LONDON, June 3 - An official of Amnesty International said Friday that the term gulag in its annual report to describe the United Stateys prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was chosen deliberately, and she shrugged off harsh criticism of the report by the Bush administration.

The official, Kate Gilmore, the group's executive deputy secretary general, said the administration's response was "typical of a government on the defensive," and she drew parallels to the reactions of the former Soviet Union, Libya and Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini, when those governments were accused of human rights abuses.

Harkin, appearing on liberal Randi Rhodes's national radio talk show, became animated as he said of Owen: "This is not a person to put on the bench for a lifetime appointment. This person is wacko! She's wacko!"

On the same program, Harkin said Christian broadcasters are "sort of our home-grown Taliban." He added: "They have a direct line to God. And if you don't tune into their line, you're obviously on Satan's line."

"I am opposed to abortion, but I indicated that I would maintain the laws as they exist in Massachusetts, and I've done exactly that. That's been my promise and continues to be my promise," he said.

Just curious: What do you think about: Drug legalization, libertarians, Ayn Rand, the holodeck,m intelligent design or the gas tax?

Hint: Answer carefully.

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JUNE 3, 2005…[subscribers only] Reacting to a magazine report that Gov. Mitt Romney has been “faking it as a pro-choice friendly,” female Democratic state lawmakers Friday demanded that Romney make clear his stance on women’s reproductive rights.

“We have a governor who is not being honest with the voters of the Commonwealth or the voters of the country,” Rep. Marty Walz (D-Boston) said at a Beacon Hill press conference. “We need to know from the governor, truly, is he going to protect women’s reproductive rights both in the Commonwealth and nationally or is he going to evolve into an anti-choice leader for the Commonwealth or for the country?”

re: Can a headline ever report new jobs without dismissing them?

answer: yes, if a Democrat is in the White House.

Mitt Romney, the handsome governor from Massachusetts, will decide this fall whether to run for reelection in 2006 or president in 2008. If he aims high, he could become the most prominent governor (or recent ex-governor) in the GOP field. But he'll need to catch a break from conservatives who possess an instinctive wariness of anything emanating from the land of Kennedy, Dukakis, and Kerry. Their skepticism is well warranted -- but Romney also deserves a fair hearing.

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and assignment below:

A sense of happiness and fulfillment, not personal gain, is the best motivation and reward for one's achievements. Expecting a reward of wealth or recognition for achieving a goal can lead to disappointment and frustration. If we want to be happy in what we do in life, we should not seek achievement for the sake of winning wealth and fame. The personal satisfaction of a job well done is its own reward.

Assignment: Are people motivated to achieve by personal satisfaction rather than by money or fame? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

On the surface, today’s 78,000 increase in nonfarm payroll jobs looks weaker than expected in the May jobs report. But surface conclusions are often misleading. The household survey, from which the 5.1 percent unemployment rate is derived, supplied 376,000 new workforce entrants. Over the past three months the household survey has increased by an average of 444,000 per month compared to 158,000 for the established business count.

According to Bear Stearns economist John Ryding, on a payroll-adjusted basis (excluding self-employment and adjusting for multiple job holders), household employment rose 210,000 in May and has averaged 372,000 per month over the last three months. So there’s still a good deal of labor-market strength despite today’s headline weakness. Year-to-date non-farm payrolls are averaging 180,000 per month, on track to deliver 2.2 million new jobs this year, the same total as 2004. Households, on the other hand, are tracking year-to-date at a 2.6 million annual rise, much stronger than last year’s 1.7 million total.

Meanwhile, wage gains for non-supervisory workers have increased 2.6 percent over the past twelve months. However, worker earnings when measured more broadly are actually much stronger. Compensation per hour in the non-farm sector increased 3.9 percent over the past year. In the non-financial corporate sector, hourly comp registered a whopping 7 percent annual gain. Total wages and salaries from all sources are rising about 7.5 percent. So, at a low 5.1 percent unemployment rate, the U.S. workforce is experiencing significant income gains.

Though mainstream economists and reporters pay scant attention to the fiscal-policy influence on jobs and incomes, the fact remains that since President Bush’s supply-side tax cuts went into effect in mid-2003, non-farm payrolls have grown by 3.5 million with household employment gaining 3.9 million. Unemployment has dropped to 5.1 percent from 6.3 percent. Average quarterly growth in real GDP has advanced by 4.4 percent annually. The economic power of lower marginal tax rates on household incomes and capital formation is still misunderestimated, to re-coin a phrase.

From a reader (and Poli Sci Prof):

I know you don't actually care, but you were almost certainly right the first time.

If half the population has a below-median intelligence (true
by definition);

If intelligence has a lower bound (0 IQ/ brain death/ etc) but
no necessary upper bound, or even just an upper bound that is
further above the median than 0 is below it and that trails
off gradually (i.e. there are geniuses and a few super-geniuses);

and if intelligence has an otherwise roughly-normal
distribution (a bell curve, which is a perfectly ordinary
fact of probability and carries none of the baggage of The
Bell Curve);

In short, if the distribution of intelligence is a
left-censored bell curve (a bell curve truncated at 0 on one
side but exhibiting normal trailing-off properties on the other);

then mean intelligence is higher than median intelligence.

From this it follows that *more* than half the population has
below-average (meaning, as your correspondent insists,
below-mean) intelligence.

Really.

From a reader:

start calling the web guy, Chakah. that will teach him a lesson.

Chakah fix web! Chakah post! Chakah eat giant strawberry!

From a reader:

Re: WARREN, WARREN, WARREN

I cannot believe you aren't letting Warren Bell find out for himself,
Jonah. In fact, I can't believe you don't have some sort of hazing ritual
at NRO. You could have asked Mrs. Lopez to assign Mr. Bell the task of
coming up with something critical of Mecca for the Corner. Sort of like
making the new kid sing while standing on a table being pelted by
spitballs, and if he stops, he has to drink a tankard of magnesium citrate.

Ah, the wasted opportunities!

Me:Hey, if you want a candidate for hazing, a few weeks ago I was IMing with our webguy and I referenced the G-File. He asked if that's what I call my column archives.

If you listen carefully, you can still hear a distinct "whack" sound from the NRHQ storeroom and his baleful cries "Thank you sir! may I have another?"

From a reader:

Did the year 2000 Jonah Goldberg travel forward in time and momentarily stun you with the smell of alcohol from his pores and breath, then quickly type that post and go back to 2000?

Ah, young grasshopper....you think 78 overnight emails is a lot? Try dissing engineers while making a basic math error: guaranteed 200 emails.

Make jokes about the Red Chinese leadership leaving menus under your door or how they want to eat your dog: 400 emails, sure thing.

And then there are some issues -- Ann Coulter, Mecca, etc -- which have no known upper limit of emails they can generate.

These are just some of the things you learn from trial and error around here.

"Tom Cruise's comments are irresponsible and dangerous," Shields said in London last week. "Tom should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them."

Under the rules the Pentagon later instituted at Guantanamo, proper handling of the Koran means using two hands and wearing gloves when touching it. Which means that if any guard held the Koran with one hand or had neglected to put on gloves, this would be considered mishandling.

On the scale of human crimes, where, say, 10 is the killing of 2,973 innocent people in one day and 0 is jaywalking, this ranks as perhaps a 0.01. Moreover, what were the Korans doing there in the first place? The very possibility of mishandling Korans arose because we gave them to each prisoner. What kind of crazy tolerance is this? Is there any other country that would give a prisoner precisely the religious text that that prisoner and those affiliated with him invoke to justify the slaughter of innocents? If the prisoners had to have reading material, I would have given them the book "Portraits 9/11/01" -- vignettes of the lives of those massacred on Sept. 11.

From a reader:

You said - "32. Half of all Americans are of below average
intelligence."

It would have been more correct to say that "32. Half of all Americans are of below median intelligence. " The original statement is not true if the distribution is even a little bit skewed.

Do I win a prize?

Me: If I were czar, your prize would be to be dragged away for a flogging. But, alas, I am not czar so thanks for the clarification.

But Ron Kaufman, the Republican national committeeman for Massachusetts and a powerful Washington lobbyist, said he doubted that Murphy was targeting a particular voter bloc. Rather, Kaufman speculated, Murphy was probably saying, undiplomatically, that Romney may oppose abortion, but has kept his word as a governor.

''[I] spent a lot of hours on that campaign three years ago, and on this issue, the governor was focused, disciplined, and consistent that if elected governor, he wouldn't change one comma on the laws surrounding life," Kaufman said. ''That was always his answer, and he's kept his word. He's not faking anything."

1. I will agree that Val Kilmer's performance in Tombstone is top notch. But I actually think Kilmer is one of America's finest actors. Then again I take great solace in the fact that he's supposedly a jerk and so his career has suffered. I like the idea that people who aren't nice to the people around them don't succeed.

2. I'll even concede that the acting in Tombstone is quite good.

3. But the film's climax comes like a full 50 minutes before the end. That is very annoying.

4. There are all sorts of odd messages to be found in the film. I used to have a better catalog of them, but I do seem to recall a wagon full of women demanding "equal work for equal pay" going by in one scene. If I remember this right, this was as out of place as having an AMC Pacer drive by in a movie about World War One. In fact, I think the Pacer was closer to WWI than the slogan "equal work for equal pay" was to 1870s Wyoming.

5. Happy Gilmore is nowhere near as good as Tommy Boy. But The Sure Thing might be.

6. I will never concede that Bugsy Malone is a bad anything -- but others might. So I put it on the list.

7. I loved Get Shorty.

8. Get these squirrels off of me!

Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine...: Oh, no this list has gotten away from me....

10. Freedom! Horrilbe Freedom!

11. Okay, calm down. Get it together.

12. The Fox shows "Flying Blind," "Tribeca" and "Profit" were all cancelled too soon.

13. Nick's the kinda guy you can trust. Nick's your buddy. Nick's the kinda guy you drink beers with. The kinda guy that doesn't care if you puke in his car. Nick.

14. Stop the Humanoid.

15. Where? Here diagonally.

(15.a Pretty sneaky sis.)

16. Take human bites.

17. Behold! A God who bleeds!

18. I could tell you stories about my teeth that would make your hair stand on end.

19. Nuh-nuh-nuh-nineteen.

20. No time for pleasantries, Kyle. We have a level five emergency.

21. Album cover which didn't make the list.

22. Those aren't pillows!

23. Lou Costello had a dime stuck in his ear most of his life.

24. [Regaining composure]: Q: How could you leave Gymkata off the list of good-bad movies? A: Because it's a good terrible movie.

25. John: "Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?"

26. Speaking of Kelly's Heroes, did you know that it's working title was "The Warriors"?

27. Did you know that snails can sleep for up to three years?

28. The human brain contains more than 4 terrabytes of information.

29. More people are born in India every year than live in Australia.

30. Central Park is bigger than Monaco.

31. Flavors.

32. Half of all Americans are of below average intelligence.

33. Married men, on average, are more likely to be married than short men.

34. Chop Suey was invented in America.

35. The Shah of Iran gets a bad wrap.

36. Or, I suppose that's rap.

37. Speaking of rap, my brother is in the background in the Sbarro scene with the Fat Boys in Krush Groove.

38. He also made appearances on Wonderama and Zoom.

39. New Yorkers say that they wait "on line" while most other people say they wait "in line."

40. Narcoleptic daschund.

41. 40 is a nice biblical number so I will stop there.

Johnny Ringo: Isn't anyone here man enough to play for blood?
Doc Holliday: I'm your huckleberry.

Tommy Boy you are absolutely correct about; a truly wonderful movie.

But Tombstone? Dondé esta the genius?

Just wanted to point out that disabled veteran Pete Damon, the subject of that heart-warming Boston Globe story you linked to, was exploited by Michael Moore in his "Fahrenheit 911." Damon set the record straight in Mike Wilson's "Michael Moore Hates America."

Puzzled: Why the enormous difference between the Drudge accounts of your book and The Post excerpts?

John F. Harris: It was kind of strange, wasn't it. Whoever gave Drudge his material seemed to emphasize the more sensationalistic aspects of the book. While there are some interesting scenes and anecdotes, "The Survivor" was written to be a serious and comprehensive history, and those are the parts I try to emphasize. [So why are the supposedly unserious, "sensationalistic" parts in there?]

I *REFUSE* even to be in the same state with people who think the execrable Road House is a good-bad movie.

Forget abortion, gay marriage, Paris Hilton and all the rest. The United States is only inviting the Wrath of God by allowing Patrick Swayze to make movies here.

BATES: You've called Bush a loser. SEN. REID: And a liar. BATES: You apologized for the loser comment. SEN. REID: But never for the liar, have I?

From a reader:

You know what’s particularly entertaining about all this is how you know Woodward must have crafted a Felt obit that made the guy out to be an absolute saint—selfless, torn apart by the corruption of Nixon, etc.—with the intent of cashing in big on that send off. Now Felt comes out and basically says it was basic pettiness about not getting a promotion and he’s only coming out now for the money. Hot dog.

Oh man, I'm running out to lunch, but I can't pass up the opportunity to chime in here. John and I might disagree on the terminology. I would characterize a good-bad movie as more like a great rental or movie that's on cable you end up watching purely for the entertainment value, not for the camp, but because your expectations are low etc. I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks, as the Senators say, but these are off the top of my head:

Road House
Red Dawn
Revenge of the Nerds
"The Blade" films (though I never saw III)
Diggstown -- one of the greatest films of the genre
Outland
John Carpenter's Vampires (Yes, I like vampire movies)

Will cogitate further...

I put in my time talking about Linda Tripp, and then some. But this stuff about Felt being a hero really does rankle (See Tim's "Two Faces" post from this morning). It's becoming increasingly clear that Felt did what he did for motives that have little to nothing to do with the high-minded stuff of New York Times editorials and Bob Woodword's speeches-in-praise-of-me. The notion that a man who learned about bugging and breaking-in at the feet of J Edgar Hoover was scandalized by what Nixon ordered doesn't pass the laugh test. Moreover, Felt's family has admitted they've gone public now largely for the money.

That was all fair game to a certain extent, even if it was often untrue. But what drove me nuts was the way people would argue that Clinton didn't do the things he did because Tripp's motives were impure in some way. The New Republic even argued that Clinton was the victim of "private sector entrapment." You cannot dispute facts by attacking motives.

Motives have never concerned me nearly as much as behavior. Bob Woodword reveals secret things for personal gain every day. That's his job as a journalist. But when private citizens do it, people freak out and bring all sorts of bizarre ideological baggage to the table. Journalists aren't priests and they don't have any rights the rest of us don't (or at least they shouldn't).

But if you're going to say that Tripp wasn't heroic while Felt was, you are going to have to make a very careful explanation about why his motives were purer and more high-minded than Tripp's were alleged to have been. Because, it seems to me that motive goes to the heart of heroism. If I shoot a rapist by accident while cleaning my gun, the result is good but I don't think anyone would call me a hero. If Mark Felt leaked to Woodward in order to screw his boss or to pay Nixon back for being passed over, you're free to think the result was good. But don't give me this hero nonsense.

From a reader:

For what it's worth:

My dad was a Special Agent in the FBI from 1951 until 1977. He knew Mark Felt and had significant contact with him. Felt was always on my dad's short list of who Deep Throat could be, since the info provided to Woodward and Bernstein had to have come from someone with access to an incredible amount of sensitive information. Dad says it was no secret among FBI agents that Felt was angry that Nixon passed him over to replace J. Edgar Hoover and instead appointed his longtime crony Pat Gray. So Felt clearly had an axe to grind and by going to the media he exacted his revenge. He argues that any statements to the contrary about Felt's motives are a disingenuous attempt to recast him as an altruistic whistleblower, which simply isn't true.

Dad's take is that Felt should have done something with the info he had, but going to the WaPo was illegal and, more important to my dad, a betrayal of his oath of office. Dad 's position is that Felt should have gone to the grand jury, which would have been independent of FBI, DOJ and White House control, personal consequences be damned.

I have no idea if you would use this in a post, but if you do, without question please omit name.

Thanks, and keep up the great work.

Scientist claim to find the Romantic love center of the brain.

I can see it now: "C'mon baby, you know you're firing the romantic centers of my pimitive brain and not just the love centers."

(Only slightly) More seriously, remember the other day when I mentioned how I'm interested in how science is catching up with age old desires which once seemed absurd (cloning, alchemy, flying)? Well, now we can add love potions to the list.

K- Don't you mean Dutch treat?

Just checking in for a minute, but I can't help but agree with Rich on the EU stuff. Now is the time for unreasonable giddiness, schadenfreude, and rank geopolitical opportunism. Maybe not items one and two, if we're talking about what the offcial US response should be, but for the rest of us, I can't see how this is anything but fantastic news.

Though I do think there's little reason to rejoice about the voter's intentions. If I understand the debate in France correctly, it was about whether or not a refrigerator box or a tree house makes for a better place to hide. Oh, wait, that was a different debate. This debate was about whether or not the proposed new EU constitution would result in "ultraliberalism" AKA as "the American" economic model. In other words, both the yes-ers and the no-ers were voting with anti-American attitudes. One group wanted the EU to stick it to America geopolitically. The other group found that part appealing, but was more afraid of becoming like America culturally and economically. In short, I think France remains largely a write-off to us. The good news, however, is that France is now far less positioned to determine the course of European foreign policy generally -- and that's great news.

As for whether having the longtime editor of a magazine with a famously political (liberal) bent involved in the administration of CJR, [Editor Mike] Hoyt said appearances might not match with reality. "It could give somebody an opportunity to make a connection, but the connection is not there," Hoyt said. "He doesn't push anything editorially."

Two further points regarding your response to Corn: 1. I wonder how many infertile couples were even aware that frozen embryos were available for adoption? Had my former wife and I known this, and we were never told any such thing was possible, we might have taken that route. There are millions of those kinds of couples out there. Additional point for Mr. Corn: This Catholic didn't take the IVF route for the very reason of "leftover" embryos. I find that morally unconscionable and while having a deep understanding of the pain and anxiety of infertile couples I still see IVF as utterly narcissistic.

2. Having spent six years in a tier-one university pharmaceutical research environment (as a technical support professional in the labs) I learned quite a bit about the nature of research, including failed experiments, wrong track, simple mistakes and of course, new ideas and directions. So here's a question for Mr. Corn: Do you really believe that 400,000 embryos are enough to do the basic research so many are clamoring for, and if not, where do you propose we "find" the additional millions of embryos necessary to do this research? Now watch him "bob and weave."

It's ridiculous to believe that over the next ten years and beyond, that an entire research, medical and pharmaceutical industry segment won't be operating at full tilt if we cross this line. Just like any other industry, it will have an ongoing and most likely insatiable appetite for "raw" material. The argument that just dozens of new lines will keep the researchers busy for years to come is true, but irrelevant. Each lab at each university in the never-ending pursuit of grant money will come up with new approaches requiring new lines. The prospect is terrifying. And this doesn't even touch on the issue of actual production once some future research demonstrates results. Brave new world. Life imitates art once again.

It's probably too late now due to the South Korean lab, but there is still value to standing athwart history...well, you know that one. Keep it up.

It's whining. Yes, there might be an actual difference and advantage given to Patrick on that front, but it still doesn't excuse the whining. Real men don't whine about this stuff -- they just work harder to overcome it.

I glanced at the height/weight of the drivers in the IndyCar series. They're pretty evenly smallish guys -- between 140 and 155 pounds.

I guess Robby Gordon of NASCAR started the discussion, saying he wouldn't drive IRL until they do something about the advantage.

"The lighter the car, the faster it goes," Gordon said. "Do the math. Put her in the car at her weight, then put me or Tony Stewart in the car at 200 pounds and our car is at least 100 pounds heavier.

"I won't race against her until the IRL does something to take that advantage away."

Well, he was willing to race against guys who are about 140 (60 pounds less) and had no problem with it.

Bottom line: if you are a good enough driver, you can find a way to win.

Oh boy, did you step in it with this auto racing stuff..... :)

There are several different schools of auto racing. Generally, the most uppity, snootiest people are the Formula One (F1) fans, mostly Europeans.... they claim to be the only legitimate racing in the world. Then you have the Indy Racing League (IRL) which split from F1 a few years ago. These are the Indianapolis 500 racers. Then you have NASCAR, which are the stock cars.. purely American... NASCAR is looked down upon as the hicks and Wal-Mart shoppers of the racing world.... and that's not even getting into the Top Fuel, Pro Stock and Funny Car Drag Racers.

I live in Indy and the Danica story has been a big topic this week. Funny, but nobody ever talked about weight advantages when Janet Guthrie and Lyn St. James and Sarah Fisher were racing. The fact is, they weren't the drivers/racers that Danica Patrick is.

The consensus on sports talk radio has been that the weight difference is most advantageous during qualifying when the driver is racing in clean air against only a clock. When there are 32 other cars on the track and traffic is heavy, the advantage is greatly diminished.

My opinion is that if this were such a huge advantage, guys like Roger Penske would have been recruiting women and small men for years.

Yes, the weight thing really does matter, and crew chiefs would kill for a 50 pound advantage. In SCCA club racing, I've know guys who've dieted to take 10 pounds off. Does it make a difference? Yes, certainly. There's less weight to accelerate, less to brake, and less to go around corners (think centrifugal weight). Oh, yeah, weight makes a difference. (Why do you think they weight jockeys and their saddles?)

One lesson Americans shouldn't draw, however, is that this is somehow a defeat for the common European currency, despite its 1% speculative fall against the dollar yesterday. The euro's impact may well have contributed to the French defeat by exposing the failure of socialist economic policies. The repudiation earlier this month of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats in their heartland of North Rhine-Westphalia had similar economic causes. The low-tax challenge from other European nations is precisely what many supporters of the euro, including us, had hoped for. The euro has been a liberalizing force in Europe, while the constitution was designed to be centralizing force.

Not to be picky with the defense of trendy cause interested celebrities, but there's not a cure for polio. There's a vaccine for polio. Once the body is attacked the degenerative effects of the polio virus are devastating, both in the immediate and in the long term with the significant issues of post-polio syndrome. Having a treatment which could fix the nerve damage would be a cure, as a cure is something which heals after the disease has attacked. There is no such treatment, there is only prevention. The blogger you linked comes off more ignorant than Scarlett Johansson.

As far as I can tell, the debate over stem cell research is about a cure and about prevention, whether it be alzheimer's, polio, or the other various degenerative diseases. Those who are already victims want their own bodies to be healed. I am still not a supporter of embryonic stem-cell use, but a treatment which would cure my mother of the ravages of polio would certainly be a miracle... and is certainly not available now, let alone fifty years ago.

Lawmakers voted Thursday to ban school districts from purchasing textbooks longer than 200 pages.

The bill, believed to be the first of its kind nationwide, was hailed by supporters as a way to revolutionize education...

Beyond those monuments to heroism is the Potomac River, and on the far shore the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery with its row on row of simple white markers bearing crosses or Stars of David. They add up to only a tiny fraction of the price that has been paid for our freedom.... Their lives ended in places called Belleau Wood, The Argonne, Omaha Beach and Salerno and halfway around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir, and in a hundred rice paddies and jungles of a place called Vietnam. Under one such marker lies a young man--Martin Treptow--who left his job in a small-town barbershop in 1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Division. There, on the western front, he was killed trying to carry a message between battalions under heavy artillery fire. We are told that on his body was found a diary. On the flyleaf under the heading "My Pledge," he had written these words: "America must win this war. Therefore, I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone."