Further comment would be superfluous:

"TOPEKA, Kan. - (KRT) - None of the eight intelligent design proponents who testified at the Kansas State Board of Education's evolution hearings Friday have read the science standards they want changed. Under cross-examination, all eight admitted they simply read the 28-page minority report and not the full 107-page draft of proposed science standards, most of which is not controversial."

Derb - My gal was having a fine time until I asked her if she thought Fabianism was a gnostic heresy.

To which she replied, "ask me that when you can do it while making eye contact."

…on Blair and his lies. He faults the Tories for attacking Blair as a liar:

It especially doesn't work for the Tories because they're accusing Prime Minister Blair of duplicity on an issue about which they actually agree with him. Conservative leader Michael Howard says he would have supported the invasion of Iraq even without weapons of mass destruction — the subject of Blair's supposed dissembling. By nevertheless making the L-word the centerpiece of today's election, Howard comes off as opportunistic and unprincipled.

This, I am afraid, is nonsense. The accusation, entirely deserved by the way, that Blair is a liar did not revolve around the war; the point that the Conservatives were making (not that effectively, admittedly) was that Blair’s lies over the war were just one example among many. Blair simply cannot be trusted, really, on anything.

As Blair’s own finance minister, loopy Gordon Brown, told the PM last year, “there’s nothing that you could ever say to me now that I could ever believe.”

What a pity that a trusting 37 percent of British voters (Blair’s share of the poll) disagreed.

Monday-morning quarterbacking someone’s predictions is all too easy, and all too unfair, but this comment from Boot also made me laugh:

The biggest change Howard has promised is a reduction in immigration. This may snare some votes among xenophobic yobs, but it has also led (Arnold Schwarzenegger, pay attention) to a backlash against "mean-spirited" right-wingers.

Some backlash, Max.

Incidentally, in a recent interview on the BBC, Blair was asked eighteen times for an estimate as to how many illegal immigrants there were in England. He refused to answer. I guess he thought the plebs (sorry, Max, ‘yobs’) didn’t deserve to be told. Charming.

UPDATE

From the Guardian:

Labour feared last night that a pincer movement of working-class antipathy to immigration and middle-class opposition to the Iraq war had cut Tony Blair's majority by much more than he had hoped.

Some backlash, Max.

The Irish people once gave the EU Commission the ‘wrong’ result in a referendum. Such errors cannot be allowed to happen again:

The Irish government is considering amending the national constitution to allow for major future changes to EU rules to be made without a referendum, according to a report in The Irish Times on Friday.

George Bush decided, quite rightly, to go to Riga, Latvia, ahead of his trip to Moscow to attend the ceremonies marking the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II.

That was the right thing to do. The annexation of the Baltic States was a disgraceful episode even by the disgusting standards of that Soviet Union of which Vladimir Putin is, apparently, now so proud. The presidents of Lithuania and Estonia are quite right to boycott the Moscow event. It is a shame that their Latvian counterpart is not doing the same.

As the Daily Telegraph reports, one of Putin’s spokesmen takes a different view:

Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Russia's point man on relations with the EU, claimed yesterday that the Red Army was welcomed into the Baltics. He said: "One cannot use the term occupation to describe these historical events. At that time, the troop deployment took place on an agreed basis and with the clearly expressed agreement of the existing authorities in the Baltic republics. There was no occupation of foreign territory seized by military means.

Words fail me.

Until Russia begins to acknowledge its past, the prospects for its future look grim.

A long post on this subject at Brain-Terminal. Very useful stuff. Anybody who sees a problem with this route, please lemme know.

What a motley collection of moperists and goat herders.

Actually just kidding. Delightful, smart, funny bunch of people. My only regret is that I didn't jump on the Cinco de Mayo buffet table and scream: Mennnnnnndooooooozzzzzzzzzzaaaaa!!!!

Other than that, a wonderful time was had by all (I think and hope).

A reader writes:

Jonah,

Verizon, SprintPCS, and T-Mobile all sell PC card thingamajigs for making
cellular internet connections. The 15" and 17" PowerBooks have PC card
slots, the 12" PowerBook and the iBooks (all) don't have a PC card slot.

I've been using the SprintPCS PCS Connection Card for over 2 years in my 15"
PowerBook. It's $80/month for unlimited data.

Verizon now offers BroadBandAccess cards which work on the Mac. I haven't
tried it myself, but I understand that in the cities that have the latest
infrastructure (New York, Washington, Seattle, others) it's the equivalent
of cable or DSL in the home. In cities without the latest infrastructure
(Harrisburg PA, where I am) it will still connect at speeds equivalent to
the SprintPCS card (i.e. slightly faster than a 56k dial-up). Verizon's
service is also $80/month for unlimited data.

A friend had the T-Mobile AirCard, but was not happy with it. I don't know
what the speed was.

All of these cards are measured by volume of bits and bytes sent and
received, not minutes used like cell calls. Their are cheaper options than
$80/month, but you're limited to a certain bandwidth. Check the company web
sites for plans.

I've recently canceled the SprintPCS service, as I'm not traveling as much
for work as I used to. If my travel picks up again, I'll try the Verizon
service. There was a web site of Verizon/Mac users I found (can't remember
the URL at the moment) with lots of good info. Maybe try googling for it.

Subject: NR ON THE BRIT ELECTIONS

Mr. Lowry,
I'm not sure who on the NRO staff wrote the editorial but it is without a doubt one of the best analyses of the elections I've read to date. Whoever it is deserves a raise.

And we began to be heated. I was arguing with him. He accused me of fabricating the things that I had contained in the letter. I don't recall if he had a letter at that point, or he was simply going on reports from Matthew Freedman, but I do remember that we began to shout at each other. And at some point during this, I'd say, about 15- to 25-minute conversation, Mr. Bolton punctuated his frustrated by just throwing a folder off the table, and a -- a folder full of papers -- and, at that point, I said, "This meeting is over," and I got up, (inaudible) and returned to my hotel room.

In the second meeting, Mr. Bolton began the same place he did. There was no attempt to, sort of, defuse the anger with which he was approaching the situation. He reiterated all the things he said before, and, you know, it went on for about ten minutes, and then he accused me of being unstable, and he demanded, once again, that I recant my statement to AID about IBTCI, their performance on the contract. Again, we began shouting. And I stood up and made to leave for the door, and Mr. Bolton was, you know -- you know, shouting and speaking quite forcefully that I was making the biggest mistake of my life, and that there would be litigation that followed. And he said, "You know, you're crazy." And I -- and I said something to the effect of, "What, are you going throw something else at me again?" And he waved a roll of tape at me. And I left, with him shouting down the hall at me, and-- that, you know, I was going to regret everything that I'd done.

For Mac folks only, for you are the Chosen People.

The Hotlanta trip sealed the deal. I want a cellular modem thingamajig for my laptop. Ponnuru has one and I cannot abide him having one when I don't. Also, I travel a lot and being able to file/post/timewaste from anywhere is just too attractive an option. The costs, according to Ramesh are tolerable, especially when you figure I can drop my account with T-Mobile for use at Starbucks, etc. The question is, do they make such things for the Mac universe? A quick search of the Apple Store was to no avail. If they do make 'em, what should I get? If they don't, is there a third party solution? Can I make one myself with twine and duct tape?

Note: PC jingoists don't need to send me emails making fun of Macs and the like. I've heard it all before and I won't be switching.

From a reader:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

I have been following with interest the exchanges between you and the
increasingly hyperbolic Andrew Sullivan.

With respect to "fundamentalism," it is probably worth noting that the term
has a precise definition. A fundamentalist is anyone who agrees with the
Five Points of Fundamentalism, a statement of faith formulated at the
Niagara Bible Conference of 1895. The Five Points are: 1) the inerrancy of
scripture; 2) the virgin birth of Jesus Christ; 3)the substitutional theory
of atonement; 4) the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ; and 5) Christ's
imminent bodily return to the world.

The Niagara Bible Conference was a conservative Protestant response to the
same phenomena of Modernism that elicited the condemnation of Pope Pius X.
The points avoid most of the touchy theological issues that divided
Protestant denominations from each other (as well as from Catholicism and
Orthodoxy), and so just about any Christian who can recite the Apostles' or
Nicene Creeds in a spirit of sincere belief is appropriately called a
fundamentalist.

Correct usage of the term is NOT reflected in the usage of secular or
liberal religious commentators, for whom "fundamentalist" is nothing but a
pejorative to describe someone whose religious beliefs they don't like.

One of the most egregious examples of bias in the media is the use of
"fundamentalist" as a description of certain typically fanatical and violent
Muslims. Because "fundamentalist" specifically refers to a type of Christian
belief, applying that adjective to Islam makes about as much sense as would
applying the adjective "Talmudic" to Buddhism.

The Islamic sect most often called "fundamentalist" is Wahhabism. The
Wahhabis refer to themselves as "al-Muwahhidun," which is most accurately
translated "unitarians." Of course, it wouldn't do to say that the Twin
Towers were attacked by "fanatical unitarians." The term "fundamentalist" is
used because the commentators' real agenda is to suggest that Pat Robertson
or James Dobson are comparable threats to the American Way of Life as is
Osama bin Laden. This cheap and dishonest rhetorical trick is Sullivan's
stock in trade.

Yours sincerely,

House rules say such trips are acceptable only if they are principally designed for information gathering, and Mr. DeLay's visit to Scotland and London was billed as an effort to promote an exchange of ideas with British conservatives.

Still, lobbyist Jack Abramoff's heavy involvement and the recreational nature of much of the trip raise questions about the true purpose of the Scottish leg of the expensive outing, which Mr. Abramoff initially helped pay for, according to travel documents and billing records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The new information suggests instead that recreation was the primary purpose of going to Scotland, and the excursion appears more a gift and contrary to House rules defining "necessary" travel expenses as not including "entertainment or recreational activities."

From almost any conservative angle, Britain’s election result is disappointing.

From the standpoint of a British conservative, the Tory party lost a third election and gained very little ground — less than 1 percent of the popular vote. From an American conservative standpoint, Tony Blair, who is a loyal friend of the United States, is today in a noticeably weakened political state. Though he won a third term — the first Labour prime minister to do so — he saw his majority substantially reduced and his share of the popular vote fall to a derisory 36 percent. If the British electoral system had not become so lopsidedly biased, he would have almost no majority at all.

From the standpoint of a foreign-policy conservative, Blair’s loss is a sign of weakening support for the U.S. across Europe, even in America’s most reliable ally. Blair is generally reckoned to have lost a large number of “middle-class progressive” votes (i.e., Guardian-reading, muesli-eating, electric-car-driving voters) to the Liberal Democrats because of their hostility to the Iraq war.

I attended the American Jewish Committee annual dinner last night; John Negroponte spoke and, as our chief spy, he naturally said little of substance. What struck me instead was the parade of foreign leaders that always address this dinner -- this time, the foreign ministers of Singapore, Romania, and Chile; in earlier years, the president of Spain, the prime minister of Argentina, et al. And it's always the same: We love the Jews! We love Israel! This from countries that routinely vote against Israel in the UN. The guy from Chile added a twist -- he boasted that the head of his country's public libraries was Jewish. Libraries! How about letting an Arab run the libraries and instead stop singling out the Jewish state in the UN.

Now, for American dignitaries to address an important, politically active constituency is perfectly normal. But the foreigners have flown thousands of miles just to address the event, and you know what's got to be going through their heads: "The Jews run America, so let's go make nice with them." As my charming tablemate said, everyone but the Jews seem to believe the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Fidel Castro reads NR, but he doesn’t learn anything from it. On April 30, he quoted from Otto Reich’s cover story in our April 11 issue, on the partnership between Castro and Venezuela’s strongman Hugo Chávez. (The two were having a summit in Havana.) Reich had written, “With the combination of Castro’s evil genius, experience in political warfare, and economic desperation, and Chávez’s unlimited money and recklessness, the peace of this region is in peril.” According to Reuters, “Castro, 78, read out Reich’s words to a delighted audience in Havana’s Karl Marx Theater.” Delighted, we’re sure — not half as delighted as Cubans will be when the tyrannical old bastard finally meets his reward. Why doesn’t he read out those words, next time he’s in the Karl Marx Theater?

Fr. George Rutler invites you to a concert of music performed by Johannes Somary, on the occasion of the dedication of the Eileen Grady Manning Memorial Organ, at the Church of Our Saviour, 59 Park Avenue (at 38th Street), on Thursday, May 5, at 6 p.m.

To be honest I haven't looked at Andrew Sullivan's debate page much. When I get the chance I will respond to his longer stuff (Right now I've got to walk Coz, pack, and head to Atlanta for the Sourthern leg of NRfest '05). But he does have an answer for my post yesterday -- where I suggested that he seemed to be practicing precisely the sort of moral equivalence he was once so eloquent denouncing after 9/11. He says:

I wrote "Christian fundamentalism" not Christianity; and I wrote "open and proud homosexuality", not just homosexuality. I completely agree that the murderous threat of Islamist fundamentalism is far graver than the threat of Christian fundamentalism. (Although it's worth noting that America's recent domestic terrorism has come from the extreme right, and that Erik Rudolph, a Christian fundamentalist terrorist, specifically targeted gays for murder.) But I also believe that the war against Islamic fundamentalism is indeed linked to the struggle against similar extremists within Christianity. We are in a global war for secular society, in which the search for religious truth is and must be protected but religious truth is not and must not be the basis of a political order. The external enemies of such secularism are far worse than the internal ones. But their ultimate mindset remains the same. It has always struck me as odd that some of those most opposed to Islamist fundamentalism are completely untroubled by the Christian variety. Or maybe Hitch and I are the only ones to see a connection.

If Andrew had written anything like this to start, I never would have commented. That's not to say that I agree with it. But it's not what he originally wrote. He wrote:

THE DUTCH CONFLICT: A good friend of mine dares to walk hand in hand with his boyfriend in Amsterdam. Yes, Amsterdam. A "Moroccan-looking" guy with a heavy accent spits at him in the face, mutters something about "f****ing fags", and then a small gang beats him up. His story is here, including a picture of his bloodied face. Hatred of open and proud homosexuals is intrinsic to Islamist fundamentalism, as it is to Christian fundamentalism. The struggle against both is the same one - at home and abroad.

Anyway, as for his response, fine. But I would add that Erik Rudolph is not a trend. He's a man. John Ashcroft -- the poster child for everything Andrew dislikes about the GOP -- very aggressively sought the death penalty for Rudolph and if I recall correctly the "theocrats" didn't object. Meanwhile, it's simply not true that terrorism in America has only come from the extreme right. Yes, there was Oklahoma City (though those nutjobs were hardly Christian fundamentalists, and -- again -- John Ashcroft sought the death penalty to the applause of the supposedly Talibanish GOP). But there was also the Unabomber who was in fact defended -- or at least apologized for -- by some on the respectable left. Moreover, environmental terrorists groups are a real trend in this country. And, I should add, apologists of foreign terror of the Ward Churchill variety far, far, far outnumber anything of the sort on the right.

Oh, I think I should clarify something myself, particularly in response to the pissy post Andrew links to refute me (interesting where Andrew finds allies these days). When I wrote,

"Christian fundamentalism gave birth to the Protestant reformation, individual liberty, the American nation, the modern American university, and the like. This is not a minor distinction either."

I should have been more precise. I was in my own mind referring to the sorts of things Andrew calls Christian fundamentalism -- i.e. conservatism of faith, politics of faith, using faith to reach policy conclusions etc. I was not trying to discuss the historical concept in and of itself. I do understand that what we call Christian fundamentalism has gone through some changes over the years. Though there is no denying that a politics of faith was behind, for example, the founding of most of our leading universities and liberal arts colleges. And if this Duss guy is a stickler for precision when it comes to use of the term, I assume he'll be taking a hatchet to Sullivan's prose any day now. I'd respond more in depth, but Cosmo awaits the park.

William Mellor writes: "Without realizing it, liberals and conservatives are working from opposite ends of the political spectrum, under opposing rationales, to reach the same end: expanded government power." Liberals don't care about economic liberty, only "personal" liberty, while conservatives don't want judges overriding legislative decisions, and therefore the courts aren't protecting economic liberty.

It's an interesting argument. I'm not sure how unwitting this collaboration is. Let's say you're a conservative who believes, say, that the Founders did not intend for the federal courts to override (some) state infringements of economic liberty. Wouldn't you be happy that on this point, at least, liberals, for whatever reason, came down in the right place?

I'd have to know a lot more history on this point to venture a judgment about whether that hypothetical conservative is right. But I don't think the argument that Mellor makes--that politicians don't have the proper incentives to protect economic liberties and therefore judges should--works. On his own account, judges don't appear to have felt any incentive to protect economic liberties either.

The fact that his article has received some incredibly stupid responses, as provocative articles sometimes will, does not establish that Oderberg's basic argument is sound. I think it is not, nor are some of the frills on top of it.

Oderberg contrasts the moral views of the late Pope John Paul II with those of our current president. Where the two agree, as on abortion, Oderberg agrees with both of them. Where they disagree, as on war and capital punishment, Oderberg believes Bush's views to be more "traditional" and "defensible" than the pope's.

First of all--and I don't see how anyone could really deny this point--the fact that a particular moral view is "traditional" cannot establish its rightness, even if one judges the tradition of which a view is a part to be generally sound (and even if one therefore gives a particular traditional view a respectful hearing because it is part of that generally sound tradition). Oderberg's references to Aquinas tend to establish that there has been a development of Catholic doctrine on the death penalty, but they don't go anywhere in telling us whether earlier or later views were more defensible.

Second: What the heck does Oderberg mean by this? "Indeed it is somewhat amazing that John Paul seems to have remained so unmoved by the unrelenting violence, sexual decadence, and drug-fuelled vice of modern materialist society (the very society he chastised over and over for its naked greed) as never once to have advocated executing some of the criminals who make contemporary life such a misery for so many people" (emphasis his). Are we to picture JPII saying, "Let me--just this once--say, I really think this guy needs to be fried?" And to regret that it did not happen? And who is Oderberg suggesting that the pope should have come out for executing? Rapists? Drug dealers? Sellers of pornography? The passage sweeps pretty broadly. It's a weird and troubling view of things that imagines that you haven't been truly "moved" by negative social trends until you've been moved to kill people over them.

Yer right, I posted the subservient chicken last year.

Congressional negotiators have agreed to keep the Real ID Act in the emergency Iraq appropriations bill, which should be voted on in the House tomorrow and the Senate next week. The most important element seeks to bar illegal aliens from getting drivers licenses. Unfortunately, the version that is likely to pass contains a loophole that would allow states to issue two kinds of drivers licenses--the regular kind, that illegals couldn’t get, and thus would be acceptable for federally mandated uses like boarding airplanes or entering nuclear power plants, and a second version, usually called a “driving certificate,” which wouldn’t require the applicant to prove he’s in the country legally, but which would have to indicate something like “Not for identification purposes" on the front. Of the 11 states that allow illegals to get licenses, Tennessee and Utah already do it this way, and the danger, as I see it, is that this loophole will be taken by the states as a cue from Washington, and we could end up with more and more states doing it, states that otherwise wouldn’t have issued illegals any kind of license at all.

The problem with this approach is twofold: First, any kind of official documentation provided to people who aren’t supposed to be here helps incorporate them into our institutions and is one more step toward amnesty; and second, despite any disclaimers printed on the illegals-only licenses, they will inevitably end up being accepted for identification purposes anyway. This is what we saw in Tennessee, where the certificates say “Not valid for ID” right on the front, but which the state police said from the get-go that they would just accept as ID anyway.

I debated the head of the immigration lawyers guild (“Jihad Jeannie” Butterfield) last night on the NewsHour, and she gave all the usual talking points against the bill, but I don’t understand why the open-borders crowd is fighting it--the two-tier license loophole is their best shot at providing documents for illegals across the country and thus taking a big step toward a de facto amnesty. Maybe they’re just following Jefferson’s advice when Britain transferred Florida back to Spain in 1784--object just enough to make your enemies think you oppose the move, but not enough to stop it, since it’s in your interests to let it continue.

has written an unintentionally hilarious piece for the New Republic comparing today's Christian conservatives to the "radical multiculturalists" of the 1990s. The latter were threats to "American pluralism," in their day, as Christian conservatives are today. (Wait a second. Weren't the Christian conservatives supposed to be threats to American pluralism back in the early 1990s, too?) I won't linger on the thesis, since it's unassailable--as long as "American pluralism" is identified with New Republic-style liberalism, and Christian conservatism requires a commitment to views that are not held by, say, a majority of opponents of abortion. (Stanley: You'll be delighted to see that the word "dominion" gets mentioned.)

Odder is this passage: "[C]onservative nominees to the bench are not under attack from liberals for holding Christian beliefs; they are under attack for advocating a judicial philosophy that would impose those religious beliefs--on same-sex marriage, on abortion, on stem-cell research--on other Americans" (emphasis his). What world is Reifowitz living in? Where is the judge who has said that he would ban abortion or stem-cell research or same-sex marriage even if the public wanted to allow these things? Justice Scalia hasn't said anything like this. Nor have the mainstream opponents of judicial nominees such as Bill Pryor and Priscilla Owen--until, that is, this weekend, when Mario Cuomo made the same bizarre claims in the Democratic response to the president's radio address. Maybe Reifowitz is getting his information from Cuomo? In reality, the people who want judges to overturn or block democratic decisions in this area are our liberal "pluralist" friends.

The amusing part of the article comes at the end, when Reifowitz explains the strategy for defeating Christian conservatism: "[L]iberals will have to reach out to conservatives who care deeply about pluralism. . . . We are starting to see signs of dissent among Republicans and conservatives, most notably in recent comments by Christie Todd Whitman, Christopher Shays, and John Danforth. (Andrew Sullivan did his part in last week's TNR cover story.) Whitman, a moderate former governor and EPA chief, called her book It's My Party Too. Shays, a member of the House since 1987, commented on March 25 that 'this Republican party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy.' Danforth, in an eloquent New York Times op-ed on March 30, argued that religious conservatives have 'hijacked' the GOP. 'Republicans,' he wrote, 'have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. . . . [I]t has become the political extension of a religious movement.' Whitman, Shays, and Danforth should receive support from liberals in these efforts." Oh, they do.

What they don't receive is much support from actual self-described conservatives, who tend to see them as has-beens whose hold on their party was defeated a long time ago.

I wrote two posts about Senator Danforth's op-ed that I may as well link here. I would add that we should resist the devaluation of the word "eloquent" into a word of empty praise for anyone who has said anything with which we agree.)

Class:

CBS

Late Late Show

May 3, 2005

34:00

Bill Maher: "I think that there is no perspective. People have no perspective, especially about crime. You know, zero tolerance. You know, of course, nobody ever wants to see a child, you know, diddled. That’s just plain wrong. But even the people who are testifying against him, they’re saying that he serviced them. They didn’t service him."

Craig Ferguson: "You don’t have kids, do you, Bill?"

Maher: "No."

Ferguson: "No. I have a son. It makes me crazy, this thing, this Michael Jackson thing. It drives me, the idea of someone touching my kid, I would go, I nearly swore there. I’d go crazy."

Maher: "Very wrong. But, you know, I remember when I was a kid. I was savagely beaten once by bullies in the schoolyard. Savagely beaten. If I had a choice between being savagely beaten and being gently masturbated by a pop star. It’s just me."

Ferguson: "The always controversial Bill Maher, everybody."

Maher: "What? That’s it?"

Ferguson: "Bill Maher. We’ll be right back with Rain Pryor."

While everyone gets onto their high horses (so many possible jokes, so little time) over Laura's naughty joke, apostate, heretic, and all-round good guy Robert A. George has the last word:

"Laura Bush: Uniter Not a Divider: Liberals without a sense of humor meet conservatives without a sense of humor. Hijinks ensue!!"

From a reader:

Jonah

Having served with Vietnam Vets (many of them highly decorated) and done extensive research on the war itself, I can assure you that your impression of the Nam was more to the point than Mitchell's.

After Tet of 1968 one fellow told me that the VC could had held a convention of all the remaining VC in the area in a phone booth.

One of my Bttn Commanders, Cruse McCollough, (ex SF, Central Highlands, ex 173rd ABN) messed up the VC in his area so bad that they put a 10 thousand Piaster reward on him. It was never collected, and he steadily messed up VC ops in his Area of Operation. Cruse was/is a hell of a man, and my troops and myself would follow him into the gates of hell itself.

(note: Hes a big, gentle soul, with steel grey eyes and a very gentle polite way of talking and has a Missouri drawl.)

Armored Cavalry units had established such normalcy in civilian areas that the civilians went about their daily routines of fishing and planting rice without VC interferance in a lot of areas.

In short, the "bad guys" were losing the war, we were winning, and then the "bad guys" over here were making us lose the political side of it. And I never forgot that, and I never ever forgave them.

Thats my two cents

From a reader:

Jonah, As you know, I've been a Lesbian for less than 24 hours so I might not be qualified to comment on Sullivan and his views on Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, but I will do it anyway. Andrew ignores the fact that Christians aren't imposing their will on the rest of the world. The truth is, it's the Christians that are under attack from people like Sullivan and groups like the ACLU. As soon as Christians start circumcising non believers, I will start making some comparisons.

Q Are you aware of any contacts that she had with John Bolton?

MR. JONES: Well, at the time, I don't remember every having a contact with John Bolton. I don't remember ever having a contact. I mean, Melody is very descriptive, and the stories were going around, and can I remember one story or another, no, but she felt extremely uncomfortable, and I think that's probably a slight understatement, in that whole situation.

Q: Did people, as those stories would go around, I assume you're meaning, in Moscow.

MR. JONES: And in Washington.

Q: Do you know anybody who said, did you hear anybody say, particularly contemporaneously with these events, "That's just nuts," or any kind of question, question the stories? Did people accept them?

MR. JONES: The quick answer is I don't remember how people reacted. …

Q: So, did you hear the stories about this from Melody while you were in Moscow, or --

MR. JONES: That I don't remember. But probably when I got home, because I don't know when I left, but I probably left shortly after the meeting.

Q: But it sounds like she must have said this to a bunch of people if there's all these rumors flying around.

MR. JONES: Well, it's a very small community, at least with our -- we didn't have that many people involved and it was not the normal sort of thing that happens every day or every week, and Melody is colorful at times, and talks to people, and so it was around.

Q: Can you tell us what you remember hearing?

MR. JONES: No. I just remember hearing that she felt very uncomfortable, and didn't like her situation and was asking for help and how do we solve it, how do I get myself out of this, and --

Q: Asking for help regarding -- ?

MR. JONES: No, just more in terms of her own personal situation, what's going on, it's very uncomfortable, I don't know what's going to happen, I mean, she's still over there.

Q: It's very uncomfortable because of her contractor? In other words, it seems I've gone -- I'm paraphrasing -- in other words, I've gone behind my contractor's back to AID, my contractor is now not very happy . . . .is she uncomfortable with her professional situation?

MR. JONES: No, more personal situation.

Q: Because she's stuck in a hotel and doesn't know where her next job is?

MR. JONES: Part of that, yeah.

Q: What's the other part?

MR. JONES: And just being uncomfortable in this situation of this controversy.

Q: Do you remember talking to her specifically about her contacts with John Bolton?

MR. JONES: No, I don't remember. I've tried to remember, but I can't remember whether, and if she did, and mentioned it to me, I've certainly forgotten.

Q: Well is this discomfort you're reporting related to her interactions with John Bolton, or the situation more generally.

MR. JONES: That immediate, specific situation. In other words, her discomfort had nothing to do with her professional life, or her professional desire to stay in that area of the world and do that work. She felt uncomfortable during that, this particular episode and this conflict, if you'd call it that, was making her very uncomfortable.

Q: But was it just the conflict with her employer and with IBTCI, or was it also specific to John Bolton?

MR. JONES: That I can't, that would be unfair of me to pin it down. The only thing I can remember is she's a single, young woman out there, she's having problems with Matt Friedman, she's having problems with IBTCI, she doesn't know where she's going to go next, and she's stuck in the Aerostar Hotel in the middle of Moscow.

Andrew Sullivan writes:

Hatred of open and proud homosexuals is intrinsic to Islamist fundamentalism, as it is to Christian fundamentalism. The struggle against both is the same one - at home and abroad.

I'm sorry. But:

1. Even if hatred of homosexuality were intrinsic to Islamist and Christian fundamentalism, the fight against Islamic fundamentalism isn't about homosexuality. It's just not and no matter how much you care about the issue, it won't ever be.

2. Islamic fundamentalism and Christian fundamentalism aren't the same thing. They can both be "bad" but that doesn't mean they are the same. Depending on what you mean by Christian fundamentalism, I don't think it's bad. I certainly don't think it's bad if you go by Andrew's expansive use of the phrase. But even if I did, I would recognize some important differences between the two. Like: Christian fundmentalists have not constructed a grand theological construct to justify mass murder in the modern era. No followers of Jerry Falwell are suicide bombers. This is not a minor distinction. Christian fundamentalism gave birth to the Protestant reformation, individual liberty, the American nation, the modern American university, and the like. This is not a minor distinction either.

3. Writing things like this makes it nearly impossible to defend Sullivan from the charge that he lets homosexuality color his perceptions of every other argument and issue.

Addendum: It occurs to me that a charitable explanation of Sullivan's statement is that he's trying to persuade liberals -- gay or otherwise -- to understand the threat from Islamic fundamentalism in terms they can appreciate. Alas, Andrew's recent diatribes against fundamentalism don't really jibe with this interpretation. And, besides that wouldn't absolve the slander or inaccuracy.

...none of those officials who angered Bolton were punished, and in fact they were often promoted, the interviews show. With the exception of the Westermann case, Bolton's complaints were directed at the officials' superiors, who either rejected Bolton's concerns or ran interference within the State Department.

Democratic aides say Bolton's failure to win support for his efforts to reassign lower-level officials demonstrates his lack of judgment. They say his actions may have had a chilling effect on the behavior of analysts and other aides, though they have not found evidence of that.

Yeah, I had the same reaction to that piece in the Post today.

It seems to me the anti-Bolton forces are in trouble. The whole essence of the serial abuser charge is the serial part. It seems like the anti-Bolton Dems can't come up with a real, clear, pattern of dubious or irresponsible behavior. If the Dems accusation were true it still wouldn't merit disqualifying him, but it would certainly be easier to prove.

Worth a gander.

By the way, as a couple readers have noted, this guy says he's transforming himself into a tiger in accord with his Indian heritage. But, uh, since when are tigers indigenous to the Michigan region?

It's part of who he is.

I'm sure Rich -- cat guy that he is -- would give this cat guy a job.

Looking freakishly like a tiger has gotten Dennis "Cat" Avner lots of attention. But it hasn't paid many bills.

That's one reason why Avner is leaving the tiny East County community where he has lived for six years and moving to Washington state. There's not much demand in San Diego County for a computer and electronics technician with tattooed stripes on his face and fangs in his mouth.

Avner, 46, began his transformation 25 years ago, undergoing up to a dozen surgeries. He offers a simple explanation for enduring all that pain.

"It's something I need to do," he said. "I have to do it. It's part of who I am."

Make sure to see the picture.

An important clarification:

Jonah, columnists like you i.e. not you (a bugaboo of a professor of mine). Tyrants such as Rich Lowry do, in fact, have villas.

A good bumper sticker. From a reader:

Read more closely, youse is accused of PSYCHOLOGICAL tyranny, therefore your villa must likewise be...psychological. Therefore, logically, The Couch is your villa...

From ZNet:

The Internet is the hammer and anvil with which one can shatter the shackles of psychological tyranny perpetrated by the likes of Fox, the Washington Times, and columnists like Jonah Goldberg.

I think the joke Laura Bush told has less to do with porn invading the mainstream than it has to do with farm/ranch humor. I think if you look you'd find variants of this joke in rural humor about as far back as people milked cows.

Perhaps I am very slow, but I have been telling a true story similar to this about my mother for about 57 years only she was trying to milk a steer. I even told it earlier this year at her funeral and no one ever considered it a masturbation joke. Only people who never milked a cow would think this joke off-color. The joke was that he could not tell a horse from a cow.

Hi, I appreciate your thoughts on the Laura Bush jokes at the Correspondents Dinner and your willingness to avoid jumping on the prudery bandwagon. But I think you may be missing something important, which is that Laura Bush has spent most of her life in Texas, where cattle and horse jokes are not considered pornographic or even necessarily vulgar. Animal reproduction is a source of both income (I remember getting a lecture on the breeding practices of a $2 million Arabian stud at one person's farm) and amusement in red states. Farm people or people who grew up around farmers and cattlemen actually seem more comfortable with sexuality because they are around it so much and even rely on it for income.

This is what makes her joke especially funny. She is both mocking the President's embrace of his "cowboy" side in a way that she might mock a city slicker, and at the same time she's also subversively speaking in a very specific cultural language that leaves out most of the people at the dinner, so that they don't even know that they are being made fun of at the same time. Urbanites like Malkin and Bennett just can't get it and that's part of the joke as well.

So, in my mind this joke was much funnier than the lame Desperate Housewives crack as she was skewering both the President and the attendees at the same time.

K-Lo — Farm humor is not coarsening; nor is it appreciated by the coastal elites, most of whom have never been nearer a farm than the Shuckey’s on the Interstate exit. Farm humor isn’t about sex, it’s about life... and life on the farm is far removed from inside the Beltway sensibilities. Between the two, I’ll take the farm as far more sensible. --

A reader asks:

Is it really that big a deal that Laura Bush loves the part in Kingpin when Woody Harrelson is pretending to be Amish?

One of Maj. Robert Rogers “Standing Orders” to his Rangers back in the French & Indian War was “4. Tell the truth about what you see and what you do. There is an Army depending upon us for correct information. You can lie all you please when you talk to other folks about the rangers, but don’t never lie to a Ranger or officer.”

I think of Cpl. Tillman’s selfless example of service to his country, his regiment and his friends every day. I look my Black-and-Gold Ranger Tab everyday and remember Pat’s charge, to “Earn the freedom fought and died for.” . I am motivated by his bright, shining example. I grieve for him, and those like him, and wish he were here with us today, for my sons and daughter to look at for an example of what is right in the world.

We had a saying that, for G-rated audiences, runs like this: Stuff Happens. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. What happened to Pat was bad. That his fellow Rangers are accused of violating one of their standing orders in lying about it, or even merely obfuscating, is a disgrace that apparently denigrates Pat and all Rangers simply by association with those who perpetrate the falsehood, who “sell their honor cheap”. But who was it who lied about it? Who covered it up? Who had a vested interest in either lying about it, or creating a mythical figure? I know men like Pat, and lies do not spring easily to their lips. Brutal candor is the bedrock of men like Pat, so mistakes made are never repeated again. Until I know where the untruth started, I will assume Pat’s fellow Rangers remain true to their honor and did not violate their 4th Standing Order, and honored Pat with their honesty.

Rangers-Lead the Way!

The caterer of the Atlanta fundraiser. No one can leave without finishing at least one burger.

Nod to Drudge.

Now that I posted all of that meaty substance stuff, let me feel guilt free in ruining the productivity of many of your work days. Vintage arcade games. I know there are many sites with such games, but I find most of them to be buggy and slow (maybe because I'm a Mac guy, maybe because my standards for such things are so high). This one works great, at least for me. I just wish they had Defender.

More airborne-laser volcano-lancing. From Nature:

US pins down volcano risk

After spending more than a year assessing 169 active volcanoes in the United States and the Mariana Islands, experts have identified the volcanoes that pose the greatest threat to people and property.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) report, issued on 29 April, also pins down what steps should be taken to fill the gaps in the current monitoring systems for those volcanoes.

"We know that many of the most damaging effects of eruptions can be mitigated if proper monitoring is in place," says Marianne Guffanti, a volcanologist with the USGS, which is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. "That's what this report is all about."

Terrible news:

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) -- An Iraqi carrying hidden explosives set them off outside a police recruitment center Wednesday where people were applying for jobs, police said. The U.S. military said at least 50 Iraqis were killed, making it the deadliest insurgent attack in Iraq in more than two months.

State-owned TV in Iraq and Al-Arabiya television gave even higher casualty figures, saying 60 were killed and as many as 150 wounded.

At least seven cars parked near the center were destroyed by the blast in Irbil, a Kurdish city 220 miles north of Baghdad. Several nearby buildings were damaged.

NYT Smear

Bob Herbert of the NYT has a column where he presents a Conscientious Objectors word as final. Trouble is, I was there too and closer to the action than Aidan Delgado the mechanic.

The compound where the riot took place, compound 8, was run by my Company, the 870th MP Co. The riot also was an escape attempt. It wasn't just a few stone throwers; the sky was black with throw debris, which effectively suppressed the compound towers from their overwatch duties. The stones being thrown represented a deadly force threat. Some of them were head size. It was only when the riot became a danger of a serious breakout attempt and less than lethal force(rubber shot from M203 and rubber point munitions from 12 GA shotguns) had been applied to no effect was the request for deadly force made. When permission was granted, two soldiers fired on the ring leaders. 3 were killed outright, ending the riot immediately. One more died later and 12 more were wounded. I know both of the soldiers who fired; they are good people and only did what they had to do to keep others from further harm. Given that one of the soldiers was using a M249, it could have been a bloodbath. Both soldiers showed remarkable restraint in picking their targets and only using necesarry force. There was a AR 15-6 investigation and CID also investigated. The shootings were found to be justified and both soldiers were decorated for their actions.

This Delgado guy was a mechanic; he was no where near those compounds. I also highly doubt he "confronted" the SGT who fired; he wouldn't have even known who he was. Different unit, not working anywhere near the compounds.

From a historian:

Jonah:

You're right, he's wrong. Until 68 public opinion polls in general (not just
polls of the working class) supported the war. And you didn't even address
the key difference between Iraq and Vietnam: every soldier, airman, marine,
and sailor is now a volunteer, not someone there against their will. The
draft was, properly, one of the biggest criticisms the anti-war people had
with LBJ and Nixon - of course, they could get out of it with student
deferrments, for the most part, whereas the working class couldn't. When
Nixon instituted Selective Service in 1970 he took away a huge element of
the anti-war movement's argument - and not incidentally created a better
fighting force (and I don't mean to criticize soldiers of the past) that has
proven to be the world's best. Which is another reason why those phony
draft stories that moveon.org was circulating were so outrageous: the JCS
and Rumsfeld know how great our armed forces precisely because they
willingly joined.

Also, one thing the current antiwar left also ignores is the correlation
between the volunteer armed forces and their strong support for Bush and
their dislike (to say the least) of Clinton, Kerry, et al.

as usual don't use my name if i make it to the Corner...

Q:Do you remember exactly when Fred said, "Oh, and under Secretary Bolton wants this guy fired," but did he say specifically for what cause or --

Mr. Foley: You see, I don't think it was that specific. I don't think it was, "Under Secretary Bolton wants this guy fired." It was more of a kind of a casual comment that, you know, "John's having a really difficult time with this guy, and, you know, he thinks this guy ought to be fired because of the way he's behaving." It wasn't -- you know, it wasn't, you know, "John wants to know how do we get this guy fired." But, like I said, I found it as, kind of, a jarring comment. That is why I reacted to it --

I don't entirely agree with the sentiment here, but it's probably not so objectionable to me as it is to folks like Mitchell:

I have to say it's not just liberal Boomers who see Vietnam in every war. Whenever we see commie rat bastards marching for "peace," some of us still have the instinct to punch their lights out.

The day after Operation Desert Storm began in 1991, I designed a T-shirt and
ordered a gross with this red-white-blue slogan:

"VICTORY - Operation Desert Storm - We Support Our Troops"

I was not then, and am not now a mindless jingo. In 1991, I sided with Sam
Nunn in opposing military action in the Gulf. But I understand that, once
the guns start firing, the time for debate is over. The only objective of
any patriot when his nation goes to war is VICTORY, and there is no
substitute.

To be defeated in war is a disgrace to any nation, and so devastating are
the consequences of defeat that no patriotic person -- whatever his views of
the casus belli -- can wish for anything other than VICTORY.

THAT is the Vietnam lesson this "Boomer" learned, and I can never forget it.

Q: Did he ever complain about any of your analysts?

Mr. Foley: No, quite -- my recollection is quite the contrary. John was very complimentary of a lot of our analysts. I remember, or think I remember, he even took one of them on a trip he made, abroad. So, I think John -- I don't remember John having any problems, specific problems, with one of my guys. I think he was actually quite supportive of my folks, in that he would -- you know, he wanted to hear what we had to say. He invited them down to briefings, and that sort of thing.

Q: Well, do you -- let's step back for a second. You don't necessarily remember the specifics of the testimony that Ed's mentioned, but do you remember occasions when there were problems with Bolton's office, and that your analyst involved you in trying to resolve it?

Mr. Foley: I can't point to anything specific, but, you know, it's normal to have differences in coordination. The reason I mentioned that conversation about the NIO for Latin America is, it seemed me whatever the coordination difficulties were, they had, sort of, escalated to something at the fringe of the acrimonious. But coordination disputes with John, I don't think were, you know, abnormal; they were usual. And we often had disputes with John, I think.

Q: More so than other people you dealt with?

Mr. Foley: I don't think so. I mean, there were some guys in the Pentagon who were equally difficult to deal with.

Q: Is this because people were trying to go beyond what intelligence would support, or was it simply because they were trying to get you to declassify things you didn't want to let out?

Mr. Foley: I think it was a number of things. I think, you know, declassifying stuff that we weren't comfortable saying was, you know, often an issue. I can't cite you a specific case, but, you know, that was often the case, that "We want to say this. Okay, well, if we can't say it this way, can we say it that way?" And you, sort of, end up in one of those negotiations. And, you know, I think, in the case of John, John strongly believed that just because the intelligence community had a conclusion on an issue, that didn't necessarily have to be his view. Or another way -- in other words, John felt he had every right to interpret what the evidence meant and come to a different conclusion than the intelligence community.

Q: But he wanted you to put your stamp of approval on it once he did it, wasn't that the issue?

Mr. Foley: It's not that blunt. I mean, he'd sort of say, "Well, I don't think this means that." And we said “Well, here's what we think." And you, sort of, negotiate back and forth between, you know, what John, or any policymaker, wants to say about a specific issue, based upon their analysis of the subject, and what we considered to be the intelligence judgment, and, you know, that's a normal type of negotiation you would have with pretty much anybody, I think, who was, you know, relying on intelligence, or drawing on intelligence data.

Q: To your knowledge or recollection, was he involved in this process?

Mr. Foley: I don't think John personally got involved in any of this. Most of this would be done via his staff, you know, Fred and other folks. It would, I think -- you know, John, as the Under Secretary -- I don't think he would get involved in this sort of stuff.

Q: So, you never had a conversation with Bolton about any of these issues.

Mr. Foley: Oh, I don't know if I'd say I never had a conversation with John about any of these issues. I mean, John and I spoke a lot -- and, you know, a lot about substantive issues. Normally, John and I were -- you know, it was -- I was exchanging information with John about, "Here's what I know about this," or, "Here's what we think about that," and he'd be asking questions. But I don't have any recollection of John calling me up and saying, "Goddammit, Alan, you guys are giving me a hard time, and you need to change this." I don't remember anything like that.

From a reader:

To that editor guy. Oh btw, very nice meeting you at the Dubliner, you were just like I picture you from your work, except you were a BIG guy. You have noted your west side Judaism so much I had Woody Allen with your face in mind. I was, uh, wrong.

Anyway, wish you’d mention this guys overall big dumb point. He calls all your list of important and major aspects of wars that are different between Iraq and Vietnam, little things like oh, whether the beligerants were large powerful states or not, and calls them obvious and “Duh” to disregard them.

But…then he says you ignore the ‘profound’ similarities, and lists the most trivial vague things, like that wars take a while, they cost a lot of money, civilians get killed, and that cities can get bruised up while fighting them etc., that are the ultimate ‘duh’ list. By his list, WWII is Iraq (destroying Stalingrad to save it!, Huge costs, 7 years long!), and the Civil War (destroying Atlanta to save it!, huge costs, 4 years long!) and well, the hard part is finding the wars he won’t think are Vietnam by those criteria.

I mean, come on, kick this dudes a** some more, he is the prototypical liberal boomer moron, and deserved a kicking for all his kind!!!

Okay, first of all, the Sol Tax puns are flying in and all I want to do is duck. But I will suggest that should aliens who come here to steal our sun's energy turn out to be Democrats, they would merely call it the Sol Tax.

Anyway, a reader responds to the other reader:

Jonah:

I would like to correct the impression of Sol Tax that was left by your “reader” When I was in graduate school my wife and I used to house/child sit for Sol Tax’s twin granddaughters when the children’s parents went out of town. Professor Tax was a mainstream New Deal Democrat. Even by today’s standards I don’t think he would not be considered a lefty.

From a reader:

"Someone named Sol Tax"

Sol Tax was a leading anthropologist of the day and was editor of various journals, president of various anthropological societies * and probably left-wing.

And then Mitchell starts with what he sees as the most obvious similarity between Vietnam and Iraq:

Let’s start with: the nation’s leaders lying to the American people to gain our involvement in the two wars. Don't take my word for it. Gallup found this week that half of all Americans now say that President Bush deliberately misled them on WMDs.

Um. That’s his evidence? A poll? The number could be 100% of Americans and it wouldn’t count as proof – in a court of law or with a fair editor -- that Bush “lied” (neither, alas, would Mr. Mitchell’s “word” that it is so). Indeed, the polling question is whether or not America was “misled” not if it was lied to. Readers around here understand that the distinction is significant. Readers probably also understand that if the polls overwhelmingly said Bush told the truth, Mitchell wouldn’t bother with polls.

Beyond all this, I’m not sure it’s worth going after Mitchell much more. The rest of his vein-popping tirade has nothing to do with me. He goes off on “Goldberg types” and ascribes to me by association things I have never said. He again cites polls as proof of … something or other.

The spittle really flies when he offers a list of alleged similarities between the two wars which amount to little more than question-begging or listing things he didn’t like about both wars side-by-side. I’m sure the people he “knows” talk about the similarities of destroying Fallujah and destroying Vietnamese cities all the time. But it’s not a point that comes up in the press that much.

Mitchell seems to operate under the assumption that only lefties of his age and anti-war demeanor can speak intelligently – or righteously – about Vietnam War (if that’s the case maybe he should read Christopher Hitchens on the subject).

This was largely my point about liberal babyboomers being incapable of looking at the world without seeing Vietnam. I think he proves my point.

Then he writes:

Then there's Goldberg's dubious claim that "in Vietnam, the insurgency phase of the war was largely over by 1965." Goodbye, "Charlie"!

Does Mitchell think I made this up? He offers no evidence to the contrary to disprove my assertion he simply makes fun of it like so many smug lefty boomers do when they hear something they don’t want to be true. For the record, I talked to and/or corresponded with a half-dozen military experts and vets I respect when I wrote the piece (including my longtime military guy, Donovan.Here is an except from one retired infantry Colonel:

“Vietnam was a state vs. state war. The United States and South Vietnam vs. North Vietnam and its Communist backers. The pure insurgency was over by 1965. After that it was a conventional war with U.S. forces fighting Main Force VC and NVA units. By 1970, main force VC units had ceased to exist except in name (they were manned by NVA soldiers and units), and the NVA was unable to operate in force inside South Vietnam. This changed as the US withdrawal accelerated in 1971. NVA units began to move back into S. Vietnam and take on S. Vietnamese units. They were still beaten back by a combination of S. Vietnamese forces and U.S. Airpower. The North Vietnamese finally succeeded with a massive conventional force attack after the U.S. had totally withdrawn all combat forces. (See McMaster, Dereliction of Duty; Sorley, A Better War.)”

Until Mitchell can offer an actual argument to counter the above, I’ll stand by what I wrote.

Then Mitchell continues:

With that taken care of, Goldberg described the ways that Iraq is "completely different from Vietnam in almost every major respect." He mentioned the differences between a “jungle war” and a “desert war.” Also, “the technologies” are “incomparable.” And let’s not forget: the “terrain,” the “ideologies,” not to mention “the cultures.” The Cold War vs. The War on Terror. The casualty rates.

Of course, this is all one big “Duh,” the knocking down of overstuffed straw men. No one I know, when they make any firm or loose connection between Iraq and Vietnam, mentions anything on Goldberg’s list, for good reason. But this Goldberg variation is necessary. He needs to highlight the no-brainers to avoid the profound ways in which the wars are similar.

Oh… I see. The refutation lies in a quick survey of the people Mitchell knows. How silly of me.

Anyway, let’s run through a few points.

Mitchell writes:

Attempting to bolster this argument, Goldberg charged the boomers aren’t even in touch with the facts: namely, the Vietnam war wasn’t among the most unpopular in our history. His one piece of evidence: someone named Sol Tax of the University of Chicago who apparently claimed, in a 1968 study, that Vietnam ranked as only "the fourth or seventh least-popular war in American history.”

Ignore for a moment the imprecision (fourth or seventh?) and consider when this ranking took place: 1968, well before most of the country turned against the war. I realize that Goldberg is a youngish man, but really, he should know his Vietnam history a little better. Then again, he didn’t live through the conflict (as baby boomers did).

The complaint about imprecision is fair enough. It stems from the fact that Sol Tax’s study measured some wars which might not count to some, including some Indian wars and the Civil War.

There’s obviously other evidence to bolster my point, I just thought the Tax point was interesting. But if Mitchell needs more, he might have read more closely. I did mention that “large numbers of young people support[ed] the war.” This was not a throwaway line. Young Americans who didn’t attend college were often the wars strongest supporters according to Gallup. A majority of them supported the war in the late 1960s. I picked 1968 for the simple reason that this was when the study was conducted. I wish it had been updated in 1975, but I couldn’t find it. If Mitchell can stop for a moment patting himself on the back for the great accomplishment of simply existing during the war, he might recognize that 1968 was pretty significant year, what with the Chicago convention and the repercussions of LBJ’s decision not to run for President. But yeah, I’m sure he remembers the war as super-popular in ’68.

Okay, sorry, I had to get something else done.

Now, as for this Greg Mitchell guy and his criticism of my USA Today piece, I’m going to take a little room to deal with him. Although it’s probably dumb for a syndicated columnist and would-be author to beat up on the editor of the leading trade rag. But, what the heck.

First, let me say I think E&P is a good publication which has been stacked up in piles around my parents' house since before I was born.

Second, let me say I think Greg Mitchell is playing to type. He sounds almost exactly like the sort of smug liberal babyboomer I had in mind when I wrote the piece. But, then again, what do I know?

Well, let's see. I know that Mitchell is a very, very liberal guy who has written a book essentially on why we shouldn't have dropped the bomb on Hiroshima (his co-author was Robert Jay Lifton, a leftwing psychiatrist who helped popularize Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). In another book Mitchell laments the fact that Upton Sinclair didn’t win the governorship of California. And his book, Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady on Helen Gahagen Douglas and Richard Nixon, is precisely the sort of history you’d expect from someone who thinks it’s a shame Sinclair never became Governor.

Blessings to the leader of the masses, Saddam Hussein the faithful, the legal President of the Iraqi Republic on the occasion of his 68th birthday.

Two members of the leadership of the Fatah Movement, Bader Tewfik Hassan “Abu Yunis” and Fuzi Kamel Shahrur, express to the leader of the nation and her warrior knight

Saddam Hussein

the president of the Iraqi Republic best wishes on the occasion of his 68th birthday, and bless all of the faithful among the Iraqi and Arab nations, who support and defend justice.

We wish him long life for the sake of Iraq and to free the Arab nation from the enslavement of foreign imperialism. Oh, the glory of victory, with the help of Allah.”

Not since the Borgia Popes has their been a wider chasm between principle and practice than what we've seen on display in the Corner today. Kathryn posts pictures from a Duran Duran concert -- a recent Duran Duran concert at that. And I'm supposed to take seriously her fatwas against Star Trek mentions? Indeed, her strategic reference to Star Trek is proof that she is the Corner equivalent of an Indulgence peddler.

Hello Pot, this is Kettle, you're black!

Kapla!

WELL, YOU LINKED TO A PIECE WHICH HAMMERED S.T. SOMEHOW THAT DOESN'T COUNT FOR ME.

THEN YOU DAMAGE MY EYES WITH THE SILLY POLITICAL RANTINGS OF A BUNCH OF SLIMEY EUROTRASH FOPS.

K-LO, I HAD COME TO EXPECT SO MUCH MORE FROM YOU.

MY ADVICE - TRY MUSIC PERFORMED BY HUMAN BEINGS FOR HUMAN BEINGS.

ORCHARD PARK, New York (AP) -- Ten years after a firefighter was left brain-damaged and mostly mute during a 1995 roof collapse, he did something that shocked his family and doctors: He perked up...

...Staff members at the nursing facility recognized the change in Herbert, Manka said, when they heard him speaking and "making specific requests."
"The word of the day was `amazing,"' he said.

Dr. Rose Lynn Sherr of New York University Medical Center said when patients recover from brain injuries, they usually do so within two or three years.

"It's almost unheard of after 10 years," she said, "but sometimes things do happen and people suddenly improve and we don't understand why."

Andy [Taylor] goes off on a fifteen-minute rant about the U.S. government, apropos of nothing, "I tell you, they're going to change the American Constitution to let an Austrian Nazi who's admitted using steroids become president," he says…"

I can take celeb political ranting when it's actually smart and substantive, Ron Silver style (even when I don't agree on everything), but if it's just for the heck of it…as Laura Ingraham would say, Shut Up and Sing!

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - A judge has ruled that a 13-year-old girl at the center of an abortion fight with the state may terminate her pregnancy.

Juvenile Judge Ronald Alvarez on Monday ruled that the teen, who has been in state custody for four years, would not be physically or emotionally harmed by the procedure. Last week, Alvarez blocked the girl's abortion until a psychological evaluation was completed.

I'm no scientist, but this sounds like pretty bad science to me. According to a new study, women who report experiencing discrimination more are more likely to have hardened arteries:

This research, which used a subset of the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) Heart study, examined the relationship between chronic exposure to discrimination and subclinical outcomes such as coronary artery calcification. Such calcification is believed to be a measure of overall atherosclerotic plaque burden, with some studies finding that arterial calcification is predictive of clinical events such as heart attack.

The study included 181 African-American women, ages 45 to 58, from the Chicago, and Pittsburgh, Pa., areas. The women answered a nine-item Everyday Discrimination Questionnaire regarding their experience of discrimination and the results were averaged over a four-year period. Coronary artery calcification was measured on the fourth year through electron beam computed tomography.

The questionnaire measured subtle rather than overt discrimination on a scale of one to four, with four points being the highest.

Discrimination was measured by things such as feeling ignored or treated with a lack of courtesy or respect, she said. "The women reported discrimination in the form of having poorer service in stores or restaurants, being treated as if they were less smart or being treated as if they were dishonest."

Me: This just smells bogus to me. I'm not saying there isn't real discrimination out there, but isn't it possible that women who tend to feel discriminated against and let it bother them are going to be the kind of women who are going to feel more stressed generally? And isn't stress bad for you? My understanding was that people in foul moods who constantly find fault with the world as they find it were likely to have worse health than people who knew how to relax and go with the flow. This doesn't mean people should ignore bigotry for the sake of their health, but it seems to me this study is counting angry people and then identifying a single cause for their anger. It would be interesting to know if they asked subjects about some non-racial grievances as well. Like: how often do you get parking tickets unfairly?

It'd also be nice to know how this plays out over time. Discrimination has indisputably gone down over the last century. Was there a corresponding drop in heart disease? Etc.

Anyway, something tells me this study will be celebrated by trial lawyers.

Setting the record straight on one of recent history's most persistent political myths, The Webby Awards, hailed as "the online Oscars" by Time, announced today that it will present former Vice President Al Gore with The Webby Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of the pivotal role he has played in the development of the internet over the past three decades.

Academy member Vint Cerf, widely credited as a founder of the internet, will present the award to Gore at The 9th Annual Webby Awards in New York City on Monday, June 6th....

Veteran Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani was sworn in as Iraq's president Thursday, becoming the first non-Arab president of an Arab country and Iraq's first democratically elected president in more than 50 years.

Tell ya what, the exchange this a.m. in The Corner between those two guys distills the entire judiciary/filibuster/Roe debate down to it's essence.

Would that we had a single (or some) politicians willing to and capable of explaining the stakes to the average American in such clear, concise terms.

I'm not a big blue slip fan; I like the principle that every Presidential nominee to federal courts and executive agencies should get an up-or-down vote. The reason I am attracted to this idea, however, is that it eliminates the Democratic charge that the GOP keeps changing the rules on judicial nominations -- a charge that actually has some validity. When Republicans took the Senate after the 1994 election, Senator Hatch enforced the blue slip rule fairly strictly. Yet when President Bush was elected, Hatch announced he was loosening the blue slip rule. Now, Republicans are observing the traditional rule sporadically, if at all. This allows the Democrats to chrage -- correctly -- that they are being denied some of the traditional means of slowing down or blocking judicial nominees. Again, even though I'd like to see the blue slip disappear completely (at least for appellate nominees), the way Republicans have gone about phasing it out is open to charges of hypocrisy and opportunism.

The editor of Editor and Publisher is quite cross with me for writing my USA Today piece on Vietnam.

I've got to run out for an appointment, but when I'm back I'll try to deal with some of his points and his condescension.

The favorite Democratic explanation is that the red staters are hicks who have been blinded by righteousness, as Thomas Frank argues in "What's the Matter With Kansas?" He laments that middle-class Kansans are so bamboozled by moral issues like abortion and school prayer that they vote for Republicans even though the Republican tax-cutting policies are against their self-interest.

But middle-class Americans don't simply cast ballots for Republicans. They also vote with their feet, which is why blue states and old Democratic cities are losing population to red states and Republican exurbs. People are moving there precisely because of economic reasons - more jobs, affordable houses and the lower taxes offered by Republican politicians.

They're not moving for the churches, and they don't vote for Mr. Bush simply because he reads the Bible every day. One of the main reasons they like him is that he gets bashed so often. When Jon Stewart sneers at him, they empathize because they're used to being sneered at themselves.

They know what their image is in Manhattan and Hollywood, and they know they're not all that different from the Democrats in those places. They, too, watch "Desperate Housewives," and they're not surprised to hear Laura Bush doing Chippendales jokes. They've spent their own dollar bills there. They don't see anything the matter with that - or with themselves

My understanding is that blue slips historically have been to signal approval of -- or, more to the point, block -- appellate nominees, not just candidates for the federal district courts. See this web page, for instance, which tracks the blue slips that were received during the 107th Congress.

North Carolina is a good example. The reason why Terry Boyle has been waiting since May 9, 2001 to be confirmed to the Fourth Circuit (actually, he's been waiting a lot longer than that, since he was unsuccessfully nominated to the same post by Bush 41) is because then-Senator John Edwards refused to return a blue slip for him. I understand that then-Senators Jesse Helms and Lauch Faircloth likewise refused to return blue slips for at least one of President Clinton's Fourth Circuit nominees from North Carolina -- apparently in retaliation for the Democratic-controlled Senate's refusal to confirm Boyle the first time around.

As I understand it, the policy that prevailed under Chairman Orin Hatch (both during the Clinton Administration and the current president's first term) was that the Senate Judiciary Committee would not consider a nominee if both home state senators failed to return blue slips. But if one of the home state senators was a member of the Judiciary Committee, that senator singlehandedly could deep-six a nomination by refusing to return a blue slip. There are exceptions to the rule -- Chairman Hatch held hearings for all four of the Michigan-based nominees to the Sixth Circuit, despite the fact that Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow returned negative blue slips for each.

As for your other question, a senator is able to blue slip only those nominees that would sit in that senator's home state. So Senators Helms and Edwards would be able to prevent the confirmation of North Carolinians, but not of Virginians or Marylanders. (As you know, each state is allocated a certain number of appellate judges, but these numbers are not always honored. Hence, Bush 43 nominated Claude Allen of Virginia to fill a Fourth Circuit seat that had been held by a Marylander; if successful, the Allen nomination would have "moved" one of the "Maryland seats" to Virginia. Notice also that the blue slips for Claude Allen were sent to Virginia's John Warner and George Allen, not Maryland's Paul Sarbanes and Barbara Mikulski.)

To state the obvious, there aren't any home state senators for Washington, DC. So the upshot of the Adler proposal is that nominees to the DC Circuit would be confirmed as a matter of course (assuming they have majority support in the Senate).

[Name withheld]

And I remember just sort of questioning the guy, saying, “Do you really feel proud of having shot an unarmed man who threw a stone?” He was like, “Well, I'm doing my job.” It was a very machismo thing, to have killed someone. I felt this immense loathing and this immense disgust for the whole incident.

Mr. Delgado confronted a sergeant who, he said, had fired on the detainees. "I asked him," said Mr. Delgado, "if he was proud that he had shot unarmed men behind barbed wire for throwing stones. He didn't get mad at all. He was, like, 'Well, I saw them bloody my buddy's nose, so I knelt down. I said a prayer. I stood up, and I shot them down.'

America's Minutemen could, perhaps, take a tip from the Church of the Militant Elvis which has plans to place "giant photos" of certain notorious British celebrities in Heathrow and Gatwick "to discourage undesirable foreigners from entering Britain".

And if that's not enough, there's the oddly appealing Dungeons Death and Taxes party which pledges to reintroduce hanging, "but only for minor offences such as writing graffiti and dropping litter". Murderers and those guilty of improper use of mobile text abbreviations will be disembowelled. The new school leaving age would be nine, with "thickie" children forced to take up manual labour. The party also pledges to occupy and annexe France, and to have tax rates of 90%. "

I assume they are joking about the tax - that really would be going too far.

Taylor argues that Brown is a judicial activist of the Right and asks, "Where is the conservative outrage? I don't think all his evidence is on point--one can regard the New Deal as a "socialist revolution," as she does, without believing that it's the role of Supreme Court justices to undo it--but I agree with his basic conclusion.

I wrote something similar back in December 2003 for NR: "Republicans, and their conservative allies, have been willing to make . . . lame arguments to rescue even nominees whose jurisprudence is questionable. Janice Rogers Brown, one of Bush's nominees has argued that there is properly 'an extra-constitutional dimension to constitutional law.' She has said that judges should be willing to invoke a 'higher law' than the Constitution. She has said that judicial activism is not troubling per se; what matters is the 'worldview' of the judicial activist. If a liberal nominee to the courts said similar things, conservatives would make quick work of her."

Here's an idea. According to Drudge MSNBC is changing its name, dropping the MS for Microsoft. Well, maybe there's still time for the moribund feminist movement to leap to the rescue and join foces. Then it can be MsNBC.

I will now smack myself with a ruler for writing this.

*Clip # 649 - Fatah Leader Farouq Qaddumi: Israel Can Only Be Confronted with Bullets; I Do Not Accept Any Amendments to the PLO Charter

Farouq Al-Qaddumi: "I don't trust Israel. Israel can only be opposed with bullets. This is the only way. As I've said, I support the truce, or rather, the "calming down." I say that after every difficult struggle, people must go back to their daily lives."

Interviewer: "What about the amendments to the PLO charter? Amendments were made in order to start negotiations…"

Farouq Al-Qaddumi: "I do not accept any amendments, made in 1996, to the charter. We who opposed the Oslo Accord do not accept any change to the charter."

I have not yet sold myself on this deal because I am not a big fan of the blue slip. On the other hand, Senate Democrats have a fair point that this is the first time in history that Senate Republicans have called for an up-or-down vote on each and every judicial nominee. Republicans did not treat Clinton's nominees that way when they were in the majority, even if they treated Clinton's nominees better than Democrats have treated Bush's nominees. Nonetheless, this deal would preserve what I believe is the central (and most important) argument on the GOP's side, which is that the Democratic filibuster of judicial nominees is unprecedented and cannot be allowed to stand.

On the practical side, this deal would mean that all of Bush's current nominees would go through save for the "Michigan Four." Given that both Michigan Senators are Democrats, the GOP might have to make a deal on those seats. On the other hand, this deal would make it readily transparent that the obstruction of these four nominees has little to do with ideology, and is political payback, pure and simple.

Chinese resentment of Japan has been one of the invariants of the modern world, going all the way back to the May Fourth movement of 1919, when mass protests erupted in China over the transfer of German concessions in that country to Japan after World War I. The egregiously bad behavior of the Japanese in their various aggressions against China from 1931 to 1945 further stoked the fires. Still, that was all a lifetime ago, and the ferocity of the anti-Japanese demonstrations all over China these past few days needs some explaining. The major cause, the Chinese tell us, is a decision by Japan’s education ministry to approve a school textbook that downplays the 1931–45 horrors. We have a modest proposal to offer. Let Japanese schoolchildren be taught of the cruelties their ancestors inflicted on the Chinese; and let Chinese schoolchildren be taught about the numerous campaigns of mass murder, forced labor, and cultural destruction carried out by the Chinese Communist party against Tibetans, Turkestanis, Mongolians, landowners, intellectuals, religious believers, “counter-revolutionary elements,” and so on. A close examination of China’s high-school textbooks would, we feel sure, demonstrate that in the matter of suppressing unpleasant facts about history, China’s ruling Communist party has nothing to learn from anyone.

I want to thank all of the bloggers who like my columns. Kathryn posted this earlier, but apparently I'm the second-favorite columnist among rightwing bloggers. Mark Steyn -- who I will obviously have eliminated by the end of the week -- came in first. Assuming I'm reading the numbers correctly, what's interesting and oddly gratifying is that while I'm not too many bloggers' favorite columnist I'm one of the favorites of a great many bloggers. In a sense you could say that makes my column sort of a vanilla product on the web. Few people claim vanilla is their favorite flavor, but even fewer people dislike vanilla. I choose to read this not as a statment that people think I'm bland but that there's a flattering consensus about my writing out there (albeit among the forces of villainy and cruelty according to the left). It's particularly nice to hear because hate mail in the last six months has been running high and if you use the blog search engines -- technorati, blogpulse etc -- to guage opinion about yours truly, you would have to conclude bloggers think I'm a biggoted moron. So, thanks folks. I'll buy you a few beers at Mark Steyn's Irish wake.

From a reader:

Subject: Come on Jonah! Grover's about as Islamic as a dry martini.

Jonah:

I ran into noted Islamicist and his fiance at the inaugural balls. She was not in a hijab. Years ago, before he was famous, he was involved with the Afghan fighters against the Soviets. He thinks the Moslems are conservative and does not want them to wander in the Democratic desert for a 100 years like the Catholics did. Somebody has got to end this feud.

Grover is too Pollyannaish about the Moslems but Pipes is mad to call him an Islamicist. It detracts from the real issue. (also have you ever known Grover to attend or throw a dry function?).

Obviously, I'm no expert on what's happening in the streets of Baghdad on a daily basis. But I do enjoy trying to spot lies. If I had to guess, something like the Coke bottle thing happened once or twice and Herbert's guy is guilty of turning an anecdote into a trend. People tend to exaggerate far more than fabricate. But the idea that every day soldiers are driving around smashing glass bottles on civilian Iraqi heads sounds pretty implausible if for no other reason than it's so public. There are lots of westerners and journalists over there. Why hasn't anyone seen it happen -- other than this guy?

"The smouldering row between Germany's ruling Social Democratic party and big business turned into a shouting match at the weekend, as Franz Münterfering, the SPD's chairman, drew up a "locust list" of 12 figureheads of capitalism that he said were a scourge on the country."

"Dieter Hundt, head of the BDA employers' association, told ZDF television: "What is going on in this country at the moment makes me puke."

Funny, I thought all Princetonians were filibusterers.

Seriously though. As silly and wongheaded I think most of their arguments may be, I wonder how much they appreciate the irony of their talk-a-thon. It's pretty clear the Post itself missed the point entirely. The gabbing Princetonians actually have to keep talking. The Senate Democrats don't want an actual filibuster, where people jabber on getting hoarse and stinky. They want a petty procedural motion which is a filibuster in name only. It'd be nice if this point were a bit more appreciated in media coverage.

“Rich,
As an old infantryman, I was often guilty of really stupid behavior myself. But....
1. When was the last time you saw a glass Coke bottle?

2. It's pretty hard to lean out of a Hummer to use a cash machine; the physical mechanics of leaning out just to smash Hadji on the head with a Coke bottle seem pretty difficult.

3. SOP for most units in Iraq seems to be not to even drive near people if you can avoid it.

4. Coke bottles are, or at least used to be, pretty tough to break.

5. Any military vehicle tends to eventually turn into a rolling trash dump, but unless Sergeants have changed a lot, Coke bottles rolling around on the floorboards are going to be seriously frowned on.”

Stalin was "a compulsive and professional editor who corrected any manuscript that crossed his desk for style and grammar as well as for ideology."

Nod to ALD

The officer's comment was a harbinger of the gratuitous violence that, according to Mr. Delgado, is routinely inflicted by American soldiers on ordinary Iraqis. He said: "Guys in my unit, particularly the younger guys, would drive by in their Humvee and shatter bottles over the heads of Iraqi civilians passing by. They'd keep a bunch of empty Coke bottles in the Humvee to break over people's heads."

These Hardcore Dogs Been Picked up by animal control officers and deemed hostile, unsociable and aggressive in behavior. No one has ever attempted to claim or adopt them. Therefore they are doing HARD TIME.

I see that Andrew Sullivan has responded to me (and Ramesh). I don't know if I'll respond to the whole thing, but this passage from his response bugs me:

Jonah's first and final point is that, given moral decline, we need "at least a few rocks in the river." He cites his Jewish father's approval of Benedict XVI. I have to say I'm not too enamored of outsiders backing fundamentalism in faiths they do not share for political purposes. But, hey, that's been the neocon position on religion for a long time: we don't believe it, but it's good for the masses. I'm not quite up to those levels of cynicism yet. My first concern with any religious argument is: is it true? Not: is it useful?

Me: Sullivan has tossed around this accusation about neocons several times. And, as much as I hate to admit it, he’s got some good reason to. Some neocons have dabbled in this argument, most notably Irving Kristol. But Andrew carries the ball farther than the rules allow and it amounts to a more-sinister-than-necessary depiction of neocons and inaccurate depiction of me.

Let me see if I can explain. Sullivan assumes – or at least strongly suggests – that my first impulse is to ask whether a religion is “useful” rather than if it is true. Why? What evidence is there that this is the first question I ask?

Truth be told, it is, in fact, the second or third question I ask (the first is, "Do they allow open bars at their celebrations?"). But I do ask it. As a Jew, what’s wrong with me asking whether Catholicism – or Christianity in general – is good for the world? What is wrong with a Catholic asking the same question about Judaism? Or Hinduism, or Islam? And as a conservative, it seems almost mandatory to ask whether a given faith – and how it is currently practiced – has a positive or negative effect on the social fabric. This is entirely in keeping with the American tradition of being more concerned with morality more than theology (as I’ve written about several times, including here). Americans opposed Utah’s entry into the United States so long as Mormon’s advocated polygamy. Once they dropped that, Americans said come on in. No one cared about the theological bells and whistles. They merely cared about behavior.

Second, in a fairly classic display of his capacity for moralizing righteousness, Andrew strikes a pose of mild disdain of my “cynicism” for suggesting that maybe religion is good for “the masses.” I fail to see why this is cynical. Frankly, I think it is factual. The data is certainly there to support the contention, as Andrew certainly knows. Moreover, while neocons have made this argument one needn’t be a neocon to make it. I know that it feeds into the anti-neocon phantasmagoria of clever secular intellectuals manipulating the society for their own ends, but there’s nothing sinister or dishonest about it. In my own case I’ve written a blajillion columns and articles arguing that hypocrisy alone doesn’t make an argument wrong (“you’re consistently pro inconsistency!” – the Couch). I could be a baal-worshipper in my private life, or I could believe that nanobots and gene therapy are the only salvation for mankind, that wouldn’t mean that my public arguments about religion were wrong. Neither would it render my public argument that 2+2 =4 wrong if I privately believed 2+2 is a duck in short pants. I know Andrew has a tendency to believe his own personal political preferences should and must be in perfect accord with external reality, but I’ve never subscribed to such a view.

Also, Andrew says he doesn’t like it when outsiders back what he calls fundamentalism in faiths they don’t share for political reasons. The significant silences here are deafening. Would Andrew support outsiders backing “reform” in these faiths? Or is it only political support for “fundamentalism” which irks him? Does he like support from reformers? And if that’s the case, then his is the more political position. After all we know Andrew advocates reform for Islam.

Meanwhile, my position is to support allegedly similarly “fundamental” causes at lots of institutions and organizations. I was against women at VMI. I’m opposed to Cookie Monster eating carrots instead of cookies and I despise cartoons where Tom and Jerry are friends. I thought it was outrageous for the New York Times to endorse the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. And, I think it would be folly for the Catholic Church to support abortion. This doesn’t mean I’m opposed to all reform and innovation. I merely have a Lincolnian preference for the old and tried over the new and untried. I support the civil rights acts, the creation of the double-stuffed Oreo and the teaching of law in English rather than Latin and a non-violence movement within Islam. And, for the record, I think the Catholic Church would be smart to let more priests marry (it’s easier to do than allow women priests and there’s plenty of precedent for it).

I’m at a loss to see how that makes me a neocon, but if it does in his mind, okay. But the neoconservative view about religion isn’t nearly so sinister or inconsistent with its view about everything else or with the conservative view of everything else than he tries to suggest.

here's one for the Ace of Spades: I'll add him to my bookmarks if he'll make the effort to learn how to spell my name. Can we shake on it?

UPDATE: We have reached an accord.

I'm not inclined to be quite as tough on Brooks's column as Andy and Mark are, but I am skeptical.

My first reaction to the column--beyond noting that Brooks appears to have gotten a rather nice scoop here--was to think that the deal Reid allegedly outlined might be worth taking, or at least starting negotiations over. (Whereas the deal, as it was initially described, sounded terrible.) My second reaction, though, was that there are (as Andy and Mark suggest) reasons for distrusting Reid. He was (again, reportedly) unwilling to guarantee no filibusters for the next Supreme Court nominee in public because he fears liberal interest groups. But will he fear them less when there's an actual fight going on about a Supreme Court nominee? The proposal only makes sense if you assume that Reid was going to be non-committal, or even supportive of a filibuster in public, while telling a few Democratic senators to vote the other way. And how does Reid propose to protect these Democratic senators from the left? Would he allow them to explain that Reid had given them a pass? I just don't see how the secrecy of this abortive deal could be made to work.

Which brings me to Brooks's larger point about how populism has gotten rid of the back-room deal: I'm afraid that the very conservative temper that he means to vindicate here tells against him. Brooks wants our politicians to be statesmen who can fit their principles to the circumstances in which they find themselves. But among the circumstances they confront is that modern politics has a highly public and (relatedly) ideological character. The cameras aren't leaving the Senate. The scope for dealmaking is reduced. There is a lot lost in moving to an ideological politics, and one can certainly sympathize with Brooks's nostalgia. But that doesn't make it a constructive basis for action.

Interesting comment from a reader in Berlin on the recent leftward shift among Schroeder’s Social Democrats (the SPD):

“I read your Daily Telegraph bit about Germany. Actually, I don't know if you have been following this, but there is an election coming up in North Rhine Westphalia in May. NRW is the SPD heartland in Germany and their support in polls for the SPD has been soft. Presumably in response, about a week and a half ago, the SPD’s [new party chief] Muentefering, has been complaining about "predatory capitalism" and "locust investors" (investors from the US and Britain that invest in German companies, which then lose their ties towards Germany and decide to send jobs to China). The general interpretation is that all of this is to throw red meat to the NRW base to get them interested in the election so that the SPD can stave off a loss. Another interpretation, put forward by Oswald Metzger, a Green, is that Muentefering is setting the SPD up for the opposition. In other words, the SPD can’t oppose the center-right CDU (assuming they win the next general election) with the economically responsible, center right policies they have been implementing, so they need to prepare the type of rhetoric suitable for an SPD opposition party. Hence the anti-capitalism.”

If you’re in a hole…

At the time the Euro, the EU’s single currency, was set up, one of the most critical issues was the rate at which each former national currency (Guilders, Francs and so on) would be exchanged into Euros. Now Dutch blogger Arjan (Zacht Ei) is passing on this:

“According to De Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch equivalent of the Federal Reserve Bank, the guilder (our former currency) was five to ten percent undervalued when it was absorbed into the Economical and Monetary Union (EMU), the entity that has produced the euro. This article (in Dutch) states that lots of people knew, but because of political pressure from Germany (the article speaks about 'sensitivities') nobody did a thing about it. All for the greater ( European/German) good. As a result of this magnificent example of Dutch policy makers and civil servants acting for the best interests of our nation, Dutch prices have increased more than would have been necessary, and our competitive position has deteriorated. Thank you, European Union, on behalf of all those who are currently unemployed because our economy is in a slump, or are having trouble to make their salaries meet their material needs.”

That’s bad enough, but then Arjan makes the connection with the upcoming (June 1) vote on the draft EU constitution:

“Worse may be to come. The EMU was 'just' about our money. The constitution is about our voting rights, our collective defense, our welfare state. Indeed, our very sovereignty is at stake here. Is there anyone out there who can seriously believe that Dutch interests won't be trumped time and time again if the European constitution were to be adopted, God forbid, and the bigger member states would get even more power in even more areas? They have been lying to us, they have been deceiving us. They need to be stopped. Throw a spanner in the works of the EU machinery. Vote no.”

Zo is dat.

The Sunday Telegraph has more on the growing scandal surrounding the Labour party’s decision to relax the rules on postal voting:

“Concerns over fraud are so widespread that senior police officers, election officials and other senior civil servants were recently summoned to an emergency Whitehall summit to discuss ways to combat ballot-rigging. The Association of Electoral Administrators, which represents election officials, last night accused the Government of ignoring calls to tighten voting procedures. Malcolm Dumper, the association's chief executive, said: "We do not have the time or the resources to carry out stringent checks and that means there is the opportunity for widescale fraud." In December the association warned the Government that the deadline for postal vote applications, April 24, would allow only five days to process millions of application forms and send out ballot papers. It called for the deadline to be brought forward to April 19, but the Government ignored the request.”

I wonder why that was.

How the Brussels Commission spends its time, and taxpayers’ money…

“Ever the masters of punctilious regulation, the European Union's 25 Commissioner have outdone themselves with a code of conduct for their new and beautifully-appointed Brussels sauna. A 10-point code sent to Peter Mandelson and his colleagues advises them on etiquette in the mixed facility, which opened last week. Nudity is de rigueur, according to the commission's infrastructure office, but bravado is not."Reckless competition about who stands heat best is out of the question. Leave your clothes in the dressing room - nakedness is natural," the code tells its 18 male and seven female commissioners. "Sweating makes swimsuits uncomfortable." The list of dos and don'ts is comprehensive. Commissioners in the sauna, installed in the EU's recently renovated Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels, are advised to take their time, allowing "at least an hour and a half" for each session. Showers are required beforehand "to moisten the skin and remove any possible body or fragrant odours" and they are reminded to dry themselves with a towel afterwards.”

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

One of the curiosities of the debate over man-made global warming is the way in which true believers in this hypothesis seem so unwilling to enter into any debate with those that challenge them. I can understand established scientists not wanting to give equal time to cranks but shutting out experts of the calibre decribed in this account seems to be indicative of something else.

Is the global warming crowd quite so sure of the science as it likes to make out? Read on, and judge for yourself...

"A British authority on natural catastrophes who disputed whether climatologists really agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, says his work was rejected by the American publication, Science, on the flimsiest of grounds. A separate team of climate scientists, which was regularly used by Science and the journal Nature to review papers on the progress of global warming, said it was dropped after attempting to publish its own research which raised doubts over the issue.The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame.The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.Dr Oreskes's study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser. However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly. Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication - but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been "widely dispersed on the internet".

What's going on?