Hello Kathryn :

My name is [DELETED]. I read your article in today's Seattle Time .

Your article's headline was --- Bolton's not the problem , the U.N is the problem! Well , obviously you are one of the strong supporter of John Bolton! I'm sure IF that STUPID John Bolton read your article , he can really cry on your shoulders these days!

OK , Kathryn , let me suggest you something here -- since you are such fan of that extremely UGLY , extremely bullying and extremely STUPID John Bolton , maybe you should work with John Bolton for a few months , to see how much you two get along! It seems to me , you two may just make the perfect working couple! GOOD for you , my dear!

OK , here's my opinion about that John Bolton -- when I first saw John Bolton's picture , my first reaction was ---- GOSH , this guy is SO DAMN UGLY!!!!!! And he looks like A JERK!!!!!!!!! And the more I know about him , the more I think he's nothing but A JERK!!!!!!!!!

Oh , Yes , it seems to me , this John Bolton looks like a world-class JERK! He talks like a world-class BULLY! And he acts like a world-class FOOL!!!!!!!!! IF I have to use one word to describe John Bolton , in my very humble opinion , this guy is nothing but a piece of GABAGE!!!! And he's nothing but A JACK-ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes , Kathryn , I know it hurts your feelings , but that's just how I see this John Bolton --

He's nothing but a world-class LOSER , a piece of JUNK and A JACK-ASS!!!!!!!!!!!

Nothing more and nothing less!!!!

But obviously President Bush and his team LOVE LOSERS and JUNK!!!!!!!!! I know President Bush always feel very good about himself , but Since the Iraq WAR has been such a BLOOD MESS and A REAL DISASTER , and since President Bush's job approval rating sank to his ALL TIME LOW in recent weeks , it seems to me , President Bush himself and his team are A LOSERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What's more -- it seems to me , President Bush is more like the gabage collecter these days! That's WHY he picked up that world-class JUNK John Bolton in the first place!!!!

As I told some friends of mine that , IF people look at Bush's administration , you just hard to find someone there who's nice , honest , decent and respectable!!!!!!

Yes , as the whole world can see , most of people in Bush's administration is BLOOD-thirsty and WAR-obsessed!!!!!!!!!! That was WHY they kick U,N aside and rush into the Iraq WAR over 2 years ago because they took the WAR damn tooooooooooooo easily and casually!!!!!!!!!!!! And that's just plain WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well , since John Bolton always hold such a deep contempt on U.N , and since he once said that , there's NO such thing as United Nation , I'm sure alot of people in both U.S and in the rest of the world must be wondering that --- WHY in the world this guy even wants to take that job and work in an organizition that shouldn't even exsits on this planet in the first place??????!!!!!!!!! I guess there are only two logical explanations to that question , first -- both President Bush and John Bolton are extremely STUPID and severely BRAIN-DAMAGED!!!!!!!!!!!! Second -- I don't think Bush and his team made their decision by mistake! It seems to me , they made their choice on purpuse!!!!!! Yes , I believe Bush and his team picked up John Bolton to be the ambassador to U.N simply because John Bolton has been extremely hawkish , and simply because John Bolton's A BULLY!!!!!!!! Oh , Yes , I believe by sending John Bolton to U.N , Bush and his team have a clear purpose --both Bush and John Bolton want to challenge the U.N! And they both want to show U.N and also the whole world -- WHO'S THE BOSS!!!!!!! And WHO'S RUNNING THE SHOW in today's world!!!!!!!!!!! That's WHY Bush and his team want to send that BULLY John Bolton to U.N! Because they need someone who can play NOT just tough but DIRTY!!!!! And most of ALL , they want to boss around NOT just the U.N but the whole world!!!!!!!!! Well , you know something , EVEN IF both Bush and John Bolton did got what they want someday , IF they think they can really control the U.N and also the whole world , they better think again!!!!!!! As we ALL know , over two years ago , when President Bush and U.S pushed really hard for that Iraq WAR , U.N said NO to U.S and to THE IRAQ WAR!!!!!!! So even if that world-class BULLY and JERK John Bolton did got that job , and IF U.S use ALL of these lies and ALL of these false and DEAD-WRONG intelligence to rush into another WAR again someday , I believe U.N and most of the countries in the world would still say NO to the WAR!!!!!!!!! However , on a second thought , I think maybe this BULLY and JERK John Bolton should get that job! Since he's such A JERK AND BULLY , especially since he represent Bush administration and the U.S,I think both U.N and the entire world should see in their own eyes that how extremely arrogant and how extremely STUPID both Bush and John Bolton really are!!!!!!!!!!

Having an abortion almost doubles a woman's risk of giving birth dangerously early in a later pregnancy, according to research that will provoke fresh debate over the most controversial of all medical procedures.

French study of 2,837 births - the first to investigate the link between terminations and extremely premature births - found that mothers who had previously had an abortion were 1.7 times more likely to give birth to a baby at less than 28 weeks' gestation. Many babies born this early die soon after birth, and a large number who survive suffer serious disability....A spokesman for Marie Stopes International, which is the largest provider of abortions outside the NHS, said that women seeking terminations were not told of increased risks of premature births "because so far, they have not been established".

Over a half century ago, William F. Buckley Jr.’s God and Man at Yale asked whether the education provided at that university corresponded with the wishes of its alumni, to whom its administrators ultimately report. The answer at Dartmouth today, as it was at Yale then, is a resounding “no.” However, with Robinson and Zywicki’s upset win, the answer at one Ivy League institution could soon be “yes.”

If this letter by the shiite cleric Hadi Ma'ssumi published on the iran-chabar site is true then this is just mega explosive: http://www.iran-chabar.de/1384/02/20/masoomi840220.htm

The letter to Rafsanjani is written by a Karaj based cleric. He says in the letter that he is ill and near death, so presumably that is what has given him the extra ordinary courage needed to write this letter.

If this letter was from an exiled opposition, it would not have been so controversial but to read this sort of thing from a Shiite cleric is truly remarkable.

In the letter, the cleric Hadi Ma'ssumi starts from the beginning of Islam in Iran. How the religion was forced upon Iranians, how the invading Arabs raped the Iranian women, massacred the population, looted our wealth, tried to run the windmills with the blood of Iranians and how they burned all our books and destroyed so much of our knowledge.

He then starts scrutinising 26 years of Rafsanjani's unrelentless power. He reminds Rafsanjani of what went on in Iran's political prisons in the 80s. How young virgin girls were raped before their executions using Koranic justifications - virgin girls go to heaven no matter what, so young female political activists were raped to ensure they didn't go to heaven - how thousands suffered torture and the massacre of Iranian political prisoners in 1988.

The many extra-judicial killings of Iranian dissidents both inside Iran and outside Iran. "Ayatollah Rafsnajani, you know how murder, kidnapping and torture has become synonymous with your name" Ma'assumi writes in his letter.

Hadi Ma'ssumi asks about Rafsanjani's close relationship with the likes of Saeed Emami, responsible for murder of dissidents inside Iran and Vahid Gorji who is responsible for many assassinations of Iranian exiles outside Iran.

Ma'ssumi recalls how Rafsanjani unnecassarily prolonged the war with Iraq, casuing the death and injuries to millions and how he himself hugely profitted from the war instead.

Ma'ssumi asks Rafsanjani to comment on the imprisonment of many of Iran's dissidents today. What he thinks of stoning, public flogging, cutting limbs and forcing women to wear the veil.

He asks Rafsanjani why women in Iran are forced to wear the veil in summer heat and yet Rafsanjani's daughter Faezeh dresses up in skimpy clothing when she travels through European cities of Paris, London and Geneva.

Even perhaps all this is not that controversial, there are after all many Iranian clerics who oppose the Islamic Republic and the rule of mullahs. But just read this below. This is an exact translation of one paragraph of an elderly Shiite cleric's statement on his death bed:

"You know like I do what lies behind this religion (Islam), after all this crime carried out against Iranians. lets do one good thing and tell the people what is behind this religion. Lets tell everyonel that this religion is neither "martyr generating", nor pro-science nor pro the people, this religion tells the elite that it is for the plebs and it tells the plebs that it is for the elite, it tells the elite that all its silly laws are for the stupid plebs, in fact this religion is "ignorance generator". It has come about to humiliate people. As you (Rafsanjani) once told me, it is one religion for the elite and another for the plebs. You rightly regard yourself, the supreme leader and your Guardian Council as the elite, and the "martyr generating" nation of Iran are the plebs. Now for the sake of God tell the truth to the people that there is nothing in this religion but stupidity and ignorance, other than silly laws about what is considered clean and what is untouchable, what is allowed and what is not allowed, believe me that God and the people will then forgive you, although I know you are conscious enough NOT to believe in God!"

British columnist David Aaronovitch on being a leftie who supported the war:

“Since I decided, in January 2003, that if Iraq was invaded I would not oppose it, I have had the almost astral experience of finding myself excommunicated from the movement, sometimes by fellow journalists who I know do not possess a political bone in their entire bodies.All of a sudden I began to experience the left from the outside. And the first thing that struck me was its capacity for smug certainty and uniformity of response. Look at the cartoonists, whose work trumps debate. You may have Blair the poodle, Blair with blood-stained hands, Blair the liar, Bush the absurd chimp, but never, ever, Galloway the consort of tyrants or Kennedy the comforter of "insurgents”.

‘Excommunicated’ is the right word indeed.

Via Andrew Sullivan a fascinating article by Mark Lilla from the New York Times. I certainly don’t agree with everything Lilla has to say – far from it, but this passage (also highlighted by Sullivan) is worth repeating here:

“The leading thinkers of the British and American Enlightenments hoped that life in a modern democratic order would shift the focus of Christianity from a faith-based reality to a reality-based faith. American religion is moving in the opposite direction today, back toward the ecstatic, literalist and credulous spirit of the Great Awakenings. Its most disturbing manifestations are not political, at least not yet. They are cultural. The fascination with the ''end times,'' the belief in personal (and self-serving) miracles, the ignorance of basic science and history, the demonization of popular culture, the censoring of textbooks, the separatist instincts of the home-schooling movement -- all these developments are far more worrying in the long term than the loss of a few Congressional seats.”

Of course, it’s worth making the point (Lilla doesn't) that home schooling is often itself a reaction (and a very understandable reaction at that) to the other rising superstition of our time – you might call it, in fact, “ectstatic, literalist and credulous” – the multiculturalist mush and leftist slush that has invaded America’s education system and done so much to trash the study of history, of science and, yes, censor textbooks.

In fact there’s a nice little example of the way in which liberalism has swapped reason for dreams, fantasy and paranoia in a book review from today’s Financial Times. No link available so this one-fingered typist will transcribe it. It’s an (unsigned) review of a book called The Last Crusade: The Influence of the Christian Right on American foreign policy by Barbara Victor. Here goes:

“Victor analyses the accession of the religious right from relative obscurity to the forefront of US politics. She charts the gradual erosion of secular democracy, as politicians respond to the zeitgeist, channeling anxiety and popular desire for revenge into biblical patriotism. Saturated with religious influence, America has borne witness to the accession of a potentially dangerous “theocracy”…..

Its no good, I can’t go on.

Look, I share Derb’s profound skepticism about some aspects of the religious right (and accept the label – if not the spelling – as one of Jonah’s ‘skepticons’), but this sort of talk is, I’m afraid, simply nuts.

James Wolcott has described Saddam groupie – and British MP - George Galloway as “a hero of our time.”

Take a look at this, this, this and this over at Harry’s Place and see if you agree.

…the ‘oui’ camp moves slightly ahead. Writing in the Daily Telegraph Charles Moore explains why:

“Nowadays no important French politician (unless you count the cunning but grotesque Jean-Marie Le Pen) dares side with the nation against its rulers. The power of the elites is so great, the intermeshing of education and money and jobs and media and Brussels and Paris is so complete, that to question the system is to exclude yourself from power. This unanimity gives the "yes" campaign obvious advantages. They can control the money - Figaro calculated last month that the government had already spent 420 million euros on trying to secure a "yes" vote. They can control the media - all the main newspapers say "oui" and the state broadcasting service openly expresses the same view; the airtime given to "yes" has been 63 per cent, that to "no" 37 per cent, and that does not include three television hours of Chirac in favour of "yes" (after which the "no" standing rose in the polls). They can offer last-minute inducements - a promised reduction of VAT on restaurant meals is delightfully blatant. One half expects President Chirac to copy François Mitterrand, who announced his prostate cancer just in time to win the knife-edge vote in the Maastricht referendum.”

Actually, when it comes to the disclosure of Mitterand’s cancer, Moore is, I suspect, being a little unfair. If you want a better explanation as to how the Maastricht vote (a referendum on an earlier round of EU ‘reform’) was won, it’s better to look to that sudden – and rather mysterious - rush of last-minute votes from France’s overseas departments…

Moore also adds this:

”It has often been pointed out that the reason why many French dislike the constitution is the opposite from the "no" camp here in Britain. The French, it is said, hate the thing because it imposes "Anglo-Saxon" free-market ideas on them and undermines their "social protection", whereas British nay-sayers want to be free of all those social chapters and maximum working weeks. True, in part, but not contradictory. What voters resent, in both cases, is being forbidden by people they did not and cannot choose from organising themselves as they would prefer. Jean may want to knock off on Friday morning while Jack may want to work all Sunday: both agree that they should be able to make up their own minds about it.”

Read the whole thing.

Interesting report in the FT today of comments from Vicente Fox, a man who seems to believe that he has a right to legislate America’s border control:

“Mexico has reacted furiously to a bill signed into law by the US this week that would fund a border wall and prevent illegal Mexican migrants from obtaining US driving licences. President Vicente Fox said he would lodge a diplomatic complaint, and was considering complaints to multilateral bodies if Mexico could not unable to resolve the problem bilaterally.”

To borrow a phrase from the much unmissed Teresa Heinz Kerry, President Bush should tell Fox to shove it.

I’m not holding my breath.

The London Times today has a report on that recent TV survey (discussed a day or so ago on the always ahead-of-its-time Corner) showing that the ‘no’ side was pulling ahead in the Dutch referendum on the draft EU ‘constitution’. Meanwhile, the Dutch PM (no hero, despite his uncanny resemblance to Harry Potter) is saying that a no vote will “harm the reputation of the Netherlands internationally”.

That’s nonsense, but more importantly it doesn’t matter.

The Dutch people would vote according to their interests – and only their interests. The demands of some imagined ‘international community’, in reality the international bureaucratic class, are an impertinence and should be an irrelevance.

And there's more here from the Daily Telegraph:

"A staff member of the finance ministry asked not to be named as he admitted that he would be voting No. "There should have been a referendum on the euro, there should be a referendum on Turkish entry," he said. "I'm voting against the constitution because politicians cannot tell me why I should be voting for it."

Of course, they cannot. Admitting that the purpose of this constitution (so beloved, apparently by Condi Rice) is the overthrow of what little remains of national sovereignty in favour of a corrupt - and unaccountable - elite.

That's not really a vote winner, is it?

UPDATE

Arjan at Zacht Ei tells it how it is:

“True, rejecting the constitution won't bring back the guilder. But we were cheated back then. First, by allowing Greece into the Economical and Monetary Union while their economy didn't meet the criteria. Second, by diluting the guilder to 90 percent of its real value only to please Germany.We were robbed. And you simply don't make new deals with people who've cheated you in the past without them having made amends or even having offered an apology. In other words, saying that this referendum isn't about the euro is the same as a salesman telling you there's nothing wrong with his camper vans, while you are still paying off the garage bills for the crappy car he sold you back in 1999.”

Zo is dat.

Because I'm so cool, I watched a big chunk of some Senate hearings on Social Security on C-Span last night. It seemed to be a Democratic deal -- there were no Republican Senators asking questions when I tuned in and the panel seemed to be wildly overstocked with opponents. There was a woman who barely said a word (so I don't know if she's pro or con). And there was an economist from Yale, the Brookings gu, Peter Orszag, and Brad Delong the blogger and economist. The only outspoken witness in favor was my old friend Derrick Max. I thought Derrick did a great job, especially given the odds. But I have to say that I thought the liberals made some very strong arguments, including DeLong (who, to date, has never had a kind word for yours truly). I'm still in favor of reforming the system and I'm still in favor of private accounts, but I thought the arguments were pretty persuasive that there are serious downsides to the idea too. I'd get into specifics, but that would give Ramesh all weekend to sharpen his scalpel. So, I'll keep pondering and start in again on Monday.

Interesting piece in the Times today on the rift among Greens over nuclear power. Here's the opener:

WASHINGTON, May 14 - Several of the nation's most prominent environmentalists have gone public with the message that nuclear power, long taboo among environmental advocates, should be reconsidered as a remedy for global warming.

Their numbers are still small, but they represent growing cracks in what had been a virtually solid wall of opposition to nuclear power among most mainstream environmental groups. In the past few months, articles in publications like Technology Review, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Wired magazine have openly espoused nuclear power, angering other environmental advocates who maintain an unyielding stance against it.

Stewart Brand, a founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and the author of "Environmental Heresies," an article in the May issue of Technology Review, explained the shift as a direct consequence of the growing anxiety about global warming and its links to the use of fossil fuel.

"It's not that something new and important and good had happened with nuclear, it's that something new and important and bad has happened with climate change," Mr. Brand said in an interview.

For many longtime advocates of environmental causes, such talk is nothing short of betrayal. Because of safety fears that reached a peak during the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and unresolved questions of how to dispose of nuclear waste, environmentalists have waged unrelenting campaigns against plants from Shoreham on Long Island to Diablo Canyon near the California coast.

John - Whenever you read Wolcott writing about the Corner, picture a kid sitting alone in the high school cafeteria, eating his brown bag lunch while muttering constantly about how those kids at the other table are all a bunch of losers who really shouldn't be having a good time because they aren't as cool as they think they are. Perhaps alone among all leftwing bloggers, he's the only one who I honestly believe is truly, completely, and unalterably wracked with jealousy. Virtually, all of his posts about us -- and conservatives generally -- are substance-free (or boringly hackneyed). All, of them are the kind of jabs one expects to hear from a male hairdresser about the more successful competition across the street. And they always recycle the same jokes, over and over again.

For example, he's now made I think a half-dozen fat jokes about me (I don't read him regularly, but from the emails I get that sounds about right). That's fine, I suppose. Though since I've been making fat jokes about myself for several years now, it's hardly what one might call original. Plagiarizing someone else's self-deprecating remarks is bad enough. But it's particularly ill-advised given this.

This morning I heard David Keane of the American Conservative Union say that an attack on Tom Delay's ethics was an attack on conservatives everywhere and upon everything they stand for.

Now, the substance of the matter notwithstanding, I just want those of you who are worried about such things to know that I don't feel like I'm being attacked personally when Tom Delay is being attacked.

It was fun flexing our muscles last night.

Once upon a time, Republicans could run their smear campaigns with impunity. Now, we will go after those who plan those smears, those who abet them, and those who disseminate them.

We will be quick, ruthless, and diligent. We won't show mercy, because we haven't gotten any. We will play their game, and play it better. And we will prevail.

A Final Push -- $1M Buy From PFAW Targeting Specter, Murkowski And The Maineiacs

People for the American Way (PfAW) is launching new ads for "the endgame of the filibuster fight" -- spending $1M next week, starting 5/15 am. 3 new TV spots "appeal directly to" senators in PA, AK and ME. Also, TV ads will be running "heavily" on nat'l cable news, in DC and a range of other target states. This is a part of a $5M+ campaign that PfAW has been running for months.

"Courage and Leadership," running in PA:

ANNCR: "The Constitution is under attack by the Radical Right. They want to trigger the nuclear option, destroy the 200-year-old filibuster, sweep away our constitutional checks and balances. The last defense against this attack? Senator Arlen Specter. Courage and leadership are defined by a few key moments in history. Senator Specter, this is your moment. Preserve checks and balances. Protect the Constitution. Save the filibuster."..

one of the Washington Post's most tedious Style section writers, trashes Yale historian Donald Kagan today. I don't know Kagan and have read none of his books, but familiarity with his work isn't necessary to see what rotten about Kennicott's piece.

The trouble starts in the first paragraph: "It's hard to imagine a more successful or celebrated historian, and yet, just as he has for decades, Kagan still sounds peevish. Will he ever get over the audacity of other professors, who think the ancient Greeks and Western civilization are not the only things worth studying, to confront the old, settled way of doing things?"

My reactions: 1) What's a conservative in the academy got to be peevish about? Gee, it's just a huge mystery. What could it be? 2) Will liberals ever get over the idea that people who object to their various innovations are just opposed to new things? Some people object when old, settled ways of doing things are "confronted" stupidly.

Kennicott: "[Kagan] got laughs for little digs at the relativists (who believe that other societies may have equally legitimate values and truths) and the multiculturalists (who think the traditional canon is not so weak as to bear with a little expansion)."

Bull. Those are deliberately euphemistic descriptions of relativism and multiculturalism, and I cannot imagine that they're what Kagan has in mind when he's talking about relativism and multiculturalism. Kennicott is writing up a speech. Just as with a book review, a non-hack writer has to present his subject's case before rebutting it--rather than just describing it in a distorted, self-refuting way.

The conclusion, if you can believe it, is even worse.

Your red army post reminded me of the fact that Marshal Zhukov really was a kiss up/kick down kinda guy.

Just read VDH's excellent piece on WWII revisionism. Also finally talked to my Dad about the Yalta stuff (Yalta came up a lot in the Goldberg household when I was a kid. Me: "Can I have five dollars for the movies?" Dad: "Okay, but if it weren't for Yalta, you could have ten.").

Anyway, Pops is not a huge believer in the invincible Red Army view being bandied around these days. And without getting into all of those bells and whistles, I did have one question. Has anyone ever come with a hard number for how many Red Army soldiers died at the hands of the Communist Party? It's a well established fact that on the Eastern front (which I guess was the Russian Western front), the Russians shot their own soldiers at alarming rates when they wouldn't fight, particularly at Stalingrad). Indeed, if they even strategically retreated they could be sure they'd be executed.

I bring it up for a couple reasons. First, it runs a bit counter to the purist Russian sacrifice version of history. Many died miserably at the hands of their officers or the Commissars. Second, this undermines the notion that the Red Army was as formidible as everyone suggests in their determination to defend FDR. VDH notes that the Russians were not nearly as impressive militarily as the Anglo-Americans, who: "waged a global war well beyond the capability of the Soviet Union. They invaded North Africa, took Sicily, and landed in Italy, in addition to fighting a massive land war in central Europe. We had fewer casualties than did the Russians because we fought more wisely, were better equipped, and were not surprised to the same degree by a treacherous former ally that we had supplied."

I completely understand Rick's point about the desire of conservatives -- including myself -- to Monday-morning-quarterback the decisions made at Yalta. But, my chief objection is the one I inherited from my Dad and it remains intact. For fifty years we were told that not only was Yalta necessary, but it was good and to question it was nothing but mildly anti-American fever-swamp stuff. We've seen this propagandistic mindset crop up for the last week. Josh Marshall, who once criticized Yalta, now insists it's outrageous to do so. Jacob Heilbrunn is utterly contemptuous of second-guessing Yalta.

I think the argument that the players at the time perceived Yalta as necessary is defensible (though forcibly sending all of those people home to be slaughtered is not). But I think the insistence that we must translate that sense of necessity into moral celebration is repugnant. Since when do liberals consider realism morally superior?

Here's an example of what I'm getting at. The senior George Bush sold out the Iraqi Shia and Kurds after the first Gulf War. I am sure he and his administration thought it was necessary. That has never stopped me -- or any of these now self-righteous liberals -- from saying that was morally outrageous and counterproductive in the long run. Why we can't have the same sort of discussion about Yalta is beyond me. Unless, of course, some people think consigning Eastern Europe to slavery for nearly half a century wasn't counterproductive or morally distasteful. If you want to say we had to sign Yalta, fine. But why do we have to like it?

HERAT PROVINCE, Afghanistan, May 12, 2005 - Changes are taking place on the borders of Afghanistan, and one man is leading the way.

Afghan Col. Safe Aube, commander of the Transitional Afghan Border Security Force, and 229 border-security volunteers from across the country are replacing the existing border police forces in Islam Quala, on Afghanistan's border with Iran in Herat province.

"The mission is to replace the existing border police with my men so that those men can be retrained to enforce the rule of law," said Aube. "Once the men are trained, they will return, and we will then move on to the next border site and do the same thing."

This pilot program is planned for 13 other border locations around the country. The hope is to put an end to corruption and increase revenue through proper taxes instituted at the borders.

U.S. Border Patrol agents have been ordered not to arrest illegal aliens along the section of the Arizona border where protesters patrolled last month because an increase in apprehensions there would prove the effectiveness of Minuteman volunteers, The Washington Times has learned.

I got some grief from some liberal emailers for only posting that "hooey" email earlier. So let me post now what I think is a thoughtful one:

Jonah,

I was extremely impressed by your piece "What Is a 'Conservative'?" As a liberal, though, I have a worry about your argument.

Towards the piece's end, you write this:

"Christianity, as I understand it, holds that the perfect world is the next one, not this one. We can do what we can where we can here, but we're never going to change the fact that we're fallen, imperfect creatures. There's also the whole render-unto-Caesar bit. And, of course, the Judeo-Christian tradition assumes we are born in sin, not born perfect before bourgeoisie culture corrupts us into drones for the capitalist state."

This passage expresses your endorsement of the belief that since "nine out of ten" proposals for social change will inevitably lead to disaster given our imperfect natures, we had better be, well, conservative. Call this claim "benign pessimism."

But here's the problem: liberals needn't--and shouldn't, for precisely the reasons you give--reject benign pessimism. It's been a long, long time since liberals believed, with Mill, Dewey, and the other thinkers you cite, that human nature is perfectible. Indeed, Schlesinger's _The Vital Center_, the great statement of mid-twentieth century liberalism, swore off precisely that belief. And John Rawls's entire political philosophy--I'm thinking of _Political Liberalism_, in particular--is an attempt to square the liberal commitment to pluralism and tolerance with the fact of our fallen natures.

To conclude, I have two points. First, the "liberalism" you set up in your piece as a foil to conservatism is a straw man. No one has believed that form of liberalism for over half a century. Second, and more substantively, benign pessimism doesn't argue for conservatism; it argues instead for a sober, careful liberalism--Schlesinger's vital center. The fact that we must take care to rock the boat only when doing so is absolutely necessary goes no way towards showing that government doesn't have a legitimate role to play in ensuring equal opportunity for all citizens. Benign pessimism isn't an argument against public education, social insurance, progressive taxation, labor unions, civil rights, etc.

Your brand of conservatism, whether you care to see it or not, will lead only to plutocracy. Perhaps such a prospect doesn't frighten you, as your sanguine attitude towards "hierarchy" suggests. But it does frighten the liberal. But that liberal doesn't want a "perfect society." Benign pessimism teaches us that nothing of the sort can be had. The liberal simply wants a fair society.

Me:There are some interesting points here. Let me respond to two. I agree that there are liberal intellectuals who understand that humans are not perfectable creatures. But in a very important sense I'm not sure that matters as much as the reader does. The piece I wrote in the current issue of the magazine addresses some of this in more detail, but I think modern liberalism has very little use for formal philosophy. I'm hardly alone on this point, as a slew of prominent liberals -- from Martin Peretz, to EJ Dionne to Michael Tomasky -- have made this point in recent months or recent years (if this is a controversial point to folks out there, I'd be glad to defend it further).

I think liberalism today is much more of an agglomeration of emotional states, unarticulated convictions, and religious impulses. And at the psychological and sociological level liberalism operates like a religion which believes in the perfectability of man even if many of its smarter practitioners will deny it when pressed (just as many very religious Christians, Muslims or Jews might stray from dogma if interrogated). When one looks at what offends liberal sensibilities, what arouses liberal passions, what drives liberal activism it is hard not to come to something like this conclusion (at least for me). And when you look at the sub-ideologies of the left -- feminism, environmentalism, etc -- it becomes even more difficult to avoid such conclusions. I really don't believe I've set up a strawman version of liberalism.

As for my second point, I guess I don't see why my version of conservatism is destined to become a justification for plutocracy, but depending on what you mean by plutocracy, I'm not so afraid of it either. We have in a very real sense a plutocracy now. We had a plutocracy yesterday. And will, in all likelihood, have a plutocracy tomorrow. Now, I don't mean that literally, but only a fool would deny that rich people don't run the country more than your average poor person. The Senate, after all, is the world's most exclusive millionaire's club. It is the nature of rich people to go into government in democracies and in non-democracies being in government makes you rich. Even in the warped economic systems we call Communist that is and was true -- it's not like the politburo lived shabbily. It's true in the social democracies. It's true everywhere. The hope is that in a healthy society the wealthier people appreciate their privileges and accomplishments and understand that they need to set an example. I like elitism, and I think social stratification is inevitable. But that doesn't mean I have to approve of every elite or think that every member of the top strata deserves to be there (again: the Politiburo was not my kind of elite).

This is in part what I mean about being willing to tolerate contradictions. We in America are an egalitarian society and we are a society of inidividual opportunity. Both are good things, but they conflict with each other at some point. As a conservative, I like that we're all equal before the law, but it doesn't bother me in the least that we're unequal economically. In short, it's not my version of conservatism which results in "plutocracy" it's human nature. My version of conservatism merely recognizes that fact.

By rough count I've gotten forty emails from evangelical Christians -- including pastors and activists -- and not one of them says last night's "Law and Order" passes even the most rudimentary smell test. Not one reader says they ever even heard of evangelicals making such an argument. Not one said there's room in current theological teachings or precedent in recent politics to make such a case. Sure, it makes sense to go easier on a guy who shows remorse and repentance, but nothing like what they showed last night makes sense to anybody.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon struck down Thursday Nebraska's constitutional provision prohibiting gay marriage or civil unions.

1. This at the very least slows things down. He was reported to the full Senate without a recommendation. Under those circumstances, how can further hearings/debate be refused?

2. Midwestern isolationism isn't what it used to be. Voinovich, like Hagel, talks about foreign policy very much the way modern liberal multilateralists do. Robert Novak opposed the Iraq war but supported Bolton, seeing both issues through a nationalist prism. It turns out that there is no real constituency behind that point of view.

3. It's long struck me what shallow roots Bush's foreign policy and the principles underlying it have in the Republican party. How committed are the 2008 hopefuls to that policy and those principles? Giuliani and McCain seem genuinely supportive. The rest of the lot seem to be go with the prevailing Republican winds.

Do you think Senator V. realizes that his absence from such important hearings last month would get him fired from a major corporation?

Blessed are the peacemakers:

I thought that was one of the more interesting posts on The Corner in a while. I immediately got my Bible and looked some of the passages up. I don't see why that would be sooo embarrassing, but then again I'm just a Catholic.

A couple folks have written-in with this sentiment:

Subject: Was it your intention to embarrass evangelical Christians by posting that e-mail?

That was one of the most embarrassing e-mails I have seen in a while. I may be more sensitive to the embarrassment as an evangelical Christian myself. You know, kind of like you were more embarrassed when your little brother said something stupid precisely because of that inescapable but unprovable belief that people were in some way making a connection between his stupidity and your familial relationship to him. Too many more e-mails like that and people are going to start making comments about evangelicals having jumped the shark.

Me: Me, I have zero-point-zero desire to get into -- to borrow this reader's analogy -- a family squabble between evangelical Christians. All I can say is that my intent wasn't to embarrass anybody. Whether anyone is "stupid" or should be embarrassed is a debate for others.

Please! It's "La Ciudad de Nuestra Seňora, Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula," of course. You forgot the last two words, which really are the key to the history of the name. Porciuncula was the name of St Francis's chapel, and the home of the Franciscans. The early Spanish settlers of LA included Father Juan Crespi, a priest of the Franciscan order who named the river the Porciuncula after it. So the original full name of the city, translated is "The City of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula."

With all the attention focussed on the French referendum on the draft EU 'constitution' (May 29th - still too close to call, but with the odds probably favouring a yes), the Dutch vote (June 1) is being overlooked. It shouldn't be. Here are two comments from a knowledgeable Dutchman.

The first dates from yesterday: "all internet polls routinely show comfortable majorities in the Tegen-camp [the noes], usually around 60%. Again today [Wednesday] a "panel" of 16,000 people for one of our newsshows came out with 60%opposed, in favor 21%, don't know 19%. 67% said that they were definitely going to vote. This sounds too high, however, and may indicate that the panel members weren't representative of the population."

The second is from today: "Good news--the only poll which, until now, showed a fairly clear lead for the yes-camp --not entirely surprisingly this is the government poll!-- has now also showed a considerable tightening: 40% No, 38% Yes, this compares with 30% No and 52% Yes in April. According to the government, this poll polls a group of voters who say they are definitely going to vote and are fairly well-informed. As such, the government claims this is the most accurate forecast available."

Nee's the way.

Interesting, but I'm not sure I have any response to this:

Okay Jonah, I liked your article “What is a conservative?” from May 11th. However, I an evangelical Christian, disagree with you that Jesus doesn’t have any useful advice about how to fix Social Security. God, through the Bible, has given us all the knowledge we need to deal with all life’s issues social, political, etc. Let me give you a few quotes from the Bible (I prefer the New American Standard translation, but use whichever you prefer) for political topics: Representative Government: Genesis 18:13-27

Employer rights and free market economy: Matthew 20:1-15

Welfare for those who won’t work: 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Social Security/Welfare/Medicaid for those who can’t help themselves: Leviticus 19:9-10, Leviticus 23:22, James 2:15-16, I John 3:17-18, see also the book of Ruth… bottom line; it’s the job of the church, not government

Property ownership: Leviticus 25:23-31

Taxes: 2 Kings 23:35, 2 Chronicles 24:6, 2 Chronicles 24:9, 2 Chronicles 24:10, Matthew 22:17, 21, Mark 12:14,17, Luke 20:22,25

Gay Marriage: Genesis 2:20-24, I Corinthians 6:9

Death Penalty: Genesis 9:5-6

War: Ecclesiastes 3:3,7,8

Give me a topic, any topic, and I bet you that the Bible addresses it somewhere with God’s wisdom on how to handle it.

Kind Regards,

A couple readers asked to know more about NR's relationship with Ayn Rand. Lots and lots has been written on the subject in various places and at various times. But here's where it all began, Whittaker Chambers' review of Atlas Shrugged.

CBS, AP, and other outlets reported earlier this week that Starr had said that getting rid of the judicial filibuster would be a "radical, radical departure from our history and our traditions, and it amounts to an assault on the judicial branch of government."

This seemed like a very odd thing for Starr to say, so I contacted him.

He forwarded to me an email he had sent to someone else who had asked about this matter:

"In the piece that I have now seen, and which I gather is being lavishly quoted, CBS employed two snippets. The 'radical departure' snippet was specifically addressed -- although this is not evidenced whatever from the clip -- to the practice of invoking judicial philosopy as a grounds for voting against a qualified nominee of integrity and experience. I said in sharp language that that practice was wrong. I contrasted the current practice . . . with what occurred during Ruth Ginsburg's nomination process, as numerous Republicans voted (rightly) to confirm a former ACLU staff lawyer. They disagreed with her positions as a lawyer, but they voted (again, rightly) to confirm her. Why? Because elections, like ideas, have consequences. . . . In the interview, I did indeed suggest, and have suggested elsewhere, that caution and prudence be exercised (Burkean that I am) in shifting/modifying rules (that's the second snippet), but I likewise made clear that the 'filibuster' represents an entirely new use (and misuse) of a venerable tradition. . . .

"[O]ur friends are way off base in assuming that the CBS snippets, as used, represent (a) my views, or (b) what I in fact said."

I don't have to agree with it to find it amusing. From a reader:

Mr. Goldberg,

You missed my favorite conservative, MeoCon. People who fall into this group believe that what ever benefits them is the proper conservative position. Andrew Sullivan is a primary example, he feels that he is a leading conservative voice, but he is willing to live on a collective farm that allows gay unions. All who disagree are apostates. I fear that the Derb is a MeoCon as well, although I am not sure if he has any issue that requires him to consider others as apostates (I think he just does it for practice).

I have attached the following definitions:

NeoCon- Jews who disagree with the New York Times

TheoCon- Protestants who disagree with the New York Times

EcoCon- Rich People who disagree with the New York Times

MeoCon- Conservatives who agree with the New York Times on a single issue

Here's Ramesh's old take down on Buchanan from 1999. Note the classic lines of the older NRO format. You can't buy purple digital paint like that anymore.

From a regular liberal reader re: yesterday's G-File:

Permanancy.

Conservatives seem to believe that there is something permanent in the universe.

There probably isn't.

Which explains the vaguely anti-scientific bent of some conservatives. A lot of them, really.

Science shows things to be impermanent, constantly changing; some conservatives just can't take that concept.

Most liberals can.

From a reader:

Jonah:

Regarding your Yalta column, I have a question for you.

I’m sure you’ve read this comment on Yalta by Churchill in his famous “Iron Curtain Speech” delivered at Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946:

“…The Agreement which was made at Yalta, to which I was a party, was extremely favorable to Soviet Russia, but it was made at a time when no one could say that the German war might not extend all through the summer and autumn of 1945 and when the Japanese war was expected to last for a further 18 months from the end of the German war. In this country you are all so well-informed about the Far East, and such devoted friends of China, that I do not need to expatiate on the situation there.

I have felt bound to portray the shadow which, alike in the west and in the east, falls upon the world. I was a high minister at the time of the Versailles Treaty and a close friend of Mr. Lloyd George, who was the head of the British delegation at Versailles. I did not myself agree with many things that were done, but I have a very strong impression in my mind of that situation, and I find it painful to contrast it with that which prevails now. In those days there were high hopes and unbounded confidence that the wars were over, and that the League of Nations would become all-powerful. I do not see or feel that same confidence or even the same hopes in the haggard world at the present time….”

Do you think this comment is Churchill’s attempt to cover himself while simultaneously raising the specter of Soviet domination of Eastern (and possibly Western) Europe? He goes to great lengths in the speech to discuss how the Soviets were violating their mutual agreements and understandings. Clearly there is some truth to it, but does it paint the whole picture about why Eastern Europe was soldout at Yalta?

Just wondering what your thoughts were.

Me:Frankly, I don't know. I'm not enough of a Churchillologist to say. I'd bec curious to know what Steve Hayward, one of our resident Churchiphiles has to say about all of this. But he's probably off dirty-blogging with the No Left Turns crowd again.

” I ransacked my house this a.m. for John Simon's Paradigm's Lost without success so I'll have to rely on memory. I believe he gave his endorsement to the Funk and Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of the English Language as the standard for American pronunciation…We have two editions (1945 and 1966) and both agree with you on the English pronunciation of Don Quixote. Interestingly, on foreign words they list the English pronunciation first, followed by the pronunciation in the original language, i.e. as distinct from the English pronunciation. Other examples from the same page: Donizetti (don-ah-zetee, not do-nee-dzetee), Don Juan (don joo-awn), Dordogne (dor-dawny)”

Next question. Should the 'g' in Los Angeles be hard or soft?

If you insist on "natural" food you m ay well go hungry, as most crops are even more "unnatural." Corn, for instance, is a human creation. It never existed in nature. Native Americans created it centuries ago through primative forms of genetic manipulation. In short, the use of available scientific knowledge to develop and alter our food sources is as old as human civilization, so there is nothing "untraditional" about it.

As for your claim that "real food is dull in comparison" to cheaper, processed stuff, I beg to differ again. Fresh, expertly prepared, unprocessed food is heavenly. The problem is that it is expensive to purchase and extremely time-consuming to prepare at home. While I love to eat that way, I also enjoy not having to spend hours in the kitchen to enjoy such a meal. In that regard, less expensive processed stuff serves a useful purpose.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was literally lifted out of her pinkish high heels by Capitol Police in a hallway outside the House chamber. One shoe was later found; the other remains missing...

One could include in this impossibly difficult social history a list of the different versions of Polish jokes. I know in Canada they tell "Newfie" jokes. All sorts of US states tell them about denizens of their border states. Indians tell them about Sikhs -- or so I've been told. And people at NR tell them about the gang at the Weekly Standard (I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Bill, boob-a-la, I kid because I love).

Cliff - Is there any such thing as a new Armenian joke?

I don't mean to slight Armenians (Back off Krikorian). My dad is always referring to "old Jewish jokes." Such as: A guy gives a blind man a piece of matzoh and he replies "who writes this stuff?"

I think it'd be a fascinating bit of social history to trace how just plain jokes become "old [insert ethnicity here] jokes." Is it because certain groups tell them so often over such a long period of time they become associated with them?

Now, I'm a fan of Drudge's, but what I find interesting here is that there's no evidence this is in fact true. I searched nexis and found no mention anywhere of Buchanan's column sparking a controversy. Rather, Matt (who is a friend of Buchanan's) is trying to spark a controversy by linking to the column and saying it already sparked one.

As for the merits of the column, I think it's an interesting read and raises some perfectly legitimate questions (and some not so legitimate). I'm not going to take his argument that we probably shouldn't have fought WWII too seriously though. But, as for his analytical fillip at the end where he says, "Yes, Bush has opened up quite a can of worms" as if Bush's Yalta comments will spark a broader reevaluation of World War Two's merits. This strikes me as profound wishful thinking on Buchanan's part. Buchanan was a great red baiter (and I say that as a compliment), but his new baiting techniques are out of synch with the times and saying he's sparking a controversy -- like saying Bush has opened a can of worms -- doesn't make it so.

This is not a parody. From yesterday's coverage of the rogue plane incident on yesterday's Inside Politics:

WOODRUFF: Today's security alert as seen by the blogosphere; up next, our blog reporters gather online reaction to the day's unusual events here in Washington.

The inhabitants of the blogosphere are weighing in on today's security scare here in Washington. Let's check in now with CNN political producer Abbi Tatton and Jacki Schechner, our blog reporter. Hi, Jacki.

JACKI SCHECHNER, BLOG REPORTER: Hi, Judy.

Yes, D.C. area bloggers were picking up on the news as it was happening today. But, once word came out the immediate security threat was over, so was much of the conversation. We do want to point out how the group blog The Corner handled it at National Review online, that's nationalreview.com. John [Podhoretz] writes, over there, stop blogging about Macaulay Culkin to say that the Washington area had been evacuated, the Capitol and the White House. Specifically, Jonah Goldberg asking if there's anything he should know, and clearly, by 12:20, the conversation had gone back to pop culture. So, very quick handling over there at The Corner.

Thank goodness they're covering all angles of the story!

David Brooks has a good one. (reg required)

I imagine that Revenge of the Sith is very much the film Lucas's fans want to see, but are some of them ready for an anti-Bush diatribe?

Though every Star Wars film until now has existed in an insular comic-book world, a lot has happened since 1999 and 2002 in the real world and Lucas dares, for the first time, to address how the hollow political conflict in his franchise correlates with the reality outside its panels. (It would have been stupid not to strike a parallel.) Revenge of the Sith's two greatest moments tap into the uncertainty of our own political climate: the dazzling battle between Yoda and Darth Sidious (an outstanding Ian McDiarmid) inside the beautifully spiraling Senate hall evokes Democrats and Republicans scrambling for power and, during an obscenely over-the-top duel in Mustafar, Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) declares, "Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes," after Anakin says, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy." Lucas's political gestures would be easier to appreciate if he himself didn't trade in absolutes and generalities (you know the drill: the darker the couture, the closer you are to the dark side), but it's still a welcome step forward. Pity we had to wait so long for it, but, as they say, better late than never.

Jonathan Chait argues that it is conducive to corruption. Small-government conservatives tend to think that big government, whether liberal or conservative, is more prone to corruption than the small-government kind, and will therefore not reject Chait's general argument. Some of the specifics, on the other hand, seem to me dubious.

Chait attributes to me the view that Bush's support for big government is largely a response to the public demand for government--which is indeed a rough approximation of my views. He then argues that it's an inadequate explanation, because it doesn't explain why spending has grown faster under Bush than it did under Clinton. It seems to me that there are several possible explanations for this difference that are compatible with my view.

The most obvious one, with which I'm sure Chait is familiar, is that the replacement of divided government by unified government--and especially by a barely unified government--made for increased spending.

Another one--Mickey Kaus has made a version of it--is that the passage of welfare reform increased public support for (and reduced opposition to) government activism on behalf of working people. It is possible that the effect of its passage has grown with time; government is less and less seen as an enemy of middle-class values and thus public support for governmental activism has kept growing.

A third explanation is that the consequences of Clinton's defeat of the Gingrich revolution also grew with time. The ideological anti-government fervor of 1995 gradually cooled--especially after the House was no longer led by Newt Gingrich, who could claim to have brought the committee chairmen to power and therefore could impose some discipline on them. And I'm sure that plenty of other explanations would come to mind if I kept thinking about the question. The Clinton-Bush comparison does not strike me as a serious challenge to the theory.

I understated Chait's argument earlier, come to think of it. He's not just saying that big-government conservatism is conducive to corruption, he's saying it's a form of it. "Big-government conservatism consists of initiatives that benefit economic elites without using free-market mechanisms." I'm highly skeptical of this claim. The increased spending on education isn't about benefiting "economic elites," and nor is the faith-based initiative.

Chait sees various features of the Medicare bill as corporate subsidies. I disagree on some important particulars. For example, while the provision of the law blocking the federal government from negotiating lower drug prices obviously helps pharmaceutical companies, I tend to think it was a good provision. The alternative was to let the government use its market power to set de facto price controls.

And if this sort of thing counts as corruption, why isn't Third Way liberalism equally guilty of it? There were plenty of companies that supported the Clinton health-care plan in order to have the federal government relieve them of their health costs.

Well, [the President has] shown that he meant every word he said in the inaugural address, his second inaugural address, which a lot of people said was only rhetoric. He believes in democracy. And he also was essentially saying to his friend Putin, "I can't really change how you govern Russia, but I'm going to make sure you're not going to export autocracy in your neighborhood."

You know, he stood with the Latvians and the Georgians, two countries who did not show up in Moscow at the big party as a way to protest the Russian pressure. He also hinted, or at least spoke about, having Georgia in NATO, which is an extremely strong step. Essentially it puts Georgia under the American umbrella. And Georgia is considered a colony by the Russians. There are two provinces that are separatists that the Russians are supporting. The Russians maintain two bases inside of Georgia and are reluctant to actually leave. So I think he's extending his umbrella in a way that really says to people around the world, "If you act on behalf of democracy and independence, America stands with you."

It's not just rhetoric. He means it on the ground.

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

Let me be one of what will doubtless be a chorus of people to suggest to you that your defining characteristic of conservatives (that they are comfortable with contradiction) can perhaps be restated as:

Conservatives understand and accept the reality of opportunity cost.

The key moment in most of our lives, when we finally reach maturity, is when we understand that choosing one road entails *not* choosing another, perhaps permanently. The “false choices” argument rests completely on denying this most unfortunate fact of life.

Take care!

[Name withhheld]

p.s. I am not an economist. I R an injineer.

Mainstream Republican Groups Oppose Nomination of William Pryor

Nominee’s Record Makes Him Unsuitable for Lifetime Appointment

(Washington, DC) — Two mainstream Republican groups are launching a grassroots effort to defeat the nomination of William Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. “Log Cabin Republicans and the Republican Majority for Choice are activating our nationwide grassroots memberships to put pressure on Republican Senators to oppose William Pryor’s nomination,” said Log Cabin Republicans President Patrick Guerriero. “William Pryor’s words and actions make him unsuitable for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench,” said Jennifer Blei Stockman, National Co-Chair of the Republican Majority for Choice.

“We support the confirmation of all fair-minded jurists, however, Mr. Pryor’s record is so out of step with mainstream Republican values and contemporary jurisprudence that our organizations are compelled to forcefully oppose his nomination,” continued Guerriero.

Two years ago, Chuck O'Brien was in Hollywood making cadavers for "CSI: Miami." His masterpieces included a partially digested torso that spilled from a shark and a finger that oozed sweat.

But he says he got "sick of making dead bodies" for demanding directors. He also worried that computer animation, cheaper and faster than building fake body parts, was rendering his skill obsolete in the movie business.

So on a rainy spring morning last month, he found himself hunched over a Marine's foot at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here. Cpl. Corey Webb had lost his left leg in Fallujah last June when his Humvee, rushing to a firefight, collided with a U.S. tank. Now, Mr. O'Brien was painting a silicone replica of the missing appendage as the 23-year-old corporal posed, showing off his remaining foot under bright hot lights.

"This guy is my foot artist," Cpl. Webb announced to a group of Marines on a goodwill tour who were passing out T-shirts to the wounded. Eyeing the eerily real-looking work in progress, he announced: "It's going to look great in a flip-flop."

Since November 2003, when he left Hollywood, Mr. O'Brien has been working for Alternative Prosthetic Services, a nine-person company in Southport, Conn., that makes arms, legs and the occasional finger or ear for accident victims and the war wounded…

Moralising Quotient is: 0.67.

Interference Factor is: 0.40.

Your Universalising Factor is: 0.80.

[B]ought one four years ago and it has been very good for us and our now 5 kids. Took a month last summer camping throughout the Western US. Over 7,500 miles from Florida and back. Super trip. No other vehicle could have done the job as well.

I bought my first Yukon [shorter than the Suburban but otherwise identical] a year and a half ago (used)….It is extremely comfortable and well built. It has 166,000 miles on it (60,000 of which put on by me since I bought it) and runs and handles like new. If Detroit built its passenger cars as well as they build these things, they'd never have to worry about foreign competition again.

The Suburban is definately the ultimate large family vehicle. Our criteria when replacing our own dying Plymouth Voyager (a '94), 2 years ago was something that would hold us, our 3 kids, a friend per kid, the beach gear with picnic supplies, and still have room to stop for groceries on the way home so as not to have to make an extra trip….The Chevy Suburban is a real tribute to American engineering. It just does everything right as either a work truck or a large family vehicle.

I used to collect jingles and your post on the Corner reminded me of that Dinah Shore one. I uploaded the video to my blog.

Lots and lots of readers defending FDR put a lot of emphasis on the need to get Russia into the war with Japan. One reader writes: "Our entire general staff, including Marshall, was convinced that without the Russians the casualties on our side would exceed one million men. The main purpose of the Yalta conference was to get Stalin to agree to declare war on Japan once the Germans were defeated. Hence the bargain: Stalin gets Eastern Europe on the condition that he enter the war. This was how the deal actually went down."

I think this is a perfectly legitimate point. But it does raise a secondary line of argument not directly about Yalta but about the dawn of the Cold War. Schlesinger for example makes a big deal about the fact that Stalin was forced to agree to free elections in Poland and then blithely mentions that Stalin had to break that pledge in order to, well, annex Poland. Well, when it became clear that A) we no longer needed Russia to fight the Japanese -- hence the dissolution of the real politick argument B) Russia no longer honored the text nor the "spirit" of Yalta and C) we had a temporary monopoly on the atomic bomb, why didn't we use it to threaten the Soviets to get the hell out of Eastern Europe?

I know there are a lot of contrafactuals built into this and there were very good reasons why we didn't, but it seems to me that this might have ended the Cold War before it began. I have heard many good arguments about why we couldn't do this, but I've never heard a convincing argument about why we shouldn't have.

One of the fascinating challenges of Tony Blair's third term will be to see how/if he manages to reconcile the demands of the EU (into which, remember, he wishes to integrate Britain far more deeply) with an agenda that still at least pays lip service to the free market. Here's more proof that it cannot be done: Euro-MPs today have voted to scrap Britain's existing exemption from the EU law that provides that no-one may work for more than 48 hours a week even if he or she wants to. Brussels, you see, knows best. Interestingly - and ominously - the majority of Labour MEPs voted with the majority, despite the Blair government's opposition to this 'reform'. The Daily Telegraph notes that "the plans backed today would phase out the opt-out over three years - and in a bid to counter British complaints that the maximum 48-hour week would then be too inflexible, the maximum would be averaged over 12 months instead of the current 17 weeks." How kind.

Over at the Eursoc blog, they are not impressed: "EURSOC sees much irony in MEPs forbidding workers from earning a little extra cash through overtime. MEPs hardly work at all, enjoy very high salaries, fabulous taxpayer-funded perks and even manage to scam hundreds of Euros each day simply for signing attendance registers. What do these people know about how much, or how little, people in the real world should work? Unlike MEPs, families struggling to pay mortgages or save for retirement cannot vote themselves pay rises or swindle taxpayers through expenses fraud."

And nor is the Polish MEP Konrad Szymanski, "Today's vote is a black day for European entrepreneurship...They have decided to impose the worst legacy of the French and German economies on those countries that do not want that, such as Poland, Britain and Ireland."

Indeed they have. And that's the idea.

Now, this is not the end of the matter. It's possible that a blocking minority can be cobbled together at the intergovernmental level, but the result of this vote is yet another reminder that the EU's elite respect neither individual rights, nor the reality of global competition. Idiots.

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today about the Columbia University Senate’s vote against allowing ROTC to return to campus. The vote was particularly disappointing because, at least among students, there was significant support for ROTC’s return, with one poll showing 65 percent of respondents in favor and with the Columbia Spectator also on board. Last week I spoke with Jim Lowe, a Columbia ’51 graduate and the alumni leader of the campaign for ROTC. He thinks all the concern about “don’t ask don’t tell,” the main objection raised during the Senate debate, is a façade for the same old anti-military worldview that led to ROTC’s exile in the late-‘60s (those who don’t like DADT, he says, should take it out on Congress, not the military or the students who choose to serve their country).

But even if the concern about discrimination is principled (as Richard Bradley argues it is here), ROTC advocates say that in banning the group Columbia is discriminating against those who wish to choose military service as a career. In other words, assuming no change in the law, someone is excluded or given second-class treatment no matter what. The real question, then, it seems to me, is whether ROTC’s presence--especially right now--serves a good that is greater than the harm done by the exclusion of students who are openly gay.

Looking ahead, the advocates plan to continue their efforts, despite the setback: They can still rally alumni to withhold contributions to the university and work for incremental changes like improving conditions for cadets, stepping up recruitment, and promoting greater understanding of (and appreciation for) the military on campus.

I admire your strategy at making your wife think buying the truck was her idea. Brilliant, just brilliant. Not only does NRO provide its readers with great conservative thought, but strategies to trick our wives into buying really cool stuff. Donate and donate now to keep this resource for generations to come.

Than a reader:

"And his psychology is very different than Clinton's."

Jonah, you really must stop writing "different than." "FROM" is used for distinctions in kind - different from, separate from, apart from, &c; "than" is used for distinctions in degree - more than, colder than, greener than, &c. Don't you dare hurl back the "commonly accepted general standard usage" nonsense; we expect conservatives to provide a bulwark against such rootless relativism, and to do so by example through adherence to what is correct, which in this case is "different from." (And at Mr. Buckley's magazine, no less.)

"The correct and honorable use of words is the first and natural credential of civilized status."

- Paul Johnson, "Enemies of Society," 1977

Me: I will try harder.

Ramesh - Isn't that of a piece with the notion that FDR's legacy should somehow play a role in whether or not Social Security should be reformed? As if even in some small way we should tolerate a bad system as some sort of tithe to his memory. The whole "constititution in exile" thing strikes me as part of the romanticization of FDR too. Obviously, there's more to it than just that, but one does get the whiff that the New Deal court decisions are beloved for literary-romantic-political reasons along with legal ones. The symbolism of restoring pre-New Deal legal theories runs counter to too many liberal assumptions about the role of government and the "progress" of history.

And just try to explain to a conventional liberal the now fairly accepted fact that the New Deal prolonged the Depression.

The great 20th-century conservative presidents were Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan. Neither was an atheist, but neither was much of a church-goer either. Their expressions of religious belief did not venture far beyond the requirements of "ceremonial deism."

The other day in the East Room of the White House at a meeting there, someone asked me whether I was aware of all the people out there who were praying for the President. And I had to say, "Yes, I am. I've felt it. I believe in intercessionary prayer." But I couldn't help but say to that questioner after he'd asked the question that--or at least say to them that if sometimes when he was praying he got a busy signal, it was just me in there ahead of him. I think I understand how Abraham Lincoln felt when he said, "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go."

The basis of those ideals and principles is a commitment to freedom and personal liberty that, itself is grounded in the much deeper realization that freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought and humbly accepted…. [T]hat shrewdest of all observers of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, put it eloquently after he had gone on a search for the secret of America's greatness and genius--and he said: "Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the greatness and the genius of America. America is good. And if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."

Commonest response: "Darn it, you're right, but I really hate to hear about it."

Commonest line of dissent: "The US citizenship made no difference, Derb -- you're still a rain-sodden fog-shrouded English pessimist. Americans don't think like this.

Sarah Loomis, 32, of Great Neck, N.Y., agreed. "I think it's good for the church to have rules against killing and things like that," she said. "But I was really hoping the new pope would loosen up on things like abortion and homosexuality. This is the 20th century, after all. Or 21st. Whatever."

A friend sent me this list of quotations. Many are familiar, all are nice to hear again:

"Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose."

- Ronald Reagan

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the
government and I'm here to help."

- Ronald Reagan

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant: It's
just that they know so much that isn't so."

- Ronald Reagan

"Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too
strong."

- Ronald Reagan

"I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandment's would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress."

- Ronald Reagan

"The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but
doesn't have to take the civil service examination."

- Ronald Reagan

"Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one
end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

- Ronald Reagan

"If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation
gone under."

- Ronald Reagan

"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a
government program."

- Ronald Reagan

"I've laid down the law, though, to everyone from now on about anything that
happens: no matter what time it is, wake me, even if it's in the middle of a
Cabinet meeting."

- Ronald Reagan

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have
learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."

- Ronald Reagan

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops
moving, subsidize it."

- Ronald Reagan

"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards,
if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."

- Ronald Reagan

"No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as
the will and moral courage of free men and women.
- Ronald Reagan

I don't think I want to turn the Corner into a bulletin board of rage about the Alamo thing. Suffice it to say references to male bovine fecal droppings come up in a lot of emails. Brad Short summarizes:

To say it is b.s. is to do it far more credit than it deserves:

1) Santa Anna (SA) had sent his tyrant-lite brother
(Jose Perfecto de la Cos) up to San Antonio to take
away their cannon the year before (1835)-and since
this violated San Antonio's right to defend itself
from Indian-raids, the Texicans kicked his butt out of
the province. This was part of why SA *wasn't* going
to go easy on the Alamo when he came up to it with his
huge Mexican Army in 1836.

2) Yes, the immigrants from the U.S. to Mexican Texas
largely held slaves (I think Jim Bowie had one of his
with him at the Alamo), but that was NOT all that was
at issue.

3) Immigration. Ironically the United States of Mexico
gov't wanted illegal immigration to Texas to end,
because they thought too many Anglos were coming in
and changing loyalties (sounds familiar?). Problem
is, the whole reason Mexico had earlier let all these
Anglos into Texas under the leadership of Stephan
Austin (whose dad had also been trying throughout his
life to emigrate to a hispanic country with a bunch of
followers) (more on him below) was that Texas was
empty and not being productively farmed-the mestizos
of Mexico didn't want to come up. Texicans did not
want the province to stay so empty (a little less
empty than before-enough for pols in Mexico City, but
not for the Texicans), and often they wanted their
family members from places like Tennesse to come in
and live with them (sounds familiar?)

4) Stephen Austin (who tried so hard to hispanicify
himself and his fellow former-U.S. Texicans that he
would sign his name: "Don Estavan d'Austin") went to
Mexico City to negotiate issues like slavery,
immigration, etc., and he was thrown in jail by the
dictator SA-in total violation of his free speech
rights (btw, I don't *think* Austin owned slaves).

5) Basically, SA was the Napoleon Bonaparte of Latin
America. The Texicans, by rebelling, preserved the
republican form of gov't that Mexico did not get until
yours and my lifetime (Benito Juarez, who fought Santa
Anna throughout the 19th century tried to govern as a
democrat-and I think it is fair to say that he really
wanted to-but he often resorted to dictatorial-like
acts to try to keep Santa Anna out of power; e.g.
staying in as President longer than his term was
supposed to last for). The "Congress" in Mexico City,
in the 1830's was a joke.

6) So the Texican revolution was justified because the
central gov't violated many natural rights of
Texicans, e.g., to keep and bear arms and to
republican gov't. It wasn't about slavery, and still
less was it all "Anglo" and anti-mestizo-while the
brave men of the Alamo and Goliad were murdered by SA,
the Texas representatives were drafting the Texican
Declaration of Independence-it was signed by several
mestizos, including Jose Antonio Navarro, who would
have been hanged as a traitor if Santa Anna got his
hands on him. Thanks to Sam Houston, that didn't
happen.

Peace out.

-Bradford Short

From a reader:

Oh my, yes. Like most native, red-blooded Texans, the Alamo is sacred ground to me, and I’m always moved to tears when I visit it. The forces of PC have completely re-written the story of the Alamo here in Texas. A few years ago, on a class field trip there, the dozen of us posed on the very edge of the Alamo grounds (just off the curb) with a Texas flag. We were told that we could not display the Texas flag at the Alamo. Let that sink in: We were not being loud oafs; we were quietly and unobtrusively posing with a Texas flag by way of remembrance of the men who died for that flag and all that it represented (the highest virtues of liberty)—at the very spiritual heart of Texas…where they died. And we were told that it wasn’t allowed.

I’m a small man, but would gladly resort to fisticuffs with *anyone* who profaned that sacred ground. Like the D-Day warriors, the men who died defending the Alamo were among this land’s greatest patriots. It is telling that the forces of PC multiculturalism hates The Alamo, although not surprising—they hate America, and they hate Anglo men. I fear that this is the creeping revisionism that has essentially mandated that we Anglos must feel a deep sense of guilt over the “imperialist legacy” of our forefathers. These are dark times.

If, by chance, you publish this, by all means use my name.

James Simpson

Defiant American, Defiant Texan

Well, this is it. I've found it.

The prophesies were true!

Derb's quite right in his column today to suggest that there's no necessary connection between evangelicalism or Catholicism and limited-government conservatism. I wouldn't think it necessary to go back to the Inquisition to prove the point. But I think it's odd to say that "[e]vangelicanism is, in fact, too intellectually flimsy to sustain any coherent political position outside a narrow subset of 'social issues.'" Is it really a test of a religion's intellectual strength that it can sustain a "coherent political position"? I think you could make a decent argument that the more it sustained such a position, the less well it would speak of its intellectual strength.

And I'm afraid that Professor Hart, in the evaluation of evangelical Christianity to which you link, displays too little familiarity with contemporary evangelicalism to inspire trust in his judgment. The popularity of the LaHaye books does not speak well of evangelicals, sure; but there are plenty of bestsellers that don't speak well of other groups, either. (The DaVinci Code, anyone?) Mark Noll's book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind was a smart appraisal of evangelical weaknesses from the inside. My impression is that its thesis, arguments, and implications have been vigorously debated among evangelicals, at evangelical colleges, among other places. That the debate is occurring is evidence both that there are problems here, and that Hart's picture of an evangelical world that is all about emotion and not at all about intellect is a caricature.

Here's David Espo of AP: "Republicans who dissent from President Bush's policy are circulating a poll designed to show they have the party's voters on their side even if many fellow GOP lawmakers are not."

He highlights the poll's finding that 57 percent of 800 Republicans polled favored embryonic stem-cell research while only 40 percent opposed. Mike Castle, a Delaware Republican pushing for expanded funding of the research and for allowing research on cloned embryos, tells Espo: "Anytime you see a poll like that, that's a strong preference. Members of Congress understand polls."

Members of Congress, one hopes, also understand the limitations of polls--and of the ways interested parties like Castle can spin them. Here are some specific things they ought to understand:

-- The 57-40 percent support for embryonic stem-cell research does not indicate where public opinion stands on taxpayer funding or on cloning--the positions Castle favors. Dave Winston, who conducted the poll, tells me that these numbers, while interesting, do not reflect the policy question.

-- When asked their preference, 25 percent of Republicans said they wanted no government funding of the research, 33 percent favored the limited funding Bush offers, and 36 percent wanted expanded funding to cover research on leftover embryos at fertility clinics. So 58 percent of Republicans were with Bush or to his right, while only 36 percent were with Castle (and even that's with a question that arguably hypes the potential of the research).

-- Another finding: 70 percent of Republicans approved of the job Bush was doing on stem cells.

-- The 57-40 result came after respondents were exposed to 3 arguments for embryonic stem-cell research and 2 against it. I respect Winston's polling, and there are judgment calls on which arguments to select, but I think the ones he used tend to drive the numbers up artificially.

The argument that adult stem cell research is promising and does not involve ethical problems, and should therefore be pursued first, is the chief argument of the congressional opponents of the research. (I'm not find of this argument myself, but there's no denying it's the top one opponents are using.) Yet it's not one of the arguments presented to respondents.

Respondents are, however, presented with the argument that "fertility treatments should not be permitted" because they create embryos that will eventually be destroyed. Almost nobody is arguing for that position, it's an unpopular position, and it's only tangentially related to the policy question actually before the Congress.

-- Respondents were asked, understandably given the politics though somewhat oddly as an abstract matter, about what they thought about the promise of various lines of research. Sixty-nice percent thought that embryonic stem-cell research might generate medical advances. But when asked which avenue of research held the most promise, only 24 percent picked embryonic stem-cell research. Another 21 percent said adult stem-cell research, 31 percent said cord-blood stem-cell research, and 24 percent said (as I would have) that they didn't know.

These numbers aren't terrific for pro-lifers, but they're not the slam-dunk for Castle's side of this debate that he (and the Associated Press) would have us believe.

Via Sky News:

"Prince Harry has been pictured holding a cigarette next to a young orphan while carrying out charity work in South Africa. Harry, whose wayward behaviour has never kept him far from the headlines, was snapped crouched on the ground with the cigarette hidden by a shadow."

Harry is now in the (British - phew) army. That a soon-to-be army officer enjoys a smoke really should not be news. Even if some of "the children" are around.

From a reader:

Jonah,

"Mental" philosophy is philosophy about or concerning the mind. It's no funnier a name than "physical science." This reminds me of a story of the philosopher Colin McGinn, who was named the Wilde Reader of Mental Philosophy at Oxford. Afterwards his mother apparently referred to him as the Mental Reader of Wild Philosophy.

Your faithful reader,

I haven't read anything from the site. I probably should have before I posted the earlier email. Anyway, this reader offers a warning:

Jonah- Be very careful of that www.feldgrau.com website. It's a great online source for information about the German and German-associated armies in World War 2, but it strays over into hero-worship of the Nazi German military. For an example of what I'm talking about, read the sections about the SS units and the German-allied factions like the Croats and Bulgarians.

The piece about Flew I linked to says he won the "John Locke Prize in Mental Philosophy."

Um, is there any other kind?

Isn't this a bit like the Jim Thorpe Prize in Physical Running?

From a reader:

Jonah, The best essay I've read on the subject is a piece by Lt. Gen Anders and Antonio Munoz, "Russian Volunteers in the German Wehrmacht in WWII". It is accessible at http://www.feldgrau.com/rvol.html.

Your summary seems pretty much correct to me.

Additionally, simply fighting for the Nazis does not make one a monster. The point your correspondent makes seems more emotional than rational to me. I doubt that I would be immune to that same emotional reaction following such a bloody war. I'd also like to think, however, that I would be uncomfortable sentencing so many brave men to death or slavery en masse simply for choosing the evil they didn't know over the one they did.

Q:... to the best of your knowledge, was the language that was proposed, in the end, or agreed upon by the IC community, used in the Syria speech?

Ms. Miscik: I think what was ultimately used -- and I think it had been delayed --I think this is a -- you know, turned into, instead of a couple-of-day process, a couple- of-week process. I think what ultimately was used was agreed to by the intelligence community.

Q: In the end, Mr. Bolton gave testimony that was cleared by you, is that correct?
Mr. Hutchings: I think that's right, but I've, frankly, forgotten the end game.

Q: But, in the end, though, the -- your judgement was that the Syria speech -- Syria testimony came out exactly the way it should have.

Mr. Hutchings: Well, I've sort of lost track, but I think that what was -- what was actually given met the intelligence standards, yes.

I'd like to say, "I much fear trouble in the fuselage, Frederick."

That's my way of saying welcome aboard to John Podhoretz. He'll understand (and so will some of you, I suspect).

From a reader:

Hi Jonah,

I don't know much about Vlasov, but his story sounds similar to that of
Subas Chandra Bose, a rival of Gandhi's in the Indian freedom movement in
the '30s. Unlike Gandhi and Nehru, Bose advocated violent resistance
against the British Empire, and so he lost out to them in the leadership
struggle for the Indian National Congress. After the war started, Bose
escaped from India (he was a fugitive from the British), visited Hitler,
trained Indian POWs to fight with the Nazis against the British, and then
trained Indian POWs from the Pacific theater to mount an attack on India
from the Japanese positions in Burma. Many Indians consider Bose a hero,
but many more recognize the evil of his alliance with the fascists.
Needless to say, the British held that all the POWs who had fought with
Bose were traitors, they having already taken an oath to fight for the
crown. Bose was a patriot, and his enemy was the evil colonial
institution, but that does not excuse his even more evil alliance. Unlike
other figures in the Indian freedom movement, Bose equated the evils of
fascism and imperialism and used the one against the other. That remains
his unfortunate legacy.

As for the Yalta discussion, keep it going! It's a slow news cycle, so we
might as well discuss important events of the past.

Jim Lampley needs his medication again:

Many of the participants in this blog have graduate school educations. It is damned near impossible to go to graduate school in any but the most artistic disciplines without having to learn about the basics of social research and its uncanny accuracy and validity. We know that professionally conceived samples simply do not yield results which vary six, eight, ten points from eventual data returns, thaty's why there are identifiable margins for error. We know that margins for error are valid, and that results have fallen within the error range for every Presidential election for the past fifty years prior to last fall. NEVER have exit polls varied by beyond-error margins in a single state, not since 1948 when this kind of polling began. In this past election it happened in ten states, all of them swing states, all of them in Bush's favor. Coincidence? Of course not.

Karl Rove isn't capable of conceiving and executing such a grandiose crime? Wake up. They did it. The silence of traditional media on this subject is enough to establish their newfound bankruptcy. The revolution will have to start here. I challenge every other thinker at the Huffington Post: is there any greater imperative than to reverse this crime and reestablish democracy in America? Why the mass silence? Let's go to work with the circumstantial evidence, begin to narrow from the outside in, and find some witnesses who will turn. That's how they cracked Watergate. This is bigger, and I never dreamed I would say that in my baby boomer lifetime.

Looks like the H-Bomb's descent into goofiness is ahead of schedule.

From a reader:

Jonah,

I can't believe you bought John's explanation for the great early Revenge of the Sith reviews (currently at 92% on the Tomatometer)! Were you guys around in 1999 and 2002 when most of the mainstream critics panned the first two prequels?! In fact, most of these reviews explicitly state that the film "makes up for" or "makes you forget" the first two prequels!

Also, at least in this case, the critics aren't going along for the ride so as to avoid being trampled by masses of moviegoers. If anything, this film is primed to make less money than the other two thanks to a PG-13 rating and a feeling among many that they were burned by the first two.

I'm not saying that a warm response from the first 25 critics to see the thing means it will assume a position in the pantheon of classic American cinema, but it's a more positive sign than you or John allow yourselves to admit. I'm sorry he didn't like the film.

Doesn't the argument that the Red Army was already occupying Eastern Europe and therefore America had no choice but to recognize, codify and celebrate that fact run at least a little counter to the rage against the Israeli "occupation"? If it's so obvious that having troops in a place confers title to that place, why should anyone think Israel should return to pre-1967 borders?

I don't like -- or agree with -- the comparison of Israel to the Soviets, but the principle still holds.

This should stir the pot. From a reader:

Uh Jonah, I think all this caterwauling about Yalta, Eastern Europe and Vlasov is silly. Schlessinger is right, the Red Army was going to occupy Eastern Europe, come what may. The question was, would we be able to persuade the Soviets to intervene against Japan? We could have angered the Soviets and they would STILL have occupied Eastern Europe, but they might not have intervened in Manchuria. And their intervention carried weight in the Japanese decision to surrender when they did. For reference read Franks' Downfall, on the Pacific end-game. And I have this question if something is inevitable, a la Soviet/Russian dominance in East Europe, can it be said to be a "wrong?" If a tree is falling on your car, has a great wrong been done or has physics taken its course? As to Vlasov, he was a Nazi collaborator! Yes, 60 years later he may be seen as a RUSSIAN patriot, but THEN he was seen as a Nazi collaborator! Seen by those folks who had just been at war with the Nazi's since 1939, seen their homes destroyed, seen their loved ones tortured by Nazis, and who had liberated the camps and seen, dimly the Endlosung/Shoah. Why, because VLASOV FOUGHT WITH THE NAZI'S! And that was all it took and I submit that if you had been there then, you'd have turned them over too. From the comfort of our lives 60 years later he may appear different, but it didn't seem that way at the time.

In a military courtroom in Texas last week was a spectacle worthy of "As the World Turns": Pfc. Lynndie R. England, the defendant, holding her 7-month-old baby; the imprisoned father, Pvt. Charles A. Graner Jr., giving testimony that ruined what lawyers said was her best shot at leniency; and waiting outside, another defendant from the notorious abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Megan M. Ambuhl, who had recently wed Private Graner - a marriage Private England learned about only days before.

Just after the 372nd received orders to go to Iraq in February 2003, Private Graner, Private England and another soldier had a last party weekend in Virginia Beach. They drank heavily, and when their friend passed out, Private Graner and Private England took turns taking photographs of each other exposing themselves over his head.

One night in October, he told her to pose for photographs holding a leash tied around the neck of a naked and crawling detainee. He e-mailed one home: "Look what I made Lynndie do." The now infamous pictures of detainees masturbating, he said, were a birthday gift for her.

She had been involved with another soldier in the unit. But by late December, she had ended that relationship and started one with Private Graner. In e-mail messages, the two dreamily recalled their nights stolen away in the crowded prison cells where the military police lived.

John may be right about Star Wars. He's certainly right about movie critics. Have you noticed how that guy from Rolling Stone gives blurb-worthy reviews of almost every bad movie to come out in the last five years?

As for Star Wars, my aim is simple. Constantly lower -- with a sledgehammer if necessary -- my expectations to the point where I will love it so long as it's not in Spanish.

And let's admit it: (John, no spoiler's please), if Jar-Jar Binks were gruesomely murdered in the film, that alone would make it a must see.

Golly, I hope all of this criticism of Jason Apuzzo's "colleague" by un-annointed conservatives doesn't cause the effete auteur to spew his latté at the screen again.

it seems necessary to warn Republican senators: This issue is extremely important to the grassroots out there. This is something that matters to the base, and they voted on this, and they'll vote on it again in the future however it turns out, and what we're all concerned about here is the power the judiciary exercises in this country today -- and we're concerned that not enough is being done about it by elected branches. And if a Republican majority in the Senate can't even -- or worse, even, won't -- step to the plate to reinstitute what was the status quo for 214 years and push back the Chuck Schumers and Ted Kennedys and the Joe Bidens, then what principles do they stand for? This isn't about the Senate "getting along." That was thrown to the wind when the Democrats started filibustering and undermining 214 years of history. This is about defending the Constitution.

I've thought about it and thought about it. This is probably the last chance for my entire career as a writer ("Which should be winding-down any moment now" -- the Couch) to bang my spoon on my highchair about the folly of Yalta.

This was a bread-and-butter topic for conservatives for two generations, but vanished with the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's like Haley's comet, how can I take the chance this news peg will ever come back in my lifetime?

I've received several emails like this one:

Mr. Goldberg,

I'm not a historian by training and I generally agree that the Yalta
agreements amount to a dark stain on the reputations of both Roosevelt
and Churchill. However, I'm curious about your reference to General
Vlasov. Wasn't he (and those who formed his Russian Nationalist army) a
Nazi collaborator? It's possible I've been misled on this point, but
from what I recall, Vlasov makes a poor poster boy for those aggrieved
by the sell-out at Yalta.

But, as I say, I may be misremembering the details or inadvertently
buying into Soviet propaganda.

Me:I am sure there are readers out there who know more about this, but here's what I can answer off the top of my head. I wrote a paper on Vlasov in high school (such was the climate in the Goldberg household that no greater academic pursuit could be imagined) and have read bits and pieces ever since.

Vlasov was a heroic Russian general. When he realized that Stalin was just as bloodthirsty as Hitler he opted to fight him. This obviously through him into the Germany's orbit. They helped him form the Russian Liberation Army. People forget today that the German troops were often met as liberators by Ukranians and other peoples desperate to be freed from the forced famines and horror of Stalinism. For a nationalist Russian to seize that moment as an opportunity to topple Stalin doesn't sound stupid to me. Of course, thinking you could have Hitler as a partner was stupid.

Vlasov raised his army from willing Russians among German POWs. The Germans constantly tried to use Vlasov's army as if it was any other unit in the Axis forces, pitting them against Western forces. If I recall correctly the Vlasovites wouldn't fight the Allies, or at least not well. They wanted to get rid off Stalin. Period.

There's a huge controversy about the role Vlasov's RLA played in liberating Prague. At the end of the war, when Patton was barred from pressing to Berlin (grrr), the Red Army was heading for Prague but the Vlasovites were there first. The Pro-Vlasov version is that the Vlasovites had finally had enough of their German overlords and turned on them, liberating Prague. There are many other versions. One thing that's mostly not disputed is that the Americans barred the Vlasovites from fleeing the Red Army and they were slaughtered.

I'd be interested to know if I got any of this wrong as I've not read up on any new history which may have come out in the last decade.

This article in Front Page Magazine, which recommends some sort of American recognition of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (apparently the political arm of the Mujahedin-e Khalq), has generated an important debate, or at least the beginnings of one. Doctor Zin of the valuable Regime Change Iran blog has weighed in against American support for the MEK, which is a designated foreign terrorist organization; and Dan Darling of Winds of Change seconds his thoughts. Without getting into the merits of the MEK, it is possible to say that the nonviolent “third option” recommended by the Front Page article need not rely on them specifically; for example, this broadly supported referendum appeal isn’t interested in U.S. backing for any one opposition group.

Meanwhile, reports about Iran’s nuclear program have become increasingly troubling.

K-Lo:

Of course, I know the REAL reason for the fund drive. Eventually, Jonah's book will be finished and published. A published book means a book tour. A book tour means unleashing Jonah on the United States. And THAT means NRO is going to need lots of...bail money.

I'm not sure $100,000 is going to be enough... :)

Dear K. J. Lopez:
I contributed to the National Review this afternoon because it is invariably the best-written arrant nonsense "out there" which occasionally includes a culturally lively take on our current political scene.
Bemused,
Gregg G. Brown
P.S. All politics is, at best, "arrant nonsense;" no disrespect meant by my remark.

I didn't get a chance to read the op-ed Tim Graham referred to below until just now (scroll way down). I think Tim is right. Everyone knows I'm a fan of Beinart's, but I think his column is a bunch of wishful thinking. It seems like he stumbled on the conclusion first and the argument second. One point Tim didn't make: Peter tries to portray the "campaign" against Hillary as a fundamentally partisan conservative enterprise, as if conservatives have been working overtime to paint her as moving to the right (he notes a conservative publishing "imprint" is coming out with a (potentially) anti-Hillary book. He leaves out that the author isn't a conservative).

But I've been paying a little attention to this story and I'd say that the majority of the Hillary's-positioning-herself-as-a-centrist stuff has been pushed out there by liberals and "non-partisan" journalists. Peter notes that in his opening graf but then seems to insinuate that conservatives are driving this supposed myth. I don't see how he can make that case.

Q: You make some reference, in your letter, to "chasing you through the halls." Is--
Ms. Townsel: Right.
Q: Can you describe that?
Ms. Townsel: Well, I mean, I -- this is what I'm talking about. No matter where I went in this hotel, if he saw me, began to approach me rapidly. If I saw him in the breakfast bar, he would make a beeline for me. The first night after the second meeting, it was, you know, following me hurriedly into the hall, while I left, because the meeting had broken down. And it began to be clear that -- "chasing" may not be the best word. I definitely felt chased.

In the exchange of offers and counter offers between Sen. Frist, the Majority Leader and Sen. Harry Reid, the Democrat Leader, Democrats have made an offer to avoid a vote on the nuclear/constitutional option by confirming one of the four filibustered judges: Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor and William Myers with the choice to be selected by Republicans.

An offer to confirm any one of the those four nominees is an explicit concession that each is qualified for the court and that they are being held hostage as pawns in a convoluted chess game which has spiraled out of control. If the Democrats really believe each is unqualified, a “deal” for confirmation for any one of them is repugnant to the basic democratic principle of individual, fair and equitable treatment and violates Senators’ oaths on the constitutional confirmation process. Such “deal” making confirms public cynicism about what goes on behind Washington’s closed doors.

Instead, let the Senate consider each of the four without the constraints of party line voting. Let us revert to the tried and tested method of evaluating each nominee individually.

What is Schlesinger saying? He writes:

The Yalta conference in February 1945 produced, according to President Bush, "one of the greatest wrongs of history." The Yalta agreements "followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.…Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable."

The American president is under the delusion that tougher diplomacy might have preserved the freedom of small East European nations. He forgets the presence of the Red Army. No conceivable diplomacy could have saved Eastern Europe from Soviet occupation. And military action against the Soviet Union was inconceivable so long as the Pacific War was still going on. Our military planners, in order to reduce American casualties, counted on the Red Army to enter the war against Japan. At Yalta Stalin promised a firm date in August. And in February the atom bomb seemed a fantasy dreamed up by nuclear physicists.

Putting aside his argument about what was or was not possible at the time, is he saying that the codification of the Soviet occupation wasn't one of the "greatest wrongs of history"? It is an odd moral argument which says that because (alleged) necessity requires acceptance of a great wrong, it is no longer a great wrong because it was (allegedly) necessary.

And, as it has long been of personal interest to me, does he think the forced repatriation of Soviet deserters, refugees and rebels (such as General Vlasov's army) to the Soviet Union was necessary? Because of Yalta, the U.S. and Britain returned perhaps hundreds of thousands of former Soviet troops to the Soviet Union who were subsequently slaughtered. Alexander Solzhenitsyn called this war crime the "last secret" of World War Two. I recall reading how the troops under British control went so far as to use the glass from their bathroom mirrors rather to slit their own throats rather than be sent back to Stalin's Russia. Did we have to do that because the Red Army was already in Eastern Europe? And if so, why? Or is that FDR can never be wrong in Schlesinger's eyes?

Subject: Singulair
Lowry,
It's Singulair with an "I". You might want to make a correction and save your allergy suffering readers from the ten-minute Google-thon I just endured. I've been sneezing for the past three days, and I've had it with Claritin. Doesn't do jack. Thanks for the head's up.

Yesterday's Washington Post carried an essay by Lincoln Caplan on the filibuster wars. There was hardly a paragraph with which I agreed.

1) Caplan has Ed Meese, in 1985, attacking "the concept of judicial review, a tenet of the American legal system since 1803." "To Meese, the Supreme Court's interpretations did 'not establish a 'supreme Law of the Land.' He asserted that officials of the Reagan administration were free to rely on their own views as authority for the meaning of the law." There is an element of truth to Caplan's description: Meese did indeed deny that the Supreme Court's constitutional interpretations were the same thing as the Constitution and, as such, did indeed deny that they were the "supreme Law of the Land." But Meese certainly did not make an explicit attack on "judicial review" or Marbury v. Madison (1803)--indeed, he presented himself as a supporter who wished to correct common misunderstandings. Caplan's description of Meese is thus essentially false.

2) Caplan moves immediately from Meese to a discussion of Richard Posner's 1985 book The Federal Courts. I have not read the book, but I am highly skeptical of Caplan's treatment of it (my suspicions raised by his treatment of Meese). Posner, Caplan writes, "argued that it would be 'restrained' of the court to overturn" Marbury. "Posner was well aware of the far-reaching nature of his argument. He wrote that 'A decision overruling Marbury v. Madison would be pretty wild stuff, but it would be self-restrained in my terminology because it would reduce the power of the federal courts vis-a-vis the other organs of government.'" The effect of Caplan's discussion of Posner, which is put in the context of a conservative campaign against the courts (Robert Bork was "a martyr for the cause heralded by Meese and Posner"), is to imply that Posner was advocating the overruling of Marbury. It is not obvious from the quoted material that he was. Posner could merely have been elaborating on a taxonomy which he had constructed in the book for some other purpose. Certainly in other (and more recent) writings Posner has seemed highly appreciative of Marbury and hostile to a "popular constitutionalism."

3) "Meanwhile the legal right is increasingly divided between those who practice what the politicians preach and others keen to pursue their own agendas through the courts. Some, like Stanley Birch, adhere to traditional concepts of judicial restraint. Others, including Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, in the name of applying what they regard as the original intent of the Constitution's framers, have no compunction about aggressively striking down acts of Congress in ways that conservatives once called activist." Birch is the guy who declared that the congressional act in the Schiavo case was unconstitutional. I'm sure there are all kinds of interesting divisions among legal conservatives, but this won't do. If Thomas and Scalia are one type of conservative because they strike down laws, how does this differentiate them from Birch, who struck down the Schiavo law? The distinction would appear to reside in the words "in ways that conservatives once called activist." If there are any thoughts that are supposed to lie behind those words, Caplan does not see fit to reveal them. He's not shedding any light on anything.

4) This one's a doozy: "The Democratic minority is defending the filibuster because, as seldom as its members say they expect to use it, they see it as a way of ensuring that no one will be given life tenure who is unworthy of judicial independence--who can't be counted on to make impartial rulings or, when necessary, to check the excesses of the political branches. . . . [W]hile it's bizarre to have an argument so fundamental turn on a fight over a procedural maneuver, the Democrats have the better of the disagreement from the viewpoint of the American system. The law is the compact between the people and our representatives. Sometimes it is judges who must say what that is, despite what the political branches have declared. That's the essence of judicial review and, without it, our system would be radically different. Because we count on judges' impartiality in making their rulings, Democrats are standing up for democracy in fighting to keep the filibuster. In the war over the courts, they recognize that it's a tool for ensuring that the president's nominees are worthy of life tenure -- especially when Republicans insist on their right to pick judges because of ideology."

So: because some conservatives allegedly dislike judicial review, and other conservatives allegedly like it too much, conservative judicial nominees cannot be impartial. And because they can't be impartial, we have to have a filibuster. Note that there isn't much of an attempt to establish that the use of the filibuster has any necessary connection to the preservation of judicial independence: Caplan isn't arguing that it would be impossible to use the filibuster to block the confirmation of judges who would be impartial. Of course it would be possible to use the filibuster for this purpose. The judicial filibuster as such is neutral with respect to what sort of judges turn out. The only possible argument that Caplan can be making is this: Republican judges are likely to be bad, so the Democrats deserve to win. In four years' time, if there's a Democratic president, he can switch sides.

Note also that Caplan is taking an absurdly negative view of Republican judicial nominees (they're supposedly all either foes of Marbury or Richard Epstein clones) while also taking an absurdly positive one of Democratic politicians (they're supposedly deeply concerned that Republican nominees aren't impartial, and they never pick judges based on ideology, Clinton's and Kerry's announced litmus tests on Roe notwithstanding).

There is no more substance to this essay than if Caplan had said, "I prefer Democrats to Republicans and therefore want them to win the political struggles over the judiciary." He could have saved the Post some space. Caplan, incidentally, is "the editor and president of Legal Affairs magazine and the Knight Senior Journalist at Yale Law School."

The Islamist militants have their own foot soldiers in this unholy alliance: supporters who have poured across the mostly open borders from neighboring countries. I believe it is these people who are particularly useful to the Baathists, because they provide a supply of willing suicide bombers.

Suicide attacks are not, in all likelihood, Iraqi operations. "Thirty-five years of Saddam's brutal repression did not produce a single suicide bomber," says a former military officer who is now working as a driver.

Syria has been an important base and way station for these foreign fighters. Interviews with arrested "jihadis" and transcripts of interrogations obtained from Iraqi security and intelligence show that a typical jihadi's journey from his city in Syria, Jordan, Sudan, Yemen or any other Arab country until the moment he blows himself up goes something like this: After deciding that he wants to fight the Americans in Iraq, he contacts mosques in Damascus known for recruiting mujaheddin for the holy war in Iraq. Often these recruitment campaigns are funded by senior Syrian officials.

After deciding that a person is fit to conduct a "martyrdom operation," Syrian intelligence trains him on how to disguise his identity and how to handle explosives and ammunitions. Radical mullahs supplement this with heavy doses of hard-line religious teaching. The volunteer is then taken across the desert in eastern Syria, through the porous borders, into the Sunni triangle in Iraq, where he is housed by members of the former Baathist intelligence and security network. The second leg of the journey is to a safe house in Baghdad, where he is assigned a target to blow up or sent to certain areas to fight the Americans or the new Iraqi army and police forces.

Mr. Qaisi says he believes in nonviolence. His three wives are all Shiites, he says, so he understands the Shiite point of view.

Among the recorded gripes on the tape was Mr. Rosen's complaint that although he worked closely with Vice President Gore, Mr. Gore later mistook him for a valet parking attendant, according to the Times-Picayune.

A bunch of readers have been quizzing me about two points I made at the end of today's syndicated column . The relevant section is here:

The Michael Jackson story is an extremely exaggerated microcosm of Hollywood's moral climate. Hollywood is ruled by a class of people who believe that money solves problems and that the worst sin in the world is to judge another person's behavior. "Comedian" Bill Maher, for example, recently explained that he thought the charges were no big deal, even if true. After all, Jackson didn't rape anyone, he's merely accused of "servicing" young boys — and that's not nearly as bad as getting beaten up by schoolyard bullies. Wrong. In normal America, if kids beat up your kid, you demand a reckoning. If a middle-aged freak "services" your kid, you call a hearse.

Obviously, there are lots of people in the entertainment industry who are horrified by the allegations and behavior of Michael Jackson. But only in Hollywood could such a thing happen in the first place.

Before I explain myself, I'd like to note that this is actually a column from last week. I wrote it en route to the Atlanta fest and between the travel delays and the rush to get there, I want to shamelessly blame any inadvertant lack of clarity on the deadline pressures involved. That said, I stand by what I wrote.

The first question is, basically, What do you mean about the hearse line? Several readers asked if I support capital punishment for child molesters. While I am certainly open to the idea in some cases, that's not what I meant.

What I meant -- and still believe -- is that, as a parent, if some kids beat up my kid I'll be very, very angry. But to a certain extent -- particularly for boys -- getting into scraps is part of growing up. Things would have to get really out of hand for me to call the cops. However, if some adult, particularly an authority figure, repeatedly molested my kid the cops would be necessary to keep me from killing that person.

Bill Maher doesn't think child molestation is that big a deal in the scheme of things -- or at least certain kinds of child molestation. And neither do the parents who sent their kids to Jackson's house. Certainly the parents who kept sending their kids to Jackson after the allegations were made are, simply, horrible parents. I don't care if they believed the allegations were true (i.e. they convinced themselves they weren't true). It doesn't matter. No decent parent takes those kinds of risks. Period. And in my mind, it's inexusable to let your child to sleep alone in any non-relative adult's bed the way these kids did with Jackson. Even if Jackson weren't a self-evident freak and even if no one ever raised these charges, I don't think a good parent would have allowed this to happen the moment he or she became aware of it. If that makes me judgmental, so be it.

Which gets me to the second question from readers. They disagree with my assertion that such a thing could only happen in Hollywood. They make the entirely fair point that child molestation happens all over the place. Moreover, the Catholic Church covered up such cases in an institutional scandal of huge proportions. All fair points, and I guess I would clarify a bit if I had the column to do over.

But I think my point is still right. For the most part, parents didn't send their kids to Priests once they were aware of such allegatons. And if they did, they did so out of a denial that didn't involve getting piles of cash from the likes of Jackson. Also, while the Catholic Church covered up for some Priests, this was as much an attempt to protect the Church as an institution. This was a misguided "for the greater good" motive. The slime -- woops, there I go being judgmental again -- who created the vast enabling system for Jackson had no such motives. They did it because they were paid to. They're doing it now becaus they're paid to. I don't think the CEO of a major corporation anywhere else in America could count on everyone from the janitors to the legal department covering up for him in that way. In other words, Only in Hollywood.

Has anybody noticed that Lowry's cover stories seem to have unexpected consequences?

He writes the "Please nominate this man" cover story about Howard Dean and Dean's Presidential campaign falls apart like a tinker-toy go-cart.

He writes a cover story about how things are going badly in Iraq and suddenly things start getting better.

Then he writes a cover story about how we're winning in Iraq and suddenly things start heading south.

I think he needs to write a huge cover story about how I'll never get another raise.

A bipartisan coalition of Senators believe it is close to a deal that would avert the looming showdown between Republicans and Democrats over judicial filibusters.

The potential deal, spearheaded by Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), would involve at least a half-dozen Senators from each party signing a letter or memorandum of understanding that signals how they would proceed to vote on all matters related to judicial nominations.

The six Senate Republicans would commit to opposing the so-called nuclear option to end judicial filibusters, which would leave GOP leaders short of the 50 votes they need to execute the parliamentary move to abolish the procedure.

In exchange, the six Senate Democrats would pledge to allow votes on four of the seven circuit court nominees who were already filibustered in the 108th Congress and have been renominated.

Perhaps more importantly, the six Democrats would pledge to vote for cloture to end filibuster attempts on all other judicial nominees named by President Bush, including Supreme Court picks, except in “extreme circumstances,” according to a senior aide familiar with the discussions.

The aide familiar with the discussions declined to say which four circuit court nominees would be approved.

“It’s very close,” the aide said of the deal, requesting anonymity.

The precarious deal — which would last at least through the 2006 elections — still hasn’t been finalized, and neither side would reveal who was a party to it.

The agreement would not require a single vote to be cast for it to be executed. As long as each side has at least six Senators willing to uphold it, Senate Republicans would be unable to carry out the nuclear option and Senate Democrats would be unable to execute a successful filibuster.

If Frist wanted to, he could still force a vote on the parliamentary move to end the filibuster — something he is widely expected to do sometime this month — but it would face certain defeat if the six Republicans held strong.

Nelson and Lott were both traveling late last week and were not available to comment on the potential deal.

Four years ago today, I nominated Justice Priscilla Owen and Judge Terry Boyle to serve on the Federal courts of appeals. Four years later, neither has received an up-or-down vote in the Senate. Both have been rated well-qualified by the American Bar Association, the highest ABA rating a judicial nominee can receive. Both have been waiting to fill vacancies that have been designated judicial emergencies by the Judicial Conference of the United States. Much more than enough time has passed for the Senate to consider these nominations. The Senate should give these extraordinarily qualified nominees the up-or-down votes they deserve without further delay.

It is only fair that the Senate promptly consider judicial nominees on the floor, discuss and debate their qualifications, and then vote to confirm or not to confirm them. Nominees who have the support of a majority of the Senate should be confirmed. Unfortunately, a minority of Senators is blocking the will of the Senate.

Over the course of the past four years, the blocking of judicial nominees in the Senate has escalated to an unprecedented level. Last Congress, ten of my appeals court nominees were filibustered. Each of these highly qualified nominees enjoyed the bipartisan support of a majority of Senators. Each would have been confirmed if given a simple up-or-down vote. Each deserved a simple up-or-down vote by the entire Senate.

I urge the Senate to put aside the partisan practices of the past and work together to ensure that all nominees are treated fairly and that all Americans receive timely justice in our Federal courts.

Temple Mount Antiquities Destroyed In 'Cultural Intifadah'

There is not a great deal that is new in the piece, but this comment by the director of the project, archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, is worth noting:

Barkay said it was a tragedy that the Western world was not more concerned about the destruction of the antiquities on the Temple Mount.

The world community was outraged when the Taliban blew up two 165-foot nearly 2,000-year-old statues of Buddha in Afghanistan in 2001. But the destruction of "the heartland of [Jewish and Christian] faith did not create an effect as it should have done," said Barkay.

"Very clearly parallel to the armed [Palestinian] intifadah is also the cultural intifadah, more serious than the armed intifadah, Palestinians claiming Jews never had a right to this country, Jews were never here," Barkay added.

I wouldn't say "more serious than," but it's very serious nonetheless.

There's a nice summary of the finds to date:

By the door stands that largest piece -- a three-foot-high section of a marble pillar with purple veins running through it. The marble would have been imported from Asia Minor, Barkay said. They know it came from the Temple Mount because there are others like it there, Barkay said.

They have found pottery shards - 15 percent of which date back to the First Jewish Temple period - the days of Biblical King Solomon. But workers will never be able to put together a complete vessel because of the way things were mixed up, he said.

There are pieces of early Christian oil lamps, figurines, pottery fragments with Hebrew inscriptions. Hundreds of coins have been discovered dating from the Second Jewish Temple period all the way up to the time of Napoleon.

They found a silver charm of St. Christopher, which would have been used by Europeans during the 16th and 17th centuries to ward off evil.

Arrowheads of various shapes attest to the battles fought by generations of conquerors over the Mount.

There are beads from an Islamic era, jewelry, ivory objects -- including a fine-toothed comb -- which Barkay said he is sure will prove to contain lice eggs when it is thoroughly examined.

And there's one quite important bit of new information tucked quietly into the end of the article:

Barkay said the workers won't be able to finish sifting all of the material they have but will get a good sampling. The project, which is funded by private donors, is scheduled to continue until summer, he said. All of the artifacts as well as the remaining material from the Temple Mount belong to the Antiquities Authority by law.

The last information we had, from the middle of April, indicated that the project was about to stop for lack of funding. It appears that an angel has come through and funded it until the summer. Let's hope someone continues to provide the money to see the entire project through.

While we're on this subject, BiblePlaces.com has new (?) heavily illustrated articles posted on the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, as noted yesterday by Bible and Interpretation News.

Kathryn - You left out "Attention: Jonah Goldberg"

heh

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From a reader re today's column:

You come close to actually saying what few seem willing to say, when you write:

What sorts of parents send their kids to a rumored sex
offender's house on the thin rationalization that he was never
technically convicted of wrongdoing?

You know the word that best describes such parents; you know it, go
ahead and use it: they're pimps. They're selling their children's
sexuality, just about the most disgusting thing that most of us can
imagine.

Saudi police busted a secret ring of Christians, arresting 40 Pakistani men, women, and children who were praying in a Riyadh apartment. Police found religious books and cassettes and a cross. “These people tried to spread the poison and their beliefs to others,” said a police source, “by means of distributing pamphlets and publications.” Now that that’s all cleared up, on to al-Qaeda.

the Saudi Arabian government has in place a nationwide, self-destruction explosive system composed of conventional explosives and dirty bombs strategically placed at the Kingdom’s key oil ports, pipelines, pumping stations, storage tanks, offshore platforms, and backup facilities. If activated, the bombs would destroy the infrastructure of the world’s largest oil supplier, and leave the country a contaminated nuclear wasteland ensuring that the Kingdom’s oil would be unusable to anyone. The NSA file is dubbed internally Petro SE, for petroleum scorched earth.

To make certain that the damaged facilities cannot be rebuilt, the Saudis have deployed crude Radioactive Dispersal Devices (RDDs) throughout the Kingdom. Built covertly over several years, these dirty bombs are in place at -- among other locations -- all eight of the Kingdom’s refineries, sections of the world’s largest oil field at Ghawar, and at three of the ten indispensable processing towers at the largest-ever processing complex at Abqaiq….

''Fight back against the lies, fight back against the distortions," Kerry implored the crowd. ''In the last campaign, there was an unbelievable amount of fear put out there -- 'war on terror, war on terror, war on terror.' How many alerts have we had since the election?"

KEARNY, N.J., May 7 - It is the deadliest target in a swath of industrial northern New Jersey that terrorism experts call the most dangerous two miles in America: a chemical plant that processes chlorine gas, so close to Manhattan that the Empire State Building seems to rise up behind its storage tanks.

According to federal Environmental Protection Agency records, the plant poses a potentially lethal threat to 12 million people who live within a 14-mile radius.

Yet on a recent Friday afternoon, it remained loosely guarded and accessible. Dozens of trucks and cars drove by within 100 feet of the tanks. A reporter and photographer drove back and forth for five minutes, snapping photos with a camera the size of a large sidearm, then left without being approached.

I don’t think so, (the ‘alternative votes’ of single issue voters are never that predictable) but here’s an interesting piece of analysis from Richard North over at the EU Referendum blog calculating the amount of potentially Conservative seats ‘lost’ as a result of the anti-EU (and, often, more than a little nuts) UKIP party. It also needs to be remembered that if the Conservatives had moved over into advocating outright withdrawal from the EU (UKIP’s position), it would have cost them far more votes than it would have won.

Nevertheless, this is yet another reminder of how ‘Europe’ continues to bedevil British politics. Blair must be praying for a French ‘non’ on May 29th.

Here's the sentimental Matthew Parris on the unsentimental Michael Howard:

”The Conservative Party has come back out of the dark. Perhaps we should be grateful that a man that the media has called a creature of the night was entrusted with the task of guiding it through the shadows and into the light. Michael Howard’s success in this election campaign was limited and his reward in the coinage of percentages and seats was modest, yet what Mr Howard has done will earn him an everlasting place on the Conservative roll of honour: he has turned a decade-long retreat into the beginnings of an advance. He has turned the Tory project round…Lord, how I admire the unsloppiness, the unsentimentality, the starchiness, the understatement of this man. Among the moist eyes, quivering lips and posturing vacuities of the politics of recent years, Mr Howard stands out like a sliver of flint in a melting jelly. Think of the melodrama we shall have to endure when the present Prime Minister finally decides to hang up his powder-puff, think of the vapours and the hysterics — and blow the parchment-dry Mr Howard a silent kiss.”

Indeed.