Did my matzos come?

Blogger Tim Newman:

To the average Yank, and to a great many other people (including myself), the Kyoto Protocol looks as though it has been craftily developed by political parties wishing to hobble the US economy. . . . This became evident when the US tried to incorporate a carbon trading system into the Protocol, which would enable them to purchase carbon dioxide allowances from those (usually poorer) countries with a surplus. A thoroughly sensible suggestion, one would have thought; the poor countries make money, the US is given an incentive to reduce its pollution, and the level of emissions is to some degree controlled. But No! cried the great and the good of the world. That would not do at all. Sneaky Yanks typically trying to buy their way out of their commitments! No, they must incorporate their commitments at home, thus hobbling their economy in return for little demonstrable benefit. . . .

Incidentally, when people refer to the US as "the world's biggest polluter", it raises some interesting questions. Firstly, how accurate is the data coming from countries like Russia and China? Are we to believe that the respective governments are open and honest about their emissions, in the same way that they used to be open and honest about their economy, political freedoms, etc.? Personally, I wouldn't trust what the Putin government told me for one second. And secondly, the term "world's biggest polluter" is somewhat misleading in itself. It may be the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, but the two are not the same. In effect, the statement lumps together all kinds of pollution and fails to recognise that some kinds of pollution are worse than others. It is like referring to a town which is plagued by shoplifting as having the highest crime rate, when a town nearby is plagued with murders, albeit but of fewer number than that of shoplifters in the first town. Thirdly, does anyone honestly believe the likes of Russia is going to implement the carbon cutting measures, and truthfully report its emissions figures?

(Via Tim Worstall, via Norm Geras.)
 

New Scientist:

Lush wetlands once covered 15,000 square kilometres of southern Iraq, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The fabled marshlands are thought by some biblical scholars to have been the location of the Garden of Eden and The Flood. The lands were home to millions of native and migratory birds, as well as Marsh Arabs, who had fished and grazed water buffalo in its waters for more than 5000 years.

But more than 90% of the area was destroyed in the 1990s by the diversion of water for agricultural irrigation, as well as deliberate draining ordered by Saddam Hussein in retaliation for the Marsh Arab's uprising after the first Gulf War.

Shortly after end of Saddam's regime in 2003, local Marsh Arabs returned to the area and destroyed dams in an effort to reflood the region (reported in New Scientist in October 2003). Around 20% of the marshland has now been reflooded.

. . . Richardson told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington, DC, US, that these efforts have just begun to breathe life back into the marshes. The flooding has brought the return of thousands of birds to the marshlands, as well as smooth-coated otters, Curtis says.
 

Lovely tribute to the former "Grammarian" of The New Yorker:

Six decades ago, not long after being hired by Harold Ross as a copy editor at The New Yorker, a shy young woman, an Oberlin graduate, set to work on a manuscript by James Thurber and soon came across the word "raunchy." She had never heard of the word and thought it was a mistake. "Raunchy" became "paunchy." Thurber's displeasure was such that the young woman barely escaped firing. Later, according to his biographer Harrison Kinney, Thurber wrote that "facetiously" was the only word in English that had all six vowels in order. What about "abstemiously"? the copy editor replied. Thurber, who was not easily impressed, was finally compelled to ask, "Who is Eleanor Gould?"

And from the Los Angeles Times:

"I do grammar, I go for sensible sentences, I avoid awkwardness, avoid ambiguity, try to make a thing hang together," Gould told the Wall Street Journal in 1990. By the end of a typical day, she said, "I have a sore arm like a pitcher."

(Via Norm Geras.)
 

From the March 2005 Razor, which describes them as "sad but true - each and every one." In a way, I admire the guys who could deliver these:

"Hey you wanna get a pizza and f***?"

"Damnnnn Baby! You got a nice a**, why don't you get back over here and let daddy get a grab at it!"

"You're hot enough to be a porn star!"

"Do you drink milk? Cause it's done your body good."

[First, grab a**] "Pardon me, is this seat taken?"

"Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?"

"Thank your mother, your father and your dentist for me!"

"Hey, have you ever wanted to model in Vogue? My Uncle lives out here and is looking for new talent."

[I think this is the woman talking] "This guy once took my hand and placed a quarter in my palm. I asked him what it was for and he said, 'That's the quarter you are going to use to call your roommate and tell her you're not coming home tonight.'"

"Is that a keg in your pants? Cause I wanna tap that a**!"

"Can I buy you a drink or do you just want the money?"

"Did you raise chickens when you were young? Well you sure are raising c*** now!"

And the "worst pick-up line ever":

"I want to drink your bathwater."

UPDATE: Dave Barry gives the man's side:

I vividly remember when I was in 10th grade, and I wanted to call a girl named Patty and ask her to a dance, and before I picked up the phone, I spent maybe 28 hours rehearsing exactly what I was going to say. So when I actually made the call, I was pretty smooth.

''Hello, Dance?'' I said. ''This is Patty. Do you want to go to the Dave with me?''

Fortunately Patty grasped the basic thrust of my gist and agreed to go to the dance. This was a good thing, because if she had shot me down, I would have been so humiliated that I would have never have been able to go back to school. I would have dropped out of 10th grade and lied about my age and joined the U.S. armed forces, and as a direct result the Russians would have won the Cold War.

That is the awesome power that you women have over us men. I hope you understand this, and the next time a guy walks up and uses some incredibly lame, boneheaded line on you, I hope that, instead of laughing at him, you will remember that he is under the intense pressure of wanting to impress you enough so that you might want to get to know him better and maybe eventually, perhaps within the next 15 minutes, mate with him, thereby enabling the survival of the human race, which believe me is the only thing that we males are truly concerned about.
 

Caroline Glick:

Sharon has not explained how turning Gaza over the Palestinians will enhance Israeli security.

He has not explained how Israel will protect itself from rocket and mortar attacks on Ashkelon, Ashdod or Netivot after the withdrawal.

He has never explained why it is necessary to give the Palestinians the communities in northern Gaza - Dugit, Alei Sinai and Nissanit - which are geographically indistinguishable from Ashkelon and whose heights control the entire area.

He has never explained how Israel will be able to defend the strategic sites like the Ashkelon power station and the Ashkelon-Eilat oil pipeline with Hamas roaming freely on those heights.

He has never explained why it is necessary for Israel to remove itself to the 1949 armistice lines, rather than retain the areas necessary for its security and what Israeli acceptance of these lines in Gaza means for future negotiations regarding the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Because of the absence of real debate in the Knesset or in the press, and the concerted effort by the government and the media to criminalize political speech, the Israeli public is being denied the one thing that distinguishes a democracy from a tyranny: the ability of the citizenry to make informed decisions and to hold their leaders accountable for their actions.

This withdrawal will make Israel far less safe and will win it no new support, except, I hope, from the US.
 

Here. No, I don't know why.

Driving tonight I heard a minute of Laura Ingraham (smart, obnoxious) interviewing, or debating, or harassing, whatever she does on her radio show, Richard Walter, the director of UCLA's Screenwriting program. Ingraham feels strongly that The Passion of the Christ should've been nominated in one or more of the big Oscar categories (director, picture, actor). Walter found the movie boring. I haven't seen it, and I don't care much either way, so I turned off the radio.

Columnist David Limbaugh describes the subject of The Passion as "what many would consider the most important half-day in the history of the universe." To a nonbeliever, though, watching The Passion must be like watching the climactic fight in Rocky (or The Matrix, or Star Wars, etc.) without seeing any of what precedes it. You know it's important and grueling, but you won't be greatly stirred. Devout Christians (and Muslims, I suppose) enter the theater worshipping the hero, ready to suffer with him and celebrate his triumph. The rest of us don't.

The reason The Passion was shut out from the top Oscars could be simple: it didn't move those who didn't already believe.
 

Just now on er, medics in Iraq were treating a wounded soldier who comes from Vermont:

Medic 1: Must be freezing there. Thank God you're here, right?
Soldier: God or Don Rumsfeld.
Medic 2: Gotta go with the SecDef we've got, not the one we wish we had.

I like er a lot as a rule, but the gratuitous political comments (always, always against Bush and co.) are beginning to reach me.

I favored the war in Iraq, consider it to have been a great success, and hope our troops stay there a while to help give the new government stability. Still, this passage by Paul Johnson, who also supported the war, troubles me:

[T]he U.S. . . . has shown that it knows how to use its position as the world's sole superpower with judgment, honor and unselfishness.

I think Abraham Lincoln would be proud of what George W. Bush and the U.S. forces have done. After the freeing of the slaves, what more logical and benevolent step could there be than to free millions of Arabs from the slavery of terror?

Let me suggest that Lincoln's approval might've been less than undiluted. He might, for instance, have questioned the government's right to use citizens' money, given involuntarily, and soldiers' lives for the sake of "unselfishness." By the time we exit Iraq, we'll have spent hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds, and thousands of Americans will have been wounded and killed. That kind of largesse can be justified solely by urgent national need. A wish to be "benevolent" doesn't suffice.

Our liberation of Iraq was good because it benefited us, not because it benefited others (except insofar as by benefiting others it benefited us). I'm thrilled that the Iraqis are free of Saddam, and I hope they build a prosperous and tolerant country. But the action we took was proper only if we took it in order to make ourselves stronger and safer. Benevolence shouldn't be our goal, and the more expensive the undertaking, the more selfish we should be. We are, as Mark Goldblatt once wrote, "the most benevolent world power in the history of the planet." When we pursue our aims we try mightily to avoid unnecessary harm to others, and we don't seek to conquer or enslave. But national selflessness isn't, and shouldn't be, our aspiration.

Perhaps I've misrepresented Johnson, who's much smarter and more knowledgeable than I. If you read his whole piece you may feel that by focusing on these few sentences I've distorted his meaning. What happened to me when I read it, though, is the opposite: these few sentences, from the final two paragraphs, changed my view of the rest of it. A couple of weeks ago John Derbyshire asked war supporters, "Have you all taken leave of your senses?" If Johnson's sentiment as I've characterized it is what Derbyshire's been facing, I can sympathize with him.

(Link to Johnson's piece via Betsy Newmark.)  

Anthony Browne:

The trend towards diversity is a uniquely Western phenomenon. Few in Japan are remotely bothered that, outside a couple of districts of Tokyo, you never see any whites or blacks, and the Ghanaians are unperturbed that white people there are as rare as snow. . . . From the English in the south of France and the Canaries to the Bangladeshis in Tower Hamlets to the Jews in Israel to the African Americans in Harlem to the whites in South Africa, self-segregation is one of the most powerful forces in human communities. . . . Self-segregation is apparent all around us, but there is a reluctance to accept it because it mocks multiculturalism.

And as our minorities keep telling us, it is not easy being a minority, since in democracies it is the majority that sets the rules. Despite all the celebrations of diversity, people around the world overwhelmingly prefer the familiar. We are a world of stick-in-the-muds. . . .

The slowing of mass migration is good for those who appreciate real diversity. The decline of diversity within countries preserves the diversity between them. . . . As Alexander Solzhenitsyn said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech attacking multiculturalism, `the disappearance of nations would have impoverished us no less than if all men had become alike, with one personality and one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities.'
 

Nonsense to you, perhaps, but a milestone for me. If you wish, you can go here to enter your handle, choose your board (4x4 or 5x5) and join the melee. I warn you, though: several people to whom I recommended the site have found it near-addictive.

I don't subscribe to Texas Monthly, so I can't read beyond the first two paragraphs of Kinky Friedman's latest column. Too bad (for me), because it starts well:

WHY WOULD THE AUTHOR of a successful series of mystery novels featuring himself as the central character want to commit literary suicide by killing off his hero? Is the author, who just happens to be named Kinky Friedman, subconsciously jealous of the fictional fame garnered around the world by the character, who also happens to be named Kinky Friedman? Have author and character melded into a psychotic, schizophrenic entity so clinically ill as to obscure the difference between important clues like cocaine and horseradish? Both of us are glad you asked.

The truth is, by the time you've written your seventeenth mystery novel, if you ain't crazy, there's something wrong with you. If you happen to be your own main character, it tends to be even worse. There are some things that the two of you may have in common, of course. You both may smoke Cuban cigars. You both may drink Jameson's Irish Whiskey. But, after a time, the bad outweighs the good. It doesn't take long to discover, for instance, that the real you and the fabricated you both seem to lust after the same kind of woman. Once a woman's imagination has been captured by a fictional heartthrob, the flesh-and-blood version has a hard act to follow. This is probably one of the reasons a great mystery writer once said, "If you like the book, never meet the author."
 

Mark Steyn:

Remember last year's much trumpeted Nato summit in Turkey? This was the one at which everyone was excited at how the "alliance" had agreed to expand its role in Afghanistan beyond Kabul to the country's somewhat overly autonomous "autonomous regions".

What this turned out to mean on closer examination was that, after the secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, put the squeeze on Nato's 26 members, they reluctantly put up an extra 600 troops and three helicopters for Afghanistan. That averages out at 23.08 troops per country, plus almost a ninth of a helicopter apiece. As it transpired, the three Black Hawks all came from one country - Turkey - and they've already gone back. And Afghanistan is supposed to be the good war, the one Continental officials all claim to have supported, if mostly retrospectively and for the purposes of justifying their "principled moral opposition" to Iraq. . . .

Try to imagine significant numbers of French, German or Belgian troops fighting alongside American forces anywhere the Yanks are likely to find themselves in the next decade or so: it's not going to happen.
 

Dave Barry on (that is, about) prescription drugs:

I liked it better when my only medical responsibility was to stick out my tongue. That was the health-care system I grew up under, which was called ''The Dr. Mortimer Cohn Health Care System,'' named for my family doctor when I was growing up in Armonk, N.Y. . . . I would never have dreamed of talking to Dr. Cohn about Zocor or any other topic, because the longer you stayed in his office, the greater the danger that he might suddenly decide to give you a ``booster shot.''

We did have TV commercials for medical products back then, but these were non-scary, straightforward commercials that the layperson could understand. For example, there was one for a headache remedy — I think it was Anacin — that showed the interior of an actual cartoon of a human head, so you could see the three medical causes of headaches: a hammer, a spring and a lightning bolt. There was a commercial for Gleem toothpaste with Gardol, which had strong medical benefits, as proven by the fact that when a baseball player threw a ball at the announcer's head, it (the ball) bounced off an Invisible Protective Shield.

. . . You, the medical consumer, were not required to ask your doctor about any of these products. You just looked at the commercial and said, ''A hammer! No wonder my head aches!'' And none of these products had side effects, except Gleem, which, in addition to deflecting baseballs, attracted the opposite sex.
 

Two good, tough pieces. Alan Reynolds:

AARP advocates . . . "small adjustments" or "a tune-up." In truth, these "adjustments" involve raising taxes and reducing benefits, thus reducing the return. Nobody knows whose taxes will be raised the most and whose returns will be cut, so the political risk from Social Security is far more unpredictable than the market risk of investing in a balanced mutual fund. The risk of a negative return on Social Security taxes is extremely high for younger college-educated people who work too many years and save too much money, because they will be said to be able to "afford" higher taxes and to not "need" the benefits.

Rich Lowry:

In 1950, 16 workers supported each retiree. By 2040, there will only be two workers per retiree. Does it occur to you that that is very bad news for workers? Or is your ultimate ambition to have each retiree supported by his own individual worker? Perhaps this worker can be made to fan his designated retiree with a palm frond and deliver him fruity drinks poolside?
 

Jeff Jacoby on Natan Sharansky and a country that should listen to him:

``I understand that in the Soviet Union your ideas were important,'' Israel's current prime minister, Ariel Sharon, told him last year, ``but unfortunately they have no place in the Middle East.''

No place, in other words, for the idea that peace between Israel and the Palestinians depends not on unilateral Israeli concessions but on the transformation of the Palestinian Authority. No place for the idea that freedom and democracy can have the same power in the West Bank and Gaza that they had in Japan and Germany after World War II. No place for the idea that Palestinian terror and violence will never cease until Palestinian dictatorship and repression cease.

. . . Soviet dissidents in the 1970s and '80s drew strength from the knowledge that the free world heard their voices and supported their struggle. For Palestinian dissidents today there is no such solidarity. Their voices are barely audible — not because they don't exist, but because the free world isn't listening.
 

From a piece by Daniel Pipes:

American Jews may not have been conscious of it, but they have lived these past 60 years in one of Jewry's golden ages, arguably more brilliant than those in Andalusia, Aragon, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, and Prague. But now, in a milder form than in Europe, Jews face similar currents swirling through American life, especially the Islamist surge coddled by leftists. The golden age of American Jewry, therefore, is ending. American Jews have had the relative luxury of worrying about such matters as intermarriage, coreligionists around the world, school prayer, and abortion; if current trends continue, they increasingly will find themselves worrying about personal security, marginalization, and the other symptoms already evident in Europe.
 

Meeting Lisa Bonet, would you tell her that her name appears in a palindrome?* If yes, would you go on to tell her that the palindrome appears in a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic?

I think I would. Any discomfiture would be unimportant next to the uniqueness of the conversation.

*Lisa Bonet ate no basil.

(Updated 2/26)
 

Rich Lowry on Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor:

A contradiction President Bush's critics have never confronted is that they spent the past four years lamenting the Bush administration's poor diplomacy at the same time they celebrated its top diplomat. They only turned on Powell when he took the administration's case against Saddam Hussein to the world with his February 2003 speech to the United Nations — never mind this is the sort of thing written in a secretary of state's job description (it wasn't Powell's fault that the prewar intelligence was so grievously flawed).

. . . Powell was the least-traveled secretary of state in 30 years, for a couple of reasons. One was that he wanted to stay home to be better able to engage in the vicious intramural fighting necessary to undermine the president's policy. The other was that he considered travel an inconvenience.

. . . Rice, in contrast, supports the president's policy and is loyal to him, so she has no need to hang around in Washington to indulge in bureaucratic back-stabbing. She is also young and vigorous, a workout obsessive who could beat most other foreign ministers in the world in a 5k race and is up to the rigors of foreign travel. . . . The message of her ascension to the top echelon of the U.S. government couldn't have come at a better time.

Bruce Bartlett on reforming Social Security:

[P]rivate accounts per se accomplish nothing unless accompanied by some reduction in future benefits for those with the accounts. Indeed, without benefit cuts, the creation of private accounts will worsen Social Security's financial woes because the Bush plan contemplates diverting Social Security taxes into the accounts. . . .

The whole point of creating private accounts has always been as part of a trade-off. Workers would lose future Social Security benefits, which is what stabilizes the system's finances, and the income earned on the accounts will compensate them for this loss. . . . [T]he real reason to do it is to prevent a massive income tax increase, not because anyone's benefits are threatened by inaction.

John Derbyshire:

I supported the Iraq war. . . . At what point it turned into an exercise in saving the world, I am not sure. I don't see the point in saving the world if the world doesn't want to be saved, and I can't see that world-saving is anyway essential for our national security. Would we, the U.S. of A., be more secure if all the countries of the world were like Denmark? Surely. Do we actually have a clue how to bring this happy state of affairs about? I doubt it. Can we enhance our security without performing worldwide miracles of cultural transformation? Certainly.

This piece inspired a lot of commentary, largely critical, from Derbyshire's colleagues at NRO. Go here and start scrolling. Very interesting stuff.

The Age (Australia):

It is night-time in Baghdad's al-Askan quarter and Fatima al-Zubaidi, 45, huddles on a cold floor. Between bouts of quiet sobbing, she answers difficult questions.

Amar Ahmed Mohammed, 19, a Shiite with Down syndrome, was a perfect target for the ruthless men of the insurgency - unable to speak because of the severity of his condition, he could not tell anyone he was being groomed for death.

(Via Arthur Chrenkoff.)

USA Today:

Coffee shop Web surfers beware: An evil twin may be lurking near your favorite wireless hotspot.

Thieves are using wireless devices to impersonate legitimate Internet access points to steal credit card numbers and other personal information, security experts warn.

Norm Geras points to three pieces about former world-champion boxer Max Schmeling, who died February 4:

Despite being feted by Hitler, the self-effacing boxer was never a Nazi. He consistently refused to join the Nazi party or sack his American Jewish manager.

In 1938, during the Kristallnacht pogrom, he hid two Jewish boys in his Berlin hotel room. The Nazis responded by drafting Schmeling into the army and he was wounded several times during the war. (Here.)

* * * * *

Schmeling had been selected to fight [Joe] Louis because he was seen as a big-name opponent who was considered past his best. But the German studied Louis's style closely and told reporters, "I think I see something", even though few of his countrymen believed he was capable of winning.

Nevertheless, Schmeling had spotted Louis's tendency to drop his left hand after throwing his jab, leaving him open to right-hand counter-punches and he battered the young Louis to a 12th-round knockout with a barrage of right-hand punches. (Here.)

* * * * *

Schmeling's future would have been different had he lost that first encounter with Louis. During the build-up, friendly US sportswriters described the German as gentlemanly, sportsmanlike and courageous. Their attitude changed dramatically when Schmeling, a huge underdog, flattened the unbeaten Louis with a straight right.

The fight was almost ignored by the Nazi press, after Hitler privately questioned the wisdom of taking on the invincible American; but Schmeling's shock victory led to wild celebrations in Germany. He received congratulatory cables from the propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels; and also from Marlene Dietrich, by then in American exile. (Here.)

Also worth reading is this AP obituary, which includes remarks from other Germans of Schmeling's generation:

"Millions of people literally crawled onto the radio because of the tension — I couldn't sit still, either," recalled German singer and actor Johannes Heesters, now 101. "Someone like him will never be forgotten, not as an athlete and not as a human being."

W. Thomas Smith Jr.:

"It's far more difficult for a U.S. instructor to train an Iraqi soldier, than it is for that same instructor to train an American recruit," Lt. Gen. John Bruce Blount (U.S. Army — ret.) tells NRO. "For one thing, American recruits don't have people shooting at them while they are training. They don't have the fear of an insurgency coming down their backs at any moment."

Blount, a former chief of staff of Allied Forces Southern Europe, also believes those who don't understand the complexities of it all are misinformed if they believe an army can be trained in months or years. "It takes generations," he says. "You can tear down an army with the stroke of a pen. But it's very hard to build an army and ingrain within it values like courage, honor, and commitment."

Martin Kettle in The Guardian:

At some point in the past half-century, classical music lost touch with its public. . . . What went wrong was western European modernism.

. . . So is it goodbye to all that? Not necessarily. The modernist tide has gone out, though parts of western Europe are still mopping up. . . . Classical music's second coming, if it is to have one, could hardly be better timed. The popular music that once filled the place it vacated seems in turn to have largely burned itself out. Here, too, creativity is at its lowest ebb since the early 50s. The space awaiting good new music of any kind is immense.

(Via Stephen Pollard.)

Thomas Sowell:

For a whole generation now, and especially since the orchestrated smear campaign against the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Robert Bork in 1987, Senate confirmation hearings have often had an ugly Roman circus atmosphere whenever a nominee was someone that special interests feared or hated.

At some point, either this administration or some future administration needs to put the brakes on this kind of behavior because many people with achievements and dignity will not agree to become nominees if that means being dragged through the mud by irresponsible politicians on national television. . . .

The kind of process through which individuals are filtered changes the mix of people who emerge on the other side, whether that process is Senate confirmation or any of the other processes through which people must pass to reach a coveted position. . . . Filters matter. The Senate should not become a filter like schools of education that filter out good people.

Mackubin Thomas Owens on Marine Lieutenant General James Mattis:

Unfortunately, the thrust of the criticism by CAIR and others is, alas, correct. The context of the comments makes clear that Gen. Mattis was having some fun and playing to his audience. My criticism of Gen. Mattis is that he forgot that he wasn't trying to inspire his Marines but was instead addressing a civilian group with press present. We wouldn't want the ladies of the press getting a case of the vapors, now, would we? In addition, anyone who doesn't know Gen. Mattis's record, or who doesn't care about it, can use his comments to paint the Marines as, in the infamous characterization of an assistant secretary of the Army during the Clinton administration, "extremists" out of step with liberal society.

But those who would use Gen. Mattis's words to defame him or — most especially — the Marine Corps owe it to themselves to examine his record as a combat leader in Afghanistan, where he served as a commander of the Naval Task Force that seized an advanced airbase at the opening of that campaign; and Iraq, where he commanded the storied 1st Marine Division during the march up to Baghdad. The fact is that Gen. Mattis is probably the finest Marine combat leader since the legendary Chesty Puller.

. . . In retrospect, Gen. Mattis's publicized comments were imprudent. But in his soldier's way, he was making a necessary distinction that many in the press or the courts are not, e.g. those who hold that terrorist detainees are entitled to prisoner-of-war status and the rights put forth in the Geneva Conventions. Nonetheless, we must acknowledge that Gen. Mattis committed a "gaffe" — he blurted out something of the truth.

Rich Lowry on farm subsidies:

Federal subsidies are technically designated only for those who actually work in farming. But that restriction is evaded, sometimes by people occasionally participating in farm-related telephone conference calls. Dubious partnerships are a way to get around restrictions on how much any one operation is supposed to get in federal payments. As a result, some agriculture businesses are little better than Enrons with tractors.

Environmentalists hate the subsidies because they maximize the land under cultivation, therefore increasing the use of pesticides and fertilizer. And they unfairly disadvantage third-world farmers. So how's this for an efficient government program? It doesn't succeed in its express purpose of helping small farmers, but at least it potentially harms the environment and helps further impoverish poor people around the world.

Lawrence Henry:

Then one day Stanley went to each bakery, one by one, took out all the cash, about $50,000, and bet it on a horse.

"It was Willie Shoemaker at Aqueduct," he told me years later. "It was a sure t'ing."

Willie Shoemaker came in second. It all crashed -- the bakeries, the grand apartment, the spoiled heedless girls. Greta and Stanley would never recover from that destruction, because they had never recovered from the earlier, greater destruction wrought upon them.

The destroying didn't stop there. I married the oldest of the three girls. My wife proved to be a thief ("kleptomaniac" understated the problem; she stole), a torturer and killer of small animals (she tormented and killed our kitten, then gigglingly bragged to me about it), a compulsive adulterer, betrayer, and provocateur of interpersonal conflict, even violence.

All this, and more, that I encountered with my in-laws, was so far beyond my naïve Midwestern ken that I simply could not believe I was seeing it. I had imagined, you see, that the Holocaust was a kind of mass industrial evil perpetrated by stiff-backed comic opera villains. I had to realize that it was something else.

R. Emmet Tyrell dislikes this joke from Jon Stewart's book, but it made me laugh:

"The one area Kerry was decidedly unKennedyesque was with the ladies. He lost his virginity his senior year only after an intense lobbying and letter-writing campaign aimed at persuading the school slut to 'grant him franking privileges'"

I still detest The Daily Show, though.

I'm still getting used to the formatting at Powerblogs. If a post doesn't look the way I expected, I'll edit it for appearance and repost it without noting the change.

That's all. Carry on.

Agence France Presse:

A budding romance between a Jordanian man and woman turned into an ugly public divorce when the couple found out that they were in fact man and wife, state media reported.

Separated for several months, boredom and chance briefly re-united Bakr Melhem and his wife Sanaa in an Internet chat room, the official Petra news agency said.

Bakr, who passed himself off as Adnan, fell head over heels for Sanaa, who signed off as Jamila (beautiful) and described herself as a cultured, unmarried woman — a devout Muslim whose hobby was reading, Petra said.

Cyber love blossomed between the pair for three months and soon they were making wedding plans. To pledge their troth in person, they agreed to meet in the flesh near a bus depot in the town of Zarqa, northeast of Amman.

The shock of finding out their true identities was too much for the pair.

Upon seeing Sanaa-alias-Jamila, Bakr-alias-Adnan turned white and screamed at the top of his lungs: "You are divorced, divorced, divorced" — the traditional manner of officially ending a marriage in Islam.

"You are a liar," Sanaa retorted before fainting, the agency said.

Since I was a kid I've had a few recurring dreams, one of which is this: I'm sitting at a table, and I have the feeling that if I "play" the table as though it's a piano, it'll sound like a piano. I tentatively put my fingers where the keys would be, and . . . it sounds like a piano, and I start playing the table (brilliantly). All of which is to say that I really, really want this. I don't need it, but I want it.

Michael Ledeen:

President Bush promised the Iranian people that we would support them in their struggle for freedom, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has reiterated that promise on her trip to Europe. . . . The president's two revolutionary speeches have had a powerful impact on the Middle East, and he should follow up quickly. The entire region is bubbling with the giddy brew of democratic revolution, and the Iranians, proud of their long traditions of self-government, do not wish to remain an anomaly, the lone tyranny sandwiched between the emerging democracies of Afghanistan and Iraq. They will be looking for the president to fulfill his vows, challenging the mullahcracy in Tehran.

. . . The only meaningful election in Iran would be a referendum on the legitimacy of the regime itself. Let the people judge the consequences of 25 years of theocratic rule by voting it up or down. . . . A national referendum has been proposed by numerous Iranian leaders of considerable prestige, most of whom are in Iran, including victims of torture and extended periods in jail. The list of supporters includes one unexpected name: Mohsen Sazgara, the founder of the dreaded Revolutionary Guards and one of Khomeini's original team. It includes pro-democracy activists and some of the leading theological figures in the country. At last count, more than 18,000 Iranians of different political loyalties had endorsed it (see www.60000000.com).

Thus far, no Western leader has endorsed the call for an Iranian referendum. Now is the time. If the mullahs unexpectedly accept it, they will either receive confirmation of their claims to legitimacy, or be permitted to peacefully leave their posts. If they reject it, then no Western leader will be able to dismiss the calls for democratic revolution in Iran, and a united West can do for Iran what was done for Ukraine.

This meets all the president's requirements as well as those of many of his critics. It spreads freedom, which is the best way to defeat the terrorists (a freely elected government in Iran will almost certainly be a mortal blow to the terror network), and it does it without dropping a bomb or firing a shot. It reasserts the principles of the Declaration of Human Rights, and reminds the world's tyrants that their power can only be legitimate if it rests upon the consent of their people. How can any real democrat oppose it?

Norm Geras points to this story (subscriber-only):

Madcap idea of the week A Chinese inventor has developed a technique for growing his own furniture. The man, named only as Mr Wu by the China Morning Business View newspaper, moulds elm branches into shape while the tree is still growing. He says it takes five years to grow a chair, but has one already at his home in Liaoning City and six more growing in a nearby field.

Melanie Phillips:

An astonishing document has been produced by Freedom House's Centre for Religious Freedom. Drawing on some 200 books and other publications associated with Saudi Arabia which were gathered from a number of American mosques, it provides an utterly horrifying picture of how Saudi is indoctrinating potentially thousands of American Muslim citizens to hate America and work against its democracy and its interests.

These documents instruct American Muslims not only not to integrate but to hate and attack all unbelievers in America. . . . The books and pamphlets tell them that the only purposes for living in America are to represent a Muslim government, conduct commercial transactions, seek medical care, study, seek converts to Islam, and uncover the infidels' corrupt ways, erroneous beliefs, and plots they may be hatching against the Muslims.

Tim Blair has several worthwhile quotes from Americans there.

The American Spectator:

Wine was served -- much to the outrage of the Iranian guests -- then all alcohol was removed. Soup spoons were removed -- not for religious or any other reason, apparently -- leaving guests to twiddle their thumbs while their soup got cold. Then it was discovered by the Iranians that the main course featured non-hallal meat.

And through all of this, there was no Joe Biden to calm nerves or build bridges.

. . . The dining disaster was the talk of Davos, though got comparatively little coverage here in the United States. "This kind of thing could have happened to anyone, but the fact that it happened to Biden is just too rich," says a Republican congressional staffer who traveled with his boss to Davos. "The Biden people were pushing this dinner as a very high profile thing, then all of sudden they are trying to kill any story they can."

(Via Betsy's Page.)

Peggy Noonan liked the SOTU.

Medical errors.

Sarah El Shazly:

It is not my intent to discuss who belongs in that tiny region called Israel, but I will risk being shunned by my own community to set the record straight. The question is: why did Arabs flee the area that became Israel? After all, the ones who remained in their homes still live there today and prosper.

The fact is that the Arab world warned the Palestinians against staying with the Jews. They also warned them that Arabs were going in to fight the Zionists and that the Palestinians should leave to avoid getting hurt.

Many Palestinians trusted these Arab leaders and left as instructed. Those who had lived with Jews for a long time were not as easily convinced of the danger, and these Arabs stayed home. Among them was my family, which saw cars traveling the area. The cars contained Jews. They reassured Arabs that they would not be harmed. Thus, we had a situation where Jews begged Arabs to stay and live with them, while Arabs from foreign countries told them to leave right away.

Palestinians have gotten the short end of the stick in Arab society. It suits Arab leaders to keep this group in a state of poverty and conflict, and to channel all resentment toward the Jews. You don't believe me? Ask yourself why Jordan or Egypt or Syria never gave the Palestinians a country? If I hear another non-Palestinian, especially an American Muslim, repeat the phrase "over 50 years of the Zionist occupation," I'm going to burst. Can no one actually read history? It's not ancient history, just 1948-1967. Who had that land? Even if Arabs want Palestinians to have "all" the land, this is no excuse for denying them an independent state. And yet, we blame Israel!

(Via Melanie Phillips.)

Alan Reynolds:

The New York Times provided a revealing example of who really lobbies for government regulation and why. The article "Coffee, Tea or Regulation?" was about political efforts to get the government back in the business of regulating airline fares and routes.

"Representatives of labor unions and some consumer groups," it explained, "long for the stability of the time, before 1978, when the government decided fares and determined where airlines would fly. ... These groups say it is time to consider reregulating airlines. ... Because the Democratic Party, a traditional ally of organized labor, is out of power, Congress could easily turn a deaf ear. But that is not stopping union leaders and others from floating ideas, like asking the government to require airlines to charge a flat fee per seat mile. ... Some people have even suggested forbidding companies to start new airlines."

Asking the government to ban discounts and new competition is blatant special interest group pleading, rebuked by all objective economists. [. . .] "Airline executives," the article notes, "say they never anticipated that deregulation would precipitate a crisis as deep or as long as the present one, in which the industry has lost $30 billion over the last five years, compounded by high jet fuel prices that have removed the airlines' breathing space." The implication that big airlines recently began losing money because of deregulation in 1978 is as illogical as blaming deregulation for high oil prices. Still, it should not be surprising that executives of older airlines believe their jobs would be much easier under a regulated cartel than battling competition from upstarts like Southwest and Jet Blue.

Melanie Phillips:

Prince Harry has provoked uproar over the Nazi swastika he wore to a fancy-dress party. . . . I find the outrage being expressed in Britain and Europe quite sickening in its hypocrisy. Anti-Jewish prejudice is rampant; newspaper columnists, MPs and TV presenters chatter about the global Jewish conspiracy; the Jewish state is defamed daily and Israelis compared to Nazis; anti-Israel boycotts are organised by academics; a lionised literary critic calls for Israeli settlers to be shot and writes about the 'Zionist SS'; and yet all this passes virtually without comment, indeed is even endorsed by a large section of the population, but when silly, spoilt Prince Harry puts on a swastika armband as a joke suddenly everybody starts screaming about Auschwitz and ignoring the suffering of the Jews and gross disrespect to the war dead and so forth.

Which all goes to underline the point that people are very keen to stand up for the Jews as long as they are safely dead and a tragic chapter in history over which to wax indignant. It's the live Jews they can't stand.

Ann Coulter has a good collection of quotes from before-the-fact skeptics on Iraq's elections. I especially like this:

Kerry warned Americans not to "overhype this election" - and if there's one guy who's good at calming down excited voters, it's John Kerry.

Caroline Glick:

Thursday, Israel's "security cabinet" - stacked with security geniuses like Shimon "Arafat's Great" Peres and Haim "Israel is Bad" Ramon - decided to release 900 Palestinian terrorists from prison. This is just the latest of the Israeli payoffs to the democratically elected PA leader Mahmoud Abbas.

And what has Abbas done to deserve such largesse? He has purportedly reached an agreement with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah that involves these terrorist groups temporarily ceasing their attacks. (This is probably news to the Israelis in Gaza who had 15 mortars and rockets lobbed at them over the past few days.) During this temporary cessation of terrorist attacks, the terrorists will not be disarmed. If they desire, Abbas told a Russian newspaper this week, they can be integrated into the Palestinian security services. Those would be the same security services to which Russia pledged to donate helicopters; to which Turkey has asked to donate uniforms and guns; which Rice says America will train; and which President Bush wishes to finance.

And, if terrorists are dissatisfied with the pace of Israeli withdrawals or other appeasement measures, Abbas promised them that they can always go back to murdering Israelis.

. . . As to reform of Palestinian institutions, in one of his first "law enforcement" actions, Abbas instructed the PA's mufti to speed up the process of executing the 51 Palestinians who have been sentenced to death by Palestinian "courts." At least seven of those 51 were convicted of the capital crime of "collaborating" with Israel.

Then there is the question of economic transparency, which the US demands Abbas shore up. In an interesting move on this score, one of the first "economic" issues that the Palestinians raised this week was their demand to reopen the casino in Jericho. That particular edifice is the concrete manifestation of everything that is corrupt about the PA and about the "peace process" itself. PA security boss Jibril Rajoub, Abbas and Arafat economic advisor Muhammad Rashid and Abbas himself have all been investors in the casino. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's adviser, Dov Weisglass, represents casino shareholders. And the late Yossi Ginnosar, who set up meetings between Sharon's son Omri and Yasser Arafat back when Sharon first came into office four years ago, was both a member of the Board of Directors of the Shimon Peres Peace Center and an investor in the casino. Indeed, Omri's first meeting with PA officials which took place during his father's 2001 election campaign took place in Vienna. The meeting was arranged by Weisglass at the offices of Martin Schlaf, the casino's main stockholder during Sharon's election campaign in 2001.

. . . So, here we are again, at the dawn of a new peace process which will bring no peace; will legitimize terrorists and the authoritarian regimes that support them; will weaken Israel's democratic institutions while endangering its citizenry; and will engender scorn for America and faith in Israel's eventual destruction in the hearts of millions of people who today waver between support for freedom and support for terror.

George Will:

The absence of public clamor for tax reform is partly explained by the fact that federal tax revenues as a percentage of GDP are at the lowest level -- 16.2 percent -- since 1959. Perhaps the promise of simplicity -- a code ``easy to understand,'' as the president said Wednesday in his State of the Union address -- can stir the interest of taxpayers. Campaign finance laws are now such a mare's nest of ill or undefined terms that no candidate can be confident that he or she is not breaking the law. The tax code, too, is like that for many of the 87 percent of tax filers -- 114 million of them -- who do not use the short form. Furthermore, it is offensive that performing the civic duty of paying taxes is so daunting that the percentage of people relying on professional help to perform it is at an all-time high.

Anthony Browne:

The family of an 18-year-old girl whom Yasmin was helping found that she had been hiding a Bible in her room, and visiting church secretly. "I tried to do as much as possible to help her, but they took her to Pakistan `on holiday'. Three weeks later, she was drowned — they said that she went out in the middle of the night and slipped in the river, but she just wouldn't have done that," said Yasmin.

Ruth, also of Pakistani origin, found out recently that she had only just escaped being murdered. When she told her family that she had converted, they kept her locked inside the family home all summer.

"They were afraid I would meet some Christians. My brother was aggressive, and even hit me — I later found out he wanted me dead," she said. A family friend had suggested taking her to Pakistan to kill her, and her brother put the idea to her mother, who ruled against it. "You are very isolated and very alone. But now, my brother is thinking about changing and a cousin has made a commitment to Christianity."

(Via LGF.)

Theodore Dalrymple:

A few years ago, prostitutes disappeared from the pages of medical journals; they returned as "sex workers." Nor did they work in prostitution any more: they were employees in the "sex industry."

. . . The editors who decided on the new terminology almost certainly felt, and probably still do feel, a warm glow of self-satisfaction (one of the few emotions than never lets you down). . . . How morally brave and daring they must have felt, to fly so boldly in the face of two millennia of unthinking condemnation!

Unfortunately, ideas—or in this case attitudes—have their consequences. . . . If prostitution really is a trade like any other, with no particular moral opprobrium attaching to it, why should women (or for that matter men) who receive state benefits not be coerced into prostitution under threat of losing their benefits, just as they can be coerced into taking any other job that becomes available?

In fact, this is precisely what has just happened in Germany. Government officials have threatened a young unemployed waitress in Berlin with a reduction in her state unemployment benefit for turning down a job in a brothel.

Jonah Goldberg on Iraq's elections:

In May of 2004, David Brooks wrote a much-discussed column titled "For Iraqis to Win, the U.S. Must Lose." In it he made an eloquent case that Americans snatched the victory from Iraqis. We defeated Saddam, not the Iraqi people. If they were going to take pride in their liberation they would need to feel some ownership of it. . . .

The Iraqis now have their heroic story of resistance. . . . They have their narrative, their symbols, their victory.

. . . Politics is about choosing symbols. We've chosen ours. They will choose theirs. And this is a great one.

Washington Post:

[R]ace and class may be more important than the actual levels of disorder in shaping how whites, blacks and Latinos perceive the health of a neighborhood.

. . . The survey results showed that race was a factor in how residents perceived their neighborhood. White residents were far more likely to report disorder than black or Latino residents living in the same neighborhood. . . . But then the number-crunching got really interesting. As the proportion of black residents in a neighborhood increased, white residents' perception of disorder also soared -- even in neighborhoods that the raters had judged to be no more ramshackle than others with a smaller proportion of black residents.

. . . Much to the researchers' surprise, they saw the same patterns when they looked at the perceptions of black residents. As the percentage of African Americans in the neighborhood increased, the percentage of black residents who judged their neighborhood to be in disarray also rose -- out of proportion to the neighborhood's rating. In fact, the perceptions of blacks were no less likely than those of whites to be negatively affected by an increasing number of black residents.

Among Latinos, the pattern was even starker. They were far more likely than either blacks or whites to be negatively affected by the increased presence of black residents, the researchers found.

(Via A Constrained Vision, via Stuart Buck.)

New York Times:

In the first week after the elections, the Iraqi Interior Ministry and the Mosul police chief are turning the tables on the insurgency here in the north by using a tactic - videotaped messages - that the insurgents have used time and again as they have terrorized the region with kidnappings and executions.

But this time the videos, which are being broadcast on a local station, carry an altogether different message, juxtaposing images of the masked killers with the cowed men they become once captured.

. . . [O]fficials in Mosul, short on manpower, apparently hope the psychological force of the broadcasts will help undermine the insurgency, making its fighters appear weak and encouraging citizens to call up with their reactions or information about those still at large. A program loosely based on "most wanted" crime shows in the United States is also being developed, a Mosul television official said.

"Because of their confessions and the disgusting things they did, we have reached our limit," said the Mosul police chief, Ahmed al-Jaburi. "There is no more patience."

(Via LGF.)

John R. Diggs, Jr., MD:

At some colleges the rate of HPV infection stands at 20%, or 1 in 5 young women. Two decades of condom and "safe sex" promotion has resulted in more than 65 million Americans over age 12 having an incurable STD according to the Centers for Disease Control.

I shall limit my remarks to HPV since it is (1) the most prevalent STD, (2) very high numbers of students are infected, and (3) it can lead to cervical cancer in women. But it must be emphasized here that nearly all cervical cancer is caused by HPV. Moreover, in the USA, more women die from cervical cancer than die from AIDS!

. . . The most dangerous misinformation surrounding HPV today is the myth that prophylactics will protect women. . . . [S]cientifically, condoms have been shown to be ineffective in significantly reducing HPV transmission.

(Via Newmark's Door.)

David Brooks:

Since the 1960's there has been a breakdown in the machinery that allowed Americans to work together across class and other divisions. The educated class has come to dominate, and the issues of interest to that class overshadow issues of interest to the less educated and less well off.

But the two major parties were affected unequally. The Republican coalition still contains some cross-class associations, like the N.R.A. and the evangelical churches, which connect corporate elites to the middle classes. The Democratic coalition has fewer organizations like that. Its elite - the urban and university-town elite - has less contact with the less educated.

Not coincidentally, Republicans have a much easier time putting together electoral majorities.

The story doesn't end there.

Over the past two years, what we might loosely call the university-town elite has come to dominate the Democratic Party not just intellectually, but financially as well.

New Scientist:

A lack of mates among human ancestors that lived million years ago has left modern humans more vulnerable to genetic disease, a new study suggests.

Researchers . . . focused on portions of DNA close to protein-coding genes. These segments are thought to regulate the activation of these genes.

The researchers calculated that these stretches of human and chimp DNA contained approximately 140,000 non-advantageous mutations, higher than expected and well above the number of retained genetic mutations seen in rats and mice. . . . The researchers believe the high rate of mutations is seen because the hominid ancestor to both species went through an evolutionary bottleneck, when its breeding population was limited to only about 10,000 individuals.

(Via Marginal Revolution.)

Times of London:

In interviews for this article over many months, western policymakers, Chinese experts, North Korean exiles and human rights activists built up a picture of a tightly knit clan leadership in Pyongyang that is on the verge of collapse.

Some of those interviewed believe the "Dear Leader", Kim Jong-il, has already lost his personal authority to a clique of generals and party cadres. Without any public announcement, governments from Tokyo to Washington are preparing for a change of regime.

. . . Analysts in Seoul say that in recent propaganda pictures the bouffant-haired dictator is wearing the same clothes as in photographs from two years ago, suggesting that they may have been taken then. Observers await Kim's official birthday, February 16, to see if the state media accord him the usual fawning adulation.

According to exiles, North Korean agents in Beijing and Ulan Bator are frantically selling assets to raise cash — an important sign, says one activist, because "the secret police can always smell the crisis coming before anybody else".

(Via Instapundit.)

Washington Post:

With just two months to go before the much-heralded new SAT is given, a team of English professors and psychometricians is poring over sample essays to determine what kind of writing should be rewarded and what penalized. . . .

An essay that does little more than restate the question gets a 1. An essay that compares humans to squirrels -- if a squirrel told other squirrels about its food store, it would die, therefore secrecy is necessary for survival -- merits a 5. Brian A. Bremen, an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin, notes that the writer provides only one real example. Nevertheless, he says, the writer displays "a clear chain of thought" and should be rewarded, "despite his Republican tendencies."

(Emphasis added.)

(Via Marginal Revolution.)

Ralph Peters on General Mattis's remarks:

HOLLYWOOD'S ideal of a Marine is the retired colonel in the film "American Beauty," who turns out to be a repressed homosexual and a murderer. Veterans are supposed to writhe on their beds all night, covered in sweat, unable to escape their nightmares.

War does scar some men. Most vets, though, just get on with their lives — scratch a veteran looking for pity and more often than not you'll find a supply clerk who never got near a battlefield. And some who serve — the soldiers and Marines who win our wars — run to the sound of the guns, anxious to close with the enemy and kill him. They may not love war itself, but they find combat magnetic and exhilarating. They like to fight.

That's fine in movies featuring Brad Pitt as a mythical Greek hero. But God forbid that a modern-day Marine should admit that he loves his work.

Mark Steyn:

In Margaret Thatcher's heyday, she'd tell the naysayers, "There is no alternative" -- a phrase she used so often British Tories abbreviated it to ''Tina.'' In fairness to her opponents, they did have alternatives: It was just that Mrs. T thought they were hopeless and unworkable. But Bush's detractors are literal Tinas: They have no alternatives at all. This week's U.N. report on the Sudan nicely captures the alternative to Bush-style climate change. After months of expressing deep concern, grave concern, deep concern over the graves and deep grave concern over whether the graves were deep enough, Kofi Annan managed to persuade the U.N. to set up a committee to look into what's going on in Darfur. They've just reported back that it's not genocide. Phew, thank goodness for that. It turns out it's just 70,000 corpses who all happen to be from the same ethnic group; could happen anywhere. But it's not genocide, so don't worry about it.

That's the transnational establishment's alternative to Bush dynamism: Appoint a committee that agrees on the need to do nothing.

Norm Geras has posted the results of his latest music poll, in which he asked for the reader's "ten (10) choices for the greatest songs of rock and pop music." I remember only nine of mine:

"America," Simon & Garfunkel
"Blackbird," The Beatles (really Paul McCartney)
"Give Blood," Pete Townshend
"Julia," The Beatles (really John Lennon)
"Kathy's Song," Simon & Garfunkel (really Paul Simon)
"My Little Town," Paul Simon with Art Garfunkel
"Small Blue Thing," Suzanne Vega
"Still Crazy After All These Years," Paul Simon
"Tom's Diner," Suzanne Vega

(My guess, just a wild stab, is that the tenth was written by Paul Simon.)

In choosing, I distinguished pretty sharply between "songs" and "records," which may be why I completely missed the top hundred. (I wonder how many other participants were shut out.)

Let me second Norm's recommendation of pre-Beatles rock 'n' roll to people who haven't heard it. At its best, it's pure pleasure. I'm glad Chuck Berry made the big list, even if I didn't vote for him. He was the period's most skillful lyricist, and thoroughly, enthusiastically American:

Did I miss the skyscrapers, did I miss the long freeway?
From the coast of California to the shores of Delaware Bay
You can bet your life I did, till I got back to the U.S.A.

Looking hard for a drive-in, searching for a corner café
Where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day
Yeah, and a juke-box jumping with records like in the U.S.A.

Well, I'm so glad I'm livin' in the U.S.A.
Yes. I'm so glad I'm livin' in the U.S.A.
Anything you want, we got right here in the U.S.A.

At USATODAY.com's Web Guide for 2/4/05:

Name an eight-letter word for mind-exercising trivia. "Crossword" fits the bill.

Er . . .

William Voegeli:

The notion that liberalism is fundamentally indecipherable was voiced frequently during the 1930s, when liberals absolutely dominated American politics. Raymond Moley, an erstwhile advisor to FDR, wrote of the New Deal in his memoirs, "To look upon these programs as the result of a unified plan, was to believe that the accumulation of stuffed snakes, baseball pictures, school flags, old tennis shoes, carpenter's tools, geometry books, and chemistry sets in a boy's bedroom could have been put there by an interior decorator."

. . . [C]onservatives' questions about the welfare state's ultimate size and cost are turned aside by rhetoric that emphasizes the processes and attitudes that go into building it. What's important, liberals say, is that the creation of government programs to promote social welfare be pursued in a vigorous, confident, optimistic manner, suffused with concern for the vulnerable and respect for the common man, unconstrained by the stifling precepts of the past. . . . Conservatives wonder if all this lofty talk is a smokescreen--they wonder, that is, whether there really are blueprints in a safe back at the central office, detailing the vast, Swedish-style welfare state that is liberalism's ultimate goal for America.

The answer is, probably not. If that answer is correct, it then raises this question: Which would be more troubling--the existence or the absence of those blueprints? That is, should conservatives conclude that liberals pose a graver threat to self-government, freedom and prosperity if they have an ambitious but hidden agenda, or if liberalism has no master plan at all because it is, ultimately and always, an adhocracy?

(Via The Corner.)

New York Times:

The tiny town of Galena, Alaska, which pays three times as much for electricity as the national average, is considering a novel way to cut that cost by two-thirds: a tiny nuclear reactor.

. . . There is a coal seam about 10 miles away. But no one builds coal plants that are small and clean enough, said the manager, Marvin Yoder, and the cost of permits to open a new mine might make the whole project impractical.

The town even looked at solar power, Mr. Yoder said. But demand in Galena is highest in winter, when it is dark 20 hours a day, and residents need electricity to keep cars and even diesel fuel from freezing.

But then along came Toshiba, which performs maintenance and repair work on conventional nuclear reactors around the world. The company is trying to develop a new reactor that would run almost unattended and put out 10 megawatts of power, about 1 percent as much as a typical United States plant.

It sees Galena as a test market for a product that could appeal to other isolated small towns, factories and mines.

(Via Paul Harvey.)

Blogger HedgeFundGuy:

The total unfunded liability of Social Security, adjusted for inflation, is now $17.9 trillion --four times greater than the national debt. And if a private pension, or bank, or mutual fund, operated with this kind of balance sheet, it would be bankrupt today even if it were solvent. That's the difference between solvency and bankruptcy. Ponzi or pyramid schemes are usually bankrupt from day 1, but can stay solvent as long as new suckers outnumber those cashing out. That's why governments have made Ponzi schemes illegal (when not run by the government itself).

Social security is currently solvent and, if it were private, bankrupt.

(Via, indirectly, Newmark's Door.)

Jennifer Harper of the Washington Times looks at "holdouts" among coverage of Iraq's elections:

"Dan Rather looked like he was about to burst into tears," radio host Laura Ingraham said yesterday.

Indeed, the CBS newsman appeared initially mournful over news events that might reflect the success of White House plans to establish Iraq as a democratic stronghold in the Middle East.

"Fear is running high. ... Bombs exploded at two Baghdad schools that are expected to serve as polling stations, and anti-election leaflets were everywhere threatening to, quote, 'Wash the streets of Baghdad with the blood of voters,' " Mr. Rather told viewers.

He later began his main election report with more bad news: "More than 30 people died in insurgent attacks today."

. . . Mr. Rather was not the only gloomy anchor as the election coverage unfolded.

ABC's Peter Jennings noted Sunday, "All over Baghdad today, there is no question that it looked like an occupation."

He later observed that in Sunni regions, "The election process has been rejected. Somehow, the future here is still pretty bleak."

Even after the Baghdad polling places had closed, NBC's Brian Williams detected "general unease," calling the events "a fairly unquantifiable election so far."

(Via Betsy's Page.)

Iraq's elections bring him to mind. Well, to Betsy Newmark's mind. Very interesting post.

Dave Barry explains:

1. IT'S CONFUSING. With ''popular'' music, you understand what's happening. For example, in the song, ''Long Tall Sally,'' when Little Richard sings, ''Long Tall Sally, she's built for speed,'' you can be certain that the next line is going to follow logically (''She got everything that Uncle John need''), and then there will be the chorus, or, as it is known technically, 'the 'Ooh baby' part.'' Whereas in classical music, you never know WHAT will happen next. Sometimes the musicians stop completely in the middle of the song, thereby causing the average Joe, who is hoping that the song is over, to start clapping, whereupon the deceased audience members come back to life and give him dirty looks, and he feels like a big dope. It would help if there were an electronic basketball-style clock hanging from the conductor's back, indicating how much time is left in the song.

Thomas Sowell:

If a battle ends with Americans killing a hundred guerrillas and terrorists, while sustaining ten fatalities, that is an American victory. But not in the mainstream media. The headline is more likely to read: "Ten More Americans Killed in Iraq Today."

. . . One of the biggest American victories during the Second World War was called "the great Marianas turkey shoot" because American fighter pilots shot down more than 340 Japanese planes over the Marianas islands while losing just 30 American planes. But what if our current reporting practices had been used back then?

The story, as printed and broadcast, could have been: "Today eighteen American pilots were killed and five more severely wounded, as the Japanese blasted more than two dozen American planes out of the sky." A steady diet of that kind of one-sided reporting and our whole war effort against Japan might have collapsed.

Mark Steyn:

The Democrats' big phrase is "exit strategy." Time and again, their senators demanded that Rice tell 'em what the "exit strategy" for Iraq was. The correct answer is: There isn't one, and there shouldn't be one, and it's a dumb expression. The more polite response came in the president's inaugural address: ''The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.'' Next week's election in Iraq will go not perfectly but well enough, and in time the number of U.S. troops needed there will be reduced, and in some more time they'll be reduced more dramatically, and one day there'll be none at all, just a small diplomatic presence that functions a bit like the old British ministers did in the Gulf emirates for centuries: They know everyone and everything, and they keep the Iraqi-American relationship running smoothly enough that Baghdad doesn't start looking for other foreign patrons. In other words: no exit.

Glenn Reynolds on Democrats and Iraq's elections:

Bush-hatred has become all-consuming among a large section of the Democratic Party, and they can't stand the thought of anything that reflects well on him, even if it's good for the country, and if it's something that was their idea originally.

The question is whether the Democratic Party — which ought to be cheering events that vindicate Clinton's policies — will do itself fatal damage by giving in to envy. Such small-mindedness doesn't suggest a party that's ready to govern.

(Via Betsy's Page.)

Jay Nordlinger has finished his series of six reports from Davos, Switzerland, on the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum. A few excerpts:

A demographic survey of the participants is done, and we are told that we don't represent the world population at all. We are too old. (Granted, there are no babies present.) There are not enough Latin Americans. And so on. This survey finds that Middle Easterners are "overrepresented" — our percentage of Middle Easterners is much greater than the percentage of Middle Easterners in the world. Much. But no one says we have "too many" Middle Easterners; just too few Latin Americans.

* * * * *

At my table (I am a "facilitator") I discover something that can be discovered anywhere around town: The United States is a stunningly powerful country, even an all-powerful country. It is responsible for nearly everything bad — war, pestilence, famine. It can do anything. Every problem in the world is its fault, and every solution is within its grasp, if only it weren't so malevolent.

The United States could create peace in the Middle East tomorrow, if it were so minded. It could cure AIDS, if it wanted. Two of the problems we have been asked to consider are poverty and American leadership (no, I'm not kidding). But really, I hear, these problems are one, because the United States is the cause of poverty throughout the world.

* * * * *

A panel discussion featuring an amazing sextet: The aforementioned Bill Gates (in his little-boy sweater). Tony Blair, in a suit and tie. Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, in a suit but no tie (in conformity with Annual Meeting rules). Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, in flowing African robes. Bono, the rock star, in leather jacket and shades. And Bill Clinton (suit and tie).

I hate to dwell on the look of this crew, but, oh, it is something to see! Delightful, actually.

* * * * *

I thought you might like to meet Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, son of you-know-who. He is the heir apparent, and he is a mini-star at Davos. . . .

Gaddafi envisions some kind of democratic Libya. Will this include parties? Well, he answers, we can't really have parties; we have tribes instead.

Then he says something utterly fascinating: We Arabs have lost all our wars against Israel because Israel is democratic, and we are undemocratic. In other words (Gaddafi continues), in one of our states, the worst general becomes army chief of staff, because he is no threat to carry out a coup d'état. Loyalty to the number one is all that matters. Democracy, on the other hand, is a competitive mechanism — and that's why Israel wins.

Quips an Israeli at the table, "Please don't ever have a democracy."

I've liked much of what I've read by Stephen Moore, and his suggestion for tax reform looked good to me:

The central idea behind the Freedom to Choose Flat Tax is to create an optional postcard flat tax, which would be offered to tax filers as an alternative to--rather than a replacement of--the current tax code. There would be no deductions whatsoever, except for a generous personal deduction and child deduction.

. . . What I am proposing is an Alternative Maximum Tax of 20%. Under this plan, the tax filer would be allowed to pay the lesser of the two tax liabilities. In fact, this idea eliminates the hated AMT [Alternative Minimum Tax] by simply lowering the tax rate to 20% on all income, and then letting Americans opt into that system if they so wish.

Now Bruce Bartlett has set me straight:

Looking at the Internal Revenue Service's latest published data for tax year 2002, it appears as if the only ones who would benefit are those making more than $200,000 per year. They are the only ones with an effective rate over 20 percent. Even those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000 would not benefit because they now pay an average rate of 16.6 percent.

Steve's plan would add massively to the complexity of the tax system by adding yet another alternative tax system to the already existing Alternative Minimum Tax. However, he says that this would decline over time because once people have chosen the new max-tax system, they could never go back. This means that they must be concerned not just with how the new system would affect them today, but forever. How, for example, would this affect a couple planning to marry, one of whom is in the new system and one in the old? Who knows.

Space limits a full elaboration of all the technical problems with the max-tax. In my opinion, it is simply not a serious idea.

Stanley Kurtz on the SOTU:

This was an excellent speech, well delivered. . . . But what interests me most tonight is the Democrats. . . . The most striking part of the audience reaction tonight was the catcalls during the president's discussion of social security. It's been noted that liberal bloggers have been mostly silent on the Iraqi election. But what have they been talking about. As far as I can tell, the overwhelming topic on the lips of Democrats tonight is social security. You can staunch political wounds on social issues or defense by downplaying those subjects. (Or at least you can try.) But to win, you need a positive theme. The theme the Democrats have chosen is the idea of saving social security from the president's plan. This is why the Democrats are so far united on that issue, and this is why they ostentatiously jeered the president on that point. Social security is the most important Democratic opportunity to hurt the president and make real political gains. Democratic obstructionism on social security could easily backfire. Yet they will likely stop at nothing to turn the American public against the president's proposals. The pressure on Democrats not to break ranks on social security will be immense, because the party senses that its life is at stake in that battle. Yes, the president began his educational efforts on social security well tonight. And I think the public knows in its gut that there is a problem with the system. But the Democrats are going to make this a truly epic struggle.

Don't yell at me, yell at Warren Bell:

[M]en are funnier. Way funnier. Not even close. Male writers, male actors, male stand-up comedians. All funnier. Of course, there are exceptions. There are female performers who are fantastic, pioneers like Lucy and Roseanne who set the standards. I worked for two seasons with Ellen DeGeneres on her ABC series, and I said at the time that Ellen could read the alphabet and get 26 laughs. That is not hyperbole — she really could do that. I am not just trying to stay off a Writer's Guild hit list here — there are many women writers who are spectacularly gifted, inventive, and funny.

But there are a lot more funny men. And the funniest woman of all time in any aspect of the business probably doesn't crack the top ten of all-time funniest people.

John O'Sullivan:

Maybe I am mistaken, but I sense that the reactions to the Iraqi elections--good and bad, including even those on The Corner--don't come near to reflecting its significance. This is an event like Dien Bien Phu or the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It marks a turning point in history. It changes the future, of course, but it also changes the past.

. . . I don't want to seem starry-eyed. A lot can still go wrong. The elections may produce a squabbling demagogic anarchy. The Sunni, having party excluded themselves, may complain of their exclusion and support the insurgency. A shaky Iraqi government may ask the U.S. to withd