BRENNAN'S BOYS:

When Court Clerks Rule (David J. Garrow, May 29, 2005, LA Times)

The recent release of Justice Harry A. Blackmun's private Supreme Court case files has starkly illuminated an embarrassing problem that previously was discussed only in whispers among court insiders and aficionados: the degree to which young law clerks, most of them just two years out of law school, make extensive, highly substantive and arguably inappropriate contributions to the decisions issued in their bosses' names.

Even Roe vs. Wade, Blackmun's most famous decision, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, owed lots of its language and much of its breadth to his clerks and the clerks of other justices. A decade later, when Blackmun's defense of abortion rights shifted from an emphasis upon doctors' medical prerogatives to women's equality, it was his young clerks who were responsible for his increasingly feminist tone.

Blackmun's files, which span his tenure on the court from 1970 to 1994, also show that in some cases over the years, clerks introduced explicitly partisan political considerations into the court's work (once urging that an abortion ruling be issued before a presidential election, so that women could "vote their outrage" if Roe vs. Wade was reversed). Sometimes clerks' unrestrained ideological biases were starkly evident (as when one referred to Justice Antonin Scalia as "evil Nino" in a memo).

According to "Becoming Justice Blackmun," a new book by New York Times Supreme Court correspondent Linda Greenhouse, even Blackmun's most well-known line — "From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death" — was not his own. That 1994 dissent denouncing capital punishment was proposed by one clerk and written by a second. Blackmun accepted virtually every word of the clerk's draft.

SPEAKING OF EMBARRASSING BOOKS BY THE LEFT:

Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries (Human Events, May 31, 2005)

HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. A title received a score of 10 points for being listed No. 1 by one of our panelists, 9 points for being listed No. 2, etc. Appropriately, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, earned the highest aggregate score and the No. 1 listing.

AN EVEN EASIER TRANSITION:

Never mind Hillary - it's 'Laura for president' now (John Hughes, 6/01/05, CS Monitor)

Her public opinion ratings are currently higher than the president's. Her performance at the Gridiron dinner in Washington proved she has even more comedic flair than her husband. And on her trip to the Middle East last week, she showed she has a mind of her own and can sometimes, with civility, take positions different from Mr. Bush.

Still not persuaded? Think the wife of a former president shouldn't, or couldn't, take a crack at running for the White House? Well Hillary Clinton is the wife of a former president and a lot of people think she's a front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 2008. What a contest that would be: Laura and Hillary. Choose one for first woman president. What a campaign Karl Rove would make.

Of course, Laura would have to elbow out Bill Frist, John McCain, and maybe even brother-in-law Jeb Bush, as well as a string of other aspiring males to get the Republican nomination. But I suspect that beneath that poised and charming exterior are nerves of steel and a canny political sense on issues of great import.

She certainly displayed cool nerve in the midst of rambunctious demonstrating crowds during her five-day Middle East visit. She also shrewdly pitched the president's agenda of freedom and democracy to the audience that could perhaps do more than any other to further that agenda throughout the Arab lands.

ANTIRELIGION IS NOT RELIGION:

A boost for religious practice: A Supreme Court decision on prison rights is seen as a win for minority religious groups, too. (Warren Richey, 6/01/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

The decision marks an important victory not only for religious inmates but for all minority religious groups in the United States that rely on such accommodations to freely practice their faith without government interference. A ruling that invalidated the federal law would have placed in question a wide range of religious accommodations and exemptions.

At issue before the court was whether special accommodations to facilitate worship by adherents of minority religions in prison violates the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. Critics of the law - which is called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) - say that granting certain benefits to religious individuals that are not also granted to the nonreligious violates requirements that the government remain strictly neutral in matters of faith.

The court unanimously rejected this view. "Our decisions recognize that there is room for play in the joints between the two religion clauses of the First Amendment, some space for legislative action neither compelled by the Free Exercise Clause nor prohibited by the Establishment Clause," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in announcing the decision. RLUIPA "fits within the corridor between the two clauses."

Tuesday's ruling stems from a series of lawsuits filed by prison inmates in Ohio. The inmates - all adherents of nonmainstream religions such as Satanism and Wicca - complained that prison officials were refusing to permit them access to religious services, literature, and ceremonial items needed to practice their religions.

F.B.I. SOUTH:

Is outsourcing the answer to states' foster-care woes?: Florida has now contracted all its child-welfare services to the private sector - a closely watched bid to help children. (Jacqui Goddard, 6/01/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

[F]lorida hopes to become a poster child of a different sort: a model for how privatization child-welfare services work better. Although states have increasingly farmed out tasks to private contractors, Florida's effort is controversial because it relates to one of the most sensitive responsibilities of government: when and how to intervene on behalf of children in troubled circumstances. And it will be closely watched, because other states also face pressure to improve such programs.

The results so far appear to be mixed, but Gov. Jeb Bush (R) is counting on the effort over time to help turn around services tarnished by scandal.

"This is a model that other states should look at very carefully and begin to test out," says David Fairbanks, deputy director of the program, called Community-Based Care. CBC is a network of localized, nonprofit agencies to which Florida's Department of Children and Families has gradually turned to provide foster-care, adoption, and child protection services.

With that outsourcing now complete, Florida is the first state to have 100 percent of its child-welfare services in private hands. Officials believe that the 48,972 children it serves are now protected by a more responsive, more accountable system and that other states should follow.

"We have worked hard to improve our image, and CBC has been a big part of that, because now it's hometown agencies that are doing this work," Mr. Fairbanks says. "But we are putting a more local face on the job of child protection - and it's working."

VOTING LIKE THEIR DISTRICTS:

'Purple power' pulls new laws through House: Many Democrats from moderate districts vote with the Republicans on House measures. (Gail Russell Chaddock, 6/01/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

Despite the partisan saber- rattling on Capitol Hill, a significant number of votes in the GOP-controlled House are passing with broad Democratic support.

It's a trend that surprises analysts who have noticed the numbers, and it hints at a structural advantage for the GOP as it presses its agenda heading into 2006 elections.

Call it purple power. Although Republican control of the House of Representatives is narrow - a margin of just 30 seats out of 435 total - some 20 percent of House Democrats come from districts that President Bush carried in 2004. Only 8 percent of Republicans come from districts carried by Sen. John Kerry in the presidential vote. In a landscape where most districts are clearly red (Republican) or blue (Democrat), these purple areas represent seats that could be vulnerable.

That looming reality, analysts say, is one of the factors that explains why some Democrats have crossed over to vote with the GOP on issues from tax cuts to abortion.

"For all the focus we've put ... on the growing rift in the Republican discipline, we need to also take a look at how tough it is on the Democratic side, especially for incumbents who sit in Republican districts," says Amy Walter, a congressional analyst for the Cook Political Report.

THE ODDEST PARTISAN CHARGE OF '04:

DECADES-LONG DECLINE IN NUMBER AND RATE OF U.S. ABORTIONS CONTINUES, NEW ANALYSIS SHOWS (The Alan Guttmacher Institute, 5/19/05)

A new analysis from The Alan Guttmacher Institute shows that U.S. abortion rates continued to decline in 2001 and 2002, although the rate of decline has slowed since the early 1990s. The Institute estimates that 1,303,000 abortions took place in the United States in 2001—0.8% fewer than the 1,313,000 in 2000. In 2002, the number of abortions declined again, to 1,293,000, or another 0.8%. The rate of abortion also declined, from 21.3 procedures per 1,000 women aged 15–44 in 2000 to 21.1 in 2001 and 20.9 in 2002.

THEY ARE BRITISH AFTER ALL:

The Heritage Foundation (DANIEL LAZARE, June 13, 2005, The Nation)

James Atlas, the bow-tied editor in charge of HarperCollins's "Eminent Lives" series of short biographies, is not known for his sense of humor, but in publishing Paul Johnson and Christopher Hitchens back to back, he's revealed a mischievous streak that had previously gone unnoticed. Johnson, the New Statesman editor turned right-wing author of such bestsellers as Modern Times (1983), A History of the Jews (1987) and Intellectuals (1988), once denounced Hitchens for launching an attack on Mother Teresa that he termed "loathsome and mendacious." Hitchens, the ex-Trotskyist turned supporter of Bush's invasion of Iraq, has attacked Johnson over the years as not only a drunken, wife-beating, racist snob but a drunken, wife-beating, racist snob who, when not assailing the morals of others, has been known to enjoy a good spanking at the hands of his friendly local dominatrix. In short, not the sort of couple you'd expect to find sharing a candle-lit dinner at some quiet bistro. Yet here they are, together at last, with nearly simultaneous bios of two of America's most sainted founders

ASK MORE, GET MORE:

The Power of the Mustard Seed: Why strict churches are strong. (Judith Shulevitz, May 12, 2005, Slate)

You wouldn't expect an economist to do a better job than the religious at explaining religion. But one has, using the amoral language of rational choice theory, which reduces people to "rational agents" who "maximize utility," that is, act out of self-interest. (Economists assume that people are rational for methodological reasons, not because they believe it.) In his 1994 essay "Why Strict Churches Are Strong," which has become quite influential in the sociology of religion, economist Laurence Iannacone makes the counterintuitive case that people choose to be strictly religious because of the quantifiable benefits their piety affords them, not just in the afterlife but in the here and now.

Iannacone starts by asking why people join strict churches, given that doing so exacts such a high price. Eccentric customs invite ridicule and persecution; membership in a marginal church may limit chances for social and economic advancement; rules of observance bar access to apparently innocent pleasures; the entire undertaking squanders time that could have been spent amusing or improving oneself.

According to Iannacone, the devout person pays the high social price because it buys a better religious product. The rules discourage free riders, the people who undermine group efforts by taking more than they give back. The strict church is one in which members with weak commitments have been weeded out. Raising fees for membership doesn't work nearly as well as raising the opportunity cost of joining, because fees drive away the poor, who have the least to lose when they volunteer their time, and who also have the most incentive to pray. Fees also encourage the rich to substitute money for piety.

What does the pious person get in return for all of his or her time and effort? A church full of passionate members; a community of people deeply involved in one another's lives and more willing than most to come to one another's aid; a peer group of knowledgeable souls who speak the same language (or languages), are moved by the same texts, and cherish the same dreams. Religion is a " 'commodity' that people produce collectively," says Iannacone. "My religious satisfaction thus depends both on my 'inputs' and those of others." If a rich and textured spiritual experience is what you seek, then a storefront Holy Roller church or an Orthodox shtiebl is a better fit than a suburban church made up of distracted, ambitious people who can barely manage to find a morning free for Sunday services, let alone several evenings a week for text study and volunteer work.

SHELF LIFE ANYONE?:

Note to You Liberal Weenies -- Yes, the Right Really Can Write (Brian C. Anderson, May 15, 2005, LA Times)

Oh, how we conservatives once envied liberal writers. Just 10 years ago, liberal writers could propose a book on, say, how American capitalism stiffs the workingman or how the bourgeois family spawns injustice. Major publishers would respond by throwing oodles of money their way, or at least consider putting out the book. But pitch a critique of affirmative action or a defense of limited government and, unless your name was Buckley or Will, you'd be lucky to get a personalized rejection letter.

There was "a tremendous amount of marketplace and institutional resistance" to publishing conservative books, said Adam Bellow, an editor at Doubleday. The New York publishing world was a liberal preserve.

How things have changed. Over the last 18 months, three superpower publishers have launched conservative imprints: Random House (Crown Forum), Penguin (Sentinel) and, most recently, Simon & Schuster (Threshold, headed by former Bush aide Mary Matalin). Nor is that all. ReganBooks and the Christian publisher Thomas Nelson are putting out mass market right-of-center books, while mid-list conservative titles pour forth from Peter Collier's 5-year-old Encounter Books and several smaller imprints. There's never been a better time to be a conservative author.

What's behind the shift? Crown Forum chief Steve Ross thinks Sept. 11 made the industry less reflexively liberal. There's doubtless some truth to that. But what really turned the big New York publishers was the steady stream of bestsellers that Washington-based Regnery (my publisher) was producing, including Bernard Goldberg's "Bias," which spent seven weeks cresting the New York Times bestseller list. Sentinel's first year produced two New York Times bestsellers and Crown Forum published four, with Ann Coulter's polemic "Treason" reaching more than half a million copies in print.

NOT QUITE JUST SO:

Murder Is in Our Blood (David M. Buss, May 20, 2005, LA Times)

On May 11, 2005, a jury convicted Pete Terrazas of murdering his next-door neighbor, Miguel Ruiz. Terrazas had been dating Ruiz's housekeeper, Maria Santillana, whom he deeply loved. When she abruptly broke off the relationship, Terrazas concluded that she had begun an affair with Ruiz. Terrazas loaded his .410-gauge shotgun, went over to his neighbor's driveway, blasted Ruiz in the back and then took deadly aim at the man's chest. Pete Terrazas had never before been violent. Nor had Scott Peterson before he killed his wife, Laci. Nor had Clara Harris before she ran over her adulterous husband with her Mercedes in a hotel parking lot in Houston. [...]

Evolutionary theory also explains why men kill so much more than women — 87% of killers worldwide are men. Women are the more valuable reproductive resource because of a fact of human reproductive biology: Women, not men, bear the burdens of the nine-month investment to produce a child. Competition is always fiercest among the sex that invests less. As a result, men battle to avoid mating failure and to "win big" by getting to the top to mate with desirable (and sometimes multiple) women. Mating is inextricably intertwined with murder.

If we all have mental mechanisms designed for murder, why don't more of us kill? For one thing, killing is so costly for victims that natural selection has fashioned finely honed defenses — anti-homicide strategies — designed to damage those who attempt to destroy us. We kill to prevent being killed, so attempting murder is a dangerous strategy indeed. Second, we live in a modern world of laws, judges, juries and jails, which have been extremely effective in raising the cost of killing. Homicide rates among traditional cultures lacking written laws and professional police forces are far higher than those in modern Western cultures. Among the Yanomamo of Venezuela and the Gebusi of Africa, for example, more than 30% of men die by being murdered.

But he goes badly off the rails when he tries drawing Darwinian conclusions. (Is Michael Kinsley running a series of silly editorials on this topic?) For one thing, if evolution is such a powerful factor in murder and protects women for reasons of reproductive advantage it certainly can't be reconcoiled with the mass murder of female babies. However, he has the accidental sense to immediately contradict himself and note that while man in a state of nature is quite murderous our adoption of morality has successfully controlled us. We stopped kiling each other for unnatural reasons, not Darwinian ones.

SETTING OUR OWN HOUSE IN ORDER:

Contending for Marriage (Roberto Rivera y Carlo, May 2005, Boundless)

The late David Orgon Coolidge, who headed the Marriage Law Project at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, described what he called the “contending models of marriage.” By “model,” Coolidge meant a “claim about what marriage ‘really’ is.” The “traditional model ... views marriage as [an] institution.” While this model understands and honors the role that love and affection -- what Coolidge called the “interpersonal dimension” -- plays in the decision to get married, the “traditional” model nevertheless insists that this love and affection are lived out within an institution whose essence and purpose transcends the desires and intentions of the people getting married.

This essence and purpose is rooted in what Coolidge called “sexual complementarity -- the reality that men and women are ‘different from, yet designed for’ one another.” This complementarity is expressed in the procreation and nurture of children but is not exhausted by these “particular functions.” In other words, while having and raising children helps to order and make sense of marriage, there’s more to marriage than the kids. Sexual complementarity results in a bonding between two people wherein “one plus one adds up to more than two.”

The other “contending models” root marriage in something other than sexual complementarity. And unlike the communal dimension inherent in the “Traditional” model,” they see marriage in more private and even individualistic terms. The “Choice” or “Liberal” model defines marriage as “essentially an agreement” between “sovereign selves.” While the agreement between the parties “may take an institutional form,” the marriage itself is a “contractual reality ... defined and created by the individuals who enter into the contract.” And, as with all contracts, the purposes of the marriage grow out of the desires of the contracting parties: in most cases, an increase in their personal happiness.

The third model, the “Postmodern” one, while also rejecting sexual complementarity as the basis for marriage, rejects the off-putting idea of marriage as an agreement for the more palatable one of marriage as a “relationship.” Just as with the “Liberal” model, the relationship “can be institutionalized,” but in this model, what holds a marriage together isn’t a set of a priori beliefs about the nature of marriage; rather, it’s the obligations that grow out of being in a relationship with someone and, as Georgetown Law professor Milton Regan put it, the “web of interdependence” that is created by this interaction with another person.

Apart from some churches, it’s difficult to name a part of Western society where the “Traditional” view of marriage still holds sway. Certainly not in marriage and family law where the “Liberal” model is virtually unchallenged. “No-fault” divorce laws are the near-perfect embodiment of the idea of marriage as an agreement or contract. When one “sovereign self” decides that happiness lies outside the marriage, they are free to leave, subject to a satisfactory division of marital property. The only acknowledgment that someone besides the couple has a stake in what is happening are child-support laws. Even there, it’s not clear who the “someone” is: the child or the taxpayer who might be forced to support the child in the absence of parental support.

The situation outside the courthouse is scarcely better. If you surveyed a representative sample of Americans and other residents of the industrialized world, you would almost certainly find their understanding of marriage is closer to the “Liberal,” and, especially, the “Postmodern” models than to the “Traditional” one. The answer to the question “why do people get married?” would seem so obvious to them -- “because they love each other” -- that they might think it’s a trick question. For most people, marriage is an expression of the shared affection between two people. It is a public celebration of an already-existing relationship between the two.

You see this belief in the increased popularity of writing one’s own vows and in celebrating the wedding in nontraditional places, especially places that figure prominently in what Regan calls the couple’s “shared history.” But even when people get married in a traditional setting, the decision is rooted more in aesthetics than in our beliefs about marriage. White gowns and church weddings are garnish, not the meal. For most people in the West, the public, as distinct from communal, dimension of marriage lies in the financial and legal benefits associated with marriage and the desire for others to celebrate and affirm the relationship.

Which brings us back to Valladolid and Nebraska. If you replace sexual complementarity, procreation and the nurture of children with “mutual obligations” and “interdependence” as the basis for marriage, extending marital rights to same-sex couples isn’t much of a conceptual leap.

BE BOLDER (via mc):

New savings program for poor gaining attention: Lawmakers searching for ways to move beyond Social Security (Elana Schor, 5/27/05, Medill News Service)

A new program to promote savings of low-income Americans is attracting increased attention on Capitol Hill as Congress remains deadlocked over adding private investment accounts to Social Security and lawmakers search for other ways to help Americans save for their retirement.

The savings tool that some lawmakers are beginning to shift their political capital to is individual development accounts or IDAs, which Congress authorized in 1998 as part of government aid for the needy. Participating financial institutions offer IDAs to low-income individuals and match their contributions to the accounts on either a partial or one-to-one basis, but several proposals attracting attention on Capitol Hill would require the government to contribute to IDAs.

IDA holders receive their free money under one condition: they must undergo financial literacy education that is intended to prepare them for a life of cautious savings and no debt. President Bush has steadily increased the yearly budget for IDAs, but this year Sen. Rick Santorum has been the accounts' most tireless promoter.

IDAs are state-sponsored in Pennsylvania, home of Santorum, the Senate's third-ranking Republican and head of its Social Security subcommittee. He has leveraged his leadership to pitch two IDA proposals, one that would make government-funded IDAs available to anyone who meets income requirements (typically around $38,000 per year for a family of four) and one that would bestow an IDA on every child born in America.

"IDAs are one of the most promising tools that enable low-income and low-wealth Americans to save, build assets and enter the financial mainstream," Santorum told members of his subcommittee at an IDA hearing last month. [...]

Especially worrisome to fiscal conservatives is the easy access to IDAs. Social Security benefits cannot be spent until retirement, but both of Santorum's plans permit IDA accountholders to take money out for any purpose, from education to home purchasing to Christmas presents. [...]

Though IDAs were created to increase savings and assets for poor Americans and not as a part of the Social Security issue, some legislators who have signed onto Santorum's bills refer to universal IDAs as a partial fix for the national asset vacuum that throws Social Security's solvency problems into such sharp relief.

"I think that's part of the risk for the (IDA) field - that we'll be inadvertently linked to the privatization of these accounts that the field as a whole really believes ought to remain risk-free," Mangan said.

IF THINGS ARE SO BAD, WHY DO WE ALL FEEL SO GOOD?:

Consumer Confidence Unexpectedly Rebounds (ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, 5/31/05, AP)

Consumer confidence unexpectedly rebounded in May after declining in April, as worries about the economy and jobs eased, a private research group said Tuesday. But another closely watched report that tracks Midwestern manufacturing activity dropped in May, spooking Wall Street.

The Conference Board said that its Consumer Confidence Index rose to 102.2 from a revised 97.5 in April. The reading was much better than the 96 that analysts had expected, which would have been a decline from the original April reading of 97.7.

The consumer confidence index is now at the highest level since it reached 103 in March.

THE OWEN STANDARD:

Majority vote remains on the table for future use (John Cornyn, 5/31/05, San Antonio Express-News)

It is...important to recognize three important elements of the deal reached by these 14 senators:

First, although it doesn't solve the problem today, the deal does keep all options open — including, of course, the Byrd option — for solving the problem in the future.

Second, with Owen's confirmation, it should now be settled that disagreement over judicial philosophy is not an "extraordinary circumstance" — and, thus, no justification for a filibuster. Call it the "Owen standard." Senators should vote their conscience, but debates over judicial philosophy and disagreements about past rulings are no grounds for violating Senate tradition by imposing a supermajority voting requirement for confirming judges.

Third, should the Owen standard be violated and a baseless filibuster against a judicial nomination be launched in the future, that would be a violation of the agreement — and, thus, grounds for the use of the Byrd option to restore Senate tradition.

Indeed, this is the stated intent of at least four of the Republican senators who signed the agreement.

TAKES ONE...:

German 'chancellor-in-waiting' was award-winning Communist (Tony Paterson, 29/05/2005, Sunday Telegraph)

Angela Merkel, the woman fêted as Germany's chancellor-in-waiting, was an award-winning Communist in her youth whom the Stasi secret police tried to recruit as an agent.

Details of her upbringing in East Germany, which emerged last week, explain why Mrs Merkel, 50, is viewed with suspicion by hardline members of her traditionally Catholic party, the Christian Democrats, whose heartlands are in the west.

Tomorrow, however, she is expected to win the party nomination to stand against the chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, in the general election this autumn. While even her supporters concede that she lacks charisma, inspiring respect rather than affection, Mrs Merkel led the Christian Democrats to a stunning victory in recent state polls in North Rhine Westphalia - forcing Mr Schröder to bring the election forward by a year.

Her dour childhood as a reluctant Communist sheds new light on why, unlike Mr Schröder, Mrs Merkel backed the US-led invasion of Iraq. "I know what it is when you don't have freedom," she said recently. "In the West, freedom is taken for granted. Fighting for it is not as necessary as it was for us."

THE ARRIVAL:

Hispanics arriving as a political force (RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR., May 29, 2005, THE UNION-TRIBUNE)

[A] lot of people are saying that Hispanics have finally arrived. They serve in the top tier of the Bush administration – among them, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Surgeon General Richard Carmona, Treasurer Anna Cabral and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. And the prospect of a Hispanic on the Supreme Court seems closer than ever, especially if President Bush sticks to his promise to put one there before he leaves Washington. [...]

Look at what happened in Los Angeles, a city that is now more than 47 percent Hispanic and where Hispanics outnumber every other ethnic group. Antonio Villaraigosa is soon to be sworn in as the first Hispanic mayor of the city in 133 years.

Given that this is the nation's second-largest city we're talking about, that means the 52-year-old former Assembly speaker has just arrived on the A-list of Hispanic political talent.

For Villaraigosa, who defeated incumbent Mayor James K. Hahn, getting there was half the fun. The candidate pulled together an impressive coalition of blacks, Jews, labor and progressive whites. That was an improvement over Villaraigosa's failed bid for the same office four years ago, when a black minister famously joked that African-Americans shouldn't vote for "someone whose name they can't pronounce." This time around, Villaraigosa got half the black vote.

But it was Hispanics who made the difference. The mayor-elect walked off with 84 percent of their vote. That added up in a hurry, given that Hispanics accounted for one in four votes cast.

Note to Democrats: This is the same group of voters that your party complains doesn't turn out often enough.

Democrats miss the point. It's not that Hispanics don't care enough to vote. It is that they don't care to vote for white liberals who take their votes for granted. Democratic Party leaders should look toward Los Angeles and take note. The party of John F. Kennedy had better get used to running more candidates like Villaraigosa – or get used to coming in second.

YEAH, WE'RE SHAKING IN OUR WELLIES:

This Document Should Make America Nervous (Jeanne Rubner, May 29, 2005, LA Times)

The draft constitution that the French will vote on today is the best that could be designed to accommodate the wishes of the EU's 25 members.

It is a rational compromise, as much of a historical necessity as the Baltics and Czechoslovakia joining the union was a historical necessity.

Europeans tend to take fewer risks than Americans — which is why they are so apprehensive. But what seems to be a risk now will later turn into a benefit. The coming of the constitution is fortunate because it will strengthen the new union by giving it the tools for better organizing its affairs, speaking with a single voice and formulating common economic and political goals as a transatlantic strategy. It will anchor Europe's future as a network of 25 countries while leaving each country its national freedom.

Do not underestimate the future power of the EU. The new Europe has strong political and cultural traditions. With an expanding market, it will revitalize its economy. And with a constitution, Europe will have, more than ever, the chance of becoming a global player with real political power. Watch out, America, here we come.

NO SCIENCE INVOLVED:

Creating a Controversy: Today's anti-evolutionists don't want to abolish science -- they just want to render it irrelevant. (Chris Mooney, 05.16.05, American Prospect)

Kansas’s previously proposed science standards had appropriately defined science as "the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us." Anti-evolutionists want to change this language to the following: "Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building, to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."

This may seem harmless at first glance. But the change carefully removes any reference to science's search for natural explanations in favor of “more adequate” explanations, creating a opening for creationists to insert the supernatural. Such a change reflects the fact that the new generation of anti-evolutionists has launched an attack on modern science itself, claiming that it amounts, essentially, to institutionalized atheism. Science, they say, has a prejudice against supernatural causation (by which they generally mean “the actions of God”). Instead, the new anti-evolutionists claim that if scientists would simply open their minds to the possible action of forces acting beyond the purview of natural laws, they would suddenly perceive the weaknesses of evolutionary theory.

Anti-evolutionists are trying to bring religion back into the picture with this maneuver and to free up science teachers to speak to their classes about matters involving the supernatural. But religion isn't all they may bring back. As far as I can tell, keeping an open mind about supernatural causes would also mean that when you or I investigate claims that a house might be haunted, we should be on the lookout for a ghost. Similarly, it would mean that when we look into reports of a weeping icon, we should get ready to investigate a paranormal event, rather than a mere case of pious fraud. And so on.

In reality, though, while they may leave open the theoretical possibility of a supernatural occurrence, scientists don't operate in this way -- and for good reason. Science seeks to explain natural phenomena in a way that other scientists (including those of varying religious faiths) can understand and independently evaluate. So, for at least two different reasons, scientists would not leap to a supernatural conclusion about a phenomenon like creaky floorboards and suddenly slamming doors in an old house. For one, they can construct a more simple explanation that does not require stretching beyond the reach of science. And for another, invoking supernatural causation (a ghost) ultimately doesn't work. Instead, postulating a supernatural cause effectively ends the inquiry, because we have no way of further investigating such a cause -- save more supernatural speculation. Supernatural "explanations" can't be tested, because scientific testing itself depends upon the constancy of natural laws.

For these reason, scientists since the Enlightenment have seen fit to distinguish between supernatural beliefs based on faith or metaphysics and scientific findings based on observed evidence and inferences about natural causation. Such inquiry is technically termed "methodological naturalism," more commonly known as the "scientific method." It has quite a successful track record over the years, from medicine to nuclear science.

But methodological naturalism deeply offends today's anti-evolutionists. Because the theory of evolution is perceived to have contributed to the undermining of religious belief, the intelligent design movement has taken to arguing that the theory itself betrays a deep philosophical prejudice against God and the supernatural. Hence, they seek to overturn not just evolution but methodological naturalism itself

THE LION WILL LAY WITH THE LAMB, AND WE WON'T INVESTIGATE MISSING LAMBS:

Church to let gay clergy 'marry' but they must stay celibate (Times of London, 5/29/2005; via The Anchoress)

Homosexual priests in the Church of England will be allowed to "marry" their boyfriends under a proposal drawn up by senior bishops, led by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury....

Under the proposal, a priest intending to register a civil partnership would inform his or her bishop in a face-to-face meeting....

Some bishops, however, are uncomfortable about subjecting their priests to the proposed interviews.

One said this weekend: "We all have clergy in gay partnerships in our dioceses and there is a genuine reluctance on the part of a number of us to make their lives more difficult."

IT'S FELT:

Ex-FBI official says he's 'Deep Throat'
Magazine quotes him as saying he was 'doing his duty' (MSNBC, May 31, 2005)

W. Mark Felt, who retired from the FBI after rising to its second most senior position, has identified himself as the "Deep Throat" source quoted by The Washington Post to break the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation, Vanity Fair magazine said Tuesday.

"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," he told John D. O'Connor, the author of Vanity Fair's exclusive that appears in its July issue.

MORE:
Washington Post Confirms Felt Was 'Deep Throat': Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee Reveal Former FBI Official as Secret Watergate Source (William Branigin and David Von Drehle, May 31, 2005, Washington Post)

The Washington Post today confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the secretive source who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and contributed to the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon.

The confirmation came from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, and their former top editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee. The three spoke after Felt's family and Vanity Fair magazine identified the 91-year-old Felt, now a retiree in California, as the long-anonymous source who provided crucial guidance for some of the newspaper's groundbreaking Watergate stories.

The Vanity Fair story said Felt had admitted his "historic, anonymous role" following years of denial.

In a statement today, Woodward and Bernstein said, "W. Mark Felt was 'Deep Throat' and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage. However, as the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other reporters for the hundreds of stories that were written in The Washington Post about Watergate."

TRY PLAN C:

Turkey, other EU rejects have palatable Plan B (JOHN O'SULLIVAN, 5/31/05, Chicago Sun-Times)

Under this particular Plan B, the United States would rescue Turkey and the EU from their joint crises while also advancing U.S. interests in transatlantic integration.

It would work as follows:

First, the EU and the United States (together with its partners in NAFTA) would merge their markets to form TAFTA -- or a transatlantic free trade area.

Second, they would invite all the existing European countries not in the EU, including Turkey, Norway and Switzerland, to join this enlarged TAFTA. (Ukraine, Russia and Latin American countries outside NATFA would be eligible to join once they met criteria similar to those required for EU entry.)

Third, this TAFTA would establish joint procedures for harmonizing existing and new regulations between NAFTA, the EU and non-EU states,.

Fourth, free movement of labor would not be a provision in TAFTA, but there would be preferential immigration rules between members.

Laid out in this way, such a Plan B inevitably sounds utopian. Many of its individual features, however, have been widely discussed for years. Indeed, a full-scale EU-U.S. free trade area almost came about a decade ago.

At the time it was vetoed by the French. But Europeans might now see the value of a program for economic integration that does not involve free immigration -- but that would offer Turkey a solid substitute for EU membership, mollify the Islamic world, and build an long-term economic bridge to Russia, North Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

And in their currently shaken state, even the French might be prepared to accept American leadership out of the crisis -- so, Condi, act quickly.

THE FAVORITE IF HE RUNS (via Daniel Merriman):

'08: DUELING DYNASTIES? (John Podhoretz, May 31, 2005, NY post)

LET me build the perfect 2008 Republican candidate for you. He would be a governor, because recent history demonstrates the nearly insuperable advantage governors (Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush the Younger) have when it comes to running for president.

He would be from a populous state, because his success there statewide might win him 10 percent of the electoral-college votes he would need on Election Day.

He would have to be acceptable to social conservatives with resolute stands on social issues like abortion, because the Bush victory in 2004 demonstrated the importance of being able to bring evangelical churchgoers to the polls. But in manner and style he should be easygoing, in order to undercut the ability of Democrats and the mainstream media to paint him as a crazed extremist.

He should have particular appeal to Hispanics, because (again) the Bush 2004 victory was built in part on pulling Hispanic voters away from the Democratic Party. And he should probably have Southern credentials, because the GOP has to be able to rely on the votes of the solid South to prevail in the Electoral College.

Fortunately for the GOP, there is a dream candidate that fits all these categories and more. But remember, nightmares are dreams too. And the candidate described here is, nightmarishly, the brother of the current president and the son of the president two guys back.

MONEY WON'T BE A PROBLEM:

Waiting for Harris has GOP antsy: Republicans are hoping that U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris will run against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson in next year's Senate elections. (LESLEY CLARK, 5/31/05, Miami Herald)

Republicans say U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson will be one of their leading targets for elimination when he's up for reelection next year.

Yet, 18 months from the election, not a single Republican has stepped forward to challenge the freshman Democrat. The leading reason? U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris.

The Republican star of the 2000 presidential election recount is looking at taking on Nelson, and her interest has other Republican hopefuls on ice, given the conventional wisdom that Harris would be the runaway primary favorite should she decide to run. [...]

Some Republicans are beginning to become antsy, suggesting that time is getting short for someone to start raising the millions it will require to challenge Nelson -- particularly if Harris decides against running. But as Republicans look around the state, they're at a bit of a loss to see a ready alternative. [...]

Two of the state's most prominent Republicans, Attorney General Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, are running against each other to succeed Gov. Jeb Bush. Some party leaders hope one of them could be convinced to change races, but both have said they're not interested.

Barring a switch, Republicans have even suggested Bush, who can't run for reelection as governor in 2006 because of term limits, and retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks, a part-time Tampa resident. Both have rejected such entreaties.

Then there are Florida House Speaker Allan Bense and U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, neither of whom have run statewide before but could have easy access to campaign cash. A spokesman for Bense didn't rule him out. Foley, who was a leading candidate for an open Senate seat in 2004 before bowing out to tend to an ailing father, suggested he's interested -- if the party wants him.

''I'm not interested yet in jumping into the middle of it, but if someone wants to recruit Mark Foley, I'd be willing to talk,'' said Foley, noting that he still has about $2 million in his campaign account -- just $1 million less than Nelson.

DARWINISM UNMOORED:

Natural Selection Killed Desdemona: Jealousy, hate, fear -- human biology beats in the heart of good literature. (David P. Barash and Nanelle R. Barash, May 31, 2005, LA Times)

That's how we like our literary figures: real, believable, true to human nature. Like us, they must be gooey, breathing, eating, sleeping, defecating, reproducing, evolving and evolved Homo sapiens, shaped by genetics and evolution, and then twisted and gnarled by life itself.

This is what lies behind Beowulf's foolhardy courage, Heathcliff's obsessive passion, Jane Eyre's spunkiness, Huck Finn's mixture of naiveté and wisdom, Augie March's antic yearning for self-realization.

There is something instantly recognizable about such basic, obviously natural traits as Romeo and Juliet's hormonally overheated teenage love, Hamlet's intellectualized indecisiveness, Lady Macbeth's ambition as well as her remorse, Falstaff's drunken cavorting, Viola's resourcefulness, Lear's rage.

Take Othello. Evolutionary scientists know that males are especially vulnerable to sexual jealousy simply because of their biology. Whereas women can rest serene in the confidence that they are genetically related to any offspring that emerges from their bodies, men have to take their mate's word for it. Othello, as a perfectly good male mammal, is therefore susceptible to suspicions of marital infidelity by his wife, Desdemona. Add the fact that sperm-makers are selected (naturally) to compete (often violently) with other sperm-makers for access to egg-makers, and Shakespeare's tragedy makes biological sense.

CAN I JUST GO PART WAY DOWN THE SLOPE?:

Welcome to the Brave New Jersey (Paul Mulshine, May 26, 2005, Newark Star Ledger)

As a coldhearted, rational type of guy, I can't get too excited about the pro-life objection to embryonic stem cell research. The pro-lifers argue that it's wrong to destroy fertilized human eggs for research purpose. But the eggs in question are going to be destroyed eventually anyway. Why not put them to good use?

However, the other day I came upon some aspects of the research that frightened even me. Wesley J. Smith is the author of a book titled "A Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World." He's a lawyer and sometime Ralph Nader collaborator who is skeptical about just where the biotech industry is leading us with its incessant call for infinitely more spending on the research.

It's not leading us to test-tube cures for such diseases as diabetes and Parkinson's, Smith said when I gave him a call at his California home. There is simply no reliable method for turning an embryonic stem cell into the type of cell that can be safely implanted in the body of a disease victim.

"Embryonic stem cells cause tumors in mice," Smith said. "You simply can't control their growth."

The same problems are likely to occur in any attempt to implant embryonic stem cells in humans, he said. But there's a much easier -- and more ominous -- means of employing the technology, he said. The most efficient way of turning embryonic stem cells into the cells needed to treat a certain disease would be to create an embryo that is a clone of the patient. If that embryo could then be implanted into a uterus, the resulting fetus would contain a perfect copy of every cell in the patient's body. The ominous part is that the only way to gain access to those cells would be to abort the fetus. Smith fears that's where we're headed.

"What I think will happen is that when everything that can be obtained from research in a petri dish is obtained, then there will be a move to go from a petri dish to early gestation," Smith told me.

That's a disturbing thought. Even more disturbing is that such a practice would be perfectly legal in at least one state: New Jersey. A bill signed into law last year by Gov. James McGreevey permits exactly that sort of practice, Smith said. The bill's ostensible purpose was to enable stem cell research, but it also contained language regulating the traffic in fetal tissue. And the only way to turn stem cells into fetal tissue is through implantation in the womb, Smith notes.

The bill also purports to ban human cloning, but it defines cloning as "cultivating a cell with genetic material through the egg, embryo, fetal and newborn stages."

That would seem to permit cloning as long as the fetus in question were to be aborted, Smith notes.

Smith's reading of the bill is supported by Princeton University ethicist Robert George, who serves on the president's council on bioethics.

WELL THAT WAS FUN, BUT NOW IT'S BACK TO BUSINESS

De Villepin appointed French PM (BBC, May 31st, 2005)

Dominique de Villepin has been named as France's new prime minister, following the country's rejection of the EU constitution in Sunday's referendum.

The former interior minister replaces Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who tendered his resignation following the vote. [...]

Mr de Villepin is best known abroad for expressing France's implacable opposition to the war in Iraq at the United Nations, and is likely to go down well with European allies.

He is also regarded as a consensual politician and is personally loyal to Mr Chirac.

But the BBC's Caroline Wyatt in Paris says that as a career diplomat never elected to public office, he of all candidates most typifies the French elite so roundly rejected by the French people on Sunday.

Isn’t this like trying to placate the mob by appointing Cardinal Richelieu?

WHAT'S GOOD FOR RON IS GOOD FOR ARMSTRONG, NO?:

On Filibuster and Stem Cells, GOP Bears Pain of Compromise (Ronald Brownstein, May 30, 2005, LA Times)

Conservatives are guaranteed the dominant voice in the GOP for the foreseeable future. But after last week, they no longer appear to be the only voice. No wonder so many of them are howling.

(Full disclosure: My wife recently took a job as an aide to Sen. John McCain [R-Ariz.], one of the judicial deal's architects. Marriages that span the divide between the media and politics are common in Washington. They require both parties to draw a firm line between their personal attachments and professional responsibilities. I do not intend to treat McCain any differently as a result of my marriage, and my wife does not expect favored treatment for her boss. I certainly don't expect any special treatment from McCain or his aides. Readers, of course, will have to make their own judgments, but I am confident that her new job will not affect my judgments, pro and con, about McCain and his initiatives.)

"AMERICA, WHERE NO 'FOLK' EXISTS":

The Laach Maria monster (Spengler, 6/01/05, Asia Times)

[S]omething of the instinct for self-preservation spurred the French to vote down the European constitution. Europe's conservative parties oppose the putrefaction of the continent into a multi-cultural mush dominated prospectively by a growing Muslim population.

Benedict XVI's election as pope should not be underestimated as a catalyst for these tendencies. During the year prior to his election, Benedict inveighed against the admission of Turkey to the European Union and against Europe's abandonment of its cultural heritage.

In the first two installments of this series this month (The pope, the musicians and the Jews, and Why the beautiful is not the good), I considered Benedict's two points of emphasis: the Hebrew Bible and the classical heritage of European culture, above all its music. The trouble, I argued, is that Europe has destroyed both its cultural heritage as well as its Jews, and the tools available for rebuilding are more symbolic than real. To understand how this came to be it is useful to focus on a single place and a single moment in European history, namely a Rhineland monastery in April 1933.

The creature of Loch Ness may be a fable, but a real monster lived beside the crater lake near Trier, where stands the Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach. It was there that a prominent wing of the institution that once had created European civilization openly embraced the new Nazi barbarism. Maria Laach's Abbot Ildefons Herwegen stated in 1933 after Adolf Hitler took power: "Let us say 'yes' wholeheartedly to the new form of the total [Nazi] state, which is analogous throughout to the incarnation of the Church. The Church stands in the world as Germany stands in politics today."

Herwegen embraced the so-called Reichstheologie, or theology of the German Empire, along with a group of prominent German Catholic theologians who saw in Hitler "a Christian counterrevolution to [the French Revolution of] 1789".

In some respects, the entire career of Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, has been dedicated to repudiating this ghastly mistake, which Herwegen himself recognized as the Nazi terror unfolded.

Left-wing Catholics have built a small manufacturing industry around the claim that the conservative wing of the Church had ties to Hitler. Years of mudslinging at Pius XII, the hapless wartime pope, failed to prove him guilty of anything worse than timidity in the face of Nazi occupiers. James Carroll's 2001 bestseller, The Sword of Constantine, makes its villain the miserable Herwegen, but Carroll discovers to his confusion that he has more in common with the pro-Hitler Benedictines of 1933 than with the present leadership of the Church. As Carroll reports, the "liturgical movement" of the 1920s introduced congregational participation in the Mass, that is, making the "people of God" (whoever might have wandered in) into the actor. Carroll approves, explaining, "No longer do we attend Mass as a collection of isolatos, each on his or her knees, face buried in hands from which dangle rosary beads. We do not approach God alone but as members of a praying community, members of a folk." Benedict XVI rejects the "folk" Mass on the simple grounds that God, rather than the "folk", is the actor in the Mass.

In America, where no "folk" exists, Carroll's notion merely seems banal. In Europe, where the heathen folk has persisted in uneasy coexistence with Christianity, the people's liturgy became a Volkisch, that is, national-racist expression. The Catholic Church created Europe by converting waves of barbarian invaders over the span of a thousand years; as I have emphasized elsewhere, its genius lay in the syncretic adoption of pagan saints and customs as a catalyst for Christianization. At best, that left the Church the uneasy overlord of restive pagan remnants, kept at bay by the dual reign of Church and empire. At its worst, as at Maria Laach, the Church "went native" and surrendered to the pagan impulses of its congregation. [...]

Only because a pope now reigns who spent his career attempting to set matters right do I venture to report this today. The "theology of aesthetics", as I described it in the last installment of this series, "Why the beautiful is not the good", attempts to win back the true high culture of the West for Christianity. Benedict honors, as a matter of course, the Church musical tradition of Palestrina-style polyphony and Gregorian chant, but he looks to the music of Mozart and Bach as a demonstration of faith. As I wrote, Western classical music creates a goal in time, that is, teleology, making sensuous the Christian promise of life beyond the grave. There is nothing particularly Christian, by contrast, in so-called Gregorian chant, except to the extent that people used to associate it with Catholic service, like incense. New-age types who dabble in Eastern religions comprise the largest audience for recordings of chant, for its timelessness and lack of directionality conform to their state of mind.

Benedict is right to draw on the musicians - by which I mean the high classic art of Mozart - as well as the Jews, that is to say, the Hebrew Bible. The musicians are dead and the Jews are departed, but the pope must play the hand that history has dealt him. He works under the sign of the mustard seed - the infinitesimal quantity of faith that moves mountains. The inspirational character of scripture and of classical music are the weapons he has at hand, rusty though they might be. Something is stirring in the ashes of the West, and Benedict XVI yet might bring forth a flame.

HONORARY FRENCH:

Paris Hilton Said Engaged to Shipping Heir (AP, 5/30/2005)

Hotel heiress and "The Simple Life" reality TV star Paris Hilton is reportedly engaged to Greek shipping heir Paris Latsis.

A 1.4% CRISIS?:

States say $5.15 an hour too little: Minimum wages top federal rate (Dennis Cauchon, 5/31/05, USA TODAY)

More states are raising their minimum wages, pushing hourly rates above $7 in some and shrinking the role of the federal minimum wage, which hasn't gone up in eight years.

Eleven states have raised their rates since January 2004, and Wisconsin will become the 12th on Wednesday. Employers there must pay at least $5.70 an hour through June 2006, when the minimum wage rises again to $6.50 an hour.

In all, 17 states and the District of Columbia — covering 45% of the U.S. population — have set minimums above the federal rate of $5.15. That has helped cut the number of workers earning the minimum or less (for those earning tips) from 4.8 million in 1997 to 2 million last year, or 2.7% of hourly earners, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says.

About half of minimum-wage earners work at restaurants. Millions more have wages that are influenced by the minimum. Its buying power is at its lowest point since 1949.

TREATING A SYMPTOM, NOT THE DISEASE:

Woman to Lead Conservatives in German Election (Christian Retzlaff, May 31, 2005, LA Times)

Germany's conservative opposition parties announced Monday that Angela Merkel, chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union, would be their candidate for chancellor in early national elections expected to be held this autumn.

Merkel, who was raised in the former communist East Germany, had been widely expected to seek the chancellorship and would become the nation's first female leader if she prevailed against current Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

At a news conference Monday, Merkel promised to present an electoral platform by mid-July that would emphasize the "courage to be honest."

"Finding ways to create jobs for the people in Germany will be at the center of my work," she said

WE CAN AT LEAST STOP IT HERE:

Does Science Trump All? (HENRY FOUNTAIN, 5/29/05, NY Times)

In the case of stem cells, some concerns are overshadowed by the tantalizing promise of the research: rejection-free organ transplants, regenerated spinal cords, perfectly matched blood transfusions, cures for diabetes and Alzheimer's.

But those promises run headlong into questions raised by a dark history of research. Take eugenics. According to Christine Rosen, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington and the author of "Preaching Eugenics," scientists who supported eugenics claimed that it could cure disease and end poverty - involuntary sterilizations were one result.

But the scientific underpinnings cited by early eugenics researchers were often wrong, Ms. Rosen said. "The heritability of certain diseases and eye colors were right, but broader claims they made as a result were incorrect," she said.

Many religious groups tried to stop eugenics, Ms. Rosen said, but they were called obstructionists.

"The only thing that stopped this," Ms. Rosen said, "was war and the lessons of Nazi Germany and improvements in science."

The controversy over eugenics is particularly relevant to the current debate, argues Wesley J. Smith, an opponent of therapeutic cloning at the Discovery Institute, a conservative research group in Seattle.

When eugenics was popular, he said, "people at the top levels of society were accepting of the idea that you could improve the human race by improving the gene pool." Even the United States Supreme Court, he said, supported involuntary sterilization, in the 1927 case Buck v. Bell.

To Mr. Smith and others, the march of science toward therapeutic cloning can be stopped. Indeed, cloning may be halted by its own deficiencies, Mr. Smith said. Cloned animals have developed health problems, and there is a potential for tumors in cloned tissue. And research using non-cloned, adult stem cells, which are drawn from bone marrow and blood, "will not have the moral baggage of cloning," he said.

But Dr. Lee M. Silver, a geneticist who is a professor of molecular biology at Princeton, said that therapeutic cloning could not be stopped because the world has changed.

"The difference today is that we're a global village," he said. "Thirty or 40 years ago, Asia had no scientific prominence whatsoever. Now Asia is a real player in the world."

From a certain point of view Christian history is all about the intermittent reiteration of standards of observance. -Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

...AND LOWER...:

Daily Forex Commentary (Jack Crooks, 5/31/05, Asia Times)

The euro continues to be hammered lower. Oversold it is, but now we could be seeing what we thought we might be seeing - longer-term players capitulating to the dollar trend higher. The catalyst of course for this move was the French vote on the proposed European constitution and now the likely prospect that the Dutch will follow suit with a "no" vote.

Something about "the best laid plans of mice and men" might be appropriate here.

The next question: how low can it go? Short answer: a lot lower than most people would have believed last Friday. Euro 1.20 is in sight on the weekly chart below:

IS THAT YOUR BEST DEFENSE?:

FDR at Yalta (Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., 25 May 2005, Times Literary Supplement)

A great foreign-policy fear that haunted Roosevelt’s generation was the fear of resurgent American isolationism. We sometimes forget how brief an interval separated the two World Wars. FDR was thirty-eight years old when the Senate rejected the League of Nations; he was only fifty-seven when war broke out again in Europe in 1939 – the war predicted by Woodrow Wilson “with absolute certainty”, in September 1919, if America did not join the League. During the inter-war years the struggle against isolationism consumed much of FDR’s time and energy. As foreign-policy spokesman for the Democratic Party, he declared in a Foreign Affairs article in 1928 that only by actions of international collaboration could the United States “regain the world’s trust and friendship”.

The experience of an internationalist moment followed by a profound and impassioned isolationist revival had engraved itself indelibly on the consciousness of the old Wilsonians. In the 1942 mid-term Congressional election, internationalists launched a major campaign for a “win-the-war” Congress, targeting isolationist legislators on a hit list. The leading isolationists in Congress survived the primaries. In FDR’s own Congressional district, internationalist Republicans like Wendell Wilkie and Thomas E. Dewey opposed the renomination of the bitter isolationist, Hamilton Fish, but Fish won the primary two to one. In the General Election, only five of 115 Congressmen with isolationist records were beaten. The Republicans gained forty-four seats in the House and nine in the Senate – their best performance in years.

After the Election, Secretary of State Cordell Hull told Vice President Henry Wallace that “the country was going to keep the sequence of events from following the 1918–1921 pattern because he felt if we went into isolationism this time, the world was lost forever”.

For Roosevelt the critical task in 1943–5 was to commit the United States to a post-war structure of peace. FDR regarded a permanent international organization, in Bohlen’s words, as “the only device that could keep the United States from slipping back to isolationism”. The memory, still vivid, of the repudiation of the League two decades before suggested that the task would not be easy. Unilateralism had been the American norm for a century and a half. Internationalism had been a two-year Wilson-ian aberration. No one could assume that isolationism would simply wither away. It had to be brought to a definitive end by American commitments to international order, and, as the
master politician knew, Congress and the people were more likely to make such commitments while the war was still on. FDR said privately, “Anybody who thinks that isolationism is dead in this country is crazy. As soon as this War is over, it may well be stronger than ever”.

He proceeded to lay the groundwork in 1943–5 with the same skill and circumspection with which he had steered the nation away from isolationism in 1937–41. The challenge of contriving a smooth transition from unilateralism to internationalism shaped Roosevelt’s diplomatic strategy. He moved quietly to prepare the American people for a larger international role. By the end of 1944, a series of international conferences, held mostly at American initiative and generally with bipartisan American representation, had created a post-war agenda – international organization (Dumbarton Oaks), finance, trade and development (Bretton Woods), food and agriculture (Hot Springs), civil aviation (Chicago), relief and reconstruction (UNRRA). These conferences established a framework for the world after the war – an impressive achievement for a President whom historians used to charge with subordinating political to military goals.

Against this background we can consider Roosevelt’s objectives in this last meeting with Stalin. In order of priority, they were, I surmise: first, to get the United Nations under way before the end of the war on terms that would assure American and Soviet participation – a result Roosevelt deemed imperative both to provide the means of correcting any mistake that harassed leaders framing the peace might make and also to save his own country from a relapse into isolationism. The second priority was to get the Soviet forces to join the war against Japan by a date certain (the atomic bomb was five months in the future) on terms that would strengthen Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist regime in China. A third priority was to work out some compromise on Eastern Europe as a test of Soviet intentions; and a fourth, to get a few modest preliminary agreements for the occupation of Germany. “I dislike making detailed plans”, Roosevelt explained to Hull in October 1944, “for a country which we do not yet occupy.”

Roosevelt achieved his objectives. [...]

[A]fter Yalta, the Russians indeed went their own way. The Second World War left the international order in acute derangement. With the Axis states vanquished, the European Allies exhausted, the colonial empires in tumult and dissolution, great gaping holes appeared in the structure of world power. The war left only two states – the USA and the USSR – with the political dynamism to flow into these vacuums. The two states were constructed on opposite and antagonistic principles, marvellously incarnated in Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. No one should be surprised by what ensued. The real surprise would have been if there had been no Cold War.

SUDDENLY?:

Suddenly, euro isn't looking so good (Mark Landler, 5/31/05, The New York Times)

The euro wobbled in trading on Monday, hitting a seven-month low of $1.246 to the dollar, before closing at $1.247. It has fallen steadily against the dollar in recent weeks, as traders expected a negative vote in France, and steeled themselves for another rejection in the Netherlands on Wednesday.

Few experts are predicting a full-blown crisis for the euro, which is safeguarded by the politically independent European Central Bank. France's refusal to ratify the constitution will have little impact on the day-to-day running of the monetary union, or on the maze of regulations that govern the world's largest trading bloc.

Still, as Paul De Grauwe, a Belgian expert on the currency, put it: "Something psychological has changed."

Like many economists, he believes that the long-term viability of the euro hinges on the gradual political integration of the countries that use it - a prospect that, for now at least, is dashed. "Can the euro survive without a political union?" De Grauwe said. "I have my doubts."

S.O.P.:

House members in both parties scramble to disclose free travel (Larry Margasak, 5/31/05, Associated Press

Scrutiny of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's travel has led to the belated disclosure of at least 198 previously unreported special interest trips by members of Congress and their aides, including eight years of travel by the second- ranking Democrat, an Associated Press review has found.

At least 43 House members and dozens of aides had failed to meet the one-month deadline in ethics rules for disclosing trips financed by organizations outside the U.S. government.

The AP review of thousands of pages of records covered pre- 2005 travel that was disclosed since early March. That's when news stories began scrutinizing DeLay's travel, prompting lawmakers to comb through their files to make sure they had disclosed their travel.

While most of the previously undisclosed trips occurred in 2004, some date back to the late 1990s. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer recently disclosed 12 trips, the oldest dating back to 1997.

Stacey Bernards, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Democrat, said the office searched the files after the travel issue was raised initially by "Republicans doing opposition research to deflect from their own ethical issues."

Hoyer's undisclosed trips were nearly doubled by Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a California Democrat, with 21. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, reported 20 past trips and Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, reported 13.

Republican and Democratic House members were nearly equal rules violators in failing to disclose their personal trips within 30 days after the trip's completion.

BLOWBACK:

Purgatory without end: Why is America still so prone to wars of religion? (Lexington, 5/26/05, The Economist)

Why are Americans so keen on arguing about religion? The answer is that America is simultaneously a highly religious culture and a highly secular one. The public square is all but naked when it comes to religion. Public schools cannot hold school prayers. Americans have taken to wishing each other the ghastly “Happy Holidays” rather than “Happy Christmas”. Step over the line dividing church from state and there are plenty of aggressive secular interest groups that will push you right back again.

But at the same time religion—and particularly de Crèvecoeur's “strict” religion—is thriving. In the 2004 presidential exit polls, most Americans described themselves as regular churchgoers. Only 10% admitted to having no religion. A higher proportion of Americans say they would be willing to vote for an openly gay presidential candidate (59%) than an openly atheist one (49%). Evangelical or “born-again” Christians make up a quarter of the population; and they are on the march.

In the wake of the creationist “Scopes monkey trial” in 1925, the evangelicals (though technically victorious) realised they had lost the PR battle, and retreated from American public life. Now they are popping up all over the place, from the bestseller lists to pop music. In the wake of Scopes, the Bible Belt (H. L. Mencken's tag) was seen as a home of hicks. Now evangelism is the religion of the upwardly mobile, of McMansions and office parks, with evangelicals almost drawing level with (traditionally upper-crust) Episcopalians in terms of wealth and education.

Over the past 25 years, these more confident evangelicals have become the most powerful voting block in the Republican Party. Now they want to redefine the boundaries of church and state to make more room for public displays of religiosity and for faith-based social policy, and to put the “culture of life” back at the heart of the American experiment.

For evangelicals all these positions are as mainstream as it comes. They point out that the banishment of religion from the public square is a recent development. You only have to go back to 1960 to find children praying in schools and Hollywood sentimentalising Christmas. They point out that Roe v Wade (1973), which protects abortion, was a wonky decision, based on a post-modern reading of the constitution; and that the revolution that removed religion from public life has led to social breakdown.

Yet for a growing number of secularists these positions are the very definition of extremism.

The fact that God could create free beings vis-à -vis of Himself is the cross which philosophy could not carry, but remained hanging therefrom. -Soren Kierkegaard

AFRICA TOO:

Democracy gains in Ethiopia, a key US ally in terror war: Initial results Monday show opposition parties have won at least 174 seats, up from 12. (Abraham McLaughlin, 5/31/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

In a sign of strengthening democracy in one of Africa's historically repressive countries - and a US ally in the war on terror - opposition parties in Ethiopia have increased their power in parliament to at least 174 seats, from just 12.

The nation's first relatively free and fair election was held May 15, with 90 percent of the country's 26 million registered voters casting ballots. Preliminary results, released Monday, gave the ruling party a majority of at least 274 seats in the 547-seat parliament. Final results could be announced June 8.

The campaign included surprising signs of openness: massive opposition rallies being allowed in the capital; coverage of the opposition in government-controlled media; and, for the first time ever, more than 300 international observers being invited in to watch the vote. [...]

The ruling party - the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, which is led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi - has won all three elections since overthrowing a brutal Marxist dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, in 1991.

Having a stronger opposition in parliament could further increase pressure on the government to deliver basic goods and services, like food and housing, to the country's 73 million people.

WHIP HAND:

Battle for the heart of Europe (Anthony Browne and Rosemary Bennett, 5/31/05, Times of London)

TONY BLAIR is preparing to battle with President Chirac of France over Europe’s political direction for the coming decades.

The chaos in Brussels caused by France’s unexpectedly emphatic rejection of the European constitution has put Mr Blair, who takes up the EU presidency in July, in a powerful position to impose his vision of the future shape of the Union. [...]

Victory on settling the future direction of the EU would give Mr Blair the European legacy that he has long hoped for.

The day after the unexpectedly large “non” vote, it became clear in Brussels that several fronts have been opened by the demise of the constitution.

These include future Euro-pean social and economic policy, the British rebate, the size of the European budget, and enlargement, including Turkey’s application for membership, which Mr Blair championed.

Marco Incerti, of the Centre for European Policy Studies, which is funded by the Euro-pean Commission, said: “There will be a fight for the heart of Europe.”

President Chirac is expected to push hard to reassert his political authority. Sources close to the French President have given warning that he will be “more difficult, less co-operative and less European-minded than before”. One said: “The French Government will interpret ‘no’ as against being European-minded and reasonable on things like the budget.”

Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, which is close to Mr Blair, said: “The British presidency will be a very difficult act to pull off well. France’s ability to be bloody-minded is great.”

YOUR LIFE AIN'T WORTH MINE:

Cancer-Stricken US Senator Urges Expanded Stem Cell Research (Michael Bowman, 29 May 2005, VOA News)

A U.S. Senator and cancer sufferer says countless lives could be saved if the United States expanded medical research involving embryonic stem cells. President Bush has threatened to veto a bill that would broaden federal support for the controversial area of study.

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter is a Republican ally of President Bush on Capitol Hill, but a political moderate and notoriously independent-thinker.

CLEAR CONSTRUCTION:

Filibuster Deal Evaded Key Question on High Court Nominees (Dan Balz, May 30, 2005, Washington Post)

DeWine and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) have disputed the assertion by Reid and other Democrats that the nuclear option is off the table. DeWine said he explicitly raised the issue just before the group announced the deal on Monday night. "I said at the end, 'Make sure I understand this now, that . . . if any member of this group thinks the judge is filibustered under circumstances that are not extraordinary, that member has the right to vote at any time for the constitutional option.' Everyone in the room understood that."

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), another member of the group, concurred, saying that while he hopes the nuclear option is gone for the duration of the 109th Congress, circumstances could bring it back. "I really think Senator DeWine and Senator Graham have it right," he said.

BASQUE ETA? ASAP:

Spain is split over talks with Basque rebels (Renwick McLean, 5/30/05, International Herald Tribune )

The Basque militant group ETA may be weakening, but any discussion over its possible demise is dividing Spain to a degree that its attacks rarely have. Two weeks ago, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero won parliamentary backing for a proposal to negotiate with the group if it would renounce violence.

The government said the future of ETA was bleak enough that it might be persuaded to disband if offered a chance to negotiate small concessions from Madrid, like the return of imprisoned ETA members to Basque jails.

But the proposal has drawn sharp criticism from the families of victims of ETA bombings, as well as from scholars and editorial writers, and has driven a wedge between the major parties on an issue once considered exempt from partisan politics: the fight against ETA.

Members of the main opposition group in Parliament, the Popular Party, have attacked Zapatero's proposal as tantamount to appeasing terrorists.

The only way to defeat ETA, the opposition party says, is to crush it using all the powers available to Spain's law enforcement agencies.

IT'S UNANIMOUS (via Robert Schwartz):

Europe unites in hatred of French (Henry Samuel, 17/05/2005, Daily Telegraph)

Language, history, cooking and support for rival football teams still divide Europe. But when everything else fails, one glue binds the continent together: hatred of the French.

Typically, the French refuse to accept what arrogant, overbearing monsters they are.

But now after the publication of a survey of their neighbours' opinions of them at least they no longer have any excuse for not knowing how unpopular they are.

Why the French are the worst company on the planet, a wry take on France by two of its citizens, dredges up all the usual evidence against them. They are crazy drivers, strangers to customer service, obsessed by sex and food and devoid of a sense of humour.

But it doesn't stop there, boasting a breakdown, nation by nation, of what in the French irritates them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Britons described them as "chauvinists, stubborn, nannied and humourless". However, the French may be more shocked by the views of other nations.

For the Germans, the French are "pretentious, offhand and frivolous". The Dutch describe them as "agitated, talkative and shallow." The Spanish see them as "cold, distant, vain and impolite" and the Portuguese as "preaching". In Italy they comes across as "snobs, arrogant, flesh-loving, righteous and self-obsessed" and the Greeks find them "not very with it, egocentric bons vivants".

Interestingly, the Swedes consider them "disobedient, immoral, disorganised, neo-colonialist and dirty".

But the knockout punch to French pride came in the way the poll was conducted. People were not asked what they hated in the French, just what they thought of them.

"Interviewees were simply asked an open question - what five adjectives sum up the French," said Olivier Clodong, one of the study's two authors and a professor of social and political communication at the Ecole Superieur de Commerce, in Paris. "The answers were overwhelmingly negative."

STRIKER TO THE LINE:

Runs, Hits and an Era: Hurlers and batsmen in a Bay Area 'base ball' league play according to 1880s rules and customs. Its vintage feel is a far cry from today's game. (James Ricci, May 30, 2005, LA Times)

Players in the South County Jasper dugout tried to conjure an era-appropriate term as they exhorted batsman Mike "Professor" Ballen to drive home his teammates at first and third base.

"All right, Professor, two horses in the barn!" yelled Jasper captain Gary "Pops" Cooper. "Two roosters in the henhouse!" offered another teammate. "Two fleas on the dog!" cried a third.

The expression "two ducks on the pond," sometimes used by present-day broadcasters, clearly wouldn't do — not for this group of "ballists" intent on re-creating not only the look and play but even the argot of "base ball" as practiced during the presidency of Grover Cleveland.

"Striker to the line," called umpire Jim Saeger, black top hat bobbing and gold pocket-watch chain glinting in the sunlight of a recent Sunday morning. Ballen, with his blousy lace-up shirt, long stockings and trousers that tie below the knee, stepped up to home base, hefting his thick-handled replica bat.

"How would you like your pitches?" the umpire, as required by the old rules, asked.

"Low," Ballen replied.

"Low strikes," the ump informed Steve "Cappy" Gazay, hurler for the San Jose Dukes.

Gazay delivered as instructed, a pitch between the belt and knees. With an "oomph," Ballen lofted a high single to left field, allowing both runners to leg it home for a 12-5 Jasper lead.

When the game was over and the clubs had cheered "huzzah!" for each other, the unbeaten Jaspers had a 13-10 victory, stretching their winning streak to five games.

Which meant the Duke losing streak was now at five.

The two clubs are the only members of Bay Area Vintage Base Ball, which began its inaugural season last month. The organization is the only one in California devoted to playing the game according to the rules and customs of the 19th century.

Its players welcome the old game as an alternative to frequently quarrelsome adult baseball and softball leagues. It also represents a kind of purity that is lost in the din of the modern professional game, with its high-tech equipment, tantrum-prone millionaire players and rock-concert sound systems.

The vintage game, said author and former New York Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton, "is the wave of the future. It has all the things that people love most about baseball, and none of the things they hate."

Vintage baseball — "base ball," as it was called 125 years ago — has been a fixture in the East and upper Midwest for as long as two decades. Members of nearly 200 amateur clubs can be found on weekends running sand-filled bases in knickers and pillbox hats and trying to field hardballs with gloves no thicker than a gardener's — or with no gloves at all.

Some clubs are affiliated with local historical museums. Others were started by Civil War reenactment groups, which emulate Union and Confederate soldiers' recreational activities.

But there is a crucial difference between ballists and soldier-reenactors: On the base ball diamond, the competition isn't scripted, and it's often intense. The equivalent would be Civil War reenactors firing live musket balls at one another's potbellies, with the victory awarded to those left standing.

EVERY TIME A BOMB GOES OFF WE WIN:

Son of Slain Former Leader Triumphs in Beirut Vote (Megan K. Stack, May 30, 2005, LA Times)

Saad Hariri, the son of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, swept parliamentary elections in Lebanon's capital Sunday, inheriting the public mantle left by his father and shoring up his chances of becoming prime minister.

A soft-spoken, billionaire businessman who insists that he wasn't groomed for politics, the 35-year-old Hariri headed a bloc of candidates that won all 19 of the city's seats in the first election since Syrian troops ended their 29-year domination of Lebanon.

Hariri, who presides over his father's business empire, is poised to take over the public role left vacant by the assassination three months ago. Voter turnout was light Sunday, but the win was hailed as a triumph of public confidence for the Hariri family. Hariri's campaign rhetoric was heavy with invocations of "the martyr," and pictures of the slain patriarch were plastered on shop windows, cars and even bottles of water.

"Today national unity was won in the face of the old regime. Lebanon is united in you," a beaming Hariri told hundreds of raucous well-wishers who thronged the streets outside the family's mansion, beating drums, tossing fistfuls of petals and screaming his name. "This is a win for Rafik Hariri."

APRES VOUS, ALPHONSE

EU reacts swiftly to France's "non" (Deutsche Welle, May 30th, 2005)

EU leaders were also quick to react to France's no vote in Sunday's referendum. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters that the result would require a period of reflection on the future of the EU. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said that France's rejection of the EU constitution was regrettable and presented Europe with "great challenges". The President of the EU Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, described the no vote as a problem which had to be solved. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said the French rejection was a setback but did not spell the end of the road for the treaty.

In these difficult and uncertain times, it is reassuring to know Europe is led by courageous men of vision and conviction.

SEND BOMBERS INSTEAD:

Pressure on North Korea: U.S. Stealth Jets Sent to South (JOEL BRINKLEY, 5/30/05, NY Times)

The deployment last week of 15 stealth fighters to South Korea, along with the severing of the American military's only official interaction with North Korea, appears to be part of a new push by the Bush administration to further isolate North Korea despite China's hesitation to join the effort.

The deployment, confirmed by the Pentagon on Friday after several news reports, came just after the Defense Department said Wednesday that it was suspending the search for soldiers missing in action since the Korean War.

The search was the Pentagon's only mission inside North Korea and its only formal contact with the country's military. The Pentagon said it acted to ensure American troops' safety in the "uncertain environment created by North Korea's unwillingness to participate in the six-party talks," as a spokesman put it, referring to the lack of negotiations on the North's nuclear arms program over 11 months.

Although senior Pentagon officials say the F-117 stealth fighters are part of preparation for a long-planned training exercise, the show of force comes at a delicate moment both militarily and politically. China, South Korea and some experts in the United States have urged the administration to make a more specific offer to North Korea, laying out what it would get in return for giving up its nuclear arms program.

HAVING WON:

Abbas insists era of suicide bombers is over (Daily Star, May 30, 2005)

In an interview broadcast on ABC-TV in the U.S. last night, Abbas renewed calls for Hamas to renounce violence and enter into dialogue with Fatah.

"The climate right now is ready for political negotiations," said Abbas.

"Hamas should reach that conclusion that now the way is the political way and not any other way," he said.

Abbas said violent attacks in the Gaza Strip area had been reduced by 90 percent since his government took office four months ago.

Asked whether the era of suicide bombing was over, Abbas said: "I believe it is over. We have started to deal with the culture of violence, we stopped the culture of violence and the Palestinian people have started looking at it as something that should be condemned and it should stop."

CONSOLIDATION, THEN GROWTH:

Pope's vision of a smaller church (Ian Fisher, 5/30/05, The New York Times)

Joseph Ratzinger, as a theologian and cardinal, returned to the question often over the years. And now that he is Pope Benedict XVI, his paper trail on the issue provokes skepticism about him among more liberal Roman Catholics. The question, in his own words: "Is the church really going to get smaller?"

At another point, in an interview published in 1997 in "Salt of the Earth," he explained it this way: "Maybe we are facing a new and different kind of epoch in the church's history, where Christianity will again be characterized more by the mustard seed, where it will exist in small, seemingly insignificant groups that nonetheless live an intense struggle against evil and bring good into the world - that let God in."

The standard argument is that Benedict "wants a more fervent, orthodox, evangelical church - even if it drives people away," as a New Yorker headline put it recently.

But, as with much around this new pope, the whole story is complicated. He has yet to announce an overall program, having been in office just five weeks, but both critics and supporters alike say that it is unlikely that he would plan to prune back the church intentionally - or that he could.

"I don't get any sense of him wanting to purge or anything," said Christopher Ruddy, an assistant professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. "But I think he is willing to say what he thinks are hard truths, or unpopular truths.

WAITIN' ON THE JUDGEMENT DAY:

Europe stunned (Leader, May 30, 2005, Guardian)

France's emphatic rejection of the EU constitutional treaty is a stunning blow at a time when the continent faces grave economic problems and political challenges. Much comment in recent weeks has suggested that a no vote, while embarrassing, could be shrugged off, since the treaty of Nice will allow the union to carry on functioning.

But that misses the point that the constitution was agreed unanimously by 25 member states representing 455 million people from Helsinki to the Azores and from Nicosia to Warsaw. It represents a considerable investment of political capital and is a carefully-crafted compromise between different visions of the union, streamlining its functioning and boosting its clout in a world dominated by an unassailably powerful US. Despite the dire warnings of eurosceptics, it sets limits on integration. Its defeat - by 55% - 45% according to initial official figures - is very bad news for those who want a more coherent Europe punching at its weight.

YOU CAN'T DESPISE MIDDLE AMERICA AND GET ITS VOTE:

The Democrats' Class Struggle (Dan Balz, May 28, 2005, Washington Post)

"The 45% of voters who make up the middle class -- those with household incomes between $30,000 and $75,000 -- delivered healthy victories to George Bush and House Republicans in 2004."

The study is based on Third Way's analysis of 2004 exit polls. Among the five principal findings are that white middle-income voters supported President Bush by 22 percentage points. The study concluded that the "economic tipping point -- the income level above which white voters were more likely to vote Republican than Democrat -- was $23,700." [...]

The report also contained alarming news for Democrats about Hispanic voters. The more Hispanics move into the middle class, the less they vote Democratic.

Based on the analysis of exit polls, Kerry's margin over Bush among Hispanics with household incomes below $30,000 was 21 percentage points, but among those with incomes between $30,000 and $75,000, it was 10 points.

THE FIRST SEXUAL REVOLUTION:

Judaism’s Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism (and then Christianity) Rejected Homosexuality (DENNIS PRAGER, September 1993, Crisis)

When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. The Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible.

Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity.

This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women.

It is probably impossible for us, who live thousands of years after Judaism began this process, to perceive the extent to which undisciplined sex can dominate man's life and the life of society. Throughout the ancient world, and up to the recent past in many parts of the world, sexuality infused virtually all of society.

Human sexuality, especially male sexuality, is polymorphous, or utterly wild (far more so than animal sexuality). Men have had sex with women and with men; with little girls and young boys; with a single partner and in large groups; with total strangers and immediate family members; and with a variety of domesticated animals. They have achieved orgasm with inanimate objects such as leather, shoes, and other pieces of clothing, through urinating and defecating on each other (interested readers can see a photograph of the former at select art museums exhibiting the works of the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe); by dressing in women's garments; by watching other human beings being tortured; by fondling children of either sex; by listening to a woman's disembodied voice (e.g., “phone sex”); and, of course, by looking at pictures of bodies or parts of bodies. There is little, animate or inanimate, that has not excited some men to orgasm. Of course, not all of these practices have been condoned by societies — parent-child incest and seducing another's man's wife have rarely been countenanced — but many have, and all illustrate what the unchanneled, or in Freudian terms, the “un-sublimated,” sex drive can lead to.

Among the consequences of the unchanneled sex drive is the sexualization of everything — including religion. Unless the sex drive is appropriately harnessed (not squelched — which leads to its own destructive consequences), higher religion could not have developed. Thus, the first thing Judaism did was to de-sexualize God: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” by his will, not through any sexual behavior. This was an utterly radical break with all other religions, and it alone changed human history. The gods of virtually all civilizations engaged in sexual relations. [...]

Judaism placed controls on sexual activity. It could no longer dominate religion and social life. It was to be sanctified — which in Hebrew means “separated” — from the world and placed in the home, in the bed of husband and wife. Judaism's restricting of sexual behavior was one of the essential elements that enabled society to progress. Along with ethical monotheism, the revolution begun by the Torah when it declared war on the sexual practices of the world wrought the most far-reaching changes in history.

MORE:
Genesis 2

18: And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

19: And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20: And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

21: And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22: And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23: And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

PAPER OR PEOPLE:

A tale of two constitutions (GLYN FORD, 5/30/05, The Japan Times)

On Sunday the world watched as the French electorate voted on whether to approve the new European constitution, and it will watch once again Wednesday when Holland holds a similar referendum. Both results will help determine the future direction and role of the European Union in the world.

Within two years the people of Japan will make a similar choice. For the first time since World War II, they will vote in a referendum on whether to amend their Constitution. Indeed, Japan has a team of senior politicians led by the chair of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, Taro Nakayama, observing the EU process.

Together the Japanese and EU referendums promise to affect the whole nature of global politics. New constitutions will transform the international roles of both Japan and Europe from being merely economic superpowers and global cash cows (currently the two largest donors of international aid) into global political players posing a real challenge to American domination and unilateralism.

Sustained reductions in family size in the context of peace and social progress were first witnessed in late eighteenth-century Europe. In the first half of the twentieth century, European countries unveiled another demographic first: non-catastrophic sub-replacement fertility. During the interwar period, a number of European states reported fertility patterns that, if continued, would lead to an eventual stabilization and indefinite population decline thereafter, absent offsetting immigration. These low fertility regimens were entirely voluntary: heretofore, such low birth rates had virtually always been attended by war, pestilence, famine, or disaster. Europe experienced a baby boom after World War II, but sub-replacement fertility has now returned with a vengeance.

To maintain long-term population stability, a society's women must bear an average of about 2.1 children per lifetime. According to projections of the U.S. Census Bureau, Europe's total fertility rate (or TFR-births per woman per lifetime) is about 1.4. Indeed, nearly all the world's developed regions--Australia and New Zealand, North America, Japan, and the highly industrialized East Asian outposts of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea--are reporting sub-replacement fertility. (Israel remains an exception.) But sub-replacement fertility is clearly no longer mainly a developed-nation phenomenon. If the Census Bureau's projections are roughly accurate, just about half the world's population lives in sub-replacement countries or territories.

Apart from Mongolia, according to the Census Bureau, all of East Asia is sub-replacement, as are Thailand and Burma in Southeast Asia, Kazakstan and Sri Lanka in South Central Asia, many Caribbean societies, and most South American countries. [...]

The United States is the singular and major exception to the demographic rhythms characterizing virtually all other affluent Western states.

In Western Europe, total populations are anticipated to decline between 2000 and 2025, with a substantial shrinkage in the under-fifty-five population and pronounced population aging. In the United States, overall population aging is much more moderate; the overall population is projected to increase, and a higher number of young people are expected in 2025 than today.

Part of this difference is attributable to a significant divergence in fertility patterns. As already noted, Europe's overall TFR stands in the 1.4 to 1.5 range, with Italy and Spain on the low end, at about 1.2, and France and Ireland on the high end, at about 1.8. The U.S. fertility rate has been over 2.0 since 1990 and is just under replacement today--somewhere between 2.0 and the 2.1 replacement level, making it about 40 percent higher than Europe's.

America's fertility levels have diverged not just from Europe's but from those of the rest of the developed world. The U.S. TFR is much higher than Japan's 1.3-1.4, and the gap is even greater with some of the other high-income East Asian countries. Even much of North America does not look so "American" these days: whereas the United States and Canada had nearly identical fertility levels back in the mid-1970s, Canada looks pretty European today, and the United States looks--well, pretty American. While the States is reporting a TFR of over 2, Canada's is around 1.5.

Much of the developed world is caught up in what Ron Lesthaege and Dirk van de Kaa have dubbed "the second demographic transition"--a shift to smaller desired family sizes and less stable family unions. If this is the new demographic revolution, Americans look to be the developed world's most prominent counterrevolutionaries.

America's relatively high TFR does not seem to be explained by any particular region or ethnicity. There are big fertility differences between some states, but forty-two states reported TFRs above 1.9 that year, and thirty-three reported TFRs of 2.0 or higher. In all of Europe, by contrast, the only country with an estimated TFR above 2.0 is Albania.

America's ethnic fertility differentials do not account for its demographic divergence from Europe. Hispanic Americans maintain relatively large family sizes in the United States, with a TFR of around 2.7, but excluding them by no means eliminates the gap between the United States and the rest of the developed world. Nor can the differential be explained by factoring out African-American fertility (which is higher than the "Anglo" rate, but much closer to the Anglo rate than to the Latinos'). In 2000, America's Anglo TFR was 1.84--about 10 percent less than the U.S. national average, but still more than 30 percent above Europe's.

LOOKING FOR MR. GOADBAR:

RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war (Michael Smith, 5/29/05, Sunday Times of London)

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make “regime change” in Iraq legal.

Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, told the meeting that “the US had already begun ‘spikes of activity’ to put pressure on the regime”.

The new information, obtained by the Liberal Democrats, shows that the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001, and that the RAF increased their attacks even more quickly than the Americans did.

WING CLIPPING:

Revealed: The real cost of air travel (Michael McCarthy, Marie Woolf and Michael Harrison, 28 May 2005, Independent uk)

It might be cheap, but it's going to cost the earth. The cut-price airline ticket is fuelling a boom that will make countering global warming impossible.

The tens of thousands of Britons jetting off on cheap flights this weekend have been given graphic reminders by leading green groups that the huge surge in mass air travel is becoming one of the biggest causes of climate change.

Unless the boom in cheap flights is halted, say Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, Britain and other countries will simply not be able to meet targets for cutting back on the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) that are causing the atmosphere to warm, with potentially disastrous consequences. In spelling out what is for most people - and for many politicians - a very uncomfortable truth, they are echoing the warnings of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee.

The scientists of the former and the MPs of the latter have set out in detail how the soaring growth in CO2 emissions from aircraft that the cheap flights bonanza is promoting will do terrible damage to the atmosphere and make a nonsense of global warming targets, such as Britain's stated aim of cutting CO2 emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. [...]

Blake Lee-Harwood, campaigns director for Greenpeace, said: [...] "The only way to stop the problem is to reduce our flying. We just have to accept public transport and highly efficient cars are the only kinds of routine transport we can sensibly use, and air travel is just for special occasions. We may not like that hard truth but we don't have a choice." The green groups feel the only solution is to cut back on demand by forcing prices up, especially as commercial aviation has long benefited from a very easy tax regime. In other words, people will have to be "priced off planes" and the cheap flights bonanza will have to end.

MIRACLE ON 10TH STREET (via Daniel Merriman):

Smithsonian to Screen a Movie That Makes a Case Against Evolution (JOHN SCHWARTZ, 5/28/05, NY Times)

Fossils at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History have been used to prove the theory of evolution. Next month the museum will play host to a film intended to undercut evolution.

The Discovery Institute, a group in Seattle that supports an alternative theory, "intelligent design," is announcing on its Web site that it and the director of the museum "are happy to announce the national premiere and private evening reception" on June 23 for the movie, "The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe."

The film is a documentary based on a 2004 book by Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor of astronomy at Iowa State University, and Jay W. Richards, a vice president of the Discovery Institute, that makes the case for the hand of a creator in the design of Earth and the universe. [...]

[Museum spokesman, Randall Kremer] said he heard about the event only on Thursday. He added that staff members viewed the film before approving the event to make sure that it complied with the museum's policy, which states that "events of a religious or partisan political nature" are not permitted, along with personal events such as weddings, or fund-raisers, raffles and cash bars. It also states that "all events at the National Museum of Natural History are co-sponsored by the museum."

BECAUSE IT'S RIGHT, NOT BECAUSE THEY'LL BE GRATEFUL:

What Do We Owe the Rest of the World? (Crispin Sartwell, May 27, 2005, LA Times)

Delivering a commencement address at Boston University, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said this about U.S. involvement with his country prior to 9/11: "The United States and other countries that had the power, and hence the responsibility, did not see it compatible with their national interests to address the plight of the Afghan people then."

It was that little "hence" that gave me pause. If one is powerful enough to help, is one morally obliged to help?

"With great power comes great responsibility" is a classic cliche, indeed the very slogan of Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man.

But great responsibility also brings with it great resentment on the part of those over whom one is responsible, which is rational and inevitable. The fact that you are responsible for your children, for example, is a justification for your power over them. But they cannot throw off your authority — as eventually they must — without throwing off your responsibility for them, including the fact that you pay for their car insurance or their groceries.

This is one reason why so much of the world has a deeply ambivalent relationship with the U.S. at the moment. They need us in order to rise out of poverty. But if they enlist our aid to rise out of poverty, their gratitude is a form of dependence and a source of resentment.

THE UNSERIOUS IN PURSUIT OF THE UNREALISTIC:

Employers of Illegal Immigrants Face Little Risk of Penalty (Anna Gorman, May 29, 2005, LA Times)

Nearly every day, immigrants newly arrived from Mexico pick up job applications at Car Wash on Sunset.

Owner George Garcia insists that they provide proof, such as Social Security or green cards, that they are authorized to work. What he does not do is pick up the phone to see if the documents are phony.

"I run a business," he said. "Why is it my job to kick people out? It is not my responsibility to figure out who is legal and who is not legal. It's their job to stop them at the border."

Garcia doesn't worry about being fined or arrested by immigration authorities. Even if federal agents did raid his Los Angeles carwash and arrest his undocumented workers, it wouldn't take long to replace them.

"If I lost 20 guys," he said, "within a couple of days I'd have new guys."

The escalating debate over illegal immigration focuses primarily on those who sneak across the border, not on the jobs that lure them here or the people who hire them. When authorities do crack down on employers, it often is to stem terrorism, human smuggling or large-scale criminal operations.

In fact, the owners of hotels, farms, restaurants and retail stores who hire illegal workers — never widely sanctioned to begin with — now face a negligible risk of being penalized.

From 1993 to 2003, the number of arrests at work sites nationwide went from 7,630 to 445. The number of fines dropped from 944 in 1993 to 124 in 2003.

About 7 million illegal immigrants worked in the U.S. last year, said the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization

DUPLICATING SPECTACULAR FAILURE (via Tom Morin):

Ex-Dean leader launches worker site (Stephen Franklin, May 27, 2005, Chicago Tribune)

If the Internet could supply the energy that made Howard Dean a Democratic Party contender, imagine, Joe Trippi asks, what it could do for American workers?

"It could be a real innovative way to get people connected," said Trippi, Dean's former presidential campaign manager and a longtime political activist who on Thursday launched a Web site--www.changeamerica.com--aimed at workers and their companies.

Trippi said he hoped his new effort would follow in the path of the Dean campaign, which amassed an e-mail list of 600,000, by stirring grass-roots activists as well as raising money from them.

Its first campaign is an attack on bankrupt United Airlines' management over its scuttling of workers' pensions. The site features a message board and allows visitors to add their name to a petition designed to urge the airline's board to replace Chief Executive Glenn Tilton and his top advisers because of their efforts to relieve United of its pension responsibilities.

NON FOR NOW:

France 'rejects EU constitution' (BBC, 5/29/05)

French voters have rejected the proposed EU constitution in Sunday's referendum, according to exit polls.

The polls give the "No" side 55% - in line with surveys published in the run-up to the vote.

If confirmed, the result will be a blow to President Jacques Chirac and France's two main political parties, which campaigned for a "Yes".

It could deal a fatal blow to the EU constitution, which the Union has been working on since the start of 2002.

ONE IS PLENTY:

Pope Wants to Heal Catholic-Orthodox Rift During his Papacy (Sabina Castelfranco, 29 May 2005, VOA news)

Pope Benedict says he wants to heal the rift with the Orthodox Church during his papacy. He spoke to hundreds-of-thousands of people attending a mass in the southern Italian city of Bari during his first pilgrimage away from the Vatican since he was elected less than two months ago. [...]

Bari is often referred to as a bridge between East and West. Pope Benedict has said from the start of his papacy that he wants to further dialogue among different Christian faiths. He said it again in this city, which has close ties to the Orthodox Church.

Amid the applause, the pope said: "Right here in Bari, happy Barri, city that is home to the bones of Saint Nicholas and land of meeting and dialogue with our Christian brothers from the East, I want to repeat my willingness to assume, as a fundamental commitment, working to reconstitute the full and visible unity of all the followers of Christ, with all my energy."

The pope added that words are not enough, and concrete gestures are needed to reach out to the Orthodox.

THEY'RE AWFULLY GOOD AT SURPRISES:

White House researching potential justices (Deb Riechmann, May 29, 2005, Associated Press)

The White House has laid the groundwork to place more conservatives on the Supreme Court, scrutinizing the backgrounds and legal views of a shrinking list of candidates amid speculation that ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist soon will step down. [...]

"The vacancy could come anytime after this Memorial Day weekend, we think," said Sean Rushton, director of the conservative Committee for Justice, which has close ties to the White House counsel's office.

"They have been winnowing the list down for some time now. I imagine they're down to maybe three or five -- a handful anyway -- who are their first choices," he said.

White House officials say it is inappropriate to discuss filling a vacancy that does not exist. They refuse to disclose publicly any details about how Bush might pick the first nominee for the court in more than a decade.

But those tracking the process say the counsel's office has researched the resumes of prospective justices, their court opinions and their views about constitutional law. Justice Department lawyers are carefully looking into the personal backgrounds of possible nominees. Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed despite allegations of sexual harassment. One of President Reagan's nominees, Douglas Ginsburg, withdrew from consideration after it was revealed that he had smoked marijuana.

John McGinnis, a law professor at Northwestern University and former deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's office of legal counsel, said he thinks Bush already might have made up his mind.

"This White House -- I congratulate it on its ability to be secret," McGinnis said. "It's entirely possible that Rehnquist has already communicated his intention to step down and the White House has a plan absolutely set."

RIGHT CONTINENT, WRONG BILLION:

The China Scapegoat (NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, 5/29/05, NY Times)

The most important diplomatic relationship in the world is between the U.S. and China. It's souring and could get much worse.

BAD TIMEZONE:

U.N. Party Planners Wonder, Will Bush and Friends Attend? (DEAN E. MURPHY, 5/29/05, NY Times)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has indicated she will not attend. So has former President George H. W. Bush. The controversial nominee for United Nations ambassador, John R. Bolton, has not been heard from, nor has President Bush, who was sent an invitation in February.

Getting big-name administration officials to attend events outside Washington is always a long shot because of their busy schedules. But in the case of the 60th anniversary celebration of the founding of the United Nations, which will take place in San Francisco late next month, some organizers are wondering if something beyond scheduling conflicts is at play.

Nancy L. Peterson, president of the United Nations Association of San Francisco, a nonprofit group that has been planning the celebration, said no explanation had been offered by the White House. But she said some members were worried that President Bush's seeming disdain for the world organization might be behind the silence and no-shows

THE MIDDLE EAST THAT W MADE:

Lebanon launches landmark polls (BBC, 5/29/05)

Lebanese voters are going to the polls for the first of four rounds of voting in the parliamentary election.

The poll is the first in 30 years to be held without the presence of the Syrian military on Lebanese soil.

Troops withdrew last month after huge pressure sparked by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, for which Syrians were widely blamed.

Correspondents say Mr Hariri's son Saad and his allies are poised to win the poll and dominate the new parliament.

PULPIT PILFERAGE:

A U.S. Faith Initiative for Africa: Secretary of State Rice and black pastors discuss a joint effort to fight AIDS. (Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger, May 29, 2005, LA Times)

Escalating its courtship of a politically powerful constituency, the Bush administration is teaming up with some of the nation's best-known and most influential black clergy to craft a new role for U.S. churches in Africa.

The effort was launched last week, when more than two dozen leading African American religious figures met privately with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and senior White House officials at the State Department, according to administration officials and meeting participants.

The hourlong session focused largely on how the administration's faith-based initiative could be expanded to combat the spread of HIV and provide help for tens of millions of children orphaned by the epidemic across Africa.

Some of the pastors said it was a matter of national security — that those orphans were susceptible to recruitment by Islamic extremists unless they could be exposed to churches such as theirs.

The gathering yielded no formal financial commitment from the federal government for the Africa effort. But participants said it marked a new era of engagement by black clergy with U.S. foreign policy. [...]

Rice and the pastors discussed the possibility of establishing an office of faith-based initiatives within the State Department that would direct federal funds for overseas aid to church and community groups, as similar offices have done in other Cabinet agencies.

The meeting reflected the expanding relationship between some of the country's best-known black clergy and the Bush administration — a relationship that has been nurtured through a White House program that encourages funneling government grants to religious charities.

Illustrating the political benefit of that relationship, White House officials injected some Capitol Hill strategy into the session. They solicited support among the black pastors for controversial legislation that would allow faith-based charities in the U.S. to discriminate in hiring based on an applicant's religious beliefs — a provision that has spurred opposition from some Democrats and civil rights groups.

"Compassion has a way of cutting across partisan lines," said James Towey, the top White House official in charge of the faith-based programs, who asked the pastors to sign a letter endorsing the legislation.

AMERICAN SCHOOL:

Muslim pupils thriving (SANDRA TAN, 5/29/2005, Buffalo News)

It was story time.

Children in white polo shirts and navy jumpers or slacks gathered around their teacher and chimed in gleefully as they listened to a story.

On the wall hung pictures, letters and lesson plans along with a list of virtues: wisdom, perseverance, friendship, honesty, love, generosity and cooperation.

The classroom scene could have been mistaken for any private or parochial school, a tight-knit school environment where academics and moral values carry equal weight.

But a few things set Universal School in Amherst apart.

The classroom's character words were written in both English and Arabic. And the female teacher wore a head scarf, just as all female pupils in fourth grade and above do.

Universal School is a Muslim elementary school, the only one of its kind in Western New York. In the past five years, it has nearly doubled in size and now serves 55 children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.

"It seems to look like a different school, but it isn't," said Khalid Bibi, a Canisius College professor, founding member and parent who served as the school's first executive board president. "This is an American school, first and foremost."

AHEAD OF HER TIMES:

Thatcher got it right on EU, says maverick urging Dutch to vote No (Toby Harnden, 29/05/2005, Sunday Telegraph)

If Geert Wilders was a rock star, his arrival would seem slightly over the top. As he steps into the square from his coach, fitted with darkened, bullet-proof windows and with VIP emblazoned on the side, he acknowledges the cheers.

"You're the best," shouts Monique Feenstra, the owner of a Hilversum coffee shop. Her hero, dressed all in white except for a lime green tie, uses one hand to sweep back his bottle-blond hair, and the other to sign an autograph. "He's beautiful," coos Maria Geijsen, a pensioner.

The perma-tanned Mr Wilders is not a lead singer, however, but a maverick Right-wing MP who fronts his own party, Groep Wilders. His populist campaign will be a key factor if, as the opinion polls predict, the Dutch No camp that he supports wins Wednesday's referendum on the European Union constitution. [...]

In opposing the constitution, Mr Wilders finds himself in an uneasy alliance with much of the Dutch Left, which sees it as undermining Holland's social model and traditional liberalism.

Both ends of the spectrum are feeding off a growing distrust of mainstream politicians and resentment over a lack of consultation on Europe. Mr Wilders's message about the evils of immigration and the loss of sovereignty to a European superstate is, he said inspired by Margaret Thatcher. "She rejected Europe very strongly and as a result today, because we were weak, the Dutch are paying Brussels what the British should pay. British people know their history and are sceptical about Europe. They are very wise and we can learn from them," he said.

SHOULD HAVE TELEVISED IT:

Zarqawi Followers Clash With Local Sunnis: Battle That Left Marines on Sidelines Reveals Fractures in Foreign Fighters' Support (Ellen Knickmeyer, 5/29/05, Washington Post)

For four days this month, U.S. Marines were onlookers at just the kind of fight they had hoped to see: a battle between suspected followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a foreign-born insurgent, and Iraqi Sunni tribal fighters at the western frontier town of Husaybah.

In clashes sparked by the assassination of a tribal sheik, which was commissioned by Zarqawi, the foreign insurgents and the Iraqi tribal fighters pounded one another with small weapons and mortars in the town's streets as the U.S. military watched from a distance, tribal members and the U.S. military said. [...]

The Sunni Arab tribe involved in the clashes, the Sulaiman, lost four men, Salman Reesha Sulaiman, a member of the tribe, said in an interview after the fighting, which occurred during the first week of May.

On the Zarqawi side, 11 foreign fighters were killed outright, plus an unknown number of other foreign fighters and their Iraqi allies in U.S. bombing runs after local tribes tipped off their location to the Americans.

The fighting at Husaybah was a dramatic sign of the fractures in support and allegiance the foreign fighters are experiencing, several Iraqi political leaders and other Iraqis said.

NO MORE POTTER'S FIELDS?:

Banking on illegals (Dimitri Vassilaros, 5/29/05, Pittsburgh TRIBUNE-REVIEW)

New South Federal Savings Bank is giving illegal aliens home mortgages to help them realize the American dream.

Its Casa Mia program is designed to help tax-paying immigrants "without traditional forms of documentation" -- like anything indicating they are Americans.

Remedios Gomez Arnau, consul general of Mexico in Atlanta, is working closely with the massive Alabama-based bank "to ensure the accurate identification of Mexican immigrants."

Said Senor Arnau: "We are excited to see a loan product specifically aimed at helping Mexican immigrants."

New South describes itself as Alabama's largest thrift with $1.4 billion in assets. It has residential mortgage loan offices in 13 states and services home loans in 30 more, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands.

If enough illegals apply, New South plans to offer Casa Mia mortgages in Atlanta, Phoenix and Houston "in the near future."

Unless, that is, the bank officers are arrested for helping to harbor illegal aliens.

HAVEN'T WE LET THEM SUFFER ENOUGH?:

Cooking with Fidel: As blackouts multiply, Castro pleads for power thrift (AFP, 5/27/05)

Faced with crippling power outages and a grumbling public, Cuba's President Fidel Castro has made an urgent televised appeal for energy thrift, even demonstrating the relative merits of Chinese-made pressure cookers.

"Exceptional measures are being taken" to cope with the crisis, Castro, 78, said in an hours-long appearance on state television late Thursday, as the crunch has begun to yield more blackouts, and longer ones, as Cuba heads into the hottest summer months.

As if to underscore that he, too, feels the heat, Castro read aloud "opinions" collected from the public, replete with harsh criticism for the blackouts.

As local jokes have it, they are more reliable than the power supply.

INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS:

Europe: Is the dream falling apart? (Iain Macwhirter, 5/29/05, Sunday Herald)

There is understandable gloom and foreboding this weekend over the future of the European project. If France and the Netherlands vote “No” to the new constitution, it will likely start a rejectionist domino effect that will knock on through Denmark, Ireland and Poland. Europe could be flattened for a generation.

Then again, perhaps this could be the moment when Europe finally comes to its senses. The French “non” will be a crisis, certainly, but a crisis is also a turning point. Few will mourn the loss of this less than inspiring document. It could be an opportunity for Europe to regain some of its idealism and purpose; a chance to remind itself that the EU is about more than agricultural support quotas.

BBC: What has the referendum campaign told you about the state of mental health of the French?

EL: It seems that in the referendum there's something irrational going on.

BBC: In what sense are the French being more irrational than usual?

EL: The fact that the "No" had this surge is, as one of our political leaders said, bizarre. The "No" vote comes from absolutely all walks of life.

BBC: Is France showing symptoms of a split personality?

EL: Yes, something like that. Of course in modern democracies the political personality is always split. You have two parties with different opinions. But this split means for the first time in years that something doesn't fit in with the usual divisions.

BBC: Are the French suffering from extreme stress? Is that what is making them behave out of character?

EL: There is a special stress, and the French nation was always revolutionary in its character. The Enlightenment happened all over Europe, but only the French nation was so divided that it produced the French revolution.

And the two parts of the nation never quite mended after that. So France has a special kind of instability among modern democracies. [...]

BBC: Are you sure that this is out of character? Perhaps this is a trait of character that hadn't come out before, but actually this is the true nature of the patient?

STEAL HIS FACE:

Britain ready to kill EU referendum (Andrew Porter and Peter Conradi, 5/29/05, Sunday Times of London)

BRITAIN is ready to drop its plans to hold a referendum on the European Union constitution next year if there is a no vote in France today, according to Foreign Office sources. [...]

President Jacques Chirac, who will broadcast on television after the polls close tonight, is set to urge other countries to continue with the ratification process.

Government sources said that was likely to cut little ice in Britain. “Chirac will attempt to shift the blame for the defeat and urge the other countries to go on and ratify because he does not want to carry the can for the constitution falling down,” a source said.

“The feeling now is that we do not really want to try to struggle on just to save his face.”

THE OMEN WASN'T AN INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO (via Rick Perlstein):

Divorced Wiccans Fight Judge's Order (KEN KUSMER, 5/26/05, Associated Press)

A Wiccan activist and his ex-wife are challenging a court's order that they must protect their 9-year-old son from what it calls their "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."

The Indiana Civil Liberties Union has appealed the stipulation written into the couple's divorce order, saying it is unconstitutionally vague because it does not define mainstream religion.

Thomas Jones, a Wiccan activist who has coordinated Pagan Pride Day in Indianapolis for six years, said he and his ex-wife, Tammy Bristol, were stunned by the order

SURE THEY'RE CROOKED, BUT WE HAVE NATIONAL HEALTH!:

Liberals lead slumping Tories in poll (CANADIAN PRESS, 5/28/05)

The Conservatives continue to slump in voter support despite daily allegations of Liberal sponsorship misdeeds, a new poll suggests.

The phone survey by Decima Research Inc. puts the Liberals ahead with 36 per cent of decided voters compared to 27 per cent for the Conservatives and 21 per cent for the NDP.

In the crucial battleground of Ontario where one-third of Commons seats are centred, the Liberals lead by 16 percentage points.

The separatist Bloc Quebecois has a hammerlock on Quebec with 53 per cent of support, versus 21 per cent for the Liberals, 12 per cent for the Tories and nine per cent for the NDP.

NEW ISRAEL (via Tom Morin):

ASK SPENGLER (Asia Times)

Dear Spengler:

The Israel-centric Judeophilia that has come to dominate American religion and politics is a relatively recent phenomenon. It drove the US into the war against Iraq, Israel's biggest enemy in the region, at the expense of the real war against terror. It may yet drive it into war against Syria and Iran, also Israel's' enemies. Will it hurt America in the long run? Only time will tell. I think it will, simply because this obsession with Israel is so irrational and so asinine.

The Hebrew god is a god that plays favorites. He commands his "chosen race" to steal land from others, to slaughter them en masse as in: "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass" (I Samuel 15:3).

The Hebrew Bible is chock full of such insanities. No one who uses common sense would believe in such an insanely vicious deity.

Bliss

Dear Bliss:

Let us examine your two issues, namely what you perceive to be America's sudden leap into Judeophilia, and your dislike for the Hebrew god.

On the first point you are poorly informed. Judeophilia characterized America from its founding; for extensive quotations and source references, I recommend Michael Novak's book On Two Wings, whose first chapter is titled "Hebrew Metaphysics at the Founding" (of the United States). Novak, a Catholic (ie, neither Jewish nor Evangelical) scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, quotes an 1809 letter from the United States of America's second president, John Adams:

I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men then any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist ... I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.
During the first half of the 20th century, to be sure, the universal popularity of racialist theories did not leave the United States unaffected, and reverberations of European Jew-hatred influenced Americans. These attenuated gradually after the destruction of National Socialism. Evangelical Protestantism always had an affinity for the Jews, and its growth during the past 20 years surely made the US more Judeophilic, but that only took the country closer to its own origins.

On the other matter, you are not alone in your discomfort with the Hebrew god who wiped out the tribe of Amelek. Whether you acknowledge the existence of the Hebrew or Christian god, or Allah, or karma, or blind chance, one cannot help be struck by the unspeakable unfairness of life. Six thousand languages are spoken in the world today, of which two become extinct every week - which means not merely the lives of those who become extinct, but of all the members of the entire preceding culture, retroactively become meaningless. Most of them will not merit so much as a doctoral dissertation. If there is a god of any sort, he not merely wiped out Amelek, but thousands of cultures of which we know nothing, because nary a shard of pottery survives of them. At the present rate he will eradicate another 1,000 cultures in the next decade. If present trends continue, French and German will be spoken only in hell 200 years from now.

With all of this extinction going on, does it not seem woefully unfair to you that the descendants of a tribe of shepherds speaking a minor West Semitic dialect are the only people left whose ancestors walked the green earth 3,500 years ago, and the only people who still speak the same language their ancestors spoke? The Indians and Chinese, whose languages also are very ancient, do not make much of this.

Many Evangelicals consider this a miracle. When Friedrich II ("the Great") of Prussia asked his court chaplain for a proof of God's existence, the cleric replied, "Your Majesty, the Jews!" US televangelists routinely preach that if God so visibly fulfilled his promise to the Old Israel, adherents of the New Israel have some assurance that he will keep faith with them as well.

Others grind their teeth in resentment. Why should my people not be the chosen people? That is the source of Jew-hatred (What the Jews won't tell you, November 4, 2003).

Spengler

HARRY KNEW WHO'D WON:

Judicial Nominees Compromise Was Hard-Won (DAVID ESPO, 5/28/05, AP)

The signatures of 14 Senate centrists, seven from each party, spilled across the last page of a hard-won compromise on President Bush's judicial nominees. But whatever elation the negotiators felt, the Senate's Democratic leader did not share it.

In the privacy of his Capitol office last Monday night, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., asked for commitments from six Democrats fresh from the talks. Would they pledge to support filibusters against Brett Kavanaugh and William Haynes, two nominees not specifically covered by the pact with Republicans?

Some of the Democrats agreed. At least one, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, declined.

Details of Reid's attempt to kill the two nominations within minutes of the agreement, as well as other events during this tumultuous time, were obtained by The Associated Press in interviews with senators and aides in both parties. They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing confidentiality pledges. [...]

Democrats wanted the right to filibuster, while insisting Republicans abandon their threats to ban the practice.

Republicans insisted on some sort of linkage — limiting the potential for filibusters, while reserving the right to respond forcefully if Democrats broke their word.

Draft proposals, bearing language written by Reid's staff, envisioned future filibusters only "under extraordinary circumstances." Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the leadership, weighed in from a distance. Republicans agreed each senator could exercise "his or her own discretion and judgment" in deciding whether to filibuster.

Republicans objected forcefully at other points.

At a private lunch among senators, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other GOP leaders equated a pending draft with unilateral disarmament. They said it would allow Democrats to filibuster without fear of retaliation.

Back around the coffee table, McCain, DeWine, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and others insisted that Democrats yield ground.

Finally, as the negotiators returned to the Capitol last Monday, the day before the scheduled vote, the centrists were optimistic they had a deal. [...]

The draft said Democrats could filibuster only in "extraordinary circumstances" and that Republicans would oppose any rules changes "in light/assuming the spirit and commitments made in this agreement."

"In light" of, a construction credited to Graham, won out.

Collins successfully sought insertion of one additional word, obliging Democrats to "continuing" commitments.

Moments after the talks ended, six of the Democratic negotiators — Nelson, Pryor, Byrd, and Sens. Ken Salazar of Colorado, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut — walked into Reid's office.

Schumer objected to the deletion of Kavanaugh's name. Recognizing that the talks were over, Reid asked Democrats to support filibusters against both Kavanaugh and Haynes.

Nelson declined. Several participants in the meeting said the others agreed, although Landrieu said Friday through a spokesman that she had not. Reid's spokesman declined comment.

WHICH SIDE THE TOAST IS GHEED ON:

India a 'stabilising force' in world politics: Rice (S Rajagopalan, May 28, 2005, Hindustan Times)

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that she regards India as not only a rising economic power but a country that is emerging as "a potentially very stabilizing and positive force in international politics".

That's why the US is spending a lot of time on this "very key relationship" with India and is "fully willing and ready to assist" in its transformation as a global power, she said in an interview.

She sought to emphasise that the US was committed to becoming "a reliable partner" of India which, as she put it, is "a natural friend" and "a great multi-ethnic democracy".

In her interview to Bloomberg News, a transcript of which was released by the State Department, Rice compared and contrasted the two emerging global powers - China and India.

While India's growing influence will be "largely positive", she was sceptical about China on several counts. If a country of the size of China does not play by the rules, it will end up being "disruptive to the international economy", she commented.

Rice also brought up other issues vis-a-vis China: democratisation, human rights, religious freedom, and transparency and openness in politics.

India's was "a remarkable story" in contrast, she said adding that with over a billion people in a multi-ethnic land, India "repeatedly manages to have democratic elections (and) a peaceful change of parliament".

MORE:
Interview With Al Hunt, Janine Zacharia and Matt Winkler of Bloomberg News (Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Washington, DC, May 26, 2005)

MS. ZACHARIA: [S]hifting a bit to India, where relations seem to have improved, there seems to be a growing dependence of their country on outsourcing of U.S. services there and has that -- that seems to have benefited India, for sure. But what's the benefit for the United States?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, again, when this issue came up several months ago, I think that the answer that rings truest is that in order for the United States to be competitive and to make certain that jobs are here, you have to have an environment in which this is the very best place to do business. And that's what I think the President and his economic advisors spend a lot of time doing. And the President has talked about dealing not just with our near-term problems, but with our long-term liabilities, like Social Security, which depressed the capacity for the United States to be over the long term the very best place to do business. Tort reform and all of the things that they're pursuing.

But India is a rising economic influence of power in the international system. It's a great multiethnic democracy. I think it's a natural friend for the United States. The Indians are emerging from a philosophy of heavy statist involvement in the economy. They are emerging similarly from policies that were -- that were not aligned, but had a strong -- I won't call it anti-America, but tended to juxtaposed India to the United States in most of its policies -- and instead, I think, emerging as a potentially very stabilizing and positive force in international politics, which is why we're spending a lot of time on that relationship. We're spending a lot of time on South Asia.

And if you could imagine a circumstance in which what was once called the "Arc of Crisis" is instead an Afghanistan that is democratic and has a strong defense relationship with the United States, as the President -- and a strong strategic relationship with the United States, as the President and President Karzai just announced when he was here this week. A Pakistan that is democratizing and doing that in a way that roots out extremism because I think you have to say that Pakistan was very far along the road of extremism and Musharraf has made a strategic choice to turn that around.

And then in India, which is democratic, multiethnic, reforming in terms of the economy, entering the world economy in a major way, and that the United States can retain good and -- good relations with all of those and deepening relations with all of those, it's a very good strategic position for the United States in terms of security, in the fight against terrorism, as well as when you look to the West, what it means for the Middle East, and when you look to the East, what it means for East Asia more broadly.

So India is a very key relationship here and we're spending a lot of time on it. When I went out there, we talked about a stronger economic relationship, stronger energy cooperation, stronger defense cooperation and becoming a reliable partner for India as it makes its move as a global power. And we used the words that we're fully willing and ready to assist in that growth of India's global power and the implications of that, which we see as largely positive.

HOW MUCH MORE CLOUT COULD HE CONCEIVABLY HAVE?

Bush's Global Clout Seen Growing (TOM RAUM, 5/28/05, Associated Press)

In the rarified club of world leaders, President Bush has taken his share of lumps. Critics have railed against his handling of Iraq, his perceived disdain for the United Nations and what they say is a swaggering approach to foreign policy.

But Bush probably would not want to trade places with any other head of state.

Nearly all his fellow leaders of the world's big industrial democracies have stumbled. It has left them vulnerable at home and weakened on the world stage.

The president, through it all, is riding what he sees as a strong re-election mandate to trumpet his goal of spreading democracy.

That helps explains why Bush, despite a slip in his approval rating among Americans, may find himself holding the stronger hand when he travels in early July to Scotland for the annual summit of the leaders of the eight major industrialized democracies.

"His counterparts all face ill political winds that make their domestic positions rather precarious," said Charles Kupchan, director of European studies with the Council on Foreign Relations, a private research group. "I do think it puts Bush in an advantageous position."

BOWING TO THE INEVITABLE:

Health Leaders Seek Consensus Over Uninsured (ROBERT PEAR, 5/29/05, NY Times)

At a time when Congress has been torn by partisan battles, 24 ideologically disparate leaders representing the health care industry, corporations and unions, and conservative and liberal groups have been meeting secretly for months to seek a consensus on proposals to provide coverage for the growing number of people with no health insurance.

The participants, ranging from the liberal Families USA to the conservative Heritage Foundation and the United States Chamber of Commerce, said they had made progress in trying to overcome the ideological impasse that has stymied action on the problem for eight years.

The group, which first came together last October, has not endorsed any specific plan, but has discussed a range of options, including tax incentives for the purchase of insurance, changes in Medicaid to cover more low-income adults and the creation of insurance purchasing pools at the state level.

"This effort holds as much promise as any I've participated in over the last decade, probably more," said Kate Sullivan Hare, the executive director of health care policy at the United States Chamber of Commerce. [...]

The group's overarching goal is to agree, by the end of this year, on proposals that expand coverage to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. By meeting in secret, the group has tried to shield itself from political pressures. Some of the proposals under discussion could lead to increases in federal spending or regulation, at a time when the government already faces large deficits and Republicans generally oppose further expansion of government.

Though federal policymakers talk little about the issue these days, the problems of the uninsured have been gaining urgency among people who provide and pay for health care, including employers.

Increasingly, business executives say, health care costs hurt the global competitiveness of American companies. "This is a crisis," General Motors said in its latest annual report, noting that its health costs - $5.2 billion last year - had "a tremendous impact" on its profitability. [...]

The group is considering these options:

¶The federal government could require parents to arrange health insurance for their children up to a certain age, say 21. If the children were not eligible for public programs like Medicaid, the parents could obtain tax credits to help meet the cost.

¶If an employer does not offer health benefits to employees, the workers could designate amounts to be withheld from their paychecks, along with taxes. These amounts would eventually be forwarded to insurers to pay premiums.

¶The federal government could provide tax credits to low-income individuals and families or small businesses to help them pay for insurance. The full amount of the credit would be sent directly to the insurer.

¶Medicaid could be expanded to cover any adult with income below the official poverty level (about $9,600 for an individual). Each state would decide for itself whether to do this, and the federal government would provide financial incentives for states to take the option.

¶The federal government would offer small grants to states to help them establish insurance purchasing pools. Individuals and small businesses could buy coverage through these pools.

Asked what had prompted the initiative, Stuart M. Butler, the vice president of the Heritage Foundation, said: "It's a coalition built of frustration. True believers on the left and the right have been stymied on this issue."

SHAME?:

Big Ben's Silence Baffles Engineers (THOMAS WAGNER, 5/28/05, Associated Press)

Big Ben, the landmark London clock renowned for its accuracy and chimes, stopped ticking for 90 minutes, an engineer said Saturday.

Officials do not know why the 147-year-old clock on the banks of the River Thames stopped at 10:07 p.m. Friday

TRADE YOU A WHEELBARROW FULL OF EUROS FOR YOUR OIL FUTURES:

Politics may doom the euro (Edward Hadas, 5/27/05, CNN Money)

[A] strong French rejection could reduce one life expectancy, that of the euro itself. [...]

[S]uppose the "no" vote wins big, by something like 60 percent to 40 percent. And suppose the Netherlands follows on Wednesday with an even larger rejection.

That could cause something more serious than the usual EU pattern of navel-gazing followed by a vague compromise. The idea that the euro could be dissolved might start to look like a practical possibility.

The unsustainability of the euro has been a topic of dinner table conversation from long before the single currency was created. Many observers feared that the independent central bank would not be able to keep sufficient control on the member nations' fiscal policies. High debt loads might force countries to drop out or be expelled.

The counter-argument to such pessimistic speculation was vague but powerful.

MORE:
How long can the euro live as an orphan? (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 28/05/2005, daily Telegraph)

The prospect of a double "No" to Europe's constitution in France and Holland has already claimed its first victims, catching hedge funds off guard as the euro slumped to seven-month lows against the dollar, and battering Turkish, Balkan and East European bonds.

This is just a foretaste of what could happen once investors start to think through the euro's long-term chances of survival in a "post-federal" Europe that is no longer moving ineluctably towards ever-closer union.

Can a stateless currency hold together in a mere "zone" of 12 sovereign states, with a half-constructed legal base, while its economies are moving in starkly different directions?

WHAT'S AL QAEDA?:

U.S. Ponders Iraq Fight After Zarqawi: The militant may have suffered grave injuries. If he dies, the insurgency's divisions could widen. (Jeffrey Fleishman, May 28, 2005, LA Times)

Cryptic messages posted on Internet sites reporting that militant leader Abu Musab Zarqawi had been wounded raise questions about the future of a factionalized Iraqi insurgency driven in part by the power of his personality and mercurial strategy against U.S.-led forces.

Sometimes pictured as thin and willowy and other times as pudgy and bearded, Zarqawi is the face of the insurgent movement. If website postings are correct in suggesting that Zarqawi has suffered a bullet wound to a lung, the rebels could lose their fiercest voice in attempting to defeat Washington's designs for a new Iraq.

U.S. military officials say that Zarqawi's passing would not break the insurgency but could trigger a leadership struggle between Al Qaeda-backed foreign fighters on one side and Iraqi Sunni Muslims and others loyal to Saddam Hussein on the other. These groups reportedly are suspicious of each other, and uncertainty about a new leader could deepen dissension while U.S. and Iraqi forces increase their raids on militant strongholds in Baghdad and western Iraq.

"It is difficult to find leaders like Zarqawi," said Mohammed Askari, an Iraqi military analyst. The absence of such a marquee name could hurt the insurgency's recruiting and fundraising abilities, he added.

"Zarqawi is daring, elusive. He has an ability for maneuvering, evading risks and has this talent for sending effective messages to the public…. Who will come after him?"

ENOUGH ALREADY:

U.S. May Be Trying to Isolate N. Korea (Barbara Demick, May 28, 2005, LA Times)

By severing some of the few remaining U.S. ties with North Korea in recent days, the Bush administration appears to be trying to further isolate the Pyongyang regime over its pursuit of nuclear weapons, analysts say.

Wednesday's suspension of a Pentagon program to recover the remains of U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean War puts an end to one of the few regular channels of face-to-face contact between Americans and North Koreans. It also cuts off a source of hard currency for the communist nation's army, which was being paid millions to assist in the search for remains.

Also this week, the U.S. refused to renew the contract of the American executive director of an international consortium in charge of supplying energy to North Korea.

Analysts said the decision to terminate the contract of Charles Kartman, a career diplomat who had headed the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization since 2001, was probably a prelude to abandoning a light-water nuclear reactor being built on North Korea's east coast.

"The U.S. is shutting down anything that is in any way remotely beneficial to North Korea," said L. Gordon Flake, an expert on North Korea and head of the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs in Washington.

MORE:
What happens after North Korea falls? (Michael Barone, 5/26/05, US News)

It pays to take a look at the books George W. Bush hands out to his staffers. Last year Bush's book was Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, which argues that countries that do not protect individual rights cannot be reliable partners for peace. You could hear Sharansky's arguments in Bush's extraordinary second inaugural speech in which he promised to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East and around the world. Bush's critics like to mock him as the sort of person who never read books. But he does, and his reading has consequences.

This year Bush has been handing out copies of The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Kang Chol-Hwan. This is the harrowing story of a man who returned with his Communist family to North Korea to help build a Communist state and who was instead imprisoned. In the past Bush has denounced the North Korean regime as tyrannical and has been chided by some foreign policy experts for what they consider his allegedly impolitic bluntness. But his championing of The Aquariums of Pyongyang suggests that he is more determined than ever to undermine a regime that is probably the world's worst violator of human rights.

It also suggests that no one should expect this administration to endorse anything resembling the Agreed Framework that Bill Clinton endorsed in 1994. Under that agreement, the United States provided aid to North Korea and refrained from undermining the regime in return for North Korea's promises not to develop nuclear arms. The North Koreans broke their word, but some foreign policy experts argue that a similar agreement is the best we can get from the six-party North Korea talks and should be accepted as at least a way of buying time. Bush has never seemed inclined to support an Agreed Framework II. He has spurned North Korea's demand for direct talks with the United States and has insisted instead on talks that include China, the country best positioned to put pressure on North Korea, and its other neighbors, South Korea, Russia, and Japan.

Now he seems poised to go one step farther and to insist on including the issue of human rights in any negotiations.

BACK TO THE SECOND WAY:

DOWN ON DEAN (Robert Novak, 5/28/05, Townhall)

Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean recently came to New York to dine with prominent party members and reassure them about his performance, but he totally failed with former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.

Rubin, an icon in Democratic circles, left the meeting appalled by Dean. In contrast, party insider Vernon Jordan was impressed by the national chairman. That left Rubin wondering aloud whether he and Jordan had been at the same event.

JUST WHEN THINGS WERE GOING SO WELL...

What's red and green and in trouble? (Judy Dempsey, 5/25/05, International Herald Tribune)

Germany's Greens, once a protest party of Marxists, Maoists and Trotskyites that first tasted power 20 years ago by joining a Social Democratic government in the state of Hessen, are gearing up for another fight. This time, the stakes are much higher.

"The big question is whether the red-green experiment is over," said Ralf Fuecks, director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which is affiliated with the Greens.

FORGOT TO JUST SAY NO:

Shock as woman gets 20 years for smuggling (CHRIS BRUMMITT, 5/28/05, The Scotsman)

A YOUNG Australian woman was sentenced to 20 years in prison yesterday for smuggling marijuana on to Indonesia's Bali island, triggering angry scenes in court and an unusual public expression of sympathy for a convicted drug smuggler from her country's prime minister.

The trial of Schapelle Corby, 27, has attracted massive media interest in Australia, where many people believe her claims that the drugs were planted in her luggage. Scores of family members and supporters - many of them Australian tourists holidaying on the resort island - attended court. [...]

"Guilty or innocent, I feel for this young woman," said the Australian prime minister, John Howard. "I ask that we all pause and understand the situation and recognise and respect that when we visit other countries we are subject to the laws and rules of those countries."

Indonesia, which, like other countries, including Australia, imprisons scores of foreigners for drug-smuggling each year, says it sees no need to grant Corby any special exemptions.

THE "STRUGGLE" FOR "HUMAN" "RIGHTS"

The thorny 'truth' about human rights (Rosie DiManno, The Toronto Star, May 28th, 2005)

Traditionally, quotation marks have been reserved for, obviously, quotations. But somewhere along the line, those double-shift commas took on a new meaning. They are the typographical equivalent of a raised eyebrow.

Indeed, the designation has become so ubiquitous that people actually make little semaphoring gestures using the first two digits of each hand to symbolically bracket a fragment of conversation, as if to say, well, as if.

It speaks volumes that Amnesty International, in its 308-page annual report for 2005 — formally released on Wednesday — cannot bring itself to mention terrorism or the war on terrorism without hanging cautionary quotation marks around those words.

This unsubtle, mocking gesture — a hyper-neutrality — suggests terrorism is not a quantifiable fact in our lives and that the war on terrorism is somehow a duplicitous objective, perhaps a conspiracy hatched in the Pentagon rather than a global response to a legitimate threat already unleashed in widespread atrocities, from 9/11 to the bombings in Madrid and Bali.

Terrorism is thornier to define these days than necessary. The United Nations has grappled with it. In its narrowest interpretation, a consensus exists that terrorism is intentional violence against civilians (noncombatants), intended to intimidate or instill fear.

But Amnesty International, once a respected advocate for the human rights of political prisoners around the world, has been so deeply compromised by the relativist exculpation for slaughter and abuse that it can, without a hint of shame, and in the same paragraph, segue from the Sudan to the United States, from the colossal brutality in the Darfur region to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

The Sudan and the U.S. are two countries mentioned most notably by the organization's secretary general, Irene Khan, in her forward to the report.
There are 153 countries canvassed in the Amnesty tome, including the most reprehensible of totalitarian regimes.

Yet the brunt of the editorial scourge — in the passages most widely cited in news reports — is reserved for America, not just for its rightly condemned mistreatment of suspected terrorists, including the abhorrent torture that was inflicted on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, but for generically and systematically "thumbing its nose at the rule of law and human rights." Such alleged disdain for the rule of law and the preeminence of human rights has, Amnesty contends, provided a green light for tyrants around the world, who need only to cloak their abuse of power within the rubric of the war on terror. As if dictators ever needed the thumbs-up from Washington to oppress their own populations.

This amoral equivalency would put the U.S. on a par with, oh, Haiti and North Korea.

You know you must be doing something very right when you beat out Israel.

LOVE IN:

For Rice, Unexpected Sanctuary by the Bay (Evelyn Nieves, May 28, 2005 , Washington Post)

The secretary of state was braving an appearance in hostile territory. The protests could have gotten ugly. The questions could have gotten hard.

Instead, in midnight-blue San Francisco, a city still in mourning over the presidential election, Condoleezza Rice was granted sanctuary. At a noon speech Friday at the Commonwealth Club of California -- the topic was spreading democracy throughout the world -- Rice was greeted with a standing ovation. She was interrupted by applause several times and was asked questions about as challenging as those at a presidential town hall meeting.

MORE:
Remarks At the Commonwealth Club (Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Davies Symphony Hall
San Francisco, CA, May 27, 2005)

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, it's nice to be home. Thank you very much. Thank you, Rose, for that kind introduction and for the invitation to speak here among friends and colleagues from the Bay Area. I'd also like to thank my good friend Gloria Duffy for her leadership of this club and for her leadership in international affairs for a couple of decades now, Gloria. And I do want to admit that I always thought that I might play Davies Hall, but on the piano. (Laughter.)

It's great to be back in California. In fact, there really isn't that much that I miss about California, just the climate and the wine and the food and the culture and the people -- (laughter) -- and Pac Ten sports and all aspects of this great quality life. But I'm especially pleased to be here in San Francisco today, not just because it's down the road from the place that I really grew up as an academic -- Stanford University -- but because this great city has played an important role in the history of international politics.

Sixty years ago, the countries of the world signed the Charter of the United Nations here in San Francisco. That event marked the opening of an entirely new and unprecedented era in world history. Four decades later, San Francisco hosted one of the key events that helped to bring that era to a close. In a speech to the Commonwealth Club, 20 years ago, then Secretary of State George Schultz articulated the strategy that accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union, a strategy that became known as the Reagan Doctrine.

The main idea of that doctrine was simple and powerful. A democratic revolution was sweeping the world -- Secretary Schultz declared -- and the United States of America would use every aspect of our national power to protect, to strengthen and to expand the movement of liberty worldwide.

Four years later, the Berlin Wall was torn asunder and the colors of dawn finally broke throughout the long twilight struggle. As we reflect on the ideas of that speech, we recognize that much that is universal in America's purpose still remains. But we also notice that this is a radically different situation in our present circumstances.

The implosion of the Soviet Union fundamentally transformed our world. From the fall of the Berlin Wall on 11/9 to the toppling of the twin towers on 9/11, the old international order slowly and then quickly crumbled into dust. For some, this was a glorious revolution, a cause for celebration throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. For others, however, the collapse of the old world order shattered the false and fragile stability within many foreign societies.

Ethnic cleansing erupted in the Balkans. War and genocide haunted Central Africa. And in Afghanistan, a vicious band of zealots seized power, brutalized their people and made common cause with mass murderers. The full nature of this new world was revealed on a warm September morning turned black with terror.

On that day, the United States learned just how closely our nation's security is tied to the success or failure of other societies. You see in today's world the greatest threats to peace emerge within nations, not between them. As a result, the internal relationship between state and society is just as important as the external balance of power between governments.

In response to this unprecedented challenge, President Bush set a new course for America, a practical course of action that summons the highest ideals of our nation, from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. As the President has said, "The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

Trying to label our policies as either realistic or idealistic, I submit to you, is a false choice. It is both. Freedom and democracy are the only way for diverse societies to resolve their disputes justly and to live together without oppression and war. Our challenge today is to create conditions of openness around states that encourage and nurture democratic reform within states.

(Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, America must open a path to the march of freedom across the entire world. We are succeeding in this great purpose and we measure our success in the democratic revolutions that have stunned the entire world, vibrant revolutions of rose and orange and purple and tulip and cedar. It is a time when there is great hope for a Palestinian state founded on democratic principles and it is time --

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Off-mike.) Stop the killing, stop the suicide, USA out of Iraq.

SECRETARY RICE: Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, it is a wonderful thing that people can speak their minds. And it is a good thing that they can now do so in Baghdad.

(Applause.)

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in Baghdad and Kabul and soon in Beirut, they too will be able to speak their minds. What a wonderful thing democracy is.

(Applause.)

To be sure, enormous challenges still define a violent Iraq and a postwar Afghanistan and many other young democracies. But this afternoon, I would like to spend a few moments with you about the challenges strengthening democracy in three important regions: in Latin America, in Africa, and in Asia; areas that are not so often on the front pages, but that are very much in our minds.

To open a path for freedom in Latin America, the United States is offering economic incentives to advance political reform. The success of democracy in Latin America depends on the continued openness of our hemisphere, openness to new ideas and to new people and especially to new trade. A region that trades in freedom benefits everyone and one of the highest priorities of this administration is to pass the Central America and Dominican Republic free trade agreement known as CAFTA.

(Applause.)

For too many decades, U.S. policy towards Central America has oscillated from engagement to disregard and back again. With CAFTA, we can break this trend once and for all. We can demonstrate that the United States is permanently committed to the success of all Latin American countries that honor the principles of liberty. CAFTA will energize democracy, strengthen security, and promote prosperity among some of our most important neighbors. The people of Central America and the Dominican Republic are working hard to replace a past of chaos with a future of commerce. They are embracing democratic principles and free market reform. And together, we must use the incentive of increased trade to promote even greater political freedom.

To attract trade and investment, democratic nations will work to create the political conditions for prosperity, transparent and accountable governments with the energy and the integrity to enforce the rule of law. In turn, these democratic reforms will help citizens to lift themselves out of poverty and participate in the life of their nation. There is a belief among some that CAFTA will only enable the strong to prey on the weak. But that view is totally misguided. On the lawful level playing field of democracy, free trade offers greater opportunities to all people from all walks of life. Free trade is most important for small businesses because they have the energy and the industry to adapt to new challenges and to succeed.

When government liberates the entrepreneurial spirit of its citizens, free trade becomes an engine for greater prosperity and social mobility. Of course, the CAFTA agreement will also benefit the United States by uniting suppliers and customers throughout the region. And we will all compete more successfully in a dynamic global economy.

More important still, CAFTA will contribute to democratic stability in Central America, making our nation's periphery stronger and safer and freer. For some nations in Latin America, however, democratic institutions must be nurtured with foreign aid. The United States is, thus, providing new development assistance with our Millennium Challenge Account initiative.

For decades we wasted billions of dollars in aid because it was given unconditionally. The MCA has revolutionized that practice, committing billions of dollars in new money to countries that rule justly, advance economic liberty and invest in their people. Honduras and Nicaragua have met these conditions and we are working with them to reach compacts for granting assistance.

The Millennium Challenge Account is also helping to open a path for the march of freedom in Africa. As in Latin America, it is serving as external encouragement for internal reform. Eight African nations are eligible for MCA assistance. And just this April, the Millennium Challenge Corporation signed its first compact with Madagascar; $110 million in assistance that will help the nation's citizens to share in the blessings of political and economic liberty.

The United States is committed to that vision of a peaceful, prosperous and democratic Africa. In the past four years, we have tripled the amount of official development assistance that we give to the nations of Africa. But we also recognize the limitations of that approach. As Uganda's President Museveni has said, "By itself, aid cannot transform societies. Only trade can foster the sustained economic growth necessary for a transformation."

President Bush agrees with the wisdom of that statement and he has sought to extend the benefits of free trade to Sub-Saharan Africa through the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA. This policy grants preferential trading status to African countries that are committed to democratic and free market reforms.

The result is an environment of openness that not only creates jobs, it encourages African nations to transform their society. By any conceivable measurement, AGOA is a success. Thirty-seven countries have qualified so far. Congress has twice extended the life of this legislation with strong bipartisan support. And last year alone the United States imported over $26 billion of goods from the AGOA group of African nations, a nearly 90 percent increase over the previous year.

(Applause.)

This means more jobs and greater stability and increased opportunity for an expanding number of African citizens. With AGOA we are sending the message loud and clear that political and economic liberty are the keys to success.

As in Africa and Latin America, the United States is also opening a path for the continued march of freedom in Asia. Since the middle of the 20th century, we have guaranteed an environment of liberty, security and opportunity in Asia. And while the entire world focused on the grand events of the Cold War, an amazing thing happened right here in our own hemisphere. With America's support, billions of people across Asia, as here in our hemisphere in Latin America, tirelessly and steadily built the foundations of democracy on their own.

Some people looked at Asia in the 21st century and drew bleak comparisons with Europe in the 20th century. Like Europe then, Asia now is transforming itself politically and economically through global trade and record growth. But rather than view this change as a contribution to peace, some believe that it will stoke old grievances and nationalist sentiments.

According to cynics, the struggle for the mastery of Asia is just over the horizon. This is a crude analogy and I reject it as an abuse of history. There is no reason why Europe's past should predetermine Asia's future and we can explain why this is true in just one word: Openness. Europe's instability of the early 20th century stemmed, in part, from its non-democratic character, the Kaiser of Germany, the Czar of Russia, the Hapsburg monarchy and the Ottoman Empire. All of these closed regimes contributed to an atmosphere of distrust that summoned the guns of August.

Now look at Asia today, where democracy is more the rule than the exception. Of course, there is one large exception, and that is China, but we are confident -- we are confident -- that this will not always be so. As China continues to reap the benefits of economic openness, its leaders will look around Asia and come to one obvious conclusion: Political openness is a prerequisite for lasting success. Yes, the rise of China will certainly help to shape the future of Asia but the democratic character of Asia will also shape the rise of China.

This is a powerful reason for optimism. Ladies and gentlemen, the United States of America knows that we cannot force other nations to adopt democratic principles. In fact, we reject the entire premise of imposing democracy, because democracy, unlike tyranny, does not have to be imposed.

(Applause.)

If you go to any corner of the globe, no matter how backward in technological development, no matter how far from the center, you will find that when men and women are asked simple questions, "Do you wish to say what you think, do you wish to worship as you please, do you wish to educate your boys and your girls freely, do you wish to be free from the arbitrary knock of the secret police at night," they will say yes. We saw it as people went to the polls in large numbers in Afghanistan, along dusty roads in a country that, in many ways, is barely out of the 17th century. We saw it in Iraq, where people went to the polls despite signs that were posted that said, "Vote and you will die."

Now, ladies and gentlemen, democracy, a belief in liberty, a desire to be free, is as natural as breathing.

(Applause.)

It is not that it is easy, but when has it ever been easy? In our country, the great author of liberty, Thomas Jefferson, said, "The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time." But Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner; and so imperfect in his beliefs in liberty. And yet, because here, in our country, the Founding Fathers gave us institutions that protected those great principles, we have been able to struggle and stumble toward a more perfect union, built in liberty, for the more than 200 years of our existence.

(Applause.)

All nations secure in their liberty choose to be governed by the will of the people, not by the whim of the dictator. They, too, will stumble and fall. They, too, will create institutions that are not perfect, but they will be institutions that do protect the human dignity that comes with liberty and freedom. With our first breath as a new nation, America declared that freedom is the birthright of every human being. We've always acted on that conviction.

Our nation worked to open a path for freedom 60 years ago in San Francisco when we helped to draft the UN Charter. We continue to open that path for freedom forty years later when Secretary of State Schultz declared that America would support all people worldwide who longed for democracy.

And today, though many of the challenges that we face are historically unprecedented, the United States is again guided into the world by our timeless commitment to human liberty. This is the only policy noble enough for our nation. It is the great calling of our time and by keeping faith with our highest ideals, we will succeed.

Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

Thank you. Thank you very much.

MS. DUFFY: Our thanks to the Honorable Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State, for her comments here today. I'm Gloria Duffy, President and CEO of the Commonwealth Club and I'll moderate today's question-and-answer session. And we do have a vast number of questions. I will, for the first part of this, skip the ones asking about piano playing, running for President, are you free for dinner tonight – (laughter) -- and all of those good questions, and go right to the very meaty questions.

Let's start with some of today's news: John Bolton. What special qualities does he bring that make it important that he represent the U.S. at the United Nations?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, thank you.

MS. DUFFY: What would be the main elements of his mission and position on behalf of the U.S.?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, let me start by saying that the United States believes that a strong and vibrant United Nations is, in fact, key to the success of our goals as a country and that's key to the success of the goals of peace and stability in the world. It's why the United States is a founding member of the United Nations and continues to support it at the levels that we do. But I think there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the United Nations needs reform.

(Applause.)

This is a time when reform is very much on the agenda. Kofi Annan himself has talked about the need for management reform, for reform of the Secretariat, for reform of the various commissions of the United Nations. Let's be real, when you have a Commission on Human Rights and Sudan is on it, nobody can take it seriously.

(Applause.)

And so the President and I believe that we need to send a strong voice for reform of the United Nations to the UN at this time when the UN is undergoing major changes. John Bolton has been critical, at times, of the United Nations, but frankly, it's not hard to be critical at times of some of the things that have gone on in the United Nations. In fact, friends are the ones who are most critical when things are not going well.

And so John Bolton would go to the United Nations with a mandate to strengthen it, to strengthen America's cooperation in it and he is someone who is well-positioned to do that. You know, there are very few people who can say, as diplomats, that they have actually worked pro bono for the United Nations as John did, helping Jim Baker in his Western Sahara mission for the United Nations. Or somebody who has spent as much time as John Bolton did getting a repeal of the Zionism As Racism resolution, one of the dark moments of the United Nations.

(Applause.)

So this is someone who cares about the UN. Yes, John's a pretty tough person at times and he can have rough edges at times. I think a lot of people can, but I know many people who work for him who would walk through a wall for him. He has inspired them and I expect he'll do the same thing when he goes to the United Nations. But with all due respect, and we do respect the deliberative processes of the Senate, it is time for us to send a permanent representative to the United Nations.

(Applause.)

MS. DUFFY: Speaking of representation for the U.S., I have heard it estimated, and actually by Dick Lugar last week, that there are around 50 ambassadorial posts representing the U.S. abroad that are currently vacant or occupied by ambassadors who are waiting to move on. This includes key posts such as Germany, Russia, Japan, and France. What's the roadblock to getting the posts filled? And since good representation for the U.S. is important, what is your plan for filling these slots --

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

MS. DUFFY: -- as soon as possible?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the President, of course, is very concerned to have the very best people go. We've had excellent representation in all of those countries. We continue, by the way, to have excellent representation by chargés in some of those countries, people who are very, very seasoned and senior career diplomats.

But the fact of the matter is, our appointments process -- and I don't mean of this administration, I mean of this country -- takes too long. The process of getting people cleared, the process of getting people through the confirmation process, it takes a long time and we need to find a way to speed it up. It was one of the things that the 9/11 Commission commented on, that it takes a long time to get Presidential appointments through. And I understand the need for background checks, I understand the need for the confirmation process, but we do hope that we can get people through very quickly.

And I have to say that Senator Lugar and Senator Biden and their committee are good allies of ours in trying to make this process move forward as quickly as possible, so I look forward to working with them. The President is going to send very strong representatives to those places. We've had strong representatives. One of them -- Howard Leach, I think, our Ambassador to France -- is here and did a fabulous job for us in France. And we look forward to getting these folks through because it is important to have representation abroad.

MS. DUFFY: Just going to the day's news again for a moment, there are reports that King Fahd of Saudi Arabia is now in grave health and has been admitted to the hospital. What concerns do you have over the regime's vulnerability given the terror threats the kingdom faces?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, Saudi Arabia is a country that is like many countries of the Middle East also in transition. I do not know the extent of the concern about King Fahd. He has, in fact, had some health problems for quite a long time. We have an excellent relationship with Crown Prince Abdullah, who was here recently. He was just here with the President at Crawford not too long ago. We really applaud what Saudi Arabia has done in terms of the fight against terrorism, particularly since the events of May of last year in Riyadh. The Saudis have been very aggressive in hunting down the terrorist cells that are in Saudi Arabia and we've had a good deal of success also on the terrorist financing front.

You may know that some of the financing for terrorism was coming from non-governmental organizations that had very nice titles about what it was they supposedly did in the world, the relief effort for this group or that group and many of them were kind of fronts for terrorist financing. And that was true, by the way, of some in the United States. It was true of many in Saudi Arabia. And we've worked very hard with the Saudis to shut down some of that terrorist financing. So the Kingdom is working very hard on these issues.

Now, we have made clear, as -- through the President's Second Inaugural and other speeches -- that all countries of the Middle East, most especially our friends, we expect to engage in reform and it will certainly go at different speeds for different countries, but we applaud some of the steps that have taken place in Saudi Arabia. The holding of municipal elections, one of them, we certainly do hope that the next time there are elections that the franchise will be extended to women as it has been in Kuwait.

(Applause.)

But I want to tell you a story of something I saw on television during the Saudi elections that says something about what people are beginning to think possible. A man was voting in one of these municipal elections and he had with him his daughter. She may have been 12, 13 years old. He gave her the ballot to put into this ballot box. I mean, that's what he thinks is going to be his daughter's future and that's very hopeful.

MS. DUFFY: Dwelling just for a moment and broadening out this question from Saudi Arabia, there are times when the effort to promote freedom and democracy collides with our other national and often national security interests in countries ranging from, say, Uzbekistan to Saudi Arabia. Should our support of democracy be even-handed? How can the United States balance and resolve the conflict between freedom and our national security interests?

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. Well, there are sometimes tactical issues about the countries with which we are cooperating and where we have to continue to press for freedom. But, in fact, we see these two as inextricably linked, that our national security goals cannot be pursued without the spread of freedom and democracy in the world, and it is our view that in countries where there are tensions internally the best antidote for the kind of ideologies of hatred that are producing terrorists is, in fact, to have more openness and more democracy, not less.

And we've made this case to every country on the globe, for instance, the recent events in Uzbekistan, where there have been troubling events in the streets of Andijan in a part of Uzbekistan. We've made clear to the Uzbek Government that we believe that the kinds of tensions that are emerging there -- nobody wants them to have to deal with terrorists. That's not the issue. But the kinds of tensions that are emerging there are going to be best dealt with by giving legitimate channels for political openness through an open political process.

Look, it is not normal -- it is not normal -- for people to strap suicide belts onto themselves and kill others or to fly airplanes into buildings. When the ideology of hatred gets that deep, there is clearly a malignancy underneath. And what September 11th really taught us was that the 60 years that we had had a policy of essentially ignoring the freedom deficit in the Middle East and in the broader Middle East was giving us neither stability nor democracy. And so from our point of view, there isn't a conflict between national security and the promotion of democracy; they are one and the same.

MS. DUFFY: There are a few of us foreign policy wonks here, but for those who aren't, would you slip back into your role as an educator and explain to folks what is the Millennium Challenge Account, what is its purpose?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes, absolutely. The Millennium Challenge Account was announced by the President a couple of years ago and it was a part of something that was developing which came to be known as the Monterrey Consensus on Development Assistance. It essentially went this way, that there has been a lot of development assistance over the last decades that has gone to waste. And it has gone to waste because governments to whom it was given spent it badly, spent it in corrupt fashion and ended up with huge debt burdens but nothing really for their people. And in many places, people got poorer, not better.

The President believes that the key to spending development assistance well is to have governments that govern justly, govern transparently, that fight corruption, that have open economies, that demonstrate a commitment to the education of their people and to the health of their people. And that development assistance needs to go to those countries that are demonstrating that.

So the Millennium Challenge Account was a promise to increase over a period of three years -- it is now four years, because of getting it set up -- over a period of four years, American development assistance, official development assistance, by 50 percent. It was a $5 billion over that period commitment. Now the United States has in various ways doubled its commitment to development assistance. But this increase in development assistance was to go to those countries that are, in fact, governing wisely.

We have a number of countries that have been chosen for Millennium Compacts. What they do is they actually work with the government, with civil society, with non-governmental institutions, to create projects that the whole society can buy into. We've just signed one with Madagascar. We have them pending with countries like Honduras and Nicaragua. We have them pending with countries like Senegal. And we work with them to develop projects that will help to alleviate poverty and stimulate economic growth. But it's deliberately for countries that are governing wisely and that we believe will use the money well.

There are a number of countries that are in so-called threshold category that is they're not quite there on the very strict criteria, but we want to work with them to get there. And, of course, we continue to do through USAID, development assistance for the poorest countries, regardless of governing, but strategy. But I think this is a -- something that is now starting to catch on around the world that development is a two-way street. Yes, there are responsibilities of the donor, but there are responsibilities of the recipient, as well.

MS. DUFFY: I'd like to remind our radio audience that you're listening to the Commonwealth Club of California radio program and our guest today is United States Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice.

There are many, many questions about Iraq and so let me work through a few of them. You reported progress in Iraq, after your recent visit. But it appears that the car bombings and insurgency continues to be on the rise. How do you explain the two different pictures and are you confident the Iraqi army and police can control their country?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, that's it?

MS. DUFFY: I'm sorry.

SECRETARY RICE: I thought you were going to give me several. All right.

MS. DUFFY: That's the first one.

SECRETARY RICE: All right.

MS. DUFFY: I have more.

SECRETARY RICE: All right. The Iraq situation is, yes, very difficult. And there are determined killers and terrorists who are, indeed, determined to keep the Iraqi people from progressing. And let's be very clear who these people are. These are the same murderers who worked for Saddam Hussein in oppressing people for the decades that he ruled. They are the people who oversaw torture chambers and rape rooms and they'd like to take Iraq back to that era. They are also foreign terrorists, like Zarqawi, who came in from the outside to fight the violent jihad in the -- on the streets of Iraq because they fundamentally understand that the spread of liberty and freedom to Iraq will blow a hole in their plans for taking the Middle East back to the days of when women are oppressed and when there is no tolerance of other religions.

It's a perverted sense of Islam, which is, of course, a great religion and a peaceful religion. And people like Zarqawi, who's the face of terror in Iraq, are behind these killings. Now, who are they killing? They're killing principally innocent Iraqis. They're killing men and women and children who just want a better future. Yesterday, they killed the dean of a university. They killed a young girl who was going to school. This isn't resistance. This isn't national resistance. This is bloody terror and you have to call it by name.

Now, the people of Iraq --

(Applause.)

Now, the people of Iraq, despite that, are embarked on a political process that is quite remarkable. It started with the formation of a governing council shortly after liberation. It moved on then to the formation of an interim government after we transferred sovereignty.

And you know, we're a very impatient culture. We transferred sovereignty less than a year ago in Iraq. Less than a year ago. Now, they went from that interim government to elections on January 30th. Everybody said they couldn't pull it off. Eight and half million Iraqis voted, despite the threats of the terrorists and now they are going to write a constitution. I was just there. I talked to them about the need to be inclusive of the Sunni population, which for a variety of reasons, was not as well represented in the vote. And they're going to build a unified Iraq that is based on democratic principles. It's not going to look like the United States of America, but it's not going to look like Saddam's Iraq. And thank God for that because it was time to get that monster out of the center of Baghdad.

(Applause.)

I know it's hard, but when you think about human rights and when you think about the struggle that people have, just think about the fact that finally, in Iraq, in the center of the Arab world, there are people who are expressing their will and expressing their interest through political processes of compromise, political processes of negotiation, political processes of coming to terms with their differences. And when you think they aren't going to make it and when you say -- when you want to criticize what they're doing and it's taking a long time and this and that, just remember, not to this date, have they made a compromise as bad as the one in 1789 that made my ancestors three-fifths of a man. So let's be humble about what they're going through.

(Applause.)

So it's a big historical change and historical changes are often violent and they're often turbulent, but the Iraqi people are going to succeed.

MS. DUFFY: Here is a very pointed question. Can you outline, in detail, the timeline for our departure from Iraq?

SECRETARY RICE: I can tell you that -- and it relates to one part of the other question -- the President talks not about an exit strategy, but about a success strategy. We have sacrificed greatly in Iraq. The men and women of the United States of America and our coalition partners have sacrificed. We have sacrificed treasure and young life in Iraq. And we have done it because a different kind of Middle East is going to make it possible to have peace and stability and security for generations.

It would not be a good thing to leave before this job is finished, but the Iraqis themselves want more than anything to be able to secure themselves. We are actively engaged with them in building their security forces. Their security forces are stepping up to the plate. They really did the security themselves for the elections. General Casey told me that he is not -- he did not have to have one coalition intervention during the elections. They secured those elections on their own. They are getting better. It's very tough, but they're getting better. And when they are able to secure themselves, then it will be possible for the international forces to leave. I am hopeful that they are going to take more and more of the security mission and they are taking more and more of the security mission.

You know, I visited wounded soldiers when I was recently in Iraq and one of the people that was in the hospital there in Baghdad was a young woman, a 21-year-old Iraqi woman, who had been part of the security forces. And she had thrown herself near an IED in order to safeguard the person that she was safeguarding who -- she was on the Prime Minister's detail. And she was very proud of what she had done for her country, despite the fact that she had lost a leg.

Sometimes, we give more attention to the terrorists like Zarqawi than we give to the Sabrinas of the world in Iraq who are desperately trying to secure democracy for their country.

(Applause.)

MS. DUFFY: Moving on from Iraq, let's talk about human rights a bit. We are here in San Francisco and there's a question, what are you doing to ensure that countries like China and Egypt uphold the civil rights of its gay citizens, of their gay citizens?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, obviously, from our point of view, a democratic and tolerant society is exactly that. It is a society in which all people are included. It does not matter what race, what gender, it does not matter what sexual orientation -- all that matters is that you are a citizen of that country. And indeed, we note that in countries that are democratic, in countries where there can be pressure on government, in countries where there can be checks and balances on government, then the rights and -- the rights of the most vulnerable in society tend to be more protected. And so we are concentrating in places like China and in Egypt and in other places on human rights. Whenever we have discussions with these countries, we talk about human rights. And the United States issues something called a Human Rights Report every year that talks about the human rights conditions in each country and so -- very much in line with the notion that every citizen needs to be represented and rights protected. We believe that this is the way to handle this situation.

MS. DUFFY: What should be the role of the U.S. Secretary of State in pursuing individual or group cases of human rights violations abroad? I think, for instance, of a former colleague of ours from Stanford who has been imprisoned in China for supposedly releasing national security secrets and so on. What should a Secretary of State do or not do about cases such as this?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think the Secretary of State has to work at all levels; at the general level for better rule of law and human rights respect, at the level of groups to say that the right to assembly, the right of groups to work is important, and at the individual level. When I go to places like China or talk to my colleagues from those countries, I do raise individual cases, because individual cases are sometimes more vibrant in the way that they symbolize what is going on in a country, so I think it's very important that we do that.

It's also -- very often, these are terrible humanitarian situations and you're trying to intervene for the person, but we -- I work at all levels and I think it's important to work at all levels.

MS. DUFFY: Thank you for that. Several countries, including France and Great Britain, are slated to vote on the EU constitution in the near future, which would strengthen the role and organization of the European Union. Pressure -- assuming that the U.S. supports the EU constitution, what are the implications for European unity and U.S. interests if the constitution is not approved by all the signatory states and thus does not go into effect?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes. Well, we've been very clear that we favor a strong Europe, a united Europe, that it would be a good partner for the United States because after all, we share values and you want partners in international politics that shares values. And so we have been supportive of the European project of all of this. Now we don't vote in the constitutional referenda in these countries and I don't want to try to say anything that might be viewed as intervening. I just will say that the European Union has been one of the two pillars of the transatlantic relationship.

It has been important in as an incentive, as a draw for the young countries of Central and Eastern Europe as they democratize. It is important as a draw for the countries of the Balkans as they try to move toward a European -- a future that is integrated in Europe. It is an important element that Turkey be, at some point when it meets the standards, admitted to the European Union because what we cannot afford to have is a divide between Turkey and the rest of Europe that might look like what was once described as a clash of civilizations between Muslim Turkey and multi-religious but Christian Europe; that would be a very terrible thing.

So we believe that the European Union has been a source of stability and hope that it can continue its efforts toward integration and unification.

MS. DUFFY: There are a number of questions about immigration issues with Mexico and enforcement and controlling our borders and so on. There's also the groups that have been operating in Arizona and New Mexico recently, the "Minutemen" they call themselves, trying to stimulate enforcement of the border control.

Could you give us your views of what would be on your agenda to try to improve enforcement of border control and also how to deal with a vigilante group, essentially, operating on the border?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, let me mention that the President, of course, was the Governor of Texas and so immigration is something that he's dealt with a lot. And he came to office talking about the fact that our immigration policies need reform. The fact is that we need immigration policies that, first of all, allow us to enforce our borders. We cannot have a situation in which people do not respect our laws, do not respect the fact that there are lawful ways to come to the United States.

And so we are doing a great deal with Mexico on border enforcement issues. There's something -- for instance, there's the Smart Border Initiative, because one of the problems on many of the borders, if you go down toward Tijuana or you go to the Texas border, is you have a lots of goods and people moving through that are legitimate and if you do too much enforcement at the border you will stop that trade. And so this allows for technology to help through smart borders. It allows for pre-clearance of some goods and people. And so we're working on a number of ways to deal with border enforcement.

Secondly, the President has noted that the policies need to recognize the economic realities that drive immigration issues, that there are people who come to the United States to do work that others, that Americans, will not do, and that matching willing workers with willing employers is an important element of a good immigration policy.

And thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it needs to be humane. The fact that there are people who live in the shadows in the way that they do, despite their contributions to our economy, cannot go home and cannot be a part of their families, this is not a good thing for a country that was built on immigration.

And so the President has designed something called the Temporary Worker Program. He's working with the Congress on how we might make it possible for people to do this. People respecting -- people need to respect our laws. This cannot be an amnesty. But they do need to -- we do need to find a way to recognize economic realities and make our policies more humane.

And as to enforcement, that is a role for the United States Government and the United States Government alone.

(Applause.)

MS. DUFFY: With the progression of North Korea and possibly Iran towards nuclear weapons, it seems that the nonproliferation regime of the past half century may be unraveling. The outcome of the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference now taking place in New York, seeking to shore up that regime, is uncertain at best. What is your administration's approach to the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference? And more broadly, what steps are you planning to take to prevent North Korea, Iran, al-Qaida or others from obtaining nuclear weapons?

SECRETARY RICE: That's a very good question and I know Gloria would pick that one out because this has been of great interest to Gloria who, by the way, when she was in the Clinton Administration did something very important for nonproliferation, and that is managing to negotiate the nuclear weapons of the old Soviet Union back to Russia. It's something that was very important. You could have had a world in which those nuclear weapons were spread across the collapsed empire. And I'd like to congratulate her for that.

(Applause.)

MS. DUFFY: Thank you.

SECRETARY RICE: It is true that the Nonproliferation Treaty is -- that there are loopholes and that it is fraying in many ways. It is still an extremely important document and we continue to support it. But we have tried to go at this in several ways. The first is that the President has made a number of proposals concerning the Nonproliferation Treaty that would strengthen it. One of the surest ways to prevent the proliferation of nuclear technology is to make sure that something called reprocessing and enrichment capability is not widespread in the world. And so the President has talked about not having further transfers of that particular technology.

This is, by the way, the argument that the Iranians and the Europeans are having: is there a right to reprocessing and enrichment technology? Yes, reprocessing and enrichment technology is important for civilian nuclear power, but it can be easily diverted to be used for nuclear power. So there are some technical things you can do.

Secondly, we have to have a stronger counter-proliferation policy and we have created something called the Proliferation Security Initiative in which more than 60 countries participate, in the air, sea and on land, to interdict suspicious cargo. It was a very important success of the Proliferation Security Initiative that we interdicted a cargo that was headed to Libya from North Korea, probably helping Colonel Qadhafi and his decision to give up his weapons of mass destruction. But that kind of interdiction of suspicious cargo is a very important part. It takes good intelligence. It takes good cooperation internationally and we are getting that cooperation

Third, it is important to secure the materials that might give rise to proliferation concerns. Much of that is the work that Senator Lugar and Senator Nunn pioneered through the Cooperative Threat Reduction efforts with the former Soviet Union to secure the materials and the knowledge through the scientists -- Gloria was very involved in that program -- in making sure that there's not a ready supermarket, if you will, for these kinds of technologies.

Fourth, we have been very fortunate and I think it's a great success of our intelligence agencies that the A.Q. Khan network was brought down. The A.Q. Khan network, a Pakistani scientist who was one of the fathers of the Pakistani nuclear program whose network across the globe was selling -- just selling -- the technologies, almost turnkey kits on how to build the technologies for nuclear weapons. And that A.Q. Khan is under house arrest in Pakistan. His network, many of them are being prosecuted. That's a very big step forward because that kind of black market activity is particularly dangerous.

And then finally, occasionally people have to -- are going to have to be brought to the international community if they do not live up to their obligations. And we have been supportive of negotiations of the EU with Iran to get Iran to live up to its obligations, of the six-party talks, which is North Korea's neighbors, to get the North Koreans to live up to their international obligations. These are not easy negotiations because sometimes these are countries that are determined to build nuclear weapons. But it has to be clear to countries that isolation is all that you get from acquiring a nuclear weapon, that there is no benefit to be had. And I think we'll start to have some success.

MS. DUFFY: In spite of all that, and this, I guess, is a fatalistic question, one person wants to know: Do you feel we should plan for a nuclear Iranian state, and how? What should we do to prepare for this eventuality?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I have always believed that the best course, in policymaking at least, is to put your head down and drive toward the solution that you must have, not to become diverted by what might happen if you don't get there. And in this case, a nuclear-armed Iran would be enormously dangerous in a region that is already quite volatile.

And it's not just that Iran with a nuclear weapon, it is also Iranian behavior on other fronts. We're talking about a country that does have abominable human rights record, we're talking about a country that where an unelected few continue to suppress the desires of its people for democratic elections, most recently, with the Guardian Council deciding who can run for President and who can't run for President. And this is a country -- and we really want to underscore this -- that is out of step in terms of its support for terrorists.

The Iranians are probably the most important state sponsor of terrorists, including the terrorists who are doing their best to frustrate the hopes of the Palestinian people for a state. Mahmoud Abbas, who was with the President yesterday, came to power in an election where he won 62 percent of the vote by saying the armed Intifada has to end. The only way to get a Palestinian state is through peaceful negotiation with the Israelis. And who is he trying to face down? He's trying to face down terrorist organizations that the Iranians are funding. So the Iranians are very much out of step with the international system. And so to have a nuclear weapon in the hands of the Iranians would be a very, very dangerous thing. So we're going to do everything that we can to prevent that outcome.

(Applause.)

MS. DUFFY: Well, I have several hundred more questions here, but we've reached the point in our program where it's time for just that one last question. Before I move to that question, please do everyone stay in the room and remain seated, if you would, while Secretary Rice leaves the room.

And the last question is: What would you like your legacy to be as Secretary of State, if you could pick one thing?

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. I was fortunate in 1989 to 1991 to be the White House Soviet specialist at the end of the Cold War. It doesn't get much better than that. And I got to participate in the end of the Communism in Eastern Europe and the rise of a united Germany on Western terms and the beginnings of the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union.

But you know, when I look back, I realize that as heady an experience as that was, we were just harvesting good decisions that had been taken in 1945 and 1946, 1947. And I look back on people like Truman and Acheson and Marshall and Kennan and Nitze and I wonder how they got it right because if you look at the time after World War II, it was a time when freedom most certainly did not seem to be on the march.

In 1946, the Communists won large minorities in France and in Italy. In 1947, there was civil conflict in Turkey and civil war in Greece. In 1948, there was, of course, the permanent division of Germany because of the Berlin events and the Berlin airlift. And in 1948, they had to make a decision about whether to recognize Israel. In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded a nuclear weapon five years ahead of schedule -- Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union -- and the Chinese Communists won their civil war. It didn't look very good for the march of freedom.

But somehow because they put in place institutions and stayed true to their values and believed that there could be a democratic Japan and a democratic Germany, we sit now in a world in which we can't imagine war in Europe, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of Europeans died in that war, in those wars, just 60 years ago. And so it says that you need to always keep your eye on the long-term, not on the short-term. History doesn't unfold quickly, it unfolds over the long-term. And I would hope that at the end of this time, we would have laid a similar foundation in the Middle East, where we would have recognized that the real power and authority of America comes from its association with values, that it comes from our association with people who are seeking liberty and who aspire to freedom and democracy, that we would have united those allies who are on the right side of freedom's divide, lucky enough to be there because of the sacrifices of others, to make common cause with those who are still trapped on the wrong side of freedom's divide.

And that in doing so, we might look back 50 years from now -- or someone will -- and say, ‘aren't we glad that the Americans and their allies understood the power of freedom, that they understood that the people of the Middle East, of Iraq and Afghanistan and Egypt and Lebanon had the right to be free. And because those people are free, the Middle East is finally a place of prosperity and stability and peace.’

And that they would look back, some President, sitting across from a president from a free Iraq or a free Afghanistan would have the same thrill that a president now has sitting across from a president of a democratic Japan or the chancellor of -- the prime minister of a democratic Japan or the chancellor of a democratic Germany. Nobody thought that a democratic Germany and a democratic Japan were going to rise either, but I do believe that if America stays true to her values and if our friends join us, there will be a democratic Middle East and that is something for which our children and our grandchildren will be grateful.

Thank you very much.

OBLIGATORY DEMOCRAT REFERENCE?:

Harkin: Bush is to stem cell what Wallace was to civil rights (DAN GEARINO, 5/27/05, WCF Courier)

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said Thursday that President George W. Bush's opposition to expanded federal support for stem cell research merely delays the inevitable ---- a point he made with an example from the civil-rights struggle.

Bush is "sort of our modern-day George Wallace, standing in the schoolhouse door," Harkin said in a conference call with reporters.

Wallace was the governor of Alabama who famously stood in the door of the University of Alabama in an attempt to stop two African American students from registering.

"The fact is, that the walls of segregation were going to come tumbling down, we were going to move ahead with integration, and no matter what George Wallace did, it was going to happen. And I think it's the same way with President Bush," Harkin said.

STAYIN' ALIVE:

Judge Won't Dismiss Wash. Gov. Challenge (REBECCA COOK, 5/27/05, Associated Press)

A judge Friday refused to throw out a Republican challenge to the election of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, saying voters deserve a full accounting of how the balloting was conducted.

The Democrats asked for a dismissal after the Republicans rested their case following four days of testimony aimed at proving that errors, illegal votes and fraud combined to deprive GOP candidate Dino Rossi of victory last fall.

MAJORITY LEADER:

McCain Urging Accord on Bolton and Secret Documents (DOUGLAS JEHL and CARL HULSE, 5/28/05, NY Times)

One of John R. Bolton's leading Republican backers, Senator John McCain of Arizona, signaled his support on Friday for a compromise in which the White House might allow Senate leaders access to highly classified documents in return for a final vote early next month on Mr. Bolton's nomination as United Nations ambassador.

The conciliatory signal from Mr. McCain came as Senate leaders traded blame over who was responsible for the miscalculation that led to Mr. Bolton's nomination being blocked Thursday. But the White House showed no sign that the Bush administration might change course. [...]

Appearing on the Fox News Channel, Mr. McCain reiterated his support for Mr. Bolton. He also praised an argument made by, among others, Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, who has urged the administration to provide the Senate with more information related to Mr. Bolton's conduct. Senators calling on the administration to share the documents "have some substance to their argument," Mr. McCain said. [...]

Mr. McCain was among 53 Republicans left stunned by the Democratic move, which foiled a Republican-led effort to bring the nomination to a final roll-call vote.

The senator had played host at a meeting on Monday night in which seven Republicans struck a deal with seven Democrats in the Senate to avert a showdown over filibusters of judicial nominations. Three of those Democrats - Senators Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana - joined Republicans in voting to end the debate on Mr. Bolton.

Mr. McCain's comments on Friday suggested that he might once again see himself as playing a broker's role, though he did not say what he believed a compromise might entail.

Only two of the 55 Republicans in the Senate have said they would oppose Mr. Bolton, making it likely that he would win confirmation in a roll-call vote.

AXIS OF GOOD FILES

Why Japan needs our friendship (Greg Sheridan, May 28, 2005, The Australian)

THREE dramatic stories in Tokyo's newspapers this week paint the picture of Japan's present extraordinary flux and why the Japan-Australia strategic partnership is set to deepen.

"Wu snubbed Koizumi," blared The Japan Times. It recounted the incredible incident of China's Vice-Premier Wu Yi, who first asked for a meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, then cancelled at the last minute and went home in a huff. At first Chinese officials, with their scrupulous regard for the truth, said this was because of urgent business at home. Later they said it was because of insensitive remarks by Japanese leaders.

The Chinese say they are offended by Koizumi's annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japan's war dead, including some war criminals. But this issue, along with a string of others, seems to be more a pretext for China running an anti-Japan campaign.

The second telling story appeared on the front page of The Asian Wall Street Journal under the headline: "Bank earnings in Japan signal crisis has ended." The return to high profitability for Japan's banks, the paper said, signalled that the financial crisis, which had induced a decade of economic stagnation, was over.

And finally, in Tokyo's Metropolis magazine, a story was titled: "Where are the people?" It reported that the number of Japanese children under 15 has fallen for 24 years in a row.

There you have the three dominant features of Japan's national posture today: deepening strategic competition with China, enduring and underestimated Japanese economic strength, and a looming demographic crisis that will ultimately impose severe limits on Japan's strategic strength.

What has all this to do with Australia? These are among the factors impelling Japanese leaders to seek a closer strategic engagement with Australia.

A BOLTON MOMENT:

Yachi 'perplexed' remarks got play, is issued warning (KANAKO TAKAHARA, 5/28/05, Japan Times)

Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura on Friday urged Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi to "be careful" with his remarks, following media reports he told South Korean lawmakers earlier this month that Washington distrusts Seoul. [...]

During his May 11 meeting with South Korean lawmakers, Yachi reportedly said Japan was "hesitant" to share intelligence with South Korea on North Korea's nuclear ambitions because it appeared the U.S. did not trust South Korea on matters pertaining to Pyongyang.

NOTHING TO OFFER BUT DEAD MUSLIMS:

Iraqi bombers claim they were deceived (QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHARA, 5/27/05, Associated Press)

Wisam Younis' sole ambition in life, he said Friday, is to kill Americans. So he claimed surprise when he discovered his car bomb had killed eight Iraqis and wounded more than 80 outside a Baghdad restaurant.

Younis and brothers Badr and Yassin Shakir are charged with murder and face the death penalty in the May 23 attack.

"We did not know that the attack would target innocent people and we were deceived," said Younis, barefooted and with bruised and swollen hands. He said they were taken in by enthusiastic ideas and money, adding that an insurgent leader promised $1,500 for the bombing.

"Our doctrine is to wage jihad against the Americans," Younis, wearing a stained beige traditional robe, told an Associated Press reporter as police stood over him. "Driving out the occupiers is the demand of all Iraqis... I wish to die in the battlefield instead of prison."

Baghdad police paraded out the three Sunni Arabs to help put a face to an deadly insurgency, and to show that Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari means business with a plan to encircle Baghdad with tens of thousands of security forces.

The display also was meant to reassure a public whose discontent with the Shiite-led government has been high because of its seeming inability to provide security and crush the insurgency.

STICKING TO THEIR KNITTING:

Aux armes, citoyens! (Oh, not again.) (Charles Bremner, 5/28/05, Times of London)

YOU HAVE to hand it to the French. No one matches their panache when it comes to demolishing the ancien régime and proclaiming a glorious new dawn. For the guerrilla resistance that has ambushed the heavy cavalry of the establishment, the likely “non” in tomorrow’s referendum on the European constitution is another dash for a radiant future. May 2005, they hope, will join all those other revolutionary beacons which have illuminated modern French history, from July 1789 to May 1968. Most of those revolts ended in tears and it is worth examining why this one is heading the same way. [...]

As good French revolutionaries, the nonistes also see themselves blazing a trail not just for France but for humanity. They want to lead Europe on a hop back to the future. For the left-wing voters, this is the Utopia imagined by Karl Marx and last glimpsed elsewhere in the 1970s. For the Right, it is the sombre patrie of the paranoid and protectionist 1930s.

The people of Europe, say the nonistes, will cheer a “no” as the opening shot in the battle for a new, socially protective Union. “Ours is a ‘no’ of foundation,” says Philippe de Villiers, the rural aristocrat who has eclipsed Le Pen as champion of the nationalist Right. “Ours is a joyful ‘no’ of hope,” says Marie-George Buffet, the Communist leader, whose party is enjoying a new lease of life. Laurent Fabius, the socialist grandee who leads the middle class left-wing resistance, is talking about a salutory “no” of liberation.

The sans-culottes of this new old Europe, we are told, will guillotine the British-dominated Brussels bureaucracy and throw up barriers to imports and offshoring, harmonise taxes upwards and bestow a French-style welfare state on the continent.

21st CENTURY SECOND LANGUAGE:

Young Iraqi Kurds choose English over Arabic (Middle East Times, May 27, 2005)

Most Kurdish students in northern Iraq learn English as a second language these days, alarmingly for a country whose official language remains Arabic and where fear of Kurdish separatism still runs deep.

As Kurdish former rebel leaders test the limits of their hard-won influence in the new Iraq, some say that even traditional Muslim prayers must be said in Kurdish and that speaking Arabic is out-dated and out of touch.

"Certain extremists would like to say prayers in Kurdish," said Salam Khoshnaw, a professor at Salaheddin University who speaks perfect Arabic.

"Others, even more radical, dare to say that Arabs sent their language to us on the humps of camels and we must return it to them in a Mercedes."

It's not necessarily the students' fault that they don't learn Arabic well - following the 1991 Gulf war when Western intervention established a Kurdish safe haven in Iraq's three far-northern provinces, many schools and universities switched their teaching to Kurdish.

Salaheddin University students learn in Kurdish, Arabic or English as do teenagers at Arbil high school.

"Our 1,442 students study in their own language and don't know Arabic these days," said Hany Kader Khoder, 42, the high school director.

No longer bound by the rules of Saddam Hussein's ousted Arab nationalist regime, high school teachers now hold lessons for four or five hours per week in Kurdish and Arabic, one hour less in English, Khoder said.

"Arabic became a third language for us," said the principal. "The pupils prefer English, because, to them, Arabic is the language of oppression and the atrocities of the former regime."

THE NATURAL:

Why is India America's Natural Ally? (The Honorable Robert Blackwill, In the National Interest)

Let me answer in this way. Imagine a matrix, with America’s most important national security concerns along one side, and the world’s major countries along the other. What emerges may come as a surprise to many Americans—and perhaps to plenty of national security pundits as well.

Think first of the vital national interests of the United States: prosecuting the global War on Terror and reducing the staying power and effectiveness of the jihadi killers; preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, including to terrorist groups; dealing with the rise of Chinese power; ensuring the reliable supply of energy from the Persian Gulf; and keeping the global economy on track.

Now consider the key countries of the world. Which share with us these vital national interests and the willingness to do something about threats to these interests—in an unambiguous way, over the long term—for their own reasons? India may lead the list.

Henry Kissinger argues that a cooperative U.S.-Indian relationship is in the cards because of "the geopolitical objectives of India, which they are pursuing in a very hard-headed way, [and] which are quite parallel to ours." [...]

Not only do our vital national interests coincide, but we share common values as well. The policies of United States and India are built on the same solid moral foundation. India is a democracy of more than one billion people—and there are not many of those in that part of the world. Indian democracy has sustained a heterogeneous, multilingual and secular society. In the words of Sunil Khilnani, the author of The Idea of India (1999), India is a "bridgehead of effervescent liberty on the Asian continent." George W. Bush fastened onto the genius of Indian democracy very early on, long before he was president. This has now become an even more central element of American foreign policy, given the march of freedom across the Greater Middle East and the president’s emphasis on the growth of pluralism, democracy and democratic institutions in that region. At 130 million people, India’s Muslim population is the second-largest of any nation in the world, behind only Indonesia. Yet, it is remarkable for the near absence of Islamic extremism in Indian society. For instance, there is no record of a single Indian joining Al-Qaeda, no Indian citizens were captured in Afghanistan, and there are no Indian Muslims at the Guantanamo Bay military detention center. This all says something important about democratic processes and how they are a safety valve for extremist currents within societies.

So on these major issues connected to vital national interests and the values of liberty, India and the United States will find themselves together over the long term. They are natural allies not because of any current or future organizational connection; there will be no formal alliance between the two countries. But I cannot think of another nation with which the United States shares in such a comprehensive way, and with the same intensity, these vital national interests and democratic values, and which must face threats to them in the decades ahead.

HOMOCENTRISM:

Stem-Cell Hypocrisy (Eleanor Clift, Newsweek)

Many parents, when faced with what to do with these spare embryos would like to donate them to science rather than let them languish indefinitely in storage tanks. The stem-cell bill that passed the House this week and is now before the Senate would free up federal funds for research on these leftover embryos. Bush says he’ll veto the bill. The Christian right’s wrongheaded invocation of religion to restrict science ranks up there with the medieval sanctioning of Galileo because his views conflicted with church doctrine.

AT LEAST THEY HAVE THE AZALEAS:

A Baby Bust Empties Out Japan's Schools: Shrinking Population Called Greatest National Problem (Anthony Faiola, March 3, 2005, Washington Post)

When Kami Hinokinai Junior High opened half a century ago in this picturesque northern village, Fukuyo Suzuki, then a young mother, remembers joining other parents on a warm May afternoon to plant pink azaleas in the schoolyard.

The azaleas are still here, though bare in the winter snow and, like the new occupants of the school, more fragile than they once were. In a nation grappling with a record low birthrate and the world's longest average lifespan, Suzuki, 77, is spending the daytime hours of her twilight years back in the halls of her son's old school.

The junior high, which ceased operation six years ago because of a shortage of children, now houses a community center for the elderly. Suzuki comes to pass her time sipping green tea and weaving straw baskets with other aging villagers.

"I never imagined this school would close and that I would be back here myself," said Suzuki, a farmer's widow who lives with her 52-year-old son. Like one out of four men in Nishiki, her son remains single and childless. "Now, I hear our elementary school is going to close, too," she said. "It's so sad for us. Children are vanishing from our lives."

The change at the junior high in this shrinking village of 5,924 is an example of what analysts describe as Japan's greatest national problem, a combination baby bust and senior citizen boom. Indeed, next year Nishiki is set to pay the highest price for its shrinking population: Unable to sustain its annual budget, it will join a growing list of Japanese towns that have officially ceased to exist and have merged with a neighboring city.

In the aftermath of World War II, the rush to build a modern economy sparked migration from rural towns such as Nishiki to Japan's urban centers. But officials say the lure of the big city is no longer the key factor driving depopulation. For at least the past decade, the leading cause of the town's shrinking population base has been a disturbingly low birthrate.

Last year, 42 babies were born in Nishiki, the lowest number since the town was incorporated in the 1950s, while 75 villagers died, according to local statistics. Nishiki's plight, analysts said, could be an omen of Japan's future.

The national child shortage, even as the population ages, is raising fears about Japan's long-term ability to maintain its status as the world's second-largest economy after the United States. With more Japanese choosing to remain single and forgoing parenthood, the population of almost 128 million is expected to decrease next year, then plunge to about 126 million by 2015 and about 101 million by 2050.

Many people are asking: Will there be enough Japanese left to participate in the economy in the years to come?

FOREIGN?:

Bad Senate Deal: The McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill. (Rich Lowry, 5/27/05, National Review)

This bipartisan deal cut by Sen. John McCain is noxious. No, the issue isn’t judges. (Or campaign finance, or health care, or any number of other things.) It’s illegal immigration and a proposal that has just been cooked up by the Arizona maverick and the Massachusetts non-maverick Sen. Ted Kennedy to grant an amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.

Under the bill, illegals would have to work in the U.S. — which they are already doing — for six years as legal temporary workers, then they would be eligible to apply for green cards. Also, a new category of guest workers would be created who would work here for four years, then be eligible for green cards. This category will likely bring another 400,000 (and probably more) foreign workers a year into the country.

Lee Driscoll is cracking down on illegal immigrants in his restaurants.

And it's breaking his heart.

He's not just going the extra mile. He's taking the full trip.

And it's tearing him up inside.

He's going to fire as many as 51 of his employees - for crimes that include trying to make a living for their families.

And, Driscoll says, it's not unlike firing members of his own family.

NEXT CAUSE, HIL-HATERS:

Ex-Clinton Aide Acquitted in Fund-Raising Case (LESLIE EATON, 5/27/05, NY Times)

A federal jury today acquitted Hillary Rodham Clinton's former chief fund-raiser of charges that he underreported the costs of a glittery fund-raising event in 2000 to the Federal Election Commission.

In closing arguments on Wednesday, prosecutors accused the defendant, David F. Rosen, of accepting lavish, secret gifts that were "clearly meant to buy influence and access." Mr. Rosen, who was tried on two counts of causing false filings to be made, was the national finance director for Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign. If convicted, Mr. Rosen, 38, could have received up to 10 years in prison.

MOVING THE BAR:

Compromise on judges is a setback for the left (Robert Robb, May. 27, 2005, Arizona Republic)

The harsh criticism by conservatives of the accord on judicial nominations brokered by John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., has been excessive.

In reality, it is the left that has lost the most with the accord - big time.

The most immediate effect of the agreement is that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has lost the solid support of Senate Democrats to filibuster judges based upon a caucus decision. Instead, seven Democrats have declared themselves to be free agents.

This in turn means that the abortion rights lobby and the extreme secularists at People for the American Way, who have exercised extraordinary influence over the actions of Senate Democrats about judges, have lost what was an effective veto over judicial appointments.

This is a monumental change, illustrated by the three judges the accord specifically commits the Democratic signatories not to filibuster: William Pryor, Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown. [...]

If judges such as Owen, Pryor and Brown do not constitute "extraordinary circumstances," then the path is clear for Bush to appoint strong, well-qualified conservatives to the bench.

Of course, the accord does not similarly protect two other Bush appointees, Henry Saad and William Myers. But the Democratic signatories haven't committed to support a filibuster of them either. And the stakes for these judges just aren't the same, for the left or the right.

Saad has been nominated for a seat for which Republicans had previously blocked a Clinton nominee. So, there's a bit of political tit for tat going on, rather than a clear fight over judicial philosophy.

Myers, who has represented mining and cattle interests, has run into opposition from the left over natural resources and environmental issues.

THANKS, GANG:

Senate panel OKs asbestos trust fund bill (JESSE J. HOLLAND, 5/26/05, Associated Press)

Manufacturers and insurance companies would be shielded from multimillion-dollar lawsuits from people with asbestos-related diseases in exchange for funding a $140 billion trust fund under legislation that has cleared its first hurdle.

Supporters claim a fund like the one the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Thursday is the only way to stop large asbestos lawsuits that have bankrupted such companies as Owens Corning Fiberglas and W.R Grace, and left sick people with no way to pay their medical bills.

The trust fund would compensate people sickened by exposure to asbestos, a fibrous mineral commonly used in construction until the mid-1970s. Asbestos has tiny fibers that can cause cancer and other ailments when inhaled. Millions of people have been exposed, and the diseases often take decades to develop.

Bill supporters say a trust fund would speed money to those suffering from asbestos-related illnesses and it would protect companies from the prospect of being sued out of existence.

The Rand Institute for Civil Justice said in a 2003 study that more than 60 companies have sought bankruptcy protection because of more than 600,000 asbestos claims now in courts. That number is expected to grow in the future.

A legislative compromise has proved elusive.

WHAT KIND OF WUSS NEEDS ALL THAT TIME OFF ANYWAY? (via The Other Brother):

No time for time off: U.S. workers forfeit vacation days out of fear, machismo (Andrea Coombes, 5/27/05, MarketWatch)

On average, Americans leave from three to eight days of paid vacation on the table every year, according to the two surveys.

Forfeiting vacations can be "a macho thing," said Mitchell Marks, a psychologist, management consultant, and president of JoiningForces.org, in San Francisco.

"The perception is that tough people don't need a vacation, which is of course not true," Marks said.

NAME THAT RELIGION:

WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE, CANADA?:

The Berlin-Baghdad Connection (ANDRÉS MARTINEZ, May 25, 2005, LA Times)

The world leader most responsible for the war in Iraq had a terrible weekend. I am not referring to George W. Bush or Saddam Hussein, though the Iraqi tyrant did make the front page in his underwear. [...]

[S]chroeder's recklessness on the global stage will be his real legacy. As the first German leader with no firsthand memory of life in the Third Reich, Schroeder asserted for a reunified Germany a more active role in world affairs. Within months of taking office, the dour but dapper chancellor had dispatched thousands of German peacekeepers to Kosovo as part of NATO's Balkan intervention. This was all as it should be. The Federal Republic, a model democracy for decades, had earned the right to cease thinking of itself as a nation on probation.

Schroeder's recklessness was triggered by the challenges of campaigning as a leftish reformer. Struggling in the polls a month before the last national election, in August 2002, Schroeder was the first world leader to stake out an absolutist position in advance of United Nations deliberations over Hussein's fate. Germany, the chancellor stated on the campaign trail, was in no mood for a "military misadventure" and would oppose any use of force against Iraq, regardless of what the U.N. decided. End of story.

Germany's own diplomats, led by popular Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of the Green Party, were caught off guard by this campaign bravado and annoyed that Germany had preemptively removed itself from the debate. Bush's Texan swagger goes down poorly in Europe, and Schroeder's move to reply to it with some swagger of his own worked. The chancellor scored a come-from-behind win.

But at a terrible cost. The leader of a post-Cold War Germany has every right to disagree with Washington, but opportunistically doing so for the sake of scoring short-term political points was highly damaging to the cohesion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as well as to Germany's claim to be a nation endowed with a unique moral suasion.

ROBBING HANS TO PAY JACQUES

A many-headed monster (Rob Greene, Radio Netherlands, May 28th, 2005)

There seems to live, among the political elite, a notion that voters can sometimes be right (as when they vote for me, or say Yes to the Constitution) but that, more often than not, they are wrong (as when they don't vote for me, or against the Constitution, or against the war, or not at all).

This is a fallacious suggestion. Any voting behaviour, in or away from the polling station, is right and legitimate, so long as it stems from genuinely held feelings about the state of the nation, our personal well-being, high-minded principles or - and why not - from plain bigotry.

In a democracy, if you give people the vote then let them use it as they will and accept the result with a smile. Democracy emphatically does not mean calling a referendum and then telling voters that they must vote Yes or else be despised as wreckers of the economy, our standing in the world and, ultimately, the EU itself.

The Dutch would do well to remember, on Wednesday, that the European Union we now inhabit took 53 years to build. Begun as the European Coal and Steel Community (founder-members West Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg) when the Treaty of Paris came into effect in 1952, the Union now, nine treaties later, is a many-headed monster - 25 heads, in fact - and with more heads to come.

Hundreds of regulations and directives not of our own making control almost every aspect of our lives. Not one of those nine treaties, by the way, has in the Netherlands been the subject of a referendum; nor has the perhaps most crucial change: that of abolishing our currency in favour of the euro. The Dutch have simply never been asked a single thing…….until this Wednesday.

It is an opportunity not to be missed. Anger about the euro and the effect its introduction has had on our living standard flared up anew recently when it was revealed -by the President of the Dutch Central Bank, no less - that the Dutch guilder was converted into the euro at roughly ten percent below its real value. In other words: everyone's savings dropped in value by one-tenth overnight.

We keep hearing how the “no” camp is composed of irrational extremists and know-nothings voting in a spirit of misdirected, nostalgic ressentiment. In fact, it is the “yes” camp that has lost its marbles and has so mindlessly embraced a fairy tale that it has come to believe it is right and proper to secretly rob entire populations to keep the myth alive.

BAD WEEK FOR POLITICAL SONS:

DeWine says dad was wrong about judicial filibusters (Howard Wilkinson, 5/27/05, Cincinnati Enquirer)

In an effort to make sure the "sin'' of the father isn't visited on the son, Republican candidate Pat DeWine made it clear Thursday he doesn't approve of the role his father, Sen. Mike DeWine, played this week in brokering a deal with Senate Democrats over judicial filibusters.

"I wouldn't have voted the way he did,'' the Hamilton County commissioner said Thursday. "If a person is appointed to the federal bench, he or she deserves an up-or-down vote.''

LIKE TINKER BELL (via Daniel Merriman):

Keepers of the Faith; Defenders of the Light: Commencement Address, Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law (Delivered by The Honorable Janice R. Brown, Associate Justice, California Supreme Court,
May 24, 2003)

Law is the most permeable of disciplines, affected by the changes in society, but in its turn affecting what it touches. In a country so diverse, “legality ... has become the touchstone for legitimacy. ...[Law becomes] the terrain on which Americans are struggling to define what kind of people they are, and what kind of society they wish to bring into being.”

Abigail Adams, writing to John Quincy Adams in 1780, said: “These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. ...Great necessities call out great virtues.” That was a critical time for America. This is an equally critical epoch. You and your peers may well be the most important generation of lawyers since that founding generation. The question for the framers was whether we could form a government based on “reflection and choice” rather than conflict and accident. They answered the question in the affirmative. What strikes me as I read the notes and letters of the founders is their supreme confidence.

The question for you will be whether the regime of freedom which they founded can survive the relentless enmity of the slave mentality. It will really be whether you want freedom to survive. The answer may be no. There are many reasons to forsake freedom.

Some will do so because they are ambitious and can only make their mark by setting out upon a new path. Abraham Lincoln described this dynamic many years before he became president. He said there will always be people among us (from the family of the Lion or the tribe of the Eagle) who “scorn to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor,” who thirst and burn for distinction, and who will obtain it “whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving free men.”

Some may reject freedom because security has always been more comfortable than freedom and infinitely more comforting to the “herd of independent minds.”

Perhaps the most likely reason for a negative response is the fatigue engendered by the “accumulated decisions of so many revolutions.” Freedom requires certitude and we are now so enlightened that, in Pascal's phrase, “we know too much to be ignorant and too little to be wise.”

I, of course, hope that this generation will rise to the challenge; that our present great necessities will call forth great virtues. Perhaps that is why, when I tried to think about what I might say to you as you commence your life in the law, only one word, one image, surfaced. The word, the image, was “Light.” Sometimes sharp and white, like the flash of a lighthouse beacon. Sometimes the soft, full radiance of sunrise. But, always, light. How odd, I thought. But then the brochure for the Columbus School of Law arrived with the motto of the Catholic University of America emblazoned across its cover. Deus lux mea est. God is my light. And then there was the Cardinal's dinner, held in San Francisco this year. The program began with a wonderful film about the university which was entitled — are you ready — “Sharing the Light.” Aha! At this point, even the dull witted must begin to see ... the light. And finally, leafing through a book of essays seeking inspiration, these words leapt out at me: “The night is for spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.” (Romans 13:12)

Light is often used as a metaphor for consciousness, comprehension, and truth. Light as an analogue of God's creative activity. Indeed, in the Christian liturgy God is light — “God of God, Light of Light” — and truth — “I am the way, the truth, and the life...” Historically, and poetically — and, I believe, actually, light and truth seem indissolubly linked.

In fact, that linkage is often proudly reflected in the mottos of institutions of higher learning. Veritas (truth) is the motto of Harvard University. And Lux et Veritas (light and truth) is the motto of Yale University, a circumstance which, due to the longstanding rivalry between the two schools, has led some Yale students to observe that Harvard graduates are just Yale students who have not yet seen the light.

Being at The Catholic University of America hopefully means you have not only seen the light but also understand its source. This is one of the few universities in America that explicitly affirms not only the existence of truth but also the legitimacy of its relentless pursuit. You will nevertheless be living, working, and striving in a world that is suspicious of, if not downright hostile to, even the possibility of truth. This is not only a stunted and benighted worldview, it is a profoundly dangerous one. Nothing less than Western Civilization and the Rule of Law is at stake.

In the spirit of the Enlightenment, truth has been reduced to a matter of perspective and all perspectives are declared equal. Since our choices can only be justified rhetorically, that is by reference to philanthropy or utility; even equality is debased, reduced to the equal right of all desires to be satisfied. “The repudiation of metaphysics, religion, and tradition… leads inevitably to the destruction of all foundations for prudence and practical reason.”

Thus, scientists and philosophers have spent the last three hundred years trying to organize society as if God did not exist and the last two centuries seeking to reshape society through industrial development, social engineering, and various forms of wealth creation and redistribution. This process was supposed to bring forth the new man, a new and improved humanity. The project was a miserable failure.

The project failed because it denied the essential nature of human beings and because, like it or not, our political institutions are a product of our culture. Culture is organic. “Culture is something you must grow; you cannot build a tree, you can only plant it, and care for it and wait for it to mature in its own due time; and when it is grown you must not complain if you find that from an acorn has come an oak, and not an elm tree.”

It is curious that we can comfortably accept the premises of a scientific specialty like chaos theory, and not see its implications for the social and moral realm. The simplest expression of chaos theory posits that “tiny differences in input can quickly become overwhelming differences in output” — a phenomenon given the name “sensitive dependence on initial conditions.” In weather, for example, this translates into what is only half-jokingly known as the Butterfly Effect — the notion that a butterfly stirring the air today in Peking can transform storm systems next month in New York.9 Why then can we not see that societies as well as civilizations may exhibit a similar sensitive dependence.

So, let me ask you a question. What did Superman fight for? If the answer does not come immediately to mind, I am not surprised. Had I asked the same question of an audience my age, the answer would have come without hesitation: “Truth, Justice, and the American Way,” When I was a child, this was an easy question. We didn't know exactly what Truth, Justice, and the American Way meant, but we did know it was good. Because Superman was one of the good guys.

By the time I was a young woman, though, we sang a different song. We sang: “There ain't no good guys; there ain't no bad guys. There's only you and me and we just disagree.” The song was not intended as an ode to moral relativism. It was particular and specific — about the end of a love affair. But in attitude and sensibility it could have served as the anthem of my generation.

There is only one problem with this little ditty. It is wrong. Wholly, flatly, irredeemably wrong. There are good guys. There are bad guys. And, as Cardinal Manning reminded us long ago, differences of opinion are at bottom theological.

Which brings me to my second question — which will be much harder. What is the American Way? If you find this more difficult to answer, it is not surprising. The American Creed has not been forgotten; it has been repudiated. “Historically, American identity has had two primary components: culture and creed.” The former is defined by our heritage from Western Civilization; the latter consists of a set of universal ideas and principles articulated in our founding documents: liberty, equality, democracy, constitutionalism, limited government, and private property. On these principles there once was wide agreement. Indeed, the Creed was hailed by foreign observers, ranging from Alexis de Tocqueville to Gunnar Myrdal, as the “cement in the structure of this great and disparate nation.” As Richard Hofstader notes: “It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies but to be one.”

And now the final question on today's quiz, suggested by Japanese philosopher Takeshi Umehara, who theorizes that the breakup of the Soviet Union is only the precursor to the collapse of Western liberalism: In an era in which “people everywhere define themselves in cultural terms, what place is there for a society without a cultural core,” defined only by a fragile political creed which — like Tinker Bell — is close to expiring because no one quite believes in it anymore?

In some ways, it seems we have been moving backward: bringing chaos out of order instead of the other way around. At least that is how things stood until quite recently when, in one instant of anguish, pity, grief, and rage, we had a moment of awful moral clarity. All perspectives are not equal. Evil is not merely a matter of opinion. Suddenly and undeniably, we understood that there are ideas worth defending to the death. There are lies that must be defeated at all costs. Freedom is not free. And it will never be the lasting legacy of the lazy or the indifferent. For what we ultimately pursue is a true “vision of justice and ordered liberty, respectful of human dignity and the authority of God.”15 What we need is to revive our passion for freedom and our determination to defend vigorously, rationally, and without apology, our way of life, which is unique and deserves not scorn nor diffidence, but devotion.

By accepting the beguiling proposition that all perspectives are equal, we left Western Civilization, the God of Light, and light itself, undefended. We left the very spirit of truth desolate and abandoned on its high hill. Indeed, we deemed them unworthy of defense. But, there may have been a reason why Truth, Justice and the American Way are seamlessly conjoined in the phrase with which I began today's exam. There can be no discussion about the nature of justice and the essence of law when human will is made the supreme arbiter of all human values. Without truth, there is neither justice nor freedom. “Once truth is denied to human beings, it is pure illusion to try to set them free. Truth and freedom either go together hand in hand or together they perish in misery.”

If our commitment to truth and justice was, in fact, the foundation of the vision that made America, then moral and cultural relativism is more than an educational anomaly, it is a calamity. That is why the lawyer classifieds need a new ad. Wanted: Keepers of the faith; Defenders of light.

The title poem from Sahara Sunday Spain's third book of poetry (she is now about eleven) is titled “If There Would Be No Light.”

She says:

If there would be
no light,
we would fall
into an
endless sleep of dust
and become
the stars,
the moon
the endless
burning sun.

I do not know exactly what the youthful poet meant by these words, but they reminded me of physicist Paul Davies's wonderment that “we have cracked part of the cosmic code.”

“Why this should be, just why Homo sapiens should carry the spark of rationality that provides the key to the universe, is a deep enigma. We, who are children of the universe — animated stardust — can nevertheless reflect on the nature of that same universe, even to the extent of glimpsing the rules on which it runs.”

He concludes the existence of human consciousness in the universe cannot be “a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama.”

These are questions with which to conjure. What if the universe was created solely so we might see? What if God, when He spoke the universe into existence by saying, “Let there be light,” was calling forth not just the creative properties of light but consciousness itself? What if consciousness, not matter, is the ultimate foundation of the universe? What if all of creation was set before us like a textbook from the master teacher's hand? So that our hearts could be ravished by the perfection of a single rosebud; our minds dazzled by the complex landscape of an atom; our spirits humbled by the immense, breathtaking splendor of the night sky.

What if filling the world with light (with the luminosity that ought to live within each of us) was the point of the whole exercise? Why then, if the light of truth and reason is extinguished in the world — “if there would be no light” — we might return to being nothing more than stardust. Only this time, creation would be moving backwards, like a film running in reverse. And we, sad stars, between one instant and the next would wink out one by one.

The challenge I offer you today is to be among those who seek, speak, and defend the truth.

The next time you hear that phrase, Truth, Justice, and the American Way, I hope it will have more resonance for you. This is not a perfect country. We are not perfect people. We were founded on the recognition of human fallibility. Still, I believe with all my heart that the Rule of Law, the ideal of equality under law, and the principles of human dignity and liberty which this country exemplifies are worthy of defense. Who knows? As a keeper of the faith, a defender of the light, you may be saving more than America — more than Western Civilization — you may be saving the universe!

SORRY, MOM:

FDA Looking Into Blindness-Viagra Link (Lauran Neergaard, May 27, 2005, AP)

Federal health officials are examining rare reports of blindness among some men using the impotence drugs Viagra and Cialis, a disclosure that comes at a time when the drug industry can ill afford negative publicity about another class of blockbuster medicines.

The Food and Drug Administration still is investigating, but has no evidence yet that the drug is to blame, said spokeswoman Susan Cruzan.

NO RESPECT FOR FACE SWEAT:

The World’s First Murder: A Closer Look at Cain and Abel: Combining a careful reading of the text with ancient rabbinic analysis, the author takes us behind the scenes in Scripture, revealing a startling tapestry of meaning in stories that many have written-off as fiction. As before, he has designed the series to be interactive. You are encouraged to pose questions and offer comments. Try to stump the rabbi — he'll respond! (Rabbi David Fohrman, 5/27/05, Jewish World Review)

Here's a thirty-second snapshot of the narrative — followed by my best, devil's-advocate-style rendition of a question I don't really believe in:

Cain and Abel, children of Adam and Eve, each bring offerings to the Lord. The Almighty expresses pleasure with the offering brought by Abel, but not with that brought by his older brother Cain. Cain becomes very upset. Shortly afterwards, he kills his brother Abel.

Well, class, there's more to the story than that, but why don't we stop here for the time being. Let's go around the room: Is everyone here happy with this story? [...]

Imagine you were Bobby and Debbie's mother, and when your two children had each presented their respective gifts to you, you had inexplicably disregarded that basic rule of parenting, and had favored Debbie's gift over Bobbie's. Now, a half hour later, you walk by Bobby's room and find him weeping softly into his pillow. You ask him what's the matter and he turns to you and whimpers, "You told me you didn't like my present..." and then comes the kicker, something my child has tried on me one or two times. He says: "Mommies aren't supposed to say things like that to their kids ...". How would you react to Bobby's plaintive cries?

Instinctively, most parents — even those who had initially favored Debby's gift — would be unable to resist the sight of a weeping Bobby. Most of us would recognize the error of our ways, would scoop Bobby into their arms and apologize for having turned our back on his gift. You're right, we'd tell him, Mommy loves you and I'm so sorry for not accepting your gift the way I should have. We'd apologize; we'd tell Bobby we'd had a hard day at work, we weren't paying enough attention; we'd tell him it won't happen again; we'd tell him just about anything in our desperate attempt to make things right.

But that's not how it happens in the Cain and Abel story.

Just after G-d rejects Cain's offering, and immediately before Cain murders his brother, the Almighty speaks to Cain. But G-d does not soothingly tell Cain that everything will be just fine, that his offering really was pretty good after all. Instead, G-d challenges Cain, asking him whether he really has a right to be angry:

Why are you angry and why has your face fallen? Is it not the case that if you do well, then lift up! And if you don't do well, then, sin lies crouching at the door....

What's going on here? What if the parent who had accepted Debbie's gift but not Bobby's had told the weeping Bobby that if he had done better everything would be just fine; that he should just get over it. Most of us would be ready to pick up the phone and call Social Services. But, how then, are we supposed to come to grips with the Almighty's words to Cain?

And now, dear reader, the ball is in your court. I mentioned before that I felt that the questions I am asking here are not really legitimate. Its my view that the analogy to Bobby and Debbie is faulty and misleading. If you re-read the story of Cain and Abel carefully, I think you should be able to spot the flaw; you should be able to see why Bobby and Debby's sorry plight actually has little indeed to do with the story of Cain and Abel.

You've got a week to think about it.

I'll see you then.

THE LEFT'S LAST REDOUBT:

Sex-ed opponents part of movement to reclaim schools (Jon Ward, 5/26/05, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Parents who stopped a new sex-education curriculum in Montgomery County, Maryland are at the nexus of a national trend in parental activism in school matters.

"Montgomery County has become a symbol for parental activism," said Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America.

Warren Throckmorton, a psychology professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, said parents "are beginning to take matters into their own hands and are looking for ways to collaborate with other like-minded parents to protect their kids." [...]

Curriculum supporters said the course taught tolerance for homosexuals and included factual instruction on how to deal with homosexual feelings.

But parents who formed the group Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC) said the course promoted homosexuality and promiscuity, disregarded scientifically proven health risks and denigrated traditional, religious views about sex.

A federal judge ruled in CRC's favor when he granted a temporary restraining order against the course on May 5.

"What this really illustrates is that parents have a particular set of principles and values. They work hard to instill those in the home, and they don't want this undermined in the health class," said Melissa Pardue, social welfare policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

BET 42 SOCCER FANS COULD TAKE HIM:

Lion Mutilates 42 Midgets in Cambodian Ring-Fight (BBC, 5/27/05)

The fight was slated when an angry fan contested Yang Sihamoni, President of the CMFL, claiming that one lion could defeat his entire league of 42 fighters.

Sihamoni takes great pride in the league he helped create, as was conveyed in his recent advertising campaign for the CMFL that stated his midgets will "... take on anything; man, beast, or machine."

This campaign is believed to be what sparked the undisclosed fan to challenge the entire league to fight a lion; a challenge that Sihamoni readily accepted.

An African Lion (Panthera Leo) was shipped to centrally located Kâmpóng Chhnãng especially for the event, which took place last Saturday, April 30, 2005 in the city’s coliseum.

The Cambodian Government allowed the fight to take place, under the condition that they receive a 50% commission on each ticket sold, and that no cameras would be allowed in the arena.

The fight was called in only 12 minutes, after which 28 fighters were declared dead, while the other 14 suffered severe injuries including broken bones and lost limbs, rendering them unable to fight back.

Sihamoni was quoted before the fight stating that he felt since his fighters out-numbered the lion 42 to 1, that they “… could out-wit and out-muscle [it].”

Unfortunately, he was wrong.

CHAMPIONS OF LIFE

Which kills more: ideology or religion? (Andrew Kenny, The Spectator, May 27th, 2005)

The sun set on the 20th century more than four years ago but you can still see a blood-red glow on the horizon. The century that saw unprecedented technological progress also saw unprecedented slaughter. Previously, religion had served mankind’s deep needs for explanation, order, spiritual comfort and transcendental meaning. Now a new and hideous thing was summoned up to serve the same needs. The thing was ideology, and in a few decades it caused more bloodshed than millennia of religion. It was darker and more irrational, and contained within it something unknown to all the Religions of the Book: a death wish. Religious leaders, however bad they may be, however prone to hubris and hatred, are constrained by fear of God above and by ancient tradition and wisdom. Ideological leaders have no such constraints.

Recently there have been hysterical attacks on the new Pope Benedict, including the charge that he has the blood of millions of Africans on his hands because of the Church’s ban on condoms in a continent ravaged by Aids. I live in Africa, I am an atheist and I think the Church’s prohibition of contraception is wrong, but I want to defend the Pope. To do so, I must compare the good and bad of the Church in Africa with those of the ideologies.

Ideology comes in three colours: red, brown and green, representing Marxism, fascism and environmental extremism. Judged on sheer evil, the worst crime in history was brown, the Nazi genocide, although the reds slaughtered more people. The death toll (difficult to measure) is roughly, Hitler’s holocaust 6 million, Stalin’s famine and terror 8 million, and Mao’s famine 30 million. But the greens have topped them all. In a single crime they have killed about 50 million people. In purely numerical terms, it was the worst crime of the 20th century. It took place in the USA in 1972. It was the banning of DDT. [...]

I have heard not one word of pity or regret from any green organisation about the vast loss of human life caused by the ban on DDT. On the contrary, they seem to regard it as a glorious triumph. The likely reason was spelled out with chilling clarity by Charles Wurster of the Environmental Defence Fund in the USA in 1971 when it was pointed out to him that DDT saved the lives of poor people in poor countries. He said: ‘‘So what? People are the main cause of our problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them and this is as good a way as anything.’’

Here is the key difference between ideology and religion. Here is the fundamental reason why so many ideologues hate the Catholic Church. It was best articulated by Savitri Devi, sometimes called ‘‘Hitler’s Priestess’’, the green mystic, pagan and worshipper of Hitler, who said that Christianity was ‘‘centred on man’’ whereas her green and fascist creed was ‘‘centred on life’’. She is right. The Bible tells men to ‘‘be fruitful and multiply’’ and ‘‘have dominion’’ over other living things. This is anathema to the greens. (Greens are closer to browns than they are to reds. The red ideal is progress via central committees, steel works and tons of concrete. The brown ideal is a static idyll of forests, Alsatian dogs and flaxen-haired maidens tripping through the wheatfields.) Of course when the Bible speaks of ‘‘man’’, it means all of mankind, whereas when Devi speaks of ‘‘life’’, she means only selected types of life, such as Aryans and tigers. Some other forms of life are best exterminated.

I have mentioned only one of the crimes of the ideologues, although the worst. In Africa they have also caused dreadful misery by promoting destructive policies such as command economies and by financing and encouraging calamitous leaders such as Julius Nyerere, who drove the economy of Tanzania to destitution.

The Pope in Africa follows the Biblical injunction. He is for human life. His guides are the enduring truths of his faith and the Word of God. These, and not the latest political fashion or trend in sociology departments, are what direct him. However, the Catholic prohibition on contraception does not seem to have any Biblical foundation, apart from the story of Onan spilling his seed on the ground, which is a special case. It seems more likely to have come from Aristotle, the source of much bad doctrine. It is illogical to allow contraception by the rhythm method while banning other methods. Why is it more natural to study a calendar before engaging in sexual congress than to put a bit of rubber over your winky? However, this is the teaching. What harm has it done?

Aids is devastating Africa, even if the exact scale of the devastation is not well known. Condoms are an effective barrier against the HIV virus (despite silly attempts to pretend otherwise). However, in South Africa it is believed that a high proportion of infection comes from ‘non-consensual sex’, where the man is never going to use a condom, even if the Pope orders him to do so. African women tell us that their husbands and lovers would beat them up if they asked them to use them. The breakdown of the black family and the high incidence of married middle-aged men copulating with young girls hugely exacerbate the spread of HIV infection. The Pope’s message of abstinence outside married life and faithfulness within it would be effective if it were followed — more so than a message of free love and condoms. In Uganda President Museveni seems to be very successful in reducing HIV incidence by calling publicly for abstinence, faithfulness and condoms, which seems to me the best possible advice. (The ideologues are furious with anyone who promotes family life and seem actually frightened of the concept of abstinence.) What the balance of effects is between the Church’s promotion of faithful family life and its ban on condoms is impossible to calculate, but my guess is that it has prevented more infections than it has caused. To say that the Pope is a mass murderer is ridiculous.

The Catholic Church has been an immeasurable force for good in Africa. It has educated, treated, fed and brought hope to a multitude of Africans. It has quietly worked against evil systems, such as apartheid and African tyranny, in just the same way that the great John Paul II worked against communism. While rich young things from international aid agencies flit briefly through Africa in designer safari jackets and air-conditioned 4x4s before settling down to cosy careers in the rich countries, humble priests and nuns spend heroic lives in little villages in the hills and bushes of Africa spreading a gospel of learning, medicine, nutrition and decency, and preaching the equal worth of all men and the promise of redemption for everybody.

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A CONMSTITUTION TO CREATE WHAT?:

Where's the Boeuf? (VINCENT TOURNIER, 5/27/05, NY Times)

WITH its project for a European Constitution, is Europe reliving the history of the United States? The Europeans take the comparison very seriously: they baptized the assembly charged with writing the document the "Convention," in imitation of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The president of the Convention, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, even proposed "Federalist papers" on the model of those written by the founders of the American democracy.

Americans would no doubt be astonished by the comparison. Even a cursory look at the Constitutions drawn up by both Conventions demonstrates how far off Mr. Giscard is. In a few pages, the American Constitution established a foundation for the growth of democracy. In 450 pages, the European Constitution - which establishes power-sharing among European Union members, provides for a foreign minister and full-time president and states more precisely the functions of the union and the member states - enshrines a plethora of rules and regulations while ignoring the fundamental needs of democracy. [...]

The question that Europeans face today is whether a united Europe is more important than these democratic considerations. Some countries have said yes by approving the Constitution; in others, like France, opposition has been running strong. Certainly, factors having little to do with the Constitution have contributed to public hostility in this country, like the unpopularity of the government and the troubled economy. The European message is also muddled. For some, the union has not kept its promises, notably with the single currency, which was presented as a miracle remedy for economic problems. In addition, the union is founded on a contradiction (protecting itself from globalization while preaching the opening of markets and frontiers); there is also the uncertainty about integrating the new members from Eastern Europe and, eventually, Turkey.

So the French, understandably, regard the Constitution with distrust. Now, the French may have many defects, but they are also an old political people who have seen many constitutions come and go. It's an error to explain their reluctance simply as their traditional scorn, or worse, as a refusal of the idea of Europe. They are expressing a genuine unease that is founded in a Constitution whose flaws are admitted even by its supporters. By voting no, the French will not topple Europe - the union will continue under its current rules - but they may provide the impetus for a Constitution that would be truly democratic and a truly historic document.

ONE TRUE PLATONIC HEAVEN:

Playing the Diplomatic Changes (BEN RATLIFF, 5/27/05, NY Times)

THE saxophonist Joshua Redman is one of the most visible jazz musicians of the last 15 years, which says something not just about his natural flow as an improviser and his command as a bandleader, but also about his willingness to use words. The chance to represent jazz to the outside world involves a certain amount of rhetoric, and Mr. Redman has risen to that challenge in a friendly, nearly guileless way.

Since at least 1996, when he released "Freedom in the Groove," Mr. Redman, now 36, has been advancing a theory of why jazz can and should share a space with pop. It has to do with sincerity as much as form: acknowledging what musicians truly listen to as they grow up and develop, as much as figuring out a way to make jazz phrasing fit over backbeats. Ultimately, he is playing what he likes and trying to make jazz records that in a gingerly way reflect advances in pop.

"Art, in the world of honest emotional experience, is never about absolutes, or favorites, or hierarchies, or number ones," he wrote in the liner notes to "Freedom in the Groove." "These days, I listen to, love, and am inspired by all forms of music ... I feel in much of 90's hip-hop a bounce, a vitality, and a rhythmic infectiousness which I have always felt in the bebop of the 40's and 50's. I hear in some of today's alternative music a rawness, an edge, and a haunting insistence which echoes the intense modalism and stinging iconoclasm of the 60's avant-garde."

What he plays reflects the noncombative nature of those liner notes, and nothing he has said or played has come back to haunt him - even as jazz has increasingly come to be seen by some as endangered by pop rather than enriched by it. He currently plays with his trio, the Elastic Band, veering back and forth between mainstream jazz and different versions of funk and pop. [...]

Recently, while in town with the SFJazz Collective, Mr. Redman agreed to listen to a few pieces of music (not his own) that he had chosen; the goal was a conversation about how the music works and the possible musical ideals it suggests to him. In preparation, he came up with two different lists and nearly 30 records, including Led Zeppelin, D'Angelo, Dexter Gordon, Keith Jarrett and Bjork. But it was pretty easy to condense them. For Mr. Redman, all other interests recede when you bring up Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. One other choice got in, a current band that many younger musicians see as a creative ideal in jazz: the Paul Motian-Joe Lovano-Bill Frisell trio.

In the Beginning, Rollins

Mr. Rollins is the living exemplar of narrative structure in jazz improvisation, and that is principally what Mr. Redman has absorbed from him: the logical, symmetrical, advancing and recapitulating storytelling impulse. We listened to "St. Thomas," the calypso track from Mr. Rollins's 1956 album "Saxophone Colossus."

"It's funny," Mr. Redman said as the track started. "I actually haven't listened to this album for many years. But I went through a period where this was literally the only thing I listened to. I discovered it shortly after I started playing the saxophone, when I was 10. I'd certainly listened to a lot of jazz records - a lot of Coltrane, some Miles, Cannonball Adderley, Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett, you know, the musicians who my father was associated with." (Dewey Redman played with Mr. Coleman from 1967 to 1974, and with Mr. Jarrett from 1971 to 1976.)

"My mom couldn't afford to buy me that many records," he added, "so I went to the public library in Berkeley, checked this out, came home, put it on, and here was the first track. And it was, for me, as monumental an experience as I've had listening to music." [...]

Mr. Redman knew he wanted to talk about Coltrane but thought it might be too obvious, and then fretted about what to choose. He felt, he said, that the suite "A Love Supreme" was too sacred to pick apart, so he chose "Transition," an album from 1965. It is one of the last recordings of the intact Coltrane quartet, with the pianist McCoy Tyner, the bassist Jimmy Garrison and the drummer Elvin Jones.

"It's pretty long, so let's just play it and start talking," he said. "It's going to be a little sacrilegious for me - but, hey."

"Transition" isn't cited often as anyone's favorite album. In the timeline of Coltrane's career, it sits just inside the period when he began making individual pieces that sounded rather alike, sometimes built on a single mode. What does Mr. Redman hear in it?

"The sheer force of it," he said quickly. "As far as a single piece of Coltrane with the classic quartet, it has perhaps the greatest force, impact, feeling of surrender; you know, abandon, devotion. I had been listening to Coltrane since the day I was born, probably, but someone turned me on to this record in college."

Trane to the Next Level

After Berkeley High School, Mr. Redman went to Harvard in 1987, eventually completing a B.A. degree and graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, while edging closer to jazz and playing with musicians from the Berklee College of Music in Boston in the summertime.

"Someone from Berklee hipped me to this," he said. "I think it might have been Mark Turner, I don't quite remember, but someone said, man, if you think the other stuff is potent, check this out. I remember thinking, how could it get more intense?"

(Coltrane moves up to the next level in his soloing, chipping up his fast and assured middle-register runs with high shrieks on the tenor saxophone.)

"With this track, from the beginning, there's no intro, there's no lead-in," Mr. Redman said. "It's just, like, bam: here we are at the apex. You can't go any higher. Yet they keep climbing and climbing, and then they come down a little bit, and then they climb again."

We started it over again from the beginning: Jones hits the downbeat and Coltrane lines out a scale. "You know, that was the melody, basically," Mr. Redman said. "It's so simple. And just the quality of Trane's sound - it sounds like he's screaming and praying at the same time. I mean, he's playing so much horn, so much technically, so much harmonically; the constituent elements of what he's playing are so complex. Yet it's like he's trying to blow the horn apart and just play his emotions through the instrument."

Mr. Redman said he was moved by it spiritually, but then added that he was not a religious person. So what does he mean?

Apologizing for sounding new agey, he said: "At certain times in my life this music has kind of swept me up and transported me to a place where I can sense that there is something greater than the material existence of things. And a fabric that binds the material world together, and offers an escape from that world."

"This is definitely one of the last for this band where everything is still happening around a tonic center, a mode," Mr. Redman continued. "It's in D-something: D-Phrygian, D-Dorian. And they're still operating in these even-numbered bar phrases. Not when Coltrane's playing, but the way McCoy and Elvin interact, every 16 bars, there's that big crash on the cymbal and the bass drum, and McCoy playing the root and the fifth. That was a style that they introduced in '62 or '63, I guess, but here you hear it at its furthest development.

"You can hear the band pushing the limits of its style. You can hear Trane's desire to escape. Part of Elvin is pushing in that direction too, but part of him wants to stay, wants to keep those cycles in place."

A Regular Working Band

It's still mysterious, I said, how Coltrane started going all-out during this period, just as a matter of course. "Yeah," he said, "I can't imagine doing that. But the sense you get from Trane is total commitment. I think that exists for all of us jazz musicians, as this ideal. I mean, he's like an ideal type, a Platonic ideal."

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?:

'Japan soldiers' found in jungle (BBC, 5/27/05)

Japanese officials are investigating claims that two men living in jungle in the Philippines are Japanese soldiers left behind after World War II.

The pair, in their 80s, were reportedly found on southern Mindanao island. [...]

The two men on Mindanao contacted a Japanese national who was collecting the remains of war dead on Mindanao, according to government sources.

They had equipment which suggested they were former soldiers.

CITIZENS OF EUROPE VS. CITIZENS OF FRANCE:

Vote splits French on class lines (Henri Astier, 5/27/05, BBC News)

The main parties of the right and left are both urging supporters to vote "Yes" in Sunday's referendum. The main division is social.

The Gallic village is divided between those relatively content with their lot and those Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin once called "la France d'en bas" - disaffected people at the lower end of the economic ladder.

Polls suggest that the "Yes" vote is strong among professionals, businessmen and the middle classes.

Workers, junior employees, farmers, and those generally worried about the future by and large intend to vote "No".

A deep sense of dissatisfaction with the elites - of "us versus them" - is palpable when you speak to many ordinary people up and down the country.

"This constitution has been imposed on us," says Jean-Loup Dechezlepretre, a technician from the central city of Clermont-Ferrand. "We feel like outsiders."

WAGES OF FEAR:

AIDS in South Afria: Not Living, Not Dying Alone: South African truckers work in an industry that is still marred by the brutal legacy of Apartheid. Disenchanted and surprisingly nonchalant about AIDS or HIV, the truckers fear dying alone more than death itself. Annamarie Bindenagel, a graduate student of University of Witwatersrand, explains how HIV/AIDS has turned into an epidemic of social and moral disillusionment. (Annamarie Bindenagel, May 25, 2005, The Globalist)

"I don't want to die alone!" This was the cry of the truckers with whom I discussed HIV and AIDS in Johannesburg in November 2004. They are long-distance drivers at KITE, a trans-continental trucking company.

In a system that objectifies people, the possibility of accountability for acquiring HIV — and then for knowingly infecting another — is devoid of meaning.

The AIDS/HIV epidemic is a reaction to the reality of the instability and insecurity of forces that seek to serve the market - while neglecting to serve men.

The truckers are lonely and alone on long hauls — and even in the face of the scourge of HIV/AIDS, they would rather risk infection than insulate themselves and die alone. [...]

Herman, young and dashing, with smooth skin and soft brown eyes, said, "I will sleep with as many people as possible — so that I do not die alone." All of the truckers applauded. I stood astonished.

For these men, HIV/AIDS is not a dissuading threat to the need for the even brief intimacy and security of a sexual encounter. In an industry where men are reduced to subsistence wages, they often lack the means to pay lobola, the bride price. [...]

A weekend getaway to another location — not to mention the transactional sex offered and accepted along the trucking routes — adds more sexual partners to the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Norm spoke up and said, "I have no choice but to sleep around! I drink, then I get drunk — and then I sleep with whoever is available. I have no choice."

I asked him, "Do you see the sequence of your choices?" "Yes," he answered. "Do you accept that you might have the choice to control those choices to enhance your life and the lives of those with whom you interact?" "Yes," he answered again.

WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE AS FIT AS A MEGATHERIUM:

The new French revolution (Pepe Escobar, 5/28/05, Asia Times)

Could this be another French revolution, a la 1789? Yes it could, but this time the guillotine is the ballot box, as France marches toward its referendum on Sunday on whether or not to ratify the European constitution. The "non" - according to most polls - is set to win. "Oui" or "non", the European Union has already been thrown into probably its biggest political crisis ever.

From Southeast Asia to the Middle East, from Latin America to China, from India to Russia, the European Union is widely viewed as an example and as a social project to be admired and emulated. What is very difficult for a Chinese, Indian or Thai to understand is how such a crucial decision about the bigger picture, the future of Europe - and the multipolar world - has been hijacked by internal French politics. And this in a country that is one of the founding fathers of modern, post-war Europe. There may be a rainbow of "non" - from the extreme left to the extreme right - but French popular exasperation with President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is the main theme. It has led to the "non" equating Chirac with unbridled neo-liberalism - when Europe, compared to every other continent, is way ahead in social democracy, social protection, workers' rights, educational infrastructure, as well as being an alternative project to the US's social Darwinism. But Chirac is a political opportunist, thus the least credible character capable of selling the dream of a strong, politically unified Europe in a multipolar world.

THE REAGAN/VOLCKER RECOVERY ROLLS ON:

More non-inflationary prosperity (Larry Kudlow, May 26, 2005, Townhall)

[S]trong corporate profits, in particular, signal the health of this economy. Profits on an IRS income-tax basis, as reported in the national income accounts, have moved up to 10.9 percent of GDP -- the highest level since 1968. On an after-tax basis the profit share of GDP is at a post-WWII high of 8.1 percent. After adjusting for the on-again/off-again cash-expensing bonus for depreciation, after-tax profits rose 27 percent (non-annualized) in the first quarter and nearly 37 percent over the past year.

Profits are the hinge of business, and business is the backbone of jobs and the economy. With profits rising to record levels, future economic expansion is assured.

Business equipment expenditures (capex) and consumer spending have both cooled somewhat, but they certainly haven’t gone cold. Capex, after rising 18 percent annualized in the second half of 2004, increased only 5.6 percent in the first quarter, below the consensus estimate of 6.9 percent. Business inventories accumulated about $12 billion less than first estimated. And consumer spending increased only 3.6 percent, following an average 4.6 percent growth-rate in last year’s second half.

While the trade gap has narrowed, raising overall GDP growth, there are actually signs of a somewhat slower economic pace inside the basic economy. Wall Street economist Joe LaVorgna points out, however, that first-quarter wages and salaries were revised up by a huge $163 billion, with the measure growing 7.5 percent over the year-ago pace. That explains double-digit federal tax-collection returns: Lower tax-rates have expanded incomes, which are in turn throwing off more revenues. This, of course, is the Laffer-curve effect.

Core inflation is still tame, rising at 1.6 percent over the past year, about the same as the second half of last year and actually slower than in 2002. The gold price, at $418, is consistent with less-than 2 percent underlying inflation. So is the 10-year Treasury yield of 4.09 percent and a yield curve that has flattened to just over 100 basis points.

The Federal Reserve has restrained inflation expectations, and as a result long rates have descended even while short rates have moved higher. That’s a nice piece of work. Along with rising jobs and incomes, low mortgage rates will sustain the strong expansion in housing investment.

Meanwhile, the strengthening dollar, along with softer commodity prices, also suggests a benign outlook for future inflation.

DOWN GOES SCHMELLING! DOWN GOES SCHMELLING!

Schröder's dilemma: Set for a right hook, he gets hit with a left (Judy Dempsey, MAY 27, 2005, International Herald Tribune)

Just when Schröder and his party should be putting all their energy into defeating the conservative Christian Democrats led by Angela Merkel, disgruntled Social Democrats and parties further left are talking about setting up a grand alliance to punish the chancellor for policies they contend have betrayed socialist principles.

The instigator of this attempt to weaken the Social Democrats is Oskar Lafontaine, the maverick politician who served briefly as finance minister in Schröder's first government, in 1998.

Lafontaine, who quit the cabinet in 1999 after falling out with Schröder over economic policy, announced Tuesday that he was leaving the Social Democrats to try to forge a leftist alliance.

That group, he said, could include the Party of Democratic Socialists - the former Communists, who are strong in eastern Germany - and the Wahlalternative, a new leftist movement supported by trade unionists and others who believe that Schröder has pushed the Social Democrats too far toward the center

THE ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH CLAUSE:

Why the Bible Belongs in America's Public Schools: Without knowing Scripture, kids can't understand literature or U.S. history (DAVID GELERNTER, May 27, 2005, LA Times)

[W]ithout knowing the Bible, you can't begin to understand English literature or American history. And a recently published survey finds that American teenagers don't know the Bible well enough. (The study was commissioned by a group called the Bible Literacy Project, conducted by Gallup and funded by the John Templeton Foundation.)

How to respond? Do we dare teach the Bible in our own public schools, built and staffed with our own money? Or do we surrender to Creeping Litigation Anxiety? To the fear that any course that includes the Bible is bound to provoke lawsuits — although there is nothing unconstitutional about teaching stories and language fundamental to American culture?

Some background: Shakespeare and the Bible in English are the twin foundations of English literature. Many believe that the Bible (especially the King James translation of 1611) is the more important twin by far. It "has influenced our literature more deeply than any other book," wrote the British scholar Arthur Quiller-Couch. Bible-blind students are apt to misconstrue "the implications, even the meaning" of what they read, wrote educator and critic Herman Northrop Frye.

Can you understand American culture without knowing the biblical context of "covenant," "promised land," "shining city on a hill"?

Further, the Bible and Bible-centered Protestantism are central to U.S. history — to your history if you are American, whether you are Protestant or not. The founders had varied beliefs, writes the philosopher-historian Michael Novak in "On Two Wings," but they found common ground "by appealing to the God of the Hebrews and the religious heritage of the Torah, a 'Biblical metaphysics.' "

JUST SHUT HIM UP:

Just Shut It Down (THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, 5/27/05, NY Times)

Shut it down. Just shut it down.

I am talking about the war-on-terrorism P.O.W. camp at Guantánamo Bay. Just shut it down and then plow it under. It has become worse than an embarrassment. I am convinced that more Americans are dying and will die if we keep the Gitmo prison open than if we shut it down. So, please, Mr. President, just shut it down.

If you want to appreciate how corrosive Guantánamo has become for America's standing abroad, don't read the Arab press. Don't read the Pakistani press. Don't read the Afghan press. Hop over here to London or go online and just read the British press! [...]

Guantánamo Bay is becoming the anti-Statue of Liberty. If we have a case to be made against any of the 500 or so inmates still in Guantánamo, then it is high time we put them on trial, convict as many possible (which will not be easy because of bungled interrogations) and then simply let the rest go home or to a third country. Sure, a few may come back to haunt us. But at least they won't be able to take advantage of Guantánamo as an engine of recruitment to enlist thousands more. I would rather have a few more bad guys roaming the world than a whole new generation.

AXIS OF GOOD FILES:

India edges back into Iraq (Siddharth Srivastava, 5/28/05, Asia Times)

Quietly but surely, India is reopening its diplomatic contacts with the new Iraqi administration. In the first official contact with the new Iraqi government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special envoy for West Asia, C R Gharekhan, met Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari earlier this week. While India has offered to help in rebuilding the war-ravaged country and in the drafting of its new constitution, it is also seeking to cut into the estimated US$100 billion reconstruction business. India hopes to garner as much as $10 billion.

During his meeting with Jaafari, Gharekhan handed over a personal letter from Singh emphasizing India's commitment to cooperate with Iraq on the task of national reconstruction. In the letter, Singh invited Jaafari to visit India, a gesture that Jaafari reciprocated by inviting the Indian premier to Iraq. Gharekhan suggested that Jaafari assign the Iraqi oil minister to lead a delegation to India for the next meeting of the India-Iraq Joint Commission. Jaafari, who has studied Mahatma Gandhi's life and teachings, spoke warmly about Indo-Iraq ties and said he supported UN reforms including the expansion of the Security Council while emphasizing India's "important position" in world affairs.

The new government in Baghdad has already indicated that it is more than willing to welcome back Indian businessmen, in order to re-establish thriving Indo-Iraq economic ties that took a hit after the US-led invasion in 2003.

TRIPLE NOT:

Why I Support the Filibuster Deal (Stephen Bainbridge, 05/26/2005, Tech Central Station)

The so-called Gang of 14's deal on judicial nominations aroused the ire of activists on both the left and right, but it is my friends on the right who seem to have been most disaffected. In contrast, I'm a proud charter member of the Coalition of the Chillin', which is dedicated to the proposition that the world did not end on May 23rd. (We even have t-shirts!)

Some critics of the deal wanted the Senate GOP majority to pull the trigger on what they call the constitutional option (and the rest of us call the nuclear option), so as to establish a purported constitutional principle that the advice and consent clause does not authorize the Senate to require a supermajority vote to approve judges. I respect the expertise of the many scholars who hold this position, but am not persuaded by it. [...]

In my view, critics of the deal are putting short-term partisan gain ahead of both principle and long-term advantage.

Russell Kirk taught that there are ten core conservative principles, but at the heart of all of them is the basic notion that change should be slow and prudent:

Conservatives are champions of custom, convention, and continuity because they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don't know. ... Burke's reminder of the necessity for prudent change is in the mind of the conservative. But necessary change, conservatives argue, ought to be gradual and discriminatory, never unfixing old interests at once.

... In politics we do well to abide by precedent and precept and even prejudice, for the great mysterious incorporation of the human race has acquired a prescriptive wisdom far greater than any man's petty private rationality.

... Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. As John Randolph of Roanoke put it, Providence moves slowly, but the devil always hurries.

The filibuster is a profoundly conservative tool, which advances each of Kirk's goals. It slows change by allowing a resolute minority to delay -- to stand athwart history shouting stop. It ensures that change is driven not "merely by temporary advantage or popularity" but by a substantial majority. Is it any wonder that it has usually been liberals who want to change or abolish the filibuster rule? The left knows that the filibuster is a deeply conservative weapon whose main function is to advance the function the founders intended for the Senate:

In selecting an appropriate visual symbol of the Senate in its founding period, one might consider an anchor, a fence, or a saucer. Writing to Thomas Jefferson, who had been out of the country during the Constitutional Convention, James Madison explained that the Constitution's framers considered the Senate to be the great "anchor" of the government. To the framers themselves, Madison explained that the Senate would be a "necessary fence" against the "fickleness and passion" that tended to influence the attitudes of the general public and members of the House of Representatives. George Washington is said to have told Jefferson that the framers had created the Senate to "cool" House legislation just as a saucer was used to cool hot tea.

The filibuster furthers that objective by ensuring that change is, as Kirk put it, "gradual and discriminatory, never unfixing old interests at once."

NO WONDER THE CHIMP IS ALWAYS SMIRKING:

Bush Offers Financial Aid to Abbas in Key Sign of Support: At a White House meeting, the president hails the Palestinian leader's reform efforts. (Paul Richter and Ken Ellingwood, May 27, 2005, LA Times)

President Bush on Thursday made an important show of support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, offering U.S. financial aid and hailing his reform efforts in the first White House meeting with a Palestinian leader since 2000.

Bush offered Abbas $50 million in direct aid to help Palestinians settle the Gaza Strip once Israel completes its planned withdrawal of Jewish settlers and soldiers this summer. Although the amount is not considered large, the gesture is a key sign of confidence. The United States, concerned about corruption in the Palestinian government, has given it direct aid only twice in the last decade.

"You have made a new start on a difficult journey, requiring courage and leadership each day," Bush told Abbas, who has faced mounting challenges since he was elected in January. "And we will take that journey together."

The offer of aid and Bush's warm words marked a sharp contrast from the treatment accorded Abbas' predecessor, the late Yasser Arafat. Bush did not consider the longtime Palestinian leader a viable diplomatic partner and never invited him to the White House.

President Bush concluded his Rose Garden speech about the Middle East on Monday by calling the moment "a test to show who is serious about peace and who is not." Given how naïve his plan is -- how astonishingly far it is from any foreseeable reality -- he may have failed his own test. It's not that Bush's goals aren't noble or correct, but real diplomacy takes more than wishful thinking.

Bush's fuzzy logic, to borrow a term, is weakest with regard to what he calls the "Palestinian leadership." By refusing even to name Yasir Arafat, the president showed that he's just not ready for an honest attempt at peacemaking.

It's not that Arafat is a stand-up guy, or even a credible negotiator. Revelations in recent months all but conclusively unmasked Arafat as a financial supporter of terrorism. It's quite possible the peace process would fare better in his absence. But there's no guarantee. And that's because there's not yet a viable replacement for him -- that we know of, at least.

ROVEBOTS TAKE THE TIMES:

School Law Spurs Efforts to End Minority Gap (SAM DILLON, 5/27/05, NY Times)

Spurred by President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, educators across the nation are putting extraordinary effort into improving the achievement of minority students, who lag so sharply that by 12th grade, the average black or Hispanic student can read and do arithmetic only as well as the average eighth-grade white student.

Here in Boston, low-achieving students, most of them blacks and Hispanics, are seeing tutors during lunch hours for help with math. In a Sacramento junior high, low-achieving students are barred from orchestra and chorus to free up time for remedial English and math. And in Minnesota, where American Indian students, on average, score lower than whites on standardized tests, educators rearranged schedules so that Chippewa teenagers who once sewed beads onto native costumes during school now work on grammar and algebra.

"People all over the country are suddenly scrambling around trying to find ways to close this gap," said Ronald Ferguson, a Harvard professor who for more than a decade has been researching school practices that could help improve minority achievement. He said he recently has received many requests for advice. "Superintendents are calling and saying, 'Can you help us?' "

No Child Left Behind requires schools to bring all students to grade level over the next decade. The law has aroused a backlash from teachers' unions and state lawmakers, who call some of its provisions unreasonable, like one that punishes schools where test scores of disabled students remain lower than other students'. But even critics acknowledge that the requirement that schools release scores categorized by students' race and ethnic group has obliged educators to work harder to narrow the achievement gap.

"I've been very critical of N.C.L.B. on other grounds," said Robert L. Linn, a co-director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing. But he called the law's insistence that test scores be made public by race and ethnic group "one of the things that's been good."

At least 40 states compiled scores by racial and ethnic groups before President Bush signed the law in January 2002. (In New York, scores broken down by ethnicity were first made public in March 2002.) But even though scores were publicly accessible, many schools felt little pressure to close the gap before the law required that they show annual improvement for each category of student, including blacks, Latinos and American Indians, or face sanctions.

"More folks are talking about the achievement gap than we've ever seen before," said G. Gage Kingsbury, a director at the Northwest Evaluation Association, an Oregon group that carries out testing in 1,500 school districts.

EGALITE AND VITALITY DON'T MIX:

Constitution foes fear for France's soul (Tom Hundley, May 26, 2005, Chicago Tribune)

Such are the depths of Francois Vincent's disdain for the new European constitution that he recently uttered words that have not passed the lips of many Frenchmen.

"I would rather be an American than a European," said Vincent, 63, who owns a vegetable stall in one of Paris' open-air markets. "At least Americans love their country."

Like many Frenchmen who plan to vote "no" in this Sunday's referendum, he is worried that the new European constitution will rob France of some vital piece of its national soul.

MUSTN'T THE BRUCE BE PROUD OF HIS PEOPLE:

Doctors seek kitchen knife ban (EDWARD BLACK, 5/27/05, The Scotsman)

LONG, pointed kitchen knives should be banned as part of a concerted effort to reduce the terrible injuries and deaths caused by stabbing attacks, doctors warned today.

Accident and emergency medics claim the knives serve no useful purpose in the kitchen but are proving deadly on the streets of Britain, with the doctors claiming the knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

The doctors claimed they had consulted leading chefs who said the knives were not needed for cooking - a claim disputed by chefs contacted by The Scotsman.

Latest figures from the Scottish Executive show that in 2003, 55 of 108 homicide victims were stabbed by a sharp instrument - often a kitchen knife.

WE KNOW WHAT COMES AFTER THE RAINBOW SIGN:

'Educational' smut for kids (Michelle Malkin, May 26, 2005, Townhall)

Here's a rich irony: I'm writing today about a new children's book, but I can't describe the plot in a family newspaper without warning you first that it is entirely inappropriate for children.

The book is "Rainbow Party," by juvenile fiction author Paul Ruditis. The publisher is Simon Pulse, a kiddie lit division of the esteemed Simon & Schuster. [...]

The main characters in the book are high school sophomores -- supposedly typical 14- and 15-year-olds with names such as "Gin" and "Sandy." The book opens with these two girls shopping for lipstick at the mall in advance of a special party. The girls banter as they hunt for lipsticks in every color of the rainbow:

"Okay, we've got red, orange, and purple," Gin said. "Now we just need yellow, green, and blue."

"Don't forget indigo," Sandy said as she scanned the row of lipstick tubes.

"What are you talking about?"

"Indigo," Sandy repeated as if that explained everything. "You know. ROY G. BIV. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet."

"That's seven lipsticks. Only six girls are coming. We don't need it."

What kind of party do you imagine they might be organizing? Perhaps a makeover party? With moms and daughters sharing their best beauty secrets and bonding in the process?

Alas, no. No parents are invited to this get-together. A "rainbow party," you see, is a gathering of boys and girls for the purpose of engaging in group oral sex. Each girl wears a different colored lipstick and leaves a mark on each boy. At night's end, the boys proudly sport their own cosmetically sealed rainbow you-know-where -- bringing a whole new meaning to the concept of "party favors."

WHEN HAVE THEY EVER BEEN RELIABLE?:

Tilt in Germany (Tom Goeller, 5/25/05, Washington Times)

[Gerhard Schroeder's] sudden move caught the Christian Democratic Union and its junior partner the Libertarians (FDP) by complete surprise. However the vast majority of the German media calls this move a "political suicide."

Now, even if Mr. Schroeder could win the general elections together with his coalition partner the Greens, he could not even pass a bill. Out of the 16 German states only five are controlled by the SPD. The Christian Democrats can block in the Bundesrat -- the equivalent to the U.S. Senate -- any initiative of a Schroeder government. One can now safely say the Schroeder era is drawing to a close. [...]

Mr. Schroeder's reforms of the costly German welfare system are considered too inadequate to counter the country's severe economic crisis. To traditional Socialists, Mr. Schroeder is a "traitor" to capitalism. The truth is, Mr. Schroeder, who took over from conservative chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1998 with the promise to bring down the high unemployment, was unable to address the real economic problems. Instead, he distracted the German public with aggressive anti-U.S. demagoguery and by this was able to win re-election in 2002. He bought himself time but did not solve the nation's problems. [...]

German welfare reform certainly is no longer questioned by the majority of Germans, but rather by the majority of his Social-Democrats, who look backward, trapped in old visions of the last century. A new government, run by the Christian Democrats and the Libertarians, will have to go even further with the reforms than Mr. Schroeder did. A deep and far-reaching reform of German labor laws and social benefits is regarded by most economists as essential to stem the steady decline in Europe's largest economy.

But a new government in early fall of 2005 would not only change German domestic politics. More importantly, it would change German foreign policy.

One can expect from a conservative government in Berlin steps toward reconciling relations with Washington. Perhaps there will still be no German troops sent to Iraq, because for any out of area mission, the government needs a two-third majority in the parliament. But in other areas, for example to get the Iranians to stop their nuclear weapons program, a new German government will be tougher, the Washington-Berlin relationship will warm up again and the one between Paris and Berlin will cool a bit -- all to the advantage of U.S. foreign policy.

GO FOR HIS JUGULAR, MR. BLAIR:

Turmoil as Chirac plots to disregard 'non' vote (Philip Webster and Charles Bremner, 5/27/05, Times of London)

PRESIDENT CHIRAC of France is preparing to throw Europe into confusion and put Britain on the spot by backing moves to keep the European constitution alive if it is rejected in Sunday’s referendum.

French diplomats say that M Chirac is expected to urge other countries to proceed with ratification because France does not want to be seen to be blocking the European project. Any attempt to persuade other countries to go ahead will dash the hopes of those in the British Government who believed that a French rejection would make a British referendum unnecessary.

HIS ROOKIE YEAR I WAS A SENIOR IN H.S. (via Glenn Dryfoos):

Rickey is one old dude (Alan Schwarz, 5/26/05, ESPN.com

[T]he best way to gauge age when it comes to Henderson is to take a look at the people he is older than – folks who aren't still lacing up the spikes to play baseball every night.

Henderson is older than Terry Francona, Ozzie Guillen, Bob Melvin and Lloyd McClendon.

He is older than Floyd Youmans, Jack Fimple and Frank Eufemia.

He is older than Billy Jo Robidoux.

Henderson is older than Bill Gullickson and Charlie Hudson. Come to think of it, he's also older than Britt Burns and Richard Dotson.

He is older than Cal Ripken and Ryne Sandberg.

He is older than George Bell, Rob Deer, Pete Incaviglia and Jesse Barfield.

He is older than Joe DeSa, which is quite a trick, given that DeSa has been dead almost 20 years.

He is older than Shooty Babbitt and Buddy Biancalana.

Of course, Henderson is older than not just these baseball notables, but dozens from other sports and walks of life. For example, he is older than Willie Gault and Vai Sikahema.

For the New York Giant fans among you, he is older than Lawrence Taylor, Joe Morris and Butch Woolfolk.

He is older than Art Schlichter.

He is older than Cris Collinsworth and Neil Lomax.

He is older than Renaldo Nehemiah. [...]

In the end, it appears as if the only person Rickey Henderson is younger than is ... (drumroll) ... Julio Franco.

But then again, aren't we all?

"I'm not a proud man," Franco said last weekend in Boston. "But I am proud of that."

THE CHURCH GETS ANOTHER ONE RIGHT:

Contraceptive may kill libido (Julie Wheldon, May 27, 2005, news.com.au)

TAKING the Pill for as little as six months could destroy a woman's sex drive for ever, say scientists.

The oral contraceptive dramatically reduces the levels of a hormone responsible for desire and simply stopping taking it fails to reverse the effect, it is feared.

A survey produced such dramatic results that lead researcher Dr Irwin Goldstein advised any woman on the Pill who has sexual problems to stop taking it and try another method of birth control.

"There is a possibility it is imprinting a woman for the rest of her life," he said.

The Pill was launched at the beginning of the swinging '60s with the promise of freeing women from the fear of unwanted pregnancy.

WELL, HIS SUPPORTERS SAY HE'S AN EXTRAORDINARY MAN...:

Senate Forced to Continue Debate on Bolton Nomination (Reuters, 5/26/05)

The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to delay John Bolton's confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, bowing to Democrats' demands that the Bush administration hand over more information on Bolton.

The Senate voted 56-42, giving Republicans less than the 60 votes needed to end debate and go to a final vote on Bolton. That will put the confirmation vote off until after Congress' weeklong Memorial Day recess.

Meanwhile, Two Bush Nominees Get Panel's Quick OK (JESSE J. HOLLAND, May 26, 2005, Associated Press)

Two of President Bush's blocked judicial nominees, cleared for confirmation by this week's Senate compromise on filibusters, gained quick approval Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The nominations of Richard Griffin and David McKeague for the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati were approved by voice vote in the committee without debate. The nominees now move to the full Senate for confirmation votes.

Democrats had been blocking Griffin and McKeague at the request of Michigan's two Democratic senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. But they agreed not to hold up the nominations anymore as part of the discussion over the use of judicial filibusters.

UNLUCKY SON:

Heir apparent in Lebanon (Nicholas Blanford, 5/27/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

Saad Hariri, a billionaire businessman, is set to trounce his opponents in the parliamentary elections that begin Sunday, securing his position as the dominant Sunni Muslim voice in Lebanon.

In an interview with the Monitor at the Hariri family's sprawling headquarters in West Beirut, Mr. Hariri vows he will pursue his father's economic and political reform policies, while predicting a tough battle in the coming months as Lebanon adjusts to independence from Syria.

"I think there are going to be challenges and issues that are going to be very difficult to resolve," says the tall and well-built Hariri, who bears a striking resemblance to his slain father. [...]

Hariri is confident that despite the splits, the opposition will secure between 80 and 90 places in the 128-seat parliament, with his bloc grabbing the largest share, making him the front-runner for next prime minister.

Although he is regarded as a shoe-in for the job if he wants it, Hariri will not confirm whether he will seek the premiership. "I will sit and wait after the elections and then I'll decide," he says.

Still, he has a clear vision of the first tasks awaiting the next government which will steer Lebanon into the post pax Syrian era. "My first mandate is to have a new election law," he says. "We owe it to the Lebanese to work on a permanent election law that will be ready for the next elections in four years time."

He also intends to complete the purge of the domestic security apparatus which carried out Syria's orders in Lebanon and which many Lebanese believe played a hand in the assassination of his father. But Hariri acknowledges that it is impossible to ignore neighboring Syria.

"We and the Syrians will be there for a 1,000 years so we have to have normal and regular relations with Syria," he says.

Relatively unknown in Lebanon, Hariri was selected by the family to take over the political reins after his elder brother, Bahaa, chose to remain in business. "I was the unlucky one," he jokes.

He may be a newcomer to Lebanese politics, but Hariri is no neophyte. He ran his father's massive construction company, Saudi Oger, for over a decade and has extensive financial interests in telecommunications in the Middle East. He is ranked at 548 in Forbes Magazine's annual list of billionaires with an estimated fortune of $1.2 billion. His father was ranked 108th with $4.3 billion.

Hariri has adopted his father's globe-trotting existence, holding talks with Jacques Chirac, the French president and a close family friend, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Middle East leaders.

A European ambassador who recently met Hariri says, "He is an impressive and smart figure. He is listening carefully to his father's advisors

SEIZING THE INITIATIVE:

Pressure builds on Iraq's insurgents: Iraqi officials said Thursday that they will deploy 40,000 Iraqi troops throughout Baghdad to target rebels. (Scott Peterson, 5/27/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

Deepening the speculation about the severity of battle injuries to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his followers Thursday squabbled on the Web over naming a new leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, exposing rifts and raising questions about how the insurgency may change.

May has seen one of the bloodiest waves of violence to date in Iraq. More than 620 Iraqis and 60 US troops have died since the Shiite-led government was formed April 28.

Analysts say the insurgency can probably carry on for now with or without Mr. Zarqawi's guiding hand, pointing to the high level of bloodshed that killed at least 13 more people Thursday.

But it is under increasing pressure from numerous US offensives in western Iraq, the loss of two-dozen top lieutenants, and intelligence from Zarqawi's captured computer. Iraq's budding government is also tightening its grip, announcing Thursday that it would launch a new offensive with 40,000 troops and set up 600 checkpoints in Baghdad.

"These operations will aim to turn the government's role from defensive to offensive," said Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabor.

OFF THE CHARTS:

A journey without maps: If France rejects an EU constitution that is a triumph of horse trading, Europe moves into uncharted territory (Ian Black, May 26, 2005, Guardian Unlimited)

It is all too easy to forget, as Europe braces itself for an unprecedented crisis if France does vote "non" to the EU constitutional treaty this weekend, how much relief and excitement, even delight, there was when the document was approved last June.

Exhausted leaders staggered out of their Brussels summit to quaff champagne and toast their achievement of agreeing a new rule book for an expanded union of 25 member states and 450 million people. It was supposed to define Europe's ambitions for a generation.

Finalising the 448-article text had been a very hard grind. Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, had failed the previous December, largely because Jacques Chirac of France was not ready to sign, and it took six more gruelling months for Bertie Ahern, the Irish taoiseach and next holder of the union's rotating presidency, to oversee the horse trading and arm-twisting needed to finesse the deal.

Even before the ink was dry, it was clear from the record low turnout in the European elections that the toughest part - unanimous ratification by all countries - lay ahead. No one would have won any prizes for predicting serious problems with semidetached Britain or sceptical Denmark, where Brussels-bashing is a national hobby.

But it was difficult to imagine then that the biggest hurdles would be posed by stalwart founder members of the club such as France and the Netherlands. (Opinion polls suggest the Dutch are almost certain to say "nee" in their referendum on June 1.)

The idea for the constitution was born in 2001 of a desire to give the EU - then poised to expand from 15 to 25 members - a clear, comprehensible and transparent set of rules, more efficient institutions and a sense of values and its place in the world. Germany, its postwar transformation anchored in Europe, was the driving force. [...]

If France does vote "non" on Sunday, then Europe moves into uncharted territory amid chances that the whole constitutional exercise will come to nothing.

WHAT'S LEFT TO RUIN?:

Tech nightmare may ruin Europe (Reuters, May 26, 2005)

The European technology sector is under pressure from strict labour laws and a lack of start-up firms, and needs a major push if it wants to create another Nokia or SAP, executives said on Wednesday.

Venture capitalists pump only one-fifth as much into start-up companies in Europe they do in the United States, and the founder and chief executive of unlisted, Luxembourg-based Skype said the reason for slow activity was tough conditions.

"We want our vacations and our social luxuries. This is not the best environment to start a company. It is much more difficult here than in the United States or China," said Niklas Zennstrom at the Reuters Telecoms, Media and Technology Summit.

FINISHING HIS THATCHERITE LEGACY (via Robert Schwartz):

French in disarray as they admit EU treaty vote is lost (Charles Bremner in Paris and Philip Webster, 5/26/05, Times of London)

THE leader of France’s ruling party has privately admitted that Sunday’s referendum on the European constitution will result in a “no” vote, throwing Europe into turmoil.

“The thing is lost,” Nicolas Sarkozy told French ministers during an ill-tempered meeting. “It will be a little ‘no’ or a big ‘no’,” he was quoted as telling Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the Prime Minister, whom he accused of leading a feeble campaign.

Although Europe would be thrown into disarray, the Government would be greatly relieved if M Sarkozy were right.

Ministers have privately told The Times that Britain is prepared to ditch its commitment to a referendum if France, or the Netherlands next Wednesday, vote against the constitution.

MORE:
Tory suspended for lining up with UKIP over sleaze (Anthony Browne, 5/26/05, Times of London)

THE Conservative Party suspended an MEP yesterday after he supported the UK Independence Party in a censure motion against José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission.

The UKIP had succeeded in overcoming overwhelming opposition from the Brussels political establishment to make Senhor Barroso defend himself against sleaze allegations days before European referendums in France and the Netherlands.

In an extraordinary piece of political drama, Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader in the European Parliament, faced booing in the chamber and was denounced as a demagogue and accused of trying to undermine the Commission’s reputation before the referendums.

Roger Helmer, a Conservative Eurosceptic, came to his aid and denounced political leaders, including those of the European Conservative group, for strongarming MEPs into withdrawing their names from the UKIP motion.

UNKIND CONTRIBUTION (via Daniel Merriman):

4 Tenn. lawmakers arrested in bribery probe (The Associated Press, May 26, 2005)

Four Tennessee lawmakers, a former lawmaker and two others were indicted Thursday amid a federal investigation into the business dealings of a state senator from Memphis from a powerful political family, officials said. [...]

Those charged included the senator, John Ford; fellow Sens. Kathryn Bowers and Ward Crutchfield; state Rep. Chris Newton; and former state Sen. Roscoe Dixon. Newton is a Republican and the others are Democrats. Calls to the legislators’ offices Thursday were not immediately returned.

Ford also is charged with three counts of attempting to threaten or intimidate potential witnesses. The indictment said he told an undercover agent that “if he caught someone trying to set him up he would shoot that person.”

Ford is alleged to have taken a payoff of $55,000 from E-Cycle Management, with other defendants allegedly getting lesser amounts.

His brother is former U.S. Rep Harold Ford Sr., who served in Congress for 11 terms. His nephew, Rep. Harold Ford Jr., has served five terms in Congress and on Wednesday entered the race for the Senate seat now held by Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist.

WE REST OUR CASE:

Soccer fans forced to watch women in bikinis (IOL, May 23 2005)

Enraged football fans took to the streets of Auckland at four on Sunday morning, looking for a bar showing the English FA Cup's outcome after the local Sky TV channel switched over to another programme at full time.

With Arsenal and Manchester United in a scoreless tie after the regulation 90 minutes of play, Sky Sport went to its next scheduled programme, "Sports Illustrated 2005 Swimwear at Play", the New Zealand Herald reported on Monday.

Fans left watching a parade of bikini-clad women missed 30 minutes of extra time and the first penalty shootout in the cup's 134-year history.

About 150 to 200 people at Auckland's Albion Hotel who described themselves as "gutted" when the coverage ended took to the streets of New Zealand's largest city in search of another bar showing the game, manager Paul Hafford told the paper.

FRUIT OF THE POISONOUS TREE:

NEXT STEP: BOLTON FOR THE U.N. (May 26, 2005)

The fruits of the Senate deal on filibusters began to be seen yesterday with the confirmation at last of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Nominated in May 2001, Owen has been in limbo the longest of any of President Bush's judicial nominees.

The vote was 56-43 — meaning that, as Republicans had argued, there was strong support for Justice Owen in the Senate. Two Democrats voted for her confirmation, one Republican voted against (as did Jim Jeffords, an independent who usually votes with Democrats).

Debate also finally began yesterday on confirmation of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In the spirit of the filibuster compromise California Democrat Barbara Boxer dropped her "hold" on the nomination, which could have blocked it indefinitely.

I ACCUSED THEM UNDER RULE 18:

Down the Toilet at Newsweek: Dungeon legend and the peril of anonymous sources. (Jack Shafer, May 16, 2005, Slate)

[I] wonder why Newsweek wasn't more skeptical about Quran-desecration charges. Muslims so venerate the Quran that they are outraged if anyone touches one without first washing their hands, let alone put it into a dung-hole. One would guess that this sort of desecration would be too outrageous to be common, but a short voyage on the Nexis Wayback Machine proves it to be almost widespread. The earliest example I found was from an Aug. 18, 1983, Associated Press story filed in Islamabad, Pakistan. A Western traveler told the AP that Soviet soldiers and Afghan troops had used mosques as toilets and shredded the Quran for toilet paper. "My impression is that they were trying to humiliate the Afghans, but it just makes them hate (the Soviets) even more," the traveler said. The AP noted that it couldn't confirm the story.

On March 12, 1986, Australia's Advertiser reported that religious authorities in Saudi Arabia ban the flushing of local newspapers because their pages "usually contain a verse from the Koran." On Nov. 18, 1987, the AP moved another story—dateline, Washington—advancing a conservative human rights organization's claim that Soviet troops used mosques as latrines and the Quran as toilet paper.

Moving into the 1990s, Muslims beheaded a Nigerian Christian after his wife was accused of using the Quran as toilet paper, according to a Jan. 3, 1995, AP account. Before the arrest of Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing case, the American-Arab Relations Committee told the AP (April 21, 1995) of receiving calls from people who said the Quran should be used as toilet paper. Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Feb. 8, 1999) reported that Philippine troops had burned mosques and flushed a torn-up Quran down a toilet to agitate Muslim rebels. The Quran-as-toilet-paper charge has even been leveled against Muslim militants by Russia's Interfax (Oct. 1, 1999).

All of the stories cited above are poorly sourced, so it's anybody's guess how many of them are true. But just as every paranoid has at least one enemy, an actual case of the toilet-paper story is documented in Nexis: 15 years ago, an Israeli soldier used pages from a Quran as toilet paper when he found it in a bathroom of a boys' school in which his unit bivouacked (Jerusalem Post, May 29, 1989). He said it was accidental, and he apologized, as did his superiors.

Compare the ubiquity of the toilet story with other kinds of Quran desecration. In my Nexis sifting I found only a handful of examples from the last 25 years: A man rips up a Quran (Statesman, India, March 27, 2001); the non-believers burn a Quran in India (San Jose Mercury News, March 23, 2001); and an Iraqi woman protests the search of her bag, which contains a Quran, by U.S. trooper's dog (Agence France Presse, Oct. 31, 2003). All unspeakable violations, but none with staying power of the toilet-paper meme.

Could it be that the Gitmo prisoners lied or exaggerated about the Quran story, pushing forward the most outrageous meme in their inventory, and that their inflated charges percolated up to Newsweek?

The horrors of what undoubtedly took place in Abu Ghraib, the prison in Iraq, have convinced many people that the Americans must also have administered hideous tortures to everyone they imprisoned at Guantanamo. In fact it is not at all clear that the Americans have tortured anyone in Guantanamo. Some of the "sexual tortures" – women interrogators rubbing their breasts against the backs of those being questioned – sound, to Western ears, too close to the comfy chair of Monty Python's Spanish Inquistion to be taken seriously. Surprisingly, perhaps, the US army authorities took them very seriously: they dismissed for "inappropriate conduct" a female interrogator who was found to have run her fingers through one detainee's hair and sat on his lap during an interrogation.

The detainees in Guantanamo were certainly humiliated and made to feel extremely uncomfortable. They may have been deprived of light and sleep and forced to stand for long periods. But did it constitute torture? The US Department of Defence insists that none of the Britons even alleged they had been tortured or abused until October last year – and that when US officials investigated those claims, they not only found they had no foundation, but that one of the Britons had assaulted one of his interrogators.

The men's claim that they were tortured at Guantanamo should also be set in the context of the al-Qa'eda training manual discovered during a raid in Manchester a couple of years ago. Lesson 18 of that manual, whose authenticity has not been questioned, emphatically states, under the heading "Prison and Detention Centres", that, when arrested, members of al-Qa'eda "must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by state security investigators. [They must] complain to the court of mistreatment while in prison".

SHOULDN'T HE BE IN THE MOMMY PARTY?:

NPR played a bizarre clip of George Voinovich crying when he talked about how John Bolton is going to be mean to the UN bureaucrats. Homey needs some testosterone boosters.

NO, I WANT TO WEAR THE BULL'S EYE!:

Iraq's Deadliest Insurgent Group May Be in Disarray Amid Leadership Crisis (Qassim Abdul-Zahara, 5/26/05, Associated Press)

Iraq's most lethal insurgent group appears to be facing a leadership crisis amid conflicting reports about the fate of its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and whether a Saudi militant has been named to stand in for him.

Iraq's interior and defense ministers said Thursday they have information that al-Zarqawi has been wounded - apparent confirmation of recent rumors that the Jordanian-born terrorist leader of al-Qaida in Iraq was injured. But the officials said they did not know how severe the injury might be.

Meanwhile, a host of sometimes-dueling statements posted by militants on Web sites made it clear there could be confusion within the group itself - or perhaps even a leadership struggle - over al-Zarqawi's status.

None of the statements could be independently verified, but many of them were posted on a Web site known as a clearinghouse for al-Zarqawi, thus increasing their chances of being credible.

ZARQAWI IS THEIR SOLZHENITSYN:

Terror jail compared to 'gulag': Amnesty International called the U.S. terror prison in Cuba a modern-day 'gulag' as the ACLU revealed claims of Koran desecration in a 2002 FBI report. (CAROL ROSENBERG, 5/26/05, Miami Herald)

In its harshest rebuke in three years, Amnesty International on Wednesday condemned the Guantánamo Bay prison camp for terrorist suspects -- calling it the ``gulag of our times.''

GOD MUST LOVE HISTORIANS

Mr. Narcissus Goes to Washington: It's springtime, love is in the air, and 14 senators are gazing at the mirror. (Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, 5/26/05)

You've heard the mindless braying and fruitless arguments, but I'm here to tell you the facts, no matter what brickbats and catcalls may come my way. Lindsey Graham defied the biases of his constituency to do what was right, not what was easy. Robert Byrd put aside personal gain to save our Republic. David Pryor ignored the counsels of hate to stand firm for our hopes and dreams. Mike DeWine protected our way of life. These men are uniters, not dividers.

How do I know?

Because they told me. Again and again, and at great length, as they announced The Deal. And I believed them, because I am an idiot. Or as they might put it, your basic "folk" from "back home."

REASON, WHERE REALITY NEVER INTRUDES (via Charlie Herzog):

Charters work. Wake up! (Richard Schwartz, May 26th, 2005, New York Daily News)

Why do charter schools work? Because they live and die by the numbers. Literally.

Here's the deal: Charter schools are public schools that function largely free of suffocating bureaucratic rules and union contracts. The nonprofit boards that run them sign five-year agreements - charters - that spell out precise goals for test scores, attendance rates and safety. If a school meets its targets, it gets another five-year pact. If it doesn't, the school is kaput.

"Succeed or die" is the charter school credo. Brutal but effective. Proof? Take a look at the stunning test results these schools posted last week and you'll see a small miracle in the making. The city school system's fourth-graders reading at or above the state standard jumped 9.9 percentage points. Impressive. But charters did a third better, with their pass rate soaring 13.2 points.

Just as striking were the charters' reading test results for eighth-graders. While the rest of the system saw its pass rate droop 2.8 percentage points, charter school eighth-graders gained a solid 5points on the same exam. Those numbers make a hugely compelling case for more charters. But there's a brick wall: Albany allows only 100 charters. For the entire state. By fall, the city will just about max out with 47 of those charters, representing a puny 3% of all city schools.

That's not nearly enough for Chancellor Joel Klein, who trekked up to Albany this month demanding that legislators obliterate the 100-school state cap. How many charters does Klein want? Sky's the limit. Sans cap, said one school official, the city could have 200 to 300 charter schools up and running within a few years. Translation: Hundreds of thousands of children, most of them disadvantaged and from the inner city, would get vastly better educations.

It's Klein's single best big idea for turning around city schools.

HOW ARE THOSE BASICS LOOKIN'? (via David Hill, The Bronx):

Euro falls to 7-month low vs broadly-robust dollar (Dhara Ranasinghe, 5/26/05, Reuters)

The euro fell to a seven-month low against the dollar on Thursday on persistent worries that France will reject the EU constitution in Sunday's referendum, while the dollar was well bid before U.S. economic growth data.

Europe's single currency fell as far as $1.2517 after London's Times newspaper reported French centre-right leader Nicolas Sarkozy had said in a private meeting with ministers that the vote was "lost".

Sarkozy's spokesman denied the statement and this gave the euro a reprieve. But uncertainty over the French referendum and expectations that data at 1230 GMT will show an upward revision to first-quarter U.S. economic growth prevented the euro from making a sustained comeback against a broadly-firm dollar.

"The story in the Times about Sarkozy is another kick for the euro and an underlying theme in the last few weeks is that the French and Dutch could reject the EU constitution," said Chris Gothard, currency analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman.

"But the main story recently has been the different growth stories in the U.S. and euro zone and today the market is expecting a healthy upward revision to U.S. GDP and this is giving the dollar a boost."

IF THEY OPPOSE UNILATERALISM AND MULTILATERALISM WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU?:

Under Western Eyes:
Bush has gotten it right in Lebanon. (Michael Young, May 25, 2005, Slate)

Several weeks ago, during a debate in Lebanon's parliament, a Maronite Christian parliamentarian from the heartland launched a tirade against Syria. The speaker of parliament, a favored minion of Damascus, demanded that the offending words be stricken from the record. The parliamentarian turned to him, and in a high rustic twang, asked, "Why are you so scared? They're leaving."

They were indeed, and as Lebanon this weekend begins an election that will take place on four consecutive Sundays, it has embarked on a process of rejuvenation that has at several levels involved the international community, particularly the United States. Those who accuse the Bush administration of incompetence in the Middle East because of events in Iraq may soon have to temper that with an assessment of its shrewder behavior in Lebanon.

Lebanon is today under de facto international trusteeship, and the mainstays of that order, ironically, correspond to what the Bush administration's critics would have regarded as ideal in Iraq: The United Nations is involved; the United States and the Europeans are reading from the same songbook; the administration has not used military force; and a heinous crime may one day be punished. Most important, change came through a combination of outside and domestic pressures, so even compulsive foes of U.S. unilateralism might approve.

BUT I DID IT TO BE LIKED... (via AWW):

Graham gets heat for deal: His mediator role in filibuster drama upsets many in S.C. (LAUREN MARKOE, 5/25/05, The State)

In Washington, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham is being lauded for helping pull the U.S. Senate back from the partisan brink of a filibuster crisis.

In South Carolina, the Seneca Republican is trying to control the damage.

“The calls won’t quit, and they’re almost all against Lindsey,” state Republican Party chairman Katon Dawson said.

Dawson counted more than 900 phone calls to party headquarters in 36 hours — mostly from people who helped elevate Graham from the House to the Senate in 2002. [...]

But Graham said Tuesday he expects to regain his critics’ confidence when the compromise results in more of Bush’s conservative nominees winning spots in the federal judiciary.

Underscoring his “90 percent conservative voting record,” he said he disagrees with those who would have him spurn Democrats when the good of the country requires him to work with them.

“I will fight for the conservative cause, because I believe in it,” Graham said. “I will break away when I think the country needs me to break away to find a middle ground.

“But I will not use this job to hate people. There are some people on the right and the left, (who) expect you not only to vote with them, but to hate the people they hate. Count me out.”

IF GEORGE LUCAS IS A NAZI THEN HE MUST BE CONSERVATIVE:

The Force is with the conservatives (Yoel Sano, 5/27/05, Asia Times)

Yet, despite Lucas' apparent pro-liberal fears about current trends in US foreign and domestic policies, which many Americans will find exaggerated, his Star Wars saga nonetheless contains very conservative messages that will resonate with people on the desert planet of Texas and in Middle America - and indeed many other parts of the world.

For one thing, there is Lucas' idealized form of government. According to Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars film, "For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire." Francis Fukuyama would have been surprised that there is indeed an alternative to his end-of-history notion of Western-style liberal democracy as the ultimate form of government.

While the Jedi did not rule the republic, they nonetheless formed the backbone of it. With the Jedi more akin to a religion or a moral force, rather than a political order, Lucas seems to envisage a heavy role of the church in some form or another, albeit without ruling the state. Some commentators have compared the Jedi to the samurai of medieval Japan, and indeed their swordsmanship, esoteric dress codes, and Darth Vader's mask design do invoke the samurai styles. But the latter were more manifestly militaristic than religious. A better analogy would be the Knights-Templar, a monastic military order formed at the end of the First Crusade with the mandate of protecting Christian pilgrims en route to the Holy Land.

If the Jedi are a religion, then their "God" is "the Force", a mystical energy field generated by all living things, which binds the galaxy together and gives the Jedi their strength. Essentially, the message of the original Star Wars trilogy is one of faith: if you believe in something enough, you can accomplish it. Hence, Luke Skywalker, the hero of the trilogy, was able to guide a missile into the Death Star's reactor vents through belief rather than using a sophisticated targeting computer. The message of faith is reassuring in this secular age.

Unfortunately, George Lucas inexplicably ditched this faith-based belief system in the prequel trilogy for a far less comforting, and indeed, slightly sinister explanation of the Force. Instead of being able to use the Force out of belief, the first prequel revealed that only those who have a high concentration of "mitochlorions" in their cells can use these powers.

[Ed: the term "mitochlorian" appears to be a pseudo-scientific invention based on real entities known to cell biologists here on Earth, namely "mitochondria" and "chloroplast". "Mitochondria" are tiny sausage-shaped organelles, found in all living cells save bacteria, whose function is to convert sugar efficiently into usable energy. "Chloroplasts", found only in plants, are the sites of photosynthesis. Interestingly, there is a widely accepted theory that both are descended from ancient bacteria - as shown by their size, shape and bacteria-like DNA - that became internalized in, and ultimately dependent upon, the primitive "eukaryotic" cells that eventually gave rise to plants and animals. At some point, Lucas appears to have heard of this theory (originally proposed by Lynn Margulis at Harvard) and decided that a similar entity, the "mitochlorion", would exist in his fictional universe and provide a convenient explanation for why some individuals have more Force powers than others.]

Ironically, however, the "mitochlorion" concept transformed the ability to use "the Force" from an article of faith into one based on blood. Rather than being true believers, the Jedi are in fact a master race or elite caste.

Talk of race brings us to another unfortunate aspect of the prequel trilogy, namely the portrayal of alien characters through ethnic stereotyping. This is most apparent in the character of Jar Jar Binks, a goofy, amphibious, bipedal alien, who hangs out with the heroes in The Phantom Menace to provide what passes as comic relief. Unfortunately, Jar Jar's pidgin-English way of speaking seems to have been designed to invoke African-American slaves of the 19th century United States, or the "noble savages" of a past imperial era.

Then there are the aliens of the evil Trade Federation, a powerful commercial-military-industrial concern fighting the republic. All of them speak with heavy mock Chinese or Japanese accents, perhaps reflecting America's Japanophobia of the 1980s, or fear of China's rising economic power today. There is also the hooked-nose, slave-owing alien Watto, who speaks with a heavy Jewish-Israeli accent and thinks of nothing but money.

LET SADDAM RUN THE NEXT ONE:

EU call to re-run treaty referendums (John Thornhill in Paris, George Parker in Brussels and Betrand Benoit in Berlin, May 25 2005, Financial Times)

France and the Netherlands should re-run their referendums to obtain the "right answer" if their voters reject Europe's constitutional treaty in imminent national ballots, Jean-Claude Juncker, the holder of the EU presidency, said on Wednesday.

FEAR OF A BLACK HELMET:

Wagner and The Lion King: Where to find the total work of art: a review of Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde by Roger Scruton (John H. McWhorter, May/June 2005, Books & Culture)

Richard Wagner's lasting claim on our attention rests above all on his conception of the "total work of art" or Gesamtkunstwerk, in which music, poetry, dramatic action, and visual spectacle blend to create an overpowering experience. In description, Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk operas tantalize. One reads that in his later works such as Tristan and Isolde, Parsifal, and the Ring Cycle, Wagner eschewed arias designed to show off singers and provide passing delight. Instead he tightly yoked vocal lines, orchestral accompaniment, and visual setting to the purpose of conveying inner psychology, mythic ideals, and philosophical truths, in a quest for a quintessentially mature art form. One eagerly anticipates the magic.

In performance, however, these operas are a truly curious experience, and ultimately exhausting. One must do without discrete songs; the vocal lines are mostly a kind of extended recitative, integrated tightly with ever-shifting colors from the orchestra. The narratives themselves would fit on one side of an index card; most of the time, little is actually happening onstage, and what does happen moves quite slowly. In Die Walküre, Wotan spends an hour recapitulating the events in the preceding Das Rheingold. In Tristan and Isolde, King Marke, catching his bride Isolde with Tristan, declaims his sense of injury for about twenty minutes—and in vocal lines with not even a hint of a "take-home tune." The pieces also require a certain Sitzfleisch: the second act of Die Walküre alone runs over two hours. Tristan takes over four hours for a plot that consists of the lovers coming together by drinking a love potion, Tristan being mortally wounded and taken to his homeland, and Isolde coming to expire along with him.

Why do these pieces occupy such an exalted place in the artistic canon? Addressing that question regarding Tristan and Isolde, Roger Scruton's Death-Devoted Heart is an elegant, erudite exploration attempting to make the operagoer "get" this piece and, by extension, Wagner's intent in all of his Gesamtkunstwerk ventures.

Scruton shows us that traditional dismissals of Tristan's brief plot as Wagner's self-therapy in the wake of a frustrated love affair miss the point. Wagner infused his version of the oft-told tale with insights from Schopenhauer's conception of life as a vile illusion and German Romantic poets' fascination with "night" and "death" as driving themes of existence. His Tristan, in particular, presents himself in a crucial passage as a creature of darkness bound to love only in death; here is his "heart devoted to death" (Todgeweihtes Herz) in Scruton's title. Tristan's mother died in childbirth, depriving him of the ability to find love in the harshness of light, and hence to truly be united with him, Isolde must follow him back into the "wondrous realm of night." Wagner's lovers are bound in an attraction so powerful that its only possible consummation is mutual expiration, the maximal manifestation of subsuming themselves within each other.

NOT HUMAN, NO PROBLEM:

How to Farm Stem Cells Without Losing Your Soul: A solution to the stem cell dilemma that even the Vatican can love. (Clive Thompson, Wired)

William Hurlbut clicks his laptop, and an x-ray pops up on the projection screen behind him. It's a picture of a tumor in a woman's ovary - a ghostly blob floating near the spine. In the middle are several strange, Chiclet-shaped nodules. "Those white opacities," Hurlbut says, "are actually fully formed teeth."

A few audience members blanch. Though we're in an ordinary conference room in Rome, it feels like church. The seats are filled with some of the Vatican's top thinkers, including a dozen men in clerical dress, a nun in a flowing brown habit, and a Dominican priest whose prayer beads quietly clatter. Hurlbut, a bioethicist from Stanford, has traveled here to tell them about a new way to create human embryonic stem cells.

As you might expect, the Vatican is vehemently opposed to embryonic stem cell science. President Bush is also wary, and two years ago he all but banned federal funding for it. But most medical scientists remain convinced that stem cells hold the key to a new kind of healing: regenerative medicine. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, meaning that they have the ability to develop into any type of human tissue. If that capacity could be harnessed and directed, injury and disease need no longer be crippling. For example, new neurons grown from stem cells might reverse the damage from Alzheimer's and repair severed spinal cords. But the research requires growing - and destroying - embryos in the lab. Hurlbut, however, claims he has a method for harvesting embryonic stem cells without killing human embryos.

The proof is projected on the screen. The x-ray shows a teratoma, a naturally occurring tumor that grows from an egg or sperm cell. Like an embryo, a teratoma produces stem cells. But the teratoma does not have the right balance of gene expression to create a fully integrated organism. So it grows into a dense ball of teeth, hair, and skin, a ghastly grab bag of organs like some randomly constructed Frankenstein. Hurlbut points to the x-ray. "They're about the ugliest thing in medicine," he says, "but they might offer us a solution to our stem cell dilemma."

In a bit of diplomacy that may satisfy both the scientists and the theologians, Hurlbut advocates genetically altering cloned embryos so, like a teratoma, they wouldn't have the DNA necessary to become viable humans. For the first few days of existence, they would grow normally and produce stem cells, but then die when a critical embryonic component - say, a placenta - failed to emerge. "They would have no coherent drive in the direction of mature human form," Hurlbut tells the crowd. "It's analogous to growing skin in a tissue culture. Such an entity would never rise to the level of a human being." You could grow them in vats, kill them at will, and never risk offending God. As both a medical doctor and a deeply religious Christian, Hurlbut borrows from each side: It's a theological breakthrough in the form of a scientific technique. [...]

Central to this debate is the perennial question: When does life begin? Science and religion have radically different answers. Scientists know that nerve and brain cells emerge shortly after conception. As a consequence, stem cell researchers generally agree that research should be done on embryos less than two weeks old. "Up to 14 days, you don't have a creature with a brain in it, so you can't even consider it to be, say, brain-dead," says Michael Gazzaniga, who heads Dartmouth College's program in cognitive neuroscience. "If you accept that, then there's no problem using embryos for research." The premise here is that the brain makes a person a person, a tradition that stretches back to Descartes' "I think, therefore I am."

Christian critics have a more clear-cut view: God endows every embryo with a soul at conception. So intentionally destroying an embryo is murder - even if it's only one-cell big. Theologians typically define the embryo in terms of its human "trajectory." Since every fertilized egg cell has the inherent potential to become a fully formed adult, they argue, interrupting that process at any point - from conception to birth to nursing home - is to disrupt a sacred process.

Hurlbut has sided with pro-life theologians ever since finding faith in his twenties. (He describes himself as a "generic Christian" who goes to church at a variety of services.) "This idea that an embryo becomes a person only at day 14 is truly pseudoscientific," he says. "It's completely arbitrary." He's a vocal opponent of abortion, a position that hasn't won him many fans on the Stanford campus, where he helped develop the university's bioethics curriculum in 1989. "I've gotten a lot of heat," he says. "I can't say I've liked it."

Ironically, Hurlbut's idea came about not in spite of his piety but because of it. Instead of dismissing the theological concept of an embryo's trajectory to humanhood, he seized it, seeing a scientific opportunity. Would it be possible, he wondered, to engineer embryos that didn't have human potential yet otherwise behaved normally?

HOOK THE MOMS AND THE KIDS FOLLOW:

Mattel Is Building on American Girl's Success: It hopes a new store at the Grove, dedicated to the popular dolls, will draw girls and big sales. (Melinda Fulmer, May 26, 2005, LA Times)

Parents, watch your wallets. Mattel Inc. is planning a new shopping destination for girls that promises extreme sticker shock.

The El Segundo company plans to announce today that it will open its third American Girl Place store, in the Grove shopping center in Los Angeles' Fairfax district.

The store, aimed at girls 7 to 11 and modeled on successful locations in Chicago and New York, will open next spring in the two-story space shuttered by toy retailer FAO Schwarz Inc. last year.

Building a premium toy store on the site of a failed counterpart may not seem like the smartest bet, but analysts say the two retailers' approaches are different.

"A typical toy store sells commodity items," said Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard's Retail Consulting Group in New Jersey. "You can go inside and find toys for 59 cents. At American Girl, you are lucky if you get away with $79."

Indeed, while FAO and other retailers have been forced to compete with discounters such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp., American Girl caters to customers for whom cachet trumps price, selling them dolls, books and a bimonthly magazine.

TAKE THEM ALL, BUT LEAVE ME MANUEL:

Malaysia U-turn on immigrants ban (Jonathan Kent, 5/26/05, BBC News)

Having persuaded illegal migrants to leave with a threat of fines, jail and whipping, the government now desperately wants them back.

It has even set up centres in Indonesia, where most of the workers came from, to speed their return as legal employees. [...]

It is an embarrassing U-turn from a government that wanted to make political capital from its tough stance on illegal immigration - and a sign of just how badly Malaysia's labour shortage is biting.

Undocumented migrants made up more than a 10th of its workforce and factories, restaurants and construction companies have been hit hard

HARRY LIME CALLED IT:

Handing the 21st century to Asia (Dominique Moïsi, 5/256/05, International Herald Tribune)

For historians of the 21st century, May 29, 2005, could become a highly symbolic turning point. If the French vote "no" to the referendum on Europe's constitutional treaty - the likely result, if the latest polls are correct - they will, unwillingly and unknowingly, make sure that this becomes the "Asian century."

The European Union would probably become a Magna Helvetia - a big Switzerland - or a museum of high and old culture and the good life.

HEADS I WIN...TAILS YOU LOSE

Keep up the pressure for a No vote, Left warned (David Rennie, The Telegraph, May 26th, 2005)

Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg and holder of the rotating EU presidency, told Le Soir newspaper in Belgium that he would act swiftly on Sunday night if France voted No.

He would appear with the head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, and demand that all 25 EU nations complete the process of ratifying the constitution, in referendums or parliamentary votes.

The treaty must officially be endorsed by all 25 member states.

But EU leaders appear to be focused on keeping the constitution alive after a possible French No so as to buy themselves more time for a political solution to the resulting crisis.

Mr Juncker said it was essential for the EU leadership to show a united front on Sunday night, and "maintain order in the process that will unfold the morning after".

"If it's a Yes, we will say 'on we go', and if it's a No we will say 'we continue'," he said.

Don’t they have civil wars over this kind of thing?

A LEFTIST’S HUMILIATING CONFESSION OF FAILURE

Appeal to parents on teenage births (Lucy Ward, The Guardian, May 26th, 2005)

The government has reached the limits of its ability to contain the UK's high rate of teenage pregnancy and can go no further without the help of parents, the new children and families minister warned yesterday.

In her first interview since her post-election return to the government, Beverley Hughes told the Guardian that ministers had "reached a sticking point" where their efforts could not by themselves solve the problem of teenage pregnancy. Figures on under-16 pregnancies released today are expected to show the government is failing to make enough progress to meet its target of halving teenage conceptions by 2010.

Ms Hughes said that parents had to take the initiative by putting aside any embarrassment and starting a dialogue about sex with their children. When this takes place, young people had sex later and were more likely to use contraception, she said.

What an unimaginative government. Just double the time allotted to compulsory sex education and hand out condoms with every school lunch and the problem will disappear. Parents will just mess you up, although we suspect there may be some truth to the notion that a lengthy dialogue with parents about sex can be a very effective contraceptive.

AFRICA GROWS UP:

NATO chief urges Sudan not to hinder AU mission: Scheffer offers support for cash-strapped African body on eve of international conference (Daily Star, May 26, 2005)

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer flew to an international conference in Ethiopia Wednesday with an offer of logistical support for the African Union's bid to widen its peacekeeping mission in the Sudanese region of Darfur.

Making an early exit from a Euro-Asian security meeting in Sweden, he said it was important for the mission's success that Sudan does not hinder the African Union.

"What is important," he told reporters, "is that the government of Sudan will give the green light to the African Union" to more than double its current peacekeeping operation to about 7,000 troops.

THE MODERATE BENCHMARK:

For a New Judge, Self-Reliance in Her Life and in the Law (DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, 5/25/05, NY Times)

When the Senate asked Justice Priscilla R. Owen for the most significant opinions she had written on the Texas Supreme Court, she provided a list with a distinctive theme: tough.

She chose opinions overturning rulings in favor of a child born with birth defects, a worker injured on an oil rig, a nurse fired for blowing the whistle on a drug-dealing co-worker, a family with an interest in an oil field that had been drained by a nearby company, asbestos and breast-implant plaintiffs and a student whose school made him cut his hair.

"She represents a part of the Texas culture that is basically a frontier mentality," said Linda S. Eads, a law professor at Southern Methodist University and a former deputy attorney general of Texas who supports Ms. Owen's nomination.

"You don't cry about your hardships, you just keep moving forward," Professor Eads said. "In some ways, it's a very empowering philosophy, and in some ways it can be seen as cold. I guess it depends on which side of the outcome you are."

After four years in the crossfire of partisan battle over her nomination to the federal bench - denounced by liberal critics as extremist and callous, hailed by conservatives as a kind-hearted Sunday school teacher who lifted herself up from humble roots - Ms. Owen finally won Senate confirmation Wednesday on a 55-to-43 vote to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans.

After Senate Democrats allowed her confirmation to break a stalemate over judicial nominations, her conservative supporters argued that her confirmation set a benchmark. Judges with records and views like Ms. Owen's, her supporters argue, can no longer be construed as objectionable. They note that none of her opinions have been overturned.

THEY GOT BUPKUS, HUH?

For 2006, Democrats try 'back to basics' (David Cook, 5/26/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

At the moment, the DSCC's goal of regaining control of the Senate looks like an uphill battle. In a moment of surprising candor, Senate minority leader Harry Reid stood on the Senate floor in late April and said, "I think it would take a miracle" for Democrats to pick up 5 senate seats in 2006. "I guess miracles never cease," he added. The current makeup of the Senate is 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats, and 1 Independent.

Schumer thinks the battle over judicial nominations will linger in voters' minds and help Democrats in the 2006 elections. "The whiff of extremism, the whiff of abuse of power, the whiff of being out of touch with what people want is in the air. I think this fight where the moderates had to rescue the Senate and the agenda from the Republican leadership and these extreme groups helps us."

But the basic thrust for Democrats in the run-up to 2006 will not be on judicial nominations, Schumer said. "We are not going to be off on some ideological escapade - rather meat and potatoes: healthcare, education, jobs."

DON'T WAIT...LEAD:

Africans ask: 'Why isn't anyone telling the good news?' (Abraham McLaughlin, 5/26/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

• Africa's economies grew by more than 5 percent last year - their biggest expansion in eight years. Central Africa's oil boom spurred 14.4 percent growth for that region.

• Ghana's stock exchange is regularly one of the highest-performing markets in the world; in 2003, it was No. 1, gaining 144 percent, according to one analysis.

• Exports to the US from 37 African nations jumped 88 percent last year, to $26.6 billion. Jeans made in Lesotho are sold in US stores. Also, flowers from Kenya and vegetables from Senegal are regularly available in European shops.

• Use of cellphones and the Internet is growing faster in Africa than anywhere else, according to the United Nations.

These and other statistics are getting more focus amid efforts to boost Africa's image - along with the world's willingness to the public posturing over embryonic stem-cell research, on both sides of the debate, will not end anytime soon.invest in the continent.

A prominent challenge came this week from Rwandan President Paul Kagame. Speaking in Kenya at the International Press Institute's annual gathering, he defied the media to tell the whole story.

"I urge you to play your role, not merely as watchdogs and whistle-blowers, but as advocates and educators in our joint venture to make Africa ... a better place," he said.

THE FRONT-RUNNER:

The McCain Way (The New Yorker, 2005-05-30)

This week in the magazine, in “McCain’s Party,” Connie Bruck writes about John McCain, the senator from Arizona, and about the possibility of his running for President in 2008. Here, she discusses McCain's career, past and future, with Ben Greenman

What about his relationship with the Bushes? How can he be close to the Bush camp after their vicious character- assassination attempts in South Carolina in 2000?

Because of all the fireworks of his personality, people tend to overlook how pragmatic McCain is. Some of his aides did taunt him about his role in the campaign—“Where do they put you, in the back of the bus?” one asked, and was cursed roundly by McCain. But I think that, once he made up his mind, it was not that difficult. And I actually believe that in addition to his political calculations about 2008 he really did prefer Bush to Kerry—that it was a Hobson's choice, as one friend of McCain’s told me, but in the end he felt more comfortable with Bush. He is much closer to Bush than Kerry in his extremely hawkish views on the war in Iraq, and much closer in foreign policy, generally. As one McCain aide told me, if McCain had run with Kerry, they could have debated foreign policy with each other.

Is he now too careful about what he says? In recent weeks he has spoken out on the Downing Street memo, for instance, but without the fervor and critical passion that some people have come to expect. Is this a defanged McCain?

I will be very surprised if we see him doing anything that strikes a blow at the Bush White House. Polite differences are one thing, but attacks that can do real damage are another. I think he has done too much to build his political capital with the Party and the Republican primary voters who love Bush to throw it away. But he definitely has a fine line to walk. He can’t afford to seem like just another calculating, hypocritical politician—or he loses everything.

How unpleasant is his dilemma: to be a team player when he might, deep down, desperately want to be an iconoclast?

I think that it will be hard, because McCain loves being an iconoclast, or a rebel, or a contrarian—it’s just so much a part of who he is, and it brings him the attention that he loves. He will be oh so boring as a team player, so he will never restrict himself to that completely.

If elected, what kind of President would McCain be?

That, of course, is the $64,000 question. Even some who like him a great deal wonder whether he is steady and thoughtful enough—or, on the contrary, too volatile, intemperate, and itching to fight.

WHERE'S BERTON ROUECHE WHEN YOU NEED HIM?:

One doctor's hunch led to a chilling discovery (Stephen Smith, May 25, 2005, Boston Globe)

It was one of those moments that send shudders through even the most experienced physician.

Dr. Staci Fischer was already treating one patient at Rhode Island Hospital battling a virulent infection just 2 1/2 weeks after receiving a new kidney. He had fever and diarrhea and other symptoms that made Fischer think the man had contracted hepatitis.

Then, a few days later, Fischer encountered a second transplant recipient at the Providence hospital whose health had deteriorated precipitously. Like the first patient, the second had received a kidney, and, it turned out, the organs had come from the same donor. The patients' sudden illnesses were distressingly similar.

''So I called the organ bank that had provided the organs, and I said, 'I have these two patients, and they have very similar symptoms, and the strange thing is, it's only three weeks out from their transplant,' " Fischer, an infectious disease specialist, recalled in an interview yesterday. '' 'Is it time we have to worry that there was something transmitted with the organs?' "

It was. Fischer's call started an investigation that led to the discovery of two other transplant recipients gravely ill with mysterious infections at hospitals in Boston. In the end, all four patients, including three who died, would be connected to a single donor whose pet hamster carried the same type of virus that had infected the transplant patients.

The New England cluster of illnesses was discovered by a combination of luck and old-fashioned medical detective work. [...]

The organs given to the four patients had been taken from a woman who died from a stroke. Her kidneys went to the two Rhode Island patients, her lungs to a patient at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and her liver to a recipient at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Not long before her death, the woman, whose identity has not been disclosed by health authorities, had purchased a hamster from a PETsMART store. Unbeknownst to her and the shop, the animal carried LCMV.

The virus can be transmitted from rodents to humans, usually through dust from the animal's droppings. In most people, it causes little harm, with symptoms similar to a cold.

But in transplant patients, their immune systems intentionally ravaged so their bodies won't reject the organs, otherwise minor infections can turn lethal.

Lab tests have shown that the four patients had an identical strain of LCMV. Tests are underway to determine whether that strain matches the virus that infected the hamster.

At the same time, the Rhode Island Department of Health is collecting rodents outside the house of the woman who died.

''We're trying to track back where the hamster became infected and if the hamster of the donor family was in fact the source of the infection or if it could have come from some other animal," said Dr. David Gifford, director of Rhode Island's Department of Health.

But if it weren't for Fischer's original detective work, other doctors familiar with the cases said, the link among the patients might never have been established.

Fischer, during a telephone interview from Seattle, recalled the day in April when transplant surgeons and infectious disease doctors from the three hospitals where the operations had been performed compared notes about the patients.

''It was really, really eerie," Fischer said. ''It was really scary to hear everybody talk about it.

''By the time I talked to them, the lung recipient had died, and one of our kidney patients had died, and the liver recipient was imminently dying. And here I was left with the one surviving recipient. I've never been in a situation like that before in my career. ''

HE'LL GIVE YOU THE ANSWER THAT YOU'LL ENDORSE:

Ofcom says OK to sex with animals (John Plunkett, May 25, 2005, MediaGuardian.co.uk)

Clean-up TV campaigners seeking succour in Ofcom's new broadcasting rules suffered an immediate blow today when the regulator gave the all-clear to programmes about "sex with animals".

The comments by Richard Hooper, the Ofcom deputy chairman, came at the unveiling of its long-awaited new broadcasting code and will have had the regulator's spin doctors holding their heads in their hands.

Although Mr Hooper was at pains to point out that the new regulations will not give carte blanche to broadcasters, he said certain offensive material would be OK as long as it was shown at the right time and with suitable warnings.

"[What about] a programme about sex with animals? Yes, it's potentially possible. It all comes down to context," he said.

SHOULDA SWITCHED:

Harold Ford Officially Enters '06 Senate Race (Fox News, May 25, 2005)

U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. filed the federal paperwork Wednesday to become the second Democratic candidate in the 2006 U.S. Senate race.

FOREVER WAR:

Equality or Freedom (Sylvain Charat, 5/25/05, Tech Central Station)

French leadership bases its social vision on equality, the very source of collectivism. This does not mean being equal before the law, it means being socially equal - no one higher, no one lower. This eliminates any notion of competition in the name of social cohesion. That's why civil servants' jobs are so popular; that's why health coverage is a state monopoly and creates a welfare society; that's why politicians rave about a social economy. What kind of future can France have when 70 percent of its teenagers dream of being civil servants? At best, equality, in this collectivist meaning, is the praise of mediocrity.

In Eastern European and Anglo-Saxon countries, social vision is based on freedom. This involves the social integration of the rule of law and the acceptance of risk. Freedom is a risk and cannot be separated from responsibility. This is the prefect ground for a free trade society, the only one able to bring wealth and prosperity to the greatest part of its citizens. It does not mean that everything is perfect, but it means that there is much more opportunity for individuals to better themselves, to give the best of themselves, to make good use of their gifts and improve the world. At best, freedom is the praise of excellence.

Only one of these two social visions has a future.

WHICH RIBS DOES THE SHIV GO BETWEEN?:

THE ONE WHO GOT IT DONE:

The Senate's Real Leader (David S. Broder, May 25, 2005, Washington Post)

In contrast to Majority Leader Bill Frist, who was unable to negotiate a compromise with Minority Leader Harry Reid or hold his Republicans in line to clear the way for all of President Bush's nominees to be confirmed, McCain looks like the man who achieved his objectives.

If -- as many expect -- McCain and Frist find themselves rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, the gap in their performance will be remembered.

To be sure, McCain was only one of 14 senators -- seven from each party -- who forged an agreement to clear three of the roadblocked circuit court nominees at once, shelve two others, and reserve the option of future filibusters only for "exceptional circumstances." And the deal forged in McCain's office probably would not have been possible without the support of such Senate elders as Republican John Warner and Democrat Robert Byrd.

But no one else in the negotiating group has McCain's national stature, and no one else is a likely presidential contender three years from now. So, while such would-be candidates as George Allen of Virginia and Sam Brownback of Kansas lined up behind Frist, McCain took the harder road and helped organize the bipartisan effort that averted the looming crisis.

He did that knowing he would incur the wrath of the conservative activists who want no barriers placed before their favorites for possible vacancies on the Supreme Court. But contrary to myth, the heroes of the far right rarely win presidential nominations -- as witness the fate of Steve Forbes, Gary Bauer, Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson, among others.

WHAT THE DEMOCRATS CAN DO FOR YOU:

Sanders Steps Up: The representative for the rest of us sets his sights on the Senate (Joel Bleifuss, May 24, 2005, In These Times)

If elected, or should I say when elected, what kind of leadership will you bring to the U.S. Senate?

If I'm elected to the U.S. Senate, I think it would be fair to say that I'll be the most progressive voice in the Senate and that I will continue to do the work that I did in the House. There are many huge issues out there, but my major emphasis will be on economic issues and addressing what I consider to be the collapse of the middle class: the fact that despite the huge increases in productivity and technology, the average American worker is worse off today than he or she was 30 years ago.

HAVE YOU HUGGED A MODERATE TODAY?:

PRISCILLA OWEN CONFIRMED 56-43

We congratulate Judge Owen, President Bush and all those whose hard work and dedication have made this possible.

MORE:
Chafee votes against Owen's confirmation (JOHN E. MULLIGAN, May 25, 2005, Providence Journal)

Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee was the only Republican to vote today against the confirmation of Priscilla Owen as a federal appellate judge, as a four-year partisan battle over judicial nominations ended.

The Rhode Island Republican had been one of the 14 senators who signed a bipartisan deal to prevent the effort to ban judicial filibusters.

He expressed hope yesterday that President Bush will henceforth make judicial nominations that can win enough bipartisan support to preclude filibuster threats.

Owen's nomination was confirmed on a 56-43 vote, with two Democrats, Sen. Robert Byrd, W.Va., and Sen. Mary Landrieu, La., crossing party lines to support her.

IRREDUCIBLY IDENTICAL:

DEVOLUTION: Why intelligent design isn’t. (H. ALLEN ORR, 2005-05-30, The New Yorker)

First of all, intelligent design is not what people often assume it is. For one thing, I.D. is not Biblical literalism. Unlike earlier generations of creationists—the so-called Young Earthers and scientific creationists—proponents of intelligent design do not believe that the universe was created in six days, that Earth is ten thousand years old, or that the fossil record was deposited during Noah’s flood. (Indeed, they shun the label “creationism” altogether.) Nor does I.D. flatly reject evolution: adherents freely admit that some evolutionary change occurred during the history of life on Earth. Although the movement is loosely allied with, and heavily funded by, various conservative Christian groups—and although I.D. plainly maintains that life was created—it is generally silent about the identity of the creator.

The movement’s main positive claim is that there are things in the world, most notably life, that cannot be accounted for by known natural causes and show features that, in any other context, we would attribute to intelligence. Living organisms are too complex to be explained by any natural—or, more precisely, by any mindless—process. Instead, the design inherent in organisms can be accounted for only by invoking a designer, and one who is very, very smart.

All of which puts I.D. squarely at odds with Darwin. Darwin’s theory of evolution was meant to show how the fantastically complex features of organisms—eyes, beaks, brains—could arise without the intervention of a designing mind. According to Darwinism, evolution largely reflects the combined action of random mutation and natural selection. A random mutation in an organism, like a random change in any finely tuned machine, is almost always bad. That’s why you don’t, screwdriver in hand, make arbitrary changes to the insides of your television. But, once in a great while, a random mutation in the DNA that makes up an organism’s genes slightly improves the function of some organ and thus the survival of the organism. In a species whose eye amounts to nothing more than a primitive patch of light-sensitive cells, a mutation that causes this patch to fold into a cup shape might have a survival advantage. While the old type of organism can tell only if the lights are on, the new type can detect the direction of any source of light or shadow. Since shadows sometimes mean predators, that can be valuable information. The new, improved type of organism will, therefore, be more common in the next generation. That’s natural selection. Repeated over billions of years, this process of incremental improvement should allow for the gradual emergence of organisms that are exquisitely adapted to their environments and that look for all the world as though they were designed. By 1870, about a decade after “The Origin of Species” was published, nearly all biologists agreed that life had evolved, and by 1940 or so most agreed that natural selection was a key force driving this evolution.

Advocates of intelligent design point to two developments that in their view undermine Darwinism. The first is the molecular revolution in biology. Beginning in the nineteen-fifties, molecular biologists revealed a staggering and unsuspected degree of complexity within the cells that make up all life. This complexity, I.D.’s defenders argue, lies beyond the abilities of Darwinism to explain. Second, they claim that new mathematical findings cast doubt on the power of natural selection. Selection may play a role in evolution, but it cannot accomplish what biologists suppose it can. [...]

Michael J. Behe, a professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University (and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute), is a biochemist who writes technical papers on the structure of DNA. He is the most prominent of the small circle of scientists working on intelligent design, and his arguments are by far the best known. His book “Darwin’s Black Box” (1996) was a surprise best-seller and was named by National Review as one of the hundred best nonfiction books of the twentieth century. (A little calibration may be useful here; “The Starr Report” also made the list.)

Not surprisingly, Behe’s doubts about Darwinism begin with biochemistry. Fifty years ago, he says, any biologist could tell stories like the one about the eye’s evolution. But such stories, Behe notes, invariably began with cells, whose own evolutionary origins were essentially left unexplained. This was harmless enough as long as cells weren’t qualitatively more complex than the larger, more visible aspects of the eye. Yet when biochemists began to dissect the inner workings of the cell, what they found floored them. A cell is packed full of exceedingly complex structures—hundreds of microscopic machines, each performing a specific job. The “Give me a cell and I’ll give you an eye” story told by Darwinists, he says, began to seem suspect: starting with a cell was starting ninety per cent of the way to the finish line.

Behe’s main claim is that cells are complex not just in degree but in kind. Cells contain structures that are “irreducibly complex.” This means that if you remove any single part from such a structure, the structure no longer functions. Behe offers a simple, nonbiological example of an irreducibly complex object: the mousetrap. A mousetrap has several parts—platform, spring, catch, hammer, and hold-down bar—and all of them have to be in place for the trap to work. If you remove the spring from a mousetrap, it isn’t slightly worse at killing mice; it doesn’t kill them at all. So, too, with the bacterial flagellum, Behe argues. This flagellum is a tiny propeller attached to the back of some bacteria. Spinning at more than twenty thousand r.p.m.s, it motors the bacterium through its aquatic world. The flagellum comprises roughly thirty different proteins, all precisely arranged, and if any one of them is removed the flagellum stops spinning.

In “Darwin’s Black Box,” Behe maintained that irreducible complexity presents Darwinism with “unbridgeable chasms.” How, after all, could a gradual process of incremental improvement build something like a flagellum, which needs all its parts in order to work? Scientists, he argued, must face up to the fact that “many biochemical systems cannot be built by natural selection working on mutations.” In the end, Behe concluded that irreducibly complex cells arise the same way as irreducibly complex mousetraps—someone designs them. As he put it in a recent Times Op-Ed piece: “If it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it’s a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it’s so obvious.” In “Darwin’s Black Box,” Behe speculated that the designer might have assembled the first cell, essentially solving the problem of irreducible complexity, after which evolution might well have proceeded by more or less conventional means. Under Behe’s brand of creationism, you might still be an ape that evolved on the African savanna; it’s just that your cells harbor micro-machines engineered by an unnamed intelligence some four billion years ago.

But Behe’s principal argument soon ran into trouble. As biologists pointed out, there are several different ways that Darwinian evolution can build irreducibly complex systems. In one, elaborate structures may evolve for one reason and then get co-opted for some entirely different, irreducibly complex function. Who says those thirty flagellar proteins weren’t present in bacteria long before bacteria sported flagella? They may have been performing other jobs in the cell and only later got drafted into flagellum-building. Indeed, there’s now strong evidence that several flagellar proteins once played roles in a type of molecular pump found in the membranes of bacterial cells.

Behe doesn’t consider this sort of “indirect” path to irreducible complexity—in which parts perform one function and then switch to another—terribly plausible. And he essentially rules out the alternative possibility of a direct Darwinian path: a path, that is, in which Darwinism builds an irreducibly complex structure while selecting all along for the same biological function. But biologists have shown that direct paths to irreducible complexity are possible, too. Suppose a part gets added to a system merely because the part improves the system’s performance; the part is not, at this stage, essential for function. But, because subsequent evolution builds on this addition, a part that was at first just advantageous might become essential. As this process is repeated through evolutionary time, more and more parts that were once merely beneficial become necessary. This idea was first set forth by H. J. Muller, the Nobel Prize-winning geneticist, in 1939, but it’s a familiar process in the development of human technologies. We add new parts like global-positioning systems to cars not because they’re necessary but because they’re nice. But no one would be surprised if, in fifty years, computers that rely on G.P.S. actually drove our cars. At that point, G.P.S. would no longer be an attractive option; it would be an essential piece of automotive technology. It’s important to see that this process is thoroughly Darwinian: each change might well be small and each represents an improvement.

Design theorists have made some concessions to these criticisms. Behe has confessed to “sloppy prose” and said he hadn’t meant to imply that irreducibly complex systems “by definition” cannot evolve gradually. “I quite agree that my argument against Darwinism does not add up to a logical proof,” he says—though he continues to believe that Darwinian paths to irreducible complexity are exceedingly unlikely. Behe and his followers now emphasize that, while irreducibly complex systems can in principle evolve, biologists can’t reconstruct in convincing detail just how any such system did evolve.

What counts as a sufficiently detailed historical narrative, though, is altogether subjective. Biologists actually know a great deal about the evolution of biochemical systems, irreducibly complex or not. It’s significant, for instance, that the proteins that typically make up the parts of these systems are often similar to one another. (Blood clotting—another of Behe’s examples of irreducible complexity—involves at least twenty proteins, several of which are similar, and all of which are needed to make clots, to localize or remove clots, or to prevent the runaway clotting of all blood.) And biologists understand why these proteins are so similar. Each gene in an organism’s genome encodes a particular protein. Occasionally, the stretch of DNA that makes up a particular gene will get accidentally copied, yielding a genome that includes two versions of the gene. Over many generations, one version of the gene will often keep its original function while the other one slowly changes by mutation and natural selection, picking up a new, though usually related, function. This process of “gene duplication” has given rise to entire families of proteins that have similar functions; they often act in the same biochemical pathway or sit in the same cellular structure. There’s no doubt that gene duplication plays an extremely important role in the evolution of biological complexity.

It’s true that when you confront biologists with a particular complex structure like the flagellum they sometimes have a hard time saying which part appeared before which other parts. But then it can be hard, with any complex historical process, to reconstruct the exact order in which events occurred, especially when, as in evolution, the addition of new parts encourages the modification of old ones. When you’re looking at a bustling urban street, for example, you probably can’t tell which shop went into business first. This is partly because many businesses now depend on each other and partly because new shops trigger changes in old ones (the new sushi place draws twenty-somethings who demand wireless Internet at the café next door). But it would be a little rash to conclude that all the shops must have begun business on the same day or that some Unseen Urban Planner had carefully determined just which business went where.

The other leading theorist of the new creationism, William A. Dembski, holds a Ph.D. in mathematics, another in philosophy, and a master of divinity in theology. He has been a research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor University, and was recently appointed to the new Center for Science and Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. (He is a longtime senior fellow at the Discovery Institute as well.) Dembski publishes at a staggering pace. His books—including “The Design Inference,” “Intelligent Design,” “No Free Lunch,” and “The Design Revolution”—are generally well written and packed with provocative ideas.

According to Dembski, a complex object must be the result of intelligence if it was the product neither of chance nor of necessity. The novel “Moby Dick,” for example, didn’t arise by chance (Melville didn’t scribble random letters), and it wasn’t the necessary consequence of a physical law (unlike, say, the fall of an apple). It was, instead, the result of Melville’s intelligence. Dembski argues that there is a reliable way to recognize such products of intelligence in the natural world. We can conclude that an object was intelligently designed, he says, if it shows “specified complexity”—complexity that matches an “independently given pattern.” The sequence of letters “jkxvcjudoplvm” is certainly complex: if you randomly type thirteen letters, you are very unlikely to arrive at this particular sequence. But it isn’t specified: it doesn’t match any independently given sequence of letters. If, on the other hand, I ask you for the first sentence of “Moby Dick” and you type the letters “callmeishmael,” you have produced something that is both complex and specified. The sequence you typed is unlikely to arise by chance alone, and it matches an independent target sequence (the one written by Melville). Dembski argues that specified complexity, when expressed mathematically, provides an unmistakable signature of intelligence. Things like “callmeishmael,” he points out, just don’t arise in the real world without acts of intelligence. If organisms show specified complexity, therefore, we can conclude that they are the handiwork of an intelligent agent.

For Dembski, it’s telling that the sophisticated machines we find in organisms match up in astonishingly precise ways with recognizable human technologies. The eye, for example, has a familiar, cameralike design, with recognizable parts—a pinhole opening for light, a lens, and a surface on which to project an image—all arranged just as a human engineer would arrange them. And the flagellum has a motor design, one that features recognizable O-rings, a rotor, and a drive shaft. Specified complexity, he says, is there for all to see.

Dembski’s second major claim is that certain mathematical results cast doubt on Darwinism at the most basic conceptual level. In 2002, he focussed on so-called No Free Lunch, or N.F.L., theorems, which were derived in the late nineties by the physicists David H. Wolpert and William G. Macready. These theorems relate to the efficiency of different “search algorithms.” Consider a search for high ground on some unfamiliar, hilly terrain. You’re on foot and it’s a moonless night; you’ve got two hours to reach the highest place you can. How to proceed? One sensible search algorithm might say, “Walk uphill in the steepest possible direction; if no direction uphill is available, take a couple of steps to the left and try again.” This algorithm insures that you’re generally moving upward. Another search algorithm—a so-called blind search algorithm—might say, “Walk in a random direction.” This would sometimes take you uphill but sometimes down. Roughly, the N.F.L. theorems prove the surprising fact that, averaged over all possible terrains, no search algorithm is better than any other. In some landscapes, moving uphill gets you to higher ground in the allotted time, while in other landscapes moving randomly does, but on average neither outperforms the other.

Now, Darwinism can be thought of as a search algorithm. Given a problem—adapting to a new disease, for instance—a population uses the Darwinian algorithm of random mutation plus natural selection to search for a solution (in this case, disease resistance). But, according to Dembski, the N.F.L. theorems prove that this Darwinian algorithm is no better than any other when confronting all possible problems. It follows that, over all, Darwinism is no better than blind search, a process of utterly random change unaided by any guiding force like natural selection. Since we don’t expect blind change to build elaborate machines showing an exquisite coördination of parts, we have no right to expect Darwinism to do so, either. Attempts to sidestep this problem by, say, carefully constraining the class of challenges faced by organisms inevitably involve sneaking in the very kind of order that we’re trying to explain—something Dembski calls the displacement problem. In the end, he argues, the N.F.L. theorems and the displacement problem mean that there’s only one plausible source for the design we find in organisms: intelligence. Although Dembski is somewhat noncommittal, he seems to favor a design theory in which an intelligent agent programmed design into early life, or even into the early universe. This design then unfolded through the long course of evolutionary time, as microbes slowly morphed into man. [...]

The most serious problem in Dembski’s account involves specified complexity. Organisms aren’t trying to match any “independently given pattern”: evolution has no goal, and the history of life isn’t trying to get anywhere. If building a sophisticated structure like an eye increases the number of children produced, evolution may well build an eye. But if destroying a sophisticated structure like the eye increases the number of children produced, evolution will just as happily destroy the eye. Species of fish and crustaceans that have moved into the total darkness of caves, where eyes are both unnecessary and costly, often have degenerate eyes, or eyes that begin to form only to be covered by skin—crazy contraptions that no intelligent agent would design. Despite all the loose talk about design and machines, organisms aren’t striving to realize some engineer’s blueprint; they’re striving (if they can be said to strive at all) only to have more offspring than the next fellow.

SUCH A DEAL

Senators test extent of deal on nominees (Rick Klein, Boston Globe, 5/25/05)

A day after a coalition of moderate senators signed an agreement to avoid a partisan clash over judicial nominations, both liberal and conservative senators began to test its limits, with each side serving notice that the Capitol Hill culture war over confirming judges is not over. . . .

Democrats . . . for their part, celebrated a deal they said defused the ''nuclear option" -- a change in rules that they said would strip them of their right to filibuster judicial nominees and force them to retaliate by slowing Senate business to a crawl.

But some lawmakers predicted that the extraordinary agreement will collapse under its own weight, mainly because Democrats remain free to use the filibuster under ''extraordinary circumstances," and Republicans can still join Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and vote for a filibuster ban if the Democrats renege on the deal.

"This agreement among these 14 -- to which 86 senators were not a party -- does not solve anything," said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. "What it does do is perhaps delay the inevitable."

The biggest problem, several senators said, lies in the definition of ''extraordinary circumstances," a phrase left purposefully vague to help the deal get done, according to one senator involved in the negotiations. Without a precise definition, senators can interpret that threshold on their own -- and they may get that opportunity early next month.

That's when Frist, under intense pressure from angry conservatives, may force a vote on the appellate court nomination of William G. Myers III, a conservative chosen for the left-leaning Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Democrats, who say he's a pro-business jurist with no regard for the environment, defeated his nomination by filibuster last year, and have promised to do the same this year.

''He'll be brought up in the normal course of order, and we'll find out if he's 'extraordinary' or not," said Senator Larry E. Craig, Republican of Idaho, Myers's home state. ''There's really no deal until it plays