(Washington, D.C.) Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist released the following statement today:

“We’re pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement on legislation which provides an opportunity to save Mrs. Schiavo’s life. This legislation will allow a federal district judge to consider a claim by or on behalf of Mrs. Schiavo for alleged violations of Constitutional rights or federal laws relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life. We want to thank Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid for working with us towards a legislative solution. The House and Senate will act as quickly as possible to send this legislation to the President for his signature.

“The Senate will meet today at 5:00 p.m. to pass an adjournment. Passing an adjournment resolution will enable us to bring both the House and Senate back into session under our emergency powers. The House will meet at 1:00pm on Sunday, March 20th in the hope of receiving unanimous consent to take up the measure. If unanimous consent cannot be attained, the measure will be considered on the House Suspension Calendar as early as 12:01 a.m. Monday, March 21. The Senate will continue to work through the weekend to ensure the bill can be passed shortly after the House has acted.”

I am here to announce that House and Senate negotiators have agreed to the outlines of a bi-partisan, bi-cameral compromise bill to save Terri Schiavo.

As you know, the Senate will come into extraordinary session around five o'clock this afternoon to pass an adjournment resolution.

Once that resolution is passed in the Senate, Speaker Hastert is empowered to call the House back into emergency session, which he will do tomorrow afternoon - Palm Sunday - at one o'clock.

This proposed compromise, as I said, is bi-partisan and bi-cameral.

Negotiations have never stopped, and we think we have found a solution.

It is very similar to the bill passed in the Senate Thursday, with some modest modifications.

We have been in frequent contact throughout the day with leaders in both houses and on both sides of the aisle to find a solution to this situation.

I have personally been in contact with several House Democrats who are now working their caucus to explain and build momentum for this compromise measure, and Senator Reid has been helpful doing the same in the Senate.

This is not over, but this compromise has cut across every division in Congress, and all sides agree it is the best way to proceed.

We are confident this compromise addresses everyone's concerns, we are confident it will provide Mrs. Schiavo a clear and appropriate avenue for appeal in federal court, and most importantly, we are confident this compromise will restore nutrition and hydration to Mrs. Schiavo as long as that appeal endures.

A modern myth, which is unfortunately gaining circulation even around this wise Corner, is the idea that you cannot have economic growth without an increase in population, a proposition which would have been dodgy in, say, the 13th Century and, in an age where it is machines, not men that do much of the work, looks very difficult to sustain indeed.

Needless to say, a new report from the EU Commission, a bureaucracy that has always had its problems with wealth creation, has now endorsed this myth. The suggested solutions? More immigration (which has, for Brussels, the added advantage of diluting that stubborn sense of national identity that the Eurocrats so disdain) and, incredibly, even more of the workplace regulation (on this occasion supposedly designed to make it easier for young mothers to combine parenting and employment) that has so hit the economic productivity that is the real key to providing for an ageing continent’s financial future.

Oh dear.

Marc Spindelman, a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University who specializes in bioethics, said the message sent by the subpoenas is chilling.

"What's next? If Congress doesn't like it, are they going to subpoena individual women to testify before Congress in order to keep them from exercising their rights to an abortion?" he said. "What about individuals who want to terminate a respirator? Is Congress going to bring them in and start asking them questions? Who couldn't be dissuaded from exercising their constitutional rights in certain ways in the face of a federal subpoena? The spectacle of this--it's unbelievable."

The Derb wrote the other day how he many of his (fellow) Americans could not understand the dislike he felt for Tony Blair. I come across the same thing myself. Well, here’s one example of the way in which this most repulsive of prime ministers (his putative replacement, Britain’s twitchy nutcase of a finance minister, weird Gordon Brown, would be even worse however) operates, an example that shows rather well the sort of man that he is.

Britain is about to go through an election campaign. Notwithstanding a few freak polls, the unlovely, hopeless and rather disgusting (but better-than-Blair) Tories have no chance of winning. Despite that, there seems to be little in the way of limit to the depths to which Blair will descend in order to win a vote or two. On Thursday he and the oddball Brown posed in front of a poster that claimed that the Tories were planning some $70bn in cuts from public services, a claim so dishonest that even the BBC reporter who was there objected.

In fact, all that the Tories are planning to do (more’s the pity) is reduce the rate of increase in spending on those services from five per cent a year (Labour’s plans) to four percent.

That’s not a cut, Mr. Blair. And you, Mr. Blair, are a liar.

The process of starving to death seems very barbaric but in actuality is very peaceful," said Dr. Fred Mirarchi, assistant clinical professor of emergency medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia.

Whereas technology was supposed to render the battlefield transparent, the "fog of war" settled over Iraq like a suffocating blanket. Never have U.S. forces fought in such ignorance of the enemy's purpose, strength, leadership and order of battle. George Armstrong Custer knew more about the warriors he faced in 1876 than U.S. commanders today know about their adversaries.

Whereas precision weapons were supposedly making error, waste and collateral damage a thing of the past, the fight to control Iraqi cities has given the past a new life. Comparisons between the "liberation" of Fallujah and the Marines' assault on Hue in 1968 are only too apt. In both cases, victory was gained the old-fashioned way: through brute force.

Toppling Saddam Hussein opened a Pandora's box of unanticipated complications. Whether it was attacks on oil pipelines or insurgents infiltrating into the new Iraqi security forces, events time and again caught U.S. officials flat-footed. Even success proves transitory, with yesterday's apparent accomplishment becoming unglued today.

To which anyone with even a passing knowledge of history would reply: of course. This is what war has always been -- grueling, filthy, confusing, replete with accidents and miscues that victimize the innocent, giving rise to unforeseen consequences and loose ends.

A few weeks ago, l’escroc Jacques Chirac, a man who has never found a rule he could not bend, decided to advance the date for a French referendum on the EU ‘constitution’. His motive? Support for the yes camp was leaking away fast, something that brought back unhappy memories of an earlier French referendum – on the EU’s Maastricht treaty a decade or so ago. That campaign too began with a heavy lead for those who supported the treaty, but in the event the yes side only won in a photofinish and in somewhat suspicious circumstances. By pushing the vote forward to May 29th, Chirac hoped to avoid a similar close shave this time round.

There are encouraging signs that this gambit may fail. For the first time, the no’s are ahead.

This makes sense. After Mitterand and Chirac the French should know moral and financial corruption when they see it. With a bit of luck therefore, they ought to understand the disastrous consequences to them of handing the keys of their coffers to the kleptocrats of Brussels in perpetuity.

If the French have any sense, this time they should just say non.

New Ukrainian president Victor Yushchenko will be visiting Washington in April. That’s good news. As the winner of an election that may represent a truly remarkable extension of democracy in a part of the world where freedom and the rule of law have been all too rare, and all too needed, an election which seems to be acting as an inspiration to other peoples from Lebanon to Kirkizstan, it would seem natural that Yushchenko should also be invited to speak to a joint session of Congress. Weirdly, House Speaker Hastert has not got round to asking him.

Perhaps he felt legislators had more important things to do.

Such as holding hearings on baseball.

Ridiculous.

Yesterday’s link to Gerard Baker’s fine piece on the McCartney sisters brought this response from one reader:

“I appreciate your linking to Baker's column today. For all non-Times reading NRO devotees who may be unaware of Baker's always compelling columns, I urge you to link to this recent phenomenal piece by Baker headlined, "What have the Americans ever done for us? Liberated 50 million people…"

Delighted to oblige. Check it out here.

Michael Schiavo’s attorney, George Felos, is mistaken. As the Republican Conference Chairman, Senator Santorum, has said, there was “broad opposition” to the House legislation on both sides of the Senate aisle. I objected to legislation regarding Terri Schiavo only long enough to resolve the concerns I have stated in the Congressional record. I worked with the bipartisan leadership so the Senate could vote on the bill in record time. I was assured by the Republican leadership of the Senate that the Senate legislation would be accepted by the House.

I was wandering down a bright, but chilly Birgerjarlsgatan today with three American friends and we had the, um, pleasure of running into a dim, but heated anti-American demonstration seemingly organized by the Left Party (the former communists). Interesting range of slogans on display including calls for an end to the "occupations" of Palestine and Iraq. No word, however, on the Syrian occupation of Lebanon.

Funny, that.

Joint Statement of Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist Congress to Work Through Weekend to Save Mrs. Schiavo’s Life

(Washington, D.C.) Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist released the following statement today:

“We’re very disappointed by the Florida court’s decision to allow Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube to be removed. The House and Senate leadership are committed to reaching agreement on legislation that provides an opportunity to save Mrs. Schiavo’s life. Now that the House and Senate have each passed different legislative remedies, the House and Senate Committees are working urgently together. We will be working through the weekend to resolve the differences and reach an effective solution that can clear our chambers and be signed by the President.”

OK. I've reached total saturation here.

Been on the Corner since it started, but I'm Schiavo'ed all the way out. Not coming back until it's not in every post in my browser window, or almost every post. 11 posts in the window, 10 are Schiavo related.

I support the idea behind the "right to die" but only if there is a definitive prior indication that the individual has made that choice should the situation arise (i.e. a witnessed signed statement). I've become more pro-life over the years though not full-on quite yet (I think it should be about as rare as I think the death penalty should be, which is extremely limited). But, on the word of a husband that has already moved on and in light of the other facts in the case? Forget it, this one shouldn't even be close. Whoever pulls those tubes is committing murder. And the husband and courts are accessories.

The Federal Gov't should not be deciding the specific case of Schiavo.

If they had really cared they could have passed legislation about this in the past seven years. It never came up, because everyone in Congress knew it was not their role.

Every court case that gets decided in a wrong or immoral manner does not get to go to the US Congress for appeal. Yes it is a matter of life or death but this is not for Congress to intervene in.

This sets a precedent in which every family with someone on death row can bring their case to Congress.

If this was the case you would've died of a brain explosion during the early Clinton years.

Congress does not get special rights when you happen to agree with the party in power.

Whatever happened to the sanctity of marriage your party has championed at the expense of homosexuals wanting to marry? Schiavo's husband is straight, right? They ARE married, right? So... where exactly is your leg to stand on?

You all are shameful- really, really shameful.

Count me as a "Schwarzenegger Republican" who's mostly in favor of abortion rights (though not Roe v. Wade), who's very disturbed by the Schiavo case.

You are right that this is a terrible story, but not for the reasons that you are espousing. It is terrible whenever a tremendously sad situation gets blown into a circus. The circus atmosphere that accompanied the matter in 2003 and over the past two days is sad. What is lost in this whole matter is that there are two sides to Terri's case, with no winners and no losers. (I have no opinion one way or the other on Terri and the feeding tube removal, by the way.)

While much has been said about Terri's family and their efforts to allow her to live, very little has been said about her husband and what he has been going through. He is depicted -- either explicitly or by implication -- as an uncaring person who, for selfish reasons, wants to be rid of his burdensome wife. I cannot see into the husband's "heart of hearts" so I will give him the benefit of the doubt: that he agonized over this decision for nine years before making the decision to go ahead with the petition, asserting that Terri would have wanted this, to have the feeding withheld. As a husband and father, I cannot begin to fathom the depths of despair and agony I would endure if I had to make a similar decision for my wife or son. This type of decision would be hell on earth.

I am well aware of the response -- that while it may be "hell on earth" for the decision-maker, it is death for the wife/son/Terri. This is true and merely highlights that there are no winners in this situation. But neither is there a moral high ground. I do not know what process of a hearing or trial that Terri's husband and her family went through that led to the court decision to allow removal of the feeding tube; I can only assume that there was such a hearing, that both sides had an opportunity to present their respective cases and that a fair-minded intelligent judge made a decision, which could then be appealed by the losing side.

That is the where the matter should end. But it didn't. Whether because of the family or the press, or a combination of the two, a circus arose. Jeb Bush got involved, the Florida legislature got involved. And now, Congress got involved. And, to top off the whole thing, Terri's parents are going to be on Larry King tonight. No doubt they will villify the courts, the husband, etc., and will try to increase public sympathy to get the feeding restarted.

Do you truly believe that Congress and Larry King care about this poor woman? Don't kid yourself. This is grandstanding just like the baseball steroid hearings were (Rep. Davis gets a twofer). Congressmen and senators are using Terri. Larry King just wants ratings.

And the parents? They sound like they are in denial about their daughter's condition. Are they caring people? They truly care about their daughter, that much is true. But what about their son-in-law? They obviously don't mind 1) publicizing a sad, private matter; and 2) depriving him of his privacy. Let's assume he wants to get on with his life? The press will descend on him if he ever tries to get married. Is that fair? He never asked for this.

I may agree with you on your political views, but I think you are just as much to blame for this circus.

Kathryn:

Don't know if you saw my earlier e-mail about the circus, but Congress's actions are revolting.

The misuse of subpoenas to try to keep Terri from being harmed is disgusting and inappropriate. Funny, but I seem to recall a lot of complaints this week about Davis and Waxman misusing their incredibly-broad subpoena power to grandstand with baseball and steroids, and how that was a waste of tax money. Seems to me the same argument has to apply here.

John Miller's rhetorical question appeals to the lowest common denominator and implies that her husband and the courts -- the objective bastion in our civilized world -- are murderers or complicit in a murder. This type of hyperbole just ignores that 1) this young lady has suffered a severe, conscious-depriving accident; and 2) that this accident has deprived her parents of a daughter and her husband of a wife.



Can't you just display an ounce of compassion? You are acting like a zealot rather than an intelligent person.

So where's the outcry on the Corner urging action on the genocide in Darfur? "Culture of Life," indeed. I guess Darfur just isn't a good occasion for sanctimonious grandstanding. Truly pathetic.

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) today condemned the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube and pledged to continue working for a legal or legislative means to save her life.

"Right now, murder is being committed against a defenseless American citizen in Florida," DeLay said. "Terri Schiavo's feeding tube should be immediately replaced, and Congress will continue working to explore ways to save her.

"Mrs. Schiavo's life is not slipping away - it is being violently wrenched from her body in an act of medical terrorism," DeLay said. "Mr. Schiavo's attorney's characterization of the premeditated starvation and dehydration of a helpless woman as 'her dying process' is as disturbing as it is unacceptable. What is happening to her is not compassion - it is homicide. She doesn't need to die, and as long as Terri Schiavo can breathe and her supporters can pray, we will not rest."

I asked Boxer if events in Lebanon and Egypt had changed her views. “History will judge,” she said, but added that in Lebanon “the streets are flooded with protesters today”—a reference to the Hezbollah-sponsored pro-Syria demonstration—“and you wonder if maybe a little quiet diplomacy there might have produced better results.”

The Dutch High Court awarded damages on Friday to a severely handicapped 11-year-old girl because medics would not test for a genetic defect before her birth, despite her mother's request.

Court documents show the ruling in the "Baby Kelly" case makes the Netherlands the second European country after France to award compensation in a so-called wrongful life case.

The documents say the mother had asked doctors to examine the fetus because of serious genetic defects present in the father's side of the family, which, if detected, would have prompted the mother to abort the baby.

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) today delivered the following remarks at a press availability on the House of Representatives' efforts to save the life of Terri Schiavo.

"It is now one o'clock on the East Coast, the time preordained by a Florida state judge to allow for denial of food and water to Terri Schiavo. This act of barbarism can be, and must be, prevented. The Senate has before it the Protection of Incapacitated Persons Act of 2005. This bill is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, they have chosen to adjourn rather than pass it.

"Those senators responsible for blocking the bill yesterday afternoon, Senators Boxer, Wyden, and Levin, have put Mrs. Schiavo's life at risk to prove a point - an unprecedented profile in cowardice. The American people are not interested in squabbles between Republicans and Democrats, or between the House and Senate. They care, and we care, about saving Terri Schiavo's life. The House bill will do that.

"Terri Schiavo is alive. She is not 'barely alive.' She is not 'being kept alive.' She is as alive as you or I, and as such we have a moral obligation to protect and defend her from the fate premeditated by the Florida courts. This is not over. We are still working, so are Mrs. Schiavo's lawyers, and so is the Florida state legislature. This is not over.

"To friends, family, and millions of people praying around the world this Palm Sunday weekend: do not be afraid. Terri Schiavo will not be forsaken."

I completely agree with the husband of Terri Schiavo...you don't know about persistent vegetative states until your loved one is in that state. My [spouse] developed a persistent vegetative state about 1.5 years ago, and [our family] agreed it was most important to not let [my spouse] linger...it only tortures you the most. Let the woman die!

This sentiment is understandable, but I think it misses the point. Based on what we know about the case, there is abundant reason to doubt that Terri Schiavo is actually in a persistent vegetative state. If, upon a judicial review, hopefully including a more searching and objective examination, it turns out that she is a PVS case, this becomes a much stronger case for the husband. For many of us, it would still be critical that a reviewing court affirm the state court finding that Terri actually expressed a desire not to have sustaining treatment. But what we are principally arguing here is that, before a decision is made that will result in death (particularly an agonizing death), we should be reasonably certain both that she is actually in a PVS and that she personally did not want sustaining measures – not that a self-interested person has deduced that she would have wanted it that way.

If those things were established – especially by testing, like an MRI, that is evidently standard in PVS cases but has not, for some reason, been done in this case, then my lips are sealed.

But imagine if some state tried to pass a law that said: “a sentence of death may be imposed after the offense of murder has been established by something less than proof-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt, and the said sentence is not subject to review by federal courts to determine whether fundamental federal rights were violated in the state trial proceedings.” Americans would be profoundly offended by such a law, as well they should be. Yet, that is pretty much what Florida has done here: even though this is life-and-death, the facts of the Schiavo case have not been determined on our highest standard of proof and the case has not been reviewed to ensure that there has been no violation of federal law.

Conservatives also seem troubled by the federalism aspects of this case. Such concerns are natural but they are overwrought here. A federal court is not going to be able to reverse the Florida rulings here absent a showing that some recognized federal right (such as the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments). If a federal court were, for example, satisfied that the state proceedings complied with applicable due process standards (which tend not to be terribly demanding), it would not be empowered to reverse the Florida courts simply because it would have decided the case another way.

Bill Frist and Tom DeLay and Jim Sensenbrenner and Denny Hastert and all the rest would be better off risking looking ridiculous and flying down to Florida, standing outside Terri Schiavo's room and physically restraining the poor harassed staff who may be told soon to remove her feeding tube, than standing by in Washington, helpless and tied in legislative knots, and doing nothing.

SEC. 7. NO EFFECT ON ASSISTING SUICIDE.

Nothing is this Act shall be construed to confer additional jurisdiction on any court to consider any claim related--

(1) to assisting suicide, or

(2) a State law regarding assisting suicide.

Writing in the London Times, Gerard Baker has plenty to say, little of it complimentary, about the sudden change of mind by certain US politicians over Gerry Adams. Here’s an extract:

”The McCartney horror is not, as the word now has it on the streets of New York and Boston, some startling revelation of the way these men behave, not some grisly departure from the honourable Irish fight for freedom. It merely confirms what most decent Irish have known about the IRA for years. So let me answer my own questions. The tragedy heaped on the McCartney family and the brave stand of the McCartney sisters have not opened the eyes of Irish-American leaders to the horror of the IRA. They have not even shamed these leaders. They have merely made them start to worry about the political expediency of being seen alongside men whose own standing has suddenly dropped sharply. Where the McCartney sisters display true leadership, in the face of the gravest peril, the Irish American chiefs step heroically into line. So in many ways yesterday’s spectacle of Adams being snubbed at the White House and on parts of Capitol Hill, being sternly lectured to by Ted Kennedy and Representative Peter King (a longstanding apologist for Sinn Fein) and others, is even more nauseating than the one we used to watch at the White House each year. Irish America’s leaders, in other words, are showing exactly the same level of courage as they demonstrated when they looked away for 20 years or more as their supporters dropped $100 bills into the collection buckets so that the IRA could buy the guns and the Semtex that would kill and maim thousands of innocents at a nice safe distance of thousands of miles away.”

Food for thought, I think.

SEC. 8. NO PRECEDENT FOR FUTURE LEGISLATION.

Nothing is this Act shall constitute a precedent with respect to future legislation.

All f these bills went through House Judiciary under Chairman Sensenbrenner and became law. H.R.867 Title: Private Bill; For the relief of Durreshahwar Durreshahwar, Nida Hasan, Asna Hasan, Anum Hasan, and Iqra Hasan. Sponsor: Rep Holt, Rush D. [D-NJ-12] (introduced 2/13/2003) Committees: House Judiciary; Senate Judiciary House Reports: 108-531 Latest Major Action: 10/30/2004 Became Private Law No: 108-4.

H.R.530 Title: Private Bill; For the relief of Tanya Andrea Goudeau. Sponsor: Rep Baker, Richard H. [R-LA-6] (introduced 2/4/2003) Committees: House Judiciary; Senate Judiciary House Reports: 108-529 Latest Major Action: 12/23/2004 Became Private Law No: 108-6.

S.560 Title: Private Bill; A bill for the relief of Rita Mirembe Revell (a.k.a. Margaret Rita Mirembe). Sponsor: Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [R-UT] (introduced 3/19/2001) Committees: Senate Judiciary; House Judiciary House Reports: 107-129 Latest Major Action: 7/17/2001 Became Private Law No: 107-1.

S.1834 Title: Private Bill; A bill for the relief of retired Sergeant First Class James D. Benoit and Wan Sook Benoit. Sponsor: Sen Levin, Carl [D-MI] (introduced 12/14/2001) Cosponsors: (none) Committees: Senate Judiciary; House Judiciary House Reports: 107-578 Latest Major Action: 10/1/2002 Became Private Law No: 107-2.

H.R.486 Title: Private Bill; For the relief of Barbara Makuch. Sponsor: Rep Reynolds, Thomas M. [R-NY-27] (introduced 2/6/2001) Cosponsors: (none) Committees: House Judiciary; Senate Judiciary House Reports: 107-445 Latest Major Action: 10/4/2002 Became Private Law No: 107-3.

H.R.487 Title: Private Bill; For the relief of Eugene Makuch. Sponsor: Rep Reynolds, Thomas M. [R-NY-27] (introduced 2/6/2001) Cosponsors: (none) Committees: House Judiciary; Senate Judiciary House Reports: 107-446 Latest Major Action: 10/4/2002 Became Private Law No: 107-4.

H.R.2245 Title: Private Bill; For the relief of Anisha Goveas Foti. Sponsor: Rep Lantos, Tom [D-CA-12] (introduced 6/19/2001) Committees: House Judiciary; Senate Judiciary House Reports: 107-579 Latest Major Action: 11/5/2002 Became Private Law No: 107-5.

H.R.3758 Major Actions: Help Title: Private Bill; For the relief of So Hyun Jun. Sponsor: Rep McCrery, Jim [R-LA-4] (introduced 2/13/2002) Committees: House Judiciary House Reports: 107-729 Latest Major Action: 12/2/2002 Became Private Law No: 107-6.

For years, thoughtful people have argued that "reasons for taking a human life" should not be treated as a growing list. There are valid reasons to do it, and they have been agreed for millennia. If the list has to change, better to shorten than lengthen it.

Thoughtful people have argued: Once you start footnoting innocent human life, you are in trouble. Innocent life must not be taken . . . unless (here come the footnotes) the subject is too small, sick, or depressed to complain. One footnote, people have argued, and the jig is up; in the long run the accumulating footnotes will strangle humane society like algae choking a pond.

Who would have believed when the Supreme Court legalized abortion that, one generation later, only one, America would have come to this? Mrs. Schiavo's parents wanting her to live, pleading for her to live, the state saying no, and a meeting of the legislature required to pry the executioner's fingers from the victim's throat?...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D. (R-TN) today made the following statement:

"The Senate and the House remain dedicated to saving Terri Schiavo's life. While discussions over possible legislative remedies continue, the Senate and the House are taking action to keep her alive in the interim."

HELP Committee Chairman Mike Enzi has requested the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Schiavo at an official committee hearing. He has sent a letter to the Schiavos to appear at a hearing on Monday, March 28, 2005 regarding "Health Care Provided to Non-ambulatory Persons." The purpose of the hearing is to review health care policies and practices relevant to the care of non-ambulatory persons such as Mrs. Schiavo.

Federal criminal law protects witnesses called before official Congressional committee proceedings from anyone who may obstruct or impede a witness' attendance or testimony. More specifically, the law protects a witness from anyone who -- by threats, force, or by any threatening letter or communication --influences, obstructs, or impedes an inquiry or investigation by Congress. Anyone who violates this law is subject to criminal fines and imprisonment.

The e-mail is still pouring (but not purring) in. For example:

Wonderously-reasoned piece. Brilliant insight. What a mind! Ever hear of RATS, you moron?

Ever have to peel birds**t off your car, house, sidewalk,mailbox, shirt? Ever have to climb on a roof and dig birdnests out of your chimney? Ever have to pay a grand to have a dead squirrel dislodged from the bottom of a vent pipe - which has backed up your entire plumbing system and flooded your house? (Oh, wait. You didn't even TOUCH on the havoc cats play on the SQUIRREL population, or address how many bird deaths may be attributed to squirrels every year.)

How about kids with slingshots and BB guns? Open season?

How about half-baked nitwits who feature themselves "columnists"?

ME: This sort of thing is taking the lead among emailers. What I like about the macho cat defender position is that there's not a trace of environmentalism -- or desire to address my actual arguments -- anywhere to be found. It's all a Hobbesian argument in favor of killing birds because they're annoying (squirrels too). Why not simply poison the birds then? Why not design pesticides under the assumption that certain crop-eating bugs and birds are pests?

M'am:

The next time the David Hasselhoff video intrudes sit quietly with your eyes closed and repeat this mantra to yourself:

"Duke, Duke, Duke
Duke of Earl,
Duke, Duke,
Duke of Earl,
Duke, Duke,
Duke of Earl,
Duke, Duke"

(Washington, D.C.) Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA), released the following statement regarding the Committee on Government Reform's inquiry into the long-term care of incapacitated or non-ambulatory adults: "The Committee on Government Reform has initiated an inquiry into the long term care of incapacitated adults, an issue of growing importance to the federal government and federal healthcare policy. The committee's inquiry arises out of the case of Terri Schiavo, who is currently being kept alive in a hospice in Florida. Later this morning, we will issue a subpoena, which will require hospice administrators and attending physicians to preserve nutrition and hydration for Terri Schiavo to allow Congress to fully understand the procedures and practices that are currently keeping her alive. The subpoena will be joined by a Senate investigation as well.

"This inquiry should give hope to Terri, her parents and friends, and the millions of people throughout the world who are praying for her safety. This fight is not over."

Is it a matter of happenstance, is it without meaning, that America was taken by this drama at Eastertide, in the days before Palm Sunday, when a wanted man rode by donkey to an appointment at Golgotha?

Is it an accident that a great but troubled country that yearns so to be good is given such instruction at this time?

Maybe we should be thinking: God loves all of us, every one of us most tenderly, even convicts, maybe especially convicts, who know what they are and hang their heads and one of whom, so long ago, looked up, and cried out to the man on the other cross, and received from him a promise of forgiveness and a promise that soon, very soon, they would stand together in a place without pain.

Yesterday

A new Sensenbrenner-Weldon bill, HR 1332, was dropped yesterday afternoon to provide for a federal appeal of claims for cases such as Terri Schiavo's.

Last night, the House debated H.R. 1332 and passed the measure by a voice vote.

2:30 this afternoon

Senator Frist offered a unanimous consent (UC) request to pass the House-passed bill on Terri, H.R. 1332. (without a UC agreement it would take the Senate 3-4 working days to pass the bill)

It was rejected by Senate democrats.

Senator Frist then offered a U/C request on the private relief bill. It was also rejected by Senate democrats. Senator Reid then said that he believed that they can come to an agreement on a private bill by the end of today. This measure would have to be passed by the house before it could be signed into law.

4:15 this afternoon

At about 4:15, the House finished business on the budget and members were informed those would be the last votes of the week. Members began to leave for the Easter recess.

5:30 this afternoon



At about 5:30, the Senate passed a private relief bill that would grant Terri's parent the right to appeal her case to the Federal courts. Current situation

We are at an impasse. There are two possible solutions at this point.

1. The objections of Senate democrats are overcome and the Senate takes up and passes H.R. 1332.

2. Under unanimous consent, the House votes on the Senate-passed private relief bill.

Please continue to weigh in on this issue and encourage congressional action, before it is too late.

It is possible that other federal solutions are being discussed or that the Florida state courts or legislature take action to save Terri's life.

Timothy Noah writes in Slate: "On March 15, I observed that in his new book, Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years in the White House, Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary, scorned reporters for (among other sins) harboring a 'belief that government is a mechanism to solve the nation's problems.' As I noted then, it is impossible to conceive of any role for government that doesn't involve solving some problems. A few libertarians wrote in to chide me and to say the only legitimate role for government was to provide a common defense, or to keep citizens from murdering one another, or some other bare-bones function. But what is the need to defend or police a society but a problem, for which government is the best, albeit imperfect, solution? I'll repeat what I wrote two days ago: 'We can argue about the particular problems government should solve, and about how successfully government addresses them at any given time, but not, I think, about whether government should be in the problem-solving business.' If you still can't follow this, see me after class."

I have no particular desire to see Noah after class, but I don't follow this--or rather, I don't think it follows. First, I don't think it's a huge stretch to see an implied "all" in Fleischer's "solve the nation's problems," which eliminates all of Noah's objections. Second, let's say one takes the view that government exists to prevent people from killing one another. I suppose one could try to redescribe this view in terms of problems and solutions: You could say that the government exists "to solve the problem that some people kill other people." But that can't be right. Nobody believes that this is, in fact, a problem that can be "solved." It is a condition that has to be managed. It seems to me to be no offense to logic or language to think about matters this way, and Noah's criticism on this point therefore strikes me as wrong.

CAMPAIGN-FINANCE reform has been an immense scam perpetrated on the American people by a cadre of left-wing foundations and disguised as a "mass movement."

But don't take my word for it. One of the chief scammers, Sean Treglia, a former program officer of the Pew Charitable Trusts, confesses it all in an astonishing videotape I obtained earlier this week.

The tape — of a conference held at USC's Annenberg School for Communication in March of 2004 — shows Treglia expounding to a gathering of academics, experts and journalists (none of whom, apparently, ever wrote about Treglia's remarks) on just how Pew and other left-wing foundations plotted to create a fake grassroots movement to hoodwink Congress.

They're hilarious! Perhaps never before have congressmen so proudly expounded their collective loss of perspective. It would probably be a lot funnier if I weren't still concerned with the integrity of Congress. Anyway, I'm still hoping some of this tough-guy interrogation will lead to a few of these roid-heads flying into a rage, flipping some desks over and a full-on baseball-style brawl breaking out. It'd make for an interesting end of the day, seeing Waxman twisted up like a pretzel and Schilling throwing Davis across the room.

This is the heart of his argument:

"According to The Washington Post, Dr. Kass has teamed up with Eric Cohen, editor of the excellent journal of science, politics and philosophy The New Atlantis, to devise "a bold and plausible 'offensive' bioethics agenda…[aimed at] tak[ing] advantage of this rare opportunity to enact significant bans on some of the most egregious biotechnological practices." The merits of Dr. Kass's preferred policies are irrelevant here. The problem is that by hitching his star to a particular set of policies he has breached the trust set in him by the President, whose executive order creating the council asked it to "explore specific ethical and policy questions related to these developments; [and] to provide a forum for a national discussion of bioethical issues." At the very least, by sheer virtue of his position, his favored policies are more likely to get a hearing than those of other well-qualified bioethicists who do not have the authority of such an office (a point well made by Roger Pielke Jr of the University of Colorado here). Such a prospect would seriously undermine in the principle of "procedural justice" -- the right of all sides of a political argument to be heard without fear or favor."

Murray is right. Kass should go.

ANNAN EXPECTS FULL SYRIAN WITHDRAWAL FROM LEBANON BY MID-APRIL TO MID-MAY New York, Mar 17 2005 2:00PM United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today he expected the full withdrawal of all Syrian troops from Lebanon, including the intelligence apparatus and military assets, to take place before the Lebanese parliamentary elections scheduled for mid-April to mid-May.

In a statement issued after he was briefed by his Special Envoy for the implementation of Security Council resolution 1559, which calls for withdrawing all foreign forces from Lebanon, disbanding all militias and extending Government control over the whole country, Mr. Annan "stressed the great importance that these elections be free and fair and take place as scheduled."

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- The state House passed a bill Thursday that could keep Terri Schiavo alive, less than 24 hours before the severely brain-damaged woman's feeding tube is scheduled to be removed.

The Senate began debating a more limited version of the bill as lawmakers rushed to beat the scheduled removal of Schiavo's feeding tube....

Robert Novak's column today was extremely irritating. Not because it was wrong or bad--it was a good column. It's just that I was planning on writing on the same basic subject--tax-hiking Republican governors--for NR's next issue, and it complicated my life.

But I think Novak's column did influence the comments Indiana governor Mitch Daniels just made to me over the phone. The governor wants a one-year, one-point increase in the state's top income-tax rate. Novak writes, "Daniels is contemptuous of criticism from Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform and The Wall Street Journal. 'If I told you how little I care,' he told me, 'it would be hard to exaggerate.'"

Without referring explicitly to that comment, Daniels twice struck a very different note with me just now. "I’m not happy that my old friends are disappointed, I’m really not and I understand their point of view, but I’m just trying to solve a problem out here and live up to a duty," he said, referring to the state's constitutional requirement that the budget be balanced. At the end of our interview he said: "I’m no different person than I was before and I’m not comfortable when my friends are out of sorts. Over the course of 4 years, I think they’ll have reason to feel that Indiana has been in the hands that they thought it would be all along.”

Boxer expressed a certain fundamental lack of respect for the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter. Referring to Leahy, who is the ranking Democrat on the committee, Boxer said, "I call him my chairman of the Judiciary Committee, because I don't recognize anyone else" — a remark that seemed to speak volumes about the effectiveness of Specter's efforts to reach out to Democrats.

visit the NRLC website at [here]. Please forward this message to your own lists.

URGE SENATE TO PASS 'TERRI'S LAW' IMMEDIATELY

On the evening of Wednesday, March 16, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Protection of Incapacitated Persons Act of 2005, also known as "Terri's Law," by voice vote. The bill, which was sponsored by House Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wi.) and Representative Dave Weldon, M.D. (R-Fl.), would provide the Schindler family access to a federal court to argue for the life of their daughter, Terri Schindler-Schiavo. (This is a new version of the legislation originally introduced as H.R. 1151.)

Now, your help is needed TODAY to urge your senators to support the bill in the U.S. Senate. A vote may occur today (March 17) or on Friday, March 18, which is the last day before a two-week congressional recess.

PLEASE ACT NOW! Under court order, Terri's feeding tube is scheduled to be removed at 1:00 pm EST Friday, March 18.

To contact your senators go [here].

Simply type your zip code in the "Take Action Now" box.

Time is precious! Only a massive outpouring from their constituents will move senators to act quickly enough on this vital bill to give Terri her chance at life.

For the text of the House-passed bill see [here].

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, supports saving the life of Terri Schiavo.

On Friday, Terri’s feeding tube will be removed if legislation does not pass in the U.S. Congress or the Florida legislature to prevent removal of the tube.

“We need to do something to stop this unconscionable act on the part of the Florida Court,” Santorum said. “Terri Schiavo is a daughter, a sister, and most importantly - a person. We cannot allow an innocent person to be put to death.”

Santorum is a cosponsor of legislation that guarantees legal protections for incapacitated persons, like Terri Schiavo. The Incapacitated Person’s Legal Protection Act of 2005, authored by Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL), balances the acknowledged right of a person to refuse consent to medical treatment with the right to consent to treatment to preserve life.

This bill would expand habeas corpus protections, under very limited circumstances to protect an incapacitated person’s right to a hearing before being removed from life saving equipment.

A writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody.

Terri Schiavo is considered an incapacitated person and does not have the ability to offer consent or refusal of treatment to preserve her life. Therefore Terri’s parents are making the efforts on her behalf to prevent the removal of the feeding tube. This legislation would directly impact Terri’s case and prevent the tube from being removed.

“I thank my colleague Mel Martinez for introducing this legislation, and I am proud to join his effort to preserve the life of Terri Schiavo,” said Santorum. “We offer legal protections to convicted murderers. There should be no question about providing this same equal protection to someone with a disability, charged with no crime, who is at risk of dying a slow death due to starvation and dehydration.”

1. While units of the Cav served all over Iraq, he spoke mostly of Baghdad and more specifically Sadr City, the big slum on the eastern side of the Tigris River. He pointed out that Baghdad is, in geography, is about the size of Austin. Aus tin has 600,000 to 700,000 people. Baghdad has 6 to7 million people.

2. The Cav lost 28 main battle tanks. He said one of the big lessons learned is that, contrary to docterine going in, M1-A2s and Bradleys are needed, preferred and devastating in urban combat and he is going to make that point to the JCS next week while they are considering downsizing armor.

3. He showed a graph of attacks in Sadr City by month. Last Aug-Sep they were getting up to 160 attacks per week. During the last three months, the graph had flatlined at below 5 to zero per week.

4. His big point was not that they were "winning battles" to do this but that cleaning the place up, electricity, sewage, water were the key factors. He said yes they fought but after they started delivering services that the Iraqis in Sadr City had never had, the terrorist recruiting of 15 and 16 year olds came up empty.

5. The electrical "grid" is a bad, deadly joke. Said that driving down the street in a Hummv with an antenna would short out a whole block of apt. buildings. People do their own wiring and it was not uncommon for early morning patrols would find one or two people lying dead in the street, having been electrocuted trying to re-wire their own homes.

6. Said that not tending to a dead body in the Muslim culture never happens. On election day, after suicide bombers blew themselves up trying to take out polling places, voters would step up to the body lying there, spit on it, and move up in the line to vote.

7. Pointed out that we all heard from the media about the 100 Iraqis killed as they were lined up to enlist in the police and security service. What the media didn't point out was that the next day there 300 lined up in the same place.

8. Said bin Laden and Zarqawi made a HUGE mistake when bin laden went public with naming Zarqawi the "prince" of al Qaeda in Iraq. Said that what the Iraqis saw and heard was a Saudi telling a Jordanian that his job was to kill Iraqis. HUGE mistake. It was one of the biggest factors in getting Iraqis who were on the "fence" to jump off on the side of the coalition and the new gov't.

9. Said the MSM was making a big, and wrong, deal out of the religious sects. Said Iraqis are incredibly nationalistic. They are Iraqis first and then say they are Muslim but the Shi'a - Sunni thing is just not that big a deal to them.

10. After the election the Mayor of Baghdad told him that the people of the region (Middle East) are joyous and the governments are nervous.

11. Said that he did not lose a single tanker truck carrying oil and gas over the roads of Iraq. Think about that. All the attacks we saw on TV with IEDs hitting trucks but he didn't lose one. Why? Army Aviation. Praised his air units and said they made the decision early on that every convoy would have helicopter air cover. Said aviators in that unit were hitting the 1,000 hour mark (sound familiar?). Said a convoy was supposed to head out but stopped at the gates of a compound on the command of an E6. He asked the SSG what the hold up was. E6 said, "Air , sir." He wondered what was wrong with the air, not realizing what the kid was talking about. Then the AH-64s showed up and the E6 said, "That air sir." And then moved out.

12. Said one of the biggest problems was money and regs. There was a $77 million gap between the supplemental budget and what he needed in cash on the ground to get projects started. Said he spent most of his time trying to get money. Said he didn't do much as a "combat commander" because the war he was fighting was a war at the squad and platoon level. Said that his NCOs were winning the war and it was a sight to behold.

13. Said that of all the money appropriated for Iraq, not a cent was earmarked for agriculture. Said that Iraq could feed itself completely and still have food for export but no one thought about it. Said the Cav started working with Texas A&M on ag projects and had special hybrid seeds sent to them through Jordan. TAM analyzed soil samples and worked out how and what to plant. Said he had an E7 from Belton, TX (just down the road from Ft. Hood) who was almost single-handedly rebuilding the ag industry in the Baghdad area.

14. Said he could hire hundreds of Iraqis daily for $7 to $10 a day to work on sewer, electric, water projects, etc. but that the contracting rules from CONUS applied so he had to have $500,000 insurance policies in place in case the workers got hurt. Not kidding. The CONUS peacetime regs slowed everything down, even if they could eventually get waivers for the regs.

K-Lo:

I don't know if anyone else noticed this (I haven't had time to read all the way down), but the departing president of the World Bank (Wolfensohn) and the new one (Wolfowitz) have two versions of the same name: SON OF WOLF, in Germanic and Slavic languages, respectively.

Is there something sinister going on here? Is it more than the neo-con cabal, but maybe a LUPINE CONSPIRACY???

As you might have guessed, I've gotten lots of email on my cat column. Here's a fairly representative sample. Obviously, you're under no obligation to read -- or care -- but I figured it's late night and no one else is in here.

#1

I take care of a colony of wild cats on my property....as soon as the first official or otherwise person sets foot on my posted land to shoot any cats I will be happy to blow them to kingdom come.

This "study" is so laughable I hardly know where to begin. Cats in the wild kill far more rodents than birds, which is a good thing. Both rodents and birds spread more disease than any mammals, except humans. And the bird population, like other animal populations, is more affected by human development than natural predators. Just as the wild cat population is the result of human irresponsibility in discarding once domestic pets or their offspring and not spaying and neutering them.

This "plan" sounds like nothing more than the brainchild of some "gimmick sicko". If we started eliminating the twisted upright animals , then we might be getting somewhere.

...what ...are you just bored today? Haven't been abused enough? Got a new Kevlar vest you're just itching to try out for efficacy? Why don't you just paint a target on yourself? - You are really, really going to make some people upset over this.

NOT - mind you - that I'm in disagreement with the numbers, and what they're showing. Off the [feral] kitties then (and I like cats). Good riddance. No sentiment here!

Jonah, you've shown more guts then I'd have in your position, by writing a column in support of killing domestic cats (even if feral) for any reason, however logical. But you're also certifiable. This column is proof. Hope you survive the firestorm.

#3

Mr Goldberg;
I'm sure you're going to get a lot of e-mails about your cat article, but I
do have to take exception to a couple of things you say (perhaps in jest).
First, you seem to make an assertion that feral cats are not 'natural'.
This seems to me to be along the same lines as those who say that a beaver
dam is natural, while the Hoover Dam is not. That is, that humans are not
natural. Big stretch? No, because if a beaver dam, erected by beavers, for
beaver purposes is natural, then the Hoover Dam, erected by humans, for
human purposes must also be natural, unless humans themselves are not
natural. We may have a feral cat problem, but to say that they are not
'natural predators' is to say that cats themselves are not natural. The
other point I have to take exception to is the assertion that feral cats
'massacre' birds for fun and sport. This is not the case. Cats, feral or
otherwise, hunt for food and to train their young. They do not have
classrooms where the kittens can learn these skills. Even when cats kill
birds and rodents and leave them on our doorsteps, this is part of the
training program. They are trying to train us, since they don't understand
such 'natural' things as supermarkets.
Is there a feral cat problem? Are there too many? Yeah, probably, which is
why I don't really see a problem with reducing the numbers by whatever
means are deemed neccessary. And I am a cat person. I grew up with cats,
and have always had at least one in my home. But we must be sure we don't
have too many people indiscriminately shooting whatever cat they see. I can
see a situation where house cats, people's pets, are killed because the
'hunter' didn't look to see if it was wearing a collar.

#4

I cannot believe I am arguing with you about this.

#1 - I am glad you reserved your weakest argument ever committed to print for a non-issue about kitten hunting

#2 - Why did you print this, "... a respected study found that felines kill between 7.8 million and 217 million birds in Wisconsin alone."? If you were making a point about the devilish use of statistics, I'd hear you, but you make this point as if to bolster your core argument. I know that you know better, I know that you are smarter than that. It's too late now though, you printed it ... it's committed with your name on it.

#3 - "This raises an outrageous double standard. Dogs — our closest allies in the animal kingdom — can be shot for harassing wildlife or livestock. But free-loading cats are protected when they massacre birds for sport. Where's the justice?"

Again, I know you are smarter than this. You usually can be relied upon to be consistent in your application of principle, so why are you playing both sides now?

Wildlife, i.e.: bears, mountain lions ... can become a hazard to people if harassed by hikers' dogs. Livestock is property. Birds are neither.

#4 - and lastly, dogs eat poop, their own, yours, your cat's, the neighbors cat's, ... its a fact, get used to it.

#5

I eagerly watch for your writings because I've grown to expect to find good
cause to applaud - and share with family and friends. But alas, you missed
it on feral housecats. Too much time in too big a city. Get outta town
once in awhile.

Do domestic housecats go feral? Yes, they're almost the sole exception to
domestic pets that can and do survive in the wild. But do they do so in
large numbers? No. And do the one's that do go feral breed in large
numbers in the wild? No. I simply cannot buy the magnitudes you describe.
I don't believe the numbers.

Also, I'm curious why you sprayed this with DDT. Seems irrelevant, unless,
you wanted to use it to vent on Rachel Carson which is the way it came
across to me. I think you and me would see eye to eye on environmental
extremism so please know that I do not come from that reference at all.
However, Silent Spring did do one thing that did make it pivotal: it
brought to light the extraordinary persistency of DDT and the multiplying
effects in the food chain. That was new then, correct, and a vital
contribution. She deserves credit for that.

I will continue to eagerly watch for your commentaries. Hey, I'm flexible,
and besides, you only have strike one and you're a better hitter than I am a
pitcher...

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

The above salutation my be the kindest thing you will read for many, many days. Or ever. Do you have any idea how obsessive cat lovers are? Do you know what you have unleashed on yourself? Cat lovers would rather live without any wild birds at all than do anything to reduce the number of stray cats. I have heard more than one cat lover say in all seriousness they would rather change husbands, or do without them all together, than get rid of a cat. Why do you think there are no pooper-scooper laws for cat owners? And let me tell you, cat waste smells much worse than dog waste. Do you know that window flower boxes are really just litter boxes? Just don't open any windows to smell the flowers. Look, I'm with you on this and have been for a couple of decades. If cats are so great, why aren't there any seeing-eye cats? And, I just love the way cats customize furniture. And, why is it anyway that cats only "use" the clean laundry? And, why do cats go straight from the litter box to the nearest table with food on it, or your lap?

Should you decide to publish this, if for example it is the only sympathetic email you receive, please do not use my name. I still have to live in this country. Criticize cats? What were you thinking?

Why don't you drink a DDT cocktail and see if it really causes cancer.

#8

The only natural predator here is you. Your loathsome use of this story to discredit science and fit your theories into your absurd hard right position doesn't even qualify for Jourmalism 101.


It would be good for you to: learn how to write a story based on fact checking....not ideology.

Then, it would be good if you somehow realized that you can't.

#9

You must love getting hate mail ....

But as a cat-lover and dog-barely-tolerator, I have to say you've hit on a real problem. Also feral cats usually die nasty "natural" deaths due to disease, injury or starvation, but not before they breed like, well, cats.

My problem with this is the fact that cats are not as easy to bell or collar (being smart enough to figure out the collar thing quickly), and there is a certain level of bird-killing that is natural, so this will be very hard to regulate.

Also lots of cat haters are horribly sadistic, and will kill every cat they can. I can easily see my neighborhood's pet population being wiped out by overenthusiastic 'hunters' sitting in their backyard plinking every cat they see just to watch them die. Collars are easily removed. I can tell you that if my (belled) cat was shot, somebody's going to the hospital.

Withhold my name, please, if you print this.

Mr. Goldberg;
Just a few observations on your on-line column today;

1. The Wisconsin study on bird mortality from feral cats appears to be the
usual left-wing b****s**t. Many wildlife biologists have criticized it for
sloppy methodology, small sample size, and poor extrapolation techniques.
It is in fact very much akin to Rachel Carson's "science" in Silent Spring.
Most wildlife biologists agree that by far the greatest number of songbird
losses are from loss of tropical habitat, but since this can't be blamed on
the U.S (at least not credibly) it tends to be ignored by leftists. As an
additional point, it should be noted that, even in the fatally flawed
Wisconsin study, the overwhelming number of birds caught by cats were in no
sense endangered species - most of them were sparrow, blackbirds, and other
species whose numbers are actually increasing.

2. The whole "feral cat" question is just the tip of the iceberg. There is
s segment of the environmental community that is absolutely HYSTERICAL over
"alien" species (believe me, I work with some of these people), even
though double-blind studies conducted by many wildlife biologists indicates
that the overall impact of "alien" species is indistinguishable from that
of "native" species. After all, every species was once an "alien" species
somewhere. The aim is to eliminate all "non-native" species by demonizing
them. Dogs will be next - just wait.

3. As is indicated by your comments on Rachel Carson, birds have long
played the same role in environmental politics that "the children" have
played in other areas of liberal social policy - people tend to like them
(as do I) and tend to automatically support anything billed as helping
them. Actually, a good deal of the whole "songbird" business is based on a
deliberate misunderstanding - when biologists refer to a "songbird" they
are not referring to just any bird that sings - they are not referring to
cardinals, wrens, sparrows, bluejays, bluebirds, meadowlarks, chickadees,
orioles, nuthatches, robins, grackles, blackbirds, or most of the other
birds you see around your bird feeder. "Songbirds" actually refers to a
very small subset of birds, that most people seldom see (or hear), but the
impression is left that ALL singing bird populations are declining. If
anything the opposite is true. Many bird populations are actually
increasing, due to bird-feeding ( another "non-natural" activity many
environmentalists oppose).

4. There is a good deal of controversy as to whether songbird populations
are declining at all - counting migratory birds that are rather rare is as
you might guess rather difficult.

5. Hunting cats wouldn't do any good anyway. We hunt deer and, in my part
of the country, their numbers are exploding. All the Wisconsin law would do
is satisfy the ire of a few cat-haters (what IS it with these people
anyway?) and would further tar the image of hunters in the public mind
(which, as a hunter and a member of the NRA, I am very sensitive to..)

6. You are absolutely right about DDT. The ban was and is BS, cost millions
of lives, and probably didn't save a single bird - there is plenty of
evidence that the eggshell thinning problem started prior to the
introduction of DDT, and was not stopped by it..The DDT ban didn't do a
damned thing for birds, and neither will cat hunting..

Put me down in favor of cats, birds - and DDT!

Dr. [Name withheld] (if you publish this please withhold my name - I don't have tenure yet!)

Jonah,

You realize there are people all over the English speaking world praying for your demise.

The only question that your article brought to my mind which you failed to address - is it politically correct to stuff and mount the dead cat, or must it be stuffed and set on the floor as a door stop?

Hello Mr. Goldberg,

Just finished reading your column titled "Kill The Cats".

I deduce from your article that you are clearly not a cat owner. You see,
any cat owner would immediately realize that declaring open season on
"feral" cats would inevitably result in the tragic, brutal killing of
thousands of beloved domesticated pets.

Picture a mortally wounded Fluffy managing to drag herself home, only to
die bleeding in the arms of her traumatized toddler owner.

If, after considering this aspect of the proposed Wisconsin law change, you
continue to endorse it, I can only conclude that you are One Sick Puppy.

#13

Your op-ed piece of killing cats is sickening. They are feral and often diseased because humans are heartless enough to abandon them or not bother to spay them.

You've just lost a regular reader and supporter, for good. I suppose it wouldn't do much good to ask you to feel some shame, would it?

Thought not. Goodbye.

#14

re column: kill the cats..

cats are predators that kill off the weakest and sickest of the birds, contributing to the survival of the fittest and evolution of the species. Without cats birds would soon devolve back into dinosaurs that would pick off old women standing in line at the piggly wiggly. We owe it to our elderly citizens that this not be allowed to happen. Only cats can save the lives of millions of medicare recipients.

#15

Iraqi investigators who are trying to find the kidnappers of the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena say their work has been stymied by a lack of cooperation from the Italian intelligence services that won her release exactly a month after she was abducted on Feb. 4.

The Iraqi investigators say they conducted as many as half a dozen raids in a northwest Baghdad neighborhood where they think Ms. Sgrena, 56, a reporter for the far-left Rome daily Il Manifesto, was being held. But the kidnappers slipped through their fingers, and she was released after the abductors negotiated with Italian intelligence agents. One of those agents was killed when American troops fired on the car taking Ms. Sgrena to freedom.

Even after her release, Italian officials have refused to share information with the Iraqis, said Col. Jabbar Anwar, chief of the major crimes unit in the sector of Baghdad that includes Gazalea, the neighborhood where she was thought to be held.

The ring that committed the kidnapping was a profit-making organization that is likely to repeat the crime, he said. "They made a big mistake when they let the criminals go, especially if they gave them money," Colonel Jabbar said, referring to reports in the Italian news media and denied by the Italian government that a ransom as large as $8 million was paid.

Yesterday the Senate voted on a series of resolutions concerning Social Security. I guess they're warming up to the idea of actually legislating on the subject. The headline news was the 50-50 split on Florida Democrat Bill Nelson's resolution declaring that it was the sense of the Senate that no Social Security plan should involve "deep benefit cuts or a massive increase in debt." Five Republicans voted for the resolution. It seems to me that they all should have done so. Senate Republican sources told me they objected to the way the language seemed to push in the direction of tax increases as the only solution for Social Security. But wouldn't it have been better to vote for the resolution and explain that none of the conservative plans, properly viewed, involve deep benefit cuts or massive debt increases? Going on record for massive debt and deep benefit cuts strikes me as a political mistake.

The split also obscured the fate of some other resolutions. Republican Lindsey Graham got all 100 senators to agree to work together to ensure the program's permanent solvency and to reduce its cost. Jim DeMint, the other Republican from South Carolina, got 56 senators--all the Republicans but Snowe and Voinovich, plus Democrats Bill Nelson, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Robert Byrd of West Virginia--to agree that not doing anything would generate major tax hikes, debt increases, or spending cuts.

RED AND BLUE (ABC, New!) - Dan Staley and Rob Long ("Cheers") have scored a last-minute pilot order for a new comedy about a liberal dad and a conservative grandfather who are both looking to lend their political influence to the next generation. The project is set up at Touchstone Television and Tom Shadyac's Shady Acres banner with Staley, Long, Shadyac and Michael Bostick executive producing. The pilot itself is scheduled to tape on Thursday, April 28 at Walt Disney Studios.

A panel discussion, moderated by L.A. journalist and media critic Cathy Seipp, about how some successful writers manage to keep their distinct viewpoints even while writing for the mass market medium of TV. There will be a Q&A with the audience, followed by a reception with cocktails and canapes.

Saturday, Mar. 19, 7 p.m. at the American Film Institute's Mark Goodson Screening Room (2021 N. Western Ave. at Los Feliz) in Los Angeles.

Panelists:

Paul Feig (creator and executive producer: "Freaks & Geeks;" director: "Arrested Development;" director and writer, the feature film "I Am David;" author: "Kick Me: Adventures In Adolescence.")

Scott Kaufer (executive producer: "Boston Legal;" writer: "Gilmore Girls," "Chris Isaak Show," "Beggars & Choosers;" editor-in-chief: California magazine.)

Rob Long (co-creator and executive producer: "Men, Women & Dogs," "Love & Money," "George & Leo;" executive producer: "Cheers." Author: "Conversations With My Agent." Columnist: National Review. Radio commentator: KCRW.) >BR>
Tim Minear (executive producer: "The Inside," "Wonderfalls," "Angel," "Firefly")

Admission and parking are free (drive w-a-a-y to the top of the AFI hill) but seating is limited, so please RSVP to acinema@cinemafoundation.com, or call (310) 286-9420. L.A. Press Club members can RSVP to info@lapressclub.org.

One morning early this month, when it was too chilly for her flirty purple skirt and pink top, former "Baywatch" actress Alexandra Paul wrapped her bare legs in a fleece blanket and settled down for a long sidewalk vigil in Burbank, Calif.

Passersby on scooters tooted their horns, and a security guard smiled and waved as he walked by. Both he and the actress were there for the same reason: to keep an eye on a parking lot full of colorful, two-door cars behind a suburban office building.

The cars are the last surviving batch of rechargeable electric coupes built by General Motors Corp. in the late 1990s. Paul and a band of homemakers, people with desk jobs, engineers, Hollywood activists and car enthusiasts have been keeping a round-the-clock vigil to stop GM from destroying the cars.

At a minimum, Catholic hospitals - which provide their services based on moral and religious convictions about the dignity of the human person - should not be obligated to perform or refer for procedures which violate Catholic teaching. This doesn't involve "preaching" to anybody. It involves fidelity to principle and conscience - the same principles and conscience that animate Catholic service to the poor.

Filming begins today in Los Angeles for “Thank You for Smoking,” the screen adaptation of Christopher Buckley’s hilarious and quintessentially Washington novel.

While the majority of the movie will be shot in L.A., selected Washingtonians will have a shot at making cameo appearances when the film’s producer comes to Washington this spring to shoot the rest of the movie.

The producer, David Sacks, a legislative assistant to Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) during the Republican revolution years of 1994 and 1995, tells HOH he’s looking for a television news personality such as Chris Matthews or Larry King to appear in the film, playing himself hosting his show. In fact, Sacks has already asked both King and Matthews and is waiting to hear back. ...

Syria and her allies in Lebanon should step aside and allow one of these candidates to take the helm of leadership in Lebanon. Other solutions are only a premeditated means of prolonging the agony of the Lebanese people. And doing so is not in the interests of Syria or Lebanon.

In another area of the city people took to setting the French flag on fire while chanting: "Europe is finished and so are their Mullahs." OR "Bush, Bush, where is Bush?" (In Persian this rhymes: Bush, Bush, kush, kush!).

"Adverts featuring a giant blob of Marmite spread left children "terrified" and having nightmares, it has emerged. The TV commercials centre around a large brown "amorphous" object described as reminiscent of the monster from the 1950s science fiction film The Blob."

Losers.

Ooookay, I venture into baseball-related topics with some trepidation (Rich, K-Lo, Shannen, be kind, please) and perhaps I’m missing something here, but why, exactly, is it the business of Congress to investigate (on our dime) steroid use in baseball?

“Critics say muscle-building steroids have…provided young fans dangerous role models.”

Ah yes, “the children.”

I might have known.

Here. I'm even more underwhelmed with this guy. But I've got to go to the store to get milk for my daughter, so I'll respond in some detail in the morning.

My short response now (sorry Rick): this guy is a poseur of the first order and I don't buy his schtick in the least bit. It's almost like high camp, except he means it.

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A critically ill 5-month-old was taken off life support and died Tuesday, a day after a judge cleared the way for doctors to halt care they believed to be futile. The infant's mother had fought to keep him alive.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Florida lawmakers are racing to block the removal of severely brain-damaged woman's feeding tube, which has been keeping her alive but is due to be taken out on Friday after years of legal wrangling.

A state circuit judge has ruled that Terri Schiavo's husband can remove the tube at any time after 1 p.m. EST on Friday.

Lawmakers hope to enact a new law before then that would prevent the husband, Michael Schiavo, and other guardians from withholding food and water from severely brain-damaged patients unless they left written directives or made verbal affirmations, acceptable to a court, that that they wanted to die.

A pair of similar measures were approved by committees in Florida's House of Representatives and Senate on Tuesday, making them available for final consideration later this week.

The Washington Post says Bush's plan is sinking in the polls, having already said that Senate Democrats are an immovable wall of opposition. David Brooks comes close to saying the fight is over. Andrew Ferguson seconds the proposition. I think this is all premature, for reasons that overlap a lot with Byron York's. There are, however, reasonable points made in all of these analyses.

I just wanted to suggest why Ferguson's closing thought, an argument that I believe Robert Samuelson has also made recently, may be wrong. Here's Ferguson: "As a way of disentangling individuals from the welfare state, Bush's idea has serious flaws. The reasoning goes like this: On the one hand, citizens are smart and responsible enough to control their own retirement funds, which is why they deserve private accounts. On the other hand, the investments allowed for the private accounts, and the pace at which an account-holder can withdraw those 'private' funds, will be strictly controlled by the government -- because, presumably, citizens aren't smart and responsible enough to control their own retirement funds. Indeed, Bush's plan may very well flood the securities markets with investment money that is strictly regulated, placing vast chunks of those markets under Washington's control. This is hardly the way to strike a blow at the welfare state, as Bush's Republican allies are slowly realizing."

I think this is mistaken because, first of all, the accounts would create a constituency that would both resist restrictions that limited the account-holders returns and would demand a reduction in existing restrictions that limited returns. So the problem would tend to diminish over time, and there would be an inbuilt check on the danger of politicization. Second, it's worth noting that most of the restrictions being talked about are similar to those in 401(k) plans. Control was limited from the start--people could pick a few funds, alter their allocations a few times a year, etc. The regulation of their investment didn't cause huge problems, and loosened over time.

Rep. Dan Lungren (R., Calif.) is getting set to introduce his own version of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. It would read as follows:

SECTION 1. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of a legal union of one man and one woman.

SEC. 2. No court of the United States or of any State shall have jurisdiction to determine whether this Constitution or the constitution of any State requires that the legal incidents of marriage be conferred upon any union other than a legal union between one man and one woman.

SEC. 3. No State shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State concerning a union between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage, or as having the legal incidents of marriage, under the laws of such other State.

From reading it (and listening to Lungren describe its aims), it sounds a lot like the Federal Marriage Amendment. Lungren says he "tried to take a fresh look . . . to see what would pass muster not only with the Congress but to bulletproof it against the courts." He says that the drafting has benefited from his experience of serving as California's attorney general. Referring to his legislative director and himself, he says, "We’ve had to go through the ninth circuit many times and realize how they can torture the language.”

Lungren says, "If you would have asked me 5 years ago if we would ever get involved with this, I would have said no. But it has been forced upon us"--forced, he says, by the courts. "It's not a radical notion. It's a response to a radical notion."

Thanks Claudia for your article on March 15, 2005: “Million Lebanese Stage Massive retort to Terrorists,” NY Sun.

I am the woman who held high the poster “Thank’s Free World” (sic). Sorry for the spelling.

From all my heart please let me repeat this again and again:

“Thanks Free World”

“Thanks Free World”

“Thanks Free World”

“Thanks Free World”

“Thanks Free World”

“Thanks Free World”

Yours truly,

Rawya Okal

Lebanon

From a reader:

Jonah,

I used to get pissed off at JW-scored films for his blatant rip-offs of
Hindemith, Mahler, Stravinsky, Strauss, et al. But I'm over that. I
figure, if you're going to steal someone's music, why not steal from
the masters. Then I saw the first Harry Potter movie. The wanker ripped
himself off! The leitmotif from Schindler's List appears, albeit in
triple meter, as the theme in The Sorcerer's Stone! How brazen! John
Williams is either the laziest Hollywood composer or the most
brilliant, since not only did he get paid for some other guy's work,
but now he's getting paid again for stuff he wrote 10 years ago.

IL6: Hyde Seen As Likely To Retire

March 15, 2005 - In her Chicago Sun-Times (3/15) column, Lynn Sweet writes, "In a few weeks," Rep. Henry Hyde (R) "will announce that he will not seek another term. The public position of Hyde, 80, an icon of the conservative movement, is that he will make up his mind for sure in April. But I am told he has decided to retire and is unlikely to reverse course." Democrats "believe Hyde is vulnerable. Because of Hyde's status as a conservative hero, most Republicans in the district would have given him a primary pass if he sought another term."

Charlie Cook writes in Government Executive /National Journal (3/15) writes that although Hyde "gets a great deal of press attention, his re-election contests have usually gone almost unnoticed -- until now. He won last year with just 56 percent of the vote -- a new re-election low for him -- against a little-known, poorly funded Democrat. Hyde's weak performance -- combined with rumors that the 80-year-old will retire or be appointed ambassador to the Vatican -- has thrust his suburban Chicago district into the spotlight."

has been found guilty on all counts.

Jimmy crack corn and I don't care.

I will bring two inflatable light sabers and challenge Rick to a duel (or a hollitacker, as some might call it).

...a cameraman for the Kurdish satellite television channel KurdSat, Husam Hilal Sarsam, 28, was shot and killed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul as he tried to run away from people who had kidnapped him the day before, co-workers and witnesses said. He was the sixth journalist to be killed in Mosul since U.S. forces invaded Iraq two years ago.

Ahmad Abdul Kareem, 25, said he saw Sarsam burst out of a Mazda that was stuck in heavy traffic and try to flee to safety. Sarsam was then chased by another occupant of the car. When Sarsam escaped that man, Kareem said, a second man from the car pulled out a handgun and shot Sarsam four times, killing him.

Akram Sulayman, the Mosul bureau chief for KurdSat, said Sarsam was kidnapped Sunday and apparently tortured. He said that Sarsam's upper torso had been badly slashed by a sharp instrument and that his back had burn marks.

"He received many threats, like the others here at the office," Sulayman said, noting that the station's former bureau chief had also been killed. "We will continue, no matter what the price we pay."

Jerilynn Hoffman couldn't get her young son to read much until she found a book that wasn't her cup of tea but definitely was his: `The Day My Butt Went Psycho.'

This sounds about right to me:

Rick writes: "I offer my opinion re: George Lucas. He and Steven Spielberg are two of the most disastrous pop cultural figures of the last thirty years. They converted an entire medium to childishness--scary sharks, space men, Indiana Jones. Star Wars is bits of plastic put together with Scotch tape. There were clever moments here and there, and more often cheap thrills. But anything adult was banished. Spielberg so lowered the bar that when he turned around and did Schindler's List he was hailed as some sort of Dante. But who had turned Nazis into thick-accented goons pursuing the Ark of the Covenant?"

It's hardly new to offer the Nazis as thick-accented goons pursuing
ANYTHING. How is Raiders different from The Guns of Navarone or even
Major Strasser in Casablanca? Nazis make great villains. You can kill
them and everyone cheers. Vampires are great, too. And robots. Dead,
but not really dead. Now about those Nazi Robot Vampires...

Raiders is a very fine film, and I protest anyone taking a poke at it.
As a pastiche of Republic serials, it surpasses that shlock easily. As
a mirror of Bond films, it out-adventured Bond in a pinch. The problem
with both Spielberg and Lucas, and virtually everyone in the movie
business, as opposed to the art of film, is when they take themselves
seriously. When self-importance creeps in, and suddenly last year's
box-office king becomes this year's artiste, then whatever fun
evaporates and leaves us with molten drek that used to be celluloid.

When Star Wars is Flash Gordon meets a Pirate movie, it's fine and fun.
When Star Wars is some sort of weird paean to Joseph Campbell, it's dull
as dishwater. That said, I think Schindler's List is a fine film, give
or take some maudlin moments that verge on exploitation.

In this month's poll, 68 percent of adults 18 to 29 years old said they support investing some Social the silver lining That Washington Post piece on its Social Security polling is pretty depressing, except for the fact that letting people invest is popular among all but the over-65 set: "Security contributions in the stock market. That support falls with the respondents' age, to 60 percent among those 40 to 49, 53 percent among those 50 to 64, and 37 percent among those 65 and older.

From a reader:

If K.J.L. had known when she got up this morning that she would spend the day defending David Hasselhoff, would she have bothered getting out of bed?

We view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. I would hope that Hezbollah would prove that they are not by laying down arms and not threatening peace.

Okay, I gotta get back to paying work in a second. But here we go.

Here's Rick's original post, which I will quote in full:

I offer my opinion re: George Lucas. He and Steven Spielberg are two of the most disastrous pop cultural figures of the last thirty years. They converted an entire medium to childishness--scary sharks, space men, Indiana Jones. Star Wars is bits of plastic put together with Scotch tape. There were clever moments here and there, and more often cheap thrills. But anything adult was banished.

Spielberg so lowered the bar that when he turned around and did Schindler's List he was hailed as some sort of Dante. But who had turned Nazis into thick-accented goons pursuing the Ark of the Covenant?

Me:I'll get to his follow-up post in a minute.

My short response is: Was it not ever thus? In 1976 -- the year before Star Wars was released -- the top three domestic films were Rocky, Logan's Run and The Pom Pom Girls.

In 1974 -- the year before Jaws was released -- the top 10 films were, in order:

Blazing Saddles
The Towering Inferno
Young Frankenstein
Earthquake
The Godfather Part II
Benji
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Man With The Golden Gun
The Groove Tube
Macon County Line

Now, Rick may be able to tease out of this data the notion that Star Wars and Jaws were sudden and shockingly immature breaks with the more mature cinematic trends of the day. I do not see it. Obviously, there are some very good "grown-up" movies in this mix -- Godfather Part II and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest came out in 1975 -- but Benji, Pom Pom Girls, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Logan's Run, Earthquake and Towering Inferno do pop-out, don't they? Rocky was a good movie, though it was hardly a novel or particularly "adult" storyline -- it's real success was derived from the editing.

It seems to me that against this backdrop, Star Wars and Jaws raised the overall cinematic quality. Indeed, I think Jaws stands up very well and was a better monster movie than almost anything that came in the decade before it came out and is still much better than what has come out since.

In his follow-up post, Rick says that Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Jaws had terrible music. I'm woefully ignorant about music, but this strikes me as a bizarre statement. From everything I've read and heard -- and my own meager judgement -- I would say that John Williams dramatically improved the quality and importance of soundtracks in this country. Were there sci-fi movies or fantasy movies prior to Lucas and Spielberg with demonstrably better music? Personally, I don't know, but I'd surprised if that was the case.

It seems to me that Rick's real complaint isn't with the movies themselves but with their success. I agree that Lucas and Spielberg encouraged some awful copycats. But, that is an unfair criticism. Many great books have spawned some awful copycats as well. We don't hold that against the author, why should we hold it against Lucas and Spielberg?

As for Rick's longer follow-up comments, I think he defends himself against charges of snobbery and the like it would never occur to me to level at him so I will let them go uncontested. Still, I think he's still complaining about the films' success rather than their content. I don't think you can blame Spielberg and Lucas for what has happened to Hollywood so much as credit them for taking advantage of it. One major problem is globalization. Hollywood is making movies for a world audience more than a domestic one (which I wrote about for the print NR in 1998, alas it's not online). This means movies are geared to an even lower common denominator than they were in the 1960s and 1970s. That one could have such success with certain kinds of movies, was demonstrated by Lucas and Spielberg. But if they hadn't done it, someone else would have.

I don't see the point in debating the merits of the original Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back. I think they were very impressive bits of filmmaking for their time. That Rick disagrees is obvious. But I don't see how I could persuade him otherwise.

I think the giveaway is in Rick's statement that he was not in "awe of the preceding era of movies" either. Fair enough. Maybe Rick just doesn't like movies that much? All of these films -- Indiana Jones, Star Wars & Empire and Jaws -- were certainly better and more entertaining than much that could be found amidst the genres they were reinventing (even if I agree with Derb that we could use more thoughtful sci-fi in general). I think that's self-evident. If not Rick can tell me which great sci-fi and monster movies I'm forgetting.

MATTHEWS: Suppose the Supreme Court of this state says it is OK to have gay marriage, the same marriage kind of certificate as a heterosexual couple. Would you move to try to change the constitution?

SCHWARZENEGGER: No, absolutely not. I will stay with that.

MATTHEWS: You would go with the courts?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Whatever the Supreme Court, whatever the Supreme Court decides, that`s exactly what I will stay with.

MATTHEWS: And that`s consistent with your philosophy, letting some judges decide, rather than letting all the people of the state decide?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, both, the people or the judge. In both cases, I think the important issue here is that it should not be the power of a mayor, for instance, like Mayor Newsom in San Francisco.

MATTHEWS: You think he was wrong?

SCHWARZENEGGER: I thought he was overstepping the line, because I thought that this is, again, something that the legislators can do, the people can do, or the court can do, but not individual mayors cannot make up the laws that go along, because, eventually, you have some other mayor in some other town start saying, OK, I think we should hand out guns and ammunitions and we should have free this.

I think we should have -- abide by the law and we should have certain rules.

As voters in some member states contemplating giving yet more power to Brussels, here’s a report (from the Daily Telegraph) that they might want to consider:

”The European Commission has a "chronically sordid" accounting system and is still unable to keep track of the EU's £73billion budget after a decade of financial scandals, according to a top EU insider. An internal email obtained by The Telegraph paints an ugly picture of an autocratic body with an "incestuous esprit de corps" that uses its bureaucratic muscle to "trash" any official who dares to question its methods. It said the Budget Directorate was in "persistent denial of the real nature and depth of problems" it faced, choosing "cavity filling solutions where root canals were called for".

Quite why anyone would want to give more to these people quite escapes me.

The Dutch, a people with a traditionally low tolerance for corruption, vote in their referendum on the draft EU 'constitution' on June 1st. The Netherlands is the highest per capita contributor to the EU budget. It makes absolutely no sense for them to vote yes.

A must-read by Christopher Hitchens on the latest revelations from the New York Times. An excerpt:

My first question is this: How can it be that, on every page of every other edition for months now, the New York Times has been stating categorically that Iraq harbored no weapons of mass destruction? And there can hardly be a comedy-club third-rater or MoveOn.org activist in the entire country who hasn't stated with sarcastic certainty that the whole WMD fuss was a way of lying the American people into war. So now what? Maybe we should have taken Saddam's propaganda seriously, when his newspaper proudly described Iraq's physicists as "our nuclear mujahideen."

My second question is: What's all this about "looting"? The word is used throughout the long report, but here's what it's used to describe. "In four weeks from mid-April to mid-May of 2003 … teams with flatbed trucks and other heavy equipment moved systematically from site to site. … 'The first wave came for the machines,' Dr Araji said. 'The second wave, cables and cranes.' " Perhaps hedging the bet, the Times authors at this point refer to "organized looting."

But obviously, what we are reading about is a carefully planned military operation. The participants were not panicked or greedy civilians helping themselves—which is the customary definition of a "looter," especially in wartime. They were mechanized and mobile and under orders, and acting in a concerted fashion. Thus, if the story is factually correct—which we have no reason at all to doubt—then Saddam's Iraq was a fairly highly-evolved WMD state, with a contingency plan for further concealment and distribution of the weaponry in case of attack or discovery.

This is creepy.

From a reader on Apuzzo's aspirations to be the cinematic Juan Cole:

[Apuzzo writes:]"So when my conservative friends know or care to know more about film, or when they know more about the arts in general, then I'll accept their opining about Star Wars more than I do now."

As the associate producer and researcher of Inside the Actors Studio,
MFA in Dramatic Arts, I hereby confer upon Richard Brookhiser of Yale
and Jonah Goldberg of God Knows Where, the right to comment on whatever
they freaking well choose to comment on.

I also officially denounce any attempt to defend George Lucas on the
basis of either argumentum ad verecundiam or ad populum fallacies. I
don't give a rat's ass if he's popular or graduated from USC film
school. People can make bad movies and still be expert and popular.

And another thing: nyahh nyahh.

A reader sent me a link to this snotty diatribe over at Libertas by Jason Apuzzo. He says he's friends with Rick Brookhiser, which speaks well of him. His post doesn't. An excerpt:

People are obviously free to like or dislike Lucas’ films, as they please. But it strains credulity when conservative pundits - who, so far as I know, have never picked-up a camera, focused a lens, mixed a soundtrack, or coached an actor - proclaim that, actually, they know better about the public’s taste, and what makes for good popular entertainment. I’m afraid that when Jonathan Last and Jonah Goldberg are no longer read by anyone (actually, I’m not sure who reads them now), a lot of young AND old people will still be watching the Star Wars films - even the new ones. [I exempt my friend Rick Brookhiser from such criticism - Rick’s books, particularly his book on Washington, will continue to be read for years to come …] This is because Lucas hews to stories that are old, and basically cross-cultural, and then takes the risk of re-formulating them in ways that are consistent with a contemporary sensibility. And actually, anyone can do this, but most people don’t because they’re told that this sort of thing will make you ‘out-of-touch,’ un-hip, un-cool, maybe Jon Stewart will make fun of you, etc.

So when my conservative friends know or care to know more about film , or when they know more about the arts in general, then I’ll accept their opining about Star Wars more than I do now. When my conservative friends can tell me who Tyrone Power is, or something about Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival , or Wagner’s Ring-cycle, or maybe what the difference is between motion-control and motion-capture … then maybe I’ll be more patient when they fulminate about Jar Jar Binks. When they know that Yoda is giving Luke re-cycled gnosticism in the swamps of Dagobah ("Luminous beings are we … not this crude matter"), or that Palpatine’s ‘Grand Army of the Republic’ is really just Napoleon’s Grand Armée - or when they know who John Knoll is and why he’s important - then maybe I’ll be more receptive to complaints about Hayden Christensen, Ewoks, etc.

Until then, my conservative friends, please stick to writing about tax reform … or anything else you actually understand.

I think this is embarrassing snobbery -- and I normally don't really mind snobbery that much. Writers are supposed to know the difference between motion-control and motion-capture before they can have an opinion on Ewoks? Put down the crack pipe Apuzzo (or is it a glass of absinthe given his pretentions?). I know a bit about the Ring Cycle and I know who Tyrone Power "is" (technically it's "was"). But I'm a bit fuzzy on my Wolfram von Eschenbach, though I do know who he was too. Does that mean I can comment on the stupidity of the pod race but since I can't quote Parzival I should stop short of mocking Jar-Jar Binks' Creole-pidgin English?

Movies are great things and I love them, but the notion that we must always defer to folks who build castles of dropped names and moats of technical jargon is nonsense on stilts. Some of the most fascinating comments and insights into film come to me via email from stockbrokers, accountants, soldiers and grad students -- none of whom have ever "picked up a camera."

Indeed, this is a very strange kind of elitism Apuzzo is practicing. His claim is that by knowing all sorts of film arcana members of the Cognoscenti -- i.e. him -- are better suited at guessing what the public will like and if the public likes it, it's a good film by conservative standards. Since when do snooty conservative(!) critics judge a film's worth by how much money it makes?

As for his cheap debating point that people will be watching Star Wars movies long after my writing and Last's are forgotten let me ask, What critic is that not true of? It is most obviously true of Mr. Apuzzo himself (and I leave it to others to venture a guess as to whether his writing will have a greater shelflife than mine). All critics tend to be forgotten, even the great ones. Edmund Wilson is, even as we speak, fading away like an astral projection of Obi Wan Kenobi after he tells Luke to go to the Dagoba system to study under Yoda.

And, by the way, I agree with Apuzzo on much of what he has to say about Lucas and Star Wars. I just don't think that his opinion is worth that much more than my own because he thinks movie criticism is a priesthood which bars the likes of me. And, by the way, I was a television producer for many years and I do understand quite a bit about editing and camera work. Maybe now that Mr. Apuzzo knows this, he'll value my opinion of why I thought the dialogue in Attack of the Clones was so bad. Why it should change his opinion is beyond me though.

Readers who weren't blinded or institutionalized by it may have blocked out their memories of the Hasselhoff Recursion. (Do not click this link if you're unprepared for the horror).

Well, we now know why such a thing exists. David Hasselhoff is the Anti-Christ.

Very nice summary of the Lebanese Opposition protests in today's Times. Nice quote:

"I feel a certain kind of grandeur today," said Tarek Hamade, the chef at the rooftop Virgin Restaurant. "The Lebanese people are finally saying what they wanted to say for years, and they are saying it out loud."

Sorry for dropping the ball on responding. I'll get to it this AM.

In his talk yesterday, Scalia acknowledged a certain notoriety. He expressed amusement that he is often asked " 'When did you first become an originalist?' like it's a weird affliction that seizes people, like 'When did you start eating human flesh?' "...Discussing a case about the BMW painting process, he surmised that the vehicles' coating is "baked seven times in ovens deep in the Alps by dwarves."

Thanks, Andy. The next time someone asks me if I'm a McCarthyite, I'll say, Yes, if you mean Andy.

First, just to underscore how narrow the disagreements here have been: If in the next few weeks or months the Senate Republicans should actually go ahead and change the Senate rules to restrict the filibuster of judges, I imagine I will be with the rest of my interlocutors here in defending the Republicans against the many critics we are sure to hear from. I would say in that circumstance that the Republicans were within their rights to change the rules with 51 votes and did no violence thereby to the Constitution.

On the question of ideology, I think that it would be difficult to simply derive standards for rejecting judicial nominees on the basis of first principles. Maybe we could some day have a judiciary so altogether pleasing in every other way that senators would be debating whether a nominee had the right view of legislative history. All I would say is that a senator should consider, first, whether his own view of the judicial function is sound and, second, how far a particular nominee departs from that sound view. But practical political judgment would inevitably be necessary to determine how far would be "too far."

NRO readers might be interested in a recent decision of the San Francisco Superior Court in the consolidated cases challenging California's marriage law on state constitutional grounds. I have only skimmed the case (which is available here). Judge Richard Kramer concluded that he was unable to find any legitimate state interest in the current definition of marriage. Even though the law treats men and women the same, he believed that it was still a form of sex discrimination. The law being challenged (Proposition 22) was enacted by popular vote in March 2000 (with a nearly 60-40 margin).

Excellent point from a reader:

Jonah, I think Zizek "falls off a cliff" a lot sooner than two-thirds of the way through his piece. Zizek points to the Stalinist show-trials' insistence on a trumped-up showing of "crimes" as the Communists' one Enlightenment-rooted saving grace. But the show-trials were not Stalinism's only abomination, or even the major one. Marxism has never had any problem in eliminating whole classes of undesirables, such as in the liquidation of the kulaks. There was never a showing that any of the millions shot or starved had actively opposed the Soviet state; their membership in an "enemy" class was all the Party needed to murder them. I don't see how this is any different from the Nazis' wholesale murder of the classes they perceived as enemies.

Me: I can see how it's different to murder based on class rather than ethnicity, I just don't see how it's "better."

From a reader:

Jonah (and Ramesh), Resisting the knee-jerk urge to knock you for being in favor of a tax increase -- any tax increase -- I'd like to ask you why you find the idea of raising the Social Security payroll tax cap to $162,000 more attractive than raising it on those who have truly large incomes (i.e., those making MORE THAN $162,000)? As someone who has been just over the payroll tax cap for the past 5 years or so, I can testify to the wonderful feeling in November and December, when the basic FICA deduction disappears from my paycheck and my family enjoys a "bonus" to help fund Christmas spending. I'm sure almost everyone making between $90,000 and $162,000 feels similarly -- we're not filthy rich, and the little added income at the end of the year is greatly appreciated. Instead, why not leave the tax cap where it currently is (with its built-in increases for the near future) and then have it kick back in at $175,000 or $200,000 and apply to all income above that amount? Wouldn't that generate a good bit of income, while affecting only those who most of us would agree qualify as truly high-income earners? Maybe there's a flaw in this argument, but I'm missing it.

Me: Well, what I favor is a complete zero-tax range which stops at one dollar below what I make any given year and kicks back in one dollar above what I make.

Actually, I'm sympathetic to the idea the reader offers and I agree with Ramesh. I liked Will's column because it understood that personal accounts is worth paying a bit extra for if it will get it passed into law. The exact amount of the tax bump is something I leave to others haggle about. I think Ramesh makes a strong point that this increase as a stand alone would be too high.

That said, I'd also propose a mega-billionaire tax to be levied solely on the super-duper rich guys who opposed repeal of the death tax because they "didn't need the money." Their names are on file in the New York Times op-ed data bank.

From a reader:

Not that I disagree with you and Ramesh, but when NRO staff and George Will are essentially debating the SIZE of the tax increase, and not whether we should have one AT ALL, then the inclusion of a tax increase in the social security reform package is a foregone conclusion.

to hint that I might be displeased by his liking George Will's column on raising taxes as part of Social Security reform. I liked it, too. I wouldn't oppose a modest tax increase as part of a package that, overall, cuts taxes, and I take personal accounts to be a kind of tax cut. But a few cautions are in order.

I take it that what Will has in mind is an increase in the payroll tax cap that causes people in a certain income range--he mentions the $90,000-$162,000 range--to pay an additional 12.4 percent tax on each dollar earned. (I'm counting the employer's share since it comes out of wages.) And I assume that Will would alter the rules so that the additional contributions do not result in additional benefits from Social Security. The whole point is to bring money into the system.

Caution number one is that this proposal is not a modest tax increase. When was the last time any president, Democrat or Republican, imposed a 12.4 percent marginal tax hike on any group of people? I think you'd have to go back at least 25 years.

Caution number two is that Will's calculation may turn out to be optimistic. "The tax increase from lifting the cap to $162,000 would be paid mostly by Republicans -- but also by the people most able to put substantial sums into the personal accounts that might become politically feasible only by raising the cap." That assumes that there's no limit on how much people can put in their accounts--and several proposals want to keep high-income people from investing "too much." It's highly unlikely they would come out ahead under Will's proposal.

If a modest tax hike buys enough Democrats to get a basically good bill through, it's worth it, and I'm glad to see Will thinking in this way. But I think the tax increase would have to be much smaller than the one Will suggests.

Nice to see the Lebanese opposition up the ante. Also the Journal has a good editorial today. They claim that many of the Hezbollah protesters were bused in from Damascus. It'd be nice if we could get that factoid nailed down.

Dear K-Lo:
But for the one item on George P. Bush this morning, the Corner, and NRO generally, has been very quiet about Terri Schiavo recently. I hope you will, at a minimum, re-run Wesley Smith's devastating piece from the fall of 2003 that introduced many of us to this issue. Something fresh from Smith would be better still. As I'm sure you know, it's just six days before they pull the feeding tube.
The interest in this issue is not confined to Catholics and pro-lifers: my sister, a conventional Democrat, was shocked by Smith's article. But most people don't realize that Terri is not brain-dead, is not kept alive on a respirator, etc., because most MSM refuses to admit there's a controversy.

subject: please
NO MORE TERRY SCHIAVO POSTS. Your libertarian readers are displeased with the quantity and composition of these posts which never seem to end - unless of course you wish to expound upon the reasons her husband should be allowed to allow her to die.
thank you

An email: "You are correct that overturning Roe would decrease the importance of the presidency to pro-life voters, but the opposite is true of the importance of the state officeholders. As long as Roe stands, the positions of my state legislators on abortion are almost completely irrelevant. My state can pass as many anti-abortion laws as it wants, and they'll all be instantly flattened by the Ad Hoc Nullification Machine that protects abortion.

"Remove Roe, and the states become the front lines in the battle to save the unborn. If the states were empowered to restrict abortion, there's just no way I could settle for a Christine Whitman."

That's a good point, but Whitman isn't a pro-choice moderate; she's a pro-choice extremist. Plenty of pro-lifers would be willing to vote for people who weren't 100 percent pro-life but were willing to make the law more just toward the unborn--and who would be able to do so in a post-Roe world. Because legislators would be actually legislating--and legislating compromises in most places--there would, I suspect, be less polarization.

Thanks for another stimulating post, Andy. A few things: First, you suggest, very reasonably, that the fact that the Democrats are gearing up to filibuster a Bush Supreme Court pick means that they don't think they'll pay a price for it. You might be right about that. But it's possible they are being driven by their left-wing base to behave irrationally--that is to say, that the party is currently configured in a way that makes it hard to pursue its actual interests. I think that there is some plausibility to this view in the age of chairman Howard Dean. They also pay no price if the mere threat of filibusters can get the Specters of the Republican party to make concessions; so there's no great reason for them to moderate now.

Second, I seem to have somehow created the impression that I am, or that I think Senate Republicans should be, more interested in increasing the number of Senate Republicans than in getting conservative judges confirmed. I'm with you, Andy, on the question of priorities. My argument has always been that we are likely to see Democratic filibusters at the Supreme Court level fail and that this failure will leave us better off on judicial issues than a rules change. You may disagree with that view--you have rather expertly gone about trying to pick it apart--but let's not forget the common ground we share.

But, what the heck, let me throw out a possibly provocative disagreement on a side-issue. You suggest that "character" and "competence" should be the chief issues that concern senators as they decide how to vote on judicial confirmation and that "ideology" is not "a proper basis for voting against a nominee." Now if what you mean by that is that it is improper to reject a nominee because he opposes (or supports) abortion or thinks the New Deal was socialistic, then I certainly agree. But if "ideology" refers here to views of the judicial function, then I think it is absolutely proper for senators to consider whether a nominee's view of it exceeds the courts' constitutional powers.

I hate posting third party events in the Corner because it encourages a deluge of press releases from P.R. types across the country. Nevertheless, some deserve it. For example:

Social Security: Is It Really a Crisis?

A free public debate in New York City
Tuesday, 15 March 2005 - 7pm-8:30pm

New York Society for Ethical Culture
2 W 64th Street, New York, NY 10023
(on the corner of Central Park West)

Featuring Michael Tanner, Director of Health & Welfare Studies, The Cato Institute, and Paul Krugman, author and columnist for the New York Times.

I hope C-Span covers it.

From a lawyer reader:

Just to split hairs, I think perhaps the media use alleged criminal to mean not convicted and thus can't properly use the term murderer. Until convicted Brian Nichols is not a murderer, he is a killer. Killer being a factual statement, he shot three people who died as a direct result of being shot. Soldiers are killers, some policemen are killers, if I kill someone in defense of my life or another, I am a killer. a murder is an unlawful killing, so until a court and/or jury convicts a killer of committing murder, they are just a killer. I think I said this to you before, OJ is not a murderer, he may be a killer. Same would work if OJ had been convicted of murder but in fact had not killed anyone, he would still be a murderer until the conviction were overturned. I am probably given the media too much credit, they probably are using "alleged" to cover themselves in case of lawsuit by suspects in the event of their acquittal who could then sue for slander/libel for being called on tv or printed on-line or in a paper, a rapist, a murderer, etc.

BALTIMORE (AP) -- Kweisi Mfume made no secret when he stepped down as president of the NAACP that his sights were set on a Senate seat. But the former congressman said he would wait for Democratic Sen. Paul Sarbanes to decide whether he would stay or go.

Three days after Sarbanes, 72, announced that he would not seek a sixth term, Mfume set a news conference Monday at Baltimore's Camden Yards baseball stadium to announce his intentions.

Mfume, 56, left the House in 1996 after five terms to become president of the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

At the time, the group was in turmoil -- rocked by an embarrassing sex scandal involving its previous head, bitter internal strife and a crippling $3.2 million deficit.

Many observers say Mfume brought credibility and stability, working to institute corporate style-management practices. When he stepped down in November, the organization had enjoyed a budget surplus for eight consecutive years and an increasing endowment fund.

Mfume, whose adopted West African name translates to "conquering son of kings," began his career as a dashiki-clad radio talk show host and political activist in the 1970s.

He also has been mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for governor of Maryland.

Maryland traditionally votes Democratic, and went for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. Sarbanes, the longest serving senator in Maryland's history, is serving alongside outspoken Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski.

Jonathan Cohn's New Republic defense of the Democrats' fiscal record isn't online. At one point he writes that Republican entitlement reforms "don't even do a very good job of making the programs more affordable." He continues, "After all, it's the Republican plan for Social Security privatization that anticipates the federal government borrowing trillions of dollars in 'transition funds' in order to pay current beneficiaries while younger workers start their investment accounts. (Privatization advocates argue that these transition costs don't matter, because they merely force the government to take out a loan equal to the amount it already owes--as an implicit debt--to future retirees. But many economists worry that the bond markets will react much more harshly to this new, 'explicit' debt.)"

Cohn deserves credit for actually mentioning the reformers' argument on transition costs. But I think he's got an important detail wrong. Most reformers are talking about a package deal that includes both private accounts and cuts in future benefits. So they're not talking about taking out a loan equal to Social Security's implicit debt, but rather one much smaller than it. They are moving some costs forward while eliminating others--and it's entirely possible that the markets will react favorably to that combination.

"I am a strong proponent of parental notification. I am a strong proponent of a ban on late-term abortion. These are all things that I think unite people and I think that that's where we should be.

American society is about to enter dangerous territory, in which the slow-motion killing of a woman by her faithless husband will have been sanctioned by the court. After Terri's death, where will we draw the line between one's right to privacy and another's right to life? Are our legislatures to have no say in the matter?

It is inconvenient to Michael Schiavo and to the Florida courts that Terri Schiavo continues to live and that her parents won't relent and let her die of thirst and starvation. If Mr. Schiavo prevails, then every person whose life is considered of negligible quality by a court or a legal guardian could be condemned. There is more at stake here than the fate of one solitary woman. After this Friday, it becomes possible that, in this country, if the unwanted and the weak are simply too burdensome to us as individuals, that the right to rid ourselves of inconvenient lives will be our courts' guiding principle.

A useful summary of what should be obvious but isn't, from a reader:

In law school, my Constitutional Law professor Akhil Amar frequently reminded us that the presumption of innocence is a courtroom presumption only. That is, before any evidence is introduced by the state, the jury in a criminal trial is bound to assume that the defendant is innocent. They are to to make no presumptions of guilt based on the fact that the defendant was arrested, indicted, and brought to trial. If the states presents no evidence, only the presumption of innocence is left, and the defendant must be aquitted.

However, outside the courtroom no such presumption is required. Hence, an employer may fire an employee for stealing from the supply closet without first obtaining a theft conviction in court. A student may be disciplined or expelled from college if marjijuana is found in his room by an RA - despite the fact that no criminal charges are brought. Likewise, outside the courtroom we are free to speculate about the guilt of defendants before trial, or even after an aquittal (after all, an aquittal only signals that the state could not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt - not that the defendant was innocent. Hence O.J. was aquitted, but later found liable for Nicole Brown's death by a civil jury who had only to find the plaintiff's case more probable than not).

It betrays a serious misunderstanding of the presumption of innocence to insist that we must refer to Brian Nichols only as an "alleged criminal" until he is convicted. Witnesses saw him commit his crimes, there are official records of his transfer to the court, and he confessed his crimes to his kidnap victim. Those following along at home are certainly entitled to draw the logical conclusion regarding his guilt.

You may have seen the stories over the weekend noting 1) that she isn't ruling out a 2008 run and 2) that she describes herself as "mildly pro-choice." Number 2 won't be news to NR readers, although it will be to Dick Morris, who has been promoting her candidacy on the assumption that she's pro-life. For a lot of pro-lifers, being "mildly" for the slaughter of innocents is going to be a deal-breaker.

Every time I hear about one of these promising pro-choice Republican candidates, it strikes me that their chances would be much, much better if pro-lifers succeeded in overturning Roe. With Roe gone, having control of the presidency would matter a lot less to pro-lifers because appointing judges would matter less than electing legislators. A pro-choicer with restrictions such as Evan Bayh would have a better shot at the Democratic nomination, too. I don't believe the pundit CW that the end of Roe would be a disaster for pro-lifers. I do think we'd have a more moderate and less polarized politics.

[O]ne researcher believes the best solution to Alzheimer's may lie closest to home: within the brain itself.

The activation of dormant stem cells in the patient's own brain could someday allow doctors to re-grow lost cells without resorting to surgery, and in ways that target exactly those areas of the brain -- and specific types of cells -- damaged by disease.

Re: my post on Ms. Jews and the Harlem real estate boom. From a reader:

That was the dumbest post in the history of the internet.

A reader complains:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

Mussolini's will was ill; he just had small teeth. Fascism came to
power with limited domestic authority, so its mass-murders were at first
constrained to external enemies. Up to 1931, the Fascists were busy
putting down the Libyan tribesmen in blood; when they finished that,
they moved immediately to planning the conquest of Ethiopia--executed
with a wave of poison gas attacks. Then the Italian army moved to
Spain--where they were not as effective as against the Ethiopians, but
still killed some (tens of?) thousands of Spaniards. At home, the
Fascist party was finally getting strong enough to become more radical,
and initiated anti-Jewish legislation in 1938. Then, of course, World
War II, finally ending in the Salo regime. Now, a good deal of
Mussolini's policy from the mid-30s on was in rivalry and emulation with
Hitler--but much of it was the native Fascist impulse, radicalizing and
growing more murderous over time. The essential point is, if you
include the slaughters of the Ethiopians and the Libyans in the
historical record, the mass muderousness of Fascism and Mussolini is
obvious enough.

Me: There is much that I think is flat-out wrong here. But the point about the Ethiopians is fair (as is the general point that Mussolini's "will was ill").

But, I would argue that the invasion of Ethiopia had less to do with Fascism and more to do with old-fashioned European colonialism. When we discuss Fascists as mass-murderers -- or at least when we do it in the context of that "Two Totalitarianisms" piece -- we're usually referring to domestic genocide and the like rather than wars of conquest. It was not Mussolini's goal to put Ethiopians in camps, it was to give the gift of Italian civilization to them.

Or at least in part.

Which brings me to where I think the reader is wrong. The Fascist Party in Italy did not get stronger in the 1930s, it got weaker (When Mussolini was strongest, it was Fascist Italy which prevented Hitler from annexing Austria). This weakness was why Mussolini felt he needed the Ethiopian adventure in the first place -- to bolster his flagging regime. Similarly, the anti-Jewish laws -- while terrible -- were imposed because Mussolini became increasingly dependent on Hitler's support to stay in power. It should also be said that the anti-Jewish laws were never enforced with anything like German gusto and the real bad news for Jews came when the Italian Fascist regime crumbled and the Nazis essentially took over Italy. For more on this, you'll just have to wait for my book.

Hundreds of thousands of opposition demonstrators chanted "Freedom, sovereignty, independence" and unfurled a huge Lebanese flag in Beirut on Monday, the biggest protest yet in the opposition's duel of street rallies with supporters of the Damascus-backed government.

Crowds of men, women and children flooded Martyrs Square, spilling over into nearby streets, while more from across the country packed the roads into Beirut -- responding to an opposition call to demonstrate for the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

"We are coming to liberate our country. We are coming to demand the truth," said Fatma Trad, a veiled Sunni Muslim woman who traveled from the remote region of Dinniyeh in northern Lebanon to take part.

China's top legislative body has approved a resolution that authorizes Beijing to use military force to prevent Taiwan from declaring its independence.

Kate Adamson is the mother of two who suffered a double brain stem stroke and was in a coma for 70 days. She was completely unresponsive to stimuli and was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state. Doctors finally pulled her feeding tube and, for eight days, she lay dying. Instead of being unconscious as the doctors believed she was aware of everything....

From a reader:

HI,

Don't know if you saw this weekend's Parade magazine. But on page 2 there are questions people write in. One involved Law and Order's "Is it because I'm a lesbian?" The fan said they couldn't remember any mention of the character's private life or that aspect of it. The answer agreed and said it was bad writing. They did note that the actress and producer said they were aware of the character's lifestyle. Too bad they didn't tell anyone else until they made it an issue at her firing.

A much coveted NRO no-prize to the person who can predict where I'm going with this post without reading further. No takers? Okay, let's move on.

Yesterday's Washington Post had an interesting story about the real estate boom in Harlem. Gentrification is forcing renters out of their homes, etc etc.

The black community is somewhat split on the influx of money -- and whites -- into the neighborhood. Gentrification helps the black middle class, hurts low income residents. Again, etc etc etc.

One African-American buisnesswoman is delighted by the rapid growth in property values, and not just because it helps her bottom line. The owner of a fluorishing art gallery explains, "I grew up in South Bend, Indiana, hearing stories of the Harlem Renaissance -- it represents the beauty of my people," she said. "This is Harlem," she added. "This is what Harlem was."

Her name: Martha Reeves Jews.

That's right. Ms. Jews is pushing the bourgeoisification of Harlem.

Al Sharpton should seize on this right away. All of that hullabaloo about him blaming the profit-hungry Jews for ruining Harlem was a misunderstanding! He was talking about the Jews not "the Jews." Shweeooo.

Good point, from a reader:

This is also transparently false, in fact may be the opposite of the truth: "Class antagonism, unlike racial difference and conflict, is absolutely inherent to and constitutive of the social field; Fascism displaces this essential antagonism."

Class antagonism is frequently nothing more than a quarrel within a family -- should the kids go to summer camp or should Mom get the new sewing machine or should Dad get the lawn tractor? But race and tribe have been, historically, far more fundamental antagonisms -- who gets to occupy this land, or even, who gets to live and reproduce? Fascists didn't invent this; it is the history of the world.

By declaring that Communists had the issue right and Fascists had it wrong, he is not only taking sides but is also announcing that it matters. It doesn't matter; nothing justifies what they did, which is the point. However, I am not sure the left agrees.

Jason Apuzzo critiques George Lucas's critics (Rick excepted) here . (This follows on an earlier Lucas-ROTS post here.)


Jason makes some good points, but I don't entirely agree. I thought the first Star Wars trilogy was tremendous and that the prequels have been very disappointing -- mediocre acting and too little character development. I would also suggest that the prequel trilogy was guaranteed to make millions due to the extreme fan devotion to the original films. There is just too much brand-name capital built up for the films to fail, so I don't accept that the success of the prequel films proves Lucas is inspiring his audience or creating films as timeless as the originals.

Whether Assad is a decision-maker or merely a frontman, who rules Syria matters. The choices the government makes will be crucial in determining the fate of Lebanon, where Syria has begun withdrawing about 15,000 troops, and Iraq, some of whose insurgents have found sanctuary in Syria. Israeli and Palestinian hopes for peace could also be dashed by Syria, which has given refuge to leaders of Palestinian militant groups. Former secretary of State Henry Kissinger once remarked, “You can't make war in the Middle East without Egypt, and you can't make peace without Syria.”

Yet Syria, under the younger Assad, has repeatedly misread regional and international trends. The assassination in Beirut one month ago of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri caused massive anti-Syria demonstrations in Lebanon. Lebanese opposition leaders such as Walid Jumblatt say Hariri's slaying was carried out by Syria or with its permission. The United States, France and much of the rest of the world united behind the demand that Syria withdraw troops and intelligence agents in the country since 1976.

Here’s a link to an interestng story (it’s in Dutch, so don’t even bother trying to read it, but I include a translation of the main sections below). This guy, Harald Doornbos, was working in Iraq as an embedded journalist for a small Dutch newspaper. He happened to be sitting next to Giuliana Sgrena on the plane to Baghdad. He describes a conversation he had with her and two other female Italian journalists heading for Iraq. Here’s a translation of the main sections:

“It might not be a nice thing to say about a fellow-journalist, but Sgrena’s attitude is a complete disgrace to journalism. Didn’t she observe while sitting next to me on the plane that “normal journalists like you” aren’t supporting the Iraqi people? “The Americans are the greatest enemies of mankind,” the three women told me, because Sgrena was travelling to Irak with two Italian colleagues who shared her enormous dislike of the Yankees.

“One I’d told them I wasn’t just heading for Baghdad, but was heading into Iraq as an embedded journalist (with the American army), I was treated like a Big Traitor. “I just don’t fancy getting kidnapped,” I told them. “That’s the only reason I’ll be travelling with the Americans.” They ridiculed me. “You obviously don’t understand the situation. We are anti-imperialists, anti-capitalists, communists,” they said. The Iraqis only kidnap the servants of the Americans; the enemies of America have nothing to fear.

“I then told them they were out of their minds. I said there’s just no denying the fact that Al-Qaeda-like groups are operating in Iraq, targeting western journalists. And Al-Qaeda, that’s the Arab exponent of fascism: anti-American, anti-Jewish and – especially – anti-communist. But they insisted they knew better. Once we arrived at Baghdad airport, I waited for an American army jeep to collect me. I saw one of the Italian women of Sgrena’s group walking around crying, because an Iraqi had stolen her computer and television equipment. They were standing outside shaking, waiting for a taxi to take them to Baghdad.
“With her preconceived ideas Sgrena didn’t just risk her own life. Her behaviour has now gotten a man killed, while the Italian government (Prime Minister Berlusconi) had to spend millions of euros to rescue her life.

The cunning realist responds..

He defines conservatism largely by what it means to him, which is to say how he "feels" about it. There's lots of righteous melancholy about NR and how -- yawn -- it has strayed. Since this is a red-herring on his part, let me just quickly respond by saying his comments about NR are A) fact free B) unsupported by a single quote or example C) a complete distraction and D) more than a little goofy.

In general, he seems to be lamenting -- again, sans evidence -- that conservatism isn't as ideologically disciplined as he is or as he would like it to be. Read closely and you will see that I am inconsistent in my conservatism because he disagrees with what I say. Period. He does all this, he says, because he wants to avoid "endless debate" about the nature of conservatism. Okay, but who doesn't? All I was asking for was the slightest bit of evidence to support his original post. He dodged that basic obligation -- twice.

Indeed, there's no attempt to defend how my comments were the "antithesis of Conservative ideology" -- save for the fact that he really didn't like them and therefore they must be the "antithesis of Conservative ideology." For he is the thesis. For the record, any decent liberal could say without fear of intelligent contradiction that declaring guilt before proving it is the anti-thesis of liberal ideology as well. This should have been a good sign to this guy that he was merely blogging gassily.

There is some more table-thumping about the rule of law and the like. That's all nice. I've written thousands of words on the rule of law. Sadly, there's no effort to justify his outrageous reference to finding a tall tree at Stone Mountain -- the site of annual KKK rallies -- as the logical conclusion to my position. Shame on him for that.

I like the rule of law. I just don't think this guy has demonstrated otherwise. It's a red-herring. Unable to grasp that my original post was designed to make a point about the death penalty, he thinks my efforts to stipulate Nichol's guilt for the purposes of making that point are the real scandal. Shabby reading on his part.

And he sums up with some shabby writing:

In response to my criticism of his intellectual lapse, Jonah posted that he is "a commentator, an opiner, a journalist, a citizen." Perhaps I misunderstood the purpose of that forum at NRO; maybe it's a place for whatever flies into one's mind, ideological consistency be damned. If that is the case, perhaps Jonah should preface each of this comments in The Corner with a disclaimer stating that he is "a commentator, an opiner, a journalist, a citizen and not necessarily a Conservative." Perhaps that should be the subtitle at the top of The Corner's page. Or maybe the subtitle for National Review as a publication.

Just like Hitchcock's character in "Shadow Of A Doubt", we'll be watching.

I am mindful of the cunning realist's gaze, but let me just say underneath his all seeing eye: balderdash. Again, nothing this guy has written -- that I've read -- inclines me to consider him particularly informed let alone authoritative on what is or is not conservative. As I've written this sort of thing before about the death penalty I am not being inconsistent with myself or with what I believe to be conservative principles. But all that's neither here nor there. Let's grant him level 17 conservative neuromancer status and let's imagine for argument's sake that I've been inconsistent in some way but his dog ate the evidence.

Does he honestly think I am supposed to write what I don't believe for the sake of movement principles? Does he think I should analyze events and come to a conclusion and then -- if it doesn't meet with the conservative checklist -- I should say the opposite? If he really knew anything about NR, or even the Corner, he'd understand that we try very hard not to practice Popular Front conservatism here. Evidence is NR's principled editorial opposition to most of Bush's domestic agenda (a point Andrew Sullivan, Ryan Sager and many others have missed as well). People read the Corner because of my endless string of timewasters (take that K-Lo). But they also enjoy it for the sense that everyone is trying to think through things on their merits. I would much rather be accused of intellectual honesty at the expense of conservative talking points than of fidelity to conservative talking points at the expense of intellectual honesty. Apparently the cunning realist sees things the other way around.

1. As of 3 PM (Beirut time) Monday, a massive anti-Syrian demonstration will be taking place in downtown Beirut. In response to last week's Hizbollah march, the growing democratic opposition has mobilized a large segment of Lebanon's civil society for a showdown with the Syrian occupation.

2. Sources from Lebanon said "entire villages, neighborhoods and corporations will be marching," They stated that "the withdrawal of the Syrians two days ago from the northern part, will allow tens of thousands more to rally the demo."

3. While Hizbollah march was fully financed by Iran, Syria and Lebanon's intelligence services (per sources), the Monday democracy demo is financed by local fundraisers, businesses and local municipalities. The estimate I have is that -if not obstructed by the military- it may well become The largest pro-Democracy demonstration in the Middle East.

4. The demonstrators will be on cell phones with Lebanese communities around the world to allow them to participate virtually.

5. For the first time, a number of moderate Shiites will join the Druze, Sunnis and Christians in downtown Beirut. World TV crews will report live and give an estimate by 11 AM (EST)

6. Syrian withdrawal: It was learned that Syrian Special forces of the 41st and 46th regiments stationed between Dahr al Baidar and Barouk and brigades from the Syrian 10th division, have pulled out of Lebanon and are possibly redeploying on the Iraqi border. No information as to their new mission facing Iraqi and Coalition forces.

7. Syrian intelligence: It was reported that the Syrian Mukhabarat command in Beirut relocated in the southern suburb of the capital in the Hizbollah controlled area.

8. More than 500 soldiers of the Lebanese Republican Guards have been deployed around the residence of Emile Lahoud, the pro-Syrian President of Lebanon. Fears of popular demonstrations calling for his resignation are growing.

9. The opposition coalition is determined to call for the resignation and departure of pro-Syrian intelligence commanders in Lebanon: Colonels Jamil Sayed, Raymond Azar, Edouard Mansour, Mustafa Hamdane, Ali Hajj. Also the opposition is calling for the resignation of Colonels Jameh Jameh and Maher Tufaily.

10. In the north of Lebanon, defections are taking place among pro-Syrian politicians, who have joined the ranks of the opposition over the week end.

11. In Kana, south Lebanon, unkown elements in the Shiite community destroyed a statue of Hafez Assad, erected years ago by Syrian Baath sympathizers. The area is under full control of pro-Iranian Hizbollah. Observers concluded that a Shiite "pro-Sistani" underground was omnipresent in south Lebanon.

12. Most analysts in Lebanon and overseas are attempting the timing of the confrontation between Syrian and Hizbollah forces and the democratic opposition. According to estimate, it will take place when the Syrians and their allies will redeploy into their hardcore areas and draw red lines. The international pressure will be crucial in determining if the Syrian regime decides to oppose UNSCR 1559 inside Lebanon or would ask their allies to strike instead of them.

It is a common -- and deservedly so -- complaint around these parts that Communism gets something of a free pass for its atrocities and systemized horror while Nazism does not. I don't know any conservatives who aren't perfectly comfortable demonizing, stigmatizing and otherwise de-legitimizing Nazism but we tend to object to the idea that Communism should be treated as somehow hip or cool or a mistake-that-went wrong. Anne Applebaum in recent years has led the charge on this front.

Very rarely do you find a good attempt to respond to it from the left. I really thought this might be the best short rebuttal attempted so far (Link via Arts and Letters Daily). I think I was right until about two-thirds the way through where it then falls off a cliff.

Slavoj Zizek offers some very interesting insights and opinions on the fundamental differences between Communism and Fascism. For example, he writes:

Till now, to put it straightforwardly, Stalinism hasn’t been rejected in the same way as Nazism. We are fully aware of its monstrous aspects, but still find Ostalgie acceptable: you can make Goodbye Lenin!, but Goodbye Hitler! is unthinkable. Why? To take another example: in Germany, many CDs featuring old East German Revolutionary and Party songs, from ‘Stalin, Freund, Genosse’ to ‘Die Partei hat immer Recht’, are easy to find. You would have to look rather harder for a collection of Nazi songs. Even at this anecdotal level, the difference between the Nazi and Stalinist universes is clear, just as it is when we recall that in the Stalinist show trials, the accused had publicly to confess his crimes and give an account of how he came to commit them, whereas the Nazis would never have required a Jew to confess that he was involved in a Jewish plot against the German nation. The reason is clear. Stalinism conceived itself as part of the Enlightenment tradition, according to which, truth being accessible to any rational man, no matter how depraved, everyone must be regarded as responsible for his crimes. But for the Nazis the guilt of the Jews was a fact of their biological constitution: there was no need to prove they were guilty, since they were guilty by virtue of being Jews.

But after an interesting discussion about this and other things he throws in this conclusion:

It is here that one has to make a choice. The ‘pure’ [European] liberal attitude towards Leftist and Rightist ‘totalitarianism’ – that they are both bad, based on the intolerance of political and other differences, the rejection of democratic and humanist values etc – is a priori false. It is necessary to take sides and proclaim Fascism fundamentally ‘worse’ than Communism. The alternative, the notion that it is even possible to compare rationally the two totalitarianisms, tends to produce the conclusion – explicit or implicit – that Fascism was the lesser evil, an understandable reaction to the Communist threat. When, in September 2003, Silvio Berlusconi provoked a violent outcry with his observation that Mussolini, unlike Hitler, Stalin or Saddam Hussein, never killed anyone, the true scandal was that, far from being an expression of Berlusconi’s idiosyncrasy, his statement was part of an ongoing project to change the terms of a postwar European identity hitherto based on anti-Fascist unity. That is the proper context in which to understand the European conservatives’ call for the prohibition of Communist symbols.

Two problems with this conclusion. First, he shouldn't have thrown Mussolini into this discussion at the end because it reveals his real agenda. Scholars are deeply split on the question of whether Italian Fascism and Nazism were really the same phenomena at all. To chuck Mussolini in there so glibly as a morally equivalent stand-in for Hitler is sleight-of-hand. Second, while Berlusconi was exaggerating, he was not lying (you can only exaggerate the truth). Mussolini wasn't a mass-murderer, let alone a genocidal dictator like Stalin, Hitler or Hussein.

Which brings us to the final point. By saying Berlusconi's "true scandal" was telling the truth, more or less, we can see where the author is really coming from. Zizek offered no evidence or even really any discussion at all to support his conclusion that there's an effort to undermine an identity rooted in Europe's "anti-Fascist unity." (How strong can that identity be if Europeans are so soft on the heirs to real Fascism today, but hold their oompah dances in the street to protest posters of George W. Bush in a Hitler mustache?). Instead he simply says we must choose which perspective is better based on the consequences of the choice. In this case, Zizek thinks losing the organizing myth of European anti-Fascism is to great a sacrifice. In other words, he thinks the "true" scandal of Berlusconi's statements was that Berlusconi uttered them at all, not that they were or were not true. This, itself, is a show trial mentality. To denounce the truth for the political consequences the truth will bring is a pretty good description of the original Communist version of political correctness.

Anyway, the piece is worth reading, even after it goes off the rails.

Sleep in a three tier bunkbed with dudes who favor tax cuts.

London police don't know. American academics won't say.

Note: These links are backwards, but I'm running out the door so you can figure it out.