The world of New Age, um, wisdom never fails to provide hours of harmless entertainment. Here (via a morning surfing Scott Burgess’ delightfully acerbic blog) is a web page dedicated to a clearly important piece of work previously unknown to me – The Shamanic Way of The Bee.

There you will find this: “In The Shamanic Way of the Bee the intriguing world of bee shamanism - the Path of Pollen - is revealed and explained as both a vital part of our heritage and a practical system of healing, wisdom and spiritual development. It is written as a marriage of ethnography and autobiographical memoir, detailing the true adventure story of his initiation into this ancient tradition. As with all new and unusual experiences, his immersion in a new world order and way of being was sometimes terrifying, sometimes exquisitely beautiful, and readers everywhere will be enchanted as they share his journey.”

Perhaps I should review it.

Kathryn? Kathryn?

Yes, yes, I know that’s not a headline to bring the crowd to its feet (and I promise not to mention it at Chicago – unless, hint, asked, hint), but the next round in the EU’s gathering crisis is the budgetary talks being held next week. Basically, the Commission in Brussels wants more money (there’s a surprise), and most national politicians don’t want to hand any more over (there’s another). One possible source of funds? The (very partial) rebate on the UK’s budget contribution negotiated by a handbag-swinging Mrs Thatcher way back when.

Jacques Chirac, desperately trying to deflect attention from the slight, uh, embarrassment recently inflicted on him by French voters has suggested that the UK should give up this rebate as a “gesture of solidarity” to Europe.

Tony Blair (credit where credit’s due) hit back with a gesture or two of his own (nicely illustrated over at EurSoc).

"Britain has been making a gesture because over the past 10 years, even with the British rebate, we have been making a contribution to Europe two and a half times that of France. Without the rebate, it would have been 15 times as much as France. So that is our gesture. The reason why the rebate exists is because otherwise there would be this quite unfair proportion of British contribution. The reason for the unfairness is because the spending of Europe is so geared to the common agricultural policy."

France, needless to say, is the main beneficiary of the Common Agricultural Policy (the subsidy/protection regime for the EU’s farmers).

Will Chirac give that up?

Mais non.

Here’s an interesting list of questions for those such as James Wolcott who believe that George Galloway is a hero of our time.

Hat-tip Harry

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is, a regular readers will know, one of the most interesting figures now active in politics in European. A relentless campaigner for secular values and women’s rights, she says nothing that that has not been said many times before on the continent of Voltaire, Tom Paine and John Stuart Mill. Despite that, as this article reminds us, she finds herself under attack from the very people who should be among her allies.

Amongst some on the left, it seems, the values of the Enlightenment are trumped by the pieties of multiculturalism.

Also check out the comments from the Norwegian human rights activist who believes that strict immigration controls are the best way to protect both “European values and Muslim women’s human rights.”

Interesting times.

The USDA completed a study on amenities to understand why people choose to live where they do and, more importantly, why they are leaving the farm belt.

Basically, they came up with a rating system that shows that places in the west and south that aren't cold in the winter or too humid in the summer are nice places to live. Our tax dollars at work. Oh, and have more scenery around is preferable too.

The study is here.

I came across it in Scientific American's May issue. The intro to the story is here.

Kind of fits in with the weather discussion you have going on. And yes, LA is nice (Culver City is about 70 degrees right now...). But we do have Barbara Boxer.

Where do I apply to read the Corner professionally for the White House? I used to be able to do some work and refresh every half hour or so. Now with Bench Memos, The Buzz, TKS, The-As-Yet-To-Be-Named Media Blog, I do well to cram four hours of work into my nine hour day. Keep up the good work.

Woody [Allen, who writes fortune cookies, about Homer]: That is ... he's like a young me.

Writer: Please, Young Mi was a hack compared to this guy.

Radical Arab militants have been trickling into Iraq to join the fight of Ba'athists and radical Islamists against US forces. But another,non-violent Arab contingent of volunteers has been gearing up for battle on a different front the defence of Saddam Hussein.

During the past year, the committee for the defence of Mr Hussein, known by its acronym Isnad, has swelled to more than 2,500 lawyers. Some are Iraqis, led by Mr Hussein's head lawyer, Khalil al-Duleimi. But the majority come from Arab states, with Jordan providing as many as 600 of the legal experts. In Libya, the head of the support committee is Aisha, the daughter of Colonel Muammer Gadaffi.

Melanie Phillips has a piece in the Spectator about the recent French court judgment against Le Monde. The paper was found guilty of racial defamation against the Jewish people for a piece it ran in 2002 called “Israel-Palestine: the Cancer.” Here’s Phillips:

One might have expected such a momentous ruling pronouncing Le Monde guilty of racial prejudice against the Jews to have made waves. Not a bit of it. The French have ignored it. The case was only brought to light by the Middle East commentator Tom Gross in the Wall Street Journal Europe, who asked why nothing had been written about it anywhere a week after the ruling. Following his article, the Guardian belatedly ran a story.

The media has been silent because the same kind of calumnies are routinely published and broadcast in Britain and throughout Europe: obsessively disproportionate and libellous coverage which equates Israel with the Nazis, misrepresents its defence against terror as brutal aggression, and singles out the Jewish people in their ancient and restored nation state as uniquely unworthy of self-determination.

But should we celebrate the ruling? Here’s Phillips again:

…[H]eartening as it is to see a public body at last calling this prejudice by its proper name, the case against Le Monde also provokes unease. Racial prejudice is hateful and should be exposed as such. But this should be done at the bar of public opinion, not in a court of law.

Homer: These fortunes are terrible. They're supposed to predict stuff and ease you through times of doubt and sickness.

Manager: Well with all due respect sir I suppose you could come up with better fortunes?

Homer: You will be aroused by a shampoo commercial.

Manager: That's not bad!

... Manager: This gentleman here can write better fortunes than all of you put together. Show them!

Homer: Okay lets see, um... The price of stamps will climb ever higher....

I listened to Cavuto's interview with W and I think you're being a bit unfair in your criticism. He asked the question in the context of Social Security, noting the polls suggest the President is having a hard time getting his message out to the American people. My reaction to the question was that it was a proxy for the more direct (and less politic) question: "Does the focus of the media on vapid, titillating stories like the Michael Jackson trial make it more difficult for you as President to get the public engaged on complex, real-world issues such as the financial stability of the Social Security system?"

I'm not in the tank for Cavuto but fair is fair. He was trying to get W to chastise the media for wasting time on stories of no lasting consequence while giving the big, life-altering stories short shrift....

Hollywood actor Sean Penn, adopting the role of a journalist, scribbled in his notebook as Friday prayer worshippers in Tehran chanted "Death to America." Penn, 44, in Iran on a brief assignment for the San Francisco Chronicle ahead of presidential elections on June 17, may be one of the best known faces in film, but he went unrecognized by the 6,000 faithful at Tehran University.

Working with a translator, Penn took copious notes as hardline cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati urged the congregation to vote en masse "to make America angry."

His father, William H. Pryor Sr., was the band director in the local Catholic high school, and so it was no surprise that the younger Mr. Pryor, an award-winning timpanist, would enter college majoring in music. But when he came home for the summer, his mother spied him watching C-Span, and knew he was headed in another direction.

Governor Mitt Romney has promised to endorse Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey in the 2006 gubernatorial race if he decides to run for president, a top Republican Party official and a Healey adviser said....

WASHINGTON, June 9 - The United States has received "credible information" that Syrian operatives in Lebanon plan to try to assassinate senior Lebanese political leaders and that Syrian military intelligence forces are returning to Lebanon to create "an environment of intimidation," a senior administration official said Thursday.

His critique closely matches many of the essays on the failure of liberalism politically: we didn't need to persuade ordinary voters in order to get our way so we didn't bother and now we are paying the price:

[N]ational environmental groups gained influence and funding through their ability to deploy professional staff to master the arcane intricacies of federal legislation and regulation. These staff forged close relationships with key congressional staff, primarily among Democratic legislators, who were then usually in the majority. Environmental groups relied on these relationships in the 1980s and 1990s to thwart anti-environment initiatives, especially during the Reagan administration.

Although successful in the near term, these tactics were pursued largely at the expense of developing a positive message and effective strategies for mobilizing mainstream Americans into a bipartisan constituency for environmental protection. This grassroots organizing is hard work, takes a long time to show results, and requires dispersing resources around the country instead of supporting a centralized staff in Washington, DC, or New York City.

Hello Kathryn:

I would like to encourage anyone thinking about attending the Chicago event to JUST DO IT! Atlanta was a ton of fun. The 7 hours (!) passed by in a flash (and continued with many of the NROers and attendees proceeding to a local bar until the wee hours of the morning.)

I was able to speak with all of the NRO writers there (and also head suit Ed Capano). All were wonderful. Jay Nordlinger is truly the world's most gracious human being (as was previously noted). I would also note that it was very much a treat to meet and speak with the other attendees. Smart and interesting group.

I am envious that Chicago will have Byron York, who was not in Atlanta (his book is marvelous!), although I will note that Atlanta was lucky to have the delightful Warren Bell.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean apologized today for calling Republicans “pretty much a white, Christian party,” saying that he failed to mention that they were “fat and ugly” as well.

Conservatives can eat organic and-shocking as it may be-can be pretty darn funny. Neither makes us anomalies. Conservatism is about ideas, but it's not a lock-step army, with dress and behavior codes. ... If, in the end, "South Park Conservatives" and "Crunchy Cons" make more people realize conservatives are people too-i.e. most of red America-cool, fine. But my worry has always been these unnecessary labels and things just further ghettoize and stereotype.

Here's the deal: I'm no fan of militant breast-feeding [activists]...but I do think a woman should be able to feed her baby in public (with her breast or otherwise). When my wife was feeding our daughter, she would place her shirt over her breast down to the nipple so basically nothing was exposed (or she would use a small towel). I'm a conservative American but I think too many Americans are confusing the sexual aspects of the breast (which are real) with the feeding aspects of the breast. Of course, people will try to counter this argument by stating that the male organ has two functions as well so why can't it be exposed in public? My answer to that would be those two functions are not very appealing to watch as a third party and walking around naked is a taboo in most countries. I think people who don't want women to breast-feed in public are afraid it will lead to women walking around topless. I think that's a stretch. In many European countries, women breast-feed in public, go topless on the beach but would never think of taking their top off during a stroll through a public park or when downtown. It just doesn't correlate. I'm not stating that America needs European values, but I think they seem to understand what's appropriate and what's not a little better in this case.

It's all a matter of teaching children what's appropriate behaviour and what's not. Unfortunately, that's lost on a lot of Americans these days.

On Sarkozy, that's more complex. Yes, he's more 'pro-American', but that's how Chirac used to be described, remember. Yes, he'd likely be a better PM than Villepin, but I wouldn't look for him to be waving the Stars and Stripes too enthusiastically. Throughout his career, Sarkozy has shown himself as a tough-minded populist who will do what it takes to get elected. And I doubt if that means that he'll be joining the coalition of the willing any time soon.

"I am saying that people's silence when they know terrible things are happening is the same thing as the Holocaust, where everyone would have me believe that no one knew those Jews were killed over there."

At a dinner party in a private room of a Los Angeles restaurant attended by eight Democratic politicians, I was asked to assess the political scene. I concluded with a preview of the distant events of 2008. While there had not been so open a race for the Republican nomination since 1940, I said, Clinton was dominant for the Democrats. For someone who is neither an incumbent president nor vice president to have apparently locked the nomination so early is without precedent.

As I made this analysis, the liberal Democratic functionary across the table from me shook his head in disagreement. He left his seat between courses, and then returned with this announcement: ''There are eight Democrats in this room. I've taken a little poll, and none of them -- none -- are for Hillary for president. They think she is a loser.''

Up to a third of scientists have engaged in ethically questionable practices over the last three years, according to a survey published in today's issue of the British science journal Nature.

The surveyed behaviors range from extremely serious acts such as fraud and plagiarism -- which were committed by only a fraction of a percent to 1. 4 percent, respectively -- to acts that are ethically far more ambiguous, such as ignoring data that contradict one's theory.

WASHINGTON -- A round of criticism from fellow Democrats and major donors about Howard Dean's four-month tenure as Democratic National Committee chairman has prompted Senate leaders to rise to his defense at a public event planned for today.

Originally scheduled as a private meeting between Dean and the leadership team of Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada, today's session instead will now include a news conference and photo opportunity as a public embrace of Dean, who has rocked the political world over the past week with provocative condemnations of the Republican party. On recent occasions, Dean has said many Republicans ''never made an honest living in their lives," described the Republican Party as ''pretty much a white, Christian party," and declared that House majority leader Tom DeLay of Texas, who is facing ethics questions but has not been charged with any crime, ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence.

De Villepin tinkers Few economists expected Dominique de Villepin to embark on radical structural reform of France's labour law on Wednesday, yet many were surprised by the modesty of the measures announced by the new prime minister and the emphasis on the state to solve unemployment.

“A great debate has been launched on the over-regulated, over-protected and over-structured labour market in France. But the end result is nothing,” said Elie Cohen, director of the National Centre for Scientific Research, the monolithic state body. Underlining his disappointment with the prime minister's speech, Mr Cohen said it was “symbolic” that business came in last place in Mr de Villepin's list of the actors he was counting on to tackle unemployment, after the state, local authorities, associations and trade unions.

Perhaps people may ask: Why does the Pentagon trumpet the "China threat theory" again? Actually this is not hard to understand, although physically they have entered the 21st century, mentally they still stay in the Cold War era, they still judge the world changes by the standard of Cold War mentality, they regard the fast developing China as a potential enemy.

CAIRO (Reuters) - The U.S. approach to political change in Egypt has shifted in favor of those who advocate caution to keep Islamists out of power until they clarify or modify their policies, diplomats and analysts say.

Another school of thought, pressing for rapid change regardless of consequences, appeared to be in the ascendant earlier this year but has since lost ground, they add.

In their public statements, U.S. officials have advised the Egyptian government to take specific steps such as ensuring free presidential elections in September, allowing international monitors, giving the opposition access to the state media and preventing violence against peaceful street protests.

But the officials have thrown little light in public on how fast they think change should happen and whether they are really willing to see the departure of President Hosni Mubarak, who has worked closely with U.S. presidents for a quarter of a century.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in March rejected the argument that political change could lead to instability, saying the region was not stable anyway....

Speaking of shots and bringing down dogs, about 15 or so years ago I was working for an attorney in Austin, Texas. My son was living with his Dad out in the country, in an out-lying community from Austin. He had a female Rottie and an Austrailian sheep dog.

The neighbors male Rottie came over to "visit" my son's female and got into a fight with my son's Aussie, almost killed him. When Trey (my son) got home he sized up the situation and went and got his gun(s). Trey is a sharpshooter. He shot the dog a number of times but the dog was able to leave his property, returned home, went under his owner's house and passed away.

That owner happened to be a Travis County Deputy Sheriff. Soon there was a letter wanting to be compensated for their prize Rottie. I mentioned it to the attorney I worked for who graciously said, `bring me the letter and get a statement from Trey.' So I went home and got the letter and then a statement from my son.

I brought both up to my boss and kind of sheepishly said `and here's Trey's statement .....' trailing off as I walked out his office. My boss came out and said, `How many times did Trey shoot the dog?' I said, `About 10 or 12 times .... um..... he had to go back inside and get another gun .... he said the dog just wouldn't die! My boss responded, `Well damn! That dog didn't die of gun shot wounds, he died of lead poisoning! (a Texas type joke, in the same vein as Larry Gatlin.)...

The trend is severest among officers. Last year, 3,325 Army officers' marriages ended in divorce — up 78% from 2003, the year of the Iraq invasion, and more than 31/2 times the number in 2000, before the Afghan operation, Army figures show. For enlisted personnel, the 7,152 divorces last year were 28% more than in 2003 and up 53% from 2000. During that time, the number of soldiers has changed little....

I think the party ID criticism of the Post poll is incorrect.

If you look at the survey results, it appears that, as is usual in our business, the "leaners" question was asked of people not stating a party ID.

The Post's data report doesn't explain this, but the math seems to work out.

For example, the "leaners question", is typically only asked of people who did not say Democrat or Republican. In this case, that would be 39% of the sample as 61% said either Democrat (30%) or Republican (31%).

Among this uncommitted 39%, 48% appear to have leaned Dem and 34% leaned Republican, with the rest as hard indies.

So...

39% * .48 = 18.72% + 30% = 48.72% Democrat or Lean Democrat

39% * .34 = 13.26% + 31% = 44.26% Republican or Lean Republican

This comes very, very close to what the Post had as the "Leaned Party ID" --- 48% Democrat / 45% Republican. I have a feeling the discrepancy is due to rounding.

Bottom line, I don't think there is any trickery going on here in the party ID question on the survey -- just poor reporting of the topline data.

But, I think detractors of this survey have a good point when they argue that political surveys of adults are a waste of time. This has been a bone of contention in the industry for a long time, but most Republican pollsters prefer only to survey people who are actually registered to vote for political surveys. My take on this is that if an organization wants to poll adults in its political surveys - which they do mostly as a way to keep costs lower - they should also report the data among the x% of the survey who are registered to vote. This would give us all a better read. As it is, it's impossible to compare this survey's demographic data to the 2004 exit poll demographics because we're looking at two different universes.

Please keep in mind that most media produced polls are not very good, are done by the lowest bidder in the cheapest possible way, and are generally biased in their wording and flow. The best polling is the polling done for private clients that is never released, because this polling is done to find where voters really are and to make campaign decisions, not advocate a position or add juice to a story.

Jihad was being allowed into the open. Abu Ibrahim said Syrian security officials and presidential advisers attended festivals, one of which was called "The People of Sham Will Now Defeat the Jews and Kill Them All." Money poured in from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

"We even had a Web site," Abu Ibrahim said.

The young men around the cleric found themselves wielding a surprising amount of power. They were allowed to enforce their strict vision of sharia , or Islamic law, entering houses in the middle of the night to confront people accused of bad behavior.

Abu Ibrahim said their authority rivaled that of the Amn Dawla, or state security. "Everyone knew us," he said. "We all had big beards. We became thugs."

Worried that it would be Washington's next target, Syria opposed the military coalition invading its neighbor. State media issued impassioned calls for "resistance." The nation's senior Sunni cleric, Grand Mufti Ahmad Kaftaro, undid his reputation for moderation by issuing a fatwa endorsing suicide attacks.

In Aleppo, Abu Ibrahim went door to door encouraging young men to cross the border. Volunteers boarded buses that Syrian border guards waved through wide-open gates, witnesses recalled.

Saddam Hussein's government embraced the volunteers, handing them weapons and calling them Arab Saddam Fedayeen. But ordinary Iraqis were often less welcoming, pleading with them to go home; some Syrians were shot or handed over to the invading Americans.

"We had specific meeting places for Iraqi smugglers," Abu Ibrahim said. "They wouldn't do the trip if we had fewer than 15 fighters. We would drive across the border and then into villages on the Iraqi side. And from there the Iraqi contacts would take the mujaheddin to training camps."

Because Syrian men already had served two years of compulsory military service, most of them skipped the training. "It's mostly the Saudis who need the training," Abu Ibrahim said.

Afterward, the fighters were sent to join small cells usually led by Iraqis. They planted booby traps for U.S. convoys and laid ambushes.

"Once the Americans bombed a bus crossing to Syria. We made a big fuss and said it was full of merchants," Abu Ibrahim said. "But actually, they were fighters."

In the summer of 2004, Abu Ibrahim got to go to Iraq. He crossed the dunes with 50 other volunteers, dodging U.S. patrols on the Iraqi side.

In Iraqi society he moved without drawing attention. He would not discuss much of what transpired during the subsequent months. But when he returned to Syria after the massive U.S. offensive in Fallujah, only three people were alive from the original 50, he said. One was a suicide bomber.

In January, shortly after Abu Ibrahim returned to Syria, he was summoned to Amn Dawla headquarters along with scores of fellow jihadi cell leaders. The security agents said the smuggling of fighters had to stop. The jihadis' passports were taken. Some were jailed for a few days. Abu Ibrahim's jailers shaved his beard.

Also in January, Richard L. Armitage, then the U.S. deputy secretary of state, visited Damascus. After long lambasting Syria for supporting the insurgency, Armitage brought praise. "We have seen a lot of improvement regarding foreign fighters who were using Syria to enter Iraq," he said. "And this is a good thing."

The timing was fortuitous, Abu Ibrahim said. Recently, he said, his contacts in Iraq have said they were not in need of fighters, but money. He said he personally carried cash, provided by sympathetic Saudis, between Saudi Arabia and Syria. But lately, a more efficient system has emerged.

"Our brothers in Iraq are asking for Saudis," he said last month. "The Saudis go with enough money to support themselves and their Iraqi brothers. A week ago, we sent a Saudi to the jihad. He went with 100,000 Saudi riyals," or about $27,000. "There was celebration amongst his brothers there!"

"You would think a man with $35 billion to spend would have more important things on his agenda than doing an end-zone dance over the bodies of a few cancer patients looking for a little relief from the side-effects of chemo."

Ouch.

It's good to see some attention being focussed on the administration's role in this miserable fiasco. Yes, the court ruled in the way it did, but the case was pursued by Bush's administration, and the president should take responsibility for it. Reduce his efforts to their essence and you are left with two things: (1) a message to the sick that says 'drop dead, painfully'; and (2) the information that federalism is meaningless.

Some compassion. Some conservatism.

JANICE ROGERS BROWN'S RECORD SHOWS NOT ONLY THAT SHE LACKS THE COMMITMENT BUT THAT SHE'S HOSTILE TO ANY FORM OF GOVERNMENTAL ACTION. ALTHOUGH LOCATED HERE IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, THE D.C. CIRCUIT AFFECTS ALL AMERICANS BECAUSE ITS DECISIONS HAVE BROAD NATIONAL IMPACT. SOME CASES, SUCH AS THOSE INVOLVING REVIEW OF NATIONAL AIR QUALITY STANDARDS UNDER THE CLEAN AIR ACT AND NATIONAL DRINKING WATER STANDARDS UNDER THE SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT CAN ONLY BE HEARD IN THE D.C. CIRCUIT. WE HAVE HAD THE GROWTH IN THIS COUNTRY OVER THE PERIOD OF THESE LAST FOUR YEARS. WE HAVE DOUBLED THE DEATHS FOR ASTHMATIC CHILDREN IN THIS NATION. WHY? I THINK YOU CAN POINT TO THE RELAXATION AND THE CHANGE IN THE CLEAN AIR ACT AND THE RELAXATION OF RULES AND REGULATIONS. AND AS A RESULT OF THAT, CHILDREN IN THESE DOWNWIND STATES FROM A LOT OF THESE COMPANIES THAT ARE BURNING THESE TOXINS HAVE EXPERIENCED A DRAMATIC INCREASE IN THE -- THEIR BREATHING DIFFICULTY AND IN ASTHMA DEATHS. THAT IS DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE TO THE CHANGE IN THE RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE CLEAN AIR ACT.

Not exactly, Kathryn, not exactly. You look like someone who hates too many people and too many things. You look like someone that just hates life, no matter how "pro-life" you think you are.

And I surely understand what the rather mild Yglesias means when he says "the inimitable K-Lo"

Q:Whose legs were used in that famous poster for The Graduate ?

A: Linda Gray, aka Sue-Ellen Ewing and, much later, Mrs Robinson.

With the cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians crumbling, Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz warned Tuesday that Israel would take matters into its own hands if the Palestinian Authority is incapable of preventing attacks.

But others called for immediate action: Israel needs to deal the Hamas a "severe blow" prior to the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in response to their routine violation of the Palestinian-Israeli cease-fire in recent weeks, IDF and Shin Bet officials said, Army Radio reported Wednesday...

We are now nine days from the sham elections, and still no Western leader has had the integrity to proclaim that the “elections” are a fraud, and they seem to have forgotten that the regime itself is the keystone of the terror network. Instead, our government maintains a pious silence on the matter, evidently more afraid of being accused of undermining the efforts of the French, German, and British governments to arrive at a satisfactory agreement with Iran on the matter of the mullahs’ impending atomic bomb.

Subject: even I thought this was over the top

Slate lead (Robert Wright):

Nominating John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations is a little like nominating Jeffrey Dahmer for surgeon general.

Just a quick point re K-Lo's reader. I understand the point -- we all fear the Lowry curse, after all. But it's also important to call attention to the fact that Dean's a loser. It sets a media environment, creates a storyline, inclines the press to look at Dean a certain way and highlight certain sorts of statements over others. If many in the mainstream press had their way, Dean's utterances would be treated with more reverance. Pointing out what a bitter dud he is makes that more difficult and honest reporting less difficult. Moreover, it's not like Dean hasn't been given plenty of opportunities to heed the wisdom of even his well-intentioned critics. He's immune to such stuff because that's his nature. Let Dean be Dean by all means, but that doesn't mean he should get free passes for his buffoonery.

Didn’t you guys learn your lesson from the recent election? Dean was favored to win the nomination and then lost it, in part because loud mouths like yourselves pointed out what a failure he would be as a candidate. Granted, he shot himself in the foot numerous times, but only political junkies noticed most of the slip ups. Your ceaseless “begging” for his nomination doomed it, Kerry won and actually had us worried for a few weeks. SO just shut up about Dean’s chairing the DNC or the Dems might get wise and realize what a disaster he is (Though how they can mistake it is beyond me). Then they might actually put somebody competent in that post who will actually improve their chances in ’06 or ’08!!

ALEPPO, Syria -- When the Americans led the invasion of Iraq, the men of Abu Ibrahim's family gathered in the courtyard of their shared home in the far north of Syria. Ten slips of paper were folded into a plastic bag, and they drew lots. The five who opened a paper marked with ink would go to Iraq and fight. The other five would stay behind.

Abu Ibrahim drew a blank. But remaining in Syria did not mean staying clear of the war. For more than two years, by his own detailed account, the slightly built, shabbily dressed 32-year-old father of four has worked diligently to shuttle other young Arab men into Iraq, stocking the insurgency that has killed hundreds of U.S. troops and thousands of Iraqis.

The stream of fighters -- most of them Syrians, but lately many of them Saudis, favored for the cash they bring -- has sustained and replenished the hardest core of the Iraq insurgency, and supplied many of its suicide bombers. Drawn from a number of Arab countries and nurtured by a militant interpretation of Islam, they insist they are fighting for their vision of their faith. This may put them beyond the reach of political efforts to make Iraq's Sunni Arabs stakeholders in the country's nascent government....

KARACHI, Pakistan, June 3 - Four times since Pakistan allied itself with the United States campaign against terrorism, a KFC outlet here has been attacked. Each time, the owner, Rafiq Rangoonwala, dutifully cleaned up and reopened for business. This time, with six of his employees dead, he's not so sure.

Last week, as evening prayers began at a Shiite mosque down the street, a suicide bomber believed to belong to a Sunni extremist group linked to Al Qaeda blew himself up inside the mosque compound, splattering his remains across the high courtyard wall.

Minutes later, a mob, believed to be led by outraged Shiites, stormed Mr. Rangoonwala's KFC outlet, dousing its floors with gasoline, setting it ablaze and then blocking the entry of rescue workers. Six hours later, the six bodies were hauled out. Four had been burned. Two had frozen to death in the walk-in freezer; their bodies were found only after a mobile phone belonging to one of the men rang. The dead had all worked at the KFC, and they were all local men in their mid-20's.

I just read Richard Cohen's odd column on John Harris' book on Clinton.

All in all, I think Cohen's largely right. But ]this paragraph really stands out:

Then, too, maybe a dollop of greatness will be granted Clinton for the way he restrained the Vandals of the GOP from sacking Washington. When you consider that Clinton survived and Newt Gingrich did not, you can appreciate that a certain genius was at work. Harris reports that Gingrich told Clinton to his face, "Mr. President, we're going to run you out of town." But it was Gingrich who flamed out and Clinton who survived and left office with an approval rating way over 60 percent -- a figure George Bush can see only in the rearview mirror.

A couple things stand out. First there's how completely meaningless popularity in the polls is when it comes to historical verdicts. Many great presidents were very popular when they left office, and many were not. Many terrible presidents were unpopular. Personally, I think Wilson was the worst consequential president in American history. But his standing as a "great" president certainly has nothing to do with his popularity at the time he left office. Few Presidents were more thoroughly reviled by the American people than Wilson when they left office. Often, popularity and greatness are at odds. This was always why Clinton was destined to be a third tier president at best. He valued popularity more than accomplishment.

Another point is that history will simply never remember Clinton for "standing up" to Newt Gingrich. I know Bill Clinton insists that this was his great accomplishment. But this wasn't a "great" accomplishment by any historical standard of greatness. Even now, who can really remember the details of what the Gingrich Congress wanted to do? I'm sure Jonathan Chait and Ramesh can, but the rest of us have to noodle it for a while to reconstruct it all. A generation from now, the details of the government shut down will be Double Jeopardy trivia at best.

If, as I believe it to be the case, the Gingrich Congress represented the launch of an enduring shift toward the right in American politics begun by Ronald Reagan (or Barry Goldwater), than Clinton was merely a speed bump. Indeed, as many have suggested, he was the Eisenhower to Reagan's New Deal, trimming a bit and consolidating for the most part. Gingrich may not have run Clinton out of town, but the movement Gingrich represented meant that it didn't matter much if Clinton stayed in town anyway.

It's not a novel insight, but I've decided that Dean is the definitive rump-party figurehead for the Democrats. He pleases only those people who represent the parties problems and he further alienates precisely those people it needs to attract. It wasn't completely obvious this was going to be the case when they picked Dean, but it is now. He's turning away donors rather than attracting them and he's accentuating stereotypes while trying to rebut them. Indeed, the way he rebuts them -- talking religion and the like -- seem only to demonstrate that Democrats cannot speak convincingly on such issues. Of course, many can. But he can't and he's setting the image for the party.

George Orwell famously said "A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, but then fail all the more completely because he drinks." Well, similarly, a party may take to Howard Dean because it feels itself a failure, but then fail all the more completely because hired Howard Dean.

BOSTON (AP) -- On April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood. U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres.

Then they let him into the United States.

The following day, a gruesome scene was discovered in Despres' hometown of Minto, New Brunswick: The decapitated body of a 74-year-old country musician named Frederick Fulton was found on his kitchen floor. The man's head was in a pillow case under a kitchen table. His common-law wife was discovered stabbed to death in a bedroom.

Despres, 22, immediately became a suspect because of a history of violence between him and his neighbors, and he was arrested April 27 after police in Massachusetts saw him wandering down a highway in a sweat shirt with red and brown stains. He is now in jail in Massachusetts on murder charges, awaiting an extradition hearing next month.

At a time when the United States is tightening its borders, how could a man toting what appeared to be a bloody chain saw be allowed into the country?

Bill Anthony, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said the Canada-born Despres could not be detained because he is a naturalized U.S. citizen and was not wanted on any criminal charges on the day in question.

Anthony said Despres was questioned for two hours before he was released. During that time, he said, customs agents employed "every conceivable method" to check for warrants or see if Despres had broken any laws in trying to re-enter the country.

"Nobody asked us to detain him," Anthony said. "Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up. ... We are governed by laws and regulations, and he did not violate any regulations."

Anthony conceded it "sounds stupid" that a man wielding what appeared to be a bloody chain saw could not be detained. But he added: "Our people don't have a crime lab up there. They can't look at a chain saw and decide if it's blood or rust or red paint."..

So I return last night from my honeymoon to discover that:

1) The name of The Beltway Buzz has been shortened.
2) You've added a new blog to which I am sure to develop a new addiction.
Y'all are seriously trying to keep me from getting caught up after being gone. Furthermore, you are largely succeeding at keeping me from getting anything done for which I get paid. Words cannot express my gratitude. In all seriousness, I know you get congratulated a lot - I'll add my 2 cents. Your team really is the best. What an incredible collection of talent. You literally (I think Warren will approve) deserve every set of eyes you get. I feel smarter for reading.

"I do the dance, trying to figure out who the fellow conservatives are when we're all afraid to speak up," says Steve Finefrock, who executive-produced short films for the Department of Homeland Security before moving to Hollywood and working as a production assistant.

Finefrock and his ilk get no sympathy from prolific writer-producer Larry Gelbart, whose credits include the classic TV sitcom "M*A*S*H," the 1977 feature "Oh, God!" and the 1982 feature "Tootsie."

"Bullsh*t!" Gelbart replies, when asked if liberals make things difficult for conservatives in Hollywood. "If you're not strong enough to support a Republican administration out loud, then you're a wimp."

A recent survey conducted by Lake Snell Perry Mermin & Associates confirmed that the American public opposes blocking women’s access to birth control. The question below was part of a comprehensive poll regarding reproductive health. Half of the survey’s participants were asked the question of whether pharmacists should be able to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions on either religious or moral grounds. The slight change in wording did very little to change the fact that nearly eight in 10 Americans oppose allowing pharmacists’ personal beliefs to interfere with or inconvenience women who have prescriptions for birth control.

Should pharmacists who personally oppose birth control for religious reasons be able to refuse to sell birth control pills to women who have a prescription for them, or should pharmacists not be able to refuse to sell birth control pills?

Should be able to refuse .............................16
Should NOT be able to refuse...................80
(Don’t know).................................................4

A recent New York Times/CBS a poll conducted in November 2004 reveals similar findings showing that eight in 10 Americans say pharmacists who personally oppose birth control for religious reasons should not refuse to sell oral contraceptives to women.

I thought you might appreciate the car I saw on my commute this morning. She had the "Darwin fish" and the following bumper stickers:
* Oh Lord Please Protect Me From Your Followers
* Don't Pray in My School and I Won't Think in Your Church
* Doing My Best to P--- Off the Religious Right

But then she also had a sticker that said:
"It is Not our Differences That Divide Us -- It is Our Inability to Understand and Celebrate Those Differences."

The best story line on TV in a long time, right now, is on Days of our Lives (my wife, upon learning how to operate our DVR, has become re-addicted to this staple of her college days, and I am forced to watch most every episode). A college sophomore has an abortion without telling her boyfriend, which I initially thought was treated very matter-of-factly. However, that one "harmless" lie has led to her (in an indescribable manner that could only happen on a soap) deciding to plead guilty to attempted murder in order to avoid her boyfriend from learning the truth. There has been no moralizing about her decision, no lecturing, but the fates (i.e. writers) have definitely made her pay a heavy price for her absolutely legal decision. What has begun to impress me as the story has developed is that I don't think that anyone, pro-life or pro-choice, could argue that any one viewpoint about the morals involved in the character's choice to have an abortion have been 'pushed' over any other viewpoint - women do have a right to abortion in this country, and have no legal obligation to tell their husband/boyfriend of their pregnancy or decision to terminate the pregnancy, but such deceptions ultimately have consequences.

LUFKIN, Texas — A 19-year-old accused of causing his teenage girlfriend to miscarry two fetuses by stepping on her stomach was convicted Monday of two counts of murder.

Gerardo Flores received an automatic life sentence because prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, which was available under the state's 2003 fetus protection law.

Erica Basoria, 17, acknowledged asking Flores to help end her pregnancy; she could not be prosecuted because of her legal right to abortion...

Basoria told authorities that, after about four months of pregnancy, she regretted not getting an abortion and started jogging and hitting herself to induce a miscarriage. When her efforts failed, she said she asked her boyfriend to help.

Flores did not testify, but earlier told police that he stepped on Basoria's stomach several times during the week before she miscarried.

The revolution has been cancelled due to rain. Students for Responsible Journalism, upset at Fox News' coverage of the war in Iraq, planned to demonstrate in front of the local Fox affiliate Saturday. It was postponed "due to inclement weather."

China is weighing a ban on foreign cartoons in prime time, a rule that could hamstring multinational media companies striving to sell their lucrative programs and characters in the world's biggest TV market by number of viewers.

The World Trade Center Memorial Cultural Complex will be an imposing edifice wedged in the place where the Twin Towers once stood. It will serve as the primary "gateway" to the underground area where the names of the lost are chiseled into concrete. The organizers of its principal tenant, the International Freedom Center (IFC), have stated that they intend to take us on "a journey through the history of freedom" -- but do not be fooled into thinking that their idea of freedom is the same as that of those Marines. To the IFC's organizers, it is not only history's triumphs that illuminate, but also its failures. The public will have come to see 9/11 but will be given a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man's inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich's Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond. This is a history all should know and learn, but dispensing it over the ashes of Ground Zero is like creating a Museum of Tolerance over the sunken graves of the USS Arizona.

The public will be confused at first, and then feel hoodwinked and betrayed. Where, they will ask, do we go to see the September 11 Memorial? The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation will have erected a building whose only connection to September 11 is a strained, intellectual one. While the IFC is getting 300,000 square feet of space to teach us how to think about liberty, the actual Memorial Center on the opposite corner of the site will get a meager 50,000 square feet to exhibit its 9/11 artifacts, all out of sight and underground. Most of the cherished objects which were salvaged from Ground Zero in those first traumatic months will never return to the site. There is simply no room. But the International Freedom Center will have ample space to present us with exhibits about Chinese dissidents and Chilean refugees. These are important subjects, but for somewhere -- anywhere -- else, not the site of the worst attack on American soil in the history of the republic.

More disturbing, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is handing over millions of federal dollars and the keys to that building to some of the very same people who consider the post-9/11 provisions of the Patriot Act more dangerous than the terrorists that they were enacted to apprehend -- people whose inflammatory claims of a deliberate torture policy at Guantanamo Bay are undermining this country's efforts to foster freedom elsewhere in the world.

Pitt said he was frustrated by the fact that his personal life has been the subject of a media frenzy while the humanitarian crisis in Africa has received relatively little attention.

"I can't get out of the press. These people can't get in the press. So let's redirect the attention a little bit," says Pitt. "It drives me mental seeing what I've seen and knowing that it doesn't show up in our news every day. I mean literally, thousands of people died today!"

While he was in Africa, an ABC News search found 896 articles about Pitt. His Google count is now up to 2.7 million entries.

"It's a strange focus, isn't it?" he asked. "That my relationships or relationship mishaps takes precedent over something like that [the situation in Africa] … I understand it's about entertainment, but man, it's misguided a bit, isn't it?"

He marveled at the prices that celebrity publications paid for pictures of him with Jolie and her son in Africa — estimated at $500,000 to $750,000.

"It's an amazing fact, the bounty that's on my head and the lengths that these people go to get these shots and the amount of money that they're paying for these shots," he said. "I can't help but think what that money could have gone to. Hell, I would have set up the damn pictures myself."

When asked why people should listen to him, or other celebrities, just because they're famous, he said: "I don't know that we should … I don't believe people should listen to me. I'm hoping the images … will speak for themselves."

The Bush administration, rebuffing the suggestions of some European officials, will continue to refuse to have contact with the militant group Hamas and its leaders even if some of those leaders win elections in Palestinian areas, a senior administration official said Monday.

The official said that a ban on contacts with Hamas was required because the group was listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, and that the United States would not follow a practice of some European countries of engaging with the group's political wing even if it also had an armed wing carrying out attacks on civilians.

"The president has said that Hamas is on the terrorism list, and it's there for a reason," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We don't recognize that you have changed your behavior just because a group is running candidates as well as suicide bombers."

The official's comments were significant in light of Mr. Bush's outspoken support for democracy in the Middle East, particularly in Palestinian areas, where Hamas has considerable political strength and is challenging the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader.

De Gucht is, quite clearly, trash. That makes him an entirely representative figure of Belgium's venal and degenerate political class and, therefore, a perfect foreign minister for that unfortunate country.

…Hillary said, "Because I had a bill that would protect the teaching hospitals—"

"Hillary!," Liz interrupted. "That's Pat's bill."

"Oh," said Hillary, "did he have one, too?"

Hillary wasn't an elected official, and yet, according to the insider, she was talking as though she had introduced her own bill. And she was looking right at Liz Moynihan and comparing herself to Pat Moynihan, who had one of the most distinguished records in the history of the U.S. Senate.

At that point, Pat Moynihan had had enough. "You have to excuse me," he said to Hillary, getting up slowly from his chair, favoring his back. "I told them I would go to the Senate today."

He left the room. But he did not go to the Senate. He went to an adjoining room and waited for Hillary to leave.

But it is also a story about growth, about learning how to be president and finally getting it down just about when Ken Starr rose from the muck, with a blue dress for a shiny sword and an obsession for a duty. Had that not happened, we probably would have seen a convergence between the man and his performance -- maybe a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, maybe a better coordinated and more robust effort to get bin Laden and, almost certainly, a passing of the baton to Al Gore. Blame it on Clinton, blame it on Starr or just blame the times. Either way and any way, it remains a gripping tale.

Excerpt of Dino Rossi statement, June 6, 2005:

“With today’s decision in mind, and because of the political makeup of the Washington State Supreme Court – which makes it almost impossible to overturn this ruling – I am ending this election contest. I wish Christine Gregoire and her family all the best.

“I don’t make this decision lightly, but I also don’t make it with bitterness or hard feelings. I continue to believe – and I think most Washingtonians believe – that mounting this election challenge, and shining the light on very serious problems in our election system, was the right thing to do.”

"There has never been an administration, I don't believe in our history, more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda," Mrs. Clinton told the audience at a "Women for Hillary" gathering in Midtown Manhattan this morning.

"I know it's frustrating for many of you; it's frustrating for me: Why can't the Democrats do more to stop them?" she continued to growing applause and cheers. "I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."

Mrs. Clinton described Republican leaders as messianic in their beliefs, willing to manipulate facts and even "destroy" the Senate to gain political advantage over the Democratic minority. She also labeled the House of Representatives as "a dictatorship of the Republican leadership," where individual members are all but required to vote in lock-step with the majority's agenda.

"The chairman of the DNC is not the spokesman for the party," Edwards said, according to the Associated Press. "He's a voice. I don't agree with it."

Christopher Hitchens – Well, it doesn’t take much of a cast-iron certainty, Andrew, to do that because we know that it could not possibly have been worse and that proposition was given a very solid test. I would say that the possibility of defeat of this enterprise exists in Iraq, partly because we left it so long and the country became so beggared and ruined. But it’s not the kind of defeat that it would have been if we’d left it to be deeded to the Uday-Qusay succession and that was the alternative offer that was being made by the peaceniks.

More than that I think Iraq will be remarkable. We’re going to live to see great things. We already have in Lebanon. We’re about to I think in Egypt, with the reopening of the Egyptian democracy. The Ba’ath party in Syria in my judgement will not be there in two years time And there will be extraordinary, are already extraordinary developments in Iran which I have just come back from. And so the essential point of the Blair-Bush policy, which is to change the balance of power in the Middle East, that has already been conclusively vindicated. Andrew Marr – Germaine, are you in any way persuaded?

Germaine Greer – No, I’m not really. Partly because I think it looks now, from the slot that we’re looking through, as if the Ba'ath Party was in a process of self-destruction anyway. And the problem of the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Kurds isn’t going to go away. The British couldn’t deal with it under the British mandate. They started bombing Iraq, in what, the 1920’s. And Iraq is such a made-up sort of a country. It’s such an odd idea and I just can’t see that there wasn’t another way around this, I mean a way of inventing an alternative power structure something even like the European Union.

Palestinians talk about justice and Israelis talk about violation of agreements. So long as the dispute with Palestinians is seen as a fight between a thief and his victim, a fight about when "Palestinian land" will be returned to its rightful owner, Israel's talk of its security needs will fall on deaf ears...

March 15, 2005. Tehran. Somewhere, a Qur'an is burning. It is Tchahr Shanbe Souri, the traditional Persian fire festival, and in major cities throughout the country Iranians are turning the celebration-denounced as pagan by the ruling clerics-into a protest. There are reports of revelers chanting "Down with the Islamic Republic" and casting Islamist literature and even scripture into bonfires.1 Government militia respond brutally, and violent clashes with demonstrators continue into the night.

Indeed.

Via Radley

The following clip is an excerpt of a report aired on Al-Arabiya showing children in Gaza playing “Jews and Arabs,“ a game in which the aim is to die as a martyr for Allah.

*Clip #700: The Death Games of Gaza Children

Reporter: Abd Al-Sattar's favorite game is "Jews and Arabs."
Boy: The Arabs are in the street. The Jews stand over there and we shoot at them, and throw rocks and grenades at them.
Reporter: To win the game, the player must die.
Boy: Burn the tank!
Boy: Martyrdom for the sake of Allah is our greatest desire. Oh God! Don't be afraid because fear hurts me. Don't be sad because sadness frightens me. Don't scream because screams kills me.

Why did our President persist, to find the man and the weapons of mass destruction? Becasue, George W is the man with the weapons of mass destruction. George W is identifying himself so to speak, he is not speaking about Sadaam Hussein, he is projecting. We can use his system of projection with his compulsive usage of evil doer to apply to his own war crimes. This is George speak. He is speaking about himself. ...

When Tom Cruise says he does not believe in Anti-depressants and psychiatry, when our President does not believe in stem cell research, we are in the dark ages. Someone please tell these men that the world is round and to take off the leeches. ...

It's not "awful"! The entire point of the Negreponte post is to make the director of the CIA pretty much like the director of NSA, DIA, etc., etc.

Before, the DCI wore two hats, one of which gave him the president's ear. That hat is now on Negreponte's head. If this switch wasn't made, then the entire point of a Negreponte role was moot. DCI is still a "more equal than others" kind of roll, but frankly, Goss has enough stuff to worry about trying to fix the place. He doesn't need to be briefing Bush every morning.

I think it's a good move. Of course, Negreponte's roll is a bit like Homeland Security, he hasn't got a lot of assets of his own, so he knows what the others decide to tell him. Technically, that's everything. In reality, who knows?

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told his ruling Baath Party congress on Monday to ignore foreign pressure in drafting reforms he said should focus on improving the economy and combating corruption.

But Assad set out no far-reaching initiatives in his speech to the opening session of the Baath's first major congress in five years and made clear the party that has ruled Syria for four decades was not ready to give up its dominant role.

The Bush administration is showing signs of easing its hardline approach toward Hamas, in response to the group's rising political clout in the Palestinian territories and appeals for flexibility from European allies, officials and diplomats said. …

Several hundred Arab teens pelted police and Jewish visitors with stones on the Temple Mount Monday morning as the nation marked Jerusalem Day, lightly injuring two Jewish visitors and one policeman, police said.

Police fired several stun grenades to disperse the rioters, and arrested a Palestinian who tried to attack a Jewish visitor, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.

Police rushed reinforcements into the Temple Mount, and said that the situation was quickly brought "under control."

Some 3,500 police were stationed in Jerusalem on Monday to prevent possible clashes.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said Jewish visitors should not have been allowed into the mosque compound, the Associated Press reported.

"The Israeli government and the international community must stop these unjustified and dangerous violations. They are to prevent any friction with bad results," he said during a tour of a Palestinian high school in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Britain shelves plans for referendum on EU constitution

LONDON (AP) -- Prime Minister Tony Blair's office confirmed Monday that Britain has put off holding a referendum on the European constitution, following the document's rejection in France and the Netherlands.

Blair's official spokesman said the results of the French and Dutch referendums had to be discussed at the European Council summit later this month.

"Given that, it does not make sense to proceed at this point," the spokesman said.

The trial court will issue a decision in the Washington governor's election contest lawsuit on Monday morning at 9am Pacific. This will be carried in live streaming video [here].

The legal experts I've talked say it's too close to call, but the judge has telegraphed his disappointment with King County Elections officials. That suggests a preference toward setting the election aside, although the statutory bar is quite high. Regardless of Monday's ruling, the case will be appealed to the state Supreme Court, which is expected to hear the case later this month.

The real money line that I recall from the book was in an interview (I think on CSPAN) when Abigail was asked why Jews do so well on standardized tests: "Because they've been studying for them for 8,000 years."

Washington, DC, Jun. 3 (UPI) -- Iraqi Sunni Sheik Ammar Abdel Rahim Nasir told the Saudi newspaper Al-Medina that al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, died May 27 and has been buried in Fallujah's cemetery. Nasir claims recent firefights in Fallujah involved militants protecting Zarqawi's grave from U.S. soldiers patrolling the area. Nasir said Zarqawi was taken to Fallujah after being injured in the city of Ramadi about three weeks ago. Two doctors working on Zarqawi had stopped a serious hemorrhage in his intestines, but his condition worsened and he died May 27. Nasir said Zarqawi's will ordered that no funeral should be held and the right to announce his death should be left to Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida leadership in Afghanistan. Two days ago an audio clip attributed to Zarqawi was posted on the Internet assuring his followers that he had only been lightly injured. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld subsequently warned countries neighboring Iraq not to give medical assistance to Zarqawi, saying, "Were a neighboring country to take him in and provide medical assistance or haven for him, they obviously would be associating themselves with a major linkage in the al-Qaida network, and a person who has a great deal of blood on his hands. And that's something that people would want to take note of."

John - I'd be surprised if you haven't encountered every kind of Jew that doesn't fit the stereotype. I've met dumb Jews galore. Poor ones. Great dancers -- who don't display any Hebraic overbite while boogie-ing. I've met extremely athletic MOTs and even a few who oppose Zionism. And, for the sake of the point, scads of politically conservative Jews. Of course, the existence of all of these individuals is not a a powerful statistical argument in and of itself, but it's always worth pointing out that they exist.

From a friend:

Interesting bit that Thomas Sowell once cited in arguing against genetic determinism (though it's not an air-tight case, since certainly a gene, like that presumably for schizophrenia, sometimes only evinces itself in response to environmental stimuli): if you look at the IQ tests given to U.S. Army soldiers in WW1 (probably evil Woody Wilson's version of the SAT!), one of the bottom-ranking groups was "Russians," which were mostly Ashkenazi Jews. Seventy years on, the Ashkenazi Jewish population's mean score was 15 points higher than the average white-folks mean. Sowell's point was to say that the Bell Curve thesis might be overstated. Certainly, intelligence is heritable, but culture does a ton to determine how smart you get. I think his basic thesis was that Jews valued abstract learning as a cultural norm, so that shtetl folks right off the Pale probably had low IQs because while they might have valued book-larnin', they had no opportunities to get it. However, once in the U.S., they pushed their kids (who pushed their kids), etc., to grab the (relatively easily available) available book learning, pushing up their IQs. It'd be interesting to see if the same were true of, say, Chinese Americans (though I doubt the data's there), since that's another group that came to the U.S. as mostly poor, illiterate people from a culture that elevated book-learning above all.

Lots and lots of email coming in making this point and attributing it to different folks. Here's a representative email:

Jonah, Ernest Van Den Haag made an interesting point in his book, "The Jewish Mystique." During the Middle Ages both the Christian and Jewish communities encouraged their brightest to enter religious service. Priests were, at least nominally, discouraged from having children while Rabbis were encouraged to have large families. Over time this would have an impact on the intelligence of both groups. I have no idea if there is any validity to his claim, but Van Den Haag was adamant.

From a Genetics guy:

Although it also gets some things wrong, the NYT article does a better job of covering the issues of selection vs. founder effects for the prevalence of certain genetic diseases in ashkenazic jews. The idea of a relationship between those traits and intelligence is plausible but clearly speculative. Not having read the original article, I would probably bet on chance (founder effects) being more important on both counts, but that doesn't mean the traits are not related. And as you point out the proposed coupling between intellectual success and biological success is a bit of a stretch. Unfortunately, the article is likely to generate more controversy than light - just what the genetics field needs.

From a reader;

Jonah,

I do believe it was in their most recent book that Stephen and
Abigail Thernstrom did some research that would shed light on your
current Corner topic. Though I didn't read the book, I do know that
they discussed how many different geographic (and, I'd imagine, also
genetically distinct) groups of Jews throughout history have all
maintained a strong cultural affinity for learning. Apparently the
first Jews to start establishing themselves in Russia showed up as
somewhat of a footnote in the first Czarist census, remarking that
even amongst the poorer classes, Jews had far more books in their
homes and were far more literate than anyone else.

The real money line that I recall from the book was in an interview
(I think on CSPAN) when Abigail was asked why Jews do so well on
standardized tests: "Because they've been studying for them for 8,000
years."

Good stuff, I think.

From a reader:

As an Orthodox Ashkenazic Jew, I have had the misfortune of having to
deal with many geneticists and one of the things I hear most often is
that our community makes for a good study ground not because of the
uniqueness of our genetic material but the fact that our bloodlines are
purer. OK I had to throw that line in there ( what good would an email
be without an oblique hitler/nazi reference) but what I obviusly mean is
that up until fifty years ago or so there was virtually no
intermarriage at all so the gene pool did not get muddled. Even today
the rate of intermarriage in the Orthodox community is very small which
still provides researchers for prime study material. So when these
researchers start drawing conclusions with respect to genetic diseases
my gut feeling is they are overstating their case since there is
probably the same "smart gene" in any other non-diluted gene pool. Again
just my gut but I find it hard to believe that this gene is unique to
Us, it just hasnt gotten lost in the melting pot called America......yet.

By the way we couldve saved the researchers alot of time and effort and
tought them the term " Ah Yiddishen Kup".

PS Not really related , we have a fantastic program of voluntary testing
for single guys and girls to test to see if they are carriers of any of
these genetic diseases. More info here.

Thanks for all the good work in the Corner.

I just got around to reading this fascinating New York Times article about a possible link between some genetic diseases among Ashkenazic Jews and higher intelligence. I'm sure a lot of interesting stuff has already been said about the study on the web. I just haven't had time to see it. But I would offer a tiny observation. The Times article, presumably mirroring the explanations in the original study, puts a lot of emphasis on the role of Jews as money-lenders, bankers and the like. The argument is that medieval Jews -- restricted as they were from traditional agriculture -- naturally selected for smarter spouses. Diseases such as Tay-Sachs are the unfortunate by-product of this bias. From the Times:

He and two colleagues at the University of Utah, Gregory Cochran and Jason Hardy, see the pattern of genetic disease among the Ashkenazi Jewish population as reminiscent of blood disorders like sickle cell anemia that occur in populations exposed to malaria, a disease that is only 5,000 years old.

In both cases, the Utah researchers argue, evolution has had to counter a sudden threat by favoring any mutation that protected against it, whatever the side effects. Ashkenazic diseases like Tay-Sachs, they say, are a side effect of genes that promote intelligence.

The explanation that the Ashkenazic disease genes must have some hidden value has long been accepted by other researchers, but no one could find a convincing infectious disease or other threat to which the Ashkenazic genetic ailments might confer protection.

A second suggestion, wrote Dr. Jared Diamond of the University of California, Los Angeles, in a 1994 article, "is selection in Jews for the intelligence putatively required to survive recurrent persecution, and also to make a living by commerce, because Jews were barred from the agricultural jobs available to the non-Jewish population."

The Utah researchers have built on this idea, arguing that for some 900 years Jews in Europe were restricted to managerial occupations, which were intellectually demanding, that those who were more successful also left more offspring, and that there was time in this period for the intelligence of the Ashkenazi population as a whole to become appreciably enhanced.

And:

Ashkenazi Jews occupied a different social niche from their European hosts, and that is where any selective effect must have operated, the Utah researchers say. From A.D. 800, when the Ashkenazi presence in Europe is first recorded, to about 1700, Ashkenazi Jews held a restricted range of occupations, which required considerable intellectual acumen. In France, most were moneylenders by A.D. 1100. Expelled from France in 1394, and from parts of Germany in the 15th century, they moved eastward and were employed by Polish rulers first as moneylenders and then as agents who paid a large tax to a noble and then tried to collect the amount, at a profit, from the peasantry. After 1700, the occupational restrictions on Jews were eased

Here's my quibble, and I'm sure people who know more have an answer. But, the percentage of Jews in medieval moneylending alone has to be a very small number out of the total demographic pie. I mean most medieval Jews were in agriculture (or at least I'm pretty sure they were). Most of the Ashkenazi Jews I know are descended from the Shtetl not from long lines of bankers. It seems farfetched to me to imagine that this small stratum of financiers could be responsible for the widespread genetic effects described in the article.

But that doesn't mean I disagree with the larger thrust of the piece. I do believe there was natural selection for intelligence among Ashkenazi Jews, I just think it was more widespread and had less to do with class and occupation than the Times article would suggest. In the Jewish community, at least as I understand it, it was always better to marry a rabbi than to marry, say, a butcher (though a butcher was an excellent catch). The competition to become a rabbi was considerable and the requirements for the job were intellectually formidible. Moreover, speaking broadly, Jews valued education, literacy etc for its own sake.

While it's obviously the case that the Jews' status as moneylenders owed a great deal to Christian theology, anti-Semitism and the like, it was also in a sense a natural consequence of the fact that Jews were well qualified for the jobs in the first place. There were other peoples, tribes and the like who could take the jobs. But last time I checked there weren't that many famous Gypsy financiers. The Jewish emphasis on education made them the natural choice. The fact that this in turn only lead to even greater opportunities only proved to Jews that their instincts in favor of education were correct.

Anyway, if I'm wrong about this, I'd be glad to hear it.