I consider to be a truly lame name for a magazine. Perhaps at their tenth anniversary party they'll re-christen it GadgetPortAuthority or GizmoMainTerminal.

I say it out of love.

From a reader:

Dear Jonah and Andrew, Thanks gentlemen for the Reason vs. Revelation death match. Kidding aside, it is a worthy conversation, although I think that there may be disconnect in it.

I think Andrew and Jonah might agree that 1) Religion as a ground for politics is a bad idea and potentially quite destructive, AND that 2) Believing that rationality is the only way of knowing the world is destructive and leads to dangerously grounded political orders also. Jonah's claim seems to be more about ontology, or what COUNTS when you are thinking about the world. While Andrew is raising concerns about how political orders have been grounded. Perhaps I am missing a more important disagreement, however.

Below are some more thoughts on the matter (although of questionable merit and will likely have you asking, "what does this have to do with Carl Schmitt?", the ramble below is how I came to the two points above):

Jonah says that the commitment to untainted rationality is likely to end in an ugly will to power in the political order, and Andrew says that the days of tainted rationality (and religious wars) can look an awful lot like a an ugly will to power situation also. I do think Andrew is correct except that some religions are more susceptible to ugliness than others, where as the extreme rationality approach is what it is. Carl Schmitt's (A one-time nazi) Concept of the Political (1927 I think) suggests that the political is that which is non-negotiable, that for which you are willing to kill or be killed (or have men kill or be killed). Schmitt seems to lament the loss of content from the political that it is now just down to a version of humanism or human rights. These other things, religion, culture, language that used to be important [worth fighting for] have been sucked away. Leo Strauss criticized that view and argued that the remaining humanism is a legitimate political ground--and a safe one (he argued against Schmitt before 1933, I think, so it was not a reaction to the Holocaust but a warning of it). What does this have to do with your conversation?

Strauss's insight that keeping religion out of the realm of that for which you fight in the political [violent arena by Schmitt's definition] arena is a good idea, does not conflict with an understanding that pure rationality leads to a destructive will to power. Andrew and Jonah can agree that 1) Religion as a ground for politics is a bad idea and potentially destructive, AND that 2) Believing that rationality is the only way of knowing the world is destructive.

Best,

Me: A very thoughtful email. My only objections, for now, are that A) Schmitt wasn't merely a one-time Nazi. In every meaningful sense once he became a Nazi he never stopped being one. He never expressed any remorse for the Holocaust even long, long after the details were known. The "crown jurist" of the Nazi Reich may have gotten into some intra-party squabbles and the like, but in his heart he remained a Nazi in the ways that count.

And B) I'm not positive the reader is exactly right about Schmitt's definition of the political. My understanding is that Schmitt believed every thing was political even those things which we call apolitical -- since to declare something beyond politics is itself a political act. Interestingly, Mark Lilla argues that Schmitt was fundamentally a theological thinker (which may play into my argument with Andrew more than the reader allows). But this may all be a trivial point and I am no expert on Schmitt (though I've been reading more by and about him lately).

It's a must-see new documentary on HBO. It is a brutal-but-riveting depiction of the worst ravages of drug addiction. It is not suitable for little kids.I would encourage advocates of legalization to watch it, not so much to change their minds (though some might) but because it's an important reminder that at least at first, legalization would create more cases like the ones depicted in this film, not fewer. I am perfectly comfortable admitting that the drug war has huge downsides, many of which I would like to ameliorate. It would be nice if more proponents of legalization at least acknowledge that there would be massive downsides to ending it at well. I'm not trying to create a strawman, I know there are realists around here. But they don't read my email.

Andrew - I think you make a truly excellent and fair point about technology being a -- or perhaps the -- key restraint on some previous genocidal campaigns. Lord knows how much worse off, say, the Huguenots might have been if the Gatling gun had been around. But while I'm no student of pre-modern genocide, it seems to me that a lack of technology hasn't stopped some mass murderers from getting away with, uh, murder. Rwanda had no Auschwitz.

And I guess we agree on much else as well. I think you're probably right to look at what unites genocidal movements rather than the ideas they profess to hold. I guess what interests me for the purposes of this discussion is that so many of the forces of "reason," truth, light and progress which were allegedly unleashed by the Enlightenment in general and the French Revolution in particular were in fact used as ruses for horrors as bad as any which came before -- and in some cases worse -- and were all the more horrific because they were commited by the most "enlightened" elements of society.

This, in the modern era, is the crucial distinction I was trying to highlight. It is one thing to believe in an actual religion which puts God and the hereafter permanently in the hereafter. It is another to use the passions of religion in an attempt to bring heaven to Earth. I agree that fanatics of authentic religions have attempted to do just that with bloody results. But the deadliest cults in the modern era have tended to hide behind the language of reason, or The People, or "social justice" or "the Proletariat." And even some religious movements are really religious in name only. Much of al Qaeda's schtick is really just warmed-over anti-colonialism and nationalism with a thick Islamic varnish to make it more attractive to the rubes who blow themselves up in order to get their 72 first dates.

After the apathetic ‘si’ that Spain gave to the proposed EU constitution, attention is now turning to the referendum in France, now pushed to an earlier date by a Jacques Chirac concerned that support for this revolting document among the French is fading away.

But could the Netherlands be about to spring a surprise? The London Times has this to say:

“The Government has announced that a referendum on the constitution will take place on June 1. It will be the first time that Dutch citizens are asked what they think of the EU. While international attention has been focused on the French referendum, just three days earlier on May 29, the Dutch are far more likely to slam on the brakes of the constitutional juggernaut. Polls in France still show a majority in favour of the constitution, but the Government in The Hague has been shocked to find that a majority of its citizens are opposed, and by no small margin. A recent poll was telling. It showed that 42 per cent of Dutch would choose to vote “no”, against 28 per cent who plan to vote “yes”. The Netherlands is the only founding member of the EU in which opinion polls suggest that the constitution will be rejected.”

Better I think, to look beneath the very different beliefs professed by the mass murderers, and see what unites them. Some will be cynics merely using an ideology for their purposes, while others, more dangerous, are the true believers – in the ‘People’ perhaps, or a god – who feel that so long as they are acting in the interests (as they interpret it) of their faith any atrocity can be justified, however appalling.

for little kids, according to George Lucas. Of course, he also says he's "very please with the whole" series. So take his judgement as you will.

It is time to act on precisely that intuition and pass a law that draws that line: no creation for the purpose of destruction. We need to do it consensually. And we need to do it now. Tomorrow is too late. By tomorrow we will have an embryo manufacturing industry, and we will already be numb to it.

According to Claudia Rosett:

BEIRUT - With the reinstatement yesterday of the same pro-Syrian prime minister who resigned 11 days ago, Omar Karami, Lebanon's democratic spring is turning into a high-stakes showdown not only for the Lebanese, but for President Bush's policy of busting up the autocratic rackets of the Middle East.

Right now, the situation looks increasingly dire for this country's democratic opposition. But plenty turns on whether Mr. Bush, who has promised the democrats support in their bid to end Syrian domination, will stick to his word. Signs are that, much like Saddam Hussein, the Baathist regime of Syrian leader Bashar Assad is out of tune with the times, stuck in the era of pre-September 11 American foreign policy and betting that Mr. Bush doesn't mean what he says.

Among the graffiti in Beirut's Martyrs' Square, epicenter of the democratic movement, is a telling mix of two dictators' names, scrawled in English: "Assaddam."

HEARING OF THE SCIENCE, JUSTICE, STATE, COMMERCE SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: FY06 DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE BUDGET
CHAIRED BY: REP. FRANK WOLF (R-VA)
WITNESS: FBI DIRECTOR ROBERT MUELLER
2359 HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
10:03 A.M. EST, TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2005

REP. WOLF: 112952 Thank you, Mr. Director. I'll have a number of questions at the end, but we're going to have a couple of preliminary ones so everyone has plenty of time to ask questions.
I would just say, thinking back at your first appearance before the committee, it's a fairly dramatic difference insofar as your testimony then with regard to now. I think the Bureau has become much more robust. And it would be interesting to go back and match it word for word to see how dramatically the Bureau has actually changed.
113023 Just a couple of questions. One I think you know. 113028 Last week NBC News carried a story about some terrorists who were in the Supermax prison writing people outside. 113037 We met with representatives of the attorney general's office late last week, either on Thursday or Friday -- I think it was Thursday -- and also members of the Bureau of Prisons.
113050 I don't think anyone who's been connected with any terrorist activity -- and that was the attempt on the World Trade Center in 1993 -- ought to be permitted to write outside. 113100 Now, I understand -- I was told that there were several Supreme Court decisions that the Bureau of Prisons was basing their policy on.
113112 The world has changed dramatically. I think the last decision -- one was from the '70s; one was in the '80s. I'm asking you to go back and look at that changing it again. And, quite frankly, if you have any problem with the Supreme Court, it just sort of came to me; this committee has given the Supreme Court a tremendous amount of money to protect the court with regard to bombings, with regard to many other activities. The court itself and the justices are aware of the threat because they have been to this committee over and over in asking for things. So everyone would understand the world has changed since 9/11.
I read a piece, I think in the New York Times, by McCarthy, Andrew McCarthy, Andy McCarthy. Do you know him?
MR. MUELLER: Yes.
REP. WOLF: Do you think he's a pretty good person?
MR. MUELLER: He's one of the best prosecutors you can find in the United States. He is one of the best prosecutors you'll ever find in handling a terrorist case.
REP. WOLF: And did you read his piece? Was it the New York Times? Did you read the piece?
MR. MUELLER: I believe it was the New York Times.
REP. WOLF: The National Journal -- where he made the case that this is a totally poor policy, bad policy, inappropriate policy, because those letters could be used for recruitment and many other things, which we won't go into here today. Did you see his piece?
MR. MUELLER: I had thought that I had seen a piece by him. I'm not certain where the piece was, but I do recall seeing a piece by him -- it may have been summarized someplace -- where he articulates that understanding.
REP. WOLF: 113238 Do you believe that the policy should be changed whereby people who have been convicted of terrorist activity, terrorist activity -- and there were three individuals, I think, who died in the attack on the World Trade Center -- 113255 that ought not be permitted to just write letters outside that can be used for recruitment and other reasons?
MR. MUELLER: 113255 I absolutely believe, and I know the Department of Justice and BOP are looking at enhanced restrictions on the ability of persons who have been convicted of crimes relating to terrorism to correspond with others outside. 113312
REP. WOLF: Could you report back to the committee? And hopefully this change will take place relatively soon so that you wouldn't want to find that something happened because of a letter that was sent out yesterday or a letter was sent out tomorrow. I think the policy ought to be changed relatively soon. So if you could report back or ask the attorney general to report back to the committee on how the policy is being changed.
MR. MUELLER: Be happy to do that.
REP. WOLF: Okay, thank you. The second issue is with regard to the Virtual Case File. As we mentioned earlier, we have asked the committee's survey and investigation staff to do a review of the Virtual Case Files program. We understand that your staff has been very helpful providing the S&I staff with information.

Old dialogue from Slate between Peter Singer and Richard Posner. My favorite passage from Posner:

Now you may reply that these are just facts about human nature; that they have no normative significance. But they do. Suppose a dog menaced a human infant and the only way to prevent the dog from biting the infant was to inflict severe pain on the dog—more pain, in fact, than the bite would inflict on the infant. You would have to say, let the dog bite (for "if an animal feels pain, the pain matters as much as it does when a human feels pain," provided the pain is as great). But any normal person (and not merely the infant's parents!), including a philosopher when he is not self-consciously engaged in philosophizing, would say that it would be monstrous to spare the dog, even though to do so would minimize the sum of pain in the world.

I do not feel obliged to defend this reaction; it is a moral intuition deeper than any reason that could be given for it and impervious to any reason that you or anyone could give against it. Membership in the human species is not a "morally irrelevant fact," as the race and sex of human beings has come to seem. If the moral irrelevance of humanity is what philosophy teaches, and so we have to choose between philosophy and the intuition that says that membership in the human species is morally relevant, then it is philosophy that will have to go.

Washington DC, March 10, 2005/RPS/ -- The Arab Human Rights Committee in Syria, led by Dr. Ammar Qurabi, called for Syrians to peacefully march to the Ministry of Justice today to object the lack of freedom and expression and to free prisoners of conscience in Syria.

Upon arrival to the Ministry of Justice, about 100 marchers were met by intelligence and security personnel who used sticks and batons to beat the marchers back and to disperse them. Some people sustained injuries.

The treatment of intellectuals and human rights activists in Syria is subject to great debate in the society. More and more Syrians have come to the conclusion that the regime must change in order to deconstruct the country and construct it again. Lack of respect for the constitution and the laws in the Syrian society is driving people to think in extreme ways.

As a pediatrician and medical geneticist I've had to deal with the issue of newborns with fatal malformation or syndromes on a few occasions, and this whole euthanasia thing in the Netherlands really makes my skin crawl. About 1 in every 7 or 8,000 newborns has trisomy 13 or 18, for example (think Down syndrome, only a lot worse). These conditions are almost always lethal in the first few months of life and are characterized by a variety of birth defects, everything from cleft lip and palate to complex congenital heart disease, to structural brain malformations and severe retardation. Very few live more than a few years. These are terrible conditions, but they're not painful, except, of course to the family. Counseling in these situations usually involves spelling out the facts (obviously in much more detail) and, in my experience, most families accept the situation, understand their baby is going to have a short life, and enjoy the time with their baby as much as possible. I've never heard anyone suggest euthanasia. However, medical intervention is often tailored to the situation, for example, in an otherwise healthy newborn with complex congenital heart disease, corrective surgery would be arranged. However, if the infant has trisomy 13, it's difficult to justify the expense, resources and pain required to fix the heart, if the ultimate outcome won't be altered. So if no amount of medical intervention is going to lengthen their life, why put them thru it? It's always seemed to me that the humane thing to do in these hopeless cases is to just let nature take its course, and I don't mean exposure on a hillside, but rather provide food, comfort, love and attention, and understand that medical technology can only do so much. I don't see how any active measures to "speed things along" could ever be justified on the basis of sparing the infant unnecessary suffering, because I really don't think they are suffering. While I'm sure there is a financial incentive driving this, as every day in the NICU costs thousands of dollars, I think it's clear that one reason infants are being euthanized in the Netherlands to spare their parents (and the "caregivers") needless suffering. Once we start justifying infanticide to make ourselves feel better, what's next?

My post about contradictions has elicited some interesting email. Perhaps I'll columnize on it later. But there was one thing I wrote in haste that an old friend of mine who's a real-live working historian called me on. He's right. The New Deal didn't break the consensus about a pluralistic society. It was simply the apotheosis of a trend which started with the Progressives. The salient bit from his email:

The Progressive Era was all about rationalizing society. This definitely
predates 1920 and is more than just a caveat. Just finished reading Walter
Lippmann's Drift and Mastery (1914) with my class this week. Lippmann,
moving away from socialism, is all about rationalizing society along
scientific models. If you haven't read it, you need to for your book (as if
you don't have enough reading). It's a model for the Big Business-Big
Labor-Big Government axis that develops beginning in the New Deal and
continues through the 1960s.

World War I was a model for the rationalizing and nationalizing of the New
Deal and WWII, especially with the War Industries Board.

As for Andrew's point about rationality being in the eye of the beholder, I take his point. However, I'd argue that most of the really famous mass murders of the 20th century were not the result of faith in transcendent moral precepts, properly understood. Rather they were the result of men trying to replace transcendence with their own will to power. This was the point of Julien Benda's Treason of the Intellectuals where he rightly decried the the new fashion among intellectuals to deify the particular (nation, race, class) while denouncing the divine. For the first time the intellectual class -- which he defined broadly -- had taken sides against Socrates. Hitler, Stalin and Mao did not murder for transcendent moral precepts, they murdered because they believed such concepts no longer applied.

Let me also point out that I have yet to see a patient -- ever -- with truly untreatable pain. There are other symptoms that can be very refractory to treatment, particularly nausea or depression, but pain is *easy*. The difficulty comes when the dose of medication required to treat pain produces enough depression of respiration to endanger the patient's breathing. That's where the "doctrine of double effect" comes in -- the idea that a dose of (for example) morphine that hastens a patient's death is not euthanasia and hence ethically acceptable if it truly is the lowest dose required to make the patient comfortable. It's the intent of the prescriber that matters, not the effect on the patient. While this can be difficult in the sense of trying to evaluate someone's conduct afterward, I've never had any difficulty in knowing the difference between increasing the dose of a pain medication because the patient still hurts (even though I know I'm taking greater risks with his breathing, risks that are acceptable to him because of limited prognosis) on the one hand, and prescribing something with the intent of ending someone's life (which I've never done). The idea of killing an infant because I in all my wisdom think that his life is not worth living is repugnant.

As you note, Shannen, we agree on a lot here. Senate Republicans are certainly within their rights to abolish judicial filibusters. (I think they would probably be within their rights to abolish filibusters altogether by a simple majority vote.) And neither of us knows for sure how a fight over a Supreme Court nominee would go under the current rules. Even on the politics, I'm not sure how much we disagree. I'm not contesting your claim that the Democrats have a high level of commitment to beating conservative nominees; so far at least, you have not contested my contention that the filibusters of judicial nominees have been politically costly for Democrats. (These views are perfectly compatible with each other: One could argue that the fact that Democrats persist in filibustering even though they are paying a price for it shows how committed they are.) Nor have you contested my contention that we have reason to think that a Supreme Court filibuster would be even costlier for them.

If we had a situation where the Democrats persisted in filibustering a Supreme Court nominee in the face of public opposition--and if the filibuster could not be broken no matter how intelligently and forcefully the Republicans fought it (and I would hope that under these circumstances they would do rather more than they have done to date). . . . Well, then my argument against ending the filibuster would lose much of whatever force it has. And that would probably be the most propitious time to impose a rules change.

"Most of the reservists called up to serve in the Iraq war have paid a big price: a significant reduction of their wages as they transferred from civilian to military jobs, separation from their loved ones, and of course the risk of battle wounds or death. Regrettably, on their return home, those who are divorced fathers could face another grievous penalty: loss of their children, financial ruin, prosecution as "deadbeat dads," and even jail. Reservists' child-support orders were based on their civilian wages, and when they are called up to active duty, that burden doesn't decrease. Few can get court modification before they leave, modifications are seldom granted anyway, and even if a father applied for modification before deployment the debt continues to grow until the case is decided much later. These servicemen fathers cannot get relief when they return because federal law forbids a court to reduce the debt retroactively. Once the arrearage reaches $5,000, the father becomes a felon subject to imprisonment plus the loss of his driver's and professional licenses and passport."

Staggering.

Beyond the issue of reservists, Schlafly has plenty more to say about how 'deadbeat dads' are treated. The whole piece is well worth reading.

Hat-tip Radley Balko

1. NO ONE at SENIOR levels ascribes to such nonsense.

2. Hizbollah is not an independent actor. It does Iran's and Syria's bidding. Neither wants Syria out of Lebanon, which is PRECISELY what President Bush constantly demands: the full withdrawal of Syrian troops and military intelligence from Lebanon and FULL implementation of UN Resolution 1559 which calls for the dismantling of all militias. I guess Weisman's sources think Presidential speeches are advisory in nature.

3. Hizbollah's support in Lebanon is from (about) 30 to 40 percent of the Shiite community. That 30 to 40 percent supports Hizbollah because they depend on Hizbollah for basic services. If this were to change (i.e., we, France, EU, et.al, set the conditions for the Lebanese government to provide those services), there is little doubt these Shiites would act more independently.

4. Unlike the spontaneous pro-Lebanon demonstrations last week, this Hizbollah demonstration was organized well-in-advance BY THE SYRIANS. There are eyewitness accounts of hundreds of Syrian commercial busses crossing into Lebanon full of demonstrators. Also, there are accounts of large numbers of Palestinians being rousted from their refugee camps, put in dozens of commercial busses to Beirut to take part in the demonstration. Finally, many "demonstrators" spoke with Syrian accents. Syrians in Lebanon are despised by most Lebanese.

5. Finally, isn't it just a bit odd that, here, we have thousands of people seemingly demonstrating in FAVOR of occupation?

"Suffering is a subjective feeling that cannot be measured objectively, whether in adults or in infants. But we accept that adults can indicate when their suffering is unbearable. Infants cannot express their feelings through speech, but they do so through different types of crying, movements, and reactions to feeding. Pain scales for newborns, based on changes in vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing pattern) and observed behavior, may be used to determine the degree of discomfort and pain. Experienced caregivers and parents are able to evaluate the degree of suffering in a newborn, as well as the degree of relief afforded by medication or other measures. In the Netherlands, euthanasia for competent persons older than 16 years of age has been legally accepted since 1985. The question under consideration now is whether deliberate life-ending procedures are also acceptable for newborns and infants, despite the fact that these patients cannot express their own will. Or must infants with disorders associated with severe and sustained suffering be kept alive when their suffering cannot be adequately reduced?

In the Netherlands, as in all other countries, ending someone's life, except in extreme conditions, is considered murder. A life of suffering that cannot be alleviated by any means might be considered one of these extreme conditions. Legal control over euthanasia in newborns is based on physicians' own reports, followed by assessment by criminal prosecutors."

"Infants and newborns for whom such end-of-life decisions might be made can be divided into three categories. First, there are infants with no chance of survival. This group consists of infants who will die soon after birth, despite optimal care with the most current methods available locally. These infants have severe underlying disease, such as lung and kidney hypoplasia.

Infants in the second group have a very poor prognosis and are dependent on intensive care. These patients may survive after a period of intensive treatment, but expectations regarding their future condition are very grim. They are infants with severe brain abnormalities or extensive organ damage caused by extreme hypoxemia. When these infants can survive beyond the period of intensive care, they have an extremely poor prognosis and a poor quality of life.

Finally, there are infants with a hopeless prognosis who experience what parents and medical experts deem to be unbearable suffering. Although it is difficult to define in the abstract, this group includes patients who are not dependent on intensive medical treatment but for whom a very poor quality of life, associated with sustained suffering, is predicted. For example, a child with the most serious form of spina bifida will have an extremely poor quality of life, even after many operations. This group also includes infants who have survived thanks to intensive care but for whom it becomes clear after intensive treatment has been completed that the quality of life will be very poor and for whom there is no hope of improvement. "

"Twenty-two cases of euthanasia in newborns have been reported to district attorneys' offices in the Netherlands during the past seven years. They all involved infants with very severe forms of spina bifida. In most cases (17 of the 22), a multidisciplinary spina bifida team was consulted. In the remaining five cases, at least two other independent medical experts were consulted. The physicians based their decisions on the presence of severe suffering without hope of improvement. The decisions were always made in collaboration with, and were fully approved by, both parents."

"Given that the national survey indicated that such procedures are performed in 15 to 20 newborns per year, the fact that an average of three cases were reported annually suggests that most cases are simply not being reported. We believe that all cases must be reported if the country is to prevent uncontrolled and unjustified euthanasia and if we are to discuss the issue publicly and thus further develop norms regarding euthanasia in newborns."

It was an historic speech at a delicate time for the tall, well-educated and soft spoken man.

A reader who sends me email about developments in Iran just sent me this:

Today 50 Iranians, inspired by the comments of Iranian scholar and righteous activist, Frood Fouladvand (who runs a TV station out of his home in London) gathered in London, boarding a plane to Brussels. In Brussels they refused to get off the plane that is still sitting on the tarmak of the Brussels airport and they are conducting a very quiet and peaceful protest against the heads of the E.U. who refuse to stop doing business with the bloodthirsty regime of the Islamic Republic and the Mullahs in Iran. The protestors have been verbally abused by the Belgian authorities, being accused of hijacking and though the protestors are doing nothing but singing Iranian national anthems of a free Iran and asking to speak to the UK, French and German representatives to the E.U. they are being nonetheless abused by Belgian authorities who are refusing to allow the media on plane.

They are chanting: "We are the messengers of peace. We are against global terrorism. We will remove the malignant terrorist regime of the Mullahs..."

The world media should respect these forms of peaceful and righteous protests and should expose the refusal of governments like those European nations who have actively ignored the pleas and cries of the desperate people of Iran in favor of cheap trade with a terrorist-financing government.

Here's a wire story on it.

I edited that post below a tiny bit because I hit publish before I was ready.

If you're looking for the Burke quote I yanked, here it is: "The nature of man is intricate," wrote Edmund Burke, "the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity; and therefore no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man's nature or to the quality of his affairs."

That horrific nonsense from Singer reminds me of something.

I've received some fascinating email regarding yesterday's post on conservatism and hypocrisy. Most of it, alas, is too long to put in the Corner.

But a point that I keep returning to in my correspondence with some readers on this point is that I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that one of the defining differences betwen liberals and conservatives -- of a certain type at least -- is the way they approach the "problem" of internal contradictions in a given society. Singer comes from a branch of thinking which despises contradiction. He defends his horrible policy conclusions by saying they were reached by logical deduction and that he's a "consistent" philosopher. All of that is debatable, but to a certain extent irrelevant. Just as Chesterton tells us that the purely rational man will not fight nor marry, the perfectly "rational" society of Peter Singer will countenance infanticide and inter-species "dating" all in the name of having perfectly consistent standards.

I believe in consistent standards, but they need to be drawn from something other than a sterile rationalism which does not take certain tanscendent moral precepts as givens. Singer doesn't take the sanctity of human life as a given. He doesn't give the the taboo of human-animal sex as a given. He finds the messy contradictions and hypocrisies of organic society offensive to his intellect. The problem is that any real society must have internal contradictions. It must be immune to the impulse of pure rationality. But like an obsessive compulsive who washes his hands so much they end-up bloody and raw, the obsessive-planner is convinced that just a bit more tweaking, a bit more data, will yield the contradiction-free society. There's a serious argument that it was this obsession with the rational not the obsessive irrationalism of anti-Semitism, which led to the Holocaust.

With important caveats, liberal pluralism and traditional conservatism once shared the view that society was too complicated to be made entirely rational.
This consensus started to change in the 1920s and shattered under FDR. Today, I think the acceptance that there will always be contradictions, trade-offs and animosities even in the most successful societies is largely -- though not entirely -- a conservative trait. (Marc Cooper has an outstandingly good essay in the current Atlantic [no link] demonstrating that not all liberals feel this way). Was it not Bill Clinton who called every choice which might create a winner and a loser "a false choice"?

Euthanizing terminally ill newborns, while still very rare, is more common in the Netherlands than was believed when the startling practice was reported a few months ago -- and experts say it also occurs, quietly, in other countries.

Dutch doctors estimate that at least five newborn mercy killings occur for every one reported in that country, which has allowed euthanasia for competent adults since 1985.

BATES TOWNSHIP, Mich. Mar 10, 2005 —

A man cooking in his kitchen was shot after one of his cats knocked his 9mm handgun onto the floor, discharging the weapon, Michigan State Police said.

From a reader:

Dear Jonah,

I like reading your stuff, but like the previous writer I don't have a lot of time to wade through crap. So in future please preface all articles dealing with Common Law, Arlen Specter and Hilary Clinton with the word "crap", and all references to Star Trek, Volcano LASERs and time wasters as "fun".

Thank you,
A Gruntled Reader

From a reader re the post about Norway's Prime Minister:

Jonah, you only caught one piece of this absurd story. Ikea is in a no win situation. They have deliberately avoided using female figures because "it feared it might offend the Muslim world." But, in the process they've offended Sweden. All of this because they already switched from actual written instructions to the hieroglyphics (reversing an improvement in human communications made several thousand years ago) because printing them in some language or some number of languages might offend those who speak others and assembly instructions in 100 languages would weigh more than the furniture. I suggest they leave them out all together. That way they'd only tick off.......well.........all their customers.

From a reader:

I love your work, Jonah, but I am a busy person. I don’t have time to wade through foolishness to reach the meat of your discussion nor do I have the time to read the first paragraph of your posts to see if it is worth my time. Please preface all popular culture/science fiction/time waster posts with the word “crap”. That way I won’t have to waste my time. No offense intended. It is strictly a practical matter.

Some nations live beyond the edge of the envelope at the end of history (they are allowed to do so thanks to the umbrella of peace and prosperity America maintains). All major arguments about the organization of life have been settled in these societies, even if they cannot see it themselves. Conflicts are manufactured like those on a college campus where the tensions are high but the stakes are low. But even these islands at the end of history must deal with the rest of the world and while some of these interactions -- i.e. immigration -- are very serious most of these forays into the slipstream of history highlight how petty the issues of the new age are.

Case in point: The Prime Minister of Norway is furious that the pictograms explaining how to build Ikea furniture are male-normative. Ikea is a Swedish company.

I bought the books as a birthday present for my wife and a pre-birthday present for our unborn baby. This is our first, and I'm eagerly looking forward to reading them to him or her, although I expect I may be reading "Go, Dog. Go!" a few times first. Anyway, thanks for making some quality material available!

A senior U.N. envoy said on Wednesday that far more people had died in Sudan's Darfur region than the 70,000 previously estimated and chastised African nations for not sending enough peacekeepers.

Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, who just visited Darfur and other parts of Sudan, said it was impossible to estimate the number of deaths from killings or disease because "it is where we are not that there are attacks."

Egeland said the old figure of 70,000 dead from last March to the late summer was unhelpful. "Is it three times that? Is it five times that? I don't know but it is several times the number of the 70,000 that have died altogether," he said.

Women and girls in war-ravaged Darfur are continuing to suffer a high incidence of rape and sexual violence, according to a report issued today by Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). Stories of rape survivors told to MSF are a horrific illustration of the daily reality of the ongoing violence that has displaced almost two million people in Darfur.

Between October 2004 and mid-February 2005, MSF doctors in numerous locations in South and West Darfur treated almost 500 women and girls who were raped. MSF believes that these numbers reflect only a fraction of the total number of victims because many women are reluctant to report the crime or seek treatment. Almost a third (28%) of the rape survivors who sought treatment from MSF reported that they were raped more than once, either by single or multiple assailants. In more than half the cases, the rape was accompanied by additional physical abuse. Women told MSF that they were beaten with sticks, whips or axes before, during or after the act of rape. Some of the raped women were visibly pregnant, as much as five to eight months, at the time of the assault.

The majority of survivors of rape and sexual violence tell MSF that the attacks occurred when women left the relative safety of villages and displaced camps to carry out activities indispensable of the survival of the families, such as searching for firewood or water.

81% of the 500 rape survivors treated by MSF reported being assaulted by militia or military who used their weapons to force the assault. In Darfur, as in other conflicts, rape has been a regular and deliberate tool of war. It is used to destabilize and threaten a part of the civilian population, often a particular group.

The difference between the Cedar Revolution and the staged pro-Syria demonstrations we have seen in the last two days is that the Cedar Revolution is a grass root movement nurtured by the will to seek freedom. On the other hand, the staged demonstrations in support for the Syrian Ba'ath party are instigated by fear. People are ordered to participate. Therefore, they can only do one or two of these demonstrations at the most while the Cedar Revolution will continue.

We are far from considering what happened as a set-back. Rather, it is a comeback by the forces of evil in the Syrian Ba'ath party that is looking to confront the UN and the world community and to challenge the Bush administration to a duel. The stupidity of the Ba'athists lies in their miniature understanding of the capabilities of the West to harness immense economic and political powers against the Syrian regime. Even the Soviet Union faltered but the Syrian regime forgot how and when it seems.

An Iraqi friend told me that the Iraqi intelligence used to look up to the superiority of the Syrian intelligence apparatus. It is a worthy enemy that must be dealt with accordingly.

We expect more pressure on the Syrian regime that will weaken it further. Their biggest assets have been deployed for all of us to see while the United States has yet to deploy its arsenal to show the Ba'athists in Damascus our capabilities. The patience the President is showing is leading him down the path of a united and concerted effort by the US and Europe to destroy Ba'athism once and for all. We believe that the Syrian Ba'ath party is a terrorist party that must be dealt with swiftly. It is far richer, more organized, and still has a legitimate country from which it can fight democracy and freedom. The United States must know that if Ba'athism goes, so will Hezbollah's powers and possibly the Mullahs in Tehran who will be standing all alone in a sea of democracy.

Now you praise the filibuster as a "time-honored Senate procedure." In 1995, when Bill Clinton was president, you called it "an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose."

You disparage the Republicans' view that 51 votes should be enough for judicial confirmation. Yet the 51-vote rule is a consistent Senate tradition. By calling for an end to filibusters, the Senate is simply contemplating restoring its traditions by traditional methods you disparage as "nuclear," even though they were once endorsed by such leading Democrats as Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Charles E. Schumer and Robert C. Byrd.

An email: "The gap in your argument is what happens to (a) the current appellate court nominees being filibustered, and (b) future nominees who are filibustered. You can argue that once a filibuster is broken on the Court that it’ll go away for every lower court judge, or you can argue that Dems won’t add anybody to the current tally, or you can argue that we can tolerate lower court filibusters. . . . I look forward to your follow-on post . . ."

The emailer is quite correct to identify that gap in my argument. I would fill it in two of the ways he suggests. I do think that a Democratic defeat on a high-profile filibuster would tend to limit their willingness to use filibusters in later battles over appeals-court nominees. I also don't care as much about the appeals-court nominations as I do about Supreme Court nominations. And to the extent that I do care about the appeals-court nominations, it is in large part (though not exclusively) because of their effect on the Supreme Court fights to come.

Shannen: The reason I'm not for a formal restriction on judicial filibusters is not that I'm pessimistic about what the Democrats will do in retaliation. It's that I'm optimistic about the politics of a Supreme Court nomination. I think, first, that Bush is likely to nominate a conservative rather than to pre-empt the liberal filibusterers by nominating a squish. I think, second, that a Democratic attempt to filibuster a nominee to the Supreme Court will go down very badly with the public. Democrats have already paid a price for filibustering appeals-court nominees, and I suspect that they will pay a higher one when it comes to the Supreme Court (since more people will be paying attention). Finally, I think we'll be in a better position to appoint conservative judges in the future if the Democratic filibuster fails in a high-profile fight and is seen to inflict damage on the party than if Republicans make a procedural change that prevents a Democratic filibuster from failing and being seen to fail.

If you're less optimistic than me about the likely outcome of a Supreme Court filibuster (or its threat), then of course you'll reach a different conclusion. You'll also reach a different conclusion if you think there's a constitutional obligation to end judicial filibusters. I don't see such an obligation, but a lot of smart and principled conservatives, including the great Mark R. Levin, do.

Israeli Defense Forces discriminate against D&D players.

This is exactly what I feared. I've excited the lawyers (and even some judges). I can't post all of their emails, but I thought this one was particular interesting:

Your first CHLA's point tracks Justice Scalia's opening argument in his brief book, A MATTER OF INTERPRETATION. Indeed, the title of his main essay is, "Common-Law Courts in a Civil-Law System: The Role of United States Federal Courts in Interpreting the Constitution and Laws."

His basic argument is that the great majority of a law student's first courses are not statutory or constitutional, but common-law: Torts, Contracts, Property. We sit around deciding, "what should the judge do?", as the judge is bound only by precedent and his own good pragmatic judgment. (See Holmes's "The Common Law".)

By the time the eager students comes to Constitutional Law, he is already drunk with power:

"What intellectual fun all of this is! It explains why first-year law school is so exhilarating: because it consists of playing kind -- devising, out of the brilliance of one's own mind, those laws that ought to govern mankind. How exciting! And no wonder so many law students, having drunk at this intoxicating well, aspire for the rest of their lives to be judges!" (AMOI at 7)

The trouble, then, is reminding law students that where democratic legislation -- not common law and pragmatism -- is the source of judicial authority, their discretion is much more circumscribed. Pointing out "the uncomfortable relationship of common-law lawmaking to democracy (if not to the technical doctrie of the separation of powers)". (AMOI at 10)

Some lawyers just never get that, and some of those lawyers become judges ... which is why Scalia's quote above describes Justice Kennedy as well as it does any 22-year-old political science B.A.s in the front rows at Harvard's Austin Hall classrooms.

Regards,
Another Concerned Harvard Law Alum

From a reader:

Jonah,

Our legal system does indeed harken back to the days of British common law for many issues, so your reader was correct that some countries share a common-law heritage that may make their common law decisions persuasive to our Supreme Court. However, decisions based on common law have at their root of authority simply the previous decisions of courts expounding on what the common law is. For constitutional law, though, we are dealing with an entirely different type of law, and the court derives its authority in the arena of constitutional law from, well, the Constitution. And since our Constitution is very different from Zimbabwe's, I see no reason to give any precedential value to the Zimbabwean high court's interpretation of its constitution. There's nothing inconsistent about looking to foreign courts for precedents on issues of common heritage for common law decisions (Britain, before the U.S. developed its own courts, being the most obvious example) while refusing to look at foreign courts for guidance on interpreting a document uniquely American.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Harvard Law Alumni

A friend of NRO sent this note to Kathryn who forwarded it to me:

K-Lo,

Jonah’s post about the editorial in the Lebanese Daily Star ignores the fact that the writer is citing the elder Bush’s mistaken concessions to Syria in the past in order to peddle a dangerous lie in the present: “that Hizbollah is more on the side of Lebanese nationalism than Syrian solidarity.” Friends and appeasers of terrorism will be promoting this lie aggressively in coming days. NRO should be helping to discredit it, not lending it credence.

This reader offers a complaint:

Jonah, I'm all in favor of ignoring international law in American jurisprudence (except for treaties and executive agreements, which aren't really international law at law, insofar as they've become domestic law upon ratification/order).

But it is important to note - and I doubt I'm the
first to remind you of this today - that some
countries' laws, while foreign, are still fairly
relevant to American jurisprudence.

That's because America is a Common Law country, just
like (in most respects) Britain, Australia, New
Zealand, and Canada; and (in some respects) Jamaica
and Zimbabwe, among others.

Certainly, an early 21st century Zimbabwe case does
not have the jurisprudential value of a mid-18th
century British case. But, insofar as the Zim case
might be fruit on a branch of the same tree Justice
Kennedy swings from, it might be - sort-of - relevant.
It wouldn't be controlling or, probably, very
persuasive; but I do think it is essential that your
readers understand that an American court's reference
to a case from a country that used to be a British
colony is (probably but not necessarily!) better than
referring to a treaty that we haven't ratified or to
which we've attached reservations.

Thanks for your time.

To a certain extent, I agree that common law questions are worth reading. And I really wish I could remember Scalia's response to this point when it was raised at that AU event with Breyer.

However, the spirit with which these Justices have engaged foreign law -- at least from what I've read -- is different than the above criticism would suggest. Justice Kennedy was not reaching back to ask what Blackstone had to say about this or that. He was looking at international elite opinion and citing all sorts of other soft sources from outside the law. Indeed, public opinion in other countries has -- I believe -- been raised as a relevant factor in the Supreme Court's decision-making of late. That's outrageous.

Maybe Shannen, Ramesh, Jon or Andrew McCarthy have more to add.

From the Mudville Gazzette

Jonah On behalf of all MilBloggers, I claim an exception to your declaration that "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is a tired cliche - we live it every day. In fact, it's the motto of the MilBlogs Ring. You're right insofar as the rest of the world is concerned though. For them I say "Prove it." ANd you still made the team.

From a reader:

Title for Sheep rape item on Corner: "If Luvin' Ewe is Wrong, I Don't Wanna Be Right"

Very interesting editorial in the Lebanese Daily Star making the point that Hizbollah is more on the side of Lebanese nationalism than Syrian soldiarity.But this was the most interesting point:

We hope we won't be led into another situation like 1990, when America's strategic interests outweighed Lebanese democratic aspirations, and Syria was given carte blanche in Lebanon in exchange for its support of the U.S.-led Gulf war. Lebanon must not fall prey to any outside agendas; the Lebanese must be free to democratically govern themselves, without any foreign interference.

Recall how John Kerry and many, many, many other Democrats criticized George W. Bush for not building a "grand coalition" the way his father had? Well, what was always left out of these criticisms is that grand coalitions need to be built with something. Was it really so grand to have Syria in our coalition if it came at the price of acceding to Syria's control of Lebanon for a decade? Was our coalition more legitimate -- as Kerry and Howard Dean claim -- because it had so many members or was it less legitimate because in order to gain allies like the Syrians we had to betray our principles.

Again: the key foreign policy principle of the Democratic Party -- and the pro-Europe "multilateralists" -- coming out of the Iraq war is this notion that it is better to do wrong in a group than to do right alone.

Just something to ponder.

Love like this wouldn't be a crime:

Somebody was making nighttime visits to farmer Terry Patterson's sheep barn in the 600 block of Big Mount Road in Paradise Township, police said.

Patterson told police he saw the evidence of several sexual assaults on his sheep, but never the intruder.

So he installed an alarm and intercom system.

It sounded about 3 a.m. Tuesday. Patterson went to the barn while his wife, Cindy, called 911.

Patterson told Northern York County Regional Police he peered in the barn window and saw a man assaulting a sheep, according to an arrest affidavit filed in District Justice Gerald Shoemaker's office.

Bruce Charles Englar, 53, of the 4600 block of Bentz Road in North Codorus Township, is charged with felony burglary for entering a building with the intention of committing a crime, namely, having sexual intercourse with a sheep.

Officer Patrick Gartrell of Northern Regional Police was patrolling nearby when 911 dispatched him to the Pattersons' home. He heard the farmer yelling in the barn, telling someone to stop. The officer ran toward a man dressed in black and ordered him to stop and put up his hands.

"I found baler's twine in Englar's back pocket, matching the twine that was hanging in the barn," Gartrell wrote in the affidavit.

Police allege the twine was to be used to secure the sheep for sexual intercourse.

Or then again, maybe it would be a crime because the baler's twine suggests that maybe the relationship wasn't consensual?

Then there was Dan’s nasty, off-the-wall report on the release of former ABC newsman Charles Glass, who’d escaped terrorists holding him hostage in Lebanon. Time reported that Rather “sounded a jarring note of skepticism, referring to Glass as ‘a young man who says he was a hostage.’” ABC’s courtly Nightline anchorman Ted Koppel reacted in uncharacteristic fury to Rather’s sneaky innuendo that the kidnapping of their reporter might have been a hoax and delivered the stinging retort that the CBS newsman’s vicious, unsupported implication was “beneath contempt.”

A point I didn't get to make in today's column about Kennedy and the Supreme Court's habit of heading foreign courts: in the next confirmation battle for the Court I would rather hear conservative Senators grill nominees on this point than on virtually any other. Because if you think rulings from European Courts, India, Zimbabwe and Jamaica can justify an opinion, you basically believe that your opinions need no justification whatsoever. If the whole world is a source of precedent, than the world is Felix the Cat's magic bag and justices can yank whatever they need from the global lexis-nexis. This, it seems to me, is a worthwhile litmus test. It is not geared to a specific policy, but rather a judicial temperament and understanding of our own constitution's primacy and exclusive authority over the United States and its laws. To me there's no difference in citing science fiction and citing the laws of Jamaica when it comes to their respective relevance to what our constitution requires.

About this Italian reporter. The best proof, by far, that the US was not targeting her as a matter of policy or by mistake is that she is still alive. If the mens rea was there the Americans would have A) put a lot more holes in that car (though still probably not the "rain of fire" she complained about) and B) they would have finished the job, if for no other reason than the best way to have your policy of executing journalists exposed is let a big-mouthed one who sympathizes with the enemy -- i.e. her kidnappers -- get away wounded.

Again, it's awful that an intelligence agent from such a loyal allied nation was killed by friendly fire. But I have hard time believing there isn't quite a bit of opportunism in the waves of outrage among anti-war Communists in Italy who normally do not grieve over spies killed in the line of duty.

Was not shot by a tank.

I think it's absolutely awful this Italian intelligence agent died. But about this journalist, please keep something in mind: Communists lie.

I am an avid Corner addict. Please keep up the good work. I am currently working through the "Misanthrope's Guide to the Galaxy" and came across one of her more priceless phrases that seems quite timely. In the article for November 2, 1992 she writes, "Dan Rather, whose membership in the "cultural elite" proves that America really is a classless society." This sentence made me laugh so loudly that my wife came into the study to see what was up. Every time I read more of "STET, Damnit!" I realize how amazing it is that America remains such a great country in spite of the behaviors that Ms. King so effectively exposes.

Hey, K-lo!

It's not just who will get the highest bids to cook dinner for some lucky reader, but what they will cook.

Jonah: Roast Groundhog marinated in Budweiser.
Derb: Stir-fried haggis, Szechwan style.
Ramesh: A selection of delicacies from all fifty states, federalist-style.
Larry Kudlow: Steamed Bear, market price.
Michael Ledeen: Iran's Goose
Best wishes,

Cody L. Stanford

I have to get a physical today for a life insurance policy. I always thought getting your car fixed was one of the least fulfilling ways to spend money. All you get is the status quo ante minus a few hundred bucks.

But this might be worse. I understand it's the mature, responsible, grown-up and, uh, [reading from talking-points handed to me by wife] fatherly thing to do. But any gains in peace-of-mind one might get from thinking that your family will be okay when you die is overwhelmed by the bummer of the realization that you're A) gonna die and B) worth more (financially) in that state than you are alive. And for the money I'm spending I could be a lot closer to a flat screen TV.

From the Onion:

Bush Announces Iraq Exit Strategy: 'We'll Go Through Iran'

WASHINGTON, DC—Almost a year after the cessation of major combat and a month after the nation's first free democratic elections, President Bush unveiled the coalition forces' strategy for exiting Iraq.

"I'm pleased to announce that the Department of Defense and I have formulated a plan for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq," Bush announced Monday morning. "We'll just go through Iran."

Bush said the U.S. Army, which deposed Iran's longtime enemy Saddam Hussein, should be welcomed with open arms by the Islamic-fundamentalist state.

"And Iran's so nearby," Bush said. "It's only a hop, skip, and a jump to the east."

In response to my Starbucks interview, one of my regular non-conservative correspondents writes:

1. Liberals I know have principles, starting with the Golden Rule. The words "bleeding heart" do not spring from nowhere. Neither does the Yiddish word "rachmonas." You can criticize the utility of the Golden Rule, but don't tell me it's not a principle.

2. Hypocrisy is central to understanding the fundamental flaw of conservative political philosophy because one of the bedrock principles of conservative philosophy (the bedrock principle?) is that you are responsible for you. Bill Bennett or Rush Limbaugh will never say, "Ok, I guess I'm a hypocrite when it comes to [insert gambling or drugs here], so I'll just shut up now." After all, isn't that what you'd want Dan Rather to do? "Ok, here I was, telling people for decades how scrupulously devoted to the truth I was, and now I go and let this story about Bush's guard service get out there without adequate vetting because I really believed it and I wanted to believe it, so I just ought to admit I'm a hypocrite and shuffle off in disgrace."

Me: Not sure what to say about item 1. I agree that there are many principled individual liberals and I agree that there are some enduring liberal principles. Though there have been many liberals, Herbert Croly for example, who rejected the idea there were, in fact, liberal principles. Regardless, the Golden Rule, I'm not sure is one of them. The rule of do unto others is also a personal rule of ethics and religion which, conservatives would say, we subscribed to just as much as liberals do. Conservatives, however, do not commit the fallacy of translating the Golden Rule into a writ of universal government interference. To the extent the Golden Rule means anything in daily life, it boils down to a niceness rule and -- I'm sorry to say -- that if niceness is a closely held liberal principle then liberals have a very serious hypocrisy problem.

Which brings me to point #2. I think this steals a great number of bases off a ball hit foul. Hypocrisy is not the great "flaw" of conservatism it is the great insight of conservatism. We are all hypocrites if we hold real principles because all conservative doctrines believe in original sin. We are flawed creatures. A fact government cannot change. Therefore, any principle worth holding is going to be difficult to maintain perfectly and at all times. I find it fascinating the way so many liberals cite hypocrisy as conservatism's chief flaw not because I consider it a particularly interesting insight into conservatism but because I think it reveals a great deal about liberalism. In both of my correspondent's criticisms (and he's a good guy, don't get me wrong) there's an underlying belief that the problem with conservatism is that it doesn't immanentize the eschaton -- that it doesn't subscribe to a totalizing conception of the political which incorporates every virtue and excludes every vice, inconsistency and contradiction. Conservatism's flaw is that it is uninterested in making a heaven on earth. Conservatives from Kirk to Strauss to Hayek and Oakeshott would scoff at the notion that a political philosophy or orientation worth having could be devoid of hypoocrisy because only angels -- to paraphrase the Federalist -- are never hypocrites.

Oh, and in the case of Dan Rather. The complaint about him was never really that he was a hypocrite. The complaint was that he was big fat arrogant liar, dunce and show-boater who couldn't see the evidence of his biases because he was too busy acting on them.

Last, I think it's revealing that "bleeding heart" liberalism is cited as an example of liberal principles. It's not. It's an example of liberal emotionalism, which is often the exact opposite orientation to principled liberalism -- or principled anything for that matter. Feeling passionately about something -- contrary to the popular culture's version of politics -- doesn't prove you have principles. It proves you're excitable and leaves open the possibility you have principles.

Shannen’s right about the floor scheduling piece. Specter has told people privately (that he will determine whether or not to have hearings on re-nominated Appellate nominees “on a case by case basis.” He says he will have a hearing in those cases where he thinks it will be helpful to secure confirmation and not hold another hearing where it would be unproductive. Pryor falls in the latter category. When the Committee reports out the nominees, it’s the Senate Leader’s job to schedule.

Senate sources also think that once the Senate completes action on the Budget (mid-April) and the Democrats have continued to filibuster, Frist will pull the trigger on the constitutional (51 vote) test and let the chips fall where they may. Specter trying to avoid that showdown, but it’s out of his hands.

The Coburn bill, coupled with Congressman Peter King's E.O. 13166 repeal bill in the House of Representatives (H.R. 136), means that for the first time since 1998, virtually identical legislation on the same official English issue has been introduced in both chambers of the U.S. Congress.

Several readers have asked me what I think about it. I think it's too bad. I can't wish away the fact that it's bigger than the previous opposition protests. But I'm not that disheartened or surprised by it. We knew the Lebanese Shia -- as represented by Hezbollah -- are generally pro-Syrian. But it's important to recognize how politically adept these guys are. Today's rally is ostensibly against the foreign interference of the UN resolution calling on Syria to withdraw. It's full of anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric, but Hezbollah has been more careful than it seems not to rub against the grain of Lebanese nationalism. In a sense, it seems to me, that it's a conflict of two nationalistic visions -- the anti-Israel nationalism of the Shia and the anti-Syrian vision of the rest.

Anyway, I need to read more. I'm generally bullish about all of the developments in the Mid-East and in Lebanon, but I have a theory about how it's going to play out that I need to cogitate a bit more on. Not that anyone's waiting with bated breath.

Again, in the meantime do check out Across the Bay which really is very useful.

Every true Transformers fan knows that Optimus Prime died in 1986's "Transformers: The Movie." It included the climactic battle of life and death between Optimus Prime and Megatron at the START of the movie, in which Prime was bested and died...before passing on "The Matrix" to his successors. It was a pivotal emotional point for many guys today aged 23-32 I suspect, as it showed the mortality of one of our superheroes.

The movie was notable for many things, including lots of robot deaths, profanity (one of the human characters says "Oh s**t"), and Orson Welles as Unicron, the planet-sized hulking mass of destruction, which mirrored his own life at that point in history. Also, showed us that battles have consequences, unlike the afternoon cartoons of GI Joe and the Transformers series where there would be huge fights with ammo and lasers and bombs, but only a few banged up good guys and bad guys at the end of it all (remember how the pilots in GI Joe would always eject at the last possible minute, escaping death?)

R.I.P. Optimus Prime.

However, as most 1980s pop culture icons, he lives on and has been reborn in re-imaginings of the series. To wit, major motion picture projects are up and running on the GI Joe, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and TRANSFORMERS series, the last one being produced by none other than Steven Speilburg.

I should have used this quote:

I want to die peacefully, in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming, terrified, like his passengers.

A friend of mines quote generator for his email came up with it. No attribution.

Update: Several readers tell me that this is a Jack Handey "deep thought" from SNL.

Okay, so here's the thing. Almost a year ago Starbucks asked me to contribute a quote for their new series of "The Way I See It" coffee cups. Some time starting next month over 1 million Starbucks cups will have my quote on them. Starbucks motives for all of this are a bit murky to me, but part of it is to get more old-fashioned "coffee-house" debate going.

Anyway, they interviewed me for the series. You can find my quote and read the interview here.
And, yes, I know this all very weird.

And, no, I didn't get paid anything to do this.

Optimus Prime, leader of the Transformers, has died of prostate cancer. He left behind many autobots, minicons and othersto mourn his passing.

I am not kidding.

EU Commissioner Margot Wallstrom (whose blog is one of the more grimly entertaining spots on the web):

" 8 March: International Women‘s day. Rightly the small daughter of my friend asks: “So, are all the other days men‘s day then?“ Indeed, what is there to celebrate? The TV is showing a weeping Indian girl who would have liked to go to university instead of getting married to someone she has never met before. Or Lilya from Lithuania, victim of so called trafficking (sounding like innocent transportation, but meaning prostitution) having to “serve” 10 – 12 men per day. Why not call it by it‘s right name – sex slavery! Turkish women attacked by police all over with teargas and stopped from demonstrating – No, Turkey, this won‘t do if you want to come closer to the EU! So many women all over Europe feel overworked, underpaid and tired, tied up in their many roles between job and family and – some time for themselves! Every year thousands of women are beaten to death by their husbands. The issue of violence against women and children in the home is a huge hidden problem. Domestic violence is, according to Amnesty International figures, the major cause of death and disability for European women aged 16 to 44. It accounts for more death and ill-health than cancer or traffic accidents."

But, Margot, fear not. The EU is coming to the rescue:

The Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia are the top candidates for hosting the new EU gender institute. The European Institute for Gender Equality, announced by the European Commission today (8 March), is supposed to collect, analyse and circulate data to provide a basis for future policies on gender equality.

From a reader:

Thanks for the link to this! It -is- horrifically addictive.

I've managed to get 7000+ about 4 times now, so I think I've figured out the "trick". I'll take it from the top, so that someone who hasn't played it at all can get it.

There's two counters on the top left. The top one (starts at 30) is the number of babycals you're going to get crossing the screen. This number decrements - and you get another babycal on the screen - about once every two seconds. The bottom counter is... well, I'll get back to that one, cause I'm not sure yet.

The way to score points are as follows:

1) Knock a bottle up and have it hit another babycal's head, and it runs off the screen. That's a meager 10 points. If that's all you do, you're doomed.

2) Knock a bottle up, have it hit another babycal's head, it -tries- to run off the screen, but you hit it again with another bottle. That becomes 20 points. Hit the same one -again- and it's 30 points. If it finally manages to get off the screen, the sweet part is that it adds another babycal to the top counter for every time you hit it beyond the first (meaning you'll have more babycals crossing the screen for you to play with, extending your game) and it'll subtract 1 from the bottom counter that starts the game at 100.

3) Hit more than one babycal at a time. That adds something like a 25 point bonus.

4) The "trick" is to get -both- of these going at the same time. Hit two or three babycals, have them all up and running -together- to the other side of the screen, and hit all 3 again... sending them scurrying back to the other side, where you hit them -again-. Do this a few times, and your score skyrockets. The way you're going to get to scores above 5,000 is where you manage to get 3-6 of the little buggers running back and forth like mad, knocking them all down about 8 or 9 times. If you manage to pull this off, you not only increased your score a lot, but you've just massively extended your game time (say you manage to get 4 of 'em together and knocked 'em back and forth about 8 times. That means, when each one runs off the screen, they'll each add 7 more babycals to the top counter, for a total of 28 more babycals. The highest I've managed to get that counter up to so far is 50, 20 more than you start the game with.

5) The bottom counter, the one that starts at 100, decrements each time the top counter increments. You may have thought, as I did, that if you managed to get that bottom counter to 0, that you'd start a new level or something. Nope. The game just keeps going, only this time you get a not-encouraging buzzing sound every time that number should be going negative. Does this mean that I'm no longer getting my top counter incremented? Not that I noticed - I -think- it's still going up, but I could be wrong about that. If that top number isn't incrementing once that bottom counter hits 0, then what the bottom counter does is basically limit the total number of babycals you can get in a game to 130. If the top number still does keep incrementing after the bottom counter hits 0, then I have absolutely no idea what the bottom counter is really for, except maybe as an alternative "scoring method" that maxes out annoyingly early.

I meant to post this yesterday. I found the Charles Lane profile of Anthony Kennedy far more damning of Kennedy than any conservative commentary I've seen, in part because it might not have been intended to be anything other than favorable.

A government laser expert sent me an email telling me that airborne-laser volcano lancing may be centuries off. He asked me not to post as it contains other details that are on the QT government-wise.

Then again, they said the Berlin Wall would never come down, man would never fly, and that you couldn't possibly double the "stuff" in Oreos too.

The basic comparison I can come up with is what would have happened in 2000-2001 if Israel had assassinated Arafat. Basically you've eliminated the titular head of the separatist/terrorist movement, but since he really didn't control his ostensible subordinates, you haven't dealt a "death blow" to the movement.

Basically both separatist presidents of Chechnya and the one pro-Moscow president of Chechnya have all died by being killed in combat or assassinated. Not a great track record.

In death, of course, Maskhadov does become a martyr and I assume there'll be revenge attacks in Russia proper.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former President Clinton is set to undergo another operation. His office says Clinton will undergo a surgical procedure Thursday to remove scar tissue and fluid from his chest associated with his open heart surgery.

I know that the conventional wisdom on the right is that it's not good enough if only the Syrian troops leave.

I understand that the Syrian secret police, the Mukhabarat, are deeply embedded in Lebanon and the Lebanese won't free until they're gone. Bush and Rice have been good about keeping this issue alive. And I agree with people who know more about these things when they say we must insist the Mukhabarat must go. What other position is there, really? Even if it's only at the superficial level of starting position for an eventual negotiated compromise, it would be absurd to have any other position at this stage. To say they could stay would undermine our moral authority and concede that we think Lebanon can never truly be free. Much as Michael Ledeen often argues about Iran (and elsewhere) accomodating the terror regimes only conveys a sense of permanence to their rule.

Still, I'm a bit dubious that we have to make sure, ourselves, that the Mukhabarat leaves Lebanon. I've been thinking for a while that if Syria's troops leave, the predicament of the secret police would be untenable -- for the secret police. The Lebanese backlash against foreign interlopers would be huge, and without the protection of their troops it's easy to imagine a "Syrian scare" type frenzy which would spell very bad news for the Syrians left behind. In fact, I doubt the secret police are as secret as people say. My guess is that most Lebanese know who the bad guys in their midst are the same way it wasn't that hard to tell who was KGB in various Soviet satellites. Once, the troops are gone, they can find these guys very quickly.

Anyway, I found a small bit of corroboration at the end of a piece about the Mukhabarat in the Times of London:

Chibli Mallat, Professor of International Law at St Joseph University in Beirut, said that the Syrian intelligence network could not survive in its current shape. “I don’t think that, frankly, these people are capable of staying without the larger military apparatus that provides them cover,” he said.

Some day. And there's nothing we can do about it....now.

These are the stakes my friends.

Faster please.

One day when I was a wee policy gnome, I was riding the ol' 42 bus from Adam's Morgan to my job at AEI. I was standing up reading the paper so that I was basically hovering above a youngish couple. He looked like a young Clintonite on the make. She was crunchier, like maybe she worked for some Dupont Circle environmental outfit. Anyway, they were chatting away about their schedules and whatnot when the guy asked the gal when she was going to pick up these two new cats she agreed to adopt. She said she was going to pick them up after lunch and drop them off at their apartment before she went back to work, or something to that effect.

He said, "great."

Long pause. Then he asked, "What color are they again."

She replied, "Oh, I think it's called 'Feral.'"

"What's that?" he asked.

"Oh, I think it's a mix of colors."

"Great," he said.

Of course I can't prove this but from the context it seemed pretty obvious that the young lady was adopting two feral cats and she thought feral referred to the color. I didn't get a chance to rudely barge in on their conversation and explain their folly. But I always liked to imagine how they learned that feral isn't a color, it's what you call cats who destroy your apartment when you adopt them.

Asked why he has long been target of conservative critics complaining about a liberal bias in the media, Rather says: ''I am independent and fiercely independent. It's the role of movements and partisan political organizations to apply the pressure and to try and intimidate. It is the job of the journalist in a free society to say 'no.' . . . I haven't stopped trying."

Rather's big concern? ''That the American press as a whole will succumb to the undertow to be more docile, in some cases obsequious . . . to move in the middle, settle for mediocrity -- one, in exchange for access, and two, out of fear that you'd be called a bad name, unpatriotic, or radical right or liberal. What I'm talking about here is the increasing danger of being intimidated."

Here's that piece I said I was doing on felon re-enfranchisement. Certain longtime readers will be disappointed that a certain cocktail was not mentioned. Don't blame the LA Times, it was my call for space and editorial reasons.

Asked if he now considered attacks from conservatives less important, Specter said, laughing: "That depends on how important I ever thought it was.

"I've always thought it was important to listen to them when they have valid considerations," he added.

I found this quote over at the American Scene. It's from a Washington Post story on John Bolton going to the UN (though the linked Post story doesn't have the quote anymore). Anyway here it is:

Some U.N. ambassadors said they expected Bolton would have to moderate his views on the United Nations. "When you're outside the United Nations you can be a very strong critic," said Algeria's U.N. ambassador, Abdallah Baali. But "when you join the U.N. and you work with U.N. people then you progressively change your attitude."

Maybe I'm miss-reading this, and lord knows I'm ignorant when it comes to the finer points of Algerian diplomacy, but how would the Algerian ambassador know this? Was he calling for reform in a previous career and I missed it?

On another issue of great importance to stability in Asia, Mr. Bolton has criticized the Clinton administration's efforts to freeze North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs as 'egregiously wrong.' This despite the undisputed facts that the 1994 Agreed Framework has successfully stopped Pyongyang's nuclear program and more recent talks have convinced North Korea to unilaterally suspend its missile tests until 2003.

David Brooks commits the grave sin of saying nice things about the man. Excerpt:

If the trends of the last few months continue, Wolfowitz will be the subject of fascinating biographies decades from now, while many of his smuggest critics will be forgotten. Those biographies will mention not only his intellectual commitment but also his personal commitment, his years spent learning the languages of the places that concerned him, and the thousands of hours spent listening deferentially to the local heroes who led the causes he supported.

This would make a great poster.

The article is here.

Nod to Instapundit.

Several readers have complained that the unadulterated lameness of the Energy Dept. timewaster was so great that it should reflect poorly on me. They say I should atone by posting something really great. I reject the premises of these complaints. Nevertheless, if it will appease some of you I present you the chicken-vac. [click to watch the video]

I'm a little horrified by this because I actually have qualms about factor farming (please, let's not start that conversation). Still, if a nation can create the chicken-vac, surely we should have an airborne-laser volcano lancer by now. Faster please.

MADISON, Wis. -- Hunter Mark Smith welcomes wild birds on to his property, but if he sees a cat, he thinks the "invasive" animal should be considered fair game.

The 48-year-old firefighter from La Crosse has proposed that hunters in Wisconsin make free-roaming domestic cats an "unprotected species" that could be shot at will by anyone with a small-game license.

His proposal will be placed before hunters on April 11 at the Wisconsin Conservation Congress spring hearings in each of the state's 72 counties...

In yesterday’s New York Times, Eduardo Porter points out some surprising features of Social Security benefits, based on calculations by Eugene Steuerle and his colleagues at the Urban Institute. For example, women earn a rate of return that is about 50 percent higher than men with the same earnings history White males earn a higher rate of return than black males, and male college graduates do better than high school dropouts.

Steuerle reports on even more usual (and unfair) results in his study of the treatment of spouses.

Tom Saving and Larry Kotlikoff have done similar rate of return studies. Also, Kotlikoff finds, contrary to Porter’s reporting – that the system is overall regressive – imposing a higher lifetime tax on middle- and lower- income workers that is higher than for high income workers.

In most personal retirement account proposals people with the same investments would earn the same rate of return – regardless of race, sex, education, etc. With earnings sharing, spouses would be equal partners with their husbands in PRA contributions.

The Dept. of Energy has a truly awful timewaster paid for by you the taxpayer.

'The Secretary General warmly congratulates Mr. Bolton and looks forward to working with him on U.N. reform and many other issues,’ Dujarric said. Asked if the United Nations had concerns about Bolton's history of criticizing the international organization, Dujarric said, ‘I don't know about previous bias he might bring’ to the new job. But he said that the United Nations would welcome a tough reformer. `We do want to be held accountable.’

Got them yesterday. Thanks! The girls love Reddy the Fox. We did “one more chapter” five times last night.

Bill Clinton re-opens the playbook from his apology tour. I got the transcript from Little Green Footballs who has the full audio. Jim Gerraghty and Realclear politics have more. Here's the money quote:

Rose: (Referring to the Iraqi elections) Do you have confidence that this government, uh, will, as they write the constitution, will not be a mirror-image of the Iranian theocracy?

Clinton: Oh yeah. Yeah — the Shi’ites have been pretty smart about that. And if you look at the Iranian — Iran’s a whole different kettle of fish, but it’s a sad story that really began in the 1950s when the United States deposed Mr. Mossadegh, who was an elected parliamentary democrat, and brought the Shah back in [Rose says “CIA” in the background] and then he was overturned by the Ayatollah Khomeini, driving us into the arms of one Saddam Hussein. Most of the terrible things Saddam Hussein did in the 1980s he did with the full, knowing support of the United States government, because he was in Iran, and Iran was what it was because we got rid of the parliamentary democracy back in the ‘50s; at least, that is my belief.

I know it is not popular for an American ever to say anything like this, but I think it’s true [applause], and I apologized when President Khatami was elected. I publicly acknowledged that the United States had actively overthrown Mossadegh and I apologized for it, and I hope that we could have some rapprochement with Iran. I think basically the Europeans’ initiative to Iran to try to figure out a way to defuse the nuclear crisis is a good one.

I think President Bush has done, so far, the right thing by not taking the military option off the table, but not pushing it too much. I didn’t like the story that looked like the military option had been elevated above a diplomatic option. But Iran is the most perplexing problem ... we face, for the following reasons: It is the only country in the world with two governments, and the only country in the world that has now had six elections since the first election of President Khatami. [It is] the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: two for President; two for the parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralities.

In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70% of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own.

NEW YORK (AP) — The right to name a new species of monkey sold Thursday for $650,000 in an online auction, with the funds going to protect the Bolivian habitat where the species lives, the Web site that handled the sale said.

The winning bidder, who outbid Ellen DeGeneres, chose to remain anonymous for now, said Kelly Fiore, director of business development for the New York-based auction venue, Charity Folks.

There was no immediate information on what the winner planned to name the species, but an announcement might be made later, Fiore said.

The new monkey name will have to conform with the rules of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature...

Among those arguing seriously, the alternative presented by many opponents of military action to effect a regime change in Iraq was not more of the same toothless UN inspections. It was a regime of more aggressive inspections, backed up by a beefed-up force-in-waiting based in Iraq's neighbors, mainly Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Estimates for the necessary size of such a force ranged from 50,000 to 200,000, if I remember correctly. So those now arguing "opportunity costs" should consider the costs of maintaining a large, semi-permanent force in the Gulf States. Besides the obvious costs in troops unavailable for other contingencies and in resources spent on maintaining the force in the region (in other words, costs we would bear with or without regime change, albeit in different amounts), there are the intangible political and strategic costs. Among these was the most obvious: that Saddam Hussein's regime would have remained in power, seeking to exploit divisions among the coalition arrayed against him and rebuilding his military capabilities.

But there was also the political cost of our troop presence in Saudi Arabia. A common criticism is that our occupation of Iraq is serving as a casus belli for a generation of terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. But recall that our "occupation" of Saudi Arabia, a necessary expedient to protect the Kingdom from Saddam Hussein's regime, was already cited as a casus belli, if not the main casus belli, by the terrorists who killed thousands of Americans and others in Kenya, Tanzania, Yemen, Pennsylvania, Washington, DC and New York City.

Dear Mr. May,

I read your column regarding France 2's reporting of young Mohammed's shooting with great interest. Like you, I was struck by reporter Charles Enderlin's statement that he was certain that Israelis had killed Mohammed because this "corresponded to the reality of the situation, not only in Gaza but in the West Bank." What struck me so hard is that this was almost identical to Dan Rather's (and Mary Mapes') statements when "Memogate" scandal erupted. Rather asserted that it didn't matter that his only hard evidence was forgery, because he knew for a fact that everything in the documents was true.

I, and I am a board-certified psychiatrist, believe that this is truly how leftists think: they claim an enlightened knowledge of the world and then use events and evidence to demonstrate their annointed rectitude. If hard evidence to the contrary appears, it is ignored or totally discounted. This brings us to arguments such as these:

-Fidel Castro has brought prosperity to Cubans despite the U.S.'s toothless embargo--an embargo that the U.S. must end in order to feed the starving Cubans.

-The winter of 2003-2004 was the coldest on record, a direct result of global warming.

-There are no WMD in Iraq and we must not put our children in harm's way there because Saddam will use WMD on them.

-The Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight, poving that we need socialized medicine in the U.S.

-Anything ever written, spoken, or tacitly thought by Noam Chomsky.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Suffice it to say I was not surprised to read Enderlin's blather.

Thank you for your time. Keep fighting the Good Fight.

Regards,

Scott Wallace

Rich,

In addition to your excellent point, it seems that:

1) Opportunity Cost is a pivot when their "democracy for the Middle East is a neo-con fantasy" argument ran into the reality-based communities on the Arab Street; and

2) Since we now know beyond any doubt that Saddam was gaming the inspections and oil-for-food systems, how would allowing him to do that for several more years lead Iran and North Korea to take our demands more seriously? The world demanded that Saddam verifiably and permanently disarm and Saddam gave the world the finger. If forcing him to endure the semi-permanent presence of Hans Blix was our firmest response, there isn't a chance that Iran or North Korea would take any of our sternness remotely seriously. Making good on our threat in Iraq makes soft power more effective with other rogue states, not less.

An expert chimes in:

Mr. Goldberg-

The important part about chimps that nobody has yet noted is the
evolutionary relationship between humans and chimps. Accepting all
the caveats that humans do not come directly from chimps and all that
jazz, humans have undergone paedomorphosis compared to chimps.

Paedomorphosis means that we come to full maturity in all ways while
not completing all of the steps of development that a chimp would go
through. For instance, if you were to take a picture of a young
child's face and "map" points on a grid (nose, mouth, chin, etc.) you
would find that those points match up very well with where the same
points would match on a baby chimp.

Now, if you look at how these points change with time you would notice
that they both go through similar changes, except for the human
changes stop much earlier. Chimp faces would continue to develop past
that point. The reason that adult faces look different than
children's faces is that adults look more apelike. You can check this
using a thin-plate spline for analysis, just type it into google.

Another consequence of this is muscle development. You never really
complete the muscle development that would happen later in life for a
chimp as your body stops short of it. You simply don't have the
tissue there to do it and the muscle tissue isn't nearly as dense and
efficient. An untrained chimpanzee can not move and easily pull over
300 lbs along the ground with one arm. Any human would have to train
for months or years to accomplish the same thing, and even then you
would see much larger amounts of muscle tissue (bulging biceps and the
like) for the chimp none of that is needed. Consequently, full grown
chimps can easily overpower a man without really even trying that
hard, and can often do it by accident.

All of that physical development that the chimp gains humans bypass in
order to keep the brain growing it's thought. This possible explains
why even though you finish growing at around 18-20 your brain
continues to develop until 25 and your thought process continues to
change up until that point. There is some debate over whether brain
development happens faster in women than men, but I digress.

The short of it: full grown humans are the equivalent of juvenile
chimps. Plan your monkey boxing demonstrations accordingly.

[Name withheld]
[University withheld]
[Institution withheld] of Paleontology
(Please don't use my name, I'll be blackballed for sure)

Yes, I found it. Go linked in the "update" to the original post.

From a reader:

Jonah,

During my college days, I had the pleasure (along with two buddies) of taking a small chimp on a tour of the local zoo. The chimp weighed maybe 25 pounds. At one exhibit he grabbed a rope with his foot, and the three of us could not pry him from it. We finally had to tickle him to make him let go. Strong is not the word.

Andrew - It looks like we're both wrong. This reader has made a monkey out of both of us (note: I did look for the audio of The Simpsons Dr. Zaius song but couldn't find it). From a leading primatologist reader:

Jonah -

I read your piece (and Stuttaford's response) with interest, because I
remember everything there is to know about chimpanzees, based on my viewing
of all the Planet of the Apes movies. And not to brag, but I did watch the
live-action TV series, and the animated series as well. I think it's safe
to say that I know about chimps.

I hate to break it to everybody, but the chimps are pacifists! They are not
tough and warlike like Gorillas (best demonstrated by General Urko, but I
bet there were also some warlike gorillas in 'Gorillas in the Mist,' too).
Nor are they calculating and hypocritical like the orangutans. I think that
this story must be mistaken. I hope that when Cornelius and Zira come back
in time to Los Angeles, they'll act to clear the chimps implicated in the
attack.

Unless the attacking chimp was their child Caesar, in which case I hope that
authorities look carefully into whether he was really killed, or whether he
might be in a circus with Ricardo Montalban.

Update: Found the Dr. Zaius song. Scroll down to Dr. Zaius.

I've always been fascinated by the fact that chimpanzees are much, much, much stronger than humans. You never get that sense from watching TV and movies -- largely because most actor-chimps are still babies and because no one wanted to seen Bonzo snap Ronald Reagans thighbone like a twig and then use it to fish for termites.

The attack that was in all the papers was truly horrifying and it was a useful reminder that chimps aren't as cuddly as we often think. Apparently to chimps got out of their cages and were furious that an older couple was bringing a birthday cake for another chimp (though investigators are still a bit baffled by the whole incident). Here's what the two chimps did to the husband -- who protected his wife from the worst of the attack:

St. James Davis lost all the fingers from both hands, an eye, part of his nose, cheek, lips, and part of his buttocks in the ferocious attack, his wife, LaDonna Davis, told NBC's "Today Show" Saturday. His foot was mutilated and his heel bone cracked.

KUWAIT, March 7 (Reuters) - Around 500 Kuwaiti activists, mostly women, demonstrated outside parliament on Monday to demand female suffrage amidst tensions in the Gulf Arab state over a government drive to grant women political rights.

"Women's rights now," chanted the crowd, which included women dressed in abayas, or traditional long black cloaks. Some of the demonstrators wore veils over their faces.

"Our democracy will only be complete with women," said a placard written in Arabic. "We are not less, you are not more. We need a balance, open the door," said one written in English.

I feel very blessed to be Mary Elizabeth's mother. I always knew that my baby needed me to protect her and to be her voice from the time that she was conceived. I am so very thankful that I was able to hold her and see her beautiful face. The 34 hours that we had with her will forever be etched in my mind as a very special time with a very special little girl. I know that my daughter is safe and is in heaven now. I miss her terribly and would give anything to have her here with me. I feel comfort in knowing that one day I will hold her again in heaven. Mary Elizabeth taught me so much about love, being humble, and thankful in all things.

But social scientists who have studied group performance under pressure say that often it is decentralized groups (like the Yankees) that prove more resilient than strongly connected ones (like the Red Sox); they are better able to weather outside criticism and internal quarrels.

Whoever you are, you conduct your daily routine of dress, feed, get off to school, feed again, bathe, tuck in with a new degree of self-consciousness. One Washington woman spent the night before Valentine's Day baking cupcakes with her two sons. She woke up the next morning to read Warner's New York Times op-ed piece on how we now celebrate the holiday for our children instead of our husbands. "Is our national romance with our children sucking the emotional life out of our marriages?" Warner asked. The woman dumped the cupcakes in the garbage and declared herself a failure.

Call me suspicious, but is there anything in this supposed ‘explanation’ that is a little, um, unconvincing?

”Moscow, March 5 - The chief of Ukraine's security service said Saturday that the country's former interior minister, Yuri F. Kravchenko, had shot himself twice in the head on Friday, refuting speculation that he had been killed by someone else.”

The gift that keeps giving….to incumbents, that is:

“Anyone who decides to "set up a blog, send out mass e-mails, any kind of activity that can be done on the Internet" could be subject to Federal Election Commission regulation, Bradley A. Smith, a Republican commissioner, said in an interview posted Thursday on the technology news site Cnet.com”.

I have to say this was the most disappointing result of a bleg to date. Except for some perfectly interesting and thoughtful personal observations on what the whole ends versus means thing means to some readers, nobody's pointed me to anything worth reading (save an old essay from WFB and exhortation to read through John Courtney Murray "writings"). I understand the point that some ends justify some means. I believe Buckley put it sort of like this, we are all against shoving an old lady, but we will do so if she's about to be hit by a bus. Some ends most certainly justify some means. But few ends justify any means.

That's all fine and good, but presumably someone has written at length about this (other than Pragmatists). And I was really hoping for an intellectual history of the concept. Has such a thing really never been written?

Maybe the gang at The Conservative Philosopher could throw a dog a bone?