DUCE ET DECORUM EST PRO LIBIDO MORI:

Rudy Giuliani campaign team backtracks on tryst talk (DAVID SALTONSTALL and MICHAEL SAUL, 11/30/07, NY DAILY NEWS)

The uproar grew Thursday over expenses for Rudy Giuliani's protection during his trysts with Judith Nathan as his campaign's initial defense - that its accounting methods were the same as previous mayors' - unraveled.

Joe Lhota, a deputy mayor in Giuliani's City Hall, told the Daily News Wednesday night that the administration's practice of allocating security expenses to small city offices that had nothing to do with mayoral protection has "gone on for years" and "predates Giuliani."

When told budget officials from the administrations of Ed Koch and David Dinkins said they did no such thing, Lhota caved Thursday, "I'm going to reverse myself on that."

THANKS, HANK:

Yankees leaning toward putting Hughes in deal for Santana (Buster Olney, 11/30/07, ESPN The Magazine)

A pivotal sticking point in the Yankees' trade talks with Minnesota about Johan Santana is the question of whether New York will include talented right-hander Phil Hughes in their offer.

And, within the internal discussions in New York's front office, there is a sense that the team is leaning toward putting Hughes in the deal.

"If they put Hughes in the deal," said one person familiar with the talks, "that could get it done for Minnesota."

PASS THE BUCH[HOLZ]:

As dominating as it gets (Jayson Stark, November 30, 2007, ESPN)

Let's start with this:

• Santana has now led the American League in fewest baserunners allowed per nine innings in four straight seasons. So who else, you ask, has done that?

How about nobody?

Lefty Grove led the AL in that category for three straight years, from 1930-32. But that's as close as anyone gets in that league.

In the National League, only two pitchers ever did it four years in a row -- Carl Hubbell (1931-34) and Sandy Koufax (1962-65). And that's the whole list.

Pretty good group. Over the last 70 years, it's Santana and Koufax. Period.

• But over those same four seasons, Santana has also finished either first or second in the league in strikeouts. (And it could easily be four first-place finishes in a row, if rain hadn't forced him to exit early in his final start this year.)

And that's where Santana separates himself from Koufax and Hubbell.

Koufax slipped to fourth in strikeouts in 1964. Hubbell tumbled to sixth in whiffs in 1934.

So Santana is the only pitcher in history to run off a four-year stretch combining that kind of strikeout domination while allowing so few baserunners to run around.

NOT HOW ANYONE EXPECTED HIM TO GO:

Evel Knievel Dies at 69 (MITCH STACY, 11/30/07, The Associated Press)

Immortalized in the Washington's Smithsonian Institution as "America's Legendary Daredevil," Knievel was best known for a failed 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and a spectacular crash at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980.

Although he dropped off the pop culture radar in the '80s, Knievel always had fans and enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in recent years. In later years he still made a good living selling his autographs and endorsing products. Thousands came to Butte, Mont., every year as his legend was celebrated during the "Evel Knievel Days" festival.

LIFE ON MARS:

Liberal bloggers target Rep. Wynn for primary (S.A. Miller, November 30, 2007, Washington Times)

A national coterie of liberal bloggers and Internet sites — collectively known as "netroots" — are pushing a primary challenge against eight-term Democratic Rep. Albert R. Wynn of Maryland and have their sights set on other Democrats whom they deem too cozy with President Bush and Republicans in Congress.

"We are already to the left. ... I don't know where they want to take the party," said Mr. Wynn, who has a solid Democratic voting record, including votes in favor of every antiwar measure this year and high scores from unions, environmentalists, homosexual rights groups and the pro-choice lobby.

THIS WEEK, ON HEROES...:

Bush's Compassionately Conservative Subprime Fix (James Pethokoukis, 11/30/07, US News)

Plenty of homeowners—especially those who saved up for big down payments so they could get a low-rate fixed mortgage—have little sympathy for their fellow Americans who gambled on subprime loans and the teaser rates that often came with them. And they might be rolling their eyes at news that Hank Paulson and his Treasury Department are nudging the mortgage industry—as Arnold Schwarzenegger has done in California—to voluntarily refrain from resetting some $400 billion worth of subprime adjustable-rate mortgages when the teaser rates expire next year. [...]

The White House had to act. In a way, this is President Bush's compassionate-conservative approach to the mortgage crisis. It doesn't take the hardhearted "moral hazard" approach and allow homeowners who can afford their current mortgages to lose their homes when their loans reset. Yet it doesn't bail everybody out, either. Homeowners who can afford the reset—though it might be painful—as well as those who can't even afford their current teaser rate are probably out of luck.

And the Bush effort falls well short of some more expansive ideas, such as having the government buy up all the bad subprime debt. Nor is it some bureaucratic mandate manufactured in Washington.

FOR US MATH CHALLENGED, WHAT'S 2 x 0?

Gay Question Puts CNN on Defensive (JACQUES STEINBERG, 11/30/07, NY Times)

The president of CNN said yesterday that the cable channel would redouble its efforts to vet the campaign affiliations of questioners at open-forum debates, after a retired brigadier general was permitted Wednesday to ask the Republican presidential candidates about gay men and lesbians in the military without CNN’s knowing that he was listed on an advisory committee of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign.

“I think it’s pretty obvious, in retrospect, our search should have turned this up,” Jon Klein, the president of CNN’s domestic networks, said in an interview. “It’s in the nature of doing something that hasn’t been done before — you’re going to try to anticipate everything, and you’re going to fail at that.

“Had we known ahead of time,” Mr. Klein added, “we would probably not have used his question. It raised too many flags, in terms of motivation.”

IF HIS LIPS ARE MOVING HE'S LYING:

Citing Statistics, Giuliani Misses Time and Again (MICHAEL COOPER, 11/30/07, NY Times)

In almost every appearance as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph W. Giuliani cites a fusillade of statistics and facts to make his arguments about his successes in running New York City and the merits of his views.

Discussing his crime-fighting success as mayor, Mr. Giuliani told a television interviewer that New York was “the only city in America that has reduced crime every single year since 1994.” In New Hampshire this week, he told a public forum that when he became mayor in 1994, New York “had been averaging like 1,800, 1,900 murders for almost 30 years.” When a recent Republican debate turned to the question of fiscal responsibility, he boasted that “under me, spending went down by 7 percent.”

All of these statements are incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong. And while, to be sure, all candidates use misleading statistics from time to time, Mr. Giuliani has made statistics a central part of his candidacy as he campaigns on his record.

ROCK ME, BABY:

Not only does belong in the Hall on his existing numbers, but I believe it's the case that no player lost more at-bats to baseball's various work stoppages over the years and, if I recall correctly, he was colluded against twice.

GREEN CHRISTMAS:

Fed chief offers new hint of a rate cut (Edmund L. Andrews, November 30, 2007, IHT)

Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, acknowledged that a "fresh wave of investor concern" had led to tougher credit conditions that posed new risks to the economy, reinforcing the view that the Fed is likely to cut interest rates again when it meets Dec. 11.

THERE'S NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A "REAL" ONE AND A "FAKE" ONE:

Scientist Presents Case Against Possible Pollocks (RANDY KENNEDY, 11/29/07, NY Times)

A forensic scientist said yesterday that a large group of paintings discovered several years ago and thought by some to be by Jackson Pollock included many containing paints and materials that were not available until after the artist’s death in 1956.

At least one was painted on a board that was not produced earlier than the late 1970s or early ’80s, said the scientist, James Martin, in a lecture last night sponsored by the International Foundation for Art Research in Manhattan.

A DEAL IS SECONDARY:

"A Doable Deal with Iran" (Gareth Evans, 30 November 2007, EU Observer)

The economic arguments advanced for domestically producing, rather than buying in, the fuel for a civil nuclear program are not very persuasive, but the psychological ones are: this is a country seething with both national pride and resentment against past humiliations, and it does want to cut a regional and global figure by proving its sophisticated technological capability.

One might prefer that it had chosen a less sensitive talisman in this respect than enriched uranium - space technology, say - but that die is now cast.

Against this background, the only way forward seems to be to go back to basics, for the international community to draw a new red-line where it matters most - between civilian and military capability - and to enter into unconditional negotiations on that basis. If the objective is not "zero enrichment", but "delayed limited enrichment with maximum safeguards", an agreement is within reach that both Iran and even the most nervous members of the wider international community should be able to sign up to.

The necessary starting point is a time-out, a time-limited "freeze for a freeze" - in which Iran would build no more centrifuges and the international community would add no more sanctions - to enable serious negotiations to take place.

The broad scenario for those negotiations would need to be understood by both sides at the outset, and would involve three basic elements. First, Iran would accept highly intrusive monitoring and inspection regimes, involving not only the application of the NPT Additional Protocol, but some other specially agreed access arrangements.

Second, Iran would spread out over an extended period, in defined stages, its R&D activity and development of enrichment activity, with the end result being an industrial scale facility, but one run as consortium with Iran having international commercial partners.

Third, these arrangements would be accompanied by international incentives, including the staged lifting of sanctions, the normalisation of diplomatic relations and technical support. In addition, there would be equally clear disincentives, including renewed sanctions and potentially even stronger measures, that would apply if any evidence emerged that Iran was pursuing in any way at all a nuclear weapons program.

The advantages of such an outcome for the international community are clear. It could be much more confident that Iran will not pursue a nuclear weapons program of any kind. With a fully normalised relationship with the West, Iran could become a cooperative partner on regional issues of great concern, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Lebanon, Hizbollah and Hamas. And there would be many new business opportunities for European and North American companies.

WHO WOULD KNOW THE MIND OF AMERICA OUGHT KNOW BARZUN:

Happy Birthday, Jacques Barzun (Robert McHenry - November 30th, 2007, Britannica Blog)

At some point I became aware of a tall man of quite different mien. He had not been in the room earlier; as I was to learn, he was always late to these meetings, a fact usually attributed to his insistence on traveling by train rather than airplane.

When I say he was tall I mean not simply that his height as measured in inches exceeded that of others in the room, but that he stood to his full height, whatever it might have been, and quite visibly gave body to the very idea of uprightness. His lean face, with a tall forehead from which his hair was brushed straight back, was rather what I had imagined a good aristocrat’s might be – not stern or severe but reserved; not complacent but composed; not supercilious but observant and tolerant. In all, a figure conveying the strongest sense of austere self-possession.

“Who is that?” I asked my mentor at this affair.

“That’s Jacques,” he said simply.

Ah, Barzun. I knew the name, of course, and had at least some dim sense of why I should know it. One of the Columbia group out of which so much of what Britannica had done and how it had done it had grown. Mortimer Adler was in the room, along with Clifton Fadiman and – a second-generation representative – Charles Van Doren.

I squinted at Barzun’s brown suit, which despite an inexpert eye I suspected was of superior cut. What was that?

“That thin red line on his lapel – at the buttonhole. What is it?”

“That?” he echoed, looking at me with what seemed to be a touch of pity; “That’s the Legion of Honor.”

Whatever bit of crest I had permitted myself for having been invited to this gathering of genuine adults promptly fell and remained prostrate.

Throughout his life he has written over forty books, some of them of permanent importance, all of them useful, and culminating in From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present (2000), his summa as a cultural critic.

How many times in one’s life does one get to welcome a masterpiece, which, without a doubt, that amazing work certainly is? Its 800 pages of text move quickly. With seeming ease, its architecture covers 500 years of Western history, which is the large movement of the book, and at the same time fills in the great sweep with a richness of detail that gives concrete life to the vast design. Among the particulars there are constant surprises, as in the detail of a Gothic cathedral. The intellectual clarifications come one after the other.

Here Barzun set out to trace in broad outline the evolution of art, science, religion, philosophy, and social thought during the last 500 years: “I hope to show that during this span the peoples of the West offered the world a set of ideas and institutions not found earlier or elsewhere.” He makes it clear that he celebrates these distinctive achievements. He believes that the West has pursued these characteristic purposes, carried them “to their utmost possibility,” and in so doing brought about decline and decadence. Barzun is a “cultural” historian because, in his narrative, intellectual developments are in the foreground, though his cultural tapestry is stitched onto a canvas of political, military, and economic history.

Barzun discerns a brilliant period of creativity around the turn of the twentieth century. Then came the catalyst that accelerated and intensified the tendencies leading to decadence: “The blow that hurled the modern world on its course of self-destruction was the Great War of 1914–1918.” A sense of futility and absurdity prevailed. Constructivism became destructivism. There resulted a collapse of manners and authority, anti-heroes and anti-art, the ridicule of anything established, the distortions of language and objects, the indifference to clear meaning, the violence to the human form, the return to primitive elements of sensation. “The root principle is ‘Expect nothing.’”

But Jacques Barzun is himself grounds for hope. No period is entirely decadent in which such a man could appear.

MORE:
-Barzun Centennial
-Jacques Barzun (Encyclopædia Britannica)
-Jacques Barzun (Wikipedia)
-Barzun 100 (Leo Wong)
-AUDIO: Jacques Barzun (In-Depth, C-SPAN)
-INTERVIEW: The Man Who Knew Too Much: Jacques Barzun, Idea Man (ROGER GATHMAN, 10/13/00, Austin Chronicle)
-Closing time? Jacques Barzun on Western culture (Roger Kimball, The New Criterion)
Age of Reason: In his hundred years, Jacques Barzun has learned a thing or two (Arthur Krystal , 10/22/07, The New Yorker)
-Jacques Barzun (Columbia 250)
-Style in the House of Intellect (Rafe Champion)

CLOSE BEHIND THE HARMONIOUS COMES THE FIST:

The thuggery behind the harmonious facade (Howard W. French, November 30, 2007, NY Times)

Last October, as Ma Shaofang prepared to travel from the Chinese city of Shenzhen to Beijing to attend a writers' conference, he received a menacing call from the police.

Why trouble a businessman who wants to attend a conference? The problem was that as a student hunger strike organizer during the Tiananmen protests in 1989, Ma had a "dossier" that still trails behind him wherever he goes in China.

The Chinese calendar is filled with special dates, "sensitive moments" whose association with events either historical or current put the authorities on alert and the people on guard.

October 2007 happened to be the month of the Communist Party's 17th Congress, a once-in-five years affair whose political significance is such that the capital is locked down, potential "troublemakers" rounded up and even the airwaves scrubbed with extra vigor by censors whose job it is to see that nothing can sully the image of a serene and clear-sighted leadership.

So with that backdrop in mind, the police "invited" Ma for tea. Ma's account of the meeting, which he recently published, and which was subsequently translated by the University of California at Berkeley's China Digital Times, offers a chilling glimpse of a Chinese reality that few foreigners ever see.

It is a side of China that not only persists, but also thrives. Of a state whose leaders are fond of proclaiming their attachment to advancing the rule of law but who cling to thuggery to intimidate the populace, silence critics and generally to enforce their will.

EVEN MURTHA WANTS OUT OF THE REALITY-BASED COMMUNITY:

Murtha's comments on 'surge' are a problem for House Democrats (John Bresnahan, 11/29/07, Politico: The Crypt)

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), one of the leading anti-war voices in the House Democratic Caucus, is back from a trip to Iraq and he now says the "surge is working." This could be a huge problem for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders, who are blocking approval of the full $200 billion being sought by President Bush for combat operations in Iraq in 2008. Murtha's comments are a stark reversal from what he said earlier in the year.

Murtha has previously stated that the surge "is not working" and the United States faced a military disaster in Iraq.

Murtha told CNN on July 12, following a Bush speech, that the president's views on the success of the Iraq were "delusional." [...]

[P]elosi, who is scheduled to speak to a Democratic National Committee event in Virginia on Friday, will surely face tough questions from reporters regarding Murtha's statement on the surge.

"This could be a real headache for us," said one top House Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Pelosi is going to be furious."

NIGHT, MOTHER SHEEHAN:

The End of Hurricane Hugo?: Chávez may have sown the seeds of his own destruction (Roger F. Noriega Friday, November 30, 2007, The American)

In recent days, more and more Venezuelans have come to realize that the sweeping constitutional reforms championed by President Hugo Chávez represent a mortal threat to democracy. As the December 2nd referendum approaches, Venezuelans are contemplating the downside of dozens of radical changes that were approved by Chávez’s rubberstamp national assembly. Predictably, one of the proposed changes would extend the presidential term and allow indefinite reelection. Another would modify the military’s nonpartisan character to make it a servant of Chávez’s “Bolivarian” mission. Still others would permanently grant Chávez and his cadre the authority to expropriate private property, control the central bank, fire Supreme Court justices, and suspend essential rights as they see fit. Yet by overreaching in this manner, Chávez may have sown the seeds of his own destruction.

Unless he retreats in the face of widening opposition, he is provoking a showdown with Venezuelans of all stripes. Just this month, patriotic students protesting Chávez’s power grab braved bullets from masked gunmen. Jurists have questioned the very legality of the referendum. Absent the scrutiny of foreign observers, few trust the partisan electoral board that will conduct the process. Meanwhile, Chávez’s former defense chief, Raúl Baduel, has denounced the reforms as a coup d’etat and reminded the military of its institutional obligation to safeguard democracy.

Chávez has been galloping toward this cliff since he took office in 1998.

COME BACK, TONY, ALL IS FORGIVEN:

Analysis: Poll shows Labour in freefall (Anthony King, 29/11/2007, Daily Telegraph)

YouGov's latest findings for The Daily Telegraph are among the most devastating for any Government in the history of opinion polling. [...]

Two months ago Labour's lead was still 11 points. Now it is the Conservatives who are 11 points ahead.

The Tories now have their largest lead over Labour since Margaret Thatcher's heyday in 1988.

The headline figures are bad enough for Labour. The underlying figures are even worse and hint that a majority of voters may have fallen out of love permanently with the Brown Government.

AND W SHOULD GO THERE TO TALK TO THEM:

Iran's reformers to U.S.: Let's talk: Ex-president Khatami says don't let hard-liners in US and Iran dictate the relationship (Scott Peterson, 11/30/07, The Christian Science Monitor)

Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi are among several key Iranian public figures saying that only direct, unconditional talks with the US can ease spiraling tensions. [...]

Khatami and Ebadi echo the sentiments of many Iranians – including some in the conservative government – who prefer dialogue and detente with the US to brinksmanship, though hard-line factions often undermine such efforts.

DO RAY HATS COME IN SIZE 8?:

Rays look like a future force (Buster Olney, November 29, 2007, ESPN)

[I]f the Devil Rays have a proverbial 29,028-foot climb, well, they are at least at base camp and rising, as they develop a competitive pitching staff for the first time in the organization's history. Matt Garza, the centerpiece of the trade for Delmon Young, has the stuff to develop into a viable No. 3-type starter in the AL East, and in a year or two, you can foresee a series when Tampa Bay's threesome of Scott Kazmir, James Shields and Garza could go into Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park with an on-paper advantage over their counterparts, depending on the matchups.

And within a couple of years, rival talent evaluators say, the Rays' rotation has a chance to fill out, with Andy Sonnanstine or 2007 No. 1 pick David Price or Mitch Talbot. Edwin Jackson may turn out to be Tampa Bay's version of Daniel Cabrera, a high-ceiling talent that is manifested too inconsistently. But Jackson, 24, did show signs of progress down the stretch, allowing three earned runs or fewer in nine of his last 14 starts.

The Tampa Bay bullpen has a chance to be much improved, with the makeup of the relief staff much different than the group that finished with a 6.16 ERA last season. Percival figures to be the Rays' closer, and in a market starved for relief, Tampa Bay could trade Al Reyes, who had 26 saves last season. Either way, the back end of Maddon's staff will have much more experience than it did at the All-Star break last year, with Dan Wheeler, Percival, Reyes, Juan Salas and Scott Dohmann.

And the Rays, who finished eighth in the AL in runs scored last year, should continue to be an improving offensive team, even without Young. Their lineup may look something like this by June 15:

2B Akinori Iwamura
LF Carl Crawford
1B Carlos Pena
CF B.J. Upton
DH Jonny Gomes?
3B Evan Longoria (who figures to start the year in the minors)
RF Rocco Baldelli?
C Dioner Navarro
SS Jason Bartlett

Bartlett can run and put the ball in play and fits Maddon's aggressive style. Navarro made a lot of progress in the second half of last season, his numbers climbing from .177/.238/.254 pre-All-Star break to .285/.340/.475 in the second half. There are more moves to come this offseason for Tampa Bay, which cannot count on Baldelli, given his recent injury history; the Rays clearly could use another hammer for the middle of their order (Tony Clark might fit in very, very nicely here, as a DH and clubhouse mentor).

THE POINT THE NEOCONS CAN'T GRASP:

Israel risks apartheid-like struggle if two-state solution fails, says Olmert (Rory McCarthy, November 30, 2007, The Guardian)

Israel's prime minister issued a rare warning yesterday that his nation risked being compared to apartheid-era South Africa if it failed to agree an independent state for the Palestinians. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Ehud Olmert said Israel was "finished" if it forced the Palestinians into a struggle for equal rights.

If the two-state solution collapsed, he said, Israel would "face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished". Israel's supporters abroad would quickly turn against such a state, he said.

"The Jewish organisations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents," he said.

HEROIC CONSERVATIVES OF A FEATHER...:

Cameron in talks with Bush as Tories aim to restore historic ties (Nigel Morris, 30 November 2007, Independent)

David Cameron held talks with George Bush at the White House last night in a move to rebuild the Tories' historic ties to the Republican Party.

Making the first visit to Washington by a Conservative leader for six years, he discussed the international situation with the President during a 30-minute meeting. The talks covered the Middle East peace process, Afghanistan, Iran, global warming and free trade. Aides said the two men also swapped light-hearted anecdotes about cycling.

The meeting was a coup for the Tory leader's team who are keen to boost the party's image across the Atlantic. They believe that Tony Blair's departure has given them a crucial opportunity to repair the damage caused by former Tory leader Michael Howard's criticism of the conduct of the Iraq war.

MORE:
David vs. Goliath (Liz Mair, November 29, 2007, The American)

Welfare reform is becoming a hot topic in Great Britain, where Conservative Party leader David Cameron is calling for a radical shakeup of the benefit system. Why the sudden fuss? For one thing, welfare rolls have barely contracted under a decade of Labour government. Despite the party’s pledges to get people off the dole and into work, since 1997 the number of benefit recipients has shrunk by just 300,000. Worse, according to the free-market Adam Smith Institute, more than 3 million Britons have been on welfare for over a year. Benefit dependency remains particularly widespread in Britain’s big cities. According to the Spectator magazine, one out of five people in Birmingham claims benefits; in Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester, that number rises to one in four.

According to Britain’s Treasury, millions of jobs have been created in the last decade, too—but more than 80 percent of them have been filled by foreign workers. It appears that many Britons now favor welfare over work. With as many as 51 separate benefits now available, there are plenty of options allowing them to stay on the dole.

Cameron and his new breed of Tories want to change this. In his speech to the annual party conference in Bournemouth this year, the Conservative leader said that Britain should look at reforms that have “worked elsewhere in the world.” Specifically, he is looking to Wisconsin, where ex-Governor Tommy Thompson implemented radical and aggressive reforms that ultimately cut benefit rolls by around 90 percent.

NOT EVERY COUNTRY IS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO PRODUCE A PINOCHET:

In Chávez Territory, Signs of Dissent (SIMON ROMERO, 11/29/07, NY Times)

Even some of Mr. Chavez’s most fervent supporters are beginning to show signs of hesitation at supporting the constitutional changes he is promoting, including ending term limits for the president and greatly centralizing his authority.

New fissures are emerging among his once-cohesive supporters, pointing to the toughest test at the polls for Mr. Chavez in his nine-year presidency.

In the slums of the capital, where some of the president’s staunchest backers live amid the cinder block hovels, debate over the changes has grown more intense in recent days.

“Chávez is delirious if he thinks we’re going to follow him like sheep,” said Ivonne Torrealba, 29, a hairdresser in Coche who supported Mr. Chávez in every election beginning with his first campaign for president in 1998. “If this government cannot get me milk or asphalt for our roads, how is it going to give my mother a pension?”

Both Mr. Chávez and his critics say opinion polls show they will prevail, suggesting a highly contentious outcome. For the first time in years, Venezuela did not invite electoral observers from the Organization of American States and the European Union, opening the government to claims of fraud if he wins.

THOMAS MORE GETS SOME COMPANY:

Former Rep. Henry Hyde dies (Jim Abrams, 11/29/07, AP)

Days before leaving office, President Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The White House praised Hyde, a leading foe of abortion, as a "powerful defender of life" and an advocate for a strong national defense.

"What often struck me most about Henry was his keen sense of our nation's history and of the gifts bestowed on our Republic by the Founding Fathers, whose actions and deeds were never far from his mind," Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement.

"In his respect for the institutional integrity of the House of Representatives, Henry took second place to no one. He was a forceful advocate for maintaining the dignity of the House and for recognizing the sacrifices and struggles members make while in its service. Indeed, when Henry spoke in Committee or on the House floor, Members on both sides of aisle listened intently and they learned."

Hyde is known as an antiabortion crusader, but he generally fights society's ruling ethos not just on one issue but across the board. The leaders of media and academia, he says,

Admire and implement the Enlightenment ethic, the notion that [theological] revelation has nothing to teach us. In their view, the obstacles to a good society are simply ignorance. "If only we could educate everybody," they cry, "not only would racism, sexism, and crime disappear, but we'd have a wonderful life—Utopia itself!" Ask them about sin, and they reply, "Sin? There's no such thing. Society is the cause of evil and crime."' Somehow, it appears, society has "'failed" the rapist, the dope dealer, the mugger, the murderer. Society's to blame, not the individual responsible for his choices.

There have been three great styles of twentieth-century American oratory—northern Irish, southern white, and black evangelical—and all three are disappearing under the pressure of media mavens who teach public figures to speak in clipped sound bites. Hyde's rolling cadences represent an unapologetic throwback to a better class of rhetoric. For example, while lots of conservative politicians like to mention the references to God in the Pledge of Allegiance and on the back of a penny, only Hyde issues the challenge: "A nation 'under God' means a nation under God's judgment, constantly reminded by our smallest coin that the true measure of ourselves comes from beyond ourselves."

Hyde's office walls display photographs of Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa, but he also has words of praise for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and sentences of scorn for those who decry the Religious Right: "There is a repressive fundamentalism extant in our country today, but it's not of the religious variety. It is the secular fundamentalism that the courts, the ACLU, People for the American Way, and many of our law schools are teaching."

Hyde is relaxed as he rocks softly in his office chair, but there is an edge to his voice as he talks about colleagues who roll over under media pressure: "People want to do what's right, but unfortunately they would rather be perceived as doing right than as actually doing what's right. I think they are torn, and perception wins out, because the adoration of the secular press is heady."

Hyde rolls in his right hand a long cigar as he discusses the job of a member of Congress: "You are supposed to be better informed than the average constituent who gets his information from a paragraph or two in the newspaper, or a sound bite on the television at night. You can make people aware of the truth."

Hyde is perhaps best known for his constant enunciation of one unpopular stand—that human life begins at conception. He became a pro-life advocate in 1969 while serving in the Illinois House of Representatives, and during his first term in Congress introduced the Hyde Amendment, which, since 1976, has prohibited the use of federal funds to pay for abortion. Yet, with over 90 percent of media leaders favoring abortion, Hyde acknowledges that many politicians are retreating from antiabortion positions. He is irritated by so-called seamless-garment rating systems that link abortion to other "life issues," such as the death penalty and nuclear deterrence. They are just a "way of protecting the Kennedys and the Moynihans," he says. He also does not care for the merging of birth control and abortion concerns found among some Catholics and fundamentalists: "Abortion is killing an innocent human life. The other is preventing conception of a human life, which I think is morally wrong, but there is a vast distinction."

Mr. Chief Justice and Members of the Senate.

We are brought together on this most solemn and historic occasion to perform important duties assigned to us by the Constitution.

We want you to know how much we respect you and this institution and how grateful we are for your guidance and cooperation.

With your permission, we the managers of the House are here to set forth the evidence in support of two articles of impeachment against President William Jefferson Clinton. You are here seated in this historic chamber not to embark on some great legislative debate, which these stately walls have so often witnessed, but to listen to the evidence, as those who must sit in judgment.

To guide you in this grave duty you have taken an oath of impartiality. With the simple words "I do," you have pledged to put aside personal bias and partisan interest and to do "impartial justice." Your willingness to take up this calling has once again reminded the world of the unique brilliance of America's constitutional system of government. We are here, Mr. Chief Justice and Distinguished Senators, as advocates for the Rule of Law, for Equal Justice Under the Law and for the sanctity of the oath.

The oath. In many ways the case you will consider in the coming days is about those two words "I do," pronounced at two Presidential inaugurations by a person whose spoken words have singular importance to our nation and to the great globe itself.

More than four hundred fifty years ago, Sir Thomas More, former Lord Chancellor of England, was imprisoned in the Tower of London because he had, in the name of conscience, defied the absolute power of the King. As the playwright Robert Bolt tells it, More was visited by his family, who tried to persuade him to speak the words of the oath that would save his life, even while, in his mind and heart, he held firm to his conviction that the King was in error. More refused. As he told his daughter, "Margaret, "When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his hands. Like water. And if he opens his fingers then - he needn't hope to find himself again..." Sir Thomas More, the most brilliant lawyer of his generation, a scholar with an international reputation, the center of a warm and affectionate family life which he cherished, went to his death rather than take an oath in vain.

Members of the Senate, what you do over the next few weeks will forever affect the meaning of those two words "I do." You are now stewards of the oath. It's significance in public service and our cherished system of justice will never be the same after this. Depending on what you decide, it will either be strengthened in its power to achieve Justice or it will go the way of so much of our moral infrastructure and become a mere convention, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. [...]

MORE:
Indo-US nuke deal's architect dead (Rediff, November 30, 2007)

The former Illinois Republican Congressman Henry Hyde, known in India for the "Hyde Act" that paved the way for civilian nuclear cooperation with the United States, died on Thursday.

He was named a Knight of St. Gregory by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 in recognition of his longtime fight for life.
In 1976, as a freshman congressman, he introduced and successfully persuaded his colleagues to pass the Hyde amendment to an appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services. The amendment restricted the federal government from funding abortions.

"Because of the Hyde amendment countless young children and adults walk on this earth today and have an opportunity to prosper because they were spared destruction when they were most at risk," said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., in a statement.

"With malice toward none, Henry Hyde often took to the House floor to politely ask us to show compassion and respect -- even love -- for the innocent and inconvenient baby about to be annihilated," he said.

Hyde also supported the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and was present in 2003 when Bush signed it into law.

"Henry Hyde is revered by the pro-life movement for his tireless efforts to protect the innocent, defenseless life in the womb," said Joseph Scheidler, national director of the Pro-Life Action League, in a statement. "It is a sad day for America. We have lost a truly great statesman and patriot."

Presenting the documents by which Pope Benedict named Hyde a Knight of St. Gregory in June 2006, now-retired Bishop Joseph L. Imesch of Joliet praised him as "a consistent, steady voice for life" and said, "The church owes you a great deal for that."

A member of St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Bensenville, Hyde met three times with Pope John Paul II and once with Pope Benedict.

In addition to his pro-life work, Hyde's more than three decades in the House included a stint as chairman of the House International Relations Committee. At that time the U.S. committed to investing more than $15 billion to address the worldwide pandemic of HIV/AIDS and established an aid program for poor countries.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee, Hyde garnered support for President Bill Clinton's assault weapons ban in 1994. Hyde also made history in 1998 when he introduced legislation to investigate the case for the impeachment of Clinton. He led the impeachment hearings as chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

"With uncanny skill, determination and grace, he crafted numerous, historic bipartisan laws and common-sense policies that lifted people out of poverty, helped alleviate disease, strengthened the U.S. Code to protect victims and get the criminals off the streets," Smith said. "He was magnificent in his defense of democracy and freedom both here and overseas."

BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIAMOND?:

Economy Continues to Boom Despite Woes (James Pethokoukis, 11/29/07, US News)

Yes, the economic growth numbers for the third quarter were revised sharply upward today, from 3.9 percent to 4.9 percent. [...]

[C]onsider this: If you exclude housing, the economy grew at an astounding 6.1 percent rate, up from a 4.6 percent pace in the second quarter. My guys at Action Economics think gross domestic product growth will average 3.3 percent in the second half of 2007, versus a 2.2 percent average in the first half.

HOW'D YOU LIKE TO BE RUNNING THERE...:

Kennedy announces run for Louisiana Senate seat (The Crypt, 11/29/07, Politico)

Louisiana state Treasurer John Kennedy, who recently switched his party affiliation to become a Republican, announced that he will challenge Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) next year in one of the only Senate races where Republicans are optimistic about their chances for a pickup.

“I will take the first steps and file the necessary paperwork to run for the United States Senate in 2008. I plan to officially kick off the campaign early next year,” Kennedy said in a statement.

WHAT'S LEFT TO A COUNTRY WITHOUT A SOCIETY BUT NATIONAL SOCIALISM?:

Vlad the Great (Orlando Figes, 29 November 2007, New Statesman)

What is Putinism? First, it is a reassertion of the state, a counter-revolution against democracy, which in the eyes of the president's supporters brought Russia to the verge of ruin during the 1990s. The men behind this counter-revolution are the siloviki (from the Russian word for power) - men like Putin from the old KGB (reformed as the FSB), or the armed forces and the "power ministries", which together formed an inner cabinet in Boris Yeltsin's government and brought in Putin as his replacement in 2000. [...]

The second element of Putinism is the intimate connection between politics and business. Senior state officials control and own the public media, sit on the boards of state-owned corporations and enrich themselves from it, have lucrative connections with the oligarchs, and own large shares of the country's banks as well as its oil, gas and mining companies. At a lower level, in many Russian towns, politics and business are closely intertwined with the police and organised crime. Much of this goes well beyond corruption in the conventional meaning of the term (businessmen offering bribes to officials). In Putin's Russia the politician is usually a businessman, too, and perhaps an FSB official as well, so he doesn't need to pay a bribe. Political connections are the fastest way to become rich. The most successful oligarchs are shadowy figures in the presidential entourage. And all the country's senior politicians are multimillionaires, their money safely stashed abroad for them by Kremlin-favoured businessmen. [...]

Meanwhile the Muslim population, with its historically high birth rates, continues to grow, in part as immigrants from central Asia fill the gaps in the labour market. There are 25 million Muslims in Russia today (demographers predict that they will be the majority within 50 years). Like the Jews in previous times, Russia's Muslims have become the focus of a rising wave of xenophobic Russian nationalism that is only partly satisfied by Putin's increasingly nationalist rhetoric. If it weren't for him, millions of Russians would vote for an ultra-nationalist - for instance, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, whose Liberal Democratic Party is expected to come second, or perhaps third behind the Communists, with roughly 10 per cent of the vote. [...]

Nationalism is the third main element of Putinism, and perhaps the key to its success.

Russia represents the only example in history of a state the entire population of which, without exception, all estates taken together, do not acknowledge any independent social force apart from the sovereign authority...

WELCOME TO THE THEOCRACY:

Red Sox, Yankees both talking to Twins about Santana (Buster Olney, 11/29/07, ESPN The Magazine

The Red Sox and Twins are discussing the framework of a Johan Santana deal that would have Boston sending four players to Minnesota in return for the two-time Cy Young Award winner, including center fielder Coco Crisp, pitcher Jon Lester and minor-league shortstop Jed Lowrie, the trio that would to anchor the deal.

Red Sox pitcher Michael Bowden has been discussed as a possible fourth player, sources say, but the identity of the fourth player is in flux.

108 DEGREES OF SEPARATION:

NFC Supremacy at Stake in Dallas (ALLEN BARRA, November 29, 2007, NY Sun)

In normal seasons — and normal here is defined as any year in which the 2007 New England Patriots aren't playing — tonight's Green Bay Packers–Dallas Cowboys match would be hailed as the regular season game of the year. In fact, it might have been billed as the regular season game of this century. Instead, it looks to be little more than an entertaining way of passing a Thursday night — at least for a while.

MAYBE AL GORE WAS AT THE WHITE HOUSE...:

U.S. marks greenhouse gas decline: For the first time since 2001, carbon emissions were less than the year before, the Bush administration reports (James Gerstenzang, 11/29/07, Los Angeles Times)

The Energy Information Administration said that in 2006 the United States released 1.5% fewer tons than in 2005. [...]

The White House drew attention to the decline on the eve of a meeting in Bali, Indonesia, to launch negotiations on a global treaty to reduce such emissions.

President Bush said in a written statement that, when measured against economic growth, it demonstrated "the largest annual improvement since 1985."

MEANWHILE, THE FORWARD STILL PUBLISHES IN YIDDISH...:

English Usage Among Hispanics in the United States (Shirin Hakimzadeh and D'Vera Cohn, 11/29/07, Pew Hispanic Center)

Nearly all Hispanic adults born in the United States of immigrant parents report they are fluent in English. By contrast, only a small minority of their parents describe themselves as skilled English speakers. This finding of a dramatic increase in English-language ability from one generation of Hispanics to the next emerges from a new analysis of six Pew Hispanic Center surveys conducted this decade among a total of more than 14,000 Latino adults. The surveys show that fewer than one-in-four (23%) Latino immigrants reports being able to speak English very well. However, fully 88% of their U.S.-born adult children report that they speak English very well. Among later generations of Hispanic adults, the figure rises to 94%. Reading ability in English shows a similar trend.

As fluency in English increases across generations, so, too, does the regular use of English by Hispanics, both at home and at work. For most immigrants, English is not the primary language they use in either setting. But for their grown children, it is.

IS STEVE PHILLIPS RUNNING THE TWINS?:

Breaking Down The Blockbuster (Aaron Gleeman, 11/29/07)

[O]nce you get past the Garza-for-Young portion of the swap it tilts pretty heavily in the Devil Rays' favor both short and long term.

Garza ranked as the team's No. 1 prospect heading into the season and pitched well after being called up from Triple-A in July, posting a 3.69 ERA and 67-to-32 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 83 innings. A 2005 first-round pick who turned 24 years old earlier this month and won't be eligible for free agency until after the 2013 season, Garza looks capable of being a solid middle-of-the-rotation starter right now and has the potential to be a No. 1 starter down the road if his secondary pitches improve.

Morlan ranked as the team's No. 8 prospect coming into the season and improved his stock by posting a 3.10 ERA and 99-to-20 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 70 innings between high Single-A and Double-A. The 21-year-old former third-round pick has dominated in the minors and projects as a late-inning reliever who could be ready to make a significant big-league impact as soon as 2008. Meanwhile, Rincon is set to make about $4 million via arbitration and is in the midst of a steady decline.

Last but not least the Twins surprisingly sent their 28-year-old starting shortstop packing, although perhaps it isn't such a shock given the lengths that they went to avoid handing Bartlett the starting gig in the first place. Bartlett remained at Triple-A in favor of Juan Castro long after he'd proven himself in the minors and then hit .282/.350/.374 with 33 steals and strong defense in 239 games after finally taking over for Castro in mid-2006, yet a hitting-starved team with no clear replacement just let him go.

The package that the Twins received in return for Garza, Morlan, and Bartlett essentially means that Young must become a superstar for the trade to be successful.

THE LAST TWO LAZY GUYS TO RUN ON IDEAS WERE RWR AND W:

Thompson takes on D.C. expectations (Peter A. Brown, Nov 29, 2007, Politico)

Fred Thompson's presidential campaign has been unorthodox since Day One, and his decision to grab the "third rail" of American politics with both hands is a clear indication that he really is a different kind of candidate.

Since agreeing to run after a mild draft effort by conservatives looking to fill the void in the race for a candidate who shared their views and values, Thompson has pursued what can only be considered a nontraditional path.

He has eschewed the traditional 24/7 campaign run by his competitors and expected by the Washington, D.C.-based mainstream news media, which has labeled him poorly prepared, lazy and lackluster.

Yet he runs second in national polls of GOP voters and leads in parts of the South.

Now, the former Tennessee senator-turned-actor is making reform of Social Security and Medicare — the kind of issues presidential candidates typically avoid like the plague — major campaign topics as he seeks the Republican nomination.

Although some might consider that courageous, the conventional wisdom, at least inside the Beltway, is that this is akin to committing political suicide. It will put a big, bright target on his back.

DISTRACT THE WAHOOS WITH A TROJAN FENCE...:

Study finds U.S. immigration at record level (Julia Preston, November 29, 2007, IHT)

Immigration over the past seven years was the highest for any seven-year period in U.S. history, bringing 10.3 million new immigrants, more than half of them without legal status, according to an analysis of census data released by the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington.

One in eight people living in the United States is an immigrant, the survey found, for a total of 37.9 million people, the highest level since the 1920s.

W AND THE REST:

Will the USS Kitty Hawk cement U.S.-India military ties? (M.D. Nalapat, November 28, 2007, UPI Asia)

Thanks largely to India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who shared with his leftwing British friends a dislike of the Yanks, the geopolitically senseless alienation between the United States and India continued for five decades after India's independence in 1947. [...]

Even as late as the 1990s, the U.S. was pressuring India to surrender the Kashmir valley to Pakistan. At the same time the Clinton administration was covertly backing the jihadi elements that finally took power in Kabul in 1996 as the Taliban. Interestingly, as yet the U.S. Congress has not opened an enquiry into the 1994-96 policies that resulted in Osama bin Laden's patrons being given charge of Afghanistan, with consequences that have been disastrous for international security.

Relentless U.S. and British pressure since the 1950s on the Kashmir issue, and lavish military and civilian help given to Pakistan, caused New Delhi to gravitate toward the Soviet Union. Even in its 1971-1977 heyday, however, the strategic relationship between New Delhi and Moscow never resulted in a single Soviet soldier coming to India for basing or training.

Nowadays the U.S. military routinely undertakes joint exercises and training sorties in India. Fear of international jihad and worries over a fast-developing Chinese military have made the United States and India de facto military allies.

However, within both countries strong lobbies are still at work to abort this alliance. Within the United States these anti-India groups have coalesced around two poles. The first comprises those who take a Euro-centric view of the world, seeing it in terms of the West and the Rest. Such individuals see little value in a full-fledged alliance with India that might divert focus from NATO. According to this school, the only core international partners of value to the United States in worldwide conflicts are the other NATO countries.

The other lobby hard at work within the United States to sabotage the India-U.S. military alliance comprises backers of the Pakistan army.

THE FOUR MINUTE CONSTITUTION:

This is pretty much Federalist 51 reduced to a great pop song.

WHERE'S TOM NAST WHEN YOU NEED HIM?:

Trading Places: Will the secular left soon attack the religious right for being pro-science? (JOSEPH BOTTUM, November 28, 2007, Opinion Journal)

[A]ll those editorialists and columnists who have, over the past 10 years, howled and howled about Luddites and religious fanatics thwarting science and frustrating medicine--were they really interested in technology and health, or were they just using all that as a handy stick with which to whack their political opponents? [...]

[T]his news turns on its head everything in what the nation's newspapers have delivered to us as a story of blinkered pro-lifers vs. courageous scientists.

The people who turn out actually to have believed in the power of science are the pro-lifers--the ones who said that a moral roadblock is not, in point of fact, an outrageous hindrance, for scientists will always find another, less-objectionable way to achieve their goals. President Bush's refusal of federal funding for new embryonic stem cell lines didn't halt major stem-cell advances, any more than the prohibition against life-threatening research on human subjects, such as the infamous Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, stopped the advance of medical treatments.

For those who attacked the pro-lifers in the name of science, however, things look a little different. As Maureen L. Condic explained to First Thigns readers this year in her careful survey, "What We Know About Embryonic Stem Cells," the promises of medical breakthroughs were massively overblown by the media.

But there were reasons for all the hype. I have long suspected that science, in the context of the editorial page of the New York Times, was simply a stalking-horse for something else. In fact, for two something-elses: a chance to discredit America's religious believers, and an opportunity to put yet another hedge around the legalization of abortion. After all, if our very health depends on the death of embryos, and we live in a culture that routinely destroys early human life in the laboratory, no grounds could exist for objecting to abortion.

MEANWHILE...:

The anti-war phonies (JOHN BRUHNS, 11/19/07, Philadelphia Inquirer)

I CAME HOME from Iraq in February 2004 and since then have fought tooth and nail for an end to the war.

I did so because I believe the war is immoral and illegal. I aligned myself with some high- profile lobbying organizations who I believed would have the most significant impact on ending the war. In doing so, I detached myself from the people of this country who are honestly committed to ending the war.

I traded my convictions for "special interest" groups who sometimes seem to be in place simply to smear those who disagree with their political agenda. But the agenda is not anti-war. The war is used by these organizations as ammunition against political foes - primarily Republicans. They are the enemy despite the fact that many Democrats vote the same way.

It was very hard for me to go "off the reservation." I didn't want to face the fact that these anti-war groups had other aims.

We watched as legislation that had no substantial impact on ending the war was debated. There ARE anti-war resolutions still floating out there that call for a real end to the war, but the groups I worked for wouldn't spend one dime to promote legislation considered out of the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

Any genuine anti-war message was filtered through media consultants who provide politically correct "talking points" to veterans for them to carry out a phony message that is beneficial to the campaign.

We threatened Republicans with "political extinction" if they didn't change their votes on Iraq. It was a partisan tactic that got us nowhere fast.

When I worked with these organizations, I did nothing to actually stop the war. I only put on a good show that would catch the attention of the media.

ILLUSTRATING BOTH...:

Official cleared of spying despite intervention by Iran's president (Robert Tait, November 28, 2007, The Guardian)

Mousavian, who served as nuclear negotiator during the 1997-2005 reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami, was detained for a week last spring before being freed on bail. The case became symbolic of a struggle for control over Iran's nuclear policy between Ahmadinejad, who refuses to suspend uranium enrichment, and pragmatists close to Rafsanjani who favour dealing with the west.

Ahmadinejad intervened directly in the case against Mousavian two weeks ago by publicly labelling him a "spy" while accusing critics of the government's nuclear policy of being "traitors" who were colluding with western governments. Ahmadinejad said Mousavian's supporters were pressuring the judge to clear him, but said he would not escape "justice".

Yesterday, Alireza Jamshidi, spokesman for the judiciary, appeared to condemn the comments. And the conservative newspaper Jomhouri Eslami, thought to have links to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, last week denounced the president's attacks as "immoral" and said the courts should consider prosecution.

BLAME W:

Cyber Monday Online Sales Jump 21 Percent (AP, 11/28/07)

American consumers jammed online shopping sites on Monday, the official start of the holiday season for e-tailers, resulting in robust sales, according to an Internet research company.

ComScore Inc. reported on Tuesday that consumers spent $733 million online on Monday, a 21 percent gain from the same day a year ago. ComScore had expected that sales would exceed the $700 million figure.

While the first Monday after Thanksgiving kicks off the online holiday shopping season, it's not the busiest day for retailers, according to comScore.

Last year, the busiest online shopping day was Wednesday, Dec. 13, generating $667 million in sales. The Monday after Thanksgiving was actually the 12th busiest day in terms of sales for the 2006 holiday period.

THEY JOIN JUST AS BILL CLINTON DEFECTS:

< a href=http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gkx-3oYeFwuWKCusr2jrojs98w8wD8T6T8LO0>6,000 Sunnis Join Pact With US in Iraq (LAUREN FRAYER, 11/28/07, AP)

Nearly 6,000 Sunni Arab residents joined a security pact with American forces Wednesday in what U.S. officers described as a critical step in plugging the remaining escape routes for extremists flushed from former strongholds.

The new alliance — called the single largest single volunteer mobilization since the war began — covers the "last gateway" for groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq seeking new havens in northern Iraq, U.S. military officials said.

U.S. commanders have tried to build a ring around insurgents who fled military offensives launched earlier this year in the western Anbar province and later into Baghdad and surrounding areas. In many places, the U.S.-led battles were given key help from tribal militias — mainly Sunnis — that had turned again al-Qaida and other groups.

WHORING AROUND ON THE PUBLIC DIME:

Giuliani billed obscure agencies for trips (Ben Smith, Nov 28, 2007, Politico)

As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.

At the time, the mayor’s office refused to explain the accounting to city auditors, citing “security.”

SO THE SOX WON'T HAVE ANOTHER CAKEWALK:

Twins close to landing Delmon Young (La Velle E. Neal III, November 28th, 2007, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

The main pieces changing teams would be outfielder Delmon Young and righthander Matt Garza. But indications were strong on Wednesday that as many as six players could be involved.

In addition to Garza, the Twins would send Tampa Bay shortstop Jason Bartlett and reliever Juan Rincon for Young, shortstop Brendan Harris and outfielder Jason Pridie.

N.B. Buster Olney says the Rays are about to sign Troy Percival too.

MORE:
Even better: the Rays apparently got a good prospect, Eduardo Morlan (a Cuban, no less), instead of Rincon.

THANKS, MARTY:

Move over Norway, Iceland is now the coolest place to live (ETHAN MCNERN, 11/28/07, The Scotsman)

ICELAND has overtaken Norway as the world's most desirable country in which to live, according to the latest UN index on human development.

Rich, free-market countries dominate the top places, with Iceland, Norway, Australia, Canada and Ireland the first five, while AIDS-afflicted sub-Saharan African states are once again at the bottom.

The United States slips to 12th place from eighth last year in the UN Human Development Index, with the UK taking 16th place behind Austria at 15th.

WHO KNEW THEY WERE NEW?:

The darling of the apple world (Jennifer Bain, 11/28/07, Toronto Star)

Honeycrisp is the apple of our eye these days.

With distinctive mottled red skin over a yellow background, these stunners are the hottest apples of the season. But it's the explosive crispness and mild, honeyed flavour that's really winning fans.

When Kathy McKay gave an "All About Ontario Apples" talk at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair earlier this month, the Ontario Apple Growers doled out Honeycrisps to everyone who asked a question.

"It's a new variety and some people haven't yet experienced it," says the association's Kelly Ciceran.

Scour the Internet and the praise gets positively effusive.

The Association of University Technology Managers, in its inaugural "Better World Report" last year, declared Honeycrisps one of 25 innovations that changed the world.

NO-BRAINER:

Sources: Santana for Buchholz, Lester, prospect and $130 million (Bill Burt, 11/28/07, Eagle Tribune)

If the Red Sox want Johan Santana, probably among the top five starting pitchers in baseball, they can have him.

But it’s going to cost them.

According to two separate sources the Red Sox would have to, in the very least, give the Twins two of their best young pitchers, Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester, and another “major league” prospect … Oh yes, and about $130 million over six (or seven) years to Santana.

The Red Sox have apparently told the Twins that Jacoby Ellsbury is off limits.

THE IDEA MAN:

Flat Tax Fred: Thompson's reform leads the GOP field (Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2007)

Mr. Thompson wants to abolish the death tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax and cut the corporate income tax rate to 27% from 35%. But his really big idea is a voluntary flat tax that would give every American the option of ditching the current code in favor of filing a simple tax return with two tax rates of 10% and 25%.

Mr. Thompson is getting aboard what has become a global bandwagon, with more than 20 nations having adopted some form of flat tax. Most--especially in Eastern Europe--have seen their economies grow and revenues increase as they've adopted low tax rates of between 13% and 25% with few exemptions.

The main political obstacle to such a reform in the U.S. has come from liberals, who favor punitive taxes for "class" reasons, and K Street corporate lobbyists who want to retain their tax-loophole empires. The housing and insurance industries, states and localities, charities, bond traders and tax preparers are all foes of low tax rates.

That's why the idea of a voluntary flat tax--introduced on these pages a dozen years ago--makes political sense.

EXCEPT THAT ISN'T MALE ENERGY:

Where Boys Grow Up to Be Jihadis (ANDREA ELLIOTT, 11/25/07, NY Times Magazine)

The people of Jamaa Mezuak were no strangers to militant Islam. A few years earlier, five other men from the neighborhood said their own goodbyes. They went to Spain to seek their fortunes. But they became famous as key suspects in the bombings of four commuter trains in Madrid that killed 191 people on March 11, 2004. They called home a few weeks after the attacks, their voices urgent. They were hiding in an apartment on the city’s outskirts. As the Spanish police closed in, an explosion rocked the building. The men died instantly, in a ghastly group suicide.

In the years since Sept. 11, the question of what makes a terrorist has become ever more urgent. Much about young Muslim militants remains opaque, from the texture of their family lives to the full scope of their desires. Theories of radicalization have come and gone. Experts have variously blamed poverty, Arab nationalism, the Internet, geopolitics, alienation, charismatic sheiks, dictatorial regimes and youthful anomie. But in the study of contemporary terrorism, there has never been a laboratory quite like Jamaa Mezuak.

Perhaps no theory could have predicted Jamal Ahmidan, a mastermind of the Madrid bombings. He was a feisty drug dealer with a passion for motorcycles and a weakness for Spanish women. His fellow plotters from the old neighborhood in Morocco included petty criminals and a candy vendor. If they seemed a poor fit for militant Islam, so were the young men from Jamaa Mezuak who eventually left for Iraq. One styled his hair after John Travolta. Another was a frustrated comedian. They had yearned for a life in Europe, it seemed, not death in the Middle East.

What, then, caused them to embrace violent jihad? In a city flooded with televised images of civilians dying in Iraq, the forces of politics and religion surely weighed on these men’s lives. For some of them, public outrage merged with personal grievance. One man lost his job and left for Iraq six months later. Another was forbidden to marry the girl he loved. The drug dealer had languished in a Moroccan jail, separated from his young son.

Yet individual experiences and ideological convictions can only explain so much. Increasingly, terrorism analysts have focused on the importance of social milieu. Some stress that terrorists are not simply loners, overcome by a militant cause. They are more likely to radicalize together with others who share the same passions and afflictions and daily routines. As the story of Jamaa Mezuak suggests, the turn to violence is seldom made alone. Terrorists don’t simply die for a cause, Scott Atran, an anthropologist who studies terrorism, told me. “They die for each other.”

There is nothing isolated about Tetouan. This city of 400,000 on the northern tip of Morocco sits just miles from the Mediterranean Sea. It has long been a crossroads between Africa and Europe, a place steeped in many cultures. Today, some of its streets still carry the Spanish names of their colonial past. Men sip espressos in weathered cafes. The city is a short drive from Tangier, the onetime retreat of Paul Bowles and William Burroughs, where the Spanish coastline glimmers seductively on clear nights from across the Strait of Gibraltar. It is a constant reminder of what lies just over the horizon, the promise of a different life.

The neighborhood of Jamaa Mezuak rises up over a meandering, muddy river on the western side of Tetouan, at the foot of a craggy mountain. Lines of parched clothing crisscross the rooftops, sharing space with satellite dishes. Much of the area was once farmland owned by a wealthy man who built the first local mosque, or jamaa, in 1933 and gave it his family’s name, Mezuak. Squatters eventually populated the area. Thousands more poured in from the nearby Rif Mountains after a devastating drought in the early 1980s. Many of these farmers and peasants struggled to adapt to city life and would feel alienated for years to come.

Their neighborhood is a cacophonous blend of urban and rural. Sheep spill down alleys, weaving around oncoming traffic. At night, the animals scuttle into converted garages, watched over by aging shepherds with wooden canes. No one knows exactly how many people live in Jamaa Mezuak — the mayor of Tetouan puts the number at 6,000, though others insist that it is triple that. But the streets teem with life. Drug dealers idle near butcher shops, where plucked chickens hang limply for sale. Boys in soccer jerseys linger on stoops. Their uncles gamble in Cafe Chicago, smoking cigarettes rolled with hashish. Weddings are held at the Palace of Peace, a catering hall aglow with glass chandeliers. Down the street, bearded men in djellabas, the hooded robes, gather outside a mosque as women pass by in whispering clusters and slip behind the mirrored doors of beauty salons.

If there is one outlet for the neighborhood’s wellspring of male energy, it is soccer.

THE RIGHT FIGHT:

How to Fight for Life (Lisa Fabrizio, 11/28/2007, American Spectator)

Can one be pro-life and not in favor of a Constitutional Amendment which seeks a federal ban on abortion? The easy answer is that one can and probably should be both. But at this time in our history, the amendment process is, sadly, a pipe dream. Imagine trying to get two-thirds of both houses of our Democratic Congress to even propose such an amendment. Then further fantasize that three-fourths of the states would ratify it in the present political climate. This is an all-or-nothing approach that in all probability would save no lives.

Thompson correctly points out that working for the repeal of Roe v. Wade, then making the fight a state-by-state process, is a much more realistic and feasible goal. A states-rights argument should not only appeal to federalists, but ought to be seen as the best current solution by all who cherish life. I'm with the folks who say that abortion is murder, and in this country, murder and its consequences have always been defined by each individual state. And this is where the battle lines must be drawn.

One reason is that dealing with state legislators would be easier than battling their federal counterparts who are in the grips of lobbyists and other special interest groups; the locals are closer to the people they represent and therefore more accountable to them. Another, and probably more important, reason is that the pro-death faction fears this route the most.

They know that, should the question of abortion descend from the dark tower of judicial tyranny and land where it belongs, in the hands of the people, their "cause" is in trouble.

FIRST THE UNIONS THEN THE YOUTHS...:

Police and protesters clash near Paris (Katrin Bennhold, November 27, 2007, IHT)

Dodging rocks and projectiles, the police lined the streets of this tense suburb Tuesday where angry youths have vowed to seek revenge for the deaths of two teenagers who died in a weekend collision with a police car.

Police union officials warned that the violence was escalating into urban guerrilla warfare, with shotguns aimed at officers — a rare sight in the last major outbreak of suburban unrest, in 2005.

MORE:
In French Suburbs, Same Rage, but New Tactics (ELAINE SCIOLINO, 11/27/07, NY Times)

[W]hile the scale of the unrest of the past few days does not yet compare with the three-week convulsion in hundreds of suburbs and towns in 2005, a chilling new factor makes it, in some sense, more menacing. The onetime rock throwers and car burners have taken up hunting shotguns and turned them on the police. [...]

It is legal to own a shotgun in France — as long as the owner has a license — and police circles were swirling with rumors that the bands of youths were procuring more weapons.

“This is a real guerrilla war,” Mr. Ribeiro told RTL radio, warning that the police, who have struggled to avoid excessive force, will not be fired upon indefinitely without responding.

ROUND UP THE USUAL LIBERATORS:

Bush and Blair unite in bid to create historic Middle East peace accord (DAVID GARDNER, 27th November 2007, Daily Mail)

Mr Bush was joined by more than 40 Arab leaders and international envoys, including Tony Blair, as he opened the conference at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

The former prime minister is there in his role as Middle East envoy for the quartet, which represents Europe, Russia, the U.S. and the UN.

If the Annapolis conference leads to Israel and the Palestinians signing a peace treaty by the end of next year, much of the credit will go to Condoleezza Rice.

The US Secretary of State has racked up 100,000 miles in eight trips to the Middle East over the past year with the sole aim of reviving a peace process ignored for six years by a Bush administration convinced peace was elusive after Bill Clinton's narrow failure to seal a deal in 2000.

MORE:
Drilling a Hole in the Lifeboat (Barry Rubin, November 25, 2007, GLORIA)

What would you do if your foreign policy agenda had these priorities:

* Get Arab and European support for solving the Iraq crisis.
* Mobilize Arab and European forces against a threat led by Iran and its allies, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah.
* Get Iran to stop its campaign to get nuclear weapons.
* Reestablish American credibility toward friends and deterrence toward enemies.
* Reduce the level of Israel-Palestinian conflict.

That pretty much describes the U.S. framework for dealing with the Middle East nowadays. The Annapolis conference is not going to contribute to these goals. The most likely outcome is either failure or a non-event portrayed as a victory because it took place at all. No one is going to say: We are so grateful at the United States becoming more active on Arab-Israeli issues that we are going to back its policy on other issues.

AS ALWAYS...:

The youth of Venezuela rise up: Student protests against a Dec. 2 referendum reveal that the mantle of 'the left' is up for grabs. (CS Monitor, November 28, 2007)

A Dec. 2 referendum in Venezuela that would grant extreme powers to Hugo Chávez isn't going as the budding dictator planned. Youth are protesting and the poor have doubts. Just who is the "left" in Venezuela is now up for grabs.

ALL WE WANT FOR CHRISTMAS:

Super Mario Galaxy Is, Well, Out of This World: A breathtaking journey through space revives the mustachioed plumber (Chris Ward, November 25th, 2007, Village Voice)

There's no surer sign that a franchise is in trouble than when it blasts into outer space. So you were right to be nervous when Nintendo announced its plans to follow-up the subpar game Super Mario Sunshine with something called Super Mario Galaxy, which promised to launch the mustachioed plumber into orbit.

Well, take your protein pill and put your helmet on: After months of hype, Nintendo has delivered. Super Mario Galaxy is out of this world in just about every way. [...]

"Breathtaking" and "epic" may not have been the first words you'd use to describe the world of Mario, but they're merited here: Super Mario Galaxy might be the prettiest game ever made for the Wii. The first time you launch into the massive, stardust-covered horizon and crash-land in a shimmering water planet, you'll finally see what the system's graphic engine is capable of. You might even get a little choked up during the gorgeous, Big Bang-inspired finale . . . and not in the same way you did when Mario found out Sorry, but our Princess is in another castle.

THE SCARLET AND THE BLACK (via Luciferous):

Iran's Secret Weapon: The Pope (Jeff Israely, Nov. 26, 2007, TIME)

The diplomatic chess game around Iran's nuclear program includes an unlikely bishop. According to several well-placed Rome sources, Iranian officials are quietly laying the groundwork necessary to turn to Pope Benedict XVI and top Vatican diplomats for mediation if the showdown with the United States should escalate toward a military intervention. The 80-year-old Pope has thus far steered clear of any strong public comments about either Iran's failure to fully comply with U.N. nuclear weapons inspectors or the drumbeat of war coming from some corners in Washington. But Iran, which has had diplomatic relations with the Holy See for 53 years, may be trying to line up Benedict as an ace in the hole for staving off a potential attack in the coming months. "The Vatican seems to be part of their strategy," a senior Western diplomat in Rome said of the Iranian leadership. "They'll have an idea of when the 11th hour is coming. And they know an intervention of the Vatican is the most open and amenable route to Western public opinion. It could buy them time."

If the situation heats up in the coming months, the question of exactly what role the Vatican would play could become pivotal. Says one high-ranking Vatican official: "The Iranians look to the Holy See with particular attention. It is born from our common religious matrix." [...]

Asked about the standoff with the West over his country's nuclear program, Fahima repeated Iran's insistence that it is seeking atomic power only for civilian purposes. Moreover, he said he doubts that the United States can resolve key regional issues in the Middle East, including Iraq and Lebanon, without the help of Iran. "We don't expect the superpower will attack," Fahima concluded. "But if they do, I am sure the Holy See would not be favorable to such a choice."

ONLY A MATTER OF WEEKS UNTIL HIS OTHER PROSTATE ACTS UP:

When Rudy met Hillary: Rudy Giuliani markets himself as the Republican with the best shot at beating Hillary Clinton next fall. But the first time the pair faced off, that's not how it worked out. (Rob Polner, Nov. 27, 2007, Salon)

Post 9/11, it may be hard for many outside New York to remember that city residents had started to tire of their mayor by 2000, as the end of Giuliani's second term neared. Giuliani's habit of hurling poison darts at Clinton was a reminder to New Yorkers of his appetite for confrontation and his need to belittle opponents. The Clinton operation stuck doggedly to discussing local issues at one campaign stop after another. Hillary would make 30 dutiful visits upstate between July 1999 and mid-February 2000. Giuliani trekked upstate much less frequently, and usually confined himself to city-centered themes and his mayoral record on crime and welfare cuts. The mayor also continued to paint Clinton as a panderer and part of the "liberal elite."

But all of his potshots failed to make a dent in the 10 percent sliver of undecided voters on which the outcome of the election appeared to depend. By January it was clear that Rudy's upstate advertising had not driven Hillary's numbers down or his own numbers up, and polls showed that the carpetbagger charge, never very wounding, had lost much of its power. Clinton ground out yardage little by little and hoped Rudy would beat himself by being, well, himself.

That's what Giuliani was doing on Feb. 7, when he read the lyrics to "Captain Jack" aloud at City Hall. If it was not the turning point in the campaign -- and perhaps it was, because Hillary would pull even with Rudy in some polls within three weeks -- it was at least emblematic of what the coming months would bring.

After Hillary's campaign officially launched on Feb. 6 with its embarrassing, but trivial, musical gaffe, Matt Drudge linked to her use of "Captain Jack" on his Web site. Giuliani operatives contacted reporters early the next morning, telling them to look at Drudge's site, and faxing them an outraged press release from William Donohue of the right-wing Catholic League. Reporters were prepped to ask Giuliani about the Billy Joel song.

At his City Hall press conference, after reading the lyrics aloud, Giuliani professed outrage. "Can you imagine," he asked, "if George Bush had held an event and right before the event a song was played that said, Let's say yes to drugs, let's glorify drugs, let's glorify pot?" He said there was a possibility the choice of songs had been intentional and wasn't just the product of a snafu. "It means that people of that ilk and that ideology are around you."

But the response to Giuliani's gambit, at least in New York City, might not have been what the candidate desired. On the local NBC TV affiliate, political reporter Jay DeDapper betrayed disdain as he explained how the Giuliani campaign had contacted local journalists, trying to interest them in the supposed controversy. "It's only February and it's come to this," said DeDapper, on air. At the end of the week, Daily News columnist Michael Kramer, no Clinton fan, awarded "Round 1" to Hillary, and said Rudy was the loser because he was "on one of his famous, petulant tears." Kramer cited the "Captain Jack" incident. "The mayor's rant," he said, "was petty and bullying." Kramer also slammed Giuliani for filling upstate talk-radio airwaves with "over-the-top" anti-Hillary commentary. Clinton continued to march through the snow.

By March 2, at least in a Siena College poll, the candidates were tied, 42 to 42. External events kept breaking Clinton's way. A jury acquitted the police of murder in the death of Amadou Diallo. George Bush became the all-but-certain Republican nominee for president. Both developments seemed to scare a few Democrats back into Hillary's column. Journalists began to describe Clinton as a greatly improved, dogged campaigner, and they noticed that she was closing in on 50 percent upstate. Democrat Chuck Schumer had hit that magic number when he knocked incumbent Republican Al D'Amato out of the Senate two years earlier. And then, with the race neck and neck, the mayor handed Clinton the lead. He did it not by attacking her or another politician, but by impugning the memory of a previously unknown resident of his city.

On March 16, an undercover cop working a "buy and bust" sting outside a Manhattan cocktail lounge tried to persuade a 26-year-old Haitian-American security guard named Patrick Dorismond to sell him some drugs. Dorismond took offense at the officers' overture. A scuffle erupted, a cop's gun went off, and Dorismond fell to the pavement dead. Amid the news of the fourth police shooting of an unarmed black man in the city in 13 months, Giuliani and his police commissioner, Howard Safir, released the dead man's sealed juvenile record to discredit him. The victim "wasn't an altar boy," the mayor said.

In fact, Dorismond had, literally, been an altar boy. He had even attended the same Catholic high school as Giuliani. As Time's Margaret Carlson would write, "Giuliani may want to consider saying he's sorry and letting Patrick Dorismond rest in peace." Instead, Giuliani said he had no regrets and had handled the matter "appropriately." Within days of the shooting and Giuliani's response, polls indicated that his electoral support within New York City, the advantage he'd enjoyed over any other potential GOP Senate candidate, had begun to collapse among two key groups, Latinos and Jews. At the start of the month, a Zogby poll had still shown Giuliani in the lead statewide; by March 25, another Zogby poll had Clinton 3 points ahead.

An early April New York Times poll gave Clinton an even larger lead, 8 points. Giuliani remained deadlocked with her upstate -- but then he scrapped an upstate campaign swing in order to attend the Yankees home opener, blowing off 400 ticket-holders to a "Women for Giuliani" luncheon in Rochester. Giuliani was unapologetic, telling reporters at the ballpark that he'd ignored the advice of his advisors so that he could do what he loved best. Clinton popped up outside a diner in Rochester, a portable microphone in her hand. "Well, I'm happy to be here," she said. "I have enjoyed coming to the Rochester area talking about the issues."

In a sense, it was all a replay of 1998 and early 1999, before either candidate had officially announced. Back then, Hillary had topped the polls because New Yorkers were, for a time, sympathetic to her and sick of Rudy. Throughout the state, voters had channeled their weariness with the GOP-dominated Congress' impeachment of President Clinton into support for his wife; at the same time, New York City voters expressed their irritation with Giuliani's insensitive handling of another police shooting -- the death of Amadou Diallo -- by withholding their support for him. Hillary as victim and Rudy as bully had meant a fleeting lead in the polls for the Democrat, one that evaporated once memories of Lewinsky and Diallo became less vivid. A year later, Rudy was again making Clinton the victim and himself the bully, and again helping his opponent.

After Dorismond, the bad news never stopped for Rudy. On April 27 he announced that he'd been diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer. Though he resumed campaigning within days of surgery, expressing eagerness to return to the trail, the New York Post soon published a photograph of the married father of two children standing next to a woman the tabloid described as a "Mystery Brunch Pal."

At the same time, the New York Conservative Party began to make good on its threat to back a third-party bid rather than endorse Giuliani. Former Rep. Joseph DioGuardi announced that he was seeking the nomination on the Conservative line, and party chair Mike Long called him "the right candidate." Just as in the present election cycle, when social conservatives have hinted they may boycott the candidacy of the pro-choice Giuliani, Long had been hinting throughout the 2000 Senate race that Giuliani would have to change his stand on abortion and several other litmus-test issues or forgo the Conservative Party's endorsement. No Republican had won statewide office in New York in more than two decades without appearing on the Conservative Party ballot line as well. In some cases, the endorsement had been worth 200,000 votes. Long's disenchantment was also personal; the endorsement had been withheld, at least in part, because of Giuliani's abrasive manner. "The mayor," said Long, "just doesn't know how to handle human beings."

Republican power broker Joseph Bruno, the majority leader of the state Senate, was soon pleading with Rudy to straighten out his marriage and focus on defeating Hillary. But by then it was too late. Giuliani was about to give himself the coup de grâce.

As Bruno's comments made headlines, the mayor disclosed at a May 10 press conference that he did indeed have a "very special friend." His secret affair with Judi Nathan had started some 10 months earlier, said Giuliani. By the way, he was also leaving his wife of 16 years, Donna Hanover.

Hanover apparently didn't know that last bit of information was coming. She learned about the dissolution of her marriage on the news. Badly stung, the mother of Giuliani's two children emerged from Gracie Mansion hours later to give her own press conference. Fighting back tears, Hanover accused her husband of conducting another earlier affair with a City Hall aide. He denied it.

After 10 rocky days of deliberation, Giuliani excused himself from the chaos. He dropped out of the race at a packed City Hall press conference on May 20. Giuliani cited his health. His once-promising career in politics looked finished, something he recognized in saying his illness taught him that politics was not the most important thing in his life any longer.

There were only 11 days left before the GOP's state nominating convention. Rep. Rick Lazio, who had never formally left the Senate race despite the party hierarchy's preference for Giuliani, stepped in to accept the Republican nomination.

WHICH OUGHT TO SILENCE THE LAST "END OF HISTORY" SKEPTIC:

Dalai Lama says heir should be elected (Richard Spencer, 27/11/2007, Daily Telegraph)

In a major break with tradition, the Dalai Lama has said his successor might be chosen before his death with the approval of the Tibetan people through a referendum.

After years of speculation over how the Tibetan leadership would deal with the prospect of his death in exile, the Dalai said he was considering holding a vote over the method of choosing his successor.

HE JUST KEEPS WINNING:

Israelis and Palestinians pledge to reach peace pact by end of 2008 (Steven Lee Myers and Helene Cooper, November 27, 2007, NY Times)

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders committed themselves Tuesday to negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008, setting themselves a deadline for ending a conflict that has endured for six decades.

President George W. Bush announced the agreement at the opening of an international gathering here at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he declared that a peace between Israelis and Palestinians was part of a broader struggle against extremism in the Middle East.

"We meet to lay the foundation for the establishment of a new nation: A democratic Palestinian state that will live side by side with Israel in peace and security," Bush said, appearing in the academy's Memorial Hall, flanked by the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian authority.

"We meet to help bring an end to the violence that has been the true enemy of the aspirations of both the Israelis and Palestinians."

THE NIXONIAN LEFT:

Dems marching backward on foreign policy (James Kirchick, Nov 26, 2007, Politico)

Observers would be forgiven were they to mistake Clinton’s and Gore’s campaign speeches as part of the dreaded “neo-con” oeuvre.

The specific targets of Clinton and Gore were the Republican realists — a breed of the foreign policy establishment embodied by Bush, along with his secretary of state, James Baker, and national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft.

In their talk of “coddling dictators from Beijing to Baghdad,” Clinton and Gore faulted the Bush administration for its feckless response to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and cooperation with Saddam Hussein.

How ironic, then, that in his column last week attacking Connecticut Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, self-identified “progressive” and former Democratic Senate nominee Ned Lamont would hail Bush, Baker and Scowcroft — the latter described by Lamont as “Bush No. 1’s top foreign policy adviser” — as offering the prescription for the Democratic Party’s foreign policy woes.

WRITING OFF THE RED STATES:

Obama: Balance Gun Control: He Cites ‘Realities' of Hunting, Urban Crime (John P. Gregg, 11/27/07, Valley News)

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama yesterday said he believes the U.S. Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms but also said it must be balanced by laws designed to curb gun violence.

At a meeting with Valley News editors and reporters, the Illinois Democrat was asked about a case the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear this session that could re-open a longstanding legal debate about whether the Second Amendment's “right of the people to keep and bear arms” applies to individuals, or relates only to their service in a militia.

The 46-year-old Obama, the first black president of Harvard Law Review and currently on leave as a lecturer on constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, said the Second Amendment was not one of his academic specialties but also said, “I think the decision that this just applies to militias probably did not fairly read the Second Amendment. I actually think, though, that just because it's an individual right doesn't preclude gun control.”

BUT WHOSE DOOR DO YOU NAIL THE THESES TO?:

The Qur'anist Movement (Jamie Glazov, 11/27/2007, FrontPageMagazine.com)

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Thomas Haidon, a Muslim commentator on human rights, counter-terrorism and Islamic affairs. He is active in the Qur'anist movement and works with a number of Islamic reform organisations as an advisor. He has provided guidance to several governments on counter-terrorism issues and his works have been published in legal periodicals, and other media. Mr. Haidon has also provided advice to and worked for United Nations agencies in Sudan and Indonesia. [...]

FP: Tell us about the Qur'an Only movement.

Haidon: The Qur'anic movement is shift back to the Islam of the Qur'an. Qur'anic Muslims follow the words of the Qur'an alone, and reject the so-called traditions of Islam, as these traditions are not revelation. It is a rationalist movement that is based on the principle that the Qur'an provides a comprehensive guide and criterion for Muslims to live by. The Qur'anic movement does not consider the Sunnah and hadith as valid or reliable sources of Islam. This is primary because the Qur'an is the complete source of Islam ("And We have sent down to you the Book explaining all things, a guide, a mercy and glad tidings for those who submit" 16:89). The primary problem with the Muslim tradition is that it is often inconsistent with the Qur'an. Muslims have attempted to resolve these inconsistencies by interpreting the Qur'an through hadith, not the other way around. Put simply, the Qur'an is God's word, the Sunnah is not.

The so-called Sunnah was not written down until approximately 150 years after Muhammad's death. The rightly guided Caliphs fought against codifying the Sunnah out of fear that it would take a life of its own. Muslim jurisprudence has developed a complex approach to determining the veracity reliability of hadith. Early Muslims fought against the transcribing of the hadith, and were able to clearly see the difficulties. Each of the four righly guided Caliph's (Muhammad's companions) were opposed to the transcribing of hadith, regardless of whether they were valid or not. The Sunnah was initially used as a political tool to consolidate the political power of the Abbasids and Ummayids. There is nothing in the Qur'an explicitly requiring Muslims to follow these traditions, only generic verses that Muslim jurisprudence has exploited to serve Islamic rules. A key element of the Qur'anic movement is that it employs a contextual exegetical approach in interpreting the Qur'an. The Qur'an, without contextual and non-literal explanation, can be dangerous (even without reliance on the Sunnah). While many ahadith are innocuous, other ahadith encourage violence, rape and tyranny. Other ahadith (accepted as valid) are simply absurd, such as the ahadith extolling the virtues of camel urine. The Qur'anic approach puts this in perspective.

In my view, the Qur'anic movement provides the only effective mechanism to comprehensive Islamic reform. Importantly, a number of Islamic scholars including Sheikh Ahmed Mansour, Tarek Abdel Hamid, and Edip Yuskel, among others, have developed devastatingly clear arguments in justification of the approach. The Qur'anic movement is also becoming better organized and strategic. Edip Yuskel and other reformers have recently developed and published the "Quran: A Reformist Translation" which provides a contextual interpretation of the Qur'an along with commentary. It also sets out a strategic framework for the reform of Islam, consistent with the Qur'anic approach. The Qur'anic movement is not without its detractors or skeptics. Unlike other reformist approaches, however, the Qur'anic approach is one based in fact and logic. As the movement becomes more organized and develops greater capacity, it will begin to reach traditional Muslims.

WHICH RAISES THE QUESTION...:

Accept Israel as the Jewish State? (Daniel Pipes, 11/27/2007, FrontPageMagazine.com)

Surprisingly, something useful has emerged from the combination of the misconceived Annapolis meeting and a weak Israeli prime minister, Ehud ("Peace is achieved through concessions") Olmert. Breaking with his predecessors, Olmert has boldly demanded that his Palestinian bargaining partners accept Israel's permanent existence as a Jewish state, thereby evoking a revealing response.

Unless the Palestinians recognize Israel as "a Jewish state," Olmert announced on November 11, the Annapolis-related talks would not proceed. "I do not intend to compromise in any way over the issue of the Jewish state. This will be a condition for our recognition of a Palestinian state."

MORE:
On the Jewish Question (BERNARD LEWIS, November 26, 2007, Wall Street Journal)

PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in foreign languages. But that's not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and religious sermons. Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members of the Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace cannot be negotiated.

A good example of how this problem affects negotiation is the much-discussed refugee question. During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths of a million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same period and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine (where not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.

What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike that which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees fled or were driven both ways -- Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims from India to Pakistan. Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a massive refugee movement -- Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.

The Poles and the Germans, the Hindus and the Muslims, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.

CAN THE RETURN OF MASTADONS BE FAR BEHIND?:

Planet-saving madness (Christopher Booker, 27/11/2007, Daily Telegraph)

The scare over global warming, and our politicians' response to it, is becoming ever more bizarre. On the one hand we have the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change coming up with yet another of its notoriously politicised reports, hyping up the scare by claiming that world surface temperatures have been higher in 11 of the past 12 years (1995-2006) than ever previously recorded.

This carefully ignores the latest US satellite figures showing temperatures having fallen since 1998, declining in 2007 to a 1983 level - not to mention the newly revised figures for US surface temperatures showing that the 1930s had four of the 10 warmest years of the past century, with the hottest year of all being not 1998, as was previously claimed, but 1934.

FOLK'LL BELIEVE ANYTHING OF AFRICANS:

An Epidemic of Falsehoods (Michael Fumento, 11/27/2007, American Spectator)

For its data, the U.N. had relied heavily on "sentinel-site surveillance" at prenatal clinics. This system was described and faulted six years ago in Rolling Stone magazine. "If a given number of pregnant women are HIV-positive, the formula says, then a certain percentage of all adults and children are presumed to be infected, too." Such an extrapolation from a small non-representative portion of the population to literally the whole world is nonsense.

And UNAIDS knew it because it had been told by a number of careful, knowledgeable scientists such as Berkeley epidemiologist Dr. James Chin.

Chin, when he worked for the UN, was responsible for some of the earliest world AIDS forecasts. Later he watched how politics -- not a virus -- made those figures zoom into the stratosphere.

Three years ago, Chin told me: "They [the UN] don't falsify per se" but "as an epidemiologist I look at these numbers and how they're derived. Every step of the way there is a range and you can choose the low end or the high end. Almost consistently the high end was chosen."

And guess what? Chin, who is also author of The AIDS Pandemic: The Collision of Epidemiology With Political Correctness, still thinks the numbers are too high. He estimates worldwide HIV infections to be 25 million, still about eight million less than the revised estimate.

So at some point the authorities will be forced to lower the figures again.

TIME FOR COURT TO GO BACK IN SESSION:

Ethiopia bogged down in Somalia (BBC, 11/27/07)

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has acknowledged that his troops cannot withdraw from the conflict in Somalia.

Mr Meles said he had expected to withdraw his soldiers earlier in the year, after Islamists had been driven out of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

But he said divisions within the Somali government had left it unable to replace the Ethiopians, while not enough peacekeepers had arrived.

MORE:
< a href=http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,519776,00.html>INTERVIEW WITH CHAIRMAN OF SOMALIA'S COUNCIL OF ISLAMIC COURTS: 'The So-Called Legal Government Is a Farce': War-torn Somalia is experiencing ongoing fighting between Islamic insurgents and the Ethiopian-backed government. Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, chairman of the Council of Islamic Courts, talked to SPIEGEL ONLINE about how the Ethiopian forces are violating human rights and why he opposes al-Qaida. (Der Spiegel, 11/27/07)

Until this year, the strongest of the many groups which had been battling for power in Somalia was the Council of Islamic Courts (CIC). The loose-knit union of Islamic courts took control of Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia in 2006 and also threatened to take countrol of Ethiopia's Somali-speaking eastern region, the Ogaden.

The Islamists imposed Sharia law during the second half of 2006. They managed to reunite Mogadishu, which had been divided up among rival warlords, and brought some semblance of law and order to the anarchic country.

The Ethiopian army marched into Somalia in December 2006 to help Somali's interim government oust the CIC. The Islamic group, who are strongly opposed to the presence of Ethiopian troops in the country, fought back, prompting the current wave of violence.

However the CIC is not a homogeneous group but is divided between moderates and hardliners, all of whom claim they want to restore stability and the rule of law in the country. [...]

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The Ethiopians marched in to keep Somalia from turning into an Islamist state.

Sheik Sharif: That was a weak pretense which only complicated the situation even further. We never intended to declare an Islamic republic.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But it was clear which way things were heading in Somalia. Alcohol and music were outlawed and women had to wear veils. Some of your coalition partners declared open sympathy with the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. And didn't the terror network al-Qaida gain a foothold in Somalia?

Sheik Sharif: That was an evil slander. Even if a few of our comrades favored a strict interpretation of Islamic law, it was up to the citizens to orient themselves toward Islamic custom according to their own discretion. I was, and still am today, strictly against giving asylum in Somalia to al-Qaida criminals and their kind.

IMPORTING THE SUPERIOR CULTURE:

Study finds immigrants' use of healthcare system lower than expected: UCLA researchers find that Latinos in the U.S. illegally are 50% less likely to visit emergency rooms (Mary Engel, 11/27/07, Los Angeles Times)

By federal law, hospitals must treat every emergency, regardless of a person's insurance -- or immigration -- status. Illegal immigrants, who often work at jobs that don't offer health insurance, are commonly seen as driving both the closures and the crowding.

But the study found that while illegal immigrants are indeed less likely to be insured, they are also less likely to visit a doctor, clinic or emergency room.

"The current policy discourse that undocumented immigrants are a burden on the public because they overuse public resources is not borne out with data, for either primary care or emergency department care," said Alexander N. Ortega, an associate professor at UCLA's School of Public Health and the study's lead author. "In fact, they seem to be underutilizing the system, given their health needs."

ALL THE IMPROVEMENTS IN MODERN HEALTH BOIL DOWN TO JUST TWO...:

Our enemy hands (Katherine Ashenburg, November 27, 2007, IHT)

It's hard to see Americans as under-washed. Sales of antibacterial soap, tooth whiteners and "intimate hygiene" products are skyrocketing. Scientists actually connect the rising rates of asthma and allergies in the West to our overzealous cleanliness. And yet, in a compulsively sanitized culture, cleaning one part of the body - the hands - seems to be more honored in the breach than the observance. Studies show that hospital doctors resist washing their hands, and researchers report that only about 15 percent of people in public restrooms wash their hands properly.

Our ancestors would have been bewildered by this discrepancy between relentlessly scrubbed bodies and neglected hands. Depending on their era and culture, they defined "clean" in a wide variety of ways. A first-century Roman spent a few hours each day in the bathhouse, steaming, parboiling and chilling himself, exfoliating with a miniature rake - and avoiding soap. Elizabeth I boasted that she bathed once a month, "whether I need it or not." Louis XIV is reported to have bathed twice in his long, athletic life, but was considered fastidious because he changed his shirt three times a day.

But through all these swings of the hygiene pendulum, one practice never went out of style - ordinary hand-washing. Which was fortunate, because hand-washing is the one cleansing practice canonized by modern science, a low-tech but effective way to prevent getting and passing on the common cold and infections from Clostridium difficile to MRSA, SARS and bird flu.

HERE COMES THE ICE AGE HYSTERIA:

Hurricane predictions miss the mark (MARTIN MERZER, 11/26/07, Miami Herald)

Just before the season started on June 1, the nationally prominent Gray-Klotzbach team at Colorado State University predicted that 17 named storms would grow into nine hurricanes, five of which would be particularly intense, with winds above 110 mph.

A different team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 13 to 17 named storms, seven to 10 hurricanes and three to five intense hurricanes.

The actual results for the 2007 season: 14 named storms, five hurricanes, two intense hurricanes.

That turned a season predicted to be extremely active into one that was about average in number of storms and well below average in total intensity.

Even mid-season corrections issued by both teams in August -- somewhat akin to changing your prediction about a baseball game during the fifth inning -- proved wrong.

Their pre-season predictions in 2005 and 2006 were even worse.

A HEALTHY STEINBRENNERISM:

Sell the Whole Farm for Santana (TIM MARCHMAN, November 27, 2007, NY Sun)

There has never been a pitcher quite like Johan Santana. You could call him a left-handed Pedro Martinez, but that would insult his uniqueness. Once thought too short to be a starter, the reticent Venezuelan hero has been the key to this decade's baseball renaissance in Minnesota, during which the Twins have made four trips to the playoffs and won approval for a new ballpark. With an explosive fastball, a notorious changeup, and total control of both, the peerlessly efficient Santana has dominated in the game's deepest division. He is the best pitcher in the sport as unquestionably as Martinez once was, and as Greg Maddux was before him.

After this coming season, Santana, 28, will be a free agent. While the Twins have reportedly offered a contract extension, it will likely take something near $150 million to keep Santana off the market, so there is a very real possibility that he will be traded. This has Yankees fans asking whether it would be worth giving up a young pitcher like Philip Hughes or even Joba Chamberlain as part of a package to land Santana. It's a silly question — if they can, they should.

THE DYNAMO AND THE NATIVIST:

Follow the Fundamentals (DAVID BROOKS, 11/27/07, NY Times)

Recently the World Economic Forum and the International Institute for Management Development produced global competitiveness indexes, and once again they both ranked the United States first in the world.

In the World Economic Forum survey, the U.S. comes in just ahead of Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Germany (China is 34th). The U.S. gets poor marks for macroeconomic stability (the long-term federal debt), for its tax structure and for the low savings rate. But it leads the world in a range of categories: higher education and training, labor market flexibility, the ability to attract global talent, the availability of venture capital, the quality of corporate management and the capacity to innovate.

William W. Lewis of McKinsey surveyed global competitive in dozens of business sectors a few years ago, and concluded, “The United States is the productivity leader in virtually every industry.”

Second, America’s fundamental economic strength is rooted in the most stable of assets — its values. The U.S. is still an astonishing assimilation machine. It has successfully absorbed more than 20 million legal immigrants over the past quarter-century, an extraordinary influx of human capital. Americans are remarkably fertile. Birthrates are relatively high, meaning that in 2050, the average American will be under 40, while the average European, Chinese and Japanese will be more than a decade older.

The American economy benefits from low levels of corruption. American culture still transmits some ineffable spirit of adventure. American students can’t compete with, say, Singaporean students on standardized tests, but they are innovative and creative throughout their lives. The U.S. standard of living first surpassed the rest of the world’s in about 1740, and despite dozens of cycles of declinist foreboding, the country has resolutely refused to decay.

Third, not every economic dislocation has been caused by trade and the Chinese. Between 1991 and 2007, the U.S. trade deficit exploded to $818 billion from $31 billion. Yet as Robert Samuelson has pointed out, during that time the U.S. created 28 million jobs and the unemployment rate dipped to 4.6 percent from 6.8 percent.

That’s because, as Robert Lawrence of Harvard and Martin Baily of McKinsey have calculated, 90 percent of manufacturing job losses are due to domestic forces. As companies become more technologically advanced, they shed workers (the Chinese shed 25 million manufacturing jobs between 1994 and 2004).

Meanwhile, the number of jobs actually lost to outsourcing is small, and recent reports suggest the outsourcing trend is slowing down. They are swamped by the general churn of creative destruction. Every quarter the U.S. loses somewhere around seven million jobs, and creates a bit more than seven million more. That double-edged process is the essence of a dynamic economy.

PRISON WIFE TO THE AYATOLLAHS:

Syria a nation of contradictions: Although allied with Iran, its people admire the West. Damascus has its own agenda for peace talks (Borzou Daragahi, 11/27/07, Los Angeles Times)

Syrian officials and analysts speak bitterly of what they call an abandonment of their country by the West they admire. Iran, most admit, is an uncomfortable fit for their nation, which once used to enjoy cozy relations with the West, especially Europe, and with other Arab countries.

The Syrian government has for decades been fighting Islamic militants, some of them linked to Al Qaeda. But relations between Syria and much of the rest of the world soured over Damascus' ties to other militant groups in the region, including those opposed to Israel and the pro-Western government in Lebanon.

Syria has long had close ties with Tehran, strengthened when the government here backed the Islamic Republic during the bitter Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. But Syria's international isolation now has highlighted its connection to Iran.

"The alliance between Syria and Iran is not something new," said a European diplomat in Damascus, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The real thing which has changed is that it's no longer a relationship between two partners with equal weight, but it has shifted to an unequal relationship. It doesn't mean Syria wants what Iran wants."

In fact, though Damascus and Tehran share some of the same general strategic goals, such as confronting Israel, they diverge starkly over the details.

They find themselves on opposite sides in the simmering Shiite-Sunni conflict in Iraq. Tehran backs Shiite allies who dominate the government in Baghdad. Damascus provides a haven for former followers of Saddam Hussein's secular regime -- including, U.S. military officials say, insurgents fighting the Iraqi government.

"Syria and Iran have very few things they agree on for Iraq; they have very different agendas for the post-Saddam regime," said Sami Moubayed, a Damascus political analyst and journalist. "But Syria can't oppose Iran because Iran is Syria's No. 1 friend nowadays."

THE MARGINS COULD EVEN BE BIG ENOUGH TO CARRY CONGRESSIONAL RACES:

Zogby: Hillary Defeatable by 5 GOP Frontrunners (Newsmax Staff, 11/26/07)

All five of the leading Republican presidential candidates — including John McCain — would beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head match-up, according to a surprising new poll from Zogby International.

But Barack Obama outpolled all five GOP hopefuls — Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, and McCain.

BARREL ROLL:

Russia's New Old Dissidents (Anne Applebaum, November 27, 2007, Washington Post)

Kasparov himself, still better known for his titanic battles against the world's smartest chess computer than for his political acumen, is sui generis. His allies in the Other Russia movement are an odd mix. Among them are formerly mainstream economic liberals, including Boris Nemtsov, once deputy prime minister; the would-be fascists of the National Bolshevik Party, led by Eduard Limonov, an ex-dissident, ex-punk, ex-writer; and the remnants of the human rights movement, most notably the Moscow Helsinki Group. Just as the old dissident movement was united only by its hatred of Soviet communism, Other Russia is an umbrella organization, united only by its hatred of Putinism, an ideology that has solidified in recent months into something resembling an old-fashioned personality cult.

Odder still is that we hear anything about them at all. Until recently, this ragtag group of elderly ex-dissidents and 20-somethings surely would have been tolerated by the authorities, whose attitude toward political opposition used to be a good deal subtler. During most of his presidency, Putin's "managed democracy" permitted many forms of political dissent, so long as they remained extremely small. Although most television stations are controlled one way or another by the Kremlin, a few low-circulation newspapers were allowed to keep up some criticism. Although anyone with real potential to oppose Putin was dissuaded or destroyed, a few unpopular critics, Kasparov among them, were allowed to keep talking. A bit of pressure was released, and the regime was never really challenged.

In the past year things have changed. The still-unsolved murder of journalist and Putin critic Anna Politkovskaya was followed by regular physical and verbal attacks on the president's opponents. Typical of the latter was Pravda.ru, which last spring called the anti-Putin opposition a "motley army of deviants, criminals, wannabe politicians, fraudsters and gangsters on the fringes of Russian society." Putin himself calls them scavenging " jackals" who live on foreign handouts.

But if they really are deviants and jackals, why arrest them? If Putin really is wildly popular, why bother calling them names at all? Kasparov answers this question -- one of many political mysteries in Russia at the moment -- by arguing that Putin is far less secure than he appears to be.

For the first time in post-Soviet history, a majority of Russians feel optimistic about their own and their country's future, according to the Levada Center, an independent polling agency. The sense of personal and national resurgence, clearly visible in long-depressed Nizhny Novgorod, with its now-plentiful factory jobs, foreign stores and construction cranes, is a key factor in the consistently high approval ratings enjoyed by President Vladimir Putin. [...]

[W]hile Putin -- who has never debated a rival during two presidential election cycles -- benefits from the country's closed political process and fawning institutions, his ratings cannot be dismissed as simply the fruit of propaganda, according to Lev Gudkov, director of the Levada Center.

"He combines the renewed hopes of the people and the restoration of authority," Gudkov said. "He spoke the language that many people could understand."

Putin's predecessor of the 1990s, Boris Yeltsin, had to contend with low oil prices, bankrupt state finances and an economic restructuring, including the world's largest sell-off of government property, that bred widespread resentment. Millions of Russians fell into poverty as well-connected tycoons became fabulously rich. An enfeebled Kremlin was seen by many Russians as the handmaiden of a triumphant West.

Now Putin is trading on an enduring nostalgia for the Soviet past, when Russia stood tall in the world. As the country grew to become the world's second-largest exporter of oil, he adopted a prickly and increasingly assertive foreign policy that is widely cheered by Russians.

At home, Putin has used careful stage management to position himself as a figure above politics -- the people's czar who reins in ministers, bureaucrats, tycoons and even the politicians of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party that he will head in next month's parliamentary elections.

"As a rule, all sorts of carpetbaggers try to leech onto" United Russia, he said this week, both echoing and playing down a popular suspicion that the party he has chosen to lead is a coalition of opportunists. "Their goal is not the good of the people, but their own enrichment. They compromise a party."

Putin has been extraordinarily lucky with timing, his tenure coinciding with the rising oil prices that have driven economic growth.

IT'S NOT LIKE BILL RUSSELL IS OUT THERE:

Celtics' Strides on Defense Key to Their Dominance (JOHN HOLLINGER, November 27, 2007, NY Sun)

[T]he biggest surprise of all is the no. 1 ranked defensive team: the Boston Celtics. The key to their scorching-hot 11–1 start has been a shockingly good defensive effort. Boston allows only 92.9 points per 100 possessions, more than three points better than the second-place Nuggets. That would make them a fantastic team even with an average offense, but of course Boston's offense is well above average thanks to the star trio of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen, ranking fifth in Offensive Efficiency.

Needless to say, Boston is crushing opponents on a nightly basis — with such dominance at both ends, why wouldn't they? Nobody doubted they could put together a potent offensive squad, but the defensive results are downright shocking. And they bear closer examination, because if the Celtics keep defending this way, it's hard to imagine them not winning the championship.

One way the Celtics excel is by limiting their opponents' shots. Boston is the fourth-best defensive rebounding team in the league, grabbing 76.5% of opponent misses. With a board beast like Garnett joining another strong rebounder in center Kendrick Perkins, this is perhaps not a huge surprise. A bigger surprise is the turnovers they're forcing — Boston opponents cough it up on 17.9% of opponent possessions — again, the fourth-best number in basketball.

As a result, Boston gives up fewer "shots" (defined as field-goal attempts or trips to the foul line) per opponent possession than any team in basketball. This alone saves them more than two points a game compared to the average team, a huge total over the course of the season. By the way, the Nets are a close second in this category, thanks to their league-best Defensive Rebound Rate.

So what's the difference between the Celtics and the Nets? Basically, Boston's opponents miss a lot more shots than New Jersey's. The Celtics are no. 1 with a bullet in field-goal percentage defense, with opponents converting only 40.9% from the floor. This is miles ahead of the next-best team (Los Angeles Lakers, 43.5%), accounting for the other big reason Boston is so far ahead of the pack in Defensive Efficiency.

It's also shocking, much more so than the rebound and turnover numbers. Boston doesn't strike anybody as a shutdown defensive club. While Garnett is a good defender, the Celtics don't have much other quality size inside, especially with Perkins in frequent foul trouble. On the wings, reserve James Posey is the closest thing they have to a defensive stopper, and his minutes are limited because Allen and Pierce are on the court so much. Allen is a notoriously poor defender, and Boston's bench brigade is generally lightly regarded at the defensive end too, especially reserve guard Eddie House.

But somehow, the whole vastly exceeds the sum of its parts so far. Some ascribe it to the teachings of new defensive assistant Tom Thibodeau — who was in Houston helping the Rockets rank no.2 in Defensive Efficiency last season. Some say it's the esprit de corps resulting from the excitement surrounding the rebuilt Celtics, or the impact of the ultra-intense Garnett on his teammates.

Here's a possibility we need to at least consider — that some of it might be luck. Field-goal percentage is a notoriously fluky statistic, especially when looking at small samples.

SHE'S TANNED, RESTED & READY:

Cheney Has Irregular Heartbeat (AP, 11/26/07)

Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a history of heart problems, experienced an irregular heartbeat Monday and was taken to George Washington University Hospital for evaluation.

EPONYMISITY:

John Noble, 84, gulag survivor (Douglas Martin, November 26, 2007, NY Times)

John Noble, an American who never knew why the Soviets imprisoned him in their notorious gulag, but not only lived to write books on the grim, decade-long experience but also recovered his family's company and castle in the former East Germany, died on Nov. 10 in Dresden, Germany. He was 84.

His family announced the death.

Noble's story surfaced in the early years of the cold war, as the United States repeatedly asked the Soviet Union about him, only to be told that the Russians knew nothing. President Dwight Eisenhower personally intervened and won his release in January 1955 after nine and a half years of captivity.

His incarceration included backbreaking labor; minimal water and food; temperatures that regularly plunged 50 degrees below zero; and solitary confinement — first in Russian prisons in Germany, including Buchenwald, the former Nazi concentration camp. Then Noble was sent to Russia's slave labor camps, the notorious gulag. He was Slave No. 1-E-241. [...]

Soon after Noble's release, The New York Times reported on his reunion with his family in New York on Jan. 17, 1955. Contrary to his later accounts, he said he had been treated well, and the article said he appeared to be in excellent health.

But he soon spoke more darkly of his experiences in many interviews, speeches and writings, which included a series of articles in The New York Times and books that included "I Was a Slave in Russia" (1958) and "I Found God in Soviet Russia" (1959), written with Glenn D. Everett, with an introduction by the Rev. Billy Graham.

He long charged that the Soviet Union continued to hold many American prisoners. In 1968, he said at a mock trial of international Communism organized by anti-Communist groups that the Soviets had held 3,000 Americans in 1955 and still had many. The State Department replied that it knew of no such captives.

He fueled his message with religious conviction annealed in Soviet jails, and an anti-Communism so fierce that he went on a speaking tour for the ultra-right-wing John Birch Society in the mid-1960s. He was founder and director of the Faith and Freedom Forum, which sold recordings of his books, among other things.

HE USED TO KNOW THIS BEFORE HE TOOK THE JOB:

Where the dollar’s decline is taking the world (David Hale, November 22 2007, Financial Times)

[T]he risks in the economy are forcing the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy at a time when most central banks are reluctant to act.

The Fed has eased twice since September and the odds are high that it will have to ease further in the new year. The housing recession threatens to spread to the hitherto booming non-residential construction sector. Rising petrol prices could depress Christmas retail sales. Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, does not want to preside over an election-year recession when the core inflation rate is barely 2 per cent. That could jeopardise his chances of winning a second term in 2010.

ONE DOESN'T GENERALLY LOOK TO A POLITICAL PARTY FOR HEROISM...:

The Future of the GOP (Ross Douthat, Nov. 26, 2007, Slate)

The alliance between evangelical Christians and the Republican Party has been one of the most fruitful political partnerships in recent American history. It has also been one of the more unusual. From 19th-century abolitionists through William Jennings Bryan's Social Gospel to the civil rights movement, evangelicals have tended to associate themselves with idealistic crusades and messianic ambitions—and thus, as often as not, with the aspirations of the political left. "As a faith that revolves around the experience of individual transformation," conservative scholar Wilfred McClay remarked early in 2005—at the height of liberal panic over the influence of religious "values voters"—evangelical Christianity "inevitably exists in tension" with the established order. To call someone "both an evangelical and a conservative, then," McClay concluded, "is to call him something slightly more problematic than one may think."

This tension has been in evidence throughout the presidency of George W. Bush, and it's nowhere more apparent than in the divided soul of his former chief speechwriter and policy adviser Michael Gerson, now a columnist for the Washington Post and the author of Heroic Conservatism: Why Conservatives Should Embrace America's Ideals—and Why They Deserve To Fail If They Don't. A graduate of Wheaton College, the flagship school of American evangelicalism, Gerson began his political life as a passionate Jimmy Carter supporter, only to drift rightward as a pro-choice orthodoxy took hold in the Democratic Party. Like many of his co-believers, he found the GOP an imperfect home and gravitated toward Republicans who deviated from the party's small-government line, among them Charles Colson, who exchanged his role as Nixon's hatchet man for a life in prison ministry; Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, who spent the 1990s pushing proposals for federal grants to faith-based charities on a skeptical GOP leadership; Jack Kemp, the self-described "bleeding-heart conservative"; and finally George W. Bush himself, whose 2000 presidential campaign was organized in conscious opposition to the strident anti-government ethos of the Gingrich-era party.

The Bush-Gerson partnership was a match made, dare one say, in heaven: a religious speechwriter who wanted to graft "a message of social justice" onto the rugged individualism of Goldwater-Reagan conservatism, and a governor who, in Gerson's words, "not only wanted to run the Republican Party, but to remake it." For every left-winger who dismissed Bush's talk of "compassionate conservatism" as a cynical attempt to retitle the same old right-wing song without changing any of the notes—and for every conservative who hoped it didn't go any further than that—Gerson's book, part memoir and part polemic, offers passionate testimony to the contrary. In the pages of Heroic Conservatism (because merely compassionate conservatism doesn't go quite far enough), liberals will find a Bush administration dedicated to providing health care to seniors, improving failing schools, boosting foreign aid, and championing human rights abroad. Small-government conservatives, meanwhile, will find many of their darkest fears about the Bush administration's crypto-liberalism confirmed.

Gerson's intention is to justify the ways of Bush to both sides—to persuade liberals that the current president's faith-infused idealism fits squarely in a political tradition that runs back to Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, and JFK, and to convince conservatives that their only hope for political relevance is to associate themselves with a distinctly un-Norquistian view of government's capacity to make the world a better place.

(via The Other Brother):

Doesn't this need to be a streaming simulcast?

THE ROUT OF THE DEATH LOBBY:

The End of the Stem-Cell Wars (Ryan T. Anderson, 11/27/07, The Weekly Standard)

Even now, nine years later, embryonic stem cells are thought by many scientists to have greater potential than other types. This reputation persists even though adult stem cells are already used in therapies to treat several diseases and are being tested in hundreds of clinical trials, while not a single embryonic stem cell therapy exists, even in trials.

As anyone familiar with reparative medicine knows, immune rejection is one of the tallest hurdles to clear. The promise of cloning was that therapies could be produced using human embryos cloned directly from the patient--thus resulting in a genetic match. Cloning, it was said, would also provide an unlimited supply of human embryos. But many people thought human cloning with the sole intention to kill crossed an ethical line. In addition, human cloning would require an enormous number of human eggs--which could be obtained only by subjecting donors to painful and potentially dangerous hormonal-stimulation procedures. The fear was that likely "donors" would be poor women undergoing a distasteful procedure solely for the fee.

On August 9, 2001, President Bush waded into this morass. He issued an executive order that opened human embryonic stem cell research to federal funding for the first time ever. The order also restricted that funding, however, to research using existing embryonic stem cell lines: No more embryos would be created and destroyed for taxpayer-funded research. (Contrary to popular belief, Bush's order did not ban anything.) Opposition was fierce, but Bush stood firm.

Amid this controversy, a number of scientists discussed possible alternative sources of embryonic stem cells. William Hurlbut, a professor at Stanford and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, proposed Altered Nuclear Transfer, a process that produced nonembryonic tumor-like entities that could then be harvested for the equivalent of embryonic stem cells. Some ethicists weren't fully sold, fearing that the tumor-like entities might be deformed embryos. Hurlbut's proposal was then modified, using oocyte cytoplasm to directly reprogram a cell's nucleus to make it pluripotent. Still, some critics were unconvinced. Finally, using mice, a Japanese scientist, Shinya Yamanaka, showed that he could create embryonic stem cells directly from adult cells, and within less than a year his study was replicated and significantly expanded by two separate research groups. Yamanaka went to work to make it happen with human cells.

But outside the scientific community, conventional wisdom held that these alternative sources, while interesting, were being proposed only to provide Bush with political cover during the waning years of his presidency. As soon as a new president was inaugurated, federal funds would flow into human cloning and embryo-destructive research. Or so the story went.

That expectation has now been shattered. Whether or not the next president shares Bush's pro-life convictions, it is highly unlikely that taxpayer funds will go to support embryo destruction, which has become not only unnecessary but also less efficient than the alternatives. That's the story coming out of Cell and Science.

FISH, MEET BARREL:

Troops start ground offensive in Swat (Daily Times, 11/27/06)

Security forces backed by gunship helicopters and artillery have begun a ground offensive against pro-Taliban militants, killing at least 35 of them and losing two soldiers, the military said on Sunday.

It was the first time ground troops had been used in the Swat region, said army spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad. He said the troops had gained control of mountaintops overlooking three militant-held villages near Mingora in an operation that was launched late on Saturday, reported AP. The troops controlled all entry and exit points to these villages, he added. He said 15 soldiers were also wounded.

“The strongholds of militants are being hit. Troops have demolished their bunkers and destroyed a checkpost,” Arshad said.

Nearly 80 Taliban rebels were killed in a series of air raids by international military forces near Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan, a provincial government spokesman said on Sunday.

Around 65 were killed in a single airstrike on a “large group of Taliban” late on Saturday in eastern Paktia province’s Patan district, according to Din Muhammad Darvish, a spokesman for the local administration.

TWO STATE SOLUTION:

Even more good news for Maliki (Sami Moubayed, 11/27/07, Asia Times)

The tug-of-war between Ba'athists and leaders of post-2003 Iraq has dominated political life in Baghdad. What's new is the apparent willingness of Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Sadrist bloc, to coordinate with Kurdish politicians. Muqtada also sent a very strong message to Kurdish politicians through one of his top loyalists, member of Parliament Bahaa al-Araji. Speaking to the Iraqi newspaper Ilaf, Araji defended article 140 of the constitution, pertaining to Kirkuk. That is certainly a new line for the Sadrists. The article, which has caused a storm in Iraqi political circles, calls for a census and referendum in the oil-rich city to see whether it can be incorporated into Iraqi Kurdistan.

In 1986, as part of his Arabization process, Saddam called for the relocation of Arab families to Kirkuk, the center of Iraq's petroleum industry, to outnumber the Kurds living there. He also uprooted thousands of Kurds from Kirkuk. Since the downfall of Saddam's regime, the Kurds have been demanding Kirkuk, something that both Sunnis and mainstream Shi'ites curtly refuse.

Recently, however, after Maliki's main allies in the Sadrist bloc and Iraqi Accordance Front walked out on him, he was left with no other option but to cuddle up to the Kurds and support them on Kirkuk. He backed article 140, calling it "mandatory" and called on 12,000 Arab families brought to Kirkuk by Saddam to return to their Arab districts. When that is complete, and the census and referendum are held, then Kirkuk would become 100% Kurdish.

Saddam's deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz once told Kurdish politicians, "You [the Kurds] have one right: to weep as you pass through Kirkuk [since it will never become a Kurdish city]." But if Maliki and Muqtada support article 140, then Kirkuk very much might become "Kurdish".

Muqtada's about-turn was expressed by Araji, who said: "The article is constitutional and it should be handled accordingly." When asked if this means giving Kirkuk to the Kurds, Araji did not say, "No, Kirkuk is an Arab city and will remain an Arab city." He surprised observers by saying: "The Iraqis are the ones who decide on this." Clearly, Araji could not have made such a bold statement without getting prior approval from Muqtada.

INFIGHTING IN THE ROCKEFELLER WING:

Rudy: It's time to unmask Romney (Jonathan Martin, Nov 26, 2007, Politico)

In a big strategic shift, Rudy Giuliani hammered Mitt Romney’s record on three fronts, saying it was time to “take the mask off and take a look at what kind of governor was he.”

Using some of the toughest language of his campaign, Giuliani, in an interview with Politico, slammed Romney on health care, crime and taxes. At the same time he portrayed the one-time moderate as a hypocrite on a host of social issues who lives “in a glass house.” It was easily the most sweeping attack Giuliani has delivered against Romney in this campaign.

“He throws stones at people,” Giuliani said in an interview on his campaign bus. “And then on that issue he usually has a worse record than whoever he’s throwing stones at.”

NETFLIX FODDER:

‘CSI: Vancouver’? Well, Not Exactly (MIKE HALE, 11/25/07, NY Times)

The Canadian series “Da Vinci’s Inquest,” whose second season has just been released on DVD (Acorn Media), passed largely unnoticed in the United States but had an eerily “Sopranos”-like track record at home. The shows, which made their debuts just three months apart, were both nominated as their countries’ best dramatic series in all seven years they were eligible. “The Sopranos” won the Emmy twice; “Da Vinci’s Inquest” won the Gemini five times.

Because it’s a police procedural centered on a coroner’s office, “Da Vinci” has been called a cross between “Law & Order” and “CSI.” (It’s right there on the DVD box: “The realism of ‘Law & Order.’ The science of ‘CSI.’”) But it’s not at all like either of those shows. While its crimes can be sensational — several multiple-episode story arcs in the first two seasons involve a serial killer preying on prostitutes near the Vancouver docks — its approach is resolutely low-key, avoiding both ripped-from-the-headlines formulas and glossy melodrama.

With its elliptical, literate storytelling and the believable relationships among its large ensemble cast of pathologists, police officers and bureaucrats, it resembles much more closely the good, early days of “N.Y.P.D. Blue” or “ER.”

IT WAS SCIENCE THAT SUFFERED:

He didn't suffer all that much (Dinesh D'Souza, 11/25/07, Philadelphia Inquirer)

The data right up to Galileo's day favored Ptolemy. Historian Thomas Kuhn notes that throughout the Middle Ages, people proposed the heliocentric alternative. "They were ridiculed and ignored," Kuhn writes, adding, "The reasons for the rejection were excellent." The Earth does not appear to move, and we can all witness the sun rise in the morning and set in the evening.

Galileo was a Florentine astronomer highly respected by the Catholic Church. Once a supporter of Ptolemy's geocentric theory, Galileo became convinced that Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was right that the Earth really did revolve around the sun. Copernicus had advanced his theory in 1543 in a book dedicated to the pope. He admitted he had no physical proof, but the power of the heliocentric hypothesis was that it produced vastly better predictions of planetary orbits. Copernicus' new ideas unleashed a major debate within the religious and scientific communities, which at that time overlapped greatly. The prevailing view half a century later, when Galileo took up the issue, was that Copernicus had advanced an interesting but unproven hypothesis, useful for calculating the motions of heavenly bodies but not persuasive enough to jettison the geocentric theory altogether.

Galileo's contribution to the Copernican theory was significant, but not decisive.

Having developed a more powerful telescope than others of his day, Galileo made important new observations about the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and spots on the sun that undermined Ptolemy and were consistent with Copernican theory.

It may surprise some readers to find out that the pope was an admirer of Galileo and a supporter of scientific research being conducted at the time, mostly in church-sponsored observatories and universities. So was the head of the Inquisition, the learned theologian Cardinal Robert Bellarmine. When Galileo's lectures supporting the heliocentric theory were reported to the Inquisition, most likely by one of Galileo's academic rivals in Florence, Cardinal Bellarmine met with Galileo. This was not normal Inquisition procedure, but Galileo was a celebrity. In 1616, he went to Rome with great fanfare, where he stayed at the grand Medici villa, met with the pope more than once, and attended receptions given by various bishops and cardinals.

Bellarmine proposed that, given the inconclusive evidence for the theory and the sensitivity of the religious issues involved, Galileo should not teach or promote heliocentrism. Galileo, a practicing Catholic who wanted to maintain his good standing with the church, agreed. Bellarmine issued an injunction, and a record of the proceeding went into the church files.

For several years, Galileo kept his word and continued his experiments and discussions without publicly advocating heliocentrism. Then he received the welcome news that Cardinal Maffeo Barberini had been named Pope Urban VIII. Barberini was a scientific "progressive," having fought to prevent Copernicus' work from being placed on the index of prohibited books. Barberini was a fan of Galileo and had even written a poem eulogizing him. Galileo was confident that now he could openly preach heliocentrism.

But the new pope's position on the subject was complicated. Urban VIII held that while science can make useful measurements and predictions about the universe, it cannot claim to have actual knowledge of reality known only to God - which comes actually quite close to what some physicists now believe regarding quantum mechanics and is entirely in line with modern philosophical demonstrations of the limits of human reason.

So when Galileo in 1632 published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, the church found itself in a quandary. Galileo claimed to have demonstrated the truth of heliocentrism. Oddly enough, his proof turned out to be wrong. But the book amounted to a return to open heliocentrism, which he had agreed to avoid.

MORE:
Galileo Revisited, Part II (Andrew Schuman and Robert Cousins , Fall 2007, Dartmouth Apologia)

However, when the sentence was presented to Pope Urban VIII, he balked at letting Galileo off with a slap on the wrist. Faced with increasing pressure from Spain to contribute more to the war effort, and amidst growing accusations of weakness as a leader, Urban was determined to make an example of Galileo.28 Furthermore, there was the matter of Galileo’s handling of the Pope’s request that he include in his book a disclaimer on the tides, a request that Galileo managed to meet in a way that embarrassed the Pope, a serious scientist and theologian in his own right.

The Pope ignored the plea bargain and decided to use Galileo’s confession against him as evidence of vehement suspicion of heresy, a sentence only one degree below formal heresy.29 On June 16, the Pope issued a public decree that “Galileo is to be interrogated with regard to his intention, even with the threat of torture, and, if he sustains [answers in a satisfactory manner], he is to abjure de vehementi [i.e., vehement suspicion of heresy].”30 With this the case was effectively settled. Galileo would be arrested, interrogated and convicted of vehement suspicion of heresy.31

Although we do not know when Galileo first heard of the decree, he must have been stunned. The plea bargain had been disregarded, and now he was being called to trial again. On June 21, Galileo was rearrested and brought to court. When asked if he held Copernicanism in the absolute sense, Galileo responded that he had adhered to that view when he was young, but ever since the Decree of 1616, “assured by the prudence of the authorities, all my uncertainty stopped.”32 Having answered satisfactorily, Galileo was deemed guilty of “vehement suspicion of heresy,” but innocent of formal heresy.33

On June 22, 1633, Galileo listened as the Congregation of the Holy Office read its verdict:

We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the abovementioned Galileo...vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having held and believed a doctrine which is false and contrary to Holy Scripture: that the sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and the earth moves and is not the center of the world.34

Galileo’s sentence was also read: he was confined to house arrest for the rest of his life, the Dialogue was officially banned and he had to recite the seven penitential psalms weekly for the next three years. He was given the opportunity to receive forgiveness from the Holy Office if he read with a sincere heart the abjuration statement that had been prepared for him in advance.35 Thus, kneeling before his judges, Galileo declared:

With a sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse and detest the above mentioned errors and heresies...and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, orally or in writing, anything which might cause a similar suspicion about me.36

With this image, we are transported to the modern day. Despite the popular understanding of Galileo’s trial as the epitome of the struggle between science and religion, the two disciplines actually were not in conflict with each other. Instead we find that the case pivoted on an internal technicality: had Galileo violated the injunction of 1616? Given the contradiction between Maculano’s document and Galileo’s certificate, it was impossible to know the specifics of the 1616 injunction. Galileo could not, therefore, be proved to have violated the decree.

External matters of the day were equally germane to the outcome of the case. The nascent Protestant Reformation brought to the fore the issue of reinterpretation of Scripture. There was much disagreement among Christians in Europe over who could legitimately interpret Scripture and when it was appropriate to do so.

It was not yet determined what level of empirical evidence constituted a scientific “fact.”37 As a result, natural discoveries like Galileo’s telescopic observations further complicated the issue of reinterpreting Scripture. As we saw in the 1616 controversy, Galileo thought he had enough evidence to merit such a reinterpretation, but Cardinal Bellarmine disagreed.

Additionally, mounting political pressure from Catholic rulers in Europe forced Pope Urban VIII to make exaggerated demonstrations of orthodoxy. As a result, he was in no position to authorize the lenient sentence proposed by Fr. Maculano, and so deemed Galileo guilty of vehement suspicion of heresy.

Looking back, it becomes clear that the whole Galileo affair has been blown out of proportion. It was never a conflict between science and religion. Rather, it was a simple trial that was turned into a vehicle for settling political differences completely unrelated to Copernicanism, Galileo and the legal matter at hand.

As for Galileo, he remained a faithful Christian all his life. He lived and died an ardent proponent of the unity of truth, and he believed in the fundamental compatibility of truth observed in nature and in Scripture.

THEY EVEN COME IN THEIR COOKWARE:

The allure of Frito Pie: Santa Fe folks say they invented the beloved Frito pie. To Texans, them's fightin' words. (JOYCE SÁENZ HARRIS, November 23, 2007, The Dallas Morning News

Back in 1932, a year generally regarded as the nadir of the Depression, a San Antonian named C.E. "Elmer" Doolin tasted a home-fried corn chip in a Mexican cafe. He was so intrigued by its taste that he paid $100 for the chip's recipe and the right to market it.

Not that Mr. Doolin actually had $100 cash. He borrowed the money from his mama, Daisy Dean Doolin. Mrs. Doolin must have had an unshakable faith in her son, because she gave C.E. her diamond wedding ring to pawn for that $100 loan.

What's more, she let him set up shop in her kitchen and mix batch after batch of corn dough, which was shaped into strips by extruding the dough through a converted potato ricer. And she fried innumerable strips of ground corn in hot vegetable oil while C.E. and his brother, Earl, experimented with perfecting the chips. One can only imagine how many hours she must have spent scrubbing oil splatters from the walls and floor.

Mrs. Doolin's forbearance paid off. Thus was born the Frito (after the Spanish word for fried), an enormously successful snack product that celebrates its 75th anniversary this year.

But Mrs. Doolin took her sons' product one crucial step further.

According to corporate lore, Daisy Doolin invented the immortal Frito pie not long after her boys created Fritos.

Early on, says her granddaughter, Kaleta Doolin of Dallas, Daisy helped market Fritos by developing recipes that used the corn chips as an ingredient. In a burst of genius, she was inspired to pour chili over Fritos corn chips, and the rest is history.

SHOULDA BEEN BORN IN ITALY:

Should Barber's 'Vanessa' be a classic? Maybe not (David Patrick Stearns, 11/25/07, Philadelphia Inquirer)

The world can't consciously will something into classic status, but in the case of the opera Vanessa, it's not for lack of trying.

The increasingly popular piece by West Chester-born, Curtis Institute-trained Samuel Barber promised to forge a permanent place in the opera house for the esteemed composer of Adagio for Strings following its hugely successful 1958 New York premiere.

In an age of rampant experimentalism, Barber was one of the few living composers the public could love. And though his brand of conservatism was thought to be increasingly irrelevant during his later years in the 1970s, Vanessa approaches its 40th anniversary Jan. 15 as the godfather of recent neo-tonal operas by Jake Heggie and Tobias Picker. It has many articulate, well-placed champions, among them opera star Susan Graham and conductor Leonard Slatkin, who dominate the latest and best of the opera's four recordings.

The New York City Opera's production closed last Saturday to a full, loudly cheering house - and rightly so. The handsome production starred Lauren Flanigan at her vocal and theatrical best, while conductor Anne Manson made every moment arrive with unmistakably clear intentions. The final scene reestablished itself as some of the most beautiful music ever contained by an American opera. So the checklist adds up to "classic." Yet Vanessa, time and again, hits a glass ceiling that, to me, will forever keep it from the operatic Parnassus.

Once in a while an opera company presents a new production that prompts a re-evaluation of a misunderstood work. That’s what happened on Sunday when New York City Opera unveiled its staging of Samuel Barber’s “Vanessa.”

Introduced in 1958 by the Metropolitan Opera, “Vanessa” received a generally favorable reaction in New York and won Barber the Pulitzer Prize for music. But when it was presented at the Salzburg Festival that summer, a backlash started from contemporary-

music hard-liners, who dismissed Barber as a hopeless conservative, shameless neo-Romantic and lushly tonal panderer, unlike the tough-guy modernists who claimed the intellectual high ground during that polemical period.

TOO AMERICAN FOR HIS OWN GOOD:

Blair kept quiet about his faith for fear of 'nutter' jibes (Will Woodward, November 26, 2007, The Guardian)

Tony Blair was reluctant to speak out about the depth of his faith while he was prime minister for fear that voters would regard him as a "nutter", he reveals in an interview.

Slapdowns by Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications chief at the time, to questions on his Christianity - "We don't do God" - have commonly been interpreted as an effort to prevent the former prime minister from waxing lyrical.

But Blair's comments in a BBC1 documentary suggest he himself acknowledged there was danger in such exposure.

Christianity is common in US politics but "you talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you're a nutter", he says in an episode of The Blair Years, to be broadcast next Sunday.

MARSHALL'S WELFARE QUEENS:

We fret over Europe, but the real threat to sovereignty has long been the US: Britain's biggest foreign influence is the one politicians don't dare debate: not immigration, not Brussels, but America (Linda Colley, November 23, 2007, The Guardian)

[B]ritain's politicians - and its Foreign Office - have found it hard to adjust to the loss, not so much of onetime colonies, as of the global clout the colonies once afforded. "Poor loves", the novelist John Le Carré has one of his characters declare from Oxford (alma mater of both Tony Blair and David Cameron): "Trained to empire, trained to rule the waves. All gone. All taken away. Bye-bye world."

Shadowing Washington allows official Britons who still hunger for the big stage some continued admission, even if it is only as supporting players. And there is a further consideration that underlines how closely foreign policy has been bound up with postwar British anxieties. Conservative and Labour governments have arguably championed British rights in Brussels so ostentatiously in order to deflect public attention away from their deference to Washington. But British official suspicion of Europe also stems from the challenge it undoubtedly represents to the union. Scottish and Welsh nationalists, like the Irish Republic before them, favour much closer involvement in the EU precisely because they believe this will lessen their countries' dependence on Westminster.

Indeed one of the problems with current debates about "Britishness" is that they focus too exclusively on domestic identities and values. Addressing the question of what Britain is, and of how far it can plausibly function as an independent and united polity, requires a far more informed and even-handed public discussion than exists at present about our relations with both America and the rest of Europe.

Such a discussion might be uncomfortable for more than just the politicians. Since 1945, Britain - like much of Europe - has been tacitly involved in a massive bargain. The US has bankrolled large sectors of our defences, and thus allowed our governments to plough money into various social programmes instead.

NIRVANA:

Next stop: 1954: Private rail cars hitch a ride with Amtrak and whisk passengers back in time (Jim Mueller, November 25, 2007, Chicago Tribune)

Think stewards and housekeepers and wait staff. Don't forget the executive chef to create and supervise preparation of fine meals. Think four courses with a typical dinner consisting of lobster bisque, black-Angus beef tenderloin, twice-baked potatoes, fresh veggies and Chocolate Choo Choo Molten Cake with strawberries. The Creative Charters cars go out on charters every 60 days or so. Hiring the cars costs $8,000 a day, including the meals, and bookings are recommended 30 to 45 days in advance. "Some folks make reservations a year early," Henry said. They also are available for catered parties and corporate events when they're parked in Houston.

And, of course, they'll travel anywhere served by Amtrak. It's a simple hook-up, according to Henry. Latching onto the rear of a westbound Zephyr, the Evelyn and Warren R. have visited the Rose Bowl, Kentucky Derby and several Super Bowls. They've been leased by Barry Manilow and taken over -- temporarily -- by Fortune 500 companies.

Honeymoons, family vacations, bar mitzvahs -- their uses are only limited by one's imagination.

Ask Mac Percival, the Chicago Bears field-goal guy of the1960s. He said he grabs any chance to hop on the Evelyn and Warren R. for a cross-country jaunt. Percival's favorite routes are the Los Angeles-to-Seattle Coast Starlight and Oakland-to-Denver California Zephyr. "You experience the California coast and two sets of mountains," said Percival. As a perk of being Henry's brother-in-law, Percival has taken "20 or 25" such trips over the years. "If there's any room, Patrick's good about taking us along," he confided.

"People who've been on cruises get the Evelyn and Warren R.," Percival said. "You unpack one time. You move around between cars. It's all about the dining and scenery. There's nothing like viewing the U.S. from the top of the Warren R. dome car. Seeing the desert between Houston and Los Angeles [Sunset Limited route] is spectacular."

Kim and Hutch Hutcherson second that. They took the Warren R. and Evelyn between Chicago and San Francisco in August 2006. With 11 family members, the Hutchersons sat "spellbound" leaving Denver, as the train climbed into the Rockies and later followed the Colorado River at 30 miles per hour. "You see parts of the country that are inaccessible by car or any other type of transportation," said Hutch.

Fun, he said, even with 11 relatives of varying ages in close quarters for nearly three days.

"The cars are so spacious, nobody gets under foot," he said. "We saw the trip as a great opportunity. Kim and I thought it was just nice to be with family. To catch up with each other and enjoy the food and scenery. Taking a train is so much more relaxed than driving. You're pulled through the center of America at 80 and 90 miles per hour on some of the straightaways, while standing on that rear platform. Then the train slows down -- and going up through the Rockies is thrilling. Taking the switchbacks through the mountains, being in the middle of such spectacular country."

"Having the two cars gave everyone plenty of room," added Kim. "You spend time up in the dome car. There's a TV area. You walk out to the rear platform. And the food is unbelievable. Dinner is served in the formal dining room [of the Warren R.] on fine China with the best crystal. We'll do it again. We told Patrick we'd like to go the Northern Route [Empire Builder] next time. Through the Dakotas and Montana to Seattle. We have family and friends ready to go."

TOUGH TO STAY IN CHARACTER ALL THE TIME:

The 5-minute Interview: Eric Roberts, Film and television actor (The Independent, 26 November 2007)

If I weren't talking to you right now I'd be ...

Reading.

A phrase I use far too often ...

"Hey, brother, how ya doin"?

THERE'S NOTHING CONSERVATIVE ABOUT FREEDOM:

What Price Utopia?: BLACK MASS: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia By John Gray (SCOTT McLEMEE, 11/26/07, NY Times Book Review)

[W]hatever its twists and turns, Gray’s thought has in fact been remarkably consistent, with his journalistic writings simply framing, in the most provocative possible way, theses that have accumulated in more sedate works like “Enlightenment’s Wake” (1995) and “Two Faces of Liberalism” (2000). His latest book, “Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia,” treats fundamentalist Islam and Western triumphalism as similar and related phenomena. This argument revisits themes Gray developed in “Straw Dogs,” a volume of pensées originally published in 2002 and now reissued in paperback by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

“‘Humanity’ does not exist,” he announced in “Straw Dogs.” “There are only humans, driven by conflicting needs and illusions, and subject to every kind of infirmity of will and judgment.” This may be the key to all of Gray’s thought, and it is no accident that he echoes Margaret Thatcher’s famous statement that there is no such thing as society. (As she put it, “there are individual men and women, and there are families” — but nothing else.) The irreducible plurality of human “needs and illusions,” Gray argues, means it is utopian to imagine that any single kind of political or social order could ever be good for everyone. “If there is such a thing as spontaneous social evolution,” he writes in “Black Mass,” “it produces institutions of many kinds.”

Alas, conservatives have completely lost track of this crucial point, at least by Gray’s lights, which is why “traditional conservatism ceased to exist” at some point over the last few decades. What has emerged instead is a faith that the marketplace and the values of liberal society are universal in principle, if not yet in geographical distribution. Resistance is futile. And if people in benighted lands resist anyway, the use of military power can force the pace of progress.

The likely (indeed almost inevitable) consequence of doing so would be a cruel parody of the norms being exported. “Illiberal democracy,” Gray writes, “rests on the belief that the common good is self-evident. Everyone who is not deluded or corrupt will support the same policies so there will be no need to protect personal freedom or the rights of minorities."

EVEN IF IT WERE NO HELP AS REGARDS ENGLISH...:

QED - Latin lessons improve literacy, says MSP (EDDIE BARNES, 11/26/07, scotlandonsunday.com)

THE traditionalists have been going on about it ad nauseam. Now the campaign to bring back Latin into classrooms is finally gaining strength.

Tens of thousands of Scottish school pupils are failing to master basic English literacy skills, leading one MSP to suggest compulsory Latin lessons are the way forward.

Independent MSP Margo MacDonald, who was taught Latin at school herself, is to spearhead a campaign to highlight the benefits the classical language can have in improving basic English.

Studies in the US appear to show that, after just five months study of Latin, pupils who took the course were a full year ahead of fellow children who had not.

A CLUBBABLE MAN:

Club for Growth Praises Thompson’s Tax Reform Plan (Club for Growth, 11/26/07)

Most commendable is Thompson’s plan to expand taxpayer choice by adopting the Republican Study Committee’s recent plan, called the Taxpayer Choice Act. This plan will give American taxpayers the choice of opting into a simplified tax code that contains only two rates rather than deal with the current monstrosity known as the U.S. tax code.

“While other candidates have adopted pieces of this plan, Thompson goes a step further by offering a specific corporate tax reduction and offering taxpayers the option of a simple tax plan,” said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey. “His plan is based on the fundamental fact that lower rates and simpler rules across the board promote economic freedom and enhance economic growth. This is the kind of plan economic conservatives can rally around.”

ONE CANDIDATE IS RUNNING ON IDEAS:

Thompson Proposes Tax Choice (The Associated Press, November 25, 2007)

Key aspects of Thompson's tax proposal:

_The choice of filing under the current system or a flat tax rate of 10 percent for joint filers with an income of up to $100,000 _ $50,000 for single taxpayers; and 25 percent on income above these amounts.

The standard deduction would be more than doubled to $25,000 for joint filers and $12,500 for singles. The personal exemption would be increased to $3,500. A family of four would be exempt from income tax on the first $39,000. The simplified code would contain no other tax credits or deductions, and retain the 15 percent tax rate on capital gains and dividends.

_Preserving the $1000 child tax credit, which was doubled from $500 per child.

_Protecting marriage penalty relief.

_Retaining education tax incentives, including Coverdell Education Savings Accounts, 529 college savings plans, and deductions for higher education expenses.

_Permanently repealing the estate tax.

_Eventually repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax, a separate system created 30 years ago to ensure that a few high income Americans could not use deductions and credits to eliminate their tax liability.

Thompson also would index the exemptions annually so that millions of middle-class families would not be subject to the tax.

THE ENTIRE CANDIDACY BOILS DOWN TO JUST ONE DAY:

Giuliani's Critics Point to Cronyism: Appointments While Mayor Are Said to Tarnish His Leadership Credentials (Alec MacGillis, 11/25/07, Washington Post)

Giuliani's close association with Kerik, especially his lobbying of the Bush administration three years ago to make his former associate the secretary of homeland security, threatens to undermine one of the central arguments of his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination: that he is a superior leader who would bring to the White House high standards and a level of managerial acumen that many, including Republicans, say is missing under President Bush.

Giuliani's critics say that while he is justifiably praised for his leadership in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, his advancement of Kerik, his former chauffeur, was part of a pattern of rewarding loyalty over competence in personnel decisions. "It's pretty clear that his judgment on political appointments was weighted more heavily to cronies and friends than to quality," said Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which has endorsed Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) for president and has turned sharply against Giuliani after supporting him early in his mayoralty. "Are we going to have a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who's a private first class but who happens to be a friend? Are we going to have a law clerk who becomes attorney general?"

THE WHITE KING:

Kasparov arrested in Moscow: The former chess champion is among dozens of dissidents detained at a preelection demonstration (Megan K. Stack, November 25, 2007, Los Angeles Times)

Former chess champion and opposition figurehead Gary Kasparov and dozens of other anti-Kremlin demonstrators were arrested Saturday as they marched along a slushy downtown street hollering, "Russia without Putin!"

Riot police pounced on the activists and stuffed them into police vans after they pushed ahead with a banned preelection march through the bustling streets of the capital.

Also detained was Eduard Limonov, another prominent dissident and head of the group formerly known as the National Bolshevik Party, which itself is banned by the Kremlin.

"If the regime is preserved, the country will die," Kasparov told at least 1,000 cheering protesters shortly before his arrest. "That's why we're here. We'll protect the country."

AT LEAST THEY'RE GETTING THE FOCUS RIGHT:

Pivotal test of Pakistan's will against extremists: Growing violence in the northwest, where insurgents have set up an Islamist ministate, could presage a push by militants in tribal borderlands, experts say (Laura King, 11/25/07, Los Angeles Times)

President Pervez Musharraf said his Nov. 3 emergency decree would bolster the government in its fight against militants. But in the three weeks of emergency rule, the insurgency in Swat has gained momentum, with militants in control of at least nine of 12 subdivisions in the valley, local and military officials said.

Fighting has spilled into the adjacent district of Shangla, where the insurgents loyal to Maulana Qazi Fazlullah are also gaining ground. From their base at his seminary camp in the village of Imam Dheri, they have seized the district's administrative center and are threatening the famed Karakoram Highway, the crucial link to China.

The Pakistani military says it has sent in 15,000 army troops to confront Fazlullah, 32, who is thought to have as many as 5,000 armed followers. But in Swat's towns and villages, there is little sign of the army presence. [...]

There are ambivalent feelings here about the militants. Fazlullah has an enormous and devout following, drawing on conservative religious traditions that predate Swat's absorption into Pakistan. When he presides over Friday prayers, the most important of the week, he draws tens of thousands of worshipers.

But some residents draw a distinction between Fazlullah, a native son, and the foreign fighters -- Uzbeks, Tajiks and Chechens -- who they say have joined his ranks. These foreigners, they say, are more fanatical, and far more ready to mete out cruel punishment to villagers whose behavior is deemed insufficiently Islamic.

In recent months, the militants have bombed girls' schools, ordered women to wear head-to-toe burkas, burned video and music stores to the ground, and threatened barbers who trim beards. In another echo of the Taliban's former rule in Afghanistan, the insurgents have twice tried to blow up first-century Buddhist monuments that are considered cultural treasures.

Fazlullah has an rigidly austere vision of Islam, laid out via fiery sermons on his pirate FM radio station. They have earned him the nicknames "Mullah Radio" or "the FM Mullah."

He has railed against girls' education and ordered followers not to allow polio vaccinations for their children, calling them a Zionist plot to sterilize Muslims. When he preached against the evils of television, thousands of villagers burned their sets.

"That was striking to me, that these very, very poor people, instead of just getting rid of their TVs, selling them, would drag them out and burn them," said Aurangzeb's son Adnan, a former lawmaker.

He said he became aware of the power of Fazlullah's message several years ago when he was making constituency calls in the countryside. "Out in these small villages, where there was nothing, there wasn't a household that didn't listen to him on the radio," he said.

That Fazlullah is still broadcasting is a signal to some that the government is not serious about moving against him -- particularly since officials, in the initial weeks of emergency rule, knocked private television channels off the air.

"So he's out here with a cheap Chinese transmitter, and they can't deal with that?" a Western military official said. "That strains credulity."

Although poor, remote and populated by ethnic Pashtuns, Swat, with a population of about 1.2 million, is culturally and socially distinct from the nearby tribal areas. Until recently, the valley was home to a thriving tourist industry that drew foreigners as well as Pakistanis. Visitors flocked to its mountain scenery, its trout streams and a resort featuring the country's only ski lift.

To residents who had hoped the area would continue to develop economically, the militant takeover has been a devastating blow.

JUST A MATTER OF SIGNATURES:

In Mideast, the first hurdle is cleared: Olmert and Abbas have built understanding and trust, but each faces hardened opposition to concessions for peace. (Richard Boudreaux, 11/25/07, Los Angeles Times)

Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas have spent more time alone together than any pair of Israeli and Palestinian leaders. They have sat for hours, in 12 meetings over the last 11 months, sharing pictures of their grandchildren and talking about a world in which those kids can grow up in peace.

Smoke fills Omert's study as Abbas, puffing on a Marlboro Red, describes the crushing burden of Israeli occupation in the West Bank. The Israeli prime minister lights up a cigar, lecturing the Palestinian Authority president on the need to stop Palestinian militias from plotting against his people. [...]

If making peace were up to Olmert and Abbas alone, their compatriots might not be so skeptical that this quality time will pay off. The two leaders have a rough understanding of how to reach the goal of an independent Palestinian state, their aides say, but have been reluctant to write it down or say it publicly, given the political risks of the trade-offs required.

CAN WE RAISE THE VOTING AGE TO FORTY?:

Felled by the young and the religious (David Barnett, November 26, 2007, The Australian)

He made Australia a staunch ally of the US in the war against terrorism, sending forces to Iraq and Afghanistan made up of servicemen who want to fight, are proud to serve their country, and who have covered themselves with distinction.

He put Australia at the head of a world league table of economic performers, always as one the top three or four best run economies, for most of his near 12 years as prime minister.

Australia baled out three neighbours during the Asian financial meltdown. Yet 20 years earlier we were being mocked as the poor white trash of Asia.

He kept interest rates low. The Reserve Bank's successive increases were each of 25 basis points. His undertaking to keep interest rates lower than an ALP government could manage stands up.

He took Australia to a new level of prosperity. Real wages went up 20 per cent. Inflation stayed low and unemployment just kept on falling until it was down to 4 per cent. When full employment was last discussed as an issue of national policy before Gough Whitlam was elected in 1972, two per cent was regarded as constituting full employment, given that there would always be people in transition between jobs.

With the great social dislocations of today, 4 per cent must be close to being as low as can be achieved.

So Howard's legacy to Kevin Rudd is a prosperous country where people who want work can find it, a country that is respected for its contributions when international recessions or terrorism threatens, and a country that moves with outstanding speed when natural disasters overwhelm neighbours.

But every year he grew older, and more voters came on to the rolls who had never lived under federal Labor governments. Today there are 3.4 million of them, one quarter of the electorate.

By last Saturday there were two electorates. Older voters who could not contemplate putting the gains of the past decade at risk, and the young who were bored with a leader from the generation of their parents, and were in the mood for change not for any good reason, it was change for change's sake.

IN IT FOR THE LONG HAWLEY:

The Next Clintonomics (David Ignatius, 11/25/07, Real Clear Politics)

Where does Hillary Clinton stand on economic issues? More to the point, is she a "Clintonian," the heir to the pro-globalization views of her husband? Or is she part of the growing movement among Democrats that stresses equality and job protection over free trade?

Being Hillary, she's a little of both. She wants to position herself as a supporter of globalization and also as a pragmatic critic. The nub of that position is her statement that she will reevaluate NAFTA, the free-trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that her husband signed, and address its "serious shortcomings." Free-trade enthusiasts look at that position and cringe, fearing that she will break the globalization engine.

But after reading Clinton's economic speeches and talking with her chief economic adviser, Gene Sperling, I don't think anyone need worry that Clinton has become a hostage to the AFL-CIO. She's groping for a new balance between globalization and protection of workers, to be sure. She's a "post-Clintonian" on economics, you might say.

FROM HIS LIPS TO GOD'S EARS:

Archbishop of Canterbury: U.S 'is worse than the British Empire at its peak' (Daily Mail, 25th November 2007)

The Archbishop of Canterbury has launched a stinging attack on America, comparing it unfavourably with the British Empire at its peak.

THE WAGES OF BUGGERY:

Rethinking the reach of AIDS (Donald G. McNeil Jr., November 25, 2007, IHT)

There it is, starkly: AIDS has peaked.

New infections reached a high point in the late 1990s - by the best estimate, in 1998.

There must have been such moments in the past - perhaps A.D. 543, when Constantinople realized it would survive the Plague of Justinian, or 1351 in medieval Europe, when hope dawned that the Black Death would not claw down everyone.

A milestone moment in AIDS history came 11 years ago when Andrew Sullivan wrote an article in The New York Times Magazine titled "When Plagues End." It argued that a new treatment, the triple therapy cocktail, meant it was finally possible to envision AIDS as a chronic illness, not an inevitable death sentence.

THE ROMEOS WORE A PERFECT WAVE:

Taking Science on Faith (PAUL DAVIES, 11/24/07, NY Times)

When I was a student, the laws of physics were regarded as completely off limits. The job of the scientist, we were told, is to discover the laws and apply them, not inquire into their provenance. The laws were treated as “given” — imprinted on the universe like a maker’s mark at the moment of cosmic birth — and fixed forevermore. Therefore, to be a scientist, you had to have faith that the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical laws of an unspecified origin. You’ve got to believe that these laws won’t fail, that we won’t wake up tomorrow to find heat flowing from cold to hot, or the speed of light changing by the hour.

Over the years I have often asked my physicist colleagues why the laws of physics are what they are. The answers vary from “that’s not a scientific question” to “nobody knows.” The favorite reply is, “There is no reason they are what they are — they just are.” The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational. After all, the very essence of a scientific explanation of some phenomenon is that the world is ordered logically and that there are reasons things are as they are. If one traces these reasons all the way down to the bedrock of reality — the laws of physics — only to find that reason then deserts us, it makes a mockery of science.

Can the mighty edifice of physical order we perceive in the world about us ultimately be rooted in reasonless absurdity? If so, then nature is a fiendishly clever bit of trickery: meaninglessness and absurdity somehow masquerading as ingenious order and rationality.

Although scientists have long had an inclination to shrug aside such questions concerning the source of the laws of physics, the mood has now shifted considerably. Part of the reason is the growing acceptance that the emergence of life in the universe, and hence the existence of observers like ourselves, depends rather sensitively on the form of the laws. If the laws of physics were just any old ragbag of rules, life would almost certainly not exist.

A second reason that the laws of physics have now been brought within the scope of scientific inquiry is the realization that what we long regarded as absolute and universal laws might not be truly fundamental at all, but more like local bylaws. They could vary from place to place on a mega-cosmic scale. A God’s-eye view might reveal a vast patchwork quilt of universes, each with its own distinctive set of bylaws. In this “multiverse,” life will arise only in those patches with bio-friendly bylaws, so it is no surprise that we find ourselves in a Goldilocks universe — one that is just right for life. We have selected it by our very existence.

The multiverse theory is increasingly popular, but it doesn’t so much explain the laws of physics as dodge the whole issue. There has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and bestow bylaws on them. This process will require its own laws, or meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.

Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence.

This shared failing is no surprise, because the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm. Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws from the Christian doctrine that God created the world and ordered it in a rational way. Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, while physicists think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships.

And just as Christians claim that the world depends utterly on God for its existence, while the converse is not the case, so physicists declare a similar asymmetry: the universe is governed by eternal laws (or meta-laws), but the laws are completely impervious to what happens in the universe.

For one thing, you lose track of how many times he has to note that were this or that cosmic or global condition not precisely tuned there'd be no us or even no anything. For another, every discipline starts with a series of assumptions--the changes in which are essentially what we now refer to as paradigm shifts--because physicists, chemists, biologists, climatologists, geologists, etc., have so little understanding of the initial (and often the intermediate) phases of the histories they study. And, finally, because he just drops topics whenever they butt up against the massive contradictions in prevailing theories. So, for instance, after a huge sonmg and dance about the Mason Crater in Iowa and how it marks the site of the most catastrophic environmental impact in the history of North America, he rather sheepishly trails off with a parenthetical about how there was not a single species extinction associated with it. Likewise, he has to end his consideration of Heisenberg long before he gets to the full implications, else he'd render the rest of the text nugatory.

Of course, Mr. Davies lets his cohorts off pretty easily. Dig a bit deeper and you run smack into the philosophical insight that prevented the Anglosphere from succumbing to the Age of Reason altogether: Reason is itself irrational.

HOW'S OPPOSING SELF-DETERMINATION WORKING OUT FOR THE WEST?:

Hezbollah recruits thousands in Lebanon crisis (Hugh Macleod, 25/11/2007, Daily Telegraph)

Hezbollah is exploiting the tense political deadlock in Beirut to recruit thousands of new fighters, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

The Iranian-backed Shia militant group has begun drawing fighters from across the sectarian divide, including Sunnis, Christians and Druze, in an effort to create a united opposition to the government.

The group is taking advantage of the political vacuum that has endured for a year, as the Lebanese parliament no longer has enough MPs to function fully.

WHY THE GOP NOMINATION IS FOR ALL THE MARBLES:

America hates Hillary Clinton and Co (Toby Harnden, 25/11/2007, Daily Telegraph)

With a year to go before the country votes for its 44th president, The Daily Telegraph embarked on its "Crossing America" project to find out. The answers that Julian Simmonds, photographer and videographer, and I got were often surprising. They provide little comfort for Mrs Clinton but not much more for any other politician. Although few people have no opinion about the 2008 candidates, the election has yet to grip the American imagination. And for most, their final decision remains a long way away.

Travelling principally by road in between hops by air, we reported as we went along, posting video, text and photographs on the Telegraph website each night. Our odyssey was enhanced by the emails and blog comments we received from Americans suggesting routes, berating us for skipping over their town or promising to show us a slice of true American life if we stopped down their way. [...]

We set out from Portland, Maine, on the north-east coast of New England on a diagonal route to the California port of San Diego in the south-west. The return leg started in the Seattle suburbs of the Pacific north-west and ended at the Atlantic on a beach in Florida, America's most south-eastern state.

In between, we stopped at places such as Wooster, an Ohio town hit by the wave of house foreclosures, Hannibal on the Missouri banks of the Mississippi and El Dorado (pronounced with a "ray" rather than a "rah" in the middle), an oil-boom town in the Kansas flatlands of Middle America.

We spoke to a megachurch minister in Washington state, new citizens in California, a cowboy doctor in Wyoming, a Kentucky country singer in Nashville and believers in UFOs in a dusty New Mexico town. Some interviews were arranged, but most discussions flowed from impromptu encounters in diners, parking lots, bars and shopping malls.

Mrs Clinton might be the frontrunner in the polls, but almost everywhere we went people questioned her candidacy. Many stated bluntly that they did not want a woman in charge. "It's a man's world," said Hugh Laflin, 62, a Kansas truck driver. "Would a Middle East sheikh talk to a lady president?"

A Vietnam veteran in Arizona and a Florida gun-shop owner were among those who made crude jokes about America "going to war every 30 days" under a female president. We never brought up Bill Clinton's sexual dalliances, but many ordinary Americans did. "She couldn't keep her own home together, so how can we trust her to manage America?" asked Micki Martinson, a housewife in Somerset, Pennsylvania.

While we found many people who hated Mrs Clinton, those who loved her were few and far between. Certainly, many said they would vote for her, but the reasons cited tended to be her status as the top Democrat, the fact that she was battle-tested against Republicans and - for some women - the fact that she would be the first female president.

THE CONFLICT OF ISRAELI AND AMERICAN INTERESTS:

Syria wants Golan Heights on talks agenda (Carolynne Wheeler, 25/11/2007, Daily Telegraph)

America has given tacit approval to separate peace talks between Israel and Syria immediately after Tuesday's landmark Middle East summit in Annapolis, Maryland.

Diplomats believe that Syria's expected participation in the meeting to be chaired by Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, signals a likely resumption of direct talks between the country's Ba'athist regime and the Israeli government, for the first time in more than a decade.

Syria had insisted that the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, seized from its control in the 1967 war, be on the table for discussion as a precondition for taking part in the summit.

I'M RUDY, I'M HERE FOR YOUR GUN:

Thompson Woos Gun Rights Contingent (MARC SANTORA, 11/25/07, NY Times)

Joe McCormick, a burly man over six feet tall, a World War II-era Mauser rifle at his side, said he was frightened.

“Giuliani scares me,” Mr. McCormick said of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination. “What does a mayor of New York know about guns?”

Fred D. Thompson, who was about 30 yards away — just past the “Confederate Cutlery” collection of knives, fingering an M-1 rifle at the Land of Sky Gun Show here Saturday — was more his kind of candidate. [...]

While many of those interviewed here had not made up their minds, and could say little about where Mr. Thompson stood on issues beyond gun rights, there was a reservoir of good will for the fellow Southerner.

CERTAINLY ALL THE ADHERENTS WANT TO KILL THE FATHER :

Freud Is Widely Taught at Universities, Except in the Psychology Department (PATRICIA COHEN, 11/25/07, NY Times)

PSYCHOANALYSIS and its ideas about the unconscious mind have spread to every nook and cranny of the culture from Salinger to “South Park,” from Fellini to foreign policy. Yet if you want to learn about psychoanalysis at the nation’s top universities, one of the last places to look may be the psychology department.

A new report by the American Psychoanalytic Association has found that while psychoanalysis — or what purports to be psychoanalysis — is alive and well in literature, film, history and just about every other subject in the humanities, psychology departments and textbooks treat it as “desiccated and dead,” a historical artifact instead of “an ongoing movement and a living, evolving process.”

The study, which is to appear in the June 2008 issue of psychiatry’s flagship journal, The American Journal of Psychiatry, is the latest evidence of the field’s existential crisis.

YOU KNOW AL QAEDA IS A DEAD LETTER...:

As Democrats See Security Gains in Iraq, Tone Shifts (PATRICK HEALY, 11/25/07, NY Times))

As violence declines in Baghdad, the leading Democratic presidential candidates are undertaking a new and challenging balancing act on Iraq: acknowledging that success, trying to shift the focus to the lack of political progress there, and highlighting more domestic concerns like health care and the economy. [...]

[T]he changing situation suggests for the first time that the politics of the war could shift in the general election next year, particularly if the gains continue. While the Democratic candidates are continuing to assail the war — a popular position with many of the party’s primary voters — they run the risk that Republicans will use those critiques to attack the party’s nominee in the election as defeatist and lacking faith in the American military.

If security continues to improve, President Bush could become less of a drag on his party, too, and Republicans may have an easier time zeroing in on other issues, such as how the Democrats have proposed raising taxes in difficult economic times.

ON TO DAMASCUS:

U.S. to Withdraw 5,000 Troops from Iraq (VOA News, 25 November 2007)

U.S. officials have said they could withdraw about 20,000 U.S. troops by July, if the security situation in Iraq permits.

ONE GOOD THING ABOUT THE WAHOOTARIAT...:

BP may have to rein in its zero-tolerance plan: Get-tough policy on border would flood courts, jails (Brady McCombs, 11/23/07, Arizona Daily Star)

The U.S. Border Patrol's zero-tolerance program — which dictates jail time for all illegal border crossers — may end up being a partial-tolerance operation in Arizona due to a lack of prison space, attorneys, law enforcement officers and judges.

IF NOT FOR THE DISCREDITED ONES, DEMOCRATS WOULD BE RUNNING ON NONE AT ALL:

Why We Trade: We’re used to shrugging off all sorts of rhetorical gobbledygook from our politicians. But when you hear U.S. presidential candidates start to mouth off about free trade, watch your wallet: A discredited 14th-century theory of economics is enjoying a dangerous renaissance in the 2008 campaign (Russell Roberts, 19 November 2007, Foreign Policy)

As a thought experiment, take what would seem to be the ideal situation for a mercantilist. Suppose we only export and import nothing. The ultimate trade surplus. So we work and use raw materials and effort and creativity to produce stuff for others without getting anything in return. There’s another name for that. It’s called slavery. How can a country get rich working for others?

Then there’s the mercantilist nightmare: We import from abroad, but foreigners buy nothing from us. What would the world be like if every morning you woke up and found a Japanese car in your driveway, Chinese clothing in your closet, and French wine in your cellar? All at no cost. Does that sound like heaven or hell? The only analogy I can think of is Santa Claus. How can a country get poor from free stuff? Or cheap stuff? How do imports hurt us?

We don’t export to create jobs. We export so we can have money to buy the stuff that’s hard for us to make—or at least hard for us to make as cheaply. We export because that’s the only way to get imports. If people would just give us stuff, then we wouldn’t have to export. But the world doesn’t work that way.

THE REMOVAL OF RANDOMNESS IS SECURITY:

New York murders 'at 40-year low' (BBC, 11/23/07)

New York City is on track to have fewer than 500 murders in 2007, the lowest annual rate in four decades, according to police department figures. [...]

According to the New York Times, of the 212 murders in 2007 analysed so far, only 35 were committed by a stranger.

ONE OF THESE DAYS APPEASING EVIL WILL WORK OUT WELL...:

The event that inspired Al Qaeda (Nikhil Lakshman, November 22, 2007, Rediff)

In a startling new book, The Siege of Mecca, The Wall Street Journal reporter Yaroslav Trofimov has penetrated the veil of secrecy the Saudi authorities has cast over the horrifying episode all these years and revealed how that militant operation came to inspire Al Qaeda and bin Laden, who founded his International Islamic Front, as a reaction to the Saudi monarchy's decision to invite the American military into the kingdom before the first Gulf War.

Trofimov, who now covers Asia for the Journal and most recently wrote about India's Dalit Christians and Wipro Chairman Azim Premji for the newspaper, has also written the award-winning Faith at War: A Journey on the Frontlines of Islam, from Baghdad to Timbuktu. In this e-mail interview with Nikhil Lakshman, he discussed The Siege of Mecca and its impact on contemporary, militant Islam. [...]

Why do you believe there is a co-relation between the events of 1979 and the genesis of Al Qaeda?

The Mecca uprising of 1979 was the very first operation of global jihad in modern times, uniting radicals from all over the world -- Saudis, Egyptians, Pakistanis, even American converts to Islam. This organisation served as a model to Al Qaeda in the future, and some of the surviving rebels actually went to Afghanistan and later joined Al Qaeda.

But this is not the only connection. In order to storm the Grand Mosque in 1979, the Saudi government needed a fatwa from the leading Islamic clerics, the Wahhabi ulema. The clerics obliged -- on the condition that the kingdom become much more rigid in enforcing the Wahhabi brand of Islam.

As part of this grand bargain, millions of dollars in Saudi petrodollars started to flow all over the world to fund the clerics' effort to spread Wahhabi Islam -- creating the Islamic madrassas, charities and welfare groups that would breed the new generation of Al Qaeda recruits.

Was Osama bin Laden in Saudi Arabia when the siege occurred? Have you located any information about what his role was during that period? Was he a bystander? Was he a participant? Would you know if the siege provoked anger in him that led him to travel to Afghanistan a few months later?

The Bin Laden family was deeply involved in this affair. Much of the Grand Mosque itself has been built by the Bin Laden construction company -- and the rebels smuggled their weapons into the mosque's underground via an access drive used by the Bin Laden company, with the connivance of Bin Laden employees.

Young Osama was shocked by the government's use of massive military force against the rebels, and by the subsequent damage to the shrine -- he later complained that Prince Fahd, then Saudi Arabia's day-to-day ruler, had "defiled" Islam's holy of holies.

In a way, the Mecca events marked the moment when Osama Bin Laden's allegiance to the House of Saud started to fracture.

[...]

Do the soldiers of Al Qaeda take inspiration from the siege of Mecca? Have you come across any material related to the siege in any Al Qaeda manuals? If so, what do those accounts say?

The Mecca events feature prominently in Al Qaeda's literature, especially in a book called The Infidel Nature of the Saudi State, a piece of required reading for many jihadis. The book was written by a Palestinian radical named Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi -- who was personally acquainted with many of Mecca's rebels. Maqdisi, of course, is better known as the former cellmate and tutor of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the founder of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Did the Saudi monarchy learn any lessons from the siege of Mecca? Or did life go on as usual for the royals after the siege ended? Does it still give the monarchy nightmares?

The main lesson the Saudi royal family drew from this crisis was that it had to appease the radical Islamist clergy. It seemed like a wise policy for years -- except that it ended up boomeranging with the September 11 attacks and the subsequent rise of Islamist terrorism within the kingdom.

NOTHING COSTS MORE...:

On Black Friday, Shoppers Display Pragmatic Restraint (MICHAEL BARBARO, 11/23/07, NY Times)

With an uncertain economy, a slowdown in the housing market and high gas prices hanging over their heads, consumers flocked to discount chains like Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy, brandishing bargain-filled fliers. [...]

This year, stores managed to draw huge crowds again, but the mood was more desperation than celebration.

Stores left nothing to chance, opening their doors before dawn and cutting prices deeply enough to guarantee throngs of bargain hunters.

Two major chains, J. C. Penney and Kohl’s, pushed their openings up an hour, to 4 a.m., and dangled half-off sales and $10 coupons. Toys “R” Us nearly quadrupled the number of door-buster discounts it offers, to 101.

And Wal-Mart extended its Black Friday specials into Saturday, calling it a “48-hour sale.” (In a publicity stunt, the company bragged that it had even petitioned the Royal Observatory in London to create a 48-hour Friday.)

Rather than buying on impulse, consumers drew elaborate shopping plans to track down steep discounts — and stuck to them. [...]

A final tally from yesterday’s sales will not be available until tomorrow, at the very earliest. MasterCard Spending Pulse, a division of the credit card company, predicted sales this Black Friday would rise up to 5 percent, to about $20 billion, from $19.1 billion in 2006.

That growth, however, comes with caveats. Shoppers might have spent more this year than last, but they bought deeply discounted items that generate little profit.

YAHWEH, NOT ZEUS:

Don’t Be Scared: Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee (Jonah Goldberg, 11/21/07, National Review)

What’s so scary about Huckabee? Personally, nothing. He seems a charming, decent, friendly, pious man.

What’s troubling about The Man From Hope 2.0 is what he represents. Huckabee represents compassionate conservatism on steroids. A devout social conservative on issues such as abortion, school prayer, homosexuality and evolution, Huckabee’s a populist on economics, a fad-follower on the environment and an all-around do-gooder who believes that the biblical obligation to do “good works” extends to using government — and your tax dollars — to bring us closer to the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

For example, Huckabee would support a nationwide ban on public smoking. Why? Because he’s on a health kick, thinks smoking is bad and believes the government should do the right thing.

And therein lies the chief difference between Paul and Huckabee. One is a culturally conservative libertarian. The other is a right-wing progressive.

Whatever shortcomings Paul and his friends might have, Paul’s dogma generally renders those shortcomings irrelevant. He is a true ideologue in that his personal preferences are secondary to his philosophical principles. When asked what his position is, he generally responds that his position can be deduced from the text of the Constitution. Of course, that’s not as dispositive as he thinks it is. But you get the point.

As for Huckabee — as with most politicians, alas — his personal preferences matter enormously because, ultimately, they’re the only things that can be relied on to constrain him.

JUST BECAUSE SCIENCE IS WRONG DOESN'T MAKE THE COUNTEREVIDENCE MAGIC:

Harvard Physicist Plays Magician With the Speed of Light (Erin Biba, 10.23.07 , Wired)

Lene Vestergaard Hau can stop a pulse of light in midflight, start it up again at 0.13 miles per hour, and then make it appear in a completely different location. "It's like a little magic trick," says Hau, a Harvard physicist.

THE BOYS FROM BUENOS AIRES:

Argentina’s Jewish ‘Desaparecidos’ (Marcela Valente, 11/23/07, IPS)

The leaders of Argentina’s Jewish community -- the largest in Latin America -- published in book form a report on Jewish victims of forced disappearance in the 1976-1983 dictatorship, who faced especial brutality because of their ethnic origin.

The "Report on the situation of the Jewish detainees-disappeared during the genocide perpetrated in Argentina" was for the first time published in print in Argentina to make it widely available to the public, by the Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations’ (DAIA) Social Studies Centre (CES), with the backing of the government Human Rights Secretariat. [...]

Two aspects stand out in the report. One is that Jewish people formed a disproportionately large part of the dictatorship’s victims of forced disappearance. The other is that although "they did not suffer specifically anti-Semitic persecution, Jewish victims suffered especially brutal treatment, and Nazi symbols were used" by the torturers, said Duhalde. [...]

The two most serious attacks suffered by the Jewish community in Argentina actually occurred after the return to democracy: a 1992 bomb blast that killed 29 people in and around the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, and the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in the capital, in which 86 people were killed. But the report does not dwell on either incident.

DAIA notes that the military regime’s persecution of leftists, trade unionists and others deemed "subversive" included abductions, torture, forced disappearance and the theft of the babies and young children of political prisoners, while it remarks that the Jewish victims received treatment that was even more cruel and brutal than other prisoners. [...]

The book includes a provisional list of Jewish victims of forced disappearance, which was first presented in court in Spain in the late 1990s. It also provides a list of names drawn up by the Barcelona-based Commission of Solidarity with the Families of the Detained and Disappeared in Argentina.

The book says that in the 1970s there were between 230,000 and 290,000 Jewish people in Argentina, representing between 0.8 and 1.2 percent of the population at the time, while they made up an estimated five to 12 percent of the "disappeared".

IMAGINE WHAT MAGGIE WOULD DO TO HIM?:

Brown bounce wiped out, poll shows (Will Woodward, November 23, 2007, Guardian Unlimited)

Gordon Brown's electoral advantage for Labour has been wiped out as the party's support drops to the same lows it endured during Tony Blair's final months in government, a Guardian/ICM poll reveals tonight.

The survey, taken as the prime minister faces serious questions about the competence of his administration in the wake of Northern Rock and the lost child benefit records fiasco, shows that the "Brown bounce" of early summer has fallen away entirely. [...]

The poll results mirror almost exactly the situation in April, when Tony Blair was drifting towards the exit from No 10, trailing on 30%, seven points behind the Tories. Brown has yet to drop to Labour's 29% poll rating in Tony Blair's worst month, October 2006, shortly after the attempted coup by supporters of the then chancellor. But today's new low for him is the same rating Labour achieved in three consecutive months, January to March this year, when Tony Blair was being condemned as an electoral liability.

HEADED FOR THIRD IN A PARTY STOPPED AT SECOND:

Clinton Hits Rough Patch: As Iowa Showdown Nears Rivals Strike From Left As She Courts Center; 'Responsibility Gene' (JACKIE CALMES, November 23, 2007, Wall Street Journal)

Sen. Clinton views her campaign as a template for her possible presidency. Having witnessed Bill Clinton's early struggles reconciling campaign promises with governing -- and guided by his private advice now -- she knows first hand that what candidates say now for political points can haunt them as president. Close advisers call this caution her "responsibility gene."

The result: As the front-runner, Sen. Clinton has drawn attacks from Democratic rivals at a crucial moment on topics ranging from Iran to taxes, even while holding positions that could serve her well in a general-election campaign, or as president. She will be tested further with four more Democratic debates in December, before the ultimate test -- in the opening nominating contest Jan. 3 in Iowa.

In two recent polls of likely Iowa caucus-goers, Sen. Clinton was slightly ahead in one, but her chief rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, had retaken the edge in the other. A decisive Clinton victory in Iowa potentially could clinch the nomination; a loss, or even a close call, makes her vulnerable in the states that follow.

No first-time candidate before has juggled these conflicting considerations in quite this way, because none has ever run from Sen. Clinton's unique position. She is far ahead in national polls for the nomination, her party is favored in polls to win the 2008 presidential election, and she has personal experience moving from campaign trail to White House. Typically, presidential candidates go a step at a time, focusing like lasers on the nomination, pivoting to the center only when it's in hand, and worrying about promises made once inside the West Wing.

Sen. Clinton's aides said she was unavailable for an interview. But interviews with numerous advisers, associates and even Republicans attested to her success this year in methodically building her lead over rival Democrats with tireless stumping and discipline. She gained ground by taking rough edges off her imperious image, and promoting her experience and competence, in the process persuading many doubting Democrats that she is "electable."

Now, her party foes are nervous and even desperate as the days dwindle to the first, potentially make-or-break vote in Iowa, the only state where polls show a tight race. They are all firing at her, aiming where she is most vulnerable -- her reputation as too cautious and calculating. Stoking the conflict are Republicans, who report their first uptick in donations to party headquarters in many months, thanks to a recent stream of "stop-Hillary" fund-raising emails. And Sen. Clinton, by her own hedging on several issues, has provided ammunition.

The jeopardy for her is that one Democrat could emerge from the pack to be the "un-Hillary," consolidating support from voters to try to deny her the nomination. Her challenge is to prevent that, but without undoing what real progress she has made, according to polls, in appealing to a broader swath of the electorate.

THEY'LL STOP THE CONTRAS THIS TIME!:

Colombia Comeback: A “no-brainer” of a trade agreement. (Rich Lowry, 11/23/07, National Review)

Medellin is a microcosm of Colombia. President Alvaro Uribe has forged extraordinary security gains by taking the fight to the country’s hellish brew of left-wing guerrillas, their paramilitary opponents and narco-traffickers. The strength of the main guerrilla group, FARC, is down an estimated 40 percent from its peak, and more than 30,000 paramilitary fighters have been demobilized. Murders have dropped 40 percent from 2002 to 2006, and kidnappings almost 80 percent from 2000 to 2006.

But security is not enough. Colombia is awash in displaced people, chased from their homes by dueling guerrilla armies, and young men who have to be resocialized after lives of violence. They need jobs. That’s why the Colombia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement is so important. It is pending in Congress, where Democratic leaders might let it die in the gravest act of strategic short-sightedness since their attempted rebuke of Turkey.

Uribe is an ally of the United States and a wildly popular democratic leader who saved his country when it tottered on the brink of collapse. That Congress would kick him in the teeth strikes Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, the Bush administration’s chief evangelist for the deal, as scandalously senseless. He escorts as many members of Congress as he can to Colombia, on the theory that when it comes to the greatest comeback story in the Americas, seeing is believing.

What the congressmen see is a Uribe resolved to confront his country’s problems. He takes this congressional delegation to a slum on the outskirts of Cartagena where shacks line dirt roads flooded with fetid water. He holds a town-hall meeting with residents who greet him rapturously but make plain their desperation for more housing and services. It’s as if President Bush showed up in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, willing to field all complaints.

The congressmen can’t help but be impressed. What holds Democrats back from supporting the trade agreement is union opposition back home.

WHOSE SIDE WERE YOU ON IN THE WAR, MOMMY?:

The Democrats' quagmire (Kenneth R. Timmerman, 11/23/07, Washington Times)

Last week, Democrats in the House of Representatives voted yet again to fix a firm deadline to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. It was their 40th such vote. Luckily, their motion died in the Senate, where the Party of Surrender failed to muster enough votes to survive a presidential veto.

Also last week, House Democrats passed a measure, inappropriately titled the RESTORE Act of 2007, that would stick consumers with billions of dollars in legal fees and enrich trial lawyers, as part of an across-the-board assault on the administration"s effort to wage the war on terror.

The RESTORE Act eliminates a key provision from a bill to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs how the U.S. government can intercept suspected terrorist communications, to allow private lawsuits against telecommunications providers who answered the government"s call to turn over phone records of suspected terrorists.

As former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton noted in a recent Baltimore Sun opinion column, eliminating immunity for the telecom providers “would deter companies and private citizens from helping in future emergencies when there is uncertainty and legal risk.”

PLUMBER OF ALL MEDIA:

Plumber’s Progress (SETH SCHIESEL, 11/23/07, NY Times)

Mario, the goofy, fat Italian plumber, is by far the most famous character in video games and perhaps one of the world’s most-recognized fictional characters in any medium. Think back, if you can, to 1981 and Donkey Kong. Mario was there.

After selling almost 200 million games over more than two decades and generating untold billions in revenue for Nintendo of Japan, Mario is back. Super Mario Galaxy, released this month for Nintendo’s Wii console, is the first major new Mario game in five years and is certain to end up one of the best-selling games of 2007. [...]

[T]o test whether Mario could still appeal to an overeducated, media-saturated audience, I assembled a panel of nongaming yuppies in their 30s at my house last weekend, put the Wii controls in their hands and sat back to check the reaction.

Judging by the hours of giggles, chortles and downright guffaws, especially from two women who hadn’t played a video game in many years, Mario still has the goods: the madcap visual humor, the cheesy yet oddly compelling musical score and that incessant tug to play just five more minutes.

HOPE CONDI'S WORKING ON HER NOBEL SPEECH:

Saudis to attend Middle East peace conference (Peter Walker, November 23, 2007, Guardian Unlimited)

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister is to attend next week's Middle East peace conference, he announced today, in a significant boost to the US-sponsored talks.

"I'm not hiding any secret about the Saudi position. We were reluctant until today," Saud al-Faisal told a press conference at the ongoing Arab League meeting in Cairo.

"If not for the Arab consensus we felt today, we would not have decided to go," he said. "But the kingdom would never stand against an Arab consensus, as long as the Arab position has agreed on attending, the kingdom will walk along with its brothers in one line."

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: ALL THE FIXINS AND A DROP OF GLORY:

Eat, Drink, and Relax: Think the Pilgrims would frown on today's football-tossing, turkey-gobbling Thanksgiving festivities? Maybe not. (Elesha Coffman, November 2001, Christianity Today)

I'm sure Thanksgiving Day church services are lovely, but I have to admit that I've never been to one. In my family, Thanksgiving means watching parades and football games, cooking, eating, and maybe playing a few games of pinochle. Aside from the pre-dinner prayer, it's not an overtly religious celebration.

Neither was the so-called "First Thanksgiving" in 1621. [...]

In the Separatist worldview, shared in almost all particulars by the wider Puritan community, nothing fell outside the experience of faith. As Leland Ryken wrote in Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were (Zondervan, 1986):

"Puritanism was impelled by the insight that all of life is God's. The Puritans lived simultaneously in two worlds-the invisible spiritual world and the physical world of earthly existence. For the Puritans, both worlds were equally real, and there was no cleavage of life into sacred and secular. All of life was sacred."

In other words, whether you go to church on Thanksgiving or not, the day can be seasoned with what Puritan divine Richard Baxter called "a drop of glory." As Paul and David said, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it" (Psalm 24:1, 1 Cor. 10:26).

(originally posted: November 25, 2004)

BUT HE HAS NO CORE AND HIS ONLY CONVICTION IS HIS ID:

The real Rudy (David Brooks, November 23, 2007, NY Times)

"I'm pleased to be with you this evening to talk about the anti-immigrant movement in America," [Rudy Giuliani said, on Oct. 10, 1996, at the Kennedy School of Government], "and why I believe this movement endangers the single most important reason for American greatness, namely, the renewal, reformation and reawakening that's provided by the continuous flow of immigrants."

Giuliani continued: "I believe the anti-immigrant movement in America is one of our most serious public problems." It can "be seen in legislation passed by Congress and the president." (Republicans had just passed a welfare reform law that restricted benefits to legal immigrants.) "It can be seen in the negative attitudes being expressed by many of the politicians." [...]

Just last year, I saw him passionately deliver remarks at the Manhattan Institute Hamilton Award Dinner in which he condemned the "punitive approach" to immigration, "which is reflected in the House legislation that was passed, which is to make it a crime to be an illegal or undocumented immigrant."

To "deal with it in a punitive way," he said then, "is actually going to make us considerably less secure than we already are." The better approach, he continued, is to embrace the Senate's comprehensive reform and to separate the criminal illegals from the hard-working ones.

These speeches are the real Rudy. These speeches represent the Rudy who once went overboard and declared, "If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city."

This is why Fred Siegel, a Giuliani biographer, accurately called him an "immoderate centrist." This is why Giuliani won 43 percent of the Hispanic vote in the mayoral race of 1997. This is why his candidacy once had the potential to renovate the Republican Party.

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: HOWDY, PURITAN?:

Footnote on Reagan�s �City on a Hill� phrase (L. John VanTil, 06/19/2004, Z Wire)

In recent days many Americans were deeply moved by the week-long farewell ceremony in honor of President Ronald Reagan. Among the many tributes were frequent references to his vision for America. Numerous speakers, including Vice President Cheney and Supreme Court Justice O�Connor, specifically referred to, and even quoted, John Winthrop�s lay-sermon on board the Arbella in 1630 as the prime example of President Reagan�s vision for America. Winthrop challenged his fellow settlers to work hard, to do the right thing and to carry out the purpose of their mission as they settled in New England. And why? Because, he said, �we shall be as a city upon a hill,� continuing with the observation that all the world would be watching to see how they did in their little experiment in America, ready to mock them if they failed. The networks replayed President Reagan�s delivery of this quotation many times during the week and numerous pundits cited the line as well. Every one of the dozens who quoted or commented on Winthrop�s phrase during the memorial events referred to him as a �Pilgrim� leader.

In the interest of historical accuracy it must be pointed out that John Winthrop was not a Pilgrim and that stating so on any decent history test would result in points being lost. Well, then, who was Winthrop if not a Pilgrim? It is no small point to state that he was, in fact, a Puritan and that Pilgrims and Puritans were not the same settlers at all. And, it must be said that Pilgrims are admired by Americans, even admired in some history texts, while queries about Puritans generally result in a frown and a negative opinion. [...]

If Winthrop was not a Pilgrim, how did it happen that he came to be called one by President Reagan and then by dozens who quoted him or quoted Winthrop from their own experience during the memorial ceremonies? The likely answer to this question involves a long-standing erroneous reputation of the Puritans.

During the first half of the twentieth century, history textbooks that commented on Puritans and Puritanism had a decidedly negative tone in their interpretation. This negative tone probably arose from the writer�s personal dislike for the strict Christian views held by the Puritans, but that is a topic beyond the scope of this piece. Puritanism has been rehabilitated by an outstanding group of Harvard and Yale historians beginning with the work of Samuel E. Morison in the 1930s (�The Builders of the Bay Colony�), continuing with major works by Perry Miller (�The New England Mind�) and Yale historian Edmond S. Morgan (The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop). Their students and their students� students have carried on this restoration of Puritanism, therein creating an accurate picture of it. Indeed, I would count my own �Liberty of Conscience: The History of a Puritan Idea� as a chapter in this reconstruction of Puritanism. In brief, it is clear that Puritans were generally witty, educated, hard working, and devout Christians. They certainly were not prudes as Edmond Morgan has pointed out.

�Cultural lag� and simple obstinacy, not to mention a continuing revisionism of American history, have prevented the more accurate picture of John Winthrop�s Boston from becoming the prevailing view of Puritanism. Hence, it is likely that whoever first gave President Reagan this quotation did not know the difference between Pilgrims and Puritans. Or, more likely, this person thought that using the name Puritan would undermine whatever positive message the �city on a hill� phrase had.

Interesting to note though that when Ronald Reagan first famously used the "city on a hill" phrase, back when he was writing all his own material, he didn't make the Pilgrim mistake, We Will Be A City Upon A Hill (Ronald Reagan, January 25, 1974, First Conservative Political Action Conference):

Standing on the tiny deck of the Arabella in 1630 off the Massachusetts coast, John Winthrop said, �We will be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world.� Well, we have not dealt falsely with our God, even if He is temporarily suspended from the classroom.

The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the 'shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.

(originally posted: 6/25/04)

THE LIMITS OF REALISM:

The China Model: How long can economic freedom and political repression coexist? (Rowan Callick, November/December 2007, The American)

From Vietnam to Syria, from Burma to Venezuela, and all across Africa, leaders of developing countries are admiring and emulating what might be called the China Model. It has two components. The first is to copy successful elements of liberal economic policy by opening up much of the economy to foreign and domestic investment, allowing labor flexibility, keeping the tax and regulatory burden low, and creating a first-class infrastructure through a combination of private sector and state spending. The second part is to permit the ruling party to retain a firm grip on government, the courts, the army, the internal security apparatus, and the free flow of information. A shorthand way to describe the model is: economic freedom plus political repression.

The system’s advantage over the standard authoritarian or totalitarian approach is obvious: it produces economic growth, which keeps people happy. Under communism and its variations on the right and left, highly centralized state-run economies have performed poorly. The China Model introduces, at least in significant part, the proven success of free-market economics. As citizens get richer, the expectation is that a nondemocratic regime can retain and even enhance its power and authority. There is no doubt that the model has worked in China and may work as well elsewhere, but can it be sustained over the long run? [...]

In the 1990s, a presumption grew that the crowds of well-connected young Chinese returning with their Ivy League MBAs would not acquiesce to the continued unaccountable rule of the cadres. But many of them instead joined the party with alacrity. A striking example is that of Li Qun, who studied in the U.S. and then served as assistant to the mayor of New Haven, writing a book in Chinese on his experiences. After his return to China, he became a mayor himself, of Linyi in Shandong Province in the Northeast. There, he swiftly became the nemesis of one of China’s most famous human rights lawyers, the blind Chen Guangcheng. First, Chen was placed under house arrest and his lawyers and friends were beaten because of his campaign against forced sterilizations of village women. Then, Chen was charged, bizarrely, with conspiring to disrupt traffic when a trail of further arrests led to public protests. He was jailed for four years.

Thus, best of all, in the view of many of the international admirers of the China Model, is that the leaders, while opening the economy to foster consumption, retain full political control to silence “troublemakers” like Chen. Indeed, the big attractions of China to capital from overseas has been that the political setting is stable, that there will be no populist campaign to nationalize foreign assets, that the labor force is both flexible and disciplined, and that policy changes are rational and are signaled well ahead. Economic management is pragmatic, in line with Deng Xiaoping’s encomium to “cross the river by feeling for stones,” while political management is stern but increasingly collegiate, the personality cult having been jettisoned after Mao and factions having faded together with ideology.

The CPC is replacing old-style communist values with nationalism and a form of Confucianism, in a manner that echoes the “Asian values” espoused by the leaders who brought Southeast Asian countries through their rapid modernization process in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and elsewhere.

EL REVOLUTION SON MORTE:

France in no mood to say vive la revolution: As strikes appear to be losing public support, President Sarkozy's reforms gain favor (Geraldine Baum, November 23, 2007, LA Times)

Although Sarkozy has expressed willingness to meet, negotiate with and even have long, informal dinners with trade union leaders, he has made it clear that he will insist on workers paying into the pension system for at least 40 years.

In a speech this week, he emphasized that he intended to remain firm, but said he was not out for a showdown: "I do not want a winner or a loser."

And Thursday, although commuters were still too grumpy to start celebrating, it looked like the worst of the rail strike was behind them. (Air France pilots, however, were threatening to stay off the job starting Saturday.)

Most unions at the state-owned national railroad and many metro and bus drivers announced they would wind down protests over the weekend even as they continued to press their agenda at the negotiating tables. But a leftist union warned that the strike was merely suspended and that if talks didn't go their way, they would walk again around the December holidays.

The appearance, at least, of being open to dialogue has helped Sarkozy win public support, according to recent polls. And to the extent that he received a mandate for reform during the election, it has been strengthened by the strikes.

Since October, when the periodic strikes began, support for the president's reform efforts has gone up while support for strikes has gone down, says Pierre Giacometti, an analyst with the polling firm Ipsos.

As of last weekend, 66% of the French, a significant increase from the previous weekend, were behind Sarkozy's pension changes, an Ipsos poll showed. Only a third expressed general support for the strikes.

Giacometti depicts recent union actions as a continuation of the election struggle. Sarkozy defeated Socialist Segolene Royal, who had vowed not to touch the special pensions, in a runoff election.

"We are convinced that these strikes are run by a very political movement of student extremists and trade unionists out for a third round of the election," Giacometti says.

"Sarkozy already won, but some political vehicles want to fight him again in the streets. But the public doesn't want another battle."

In fact, appearances this time around don't capture a profound change beneath the surface.

At an anti-strike march last weekend of about 10,000 people, many seemed as much pro-Sarkozy as against a tradition of governing in France that allows presidents and Parliaments to be trumped by unionists inflicting distress on the public.

Guy Lacombe says he doesn't usually join public marches but, well, he needs to march to end the relentless marching.

"If France is known for its many strikes, we want that to change," says Lacombe, who boasts that he is still working at 64.

"We want the French mentality to change, because it's always the same people who go on strike while everybody else has to work."

YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET:

The trouble with migrants: Europe is fretting about too much immigration when it needs even more (The Economist, 11/22/07)

In the short run the rate of migration within the EU is likely to slow. Demand for foreign labour in western Europe may drop as housing markets slow and construction falls off. Years of strong growth in the east, combined with a steady outflow of workers, have led to serious labour shortages that are driving up wages. That reduces the incentive to leave, and increases the incentive to return.

In truth the bad demographic outlook of much of western and eastern Europe will make the continent increasingly reliant on foreign labour. And one irony is that, for all the current fretting about too many foreigners, a chronic shortage of suitable workers may be felt most acutely in the countries that seem most hostile to outsiders. Germany has kept its labour markets closed to new EU members until 2011, but it now admits to a skills shortage. This month it eased the restrictions on migrant workers in the mechanical and electrical-engineering industries.

Immigration already accounts for most of the limited population growth in Europe. Ageing populations, combined with the natives' lack of ability, or inclination, to do many jobs, mean that more foreign workers are likely to be needed. By one estimate Europe's native-born workforce will shrink by 44m by the middle of the century. Skilled workers will be in especially short supply. Those calling most fiercely for foreigners to go home may come to regret what they wished for.

THE PROSPECT OF GOING 0 FOR 3...:

Cannon to the north of them (The Economist, 11/22/07)

Because it is physically much smaller than Iowa, and its population is concentrated around the old mill-towns of the south, like Manchester and Nashua, “retail politics” there is even more up-close and personal than in Iowa. Its well-educated and well-off citizens have plenty of opportunities to crowd into school gymnasiums, diners and church halls to hear and to interrogate.

And, above all, the state likes to vote: it chooses its governor every two years, and turnout for the presidential primaries will be of the order of 65%, compared with around 10% for Iowa's caucuses. Well over half the electorate consists of voters of undeclared allegiance, though the state has been trending Democrat for years, thanks to an influx of liberal east-coast retirees drawn to its lakes and mountains and yuppies working in its booming tech sector. New Hampshire gives a good indication of how a candidate appeals to independent voters, the largest group in the country.

New Hampshire looks likely to matter most to the Republican race, where it will probably either make or break Mr Giuliani. Until recently, the former mayor of New York had been engaged in a breathtakingly bold strategy: to ignore the early states (which also include Michigan, due to vote on January 15th, and Nevada and South Carolina, both due on January 19th), in favour of concentrating on Florida (January 29th) and the February 5th states.

But there is a snag. Mitt Romney, a successful businessman and former governor of Massachusetts, has been spending vast amounts of his fortune in Iowa and New Hampshire, and leads the polls in both of them. Throw in the fact that conservative South Carolina might not take to a man currently on his third wife and that Mr Romney's father was a popular governor of Michigan, and there is a real chance that Mr Giuliani might end up heading to Florida having lost four races to his main rival.

WHICH IS WHY THE A380 WON'T BE LANDING IN DEMOCRACIES:

Legal action threatened over 'sham' Heathrow consultation (Colin Brown, 23 November 2007, Independent)

Councils opposed to a third London runway threatened legal action yesterday after Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, provoked fury by signalling a massive expansion of Heathrow.

Environment groups accused Gordon Brown of hypocrisy for claiming to be leading the world in combating climate change four days before consulting on an expansion of aviation in his own backyard.

The Government's plans were backed in a move that appeared to be co-ordinated by all sides of the pro-expansion lobby, including unions, the CBI, chambers of commerce and the airlines. But ministers may find the threats of legal action against "sham" consultation more worrying.

SEE YA, KIMBA:

New boss turns the tables on Al Qaeda: Ex-Sunni insurgent becomes U.S. ally (Liz Sly, November 22, 2007, Chicago Tribune)

The once-dreaded Al Qaeda in Iraq stronghold of Amariyah has a new boss, and he's not shy about telling the story of the shootout that turned him into a local legend and helped change the tenor of the Iraq war.

Earlier this year, Abul Abed, a disgruntled Sunni insurgent leader, began secret talks with the Americans about ending Al Qaeda's reign of terror in this run-down, formerly middle-class Baghdad neighborhood, renowned as one of the city's most dangerous. He had been gathering intelligence on the group for months.

One day in late May, he said, he decided it was time to act.

He hailed the car carrying the feared leader of Al Qaeda in the neighborhood, a man known as the White Lion, on one of Amariyah's main streets. "We want you to stop destroying our neighborhood," he told the man.

"Do you know who you are talking to?" said the White Lion, getting out of his car. "I am Al Qaeda. I will destroy even your own houses!"

He pulled out his pistol and shot at Abul Abed. The gun jammed. He reloaded and fired again. Again, the gun jammed.

By this time, Abul Abed said, he had pulled his own gun. He fired once, killing the White Lion.

"I walked over to him, stepped on his hand and took his gun," Abul Abed, which is a nom de guerre, said at his new, pink-painted headquarters in a renovated school in Amariyah, as an American Army captain seated in the corner nodded his head in affirmation of the account. "And then the fight started."

It was the beginning of the end for Al Qaeda in Amariyah.

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: HAPPY THANKSGIVING:

My fellow Americans, I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer's disease.

Upon learning this news, Nancy and I had to decide whether as private citizens we would keep this a private matter or whether we would make this news known in a public way.

In the past, Nancy suffered from breast cancer and I had cancer surgeries. We found through our open disclosures we were able to raise public awareness. We were happy that as a result many more people underwent testing. They were treated in early stages and able to return to normal, healthy lives.

So now we feel it is important to share it with you. In opening our hearts, we hope this might promote greater awareness of this condition. Perhaps it will encourage a clear understanding of the individuals and families who are affected by it.

At the moment, I feel just fine. I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on this earth doing the things I have always done. I will continue to share life's journey with my beloved Nancy and my family. I plan to enjoy the great outdoors and stay in touch with my friends and supporters.

Unfortunately, as Alzheimer's disease progresses, the family often bears a heavy burden. I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience. When the time comes, I am confident that with your help she will face it with faith and courage.

In closing, let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future.

I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.

Thank you, my friends.

Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.

Now the onely way to avoyde this shipwracke and to provide for our posterity is to followe the Counsell of Micah, to doe Justly, to love mercy, to walke humbly with our God, for this end, wee must be knitt together in this worke as one man, wee must entertaine each other in brotherly Affeccion, wee must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities, for the supply of others necessities, wee must uphold a familiar Commerce together in all meekenes, gentlenes, patience and liberallity, wee must delight in eache other, make others Condicions our owne rejoyce together, mourne together, labour, and suffer together, allwayes haveing before our eyes our Commission and Community in the worke, our Community as members of the same body, soe shall wee keepe the unitie of the spirit in the bond of peace, the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us,
as his owne people and will commaund a blessing upon us in all our wayes, soe that wee shall see much more of his wisdome power goodnes and truthe then formerly wee have beene acquainted with, wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us, when tenn of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when hee shall make us a prayse and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantacions: the lord make it like that of New England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world, wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of god and all professours for Gods sake; wee shall shame the faces ofmany of gods worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whether wee are going: And to shutt upp this discourse with that exhortacion of Moses that faithfull servant of the Lord in his last farewell to Israell: Beloved there is now sett before us life, and good, deathe and evill in that wee are Commaunded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another to walke in his wayes and to keepe his Commaundements and his Ordinance, and his lawes, and the Articles of our Covenant with him that wee may live and be multiplyed, and that the Lord our God may blesse us in the land whether wee goe to possesse it: But if our heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced and worshipp other Gods our pleasures, and proffitts, and serve them, it is propounded unto us this day, wee shall surely perishe out of the good Land whether wee passe over this vast Sea to possesse it;

Therefore lett us choose life,

that wee, and our Seede,

may live; by obeyeing his

voyce, and cleaveing to him,

for hee is our life, and

our prosperity.

YOU KNEW THEY'D RUN FROM GERMANS...:

End to French Transit Strike Seems Near (DOREEN CARVAJAL, 11/22/07, NY Times)

A crippling national transportation strike that has lasted nine days appeared to be sputtering to an end in France today as rail workers fighting to retain early retirement rights appeared to grow willing to accept negotiations and voted throughout the country to return to work. [...]

It has been a symbolic clash that has tested the resolve of the transport unions — fighting an unpopular battle to allow their workers to retire in their 50s — against that of President Nicholas Sarkozy.

PARENTAL GUIDANCE:

Give thanks — it's good for you (Bruce Chapman, 11/22/07, The Seattle Times)

When a family member learned not long ago that he was dying of cancer, he visited a church he hadn't much seen and, while leaving, he picked up a tract on the topic of facing death. The very first suggestion was to give thanks. Initially, it seemed perverse to him; after all, he was counting his impending losses, not his blessings.

But, he followed the advice and it literally transformed him, and, among other things, gave him new courage and hope.

Gratitude has been called the gateway to the virtues. As Cicero put it, "Gratitude is not only the greatest of the virtues, but the parent of all others," opening the heart to deeper appreciation, compassion, repentance, forgiveness, generosity and wisdom. Giving thanks should be cultivated as a habit. It is a kind of therapy for the spirit.

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: MUCH TO BE THANKFUL FOR:

-EXCERPT: An American in Africa from Out of America : A Black Man Confronts Africa (1997) (Keith B. Richburg)

I WATCHED THE DEAD float down a river in Tanzania. It's one of those apocryphal stories you always hear coming out of Africa, meant to demonstrate the savagery of "the natives." Babies being pulled off their mothers' backs and tossed onto spears. Pregnant women being disemboweled. Bodies being tossed into the river and floating downstream. You heard them all, but never really believed.

And yet there I was, drenched with sweat under the blistering sun, standing at the Rusumo Falls bridge, watching the bodies float past me. Sometimes they came one by one. Sometimes two or three together. They were bloated now, horribly discolored. Most were naked, or stripped down to their underpants. Sometimes the hands and feet were bound together. Some were missing limbs. And as they went over the falls, a few got stuck together on a little crag, and stayed there flapping against the current, as though they were trying to break free. I couldn't take my eyes off of the body of a baby.

We timed them: a body or two every minute. The Tanzanian border guards told us it had been like that for a couple of days now. These were the victims of the ethnic genocide going on across the border in Rwanda.

For the three long years that I spent covering Africa as a reporter for the Washington Post I had to live with images--countless images--like this one. Three years of watching pretty much the worst that human beings can do to one another. Revulsion. Sorrow. Pity at the monumental waste of human life. These sentiments began nagging me soon after I first set foot in Africa in late 1991. It's a gnawing feeling that I was really unable to express out loud until the end, as I was packing my bags to leave, a feeling I felt pained to admit, a sentiment that, when uttered aloud, might come across as callous, even racist.

And yet I know exactly this feeling that haunts me; I've just been too embarrassed to say it. So let me drop the charade and put it as simply as I know how: There but for the grace of God go I.

You see, I was seeing all of this horror a bit differently because of the color of my skin. I am an American, but a black man, a descendant of slaves brought from Africa. When I see these nameless, faceless, anonymous bodies washing over a waterfall or piled up on the back of trucks, what I see most is that they look like me.

Maybe 400 or so years ago, one of my ancestors was taken from his village, probably by a local chieftain. He was shackled in leg irons, kept in a holding pen or a dark pit, possibly at Goree Island off the coast of Senegal. And then he was put in the crowded, filthy cargo hold of a ship for the long and treacherous voyage across the Atlantic to the New World.

Many of the slaves died on that voyage. But not my ancestor. Maybe it was because he was strong, maybe just stubborn, or maybe he had an irrepressible will to live. But he survived, and ended up in slavery working on plantations in the Caribbean. Generations on down the line, one of his descendants was taken to South Carolina. Finally, a more recent descendant, my father, moved to Detroit to find a job in an auto plant during the Second World War.

And so it was that I came to be born in Detroit and that 35 years later, a black man born in white America, I was in Africa, birthplace of my ancestors, standing at the edge of a river not as an African but as an American journalist--a mere spectator watching the bloated bodies of black Africans cascading over a waterfall. And that's when I thought about how, if things had been different, I might have been one of them--or might have met some similar fate in one of the countless ongoing civil wars or tribal clashes on this brutal continent.

We are told by some supposedly enlightened black leaders that white America owes us something because they brought our ancestors over as slaves. And Africa--Mother Africa--is often held up as a black Valhalla, where the descendants of slaves would be welcomed back and where black men and women can walk in true dignity.

Sorry, but I've been there. I've had an AK-47 rammed up my nose. I've seen a cholera epidemic in Zaire, a famine in Somalia, a civil war in Liberia. I've seen cities bombed to near rubble, and other cities reduced to rubble because their leaders let them rot and decay while they spirited away billions of dollars--yes, billions--into overseas bank accounts.

I've also seen heroism, honor, and dignity in Africa, particularly in the stories of ordinary people--brave Africans battling insurmountable odds to publish an independent newspaper, to organize a political party, to teach kids in some rural bush school, and usually just to survive. But even with all the good, my perceptions have been hopelessly skewed by the bad. My tour in Africa coincided with two of the world's worst tragedies--Somalia and Rwanda. I've had friends and colleagues shot, stabbed, beaten to death by mobs, left to bleed to death on a Mogadishu street--one of them beaten so badly in the face that his friends could recognize him only by his hair and his clothes.

So excuse me if I sound cynical, jaded. I'm beaten down, and I'll admit it. And it's Africa that has made me this way. I feel for her suffering, I empathize with her pain, and now, from afar, I still recoil in horror whenever I see yet another television picture of another tribal slaughter, another refugee crisis. But most of all I think: Thank God my ancestor got out, because, now, I am not one of them.

In short, thank God that I am an American.

(originally posted: 7/10/04)

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: FOR THOSE CURRENTLY COURTING DISASTER:

Christopher Kimball Saves the Thanksgiving Feast (Morning Edition, November 24, 2005)

It could happen to you. Friends and relatives are traveling over the river and through woods to your house for Thanksgiving. You started cooking well before dawn, and just as your culinary masterpiece is taking shape: disaster.

The biscuits are burned, the gravy is gritty and the turkey is in trouble.

That's where Christopher Kimball can help. He is the creator of Cook's Illustrated Magazine and hosts the PBS television show America's Test Kitchen.

(originally posted: 11/24/05)

WE'RE THANKFUL FOR Y'ALL:

It is, amazingly enough, already that time of year when we all give formal thanks for the blessings we too often take for granted the rest of the year. As we never tire of telling you, it is the readers, commenters, and correspondents of the Brothers Judd who make it worthwhile to us and we can not adequately express how thankful we are to and for you.

Personally, this has been one of my most enjoyable years of blogging. The conversation has been especially civil of late and at this point we only very rarely have to delete comments and those almost exclusively of the most virulent nativists. As a general matter folks are thoughtful, informed and good natured and that allows for a lively exchange with minimal bruised feelings. We do read every comment and email and try to respond to most, if not always at the length they deserve.

We are humbled and gratified that you choose to spend some of your time with us and share your thoughts when moved to do so. We value hearing from you and are honored whenever you opt to hear from us.

We hope everyone has a happy and healthful Thanksgiving in the bosom of their own home--which would obviate the need to drive--or in the company of friends and family--whose homes are more than likely accessible by train. We include even Sox-haters, Darwinists, reflexive nativists, witch-coddlers, anti-McCainiacs, Airbusphiles, gold bugs, soccer fans and those who remain in Eric/Julia denial in these well wishes. You may be as wrong as dark socks with shorts, but you do give the joint atmosphere.

As an entirely inadequate expression of our regard, perhaps a Thanksgiving Day Football contest would be in order? Pick the three NFL games that day (with the total points scored in each) and we'll give out some more books.

Green Bay at Detroit
N.Y. Jets at Dallas
Indianapolis at Atlanta

God bless you and yours and the Land of the Pilgrim's pride.

NOT WHAT HE MEANT BY THE CLOCK STRIKING TWELVE:

Influential Iranian daily issues a rare rebuke to Ahmadinejad (Nazila Fathi, November 22, 2007, IHT)

The newspaper, Jomhouri Eslami, criticized Ahmadinejad for calling a former nuclear negotiator, Hossein Mousavian, a spy and saying that influential politicians were using their power to have him cleared of those charges. Mousavian was a close aide to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanajni when he was president.

"Lately, defaming political rivals has become common in the country and has replaced lawful behavior," the daily wrote in a front-page editorial in its Wednesday editions. "We want to reject this kind of behavior as immoral, illegal, illogical and un-Islamic and remind wise figures that such a trend is dangerous for the country."

Ahmadinejad has proved a divisive leader, with both hard-line conservative and reformist opponents finding fault with his economic programs and his strident anti-Western rhetoric. But the criticism is often indirect, to avoid political repercussions. Jomhouri Eslami, however, is so established - the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was once the managing editor - that it is unlikely to be closed down or censured.

BIG CREATION, SMALL CREATURE:

Is Atomic Radiation as Dangerous as We Thought?: A mounting number of studies are coming to some surprising conclusions about the dangers of nuclear radiation. It might not be as deadly as is widely believed. (Matthias Schulz, 11/22/07, Der Spiegel)

There, in a long brick building, workers, including many women, sat in a dimly lit environment and placed the encrusted rods into nitric acid, triggering a process that allowed them to remove the weapons-grade plutonium. While the same work was performed with remote-controlled robotic arms in the West, the Soviet workers were not even given masks to wear. There was nothing to stop plutonium gases from entering their lungs.

And yet the amount of health damage sustained by these workers was astonishingly low. The GSF study has examined 6,293 men who worked at the chemical plant between 1948 and 1972. "So far 301 have died of lung cancer," says Jacob. "But only 100 cases were caused by radiation. The others were attributed to cigarettes."

The second large, but as yet unpublished study by the GSF scientists also offers surprisingly low mortality figures. The subjects in this study were farmers who lived downstream from the nuclear reactors, in 41 small towns and villages along the Techa River. From 1949 to 1951, waste material from the plutonium production -- a bubbling toxic soup -- was simply poured into the river untreated. As a result, highly radioactive elements such as cesium 137 and strontium 90 were deposited in the river's sediments. The riverbanks became radioactive.

A report warning of the dangers was sent to Moscow in 1951. A series of X-ray tests was conducted, and police officers were assigned to guard the river. "We could only see the river through barbed wire or from a small wooden bridge," says a former resident. By 1960, 22 villages had been evacuated.

From the standpoint of Russian citizens' groups, which are currently suing for compensation in the courts, these official steps were half-hearted. In their view, the plant management committed "atomic genocide" against the ethnic Tatars living in the area.

But as the analyses show, even this accusation is exaggerated. The US National Cancer Institute (NCI) studied 29,873 people who lived along the Techa between 1950 and 1960. According to the NCI scientists, only 46 deaths came about due to radiation exposure.

The German researchers now know why the death rate was relatively low. Although the Techa was abused as a nuclear waste dump, the abuse was not as severe as the rumor-mongers would have us believe. "The Techa farmer most heavily exposed to the radiation received a dose of only 0.45 Gray," explains Jacob. By comparison, a lethal dose of radiation, which causes fever, changes in the composition of the blood, irreparable damage to the body and death within two weeks, is 6 Gray.

The findings hardly jive with the popular image of the atom as evil incarnate. Nightmarish scenarios of lingering illness and birth defects on an apocalyptic scale populate nightmares. In West Germany, the moral and political self-image of an entire generation arose from its battle against radiation, from "no nukes" protest marches to facing off against police water cannons at the Brokdorf nuclear power plant to sit-ins in front of Castor rail containers of reprocessed nuclear waste.

This hard-line stance was partly rooted in history. On Aug. 6, 1945, a US bomber dropped an atomic bomb code-named Little Boy over Hiroshima. The bomb detonated at an altitude of 600 meters (about 2,000 feet), directly above the center of the city and the resulting fireball, generating temperatures in excess of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, swept away all of downtown Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people. Three days later, a second atom bomb was dropped over Nagasaki, killing 70,000.

The more recent meltdown at the reactor in Chernobyl in 1986 reminded the world of the dangers of the atom. The incident was referred to as "nuclear genocide," and the press wrote of "forests stained red" and of deformed insects. The public was bombarded with images of Soviet cleanup crews wearing protective suits, bald-headed children with cancer and the members of cement crews who lost their lives in an attempt to seal off the cracked reactor with a concrete plug. Fifteen years after the reactor accident, the German newsmagazine Focus concluded that Chernobyl was responsible for "500,000" deaths.

Was all this just doomsday folklore? There is no doubt that large sections of the countryside were contaminated by the accident in the Ukraine. In the ensuing decades, up to 4,000 cleanup workers and residents of the more highly contaminated areas died of the long-term consequences of radiation exposure. But the six-figure death counts that opponents of nuclear power once cited are simply nonsense. In most cases, they were derived from vague "extrapolations" based on the hearsay reported by Russian dissidents. But such horror stories have remained part of the nuclear narrative to this day.

In fact, contemporaries who reported on the Chernobyl incident should have known better. Even in the 1980s, radiobiologists and radiation physicists considered the media's doomsday reports to be exaggerated.

And their suspicions have become a virtual certainty today. Groups of researchers have set up shop at all of the sites of nuclear accidents or major nuclear contamination. They work at Hanford (where the United States began producing plutonium in 1944), they conduct studies in the English town of Sellafield (where a contaminated cloud escaped from the chimney in 1957), and they study the fates of former East German uranium mineworkers in the states of Saxony and Thuringia. New mortality rates have now been compiled for all of these groups of individuals at risk. Surprisingly, the highest mortality rates were found among the East German mineworkers.

In Hiroshima, on the other hand, radioactivity claimed surprisingly few human lives. Experts now know exactly what happened in the first hours, days and weeks after the devastating atomic explosion. Almost all of Hiroshima's 140,000 victims died quickly. Either they were crushed immediately by the shock wave, or they died within the next few days of acute burns.

But the notorious radiation sickness -- a gradual ailment that leads to certain death for anyone exposed to radiation levels of 6 Gray or higher -- was rare. The reason is that Little Boy simply did not produce enough radioactivity. But what about the long-term consequences? Didn't the radiation work like a time bomb in the body?

To answer these questions, the Japanese and the Americans launched a giant epidemiological study after the war. The study included all residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who had survived the atomic explosion within a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius. Investigators questioned the residents to obtain their precise locations when the bomb exploded, and used this information to calculate a personal radiation dose for each resident. Data was collected for 86,572 people.

Today, 60 years later, the study's results are clear. More than 700 people eventually died as a result of radiation received from the atomic attack:

* 87 died of leukemia;

* 440 died of tumors;

* and 250 died of radiation-induced heart attacks.

* In addition, 30 fetuses developed mental disabilities after they were born.

Such statistics have attracted little notice so far. The numbers cited in schoolbooks are much higher. According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, 105,000 people died of the "long-term consequences of radiation."

"For commendable reasons, many critics have greatly exaggerated the health risks of radioactivity," says Albrecht Kellerer, a Munich radiation biologist. "But contrary to widespread opinion, the number of victims is by no means in the tens of thousands."

Especially surprising, though, is that the stories of birth defects in newborns are also pure fantasy. The press has repeatedly embellished photos of a destroyed Hiroshima with those of deformed children, children without eyes or with three arms. In reality, there hasn't been a single study that provides evidence of an elevated rate of birth defects.

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE:

Thanksgiving's Simple Meaning (Ken Masugi, November 24, 2004, Precepts)

We are all familiar with the Thanksgiving holiday as a time for family, feasting, and football. All of these are great American institutions, but we forget too easily the meaning of this national holiday as it was first established by George Washington on October 3, 1789 and reaffirmed as we know it today by Abraham Lincoln on October 3, 1863, exactly 74 years later. A mere glance at their Thanksgiving proclamations reminds us of the noblest purposes of government, including its greatest ends�fighting war and educating its citizens�which fulfill all the objects of peace.

Moreover, the simplest meaning of Thanksgiving reminds us�contrary to secularist courts and professors�that these presidents were proclaiming a holy day, a day for prayer and recognition of Almighty God's authority over man. We are most human when we honor our duties, to our country and to our Creator, and the wisdom that unifies these duties. No understanding of the First Amendment, however crabbed, can possibly gainsay this official government acknowledgement of the power of the sacred in our lives.

A close reading of these two messages reveals a careful and subtle teaching about the higher purposes of government and of human life.

(originally posted: November 24, 2004)

A SIGNIFICANT CHALLENGE WOULD EXIST...:

Clashes between Sunnis and Al Qaeda break out near Baghdad (The Associated Press, November 21, 2007)

Suspected al-Qaida fighters killed two Iraqi soldiers early Thursday, then used their Humvees to kill at least 18 rival Sunnis south of Baghdad, police said, a brazen example of the challenges still facing Iraqis despite a lull in violence.

Several Iraqi refugees, meanwhile, returned home to the capital from Syria, saying they felt confident about the dramatic drop in the level of sectarian attacks.

"Thanks to be for God that we arrived here today. We have learned that the security situation improved and we hope all Iraqis will get back to Iraq," Muhanad Ibrahim said as he arrived in the western neighborhood of Mansour.

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: MODO MYSTERY CLEARED UP:

Blood Is Thicker Than Gravy (MAUREEN DOWD, 11/28/04, NY Times)

I've been surprised, out on the road, how often I get asked about my family. They're beyond red - more like crimson. My sister flew to West Virginia in October to work a phone bank for W. [...]

This year, my brothers were on the warpath about news reports that Maryland public schools did not teach about Thanksgiving from a religious perspective. "Who do they think the Pilgrims thanked?" demanded Martin. "God."

There are moments - when my brothers are sharing some snarky thing Rush Limbaugh said about me, or the latest bon mot from Pat Buchanan, with whom they grew up - that I'm tempted to stuff my ears with my mom's potato stuffing, or go off and read a book by David Sedaris about normal family life.

People often ask me why President Bush inspires such passionate support. My brother Kevin, a salesman who lives in Montgomery County, Md., can answer that; here is a recent e-mail message, trimmed for space, he sent to friends:...

(originally posted: November 28, 2004)

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: A RELIGIOUS REPUBLIC, JUST NOT SECTARIAN:

The faith of our fathers (Jay Tolson, Jun 19, 2004, US News)

Some say the mystery of American religiosity is contained in a paradox: America is a godly nation because it has kept church and state separate, at least in the sense set forth by the Constitution. "Congress," the First Amendment famously begins, "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . . " Perhaps the greater mystery, though, is that those two clauses did not produce conflicts during most of our history, even though religious sentiments and symbols liberally suffused the public square and much of civic life. But if most Americans have long approved of their civil religion, why have some in recent years found it so objectionable?

Much confusion and litigation have arisen from the perception that America's founders intended religion to be strictly a matter of private choice that should never impinge upon public life. That may be as much a misunderstanding of the founders' intent as the view that the founders intended to create an explicitly Christian nation. According to Purdue University historian Frank Lambert, in his book The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America, both extremes fail to acknowledge that America had two different sets of spiritual fathers. The "Planting Fathers," particularly the Puritans of New England, sought both to practice their own brand of Christianity and to found a Christian state. Establishing Congregationalism, they supported it with taxes and compelled their chief magistrates to govern "according to the rule of the word of God." The southern colonies, meanwhile, generally enforced Anglicanism, while the middle colonies worked out more pluralistic arrangements. But some 150 years after the Puritans signed their charters, a different group of national leaders, the Founding Fathers, hammered out a new national compact, this one guaranteeing that the state would have no voice in determining matters of conscience.

Clearly, much had happened in the years separating the Planting Fathers from the Founding Fathers. While many of the colonial elite had been touched by the skeptical scientific rationalism of the Enlightenment, even greater numbers of common folk were transformed by a powerful religious revival that swept through the colonies in the 1740s. Called the First Great Awakening, it emphasized individual religious experience and subtly challenged the authority of the established sects. By the time the Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia, most of them knew that the people of the new United States were too diverse to be forced into conformity with a national church.

Yet the founders never sought to drive religion from the public realm. The words they spoke, the symbols they embraced, and the rituals they established--from state-declared days of thanksgiving to prayers at the start of Congress to military chaplaincies--all made clear that even semiofficial acknowledgment of divine providence was not only acceptable but good. This public piety was distinctly nonsectarian and centered upon what might be called a benevolent theism. But as James Hutson, chief of the manuscript division of the Library of Congress, argues in his Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, whether they were old-line Calvinists or liberal deists, the Founders believed divine will legitimized their institutions and laws and made citizens more willing to respect them. Even Thomas Jefferson, who thought most Americans would become rationalist Unitarians within a generation or two, considered the acknowledgment of providential authority essential to public virtue.

Contrary to Jefferson's rationalist prediction, Americans became even more enthusiastically religious. [...]

Secularists often ignore the fact that civil religion has long served as a prod to civic conscience and as a check on national hubris. As McClay points out, "Expressions like 'under God' in the pledge suggest that the nation is under judgment and subject to higher moral principles. Even people deeply suspicious of civil religion ought to appreciate some sort of higher restraint."

Not the least singular feature of the singular epoch in which we are living is that the very persons who are least willing to hear about the veto power are likewise the persons who are most certain that they stand for the virtues that depend upon its exercise--for example, peace and brotherhood. As against the expansionists of every kind, I do not hesitate to affirm that what is specifically human in man and ultimately divine is a certain quality of will, a will that is felt in its relation to his ordinary self as a will to refrain. The affirmation of this quality of will is nothing new: it is implied in the Pauline opposition between a law of the spirit and a law of the members. In general, the primacy accorded to will over intellect in Oriental. The idea of humility, the idea that man needs to defer to a higher will, came into Europe with an Oriental religion, Christianity. This idea has been losing ground in almost exact ratio to the decline of Christianity. Inasmuch as the recognition of the supremacy of will seems to me imperative in any wise view of life, I side in important respects with the Christian against those who have in the Occident, whether in ancient or in modern times, inclined to give first place either to the intellect or to the emotions.

MORE:
-LECTURE: Irving Babbitt and Cultural Renewal (James Seaton, April 13, 2002, The Philadelphia Society)
-REVIEW: of Democracy and Leadership by Irving Babbitt (John Attarian, The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty)

(originally posted: 6/23/04)

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: "GODLY AND SOBER", BUT NOT SUCKERS

Having tried what Bradford called the "common course and condition"-the communal stewardship of the land demanded of them by their investors-Bradford reports that the community was afflicted by an unwillingness to work, by confusion and discontent, by a loss of mutual respect, and by a prevailing sense of slavery and injustice. And this among "godly and sober men." In short, the experiment was a failure that was endangering the health of the colony.

Historian George Langdon argues that the condition of early Plymouth was not "communism" but "an extreme form of exploitative capitalism in which all the fruits of men's labor were shipped across the seas." In this he echoes Samuel Eliot Morison, who claims that "it was not communism . . . but a very degrading and onerous slavery to the English capitalists that was somewhat softened." Notice that this does not agree with the dissension that Bradford reports, however. It was between the colonists themselves that the conflicts arose, not between the colonists and the investors in London. Morison and Langdon conflate two separate problems. On the one hand, it is true that the colonists did feel "exploited" by the investors because they were eventually expected to surrender to them an undue portion of the wealth they were trying to create. It is as though they felt that they were being "taxed" too highly by their investors-at a 50 percent rate, in fact.

But there was another problem, separate from the ?tax? burden. Bradford?s comments make it clear that common ownership demoralized the community far more than the tax. It was not Pilgrims laboring for investors that caused so much distress but Pilgrims laboring for other Pilgrims. Common property gave rise to internecine conflicts that were much more serious than the transatlantic ones. The industrious (in Plymouth) were forced to subsidize the slackers (in Plymouth). The strong "had no more in division of victuals and clothes" than the weak. The older men felt it disrespectful to be "equalized in labours" with the younger men.

This suggests that a form of communism was practiced at Plymouth in 1621 and 1622. No doubt this equalization of tasks was thought (at first) the only fair way to solve the problem of who should do what work in a community where there was to be no individual property: If everyone were to end up with an equal share of the property at the end of seven years, everyone should presumably do the same work throughout those seven years. The problem that inevitably arose was the formidable one of policing this division of labor: How to deal with those who did not pull their weight?

The Pilgrims had encountered the free-rider problem. Under the arrangement of communal property one might reasonably suspect that any additional effort might merely substitute for the lack of industry of others. And these "others" might well be able-bodied, too, but content to take advantage of the communal ownership by contributing less than their fair share. As we shall see, it is difficult to solve this problem without dividing property into individual or family-sized units. And this was the course of action that William Bradford wisely took.

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: FUNDAMENTALISM

Although no given religion is established in the United States, our national traditions are heavily imbued with religion. Abraham Kuyper, lecturing in 1874, maintained that the people of the United States "bear a clear-cut Christian stamp more than any other nation on earth." The separation between Church and State, he said, had a very different meaning for Americans than it did for Cavour. It stemmed "not from the desire to be liberated from the Church but from the realization that the well-being of the Church and the progress of Christianity demand it."

We have had in the United States a kind of "civil," "political," or "public" religion that neither affirms the particular beliefs of any denomination nor seeks to compete with any Church or synagogue. It does not deify the State but inculcates reverence to a God by whom all States are judged. This common patrimony has some affinities with the "natural religion" of the deists but goes beyond deism in professing various biblical beliefs: for example, that God is to be worshiped and obeyed, that he hears our prayers, rewards virtue, punishes vice, has mercy on the repentant, and governs the world with his providential care.

This "civil religion," as I call it, is not legally imposed but is officially encouraged. It makes regular appearances at the time of Presidential inaugurations, Thanksgiving Day proclamations, and State funerals. Incumbents of public office are regularly sworn in with their hand on the Bible. They are expected to profess the articles of civil religion and are, at the same time, limited by it insofar as, in their public pronouncements, they are cautioned against asserting a more specific faith. Not all citizens are required to share the civil religion, but it has hitherto enjoyed solid public support. It provides a kind of protective umbrella under which, more specific religious faiths can flourish. Another feature of the American system, which distinguishes it from the laicism of nineteenth-century Europe, is the limited scope of the national government. The First Amendment originally applied only to the Federal government; it did not prevent individual States from having established churches. Even when the First Amendment was applied to individual States through the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, allowance was made for schools, hospitals, and welfare agencies to maintain their specific religious identities.

The government, while not professing any particular form of theism, favored a situation in which religious groups had an effective cultural presence. Religious groups could take advantage of the institutions of free speech and a free press to disseminate their convictions. Many immigrant groups coming from Europe brought their denominational identity with them and settled in religiously homogeneous neighborhoods, whether Jewish or Christian. Thus, the environment in which Americans grew up was permeated with religious influences. Practically speaking, Americans reaped the benefits without the deficits of an established religion. [?]

The current retreat from engagement with truth exacts a heavy price. The American proposition, as Richard John Neuhaus reminds us, is no longer proposed. People do not know why they ought to be doing what the laws say that they should be doing. "The popularly accessible and vibrant belief systems and worldviews of our society are largely excluded from the public arena in which the decisions are made about how the society should be ordered."

Society, in the classical sense, presupposed a common purpose. The citizens of the State (or the vast majority of them) were expected to share a common vision concerning the good life. As diversity deepens, this consensus breaks down. Cognitive minorities go off in their own directions and cease to be concerned about the values dear to others. In the absence of a shared vision, shared meanings, and a common vocabulary, civil discourse collapses. Many Americans no longer adhere to the consensus enshrined in their founding documents. This alienation contributes to a weakening of patriotism and to what some refer to as an "eclipse of citizenship."

According to Michael Sandel, in his well-known Democracy's Discontent, the dominant tendency in political theory today is to exclude moral and religious arguments from the public realm for the sake of political harmony. The assumption is that reasonable people will always disagree about the nature of truth and justice; there are no criteria for deciding which of two contradictory opinions is true. This pragmatic relativism is manifest, Sandel reports, in the works of John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, Robert Nozick, and Bruce Ackerman. The minimalist liberalism of these theorists, in Sandel's view, reduces all rights to the merely procedural rather than the substantive; it engenders what he calls "the procedural republic," in which toleration, freedom, and fairness are the supreme values. This procedural republic, he points out, leads to a moral void in which the citizens are deprived of the moral and intellectual vision needed to sustain a sense of national purpose and even to safeguard freedom itself.

To illustrate how minimalist liberalism fails to protect the most elemental human rights, issues such as slavery and abortion come to mind. Unless one acknowledges the inviolable value of the individual person-a postulate that defies justification on pragmatist grounds-it cannot be shown why slavery should not be legitimized by the will of the majority. The recent trend to sanction abortion when the mother chooses to do away with an unborn child violates the principle of the right to life-a principle that the Founding Fathers regarded as grounded in the eternal law of God. The sanctity of human life is further jeopardized by campaigns for infanticide, euthanasia, and assisted suicide. The American experiment started with a national consensus that offered, in the name of liberty, a common ground allowing for a good measure of religious diversity. The constitutional right to freedom, by allowing different positions to be held and propagated without external interference, protected and enhanced pluralism, but we now face the danger that extreme and unreconciled pluralism may turn against the principles that undergird religious freedom itself.

In the absence of any standard of truth by which right and wrong can be measured, decisions have no objective point of reference. Rights cease to have a firm foundation in the inviolable dignity of the person. Decisions about matters of right become, in the end, matters of self-interest or mere arbitrary whim. Nobody is secure, because everyone's rights become negotiable. As John Paul II puts it, "Freedom negates itself and destroys itself, and becomes a factor leading to the destruction of others, when it no longer recognizes and respects its essential link with truth."

In the world of agnostic relativism, religion loses its true character as a way of relating the human family to God. God himself is treated as a mere projection of human fantasy, to be exploited insofar as the idea proves interesting and socially useful. Religion becomes a psychological exercise-perhaps a form of therapy or entertainment. In the absence of a realist epistemology, in which God can be apprehended as a power beyond and above us, religion itself becomes as insecure as freedom. Religious freedom lacks any firm grounding because religion has lost its roots in transcendent reality.

Popes of the past century have often been criticized for their expressed reservations about religious freedom. They were referring to the militant secularism of their own day, but much of their criticism is applicable to the agnostic pragmatism that prevails in American society today. It is hard to refute the logic of the following words from Leo XIII:

The nature of human liberty, however it be considered, whether in individuals or in society, whether in those who command or in those who obey, supposes the necessity of obedience to some supreme and eternal law, which is no other than the authority of God, commanding good and forbidding evil. And, so far from this most just authority of God over men diminishing, or even destroying their liberty, it protects and perfects it; for the real perfection of all creatures is found in the prosecution and attainment of their respective ends. But the supreme end to which liberty must aspire is God.

If pluralism is taken to mean that the human mind will never be able to encompass the mystery of the divine, it is inevitable and justified. There will always be different points of view, different perspectives, limited insights, but where pluralism is cultivated for its own sake, as if all points of view were equally legitimate, the line must be drawn. We must agree with Murray that religious pluralism implies error and is "against the will of God." Pluralism, if it is not to become destructive, must be accompanied by fundamental agreements such as those embodied in what I have described as the American civil religion. Unless a solid majority of the citizens accept some such basic core of agreement, the prognosis for religion in the American republic is poor.

Those of us who have come to believe in the God of the Bible and of Judeo-Christian tradition, even without fully agreeing among ourselves about other points of doctrine, have an urgent, common task. We must join forces to give common testimony to the basic truths of natural and biblical religion. We must confess together the importance of declaring that God exists, that his goodness can be known, and that we have certain specifiable duties toward him. We must also insist on our right to bear witness to the further truths that we believe on the basis of Jewish and Christian revelation, as understood within our respective traditions. If many Americans fail to believe, it is partly because believers have failed to present their faith as something credible and important. If the question of religious truth is bracketed for the sake of a consensus that excludes no one, or is short-circuited by a lazy agnosticism, our pluralism may fall into suicidal excesses. Both freedom and religion are jeopardized by the skeptical relativism that threatens to become the dominant ideology of the nation.

WHAT STRIKE?:

Cue Burl Ives: Holiday TV specials are here (Mike Duffy, 11/21/07, Detroit Free Press)

We also have such beloved animated classics as "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" (ABC, 8 p.m. Tuesday), Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (ABC, 8:30 p.m. Nov. 28 plus numerous cable airings) and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (CBS, 8 p.m. Dec. 4), shows that have long been a yearly family viewing tradition.

Plus, there's always the very merry movie marathon of "A Christmas Story" (TBS, 8 p.m. Dec. 24), humorist and narrator Jean Shepherd's screwball family holiday memoir of growing up in the 1940s. The broadcast spreads nutty yuletide cheer from Christmas Eve through Christmas Day.

So here's a happy blizzard of viewing choices. Enjoy!

THE STORY OF BERKELEY REMINDS:

President Bush Offers Thanksgiving Greetings (President George W. Bush, Berkeley Plantation, Charles City, Virginia, 11/19/07)

Thank you all. Thanks very much. Thanks for the warm welcome. I am proud to be back in the great state of Virginia. I particularly appreciate the chance to visit Berkeley Plantation. I thank the good people who care for this historic treasure. Over the years, Presidents have visited Berkeley. President William Henry Harrison called it home. As a matter of fact, it was here where he composed the longest inauguration speech in history. (Laughter.) He went on for nearly two hours. You don't need to worry; I'm not going to try to one-up him today. (Laughter.)

The good folks here say that the founders of Berkeley held their celebration before the Pilgrims had even left port. (Applause.) As you can imagine, this version of events is not very popular up north. (Laughter.) But even the administration of President Kennedy -- a son of Massachusetts -- recognized Berkeley's role in this important holiday. And so this afternoon, I've come to honor Berkeley's history -- and to continue the great American tradition of giving thanks. (Applause.)

Laura sends her best. Most people say, I wish she'd have come and not you. (Laughter.) She's doing just fine and I know she is going to be envious when I describe how beautiful this part of the country is. And I thank you for giving me a chance to come.

I want to thank my friend, Tom Saunders, who is the founder of the Saunders Trust for American History at the New York Historical Society -- that means he and his and wife, Jordan, are raising money to make sure this site is as beautiful as it is and stays an important part of our history and legacy. (Applause.)

I thank Judy and Jamie Jamieson, who happen to be the owners of this beautiful site. And I appreciate your hospitality. (Applause.) I can't help but recognize my daughter's future father-in-law -- (laughter) -- I appreciate you coming. (Applause.) A lot of people think she's showed some pretty good common sense to marry somebody from Virginia. (Applause.) He's doing all right, himself.

I appreciate the fact that the Congressman from this district, Congressman Bobby Scott is with us. Thanks for coming, Bobby. (Applause.) Congressman Eric Cantor from Richmond is with us. (Applause.) And Congressman Randy Forbes; appreciate you coming, Randy. (Applause.) I want to thank the Lieutenant Governor, Bill Bolling, for joining us. Thank you for coming, Governor. (Applause.) Bob McDonnell, the Attorney General; General, I appreciate you being here. (Applause.) I had the honor of meeting the High Sheriff. Sheriff, thank you and your law enforcement officials. I'm proud to be with you. I want to thank all the local officeholders and state officeholders. And most of all, thank you for letting me come by and I appreciate you coming. (Applause.)

Every November, we celebrate the traditions of Thanksgiving; we're fixing to do so again. We remember that the Pilgrims gave thanks after their first harvest in New England. We remember that George Washington led his men in thanksgiving during the American Revolution. And we remember that Abraham Lincoln revived the Thanksgiving tradition in the midst of a bloody civil war.

Yet few Americans remember much about Berkeley. They don't know the story of the Berkeley Thanksgiving. This story has its beginnings in the founding of the colony of Virginia four centuries ago. As the colony grew, settlers ventured beyond the walls of Jamestown, and into the surrounding countryside. The Berkeley Company of England acquired 8,000 acres of nearby land, and commissioned an expedition to settle it.

In 1619, a band of 38 settlers departed Bristol, England for Berkeley aboard a ship like the one behind me. At the end of their long voyage, the men reviewed their orders from home. And here's what the orders said: "The day of our ship's arrival h shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God." (Applause.) Upon hearing those orders, the men fell to their knees in prayer. And with this humble act of faith, the settlers celebrated their first Thanksgiving in the New World.

In the years that followed, the settlers at Berkeley faced many hardships. And in 1622, the settlement was destroyed. Berkeley became a successful plantation after it was rebuilt, when people returned to this site. And it is an important part of our history. And as we look back on the story of Berkeley, we remember that we live in a land of many blessings.

The story of Berkeley reminds us that we live in a land of opportunity. We remember that the settlers at Berkeley came to America with the hope of building a better life. And we remember that immigrants in every generation have followed in their footsteps. Their dreams have helped transform 13 small colonies into a large and growing nation of more than 300 million people.

Today, America we're blessed with great prosperity. We're blessed with farmers and ranchers who provide us with abundant food. We're blessed with the world's finest workers; with entrepreneurs who create new jobs. We're blessed with devoted teachers who prepare our children for the opportunities of tomorrow. We're blessed with a system of free enterprise that makes it possible for people of all backgrounds to rise in society and realize their dreams. These blessings have helped us build a strong and growing economy -- and these blessings have filled our lives with hope.

The story of Berkeley reminds us that we live in a nation dedicated to liberty. In 1776, Berkeley's owner, Benjamin Harrison, became one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. In the Declaration, we see the founders' great hope for our country, their conviction that we're all created equal, with the God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

At times, America has fallen short of these ideals. We remember that the expansion of our country came at a terrible cost to Native American tribes. We remember that many people came to the New World in chains rather than by choice. For many years, slaves were held against their will here at Berkeley and other plantations -- and their bondage is a shameful chapter in our nation's history.

Today, we're grateful to live in a more perfect union. Yet our society still faces divisions that hold us back. These divisions have roots in the bitter experiences of our past -- and have no place in America's future. (Applause.) The work of realizing the ideals of our founding continues. And we must not rest until the promise of America is real for all our citizens.

We're also grateful to live in a time when freedom is taking hold in places where liberty was once unimaginable. Since the beginning of the 1980s, the number of democracies in the world has more than doubled. From our own history, we know these young democracies will face challenges and setbacks in the journey ahead. Yet as they travel the road to freedom, they must know that they will have a constant and reliable friend in the United States of America. (Applause.)

The story of Berkeley reminds us to honor those who have sacrificed in the cause of freedom. During the Civil War, Union forces at Berkeley adopted a nightly bugle call that has echoed throughout the ages. The bugle call has become known as "Taps." And when we hear it play, we remember that the freedoms we enjoyed have come at a heavy price.

Today, the men and women of the United States Armed Forces are taking risks for our freedom. They're fighting on the front lines of the war on terror, the war against extremists and radicals who would do us more harm. Many of them will spend Thanksgiving far from the comforts of home. And so we thank them for their service and sacrifice. We keep their families and loved ones in our prayers. We pray for the families who lost a loved one in this fight against the extremists and radicals, and we vow that their sacrifice will not be in vain. (Applause.)

This Thanksgiving, we pay tribute to all Americans who serve a cause larger than themselves. We are thankful for the police officers who patrol our streets. We're thankful for the firefighters who protect our homes and property. We're thankful for the leaders of our churches and synagogues and all faith-based organizations that call us to live lives of charity. We're thankful of the ordinary citizens who become good Samaritans in times of distress.

This Thanksgiving, we remember the many examples of the good heart of the American people that we have seen this past year: We remember the Virginia Tech professor who died blocking a gunman from entering his classroom. (Applause.) As a survivor of the Holocaust, Professor Liviu Librescu had seen the worst of humanity -- yet through his sacrifice, he showed us the best. (Applause.)

We remember the Minneapolis man who was escorting a busload of children when the bridge underneath them collapsed. Jeremy Hernandez responded to this emergency with courage. He broke open the backdoor of the bus and he helped lead every child on board to safety.

We remember the people in New Orleans who are rebuilding a great American city. One of them is Principal Doris Hicks. After Katrina, many said that her school could never return to its building in the Lower Ninth Ward. But Principal Hicks had a different point of view; she had a different attitude. As a matter of fact, she had a uniquely American attitude. She had a vision for a resurgent community with a vibrant school at its heart. This summer the Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior Charter School for Science and Technology became the first public school to reopen in the Lower Ninth Ward. (Applause.)

These stories remind us that our nation's greatest strength is the decency and compassion of our people. As we count our many blessings, I encourage all Americans to show their thanks by giving back. You know, I just visited the Central Virginia Foodbank. If you're living in Richmond and you want to give back, help the Central Virginia Foodbank. The volunteers there help prepare thousands of meals for the poor each day. And in so doing, they make the Richmond community and our nation a more hopeful place. And there are many ways to spread hope this holiday -- volunteer in a shelter, mentor a child, help an elderly neighbor, say thanks to one who wears our nation's uniform. (Applause.)

In the four centuries since the founders of Berkeley first knelt on these grounds, our nation has changed in many ways. Our people have prospered, our nation has grown, our Thanksgiving traditions have evolved -- after all, they didn't have football back then. (Laughter.) Yet the source of all our blessings remains the same: We give thanks to the Author of Life who granted our forefathers safe passage to this land, who gives every man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth the gift of freedom, and who watches over our nation every day. (Applause.)

I wish you all a safe and happy Thanksgiving. I offer Thanksgiving greetings to every American citizen. May God bless you, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

EXCEPT THAT THE ESSENCE OF DEMOCRACY....

Lebanon's Fateful Showdown (Amir Taheri, 11/26/07, New York Post )

Within the next week or so, we'll know whether Iran (acting through proxies in Beirut) will trigger a new civil war in Lebanon.

The issue is the choice of a replacement for President Emil Lahoud, imposed by Syria during its occupation of Lebanon. His term of office expires Nov. 23.

Tehran's favorite for the job is ex-Gen. Michel Aoun, a maverick Maronite Christian politician. He is allied with the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah - whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has publicly threatened violence if the Iranian candidate does not win.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Islamic Republic president, sees the Lebanese election as a showdown with the United States and a potential blow at the Bush Doctrine of spreading democracy in the Middle East.

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: WHAT DOES LOGIC HAVE TO DO WITH A DECENT SOCIETY?:

Got the Puritan blues (Jeff Jacoby, November 23, 2005, Boston Globe)

Ah, yes, the blue laws -- those rules and regulations imposed by New England's 17th-century Puritan theocrats to govern moral conduct and ensure proper observance of the Sabbath. The product of an era when ''witches" were hanged, blue laws dictated what people could wear, forbade travel on Sunday, and made it an offense to miss church. The Puritans ''carried their efforts to control private activities in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to extremes unknown elsewhere," notes the Family Encyclopedia of American History. For example, church doors were bolted during Sunday services to prevent restless congregants from leaving early.

It is hard to imagine how these laws could have survived the ratification of the Bill of Rights. But survive they did, some of them for centuries. In Massachusetts, Chapter 136 long barred most commercial activity on Sundays and legal holidays. Not even Cotton Mather would have been able to make sense of the anachronistic crazy quilt of definitions and loopholes that the law turned into over time. The same statute that barred shops and businesses from operating on ''common days of rest" also listed dozens of exceptions to the rule, including the sale of nitrogen, the operation of garden centers and public bathhouses, and the transportation of ice, bees, or Irish moss. Supermarkets weren't allowed to sell groceries, but convenience stores were. Buying a painting at an art gallery was OK. Buying paint at Home Depot was forbidden.

In 1994 Massachusetts voters finally made it lawful for all stores to open on Sunday and the summer holidays -- Memorial Day, Labor Day, and the Fourth of July. But the old restrictions, as illogical as ever, still apply on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

''Thanksgiving is not like any other day," Reilly insists. ''It's been the one day when people didn't have to work. People should be allowed to be off that one day, to have a day to spend with their family. This is one of those issues where tradition wins over for me."

Tradition is a fine thing, and Thanksgiving is suffused with it. But what Reilly is defending is not tradition but coercion. Americans are able to decide for themselves how to spend Thanksgiving. Given a choice, some will opt for family and turkey. Others will grab the chance to go to work for double pay. It isn't for the attorney general of Massachusetts, or any other state official, to make that choice for them.

The blue laws are and always have been obnoxious deprivations of liberty.

(originally posted: 11/23/05)

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: THE GREAT, NOT TRANSCENDENTAL, EMANCIPATOR:

Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving: Of Puritans, prayer, and the Capitol dome. (David Gelernter, 11/28/2005, Weekly Standard)

FOUR THEMES FLOW TOGETHER AT one of the most remarkable points in American history--the evening when Abraham Lincoln for the last time proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving. It was April 11, 1865: two days after the Civil War ended with Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox; four days before the president was murdered. Our national Thanksgiving Day is a good time to remember the president who had more to do with the institution of Thanksgiving and the actual practice of thanking God than any other, and to recall his last public speech.

On that misty April evening, the world had a rare glimpse of the symbolism of a powerful prophecy literally fulfilled, if only for a few moments. The brilliant "city on a hill" that the 17th-century Puritan settlers spoke of seemed embodied in Washington, as the capital sprang to life in a blaze of gaslight. The president spoke of the nation's long-sought victory in terms not of triumph but of reconciliation, and of the nation's debt to God.

Some of Lincoln's friends and admirers, recalling that night, remembered the president as if he were Moses looking "into the Promised Land of Peace from the Pisgah summit," as one of them, the journalist Noah Brooks, wrote. Lincoln like Moses stood at the very brink of the promised land he would never enter. (It's hard not to see Lincoln as the greatest religious figure this country has ever produced.)

Thanksgiving itself is theme number one.

(originally posted: 11/23/05)

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: THANKS, ?:

[I]t wasn't until just after the signing of the Constitution that Congress immediately moved to pass a resolution asking for a National Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer (yes, liberals, that's right -- prayer) at which time George Washington intoned this famous proclamation in 1789:

"Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor -- and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

"That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks -- for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country � "

The proclamation was not about turkey, feasts or families. It was about devotion and solemnity to God and country. Our nation's first president, and perhaps its greatest leader, captured the spirit of the holiday a bit more eloquently than Governor Bradford.

But it wasn't until nearly 80 years later, in 1863, in the midst of one of our nation's bloodiest conflicts, the Civil War, that Abraham Lincoln had found
the equanimity to proclaim the Day of Thanksgiving an annual national holiday.

Here's his solemn proclamation:

"No human has devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out, these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy .� I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens .� [It is] announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord .� It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people."

AND AL GORE MAKES IT A TRIUMVIRATE:

World Wide Web: Land of Free Stuff: You want it? It's yours. From a college education to your favorite shampoo, it's all happening gratis on the Internet (Douglas MacMillan, 11/19/07, Business Week)

This year, e-commerce is projected to be a $259 billion business, up 18% from 2006, according to market researcher Forrester Research (FORR). That's a mind-numbing figure, but it doesn't mean everything online has a price tag. The list of free things you can get is as nearly extensive as the Internet itself, and includes everything from circus tickets to booze, including golf lessons, gift cards, pets, even a college education.

What have I found? I've collected 101 of the very best freebies—including enough free software to run your own business or become a YouTube video mogul—all without putting my hand in my pocket. Of course, I did have to give something, even if it wasn't money. In some cases, I had to click on an ad or watch a video. In others, information about me—such as how I spend my time online, or how I spend my money—was so valuable it entitled me to free products.

There are plenty of freebies to go around. I still watch TV, but I stopped paying for cable and get a lot more of my entertainment needs filled from the Internet. Radio sites like Pandora and TV sites like Joost serve more content that's customized to my tastes, with some ads on the side. If I'm feeling more adventurous I head over to WWITV, where TV channels from all over the world are streamed in real time. I don't know how much it would cost to get news broadcasts from Fiji on my home TV set, but my hunch is that it would take a very large satellite dish.

Handing out free product samples is not a novel form of advertising, but on the Web it's super easy to find companies willing to give you enough products to stock every room of your house.

YOU TOSS THEM SOME RED MEAT SO YOU CAN SNEAK PAST THEM:

How a Breakthrough in Trade Broke Down in Congress (Juliet Eilperin, 11/22/07, Washington Post)

Early on, Sweeney made it clear that he and other union leaders wanted any trade pact to include the International Labor Organization's 1998 Declaration on the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which calls for freedom of association, the right to bargain collectively, a ban on forced labor and child labor, and no employment discrimination.

Rangel and other senior Democrats adopted labor's demand, and made it clear to the administration that no trade agreement would make it to the floor unless it included the ILO standards, which is a more stringent requirement than had ever been achieved during the Clinton administration.

For six years, labor -- along with the Democrats -- had been largely sidelined when it came to trade negotiations, but now one of its top leaders has gained access to the lawmakers making the deals. Rangel and Sweeney, according to the chairman, regularly have "friendly meetings about his concept of international trade policy."

"It just shows you what can be accomplished when the right people get elected to office," Sweeney said of the Democratic majority and his newfound position on Capitol Hill. "I've been thanking God every day for this."

After nearly four months of negotiations, the administration and congressional leaders reached an accord that met all of the Democrats' initial requirements. Just as Sweeney saw the new leadership as the answer to his prayers, those leaders saw the trade pact as a sort of miracle.

"We were able, thank God, to take yes for an answer," said Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Sweeney was meeting with foreign labor leaders in Berlin when the deal was struck on May 10, but both Rangel and Pelosi called to inform him of the news. At about midnight Berlin time, Sweeney spoke to the speaker on the phone. "This is a historic agreement," he told her.

But moments later, as Pelosi walked into the Speaker's Dining Room to hold a news conference with Schwab and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., she found herself facing hostile Democrats. A handful of lawmakers opposed to the trade pact with Peru -- including several Democratic freshmen who had campaigned on the issue -- had squeezed themselves into the tiny room on the Capitol's first floor and stared stony-faced at the speaker.

"We're not against trade. We just want a trade system that works," said Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio), a former labor lawyer who listened skeptically as the bipartisan group outlined its achievement.

Many of Sweeney's fellow union leaders delivered even harsher assessments of the new trade accord. Change to Win, the six-million member federation that now ranks as the AFL-CIO's main rival, issued a news release on May 25 saying that the agreement "does not represent the basis for the type of new U.S. trade policy that this nation desperately needs."

Even some leaders of the AFL-CIO's own affiliates rejected the agreement, saying they do not trust President Bush with the enforcement of its labor provisions.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: THERE ARE 364 OTHER DAYS A YEAR, NO?:

How about squirrel for Thanksgiving: Some prefer non-traditional holiday dishes (RAE WILSON, 11/23/06, The News Democrat)

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, supermarket aisles are filled with traditional "Turkey Day" favorites. Cranberries, pumpkin pies, homemade noodles, mashed potatoes and gravy and of course, everyone's favorite fowl, the Thanksgiving turkey. But what if for a change, instead of making our way to the local supermarket, we decided to take a less traveled path.

How do you think your family would like it if say instead of the classic bird, your centerpiece this year was fried squirrel or a steaming pot of venison chili? What would the guest of honor think of Pheasant chow mein?

Cooking wild game is not as difficult as one may think, and can even bring about variety that one could never find elsewhere. According to Larry Wise, of Wise Taxidermy in Bainbridge, if you prepare just one turtle, you will find meat that tastes like a variety of foods.

"The neck tastes like shrimp, the front legs are just like lamb, the hind legs are beefy, and the best part is the loin, because you think you are eating a chicken," said Wise.

(Originally posted: 11/23/06)

IF PATTON HAD DONE IT HE'D HAVE TAKEN MOSCOW:

A green idea for saving lives in Iraq: An Army trial program is insulating structures to reduce dependence on fuel, and the dangerous convoys that supply it (Doug Smith and Saif Rasheed, November 22, 2007, LA Times)

When a little-known agency of the U.S. Army asked Joe Amadee III to come up with an idea for saving lives in Iraq, it was probing for some kind of a contraption.

After all, the Rapid Equipping Force, a 5-year-old think tank for military innovation, had come up with some pretty high-tech stuff: robots to search caves in Afghanistan, an acoustic sniper finder and a hand-held laser pointer that soldiers use to flag down cars at night.

But, instead of a gadget, Amadee proposed a green solution.

And so, before long, he and a crew led by an Oklahoma roofing contractor were at this desert base east of Baghdad spraying foam onto tents.

Their plan is to turn all of the Army's hulking, heat-absorbing tent barracks into rigid shells of 2-inch insulation.

The way that would improve soldiers' lives may be self-evident. What is less obvious is how it also could save their lives.

The key is fuel: The more of it a base uses, the more soldiers are exposed to deadly roadside bombs on fuel convoys.

FOR A GUY WITH A CAREER OPS UNDER .800?:

Angels get Torii Hunter: Gold Glover agrees to a five-year, $90-million deal, giving the team a surplus of outfielders. (Mike DiGiovanna, November 22, 2007, LA Times)

The Angels pulled off their second stunning -- and somewhat perplexing -- move of the week late Wednesday night, signing free-agent center fielder Torii Hunter to a five-year, $90-million contract, the richest deal in franchise history.

Three teams -- the Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals -- extended five-year offers to the former Minnesota Twins star, and the Angels seemed set in center field with Gary Matthews Jr., a superb defender who is entering the second year of a five-year, $50-million contract. [...]

That deal created a surplus of starting pitchers -- the Angels' rotation is six-deep. Wednesday night's acquisition of Hunter gives the Angels a glut of outfielders.

BECAUSE IF ANY TENET DEFINES MODERN BIOLOGY...:

Man who helped start stem cell war may end it (Gina Kolata, November 22, 2007, NY Times)

If the stem cell wars are indeed nearly over in the United States, no one will savor the peace more than James Thomson.

Thomson's laboratory at the University of Wisconsin was one of two that in 1998 plucked stem cells from human embryos for the first time, destroying the embryos in the process and touching off a divisive national debate.

And on Tuesday, his laboratory was one of two that reported a new way to turn ordinary human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without ever using a human embryo.

The fact is, Thomson said in an interview, he had ethical concerns about embryonic research from the outset, even though he knew that such research offered insights into human development and the potential for powerful new treatments for disease.

"If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough," he said. "I thought long and hard about whether I would do it."

He decided in the end to go ahead, reasoning that the work was important and that he was using embryos from fertility clinics that would have been destroyed otherwise.

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: WHEN A NOBLE EXPERIMENT FAILS STOP RUNNING IT:

Private Enterprise Regained (Henry Hazlitt, The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty)

Governor Bradford�s own history of the Plymouth Bay Colony over which he presided is a story that deserves to be far better known�particularly in an age that has acquired a mania for socialism and communism, regards them as peculiarly "progressive" and entirely new, and is sure that they represent "the wave of the future."

Most of us have forgotten that when the Pilgrim Fathers landed on the shores of Massachusetts they established a communist system. Out of their common product and storehouse they set up a system of rationing, though it came to "but a quarter of a pound of bread a day to each person." Even when harvest came, "it arose to but a little." A vicious circle seemed to set in. The people complained that they were too weak from want of food to tend the crops as they should. Deeply religious though they were, they took to stealing from each other. "So as it well appeared," writes Governor Bradford, "that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented."

So the colonists, he continues, "began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length [in 1623] after much debate of things, the Gov. (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. . . .

"And so assigned to every family a parcel of land. . . .

A Great Success

"This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Gov. or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content.

"The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness, and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

"The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that among godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato�s and other ancients, applauded by some of later times;�that the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a commonwealth, would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort."

(originally posted: 11/25/04)

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: THE ASSIMILATIVE POWER OF RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE:

Turkey Is Basic, but Immigrants Add Their Homeland Touches (KIM SEVERSON, 11/25/04, NY Times)

For all those struggling to get Thanksgiving dinner on the table, consider the plight of Yaser Baker, a restaurateur in this city's Arabic shopping district.

First Mr. Baker had to find a turkey that was slaughtered according to Islamic dietary law, a challenge because some local halal butchers decided not to sell turkeys this year. Then he had to adapt the traditional American recipe to Arabic tastes, which meant bathing it in lemon and olive oil and stuffing it with rice, beef and pine nuts.

Finally he had to brace for reaction from his Muslim neighbors, some of whom are either too devout or too upset about the war in Iraq even to acknowledge Thanksgiving.

But for Mr. Baker, Thanksgiving is all about the bird.

"Believe me, I don't look at it as an American holiday or a holiday that is not for Muslims," said Mr. Baker, a Palestinian and naturalized American who has been in the United States for 24 years. "I live in America. You tell me to eat turkey, I'm going to eat turkey."

The desire to celebrate Thanksgiving was so strong for Leticia Maravilla, a Mexican immigrant, that she roasted her first turkey before she had her green card, struggling through a newspaper recipe in English.

"I wanted to do it the same way Americans did it," she said, speaking from Los Angeles though an interpreter.

(originally posted: November 25, 2004)

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: TEAR DOWN THIS WALL:

Let's look at the four major types of anti-immigration arguments.

Type one criticizes not the immigrants themselves but a culture no longer committed to helping them assimilate. [...]

Type two arguments emphasize homeland security. [...]

Type three arguments that favor restricting immigration to limit population growth are not as strong. [...]

Type four anti-immigration arguments are really anti-immigrant arguments. We don't want those people, some conservatives say or suggest: They're not our kind. Among the murmurs: They're not used to democratic government, so they'll be easy prey for potential dictators. They're used to big government, so they'll vote for Democrats. They'll undermine America's Christian traditions. [...]

Conservatives should pay more attention to surveys showing that three-fourths of Latinos, compared to 60 percent of Americans overall, say that religion (almost always Christianity) provides considerable guidance in their lives. Korean-Americans are 10 times more likely to be Christian than Buddhist, and other immigrants from Asia also often have Christian backgrounds.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: TIME FOR US TO GIVE BACK TO THEM:

Keeping Jazz Musicians Alive: Many world-renowned jazz musicians have no pensions, no medical plans, no hope (Nat Hentoff, November 19th, 2006, Village Voice)

Jazz musicians do not have pensions, and very few have medical plans or other resources. Pianist Wynton Kelly, for example -- a vital sideman for Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie -- died penniless. I was at the first recording session of pianist Phineas Newborn, whose mastery of the instrument was astonishing. As jazz musicians say, he told a story. His ended in a pauper's grave in Memphis.

At last, 17 years ago, in New York, a group of musicians and jazz enthusiasts for whom the music had become essential to their lives formed the Jazz Foundation of America. Its mission is to regenerate the lives of abandoned players -- paying the rents before they're evicted, taking care of their medical needs, and providing emergency living expenses.

Because of Dizzy Gillespie -- who had such a strong will to live and more generosity of spirit than anyone I've ever known -- the Jazz Foundation has been able to send musicians to New Jersey's Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and its Dizzy Gillespie Memorial Fund.

In 1993, Dizzy, dying of cancer at Englewood Hospital, said to his oncologist and hematologist, Dr. Frank Forte, a jazz guitarist by night, "Can you find a way to get the medical care I'm getting for musicians who can't afford it?" Since then, at no cost, jazz makers have received a wide range of treatment there -- from cancer care to hip replacements.

A very active Jazz Foundation board -- including musicians and extraordinarily generous donors -- has continuously expanded the foundation's reach to musicians in this area and elsewhere. (I'm an inactive member of the board. All I do is write about what it does.)

The indispensable driving force at the Jazz Foundation is its executive director, Wendy Oxenhorn. I've known a number of people who gave their all to keep others alive -- death penalty lawyers and human rights workers, for example -- but I've never come across anyone who is so continually on call as Wendy, at all hours, even when she herself is not well. [...]

If you want to be part of this essential branch of the jazz family, you can donate to the Jazz Foundation of America, 322 West 48th Street, 6th floor, New York, NY 10036; 212-245-3999, ext. 21; or wendy@jazzfoundation.org. The life from this music encircles the globe.

(originally posted: 11/24/006)

MORE:
A Displaced Jazz Musician Rebuilds in New York (VINCENT M. MALLOZZI, 11/22/07, NY Times)

The musical Prince of New Orleans has been touring New York in vagabond shoes.

“I’ve been walking around at night looking at all the clubs and the restaurants, just trying to figure out a new beginning for myself,” said Davell Crawford, 32, sitting on a piano bench recently at Roth’s Westside Steakhouse on the Upper West Side, where he practices. “I’m just thankful to be given another chance in a great city like this, a chance to fit in somewhere and entertain the people.”

Mr. Crawford, a jazz artist who is as well known in New Orleans as Mardi Gras, lost everything but his melodious soul in 2005 to Hurricane Katrina, which caused many musicians to leave and try to find work in other cities.

His career ruined by the storm, the man who once opened for Etta James, jammed with Lionel Hampton and thrilled audiences on four continents lives in a tiny Manhattan apartment provided by the Jazz Foundation of America, which has aided in more than 3,000 emergency cases involving musicians and their families affected by Katrina.

“Davell is a cross between Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, a male Billie Holiday,” said Wendy Oxenhorn, the executive director of the Jazz Foundation. “He is way too talented to be going through hard times.”

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: AND THANKS FOR MR. PETERS:

Talking turkey about Butterball's origins (SCOTT FORNEK, November 21, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)

More than half a century ago, Evanston inventor Leo Peters bought the rights to the name Butterball for $10.

Nearly 20 years later, he sold the trademark to Swift & Co. for $1 million.

Peters enjoyed telling his family and newspaper reporters of the role he played in developing the Butterball turkey -- everything from helping to breed broader-breasted poultry with more white meat to trying to sell skeptical 1950s butchers on the idea of switching from fresh to frozen birds.

"He was really the originator of the Butterball turkey," Peters' widow, Nancy, said.

Right up until he died in 1995 at age 86, Peters still dreamed of reclaiming the rights to what had become a household name.

" 'I'd really like to buy that back,' he'd say -- practically on his deathbed," Nancy Peters, 72, said.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Butterball turkey, a Chicago creation that has become nearly as synonymous with Thanksgiving dinner as cranberries, stuffing and sweet potatoes.

(originally posted: November 25, 2004)

FROM THE ARCHIVES: PRINT THE MYTH:

Despite historians' efforts, Thanksgiving misconceptions endure (Lisa Anderson, 11/23/06, Chicago Tribune)

For starters, there is no conclusive evidence that turkey was on a menu that more likely starred venison, ducks, geese and shellfish. There might have been stewed pumpkin, but certainly no pumpkin pie in the then almost certainly ovenless Plymouth Colony. Cranberry sauce was as yet unknown to the colonists and the Indians, and neither yams nor white potatoes were grown yet in the New World. There is nothing to suggest the Native Americans popped corn and bestowed it on their colonizers. And there likely was no groaning board around which diners gathered.

"Did they even have a table? Maybe," said Elizabeth Pleck, a historian at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who has written extensively on the history of Thanksgiving.

The modern Thanksgiving tradition is rooted in a 165-year-old historical misunderstanding that goes far beyond the question of whether turkey was served. There was no connection made between Pilgrims and Thanksgiving until 1841, when Alexander Young published a book in Boston containing a letter written by Edward Winslow, one of the Plymouth Colony leaders, on Dec. 11, 1621.

(originally posted: 11/23/07)

FROM THE ARCHIVES: HERE'S ANOTHER--MAKE TWICE AS MUCH STUFFING AND MASHED POTATOES AS YOU THINK YOU'LL NEED:

Ease Turkey Day turmoil with a few handy tips (Mercury News Wire Services, 11/23/06)

Magazine tips

• Instead of brining, salt the turkey for 24 to 48 hours before cooking. Massage salt into the turkey meat under the skin and inside the cavity. Be sure to rinse and dry the bird thoroughly before roasting (Cook's Illustrated, December).

• When baking stuffing separately, use an ovenproof glass baking dish instead of a ceramic one. The bottom of the stuffing will brown better (Fine Cooking, November).

• Two ways to handle problem gravy: Too thick? Add a splash of fortified wine such as Madeira or sherry. Too pale? Add a few shakes of soy sauce (Real Simple, November).

• Four steps to light and buttery mashed potatoes: Boil the potatoes whole, with the skin on. Dry them out in a large saucepan over medium heat for two minutes before you rice or mash. Add butter before you add any liquids. Add milk/liquid that has been warmed (Bon Appetit, November).

• To peel and cut butternut squash: First, trim an inch from the bottom and top for stability; use a serrated peeler on the thick skin; slice in half lengthwise and scoop out the membrane and seeds with a spoon (Cooking Light, November).

• Three ways to handle Thanksgiving leftovers: Refresh undressed salad and crudités the next day by soaking them in water for 10 minutes. Make savory bread pudding with leftover stuffing; add meat from turkey legs to make it a strata. Freeze pecan pie by wrapping it tightly in foil and placing it inside two resealable plastic food storage freezer bags (Gourmet, November).

• If you're not making your own pie crust, try Pillsbury's already-rolled or Pet-Ritz pie crust in a pan. They were rated best among ready-to-bake brands (Food & Wine, November).

• When refrigerating pumpkin pie, lay a piece of paper towel lightly across the top, then cover the pie with plastic wrap. The towel will absorb any moisture and keep the pie surface free of droplets (Everyday Food, November).

(originally posted: 11/23/06)

FROM THE ARCHIVES: CALPHALON, TAKE IT AWAY:

Nice Rack: Which roasting pan is best for your Thanksgiving turkey? (Jonathan Kauffman, Nov. 17, 2006, Slate)

A flimsy disposable pan is a danger to you, your oven, and your main course. You need something sturdy enough to go from oven to stovetop, so you can make gravies and sauces, but there's no reason, beyond conspicuous consumption, to invest $450 on French copper. In the interest of offering you one sure piece of advice for your Thanksgiving meal, I tested six roasting pans, priced from $9.99 to $274.95. [...]

Calphalon One Infused Anodized Nonstick

Price: $149.99

The dark-gray Calphalon One line is appealing in its sleek functionality. Though sturdy, the pan isn't too heavy to work with, and the bolted-on handles are the best designed of the lot, flaring out perfectly so that I never butted my knuckles up against the pan's contents. The inside surface, which feels like sandpaper, is apparently "four-layer interlocking nonstick coating" involving "advanced release polymers." Food washes away from the surface with a few wipes, yet it's tacky enough to keep the pan's U-shaped, nonstick roasting rack from slipping around. Circulon, take note!

Both pork and turkey juices crystallized on the bottom of the pan without blackening, becoming darker and more flavorful, in fact, than in the ultra-thick Viking model. When I brought the Calphalon to the stovetop, it took but a few seconds of pushing the browned bits around to incorporate them. My only complaint: the rack. Though the skin of the turkey remained intact when it roasted breast-side down, when I turned the beast breast-side up, thick lines were embedded in it. That said, the marks weren't much worse than those produced by others; the problem seems endemic to the roast-flip-roast method of cooking heavy chunks of flesh. Overall, the turkey emerged from the oven a gorgeous, even brown, with juicy white meat.

Pick or Pan: My vote goes to the Calphalon One for good design, great results, and ease of cleanup. Though I'm now turkeyed out this year (my family has agreed to try guinea fowl on the big day), I've already found myself plotting meals around the pan. Isn't that what good cookware is for?

(originally posted: 11/23/06)

FROM THE ARCHIVES: JUST NUKE ANOTHER PLATEFUL OF DINNER:

Leftovers: Turkey in other guises still gets top billing (HSIAO-CHING CHOU, 11/22/06, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER)

The postprandial turkey sandwich is a veteran of the meat lover's Thanksgiving tradition. But what else can you do with leftovers from the big meal?

Basically, any dish that could contain chicken is a good bet for turkey. Some obvious candidates include turkey noodle soup, turkey Caesar salad, turkey salad sandwich, turkey tacos or enchiladas, turkey fried rice, turkey and pasta. [...]

TURKEY SHEPHERD'S PIE

SERVES 4

# 2 medium leeks (white and pale green parts only), cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices
# 2 tablespoons olive oil
# 2 cups chopped cooked turkey
# Salt and pepper to taste
# 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
# 2 teaspoons chopped thyme
# 2 medium carrots, cut into 1/3-inch thick slices and parboiled
# 1 cup chicken broth
# Mashed potatoes

Soak leek slices to clean. Drain well. Heat oil over medium heat in a pot or deep skillet. Add leeks and saute 2-3 minutes. Add turkey, salt and pepper, garlic, thyme, carrots and broth. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Turn on the broiler.

Put the filling in a baking dish. Cover with mashed potatoes. Broil about 3 inches from the heat until top is golden, about 3 minutes.

From Seattle P-I

(originally posted: 11/22/06)

FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: HALE AND HEARTY:

As I unbag a free-range turkey bought at my local grocery store, I think of the description of a Thanksgiving dinner in a now-forgotten
novel. "Northwood, A Tale of New England," published in Boston in 1827, launched Sarah Josepha Hale's literary career. More than three decades later, as the influential editor of Godey's Lady's Book, she helped persuade Abraham Lincoln to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday.

The Thanksgiving dinner in "Northwood" takes place in the home of a prosperous New Hampshire farmer whom Hale calls Squire Romolee. On two tables pushed together in the parlor a roasted turkey keeps company with a succulent goose, a pair of ducklings, a sirloin of beef, a leg of pork, a joint of mutton and an immense chicken pie.

Surrounding this culinary menagerie is a colorful array of vegetables, pickles and preserves. A slice of wheat bread sits on the glass tumbler at the head of each plate. A separate table displays cake, plum pudding, custards, pies of every description, sweetmeats, currant wine, cider and ginger beer.

When a visiting Englishman asks Squire Romolee how he can claim the virtue of temperance in the face of such a feast, the happy farmer exclaims, "Well, well, I may at least recommend industry, for all this variety you have seen before you on the table, excepting the spices and salt, has been furnished from my own farm and procured by our own labor and care."

Hale's Yankee farmer, more than Pilgrims in stiff white collars, epitomizes the American Thanksgiving. It is our most authentic national holiday. Each November, Americans push tables together, gathering friends and families around them to acknowledge, among other gifts, the essential American blessings--material abundance and the ability to enjoy the product of "our own labor and care." We still watch fireworks on the Fourth of July, but the oratory and civic parades that once marked the nation's birthday have largely faded. The Thanksgiving feast endures.

OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN (1831)

Our Father in heaven, we hallow Thy Name;
May Thy kingdom holy on earth be the same;
O give to us daily our portion of bread;
It is from Thy bounty that all must be fed.

Forgive our transgressions, and teach us to know
That humble compassion which pardons each foe;
Keep us from temptation, from evil and sin,
And Thine be the glory, forever! Amen!

FROM THE ARCHIVES: SPEAKING OF GORGES, DAMN:

Turkey is antidote for the loneliness of Chinese students (Katherine Kersten, 11/23/06, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

What's the loneliest day of the year? Thanksgiving, if you're a foreign student at the University of Minnesota. While everyone else celebrates with family members, turkey and pumpkin pie, you're stuck in an empty apartment.

But for Yang Lin, Jing Jing Zheng and his wife, Yi Hui Lei, things are different. They are spending Thanksgiving by the warm hearth of Ross and Karin Olson in Minneapolis.

China Outreach Ministries (COM) has been connecting Chinese students at the U with people like the Olsons since 1994. The organization works with volunteers, many from churches, to help visiting students meet the challenges of daily life. It also sponsors monthly dinners and outings to places such as Taylors Falls and Orchestra Hall.

Each November the group hosts a "Chinese-American Afternoon" to introduce Chinese to the Thanksgiving holiday.

(ORIGINALLY POSTED: 11/23/06)

REALISTICALLY THOUGH...:

Petraeus's Iraq (ROBERT H. SCALES, November 21, 2007, Wall Street Journal)

I've just returned from a week in Iraq with Gen. David Petraeus and his operational commanders. My intent was to look at events from an operational perspective and assess the surge. What I got was a soldier's sense of what's happening on the ground and, although the jury is still out on the surge, I came to the conclusion that we may now be reaching the "culminating point" in this war.

The culminating point marks the shift in advantage from one side to the other, when the outcome becomes irreversible: The potential loser can inflict casualties, but has lost all chance of victory. The only issue is how much longer the war will last, and what the butcher's bill will be. [...]

Culminating points are psychological, not physical, happenings. The commanders I spoke to in Iraq all said that there had been a remarkable change of mood in February when Gen. Petraeus announced that they were taking the fight to the enemy by taking Baghdad from al Qaeda. He pushed soldiers out of the big (and relatively safe) forward operating bases and scattered them among really bad neighborhoods. These joint security stations and combat outposts attracted locals and encouraged them to pass on intelligence about the enemy.

To bolster local security within Baghdad, Gen. Petraeus pushed the security perimeter beyond the city's limits. In May, he began arraying combat units in four successive "belts" around Baghdad. These units painfully ejected al Qaeda influence from the suburbs and satellite cities, effectively choking off reinforcements.

In early June, the enemy miscalculated. Sensing that they were losing inside Baghdad, al Qaeda's leaders pulled out and relocated to Baquba, long an insurgent haven on the outskirts of the city. Al Qaeda propaganda refers to Baquba as the capital of "The Islamic State of Iraq." It's central to our story, because it was the last contested urban battle ground al Qaeda had within greater Baghdad. Once ejected from Baquba, al Qaeda's connection to Baghdad -- the center of gravity of the coalition's campaign -- would be broken.

BYE-BYE, MITT:

Huckabee Gaining Ground in Iowa (Dan Balz and Jon Cohen, 11/21/07, Washington Post)

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, buoyed by strong support from Christian conservatives, has surged past three of his better-known presidential rivals and is now challenging former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for the lead in the Iowa Republican caucuses, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News Poll.

Huckabee has tripled his support in Iowa since late July, eclipsing former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Huckabee now runs nearly evenly with Romney, the longtime Iowa front-runner.

IT'S NOT JUST THAT THE MAYOR IS PRO-DEATH...:

Top conservative slams Rudy on abortion (Tony Perkins, Nov 21, 2007, Politico)

As the Republican presidential primaries approach early next year, a chorus of voices for former Mayor Rudy Giuliani is consistently telling the public that he would appoint “strict constructionist” judges to the federal bench.

Media pundits like Sean Hannity brandish the phrase as if it were a conclusive argument for the acceptability of Giuliani’s campaign to "pro-life" Americans.

The Rev. Pat Robertson apparently agrees.

But the most important man in the room — Giuliani himself — doesn’t.

I know this because I asked him in person on Oct. 20, when he affirmed his view that a strict constructionist judge could uphold Roe v. Wade because of legal precedent.

To his credit (he is more consistent than some of his proponents are), he stood by the remarks he made last May at the GOP presidential debate at the Reagan library.

Those remarks were very clear.

Giuliani said that it would be “OK” with him if a Supreme Court judge upheld Roe on strict constructionist grounds.

“It would be OK to repeal it,” he said, adding: “It would be OK also if a strict constructionist viewed it as precedent.”

This quotation has been cited, with good reason, by many Giuliani critics who are rightly concerned that, as president, it licenses him to appoint any number of judicial candidates who will leave Roe v. Wade exactly as it is.

In other contexts since the May debate, he has stood by the view that strict constructionism can coexist with Roe.

TRAIN SONGS:

So, what will everyone be listening to on their travels this week?

IT SEEMS ESPECIALLY ODD TO KILL OFF REBUS...:

A Salmagundi of Slaughter (OTTO PENZLER, November 21, 2007, NY Sun)

Arthur Conan Doyle, another splendid Scottish mystery writer, tried to kill his detective by having him struggle with his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, at the edge of Switzerland's Reichenbach Falls, both plunging to their death. Public outrage eventually forced Doyle to bring him back in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and many other works.

While Mr. Rankin hasn't done anything quite so drastic as eliminating his much-loved protagonist, readers will still mourn his disappearance from the shelves. There is hope, however, though not in the immediate future. The possibility exists that Siobhan Clarke, Rebus's sidekick, will star in her own book, as well as the notion that Rebus might return to work in Edinburgh's cold case unit, which is staffed by retired criminal investigation department detectives.

Readers may not publicly mourn the retirement of Rebus, nor send death threats to the author (as they did to Doyle), but we must accept the fact that the literature of crime has a little hole that wasn't there before.

DO I NEED TO DRAW YOU A MAP?:

Zarqawi Map Aided Successes Against Iraqi Insurgency (Fox News, November 21, 2007)

A key turning point in the U.S.-led war against the Iraqi insurgency came even before last winter's troop surge, FOX News has learned.

A map drawn by Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — who was killed last year by U.S. forces — turned up last December in an Al Qaeda safe house and essentially gave U.S. war planners insight into the terrorist group's methods for moving explosives, fighters and money into Baghdad.

"The map essentially laid out how Al Qaeda controlled Baghdad. And they did it through four belts that surrounded the city, and these belts controlled access to the city for reinforcements and weapons and money," said Maj. Gen. Bob Scales, a FOX News contributor who recently visited Iraq.

"And [U.S.-led forces] simply made the decision to reduce these belts one at a time, and essentially what that did was it choked off Al Qaeda's access to the city. And once that was done, Al Qaeda had no alternative but to leave the city, to leave the belts and to retreat into the city of Baquba," Scales said.

DOLORES, I LIVE IN FEAR:

Deadly landslide near China dam (BBC, 11/21/07)

A landslide has killed one worker and left two missing near China's Three Gorges dam, state media has reported.

The accident happened in Badong County, a hilly area next to the dam's 660km (410 mile) reservoir, where the group were working on a railway tunnel.

The cause of the accident was not known, Xinhua said, but it comes amid growing warnings the dam is threatening its surrounding environment.

AND THE INDIAN LEFT THINKS...:

Growing Indo-US military ties positive: Pentagon (Rediff, November 21, 2007)

Describing the increasing Indo-US military cooperation as "positive", a top Pentagon official said the growing defence links reflects the continuing and emerging relationship between the two nations.

"I think there's a very positive and growing relationship between the two countries. And I think that's a very good thing," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs Admiral Mike Mullen said.

"India is providing not just for its own people a growing economic engine which, again, I think is good not just locally, but also globally," he said at the Washington Foreign Press Centre.

NO ONE HAS IT HARDER THAN THEIR FATHER DID:

Thanksgiving a bargain in Concord (KATE DAVIDSON, November 21. 2007, Concord Monitor)

Feasting on a traditional Thanksgiving dinner is easier on the pockets of Concord residents than the rest of the country, according to a national survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation. [...]

Nationally, a frozen 16-pound turkey cost $17.63, compared with $7.84 at a Concord supermarket. A gallon of whole milk in Concord cost $2.99; the national average was $3.88. [...]

With the survey results adjusted for inflation, the average cost of a traditional Thanksgiving meal has actually gone down about 9 percent over the past 20 years, according to Jim Sartwelle, an economist for the farm bureau. More than 150 volunteer shoppers from across the country helped compile the survey results.

AND YOU SHOULD SEE THE CRITTERS JUMP...:

Pumpkin Hurling (Stephen Scaer, November 21, 2007, First Things)

Every Columbus Day
the locals bring their chairs
and watch a trebuchet
launch pumpkins past a fort
of tin, as engineers
at play attempt to crush
the record for the sport
of hurling giant squash.

It must have been a shock
when such a monster threw
silent rounds of rock
into the market square
hundreds of years ago.
But the Big Moons they hurl
today could only scare
the unsuspecting squirrel.

[...]

THE HIGHER THE BETTER:

Retire at 62? Well... (Rediff, November 21, 2007)

The move to increase the retirement age of government employees from 60 to 62 years, as reported in this newspaper yesterday, can be endorsed on many counts. The average Indian's life expectancy at birth has gone up to over 66 years for men and 71 years for women.

The last decision to increase the retirement age of government employees, to 60 years, was taken in 1998, when life expectancy for the average Indian was 63 years. Another increase in the retirement age now, on grounds of improved life expectancy, is therefore quite logical.

There is also a social reason for postponing the age of retirement: as youngsters study for more years, they are dependent on their parents for far longer than used to be the case. Many family budgets get strained today because the main breadwinner retires before the next generation is settled in life.

The global practice also argues in favour of an upward revision in the retirement age. Several developed and developing countries have raised the retirement age to between 62 and 65 years. While the reasons vary from country to country, one common theme is the experience factor, which needs no elaboration. There are financial advantages as well. An increase in the retirement age will reduce the impact of the annual pension pay-out liability for the government for at least the period by which the retirement age is raised.

SERVE YOUR PIE HOLE:

Cin-Full Pumpkin Pie (Contra Costa Times, 11/21/2007)

For sweetened pecans, toast pecans in a dry skillet over medium heat 3 minutes. Transfer to a bowl; add 2 tablespoons brown sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Toss to coat.

FOR CRUST:

8-9 whole cinnamon graham crackers, crushed to yield 1 cup crumbs

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter, melted

FOR FILLING:

2 eggs

1 can (15 ounces) pureed pumpkin

1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk

1 teaspoon brandy

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

11/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon each: ginger, nutmeg

1/2 cup sweetened toasted pecans, optional

CINNAMON-SCENTED WHIPPED CREAM:

2 teaspoons confectioners' sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon or to taste

1 container (1/2 pint) whipping cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. For crust, combine the graham-cracker crumbs and brown sugar in a large bowl; stir in the melted butter until thoroughly combined. Press crust into bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie pan; bake until set, about 6 minutes. Remove pan from oven; cool on wire rack.

2. Raise heat to 425 degrees. For filling, combine the eggs, pumpkin, evaporated milk and brandy in a small saucepan over medium-low heat; cook, stirring occasionally, until warm, about 7 minutes. Set aside.

3. Combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg in a large bowl; stir in the pumpkin-egg mixture. Pour into the crust; bake 10 minutes. Lower heat to 350 degrees; bake until set, 35-45 minutes. Remove pie from oven; arrange pecans around rim. Let stand until cooled, about 1 hour. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

4. For the whipped cream, combine the confectioners' sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl; set aside. Combine the whipping cream and vanilla in a large bowl; beat with a mixer on medium-high speed until soft peaks form, about 2 minutes. Add the sugar mixture to the whipped cream; beat until medium peaks form, about 2 minutes; set aside. Serve pie with whipped cream.

A BLOW TO THE FETUS EATERS:

Stem-Cell Success Story (The Editors, 11/21/07, National Review)

[It is] a powerful vindication of the premise behind much of the opposition to the destruction of embryos for research this past decade: the conviction that scientific advance need not require, and should not compel, the abandonment of ethical principles, and especially the principle of human equality that should cause us to cherish and guard every human life, from beginning to end.

In an effort to cause the country to abandon this conviction, some advocates of the research, including nearly every prominent Democrat in Congress, have made reckless and irresponsible promises, offered false hope to the suffering, depicted their opponents as heartless enemies of science, and exploited sick people for crass political gain.

Meanwhile, in an effort to defend that conviction, President Bush and most congressional Republicans have stood up to all that pressure, and have pursued an approach that seeks to advance science while also insisting on ethics. [...]

This leaves the nation with a crucial lesson for what will certainly be many ethical quandaries to come as biotechnology advances: The answer to unethical science is not to give up on ethics, but rather to pursue ethical science.

MORE:
The Gulag Testimonial (ADAM KIRSCH, November 21, 2007, NY Sun)

The Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, like millions of his countrymen, was doomed to come face to face with both of the great evils of the 20th century. During World War II, he survived the Nazi occupation of Poland; afterward, he served for several years as a diplomat for Communist Poland. After defecting to France in 1951, Milosz devoted the rest of his long life to exploring the spiritual and intellectual damage that totalitarianism inflicts on what he called "the captive mind."

The first casualty, he made clear, was our innate sense of the holiness of every human life. Milosz, who died in 2004, once recalled a conversation with a Communist friend in which he expressed "reservations" about Stalin's terror, only to receive the reply: "A million people more, a million people less, what's the difference?" That Communist was a perfect pupil of Stalin, who was once heard to murmur, while looking over a list of people to be executed: "Who's going to remember all this riffraff in 10 or 20 years' time? No one."

HOPEFULLY ABBE FARIA WON'T BE IN THE NEXT CELL:

Chirac under formal investigation for 'embezzlement' (James Sturcke, November 21, 2007, The Guardian)

A judge today placed the former French president Jacques Chirac under formal investigation for the suspected embezzlement of public funds - an unprecedented move for a former head of state in France.

Chirac, who stepped down as president in May, was questioned for a second time today in connection with an investigation into a fake jobs scam dating from his time as the mayor of Paris.

The ex-president's lawyer, Jean Veil, said he was then placed under formal investigation.

In July, Chirac was interviewed by Judge Alain Philibeaux as a material witness which, under French law, put his status between that of a witness and a suspect.

The change of his status to being under formal investigation brings him a step closer to being charged.

ONE WAY TRAFFIC (via Brandon Heathcotte):

Politics makes toxic mix with MLB's investment in Venezuela (Maria Burns Ortiz, 11/20/07, ESPN.com)

The list of Venezuelans making an impact in the major leagues is impressive -- from veterans such as Johan Santana and Magglio Ordoñez to players still on the rise such as Cabrera and Felix Hernandez.

With that kind of talent emerging from Venezuela in recent seasons, one would assume that big league clubs would be flocking to the South American nation in search of the next superstar. However, the cultural and political scene in Venezuela is undergoing rapid and radical transformation, and instead of flocking to the country, teams are fleeing over concerns about safety and political uncertainty. They aren't leaving in droves just yet, but the stream has been steady enough to raise a red flag about the future. And that's what has Escobar and others worried.

The number of clubs pulling their player development operations out of Venezuela has been a concern for Major League Baseball. Nineteen teams have participated in the Venezuelan Summer League in the past, but only 11 did so this year.

The Padres, for example, had planned on leaving Venezuela following this season after they built a multimillion-dollar facility in the Dominican, but the current situation accelerated the move. The team moved all its player development operations out of Venezuela following the 2005 campaign, two years earlier than originally anticipated.

"We just figured we might as well do it [then] to avoid some of the hassle of having to deal with some of the legislation that [President Hugo] Chávez passes down there in hiring coaches, worrying about severance pay and just getting in and out of the country," says Juan Lara, San Diego's Latin American operations coordinator.

San Diego is not alone. Baltimore ceased operating its academy following the 2006 season. The Red Sox -- one of the teams the Padres shared an academy with -- left when San Diego did in 2005. Cleveland pulled out in 2004.

There has been speculation, more internal than public so far, that Chávez, a socialist and self-proclaimed revolutionary who took office in 1999, will turn Venezuela into the next Cuba.

DEATH OF THE FRENCH MODEL:

Who Is Sarkozy? (William Pfaff, 12/06/07, NY Review of Books)

Sarkozy dazzled the press and the public following his election last May by forming a government including Socialists, centrists, and an unprecedented number of women and persons of immigrant origin. Naming several prominent Socialists to important posts, including Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister, he greatly damaged a party already weakened by rivalry over its presidential nomination and the refusal of Ségolène Royal, the eventual candidate, to run on the orthodox party platform. Royal continues to be attacked by other Socialist figures for having lost the election, thereby preventing them from doing so.

A quarter-century ago François Mitterrand created the modern French left, rescuing the Socialist Party from minority irrelevance by forming a common electoral program with the Communists. The alliance succeeded in taking power in 1981. This robbed the Communists of what the advertising industry would have called their unique selling proposition, revolution, beginning a Communist decline that by now is near terminal. In the 1980s, the Socialist Jacques Delors, made finance minister, rescued Mitterrand's government, which had been foundering in economic difficulties, by in-troducing "market socialist" reforms designed to liberalize the French economy. However, Delors has retired, Mitterrand is gone, and his legitimate successor, ex–prime minister Lionel Jospin, has been reduced to writing a spiteful and distressingly ungentlemanly book about how Ségolène Royal stole his party and robbed him of the presidential nomination.

No one can be confident that the Socialists will be in any condition to mount a serious national challenge when the opportunity comes in five years. Several of the Socialist "elephants" beaten by Ségolène Royal for last year's nomination are on the way to the political graveyard. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, once a favorite, now has global horizons, thanks to Sarkozy's nomination of him to head the International Monetary Fund in Washington. The unfortunate François Hollande, the dignified estranged father of Royal's children, will leave the party secretary post but still hopes to become the Socialist presidential candidate in 2012. The remaining failed candidate for the party's presidential nomination, Laurent Fabius, who claims to lead the Socialist left, is likely to be overrun by a younger group of militants, some from the Trotskyist "left of the left," others followers of Ségolène Royal. Jack Lang, Mitterrand's flamboyant minister of culture, considered a Sarkozy appointment or ambassadorship before announcing that he would not serve a government of whose immigration and fiscal policy he disapproved.

Royal retains the presidency of the region of Poitou-Charentes and is the only major Socialist to indicate a new party direction, toward a centrist alliance, as the Italian left has just done, breaking with the post-Marxist shibboleths of revolutionary change. She is described by admirers as possessing "the most powerful charisma of any Socialist in fifty years," and polls now make her France's favorite to challenge Sarkozy in 2012.

Confidence in Sarkozy remains high (56 percent in the regular end-of-October poll). In a poll published in late September, belief in his "sincerity" had gone up by thirty-five points among those who voted for Ségolène Royal. A majority of respondents approved nine out of the ten social reform proposals Sarkozy has identified as most important. He lost points in overall approval, but among what pollsters identify as the less-well-off (moins privilégié) categories of the population he enjoyed more support than among the more well-to-do, his presumed natural constituency.

On the reforms the Socialist opposition characterizes as "anti-social," meaning harmful to the less well-off, the polls indicate that the less-well-off classes actually support Sarkozy. These reforms include sanctions for the unemployed who refuse two job offers, modification of the thirty-five-hour work week to allow unlimited paid overtime, and "reemphasis on the value of work."

WHILE ACCURATE, HER CRITIQUE WOULD BE BETTER GROUNDED...:

Clinton Mocks Obama on Foreign Policy (AP, 11/20/07)

Hillary Rodham Clinton ridiculed Democratic rival Barack Obama on Tuesday for his contention that living in a foreign country as a child helped give him a better understanding of the foreign policy challenges facing the U.S.

"Voters will have to judge if living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next president will face," Clinton said. "I think we need a president with more experience than that, someone the rest of the world knows, looks up to and has confidence in."

Clinton's statement was prompted by a comment Obama made a day earlier when asked about his foreign policy credentials. He said his life experience gave him a better feel for international issues than most candidates gain from official trips to other nations.

He noted his father was from Kenya and that he himself spent part of his childhood in Indonesia. "Probably the strongest experience I have in foreign relations is the fact I spent four years overseas when I was a child in Southeast Asia," he said Monday.

FACTOID OF THE DAY:

There was a bookmaker on ESPN Radio last night who mentioned that, as things stand today, the point spreads in the Patriots' upcoming games against the Jets and Dolphins project to be 26 and 28 points respectively, which will be the two highest in NFL history. The Dolphin game is at Foxboro and if the Pats are still lossless and Miami winless and there's snow in the forecast, how does the spread not go up over 30?

WHAT HAMAS INHERITS:

Palestinians spell out their vision of the future in peace blueprint (Donald Macintyre, 21 November 2007, Independent)

Sweeping security, fiscal and political reforms are promised in the most detailed blueprint for the creation of a Palestinian state yet drawn up by the emergency government headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayad.

The reform programme to help reverse the "tragic history" of the seven years since the collapse of the Camp David talks and the beginning of the intifada is contained in the 33-page draft of a document which will be presented to the international donors' conference in Paris next month. The confidential draft is the most concerted effort yet by the Western-backed administration loyal to the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, to demonstrate that it can develop the capacity to run the independent state in the West Bank and Gaza envisaged in the negotiations due to be kick-started by the international summit in Annapolis, Maryland, next week. The US started issuing formal invitations to the summit last night.

The plan, intended for endorsement by the subsequent French-hosted donors conference to be co-hosted by the international Middle East envoy Tony Blair, is intended to go hand in hand with a peace process and a progressive easing of Israeli checkpoints and closures to allow an urgently required revival of the Palestinian private sector. It pledges this part of the economy will be "thriving" and "open to markets around the world".

FROM A QUAGMIRE TO A FLOOD ZONE:

Better security sees Iraqi refugees flood home
Iraqi refugees (Oliver August in Damascus and James Hider in Baghdad, 11/22/07, Times of London)

Iraqi refugees are returning home in dramatic numbers, concluding that security in Baghdad has been transformed. Thousands have left their refuge in Syria in recent months, according to some estimates.

The Iraqi Embassy is organising a secure mass convoy from Damascus to Baghdad on Monday for refugees who want to drive back. Embassy notices went up around the Syrian capital yesterday, offering free bus and train rides home.

Saida Zaynab, the Damascus neighbourhoods once dominated by many of the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees, is almost deserted. Apartment prices are plummeting and once-crowded shops and buses are half empty.

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) was scrambling to assess the transformation last night. An interim report is expected today. “There is a large movement of people going back to Iraq. We are doing rapid research on this,” a spokesman said.

MORE:
Iraqi refugees 'returning home' (Al Jazeera, 11/22/07)

About 1,600 Iraqis who fled the violence in their country are returning home every day, according to Abdul Samad Sultan, the country's displacement and migration minister.
[...]

Brigadier-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, interior minister spokesman, said most refugees were returning from Syria.

Syria has the highest number of Iraqi refugees in the region and says their influx has strained its education, health and housing systems, pushing the government to tighten visa requirements and to call for international assistance.

YOU KNOW THE STORYLINE HAS SHIFTED...:

Maliki thrown a political lifeline (Sami Moubayed, 11/22/07, Asia Times)

The Iraqi Accordance Front, the Sunni heavyweight in Iraqi politics, has decided to rejoin the cabinet of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, which it abandoned on August 1.

It is unclear whether the same five ministers, along with deputy prime minister Salam Zoubai, who all stepped down, will return to work with the premier or whether the Front will nominate new ministers for the vacant posts. They resigned because Maliki had not responded to any of the 11 demands they had made. These included a greater decision-making role for Sunnis and an amnesty for Sunni prisoners - mainly former Ba'athists who had joined - or been accused of taking part in - the Sunni insurgency.

This comes amid increased speculation that Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr will also soon reconcile with Maliki, having also walked out on him in recent months due to Maliki's "friendship" with US President George W Bush.

BUT ARAFAT DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THE ECONOMY:

The New Nostradamus: Can a fringe branch of mathematics forecast the future? A special adviser to the CIA, Fortune 500 companies, and the U.S. Department of Defense certainly thinks so. (Michael A.M. Lerner, GOOD)

If you listen to Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, and a lot of people don’t, he’ll claim that mathematics can tell you the future. In fact, the professor says that a computer model he built and has perfected over the last 25 years can predict the outcome of virtually any international conflict, provided the basic input is accurate. What’s more, his predictions are alarmingly specific. His fans include at least one current presidential hopeful, a gaggle of Fortune 500 companies, the CIA, and the Department of Defense. Naturally, there is also no shortage of people less fond of his work. “Some people think Bruce is the most brilliant foreign policy analyst there is,” says one colleague. “Others think he’s a quack.”

Today, on a rare sunny summer day in San Francisco, Bueno de Mesquita appears to be neither. He’s relaxing in his stately home, answering my questions with exceeding politesse. Sunlight streams through the tall windows, the melodic sound of a French horn echoing from somewhere upstairs; his daughter, a musician in a symphony orchestra, is practicing for an upcoming recital. It’s all so complacent and genteel, which is exactly what Bueno de Mesquita isn’t. As if on cue, a question sets him off. “I found it to be offensive,” he says about a colleague’s critique of his work. “This is absolutely, totally, and utterly false,” he says about the attack of another.

The criticism rankles him, because, to his mind, the proof is right there on the page. “I’ve published a lot of forecasting papers over the years,” he says. “Papers that are about things that had not yet happened when the paper was published but would happen within some reasonable amount of time. There’s a track record that I can point to.” And indeed there is. Bueno de Mesquita has made a slew of uncannily accurate predictions—more than 2,000, on subjects ranging from the terrorist threat to America to the peace process in Northern Ireland—that would seem to prove him right. [...]

How does Bueno de Mesquita do this? With mathematics. “You start with a set of assumptions, as you do with anything, but you do it in a formal, mathematical way,” he says. “You break them down as equations and work from there to see what follows logically from those assumptions.” The assumptions he’s talking about concern each actor’s motives. You configure those motives into equations that are, essentially, statements of logic based on a predictive theory of how people with those motives will behave. From there, you start building your mathematical model. You determine whether the predictive theory holds true by plugging in data, which are numbers derived from scales of preferences that you ascribe to each actor based on the various choices they face.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma, a basic in game theory, explains it well: Two burglars are apprehended near the scene of a crime and are interrogated separately by the police. The police know these two goons did it, but they don’t know how, so they offer each one a deal. If they both confess and cooperate, they’ll both get a minor sentence of five years. If neither man confesses, they’ll both only get one year (for having been caught with some of the stolen loot on them). But, and here’s where it gets interesting, if one confesses and the other doesn’t, the one who confesses walks out scot-free while the other will do 10 years. What will they do? Will they trust each other and do what’s obviously in their best interest, which is not confess? Based on game theory’s assumptions about human nature, the math derived from this dilemma tells you squarely that the two goons will turn each other in.

Which illustrates the next incontrovertible fact about game theory: In the foreboding world view of rational choice, everyone is a raging dirtbag. Bueno de Mesquita points to dictatorships to prove his point: “If you liberate people from the constraint of having to satisfy other people in order to advance themselves, people don’t do good things.” When analyzing a problem in international relations, Bueno de Mesquita doesn’t give a whit about the local culture, history, economy, or any of the other considerations that more traditional political scientists weigh. In fact, rational choicers like Bueno de Mesquita tend to view such traditional approaches with a condescension bordering on disdain. “One is the study of politics as an expression of personal opinion as opposed to political science,” he says dryly. His only concern is with what the political actors want, what they say they want (often two very different things), and how each of their various options will affect their career advancement. He feeds this data into his computer model and out pop the answers. [...]

Recently, he’s applied his science to come up with some novel ideas on how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “In my view, it is a mistake to look for strategies that build mutual trust because it ain’t going to happen. Neither side has any reason to trust the other, for good reason,” he says. “Land for peace is an inherently flawed concept because it has a fundamental commitment problem. If I give you land on your promise of peace in the future, after you have the land, as the Israelis well know, it is very costly to take it back if you renege. You have an incentive to say, ‘You made a good step, it’s a gesture in the right direction, but I thought you were giving me more than this. I can’t give you peace just for this, it’s not enough.’ Conversely, if we have peace for land—you disarm, put down your weapons, and get rid of the threats to me and I will then give you the land—the reverse is true: I have no commitment to follow through. Once you’ve laid down your weapons, you have no threat.”

Bueno de Mesquita’s answer to this dilemma, which he discussed with the former Israeli prime minister and recently elected Labor leader Ehud Barak, is a formula that guarantees mutual incentives to cooperate. “In a peaceful world, what do the Palestinians anticipate will be their main source of economic viability? Tourism. This is what their own documents say. And, of course, the Israelis make a lot of money from tourism, and that revenue is very easy to track. As a starting point requiring no trust, no mutual cooperation, I would suggest that all tourist revenue be [divided by] a fixed formula based on the current population of the region, which is roughly 40 percent Palestinian, 60 percent Israeli. The money would go automatically to each side. Now, when there is violence, tourists don’t come. So the tourist revenue is automatically responsive to the level of violence on either side for both sides. You have an accounting firm that both sides agree to, you let the U.N. do it, whatever. It’s completely self-enforcing, it requires no cooperation except the initial agreement by the Israelis that they are going to turn this part of the revenue over, on a fixed formula based on population, to some international agency, and that’s that.”

DIVING IN:

Egypt’s Leader Endorses Peace Meeting (ISABEL KERSHNER, 11/20/07, NY Times)

With the prime minister of Israel standing beside him, Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, gave his full endorsement today to the American-sponsored Middle East peace gathering in Annapolis, Md., next week, and raised hopes among Israeli officials of wider Arab participation in it.

“Obviously we would hope that Egypt’s position will be representative of a larger Arab position,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

At a joint news conference in this Egyptian Red Sea resort, both leaders billed the Annapolis meeting as a springboard for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations toward a final settlement of the conflict.

THE ROCKIES PUT UP MORE OF A FIGHT:

Al Qaeda Faction Alters Course (Emad Mekay, Nov 20, 2007, IPS)

The ideology al Qaeda rests on to justify its activities suffered a major blow this week.

The Al-Jihad Group, partly responsible for killing former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, and the nest for some of most aggressive smaller violent groups, has begun publishing a "review of its positions" in two Arabic language newspapers.

The leading al Qaeda faction -- once led by al Qaeda's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahri -- has altered its traditional course by publishing this series of critiques of the religious justifications long relied on in calling for followers to take up arms against ruling regimes and foreign powers.

In the new "document", al-Jihad Group's founder and leading ideologue, Sayed Imam, renounces violent activities and calls for ceasing all armed operations in Egypt and in other Arab or Muslim countries.

Imam -- al-Zawahri's teacher and long time friend -- is currently in custody at a high-security Egyptian prison.

Analysts here say that the Imam's initiative -- not directed at Egyptians, Arabs or even Muslims alone, but directed specifically at al Qaeda -- derives its strength from the weight of its author.

"This al-Jihad initiative is very important, it is directed mostly to the outside world and more explicitly to the leaders of al-Jihad Group and al Qaeda because the author of those reviews is Sayed Imamal-Sharief, the very same person whose former writings are the point of reference for the al-Jihad members," said Diaa Rashwan, an expert on Islamic groups at al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo. [...]

For decades, Imam's writings have also formed the backbone for the philosophical arguments touted by several other armed groups to validate their attacks.

But in the new review he now says his group "erred enormously from an Islamic point of view" by allowing "killing based on nationality, color of skin and hair or based on religious doctrine".

"Those are actually the methods of secular revolutionaries and not the methods of Islam. There's no such a thing as the goal justifies the means in Islam, even when the goals are noble are legitimate. Muslims worship God by using legitimate methods too," he wrote.

Imam contends that those who target innocent people are working outside the parameters of the Islamic Sharia, or law.

"They place their own desires and will before that of Allah's," he argues in this new milestone study.

Imam says the Islamic rules for war stipulate that if Muslims are not certain about the true nature and make-up of the enemy "then it's compulsory under the rules of Islam not to take up arms against them" for fear that innocent people might be included and harmed.

The review calls for an end to targeting of "all civilians", and "tourists of all races".

AND ALL THEY WERE LOOKING FOR WAS A PLACE CALLED LEE HO FOOK'S:

Rome founders' sanctuary discovered (Peter Walker and agencies, November 20, 2007, Guardian Unlimited)

Italian archaeologists said today they believe they have found one of the ancient city's holiest sites, the cave venerated as the place where, according to myth, a female wolf nursed the city's founders, twin brothers Romulus and Remus.

Decorated with seashells and marble, the vaulted space lies buried 16 metres inside the Palatine hill, the centre of power in imperial Rome.

Archaeologists said they were convinced the site was the long lost site of worship known as Lupercale, a name taken from lupa, the Latin for a female wolf.

W WINS AGAIN:

Scientists create first embryonic stem cells from adult cells (Ian Sample, 11/20/07, Guardian Unlimited)

The race to turn ordinary skin cells into embryonic stem cells – which can be used to make any tissue in the body - has ended in a dead heat, with two groups of scientists simultaneously announcing they have achieved the feat.

The breakthrough marks the beginning of a new era for stem cell biology and may spell the end for cloning as a way to produce stem cells. [...]

Previously, scientists believed the only way to convert adult cells into embryonic stem cells was to clone them, a procedure that is extremely inefficient and involves the creation of an embryo that is destroyed when the cells are removed. The technique has attracted vehement criticism from pro-life groups, which oppose the use of embryos in research.

The new work may have its greatest impact in America where the Bush Administration has set stringent controls on stem cell research. Government-funded scientists are forbidden from working on stem cells created after August 2001, although privately funded researchers face no restrictions.

"THERE CANNOT BE ANY STORY WITHOUT A FALL":

"Beowulf" vs. "The Lord of the Rings": One is a living universe, the other a 3-D voyage to schlockville. A great essay by Tolkien helps us understand why. (Gary Kamiya, 11/20/07, Salon)

J.R.R. Tolkien, the author who created the most powerful mythical universe of our time, was also a renowned "Beowulf" scholar. "The Lord of the Rings" was heavily influenced by the poem, and Tolkien wrote what is still one of the seminal essays about it. Tolkien's analysis of "Beowulf," and more generally of fantasy and myth, illuminate both why he was able to create a modern mythopoeic masterpiece, and why "Beowulf" falls flat.

"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," published in 1936, marked a turning point in critical studies of the poem. Before Tolkien's essay, most scholars regarded the unknown poet's use of supernatural elements -- the monster Grendel, his equally monstrous mother, and the dragon -- as primitive or childish. Arguing that these "trivial" themes failed to do justice to the poem's exquisite language, they saw "Beowulf" as being primarily of historical, not artistic, interest. As the scholar W.P. Ker wrote in 1904, "The thing itself is cheap; the moral and the spirit of it can only be matched among the noblest authors." Tolkien overturned these assumptions. He argued that the poem should be read as a poem, and recognized as a great one. The fantastic elements in "Beowulf," far from being faintly embarrassing, were inseparable from its majestic artistry.

In a famous allegory, Tolkien compared the author of "Beowulf" to a man who, inheriting a field full of ancient stones, used them to build a tower. His friends, recognizing that the stones had belonged to a more ancient building, tore down the tower "in order to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions." What they did not realize, Tolkien ends, was that "from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea."

Tolkien's point is that the fantastic elements in "Beowulf" are ancient archetypes that have deep roots in human beliefs, fears and wishes -- myths, in other words. And in "Beowulf," he argues, these myths are an essential part of a tragic tale whose theme is "man at war with the hostile world, and his inevitable overthrow in Time." The greatness of Beowulf derives from the fact that it is a poem created in "a pregnant moment of poise": It is balanced between a Christian worldview, in which death and defeat are ultimately themselves defeated by Christ, and a Germanic, pagan one, in which fate rules all and man's courage alone confers nobility. It is, Tolkien writes, not a primitive poem, but a late one. The pagan world is already past, but the poet still celebrates its vanished power. The fact that a poem written more than a thousand years ago was itself looking back at a lost world gives the poem an uncanny double resonance to the modern reader: "If the funeral of Beowulf moved once like the echo of an ancient dirge, far-off and hopeless, it is to us as a memory brought over the hills, an echo of an echo."

Tolkien's brilliant essay can be seen as a ringing defense not just of "Beowulf," but of the work he was soon to embark on, another great tower composed of ancient stones. And the themes of lateness, of heroic loss, being caught between one age and another (his world is not called "Middle-earth" for nothing), are the deepest and most sublime parts of his own epic: They are the haunted metaphysical atmosphere through which his characters -- men, elves and hobbits alike -- must make their way. The coming disappearance of the elves, the hard dawning of the age of men, represent a disenchantment of the world identical to the disenchantment Tolkien found so unbearably moving in "Beowulf." By introducing this dark note, Tolkien gave artistic expression to the doubts that he himself may have felt about the myth he had created -- and so transcended them.

Tolkien was able to use the ancient stones in "Beowulf" to build a modern masterpiece because he recognized that the enduring power of myths derives from their deeper truth. This does not mean he believed that orcs and goblins and elves really existed; rather it derives from his belief that the world was enchanted, illuminated by a sacred light, and that the human sub-creations we call myths -- "living shapes that move from mind to mind," he called them in a poem he wrote for C.S. Lewis -- were splinters of that primordial light. For Tolkien, the ultimate source of enchantment was the Christian God, but it is not necessary to share that faith to feel the power of his creation.

The creators of the movie "Beowulf," however, failed to even recognize that the epic is composed of ancient stones, or that those stones might have something to say to us today.

[After Allen & Unwin, under pressure from Tolkien to make up their minds, had reluctantly declined t