Did my matzos come?

David Frum:

The California holding [story here—mg] carries a warning to states (and wavering politicians) all over the country: The middle ground on this issue is rapidly disappearing. The further you extend civil unions or domestic partnerships, the more rights guaranteed by those unions and partnerships, the more we will question why civil unions and domestic partnerships exist at all.

* * * * *

California same-sex couples will be married under state income tax law but not under federal, will be entitled to spousal immunities if charged under state criminal law but not federal, will have one set of rights in contract cases but a different set under bankruptcy ... and on and on.

This is obviously not sustainable. Unlike, say, abortion rights, marriage is peculiarly badly suited to a federalist solution. The California decision settles very little - it sets the stage only for a more protracted national legal and political controversy.

* * * * *

[R]ecent experience in Canada and Europe suggests that for all the passion roused by same-sex marriage as an abstract issue, surprisingly few people will make use of it as a concrete right. In the second half of 2007, for example, the Canadian province of Ontario (population: more than 12 million) issued zero same-sex marriage licenses - even though these licenses now arrive with the full array of marriage rights under both provincial and federal law.
 

A few weeks ago the Weekly Standard published a remarkably interesting piece by Stanley Kurtz on a new book, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East, by anthropologist Philip Carl Salzman. Kurtz calls the book "the most penetrating, reliable, systematic, and theoretically sophisticated effort yet made to understand the Islamist challenge the United States is facing in cultural terms."

I expected Kurtz's article to receive attention from political bloggers, but I've seen none (though Arnold Kling posted a short review of the book itself). Kurtz's essay may be too long for most people to read in these busy times, so I'm going to post an unauthorized abridgment below (which may itself be too long, but one does what one can). This passage, I think, expresses the heart of it:

The religion [Islam] itself is an overlay in partial tension with, and deeply stamped by, the dynamics of tribal life. In other words--and this is [Salzman's] central argument--the template of tribal life, with its violent and shifting balance of power between fusing and fissioning lineage segments, is the dominant theme of cultural life in the Arab Middle East (and shapes even many non-Arab Muslim populations). At its cultural core, says Salzman, even where tribal structures are attenuated, Middle Eastern society is tribal society.

Kurtz sees cause for hope in Salzman's analysis:

While tribalism is in one sense culturally pervasive in the Middle East, tribal practices are less swathed in sacredness than explicitly Koranic symbols and commandments--and are therefore more susceptible to criticism and debate. Even jihad and suicide bombing can be interpreted through a tribal lens. We've taught ourselves a good deal about Islam over the past seven years. Yet tribalism is at least half the cultural battle in the Middle East, and the West knows little about it. Learning how to understand and critique the Islamic Near East through a tribal lens will open up a new and smarter strategy for change.

What I fear, however, is that once Iraq is strong enough to repel outside enemies, internal cultural stresses will rise, and it will become a bloody region of tribal warfare. I hope events prove me wrong.

Click "Read more" for Kurtz's piece as chopped up by me.

HBO's movie Recount: The Story of the 2000 Presidential Election premieres Sunday night. Byron York spoke with Benjamin Ginsberg, an attorney involved in the original events "who consulted with the moviemakers and whose character has a key role in the picture":

"My take is that we won the recount, and they won the movie," Ginsberg told me. "I think they actually did a very good job of capturing the tension and the pace of what we were going through, but it's clearly from the Democrats' perspective. This is a fairy tale that didn't come true for them."

And Mark Goldblatt examines some widely held assumptions, mostly false, about the controversy. Both York's post and Goldblatt's piece are very much worth reading.
 

Craig Newmark:

The nostalgia of certain Liberals for the 70s seems, at first, quite puzzling. Wasn't it a time of rampant sexism and racism? Didn't the decade include a horrific, immoral, lost war, Tricky Dick, terrible stagflation, and . . . disco?

Yes, but I attribute the nostalgia to two things:

1. The Liberal worldview was regnant.

2. Liberals were 30 years younger. As we Baby Boomers age many of us will become increasingly cranky and upset with the present, and I predict the Liberals will be the crankiest and most upset of us all.
 

Neatly summarized by David Freddoso:

They say they want more oil to be produced by OPEC, yet they also want less oil to be produced because it causes carbon pollution. They say they want lower gasoline prices because motorists are upset, yet they also want higher gasoline prices so that more people will conserve.

Call it what you want, but this isn’t leadership.
 

Ann Coulter:

Lots of Britons cheered when Chamberlain returned from Munich and announced "peace in our time." Without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, what on earth makes Chris Matthews think he would not be among them?

As Bush said at the Knesset, "There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words." That was Chamberlain. And that is today's Democratic Party.

What Matthews and the Times are saying is this: We can have a Munich, but we promise to be tougher than Chamberlain was. Therein lies the flaw in their logic. Yes, in the abstract, it is technically possible to "talk" without giving up Czechoslovakia (or in today's case, Iraq or Israel).

But in reality, when talking to a lunatic without having first bombed him into submission, the only possible result is appeasement. . . .

Churchill knew that before Chamberlain went to Munich. But a lot of Britons then, like a lot of Americans today, refused to see that blindingly obvious point.
 

Kim Deal, bassist and vocalist with The Pixies and The Breeders, in an enjoyable interview:

In the beginning, it was just weird to be sober. I was stunned by the length of the day. You just wake up, and you're like, "Okay," and then ten hours later, you're like, "Is this ever going to f***ing end? God, what do people do with their f***ing day, man?"

I've never done drugs of any kind, so I've never had to quit them, but I know exactly what she means.
 

Thomas Sowell:

Even drugs which have been used safely for years in Europe or elsewhere cannot be sold in the United States without the approval of the Food and Drug Administration — which can take years, while people suffer and die from a lack of that drug. Why not allow such drugs to be sold with a bright red label that says: "THIS DRUG IS NOT APPROVED BY THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION. NOR IS IT DISAPPROVED"?
 

Stephen Pollard:

I make a point, as my friends will attest, of wearing a pair of stars and [stripes] cufflinks. It might be slightly pathetic, but I want to demonstrate my solidarity with the nation leading the fight against barbarism.

Understandably, when strangers see but don't hear me, some jump to the conclusion that I am American. And it's instructive to see how some people behave when they see the cuffs.

On countless occasions I have been sneered at, sworn at and, twice, spat at. I would say - my memory is impressionistic on this - that by far the most common insult is a muttered "F*c*ing American". And I cannot recall such behaviour from anyone who looked older than 40ish.
 

Jeremy Haft, author of All the Tea in China: How to Buy, Sell, and Make Money on the Mainland and founding partner of BChinaB Inc., which promises to "[help] source high quality, low cost products and components from China fast and efficiently":

China is our third-largest export market behind Canada and Mexico. Few politicians talk about it, but 406 out of 435 Congressional districts have seen triple-digit export growth to China from 2000-2007. Those exports have created jobs and built value in local communities.

In fact, U.S. exports to China are growing five times faster than any other export market. This is less a function of the falling dollar and more of rising Chinese demand for U.S. products. Put simply, they need what we make – from chemicals and components to turbines and telecommunications, from drugs and medical devices to sewage and sanitation equipment. If a product requires modern technology and precise engineering, chances are, China needs it. Not to mention all the services and after-care required for set up and maintenance.

The broader lesson here applies to our ailing economy. If the International Monetary Fund is right and the U.S. economy is slipping into a recession that will ripple out into the global economy, then that ripple will stop at China's shore. China's demand will help absorb the shock of our solvency crisis.
 

Walter E. Williams:

Every time there's a highly publicized shooting, out go the cries for stricter gun control laws, and it was no different with the recent murder of Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski. . . .

According to former Philly cop Michael P. Tremoglie's article "Who freed the cop-killers?" for the Philadelphia Daily News (5/8/08), all three murder suspects had extensive criminal records. Levon Warner was sentenced in 1997 to seven and a half to 15 years for robbery, one to five years for possessing an instrument of crime and five to 10 for criminal conspiracy. Howard Cain was convicted in 1996 on four counts of robbery and sentenced to five to 10 years on each count. Eric Floyd was sentenced to five to 10 years in 1995 for robbery, rearrested in 1999 for parole violation and later convicted in 2001 for two robberies. If these criminals had not been released from prison, long before they served out their sentences, officer Liczbinski would be alive today. So what's responsible for his death: guns or a prison and parole system that released these three criminals? Tremoglie cites other examples of criminals, with convictions for violent crimes ranging from robbery and assault to murder, who were paroled and later murdered police officers. . . .

There are many third-party liability laws. I think they ought to be applied to members of parole boards who release criminals who turn around and commit violent crimes. As it stands now, people on parole boards who release criminals bear no cost of their decisions. I bet that if members of parole boards were held liable or forced to serve the balance of the sentence of a parolee who goes out and commits more crime, they would pay more attention to the welfare of the community rather than the welfare of a criminal.
 

Robert Lee Hotz:

Beyond the edge of the solar system, something has gradually dragged two of America's oldest space probes -- Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 -- a quarter-million miles off course. Astrophysicists have struggled 15 years in vain to identify the infinitesimal force at play. The Pioneer anomaly, as it is called, throws a monkey wrench into celestial mechanics.

Slava Turyshev may have found the answer in NASA's trash. Reconstructing decades of discarded spacecraft data, the Russian-born astrophysicist and the private space enthusiasts helping him say they believe they are on the verge of solving a mystery of time and gravity that has perplexed a generation of physicists and might have confounded Newton and Einstein.
 

Jay Nordlinger is posting a five-part series from the World Economic Forum in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. I'd quote from it, but I'd have trouble stopping. Today's installment, part four, includes links to parts one through three. If you start with part one, as I'd recommend you do, feel free to skim (rather than read) the list of participants, near the beginning. It's the only section that drags, and you needn't read it in order to follow the rest. (Sorry, Mr. N.)
 

From a report on the Academy of Country Music awards:

Brad Paisley's "Online" won video of the year. It was produced by former "Seinfeld" star Jason Alexander, who also co-starred and made an onstage appearance Sunday night, joking that he didn't believe the stereotype of country stars and fans being religious — seeing as he hadn't spotted any of them at synagogue.
 

Theodore Dalrymple:

Freedom is their enemy or at any rate their downfall. They do not know what to do with it. Impulsive, they do the first thing that comes into their head, which all too predictably leads to disaster. They feel safe in prison, not from their fellow-men, but from themselves. They are like de-railed trains that are put back on the tracks.

Incapable of self-regulation, they nevertheless like routine, predictability and boundaries. These prison provides for them, often for the only time in their lives; they have never achieved them for themselves. Prison is for them a refuge from chaos, the nearest thing they will ever know to a spiritual retreat.

The chaos of their lives can hardly be exaggerated. Their relations with women are so unstructured, and bring them so much grief in the sense of aggravation, that escape from the female presence (it is rarely company) is also a relief for them. Any nagging sense of responsibility for the children that they have carelessly fathered is also suspended while they are in prison, and they are glad of it. If freedom entails responsibility, they want none of it.
 

Anthony Dick, a student at Stanford Law School, in National Review's issue commemorating the life of William F. Buckley Jr.:

Most of my time with Bill came last year, after he asked me to be his research assistant on a book he wanted to write about Barry Goldwater. . . .

One day I noted how nice it must be — getting to spend so much time doing the things he loved, and having so much success at it. He quickly corrected me. He did not love writing. He found it difficult, tedious, and increasingly painful. Nor had he ever loved politics, which was awash in sordidness and banality. He would rather be reading, or sailing, or visiting friends, or enjoying any of the other luxuries his wealth could have afforded. He stayed at work, he said, out of a sense of duty to his country, to repay civilization for all the beauty it had given him, and to resist the totalizing designs of those who would push the tentacles of politics even farther into our lives.

Coming from anyone else, that might have sounded grandiose. Coming from Bill it inspired awe, and a sense of gratitude for the difference he made in the world, which needed him more than he needed it.
 

This (excellent) piece by George Will reminds me of one reason I moved decisively to the right more than ten years ago. That was when I started reading syndicated columnists such as Will, Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Sowell, Ellen Goodman and Molly Ivins. I found that the rightists' columns were consistently better argued than the leftists'; the rightists stated their opponents' views more honorably, and relied more on fact and logic.

Will an influential, nationally syndicated leftist ask tough questions of the Democratic nominee, once chosen? I doubt it.

(Note: I've revised this post for clarity since I first put it up.)

(Later: And again. One would think I'd have this blogging thing better under control by now.)
 

Forty-nine very funny seconds, from Family Guy.
 

This is a highly specialized post I'm putting up in case it might prove useful to others with the condition. Click "Read more" for the rest.

Denis Boyles:

According to pollsters, 69 percent of Afghans think Barack's the candidate most likely to "restore the peace." And what a peace that was, ladies and gentlemen! Why, Kabul was so quiet at night, you could hear a head drop.
 

Thomas Sowell:

When young people go out into the world, what will they have to offer that can gain them the rewards they seek from others and the achievements they need for themselves?

Will they have the skills of science, technology, or medicine?

Or will they have only the resentments that have been whipped up by the likes of Jeremiah Wright or the sense of entitlement from the government that has been Barack Obama’s stock in trade? . . .

This country has come a long way, just in my lifetime.

We don’t need people like either Jeremiah Wright or Barack Obama to take us backward.
 

Mark Goldblatt finds that "the consensus view of contributors to BET's message boards as of Tuesday night . . . is that Jeremiah Wright spoke the truth to power in his speech to the NAACP in Detroit":

The main bone of contention seems to be whether he should have held his tongue until after the election. Keep in mind, too, that the BET audience is decidedly not a radical community; the demographics skew young but mainstream.

Barack Obama is under a microscope that no other serious contender for president has ever been under. He's trying to lasso in voting constituencies that are beyond the zone of rationality, constituencies that see malignant forces aligned against them and have pinned their collective aspirations on his candidacy.

Whatever his policy weaknesses — and there are many — how about cutting him a little slack on the racial dynamics of his campaign?
 

Among many in this "Impromptus" column by Jay Nordlinger:

I remember meeting with Saif Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator’s son, along with other journalists in Davos. He had an explanation for why the Arabs had lost all their wars against Israel: Because Israel is a democracy, and those other countries are not democracies. In a democracy, explained young Qaddafi, merit is key, so that those who rise to the top levels of the military are apt to be capable. In the Arab countries, said Qaddafi, cronyism prevails, so the commanders tend to be no good. That’s why Arabs keep losing wars.

“May you never have democracy,” said an Israeli journalist under his breath. I have never forgotten it, and one can certainly understand it.
___________

Often, when I meet ordinary voters, I’m amazed at what they say. Whom do I mean by “ordinary voters”? People not in the “business”: not journalists, not activists — just folks. At the airport the other day, I talked to two ladies who work for an airline. The conversation turned to politics. They are staunch Democrats, and supporters of Hillary.

One said, “McCain’s going to raise our taxes. I just know it.” She talked about the onerous tax burden on her family, particularly at the state and local levels. And she said again, “McCain’s going to raise our taxes. We have to keep him out of there.”

She talked much like a Republican — but the Republicans are anathema to her.

I make the simple point that the electorate is a very strange beast.
___________

A friend in Palm Springs told me that the American Indians are the richest people around — they own lots of land, which they lease. There was an Indian couple who went shopping for a home. They liked something that cost a million. And, in the next couple of days, they came around and paid in full — cash. And they wondered why the owners couldn’t vacate the home that day.

A charming story — and it makes perfect sense! You buy a loaf of bread, you pay in full, and you pay cash. You buy a house . . . same thing.
 

Dave Barry considers Miami traffic, including a drag race that featured Barry inadvertently "playing the role of Annoying Obstacle":

If you're wondering how I could tell, at night, that these particular blurs were young males, the answer is: because that's who drives that way. That's how I would have driven when I was a young male idiot, except that I was driving my mom's 1961 Plymouth Valiant, which had basically the same top speed as the Lincoln Memorial.
 

Betsy Newmark, who teaches history and government in a Raleigh, NC, high school:

The British newspaper, The Telegraph, has weighed in with its list of the most influential American political pundits. . . .

I know that some commentators are ridiculing the presence of Stephen Colbert as #11 and Jon Stewart as #8. But I observe every day how many of my students only know about news stories because they saw it on Colbert or Stewart's show. I don't imagine that college students are much different.

The Earth is doomed.
 

Gordon G. Chang:

[N]ow that diplomacy with Tehran has failed, what is Washington going to do? We only have two viable choices. We can leave Iraq, or we can do all within our power to stop Iran from killing even more Americans. In my book, no other choice is acceptable. It is simply wrong for our country to send young men and women into battle knowing that some of them will die because we are unwilling to take action against a hostile nation that, as a matter of policy, is killing them.
 

Books For Soldiers is holding a fundraising drive. It's a good site. I've used it for years to find troops looking for books and CDs. This detail from the fundraising request seems to me particularly noteworthy, and despicable: "In our last newsletter, we reported on the hacker attacks that coincided with our 5th Anniversary. Those DNS attacks didn't help our balance sheet. Our final IT bill from the datacenter for that week was a tad over $11,000. If you recall, the hackers brought down the whole datacenter just to try to kill us."

I just made a donation. I hope you'll consider doing the same.
 

Charlotte Allen describes the first annual meeting of Asmea, a new academic society focusing on the Middle East:

[R]elatively few of the 250 attendees last weekend were scholars at universities. Many were members of the military, defense specialists, think-tank researchers and free-lance writers. The presence of the defense contingent was understandable: In today's highly politicized academic climate, many scholarly societies forbid their members to consult for the U.S. military or intelligence services. The scholarship of Asmea's members may be the government's only academic resource for information useful in current Mideast conflicts.

(Emphasis added.)
 

Melinda Beck:

Generic medications have been a boon to consumers around the world, allowing millions to buy lifesaving drugs for pennies a day. Some 65% of all prescriptions dispensed in the U.S. are for generics, though they account for only 20% of the dollars spent, according to the Generic Pharmaceutical Association. . . .

By law, generics must have the same active ingredient and the same action as the brand-name version, which allows them to piggyback on the original safety and efficacy trials. But generics do have different inactive ingredients, which can affect how they are absorbed into the body. . . .

Wellbutrin, made by Biovail Corp. of Canada and marketed by GlaxoSmithKline PLC, is one of the best-selling antidepressants in the U.S., with sales of $1.8 billion in 2006. The FDA approved a generic version of Wellbutrin XL 300 . . . in December 2006. . . . But patients soon started logging complaints about Budeprion at PeoplesPharmacy.com, a Web site that has become a clearinghouse for medication gripes. "We've received hundreds of complaints about generic drugs in general. But with this one drug, all of a sudden -- kaboom -- right after it was approved," says Joe Graedon, a pharmacologist who runs People's Pharmacy with his wife. Readers' postings cite side effects such as tremors, headaches, anxiety and sleep disturbances. Some consumers said their depression had returned, in some cases bringing thoughts of suicide. Many reported that their adverse effects stopped when they returned to the brand-name drug.