Sam Rosenfeld at Tapped whines that conservatives play the race card too much when it comes to defending Thomas, Rice et al. "This pose of faux-racial sensitivity that Republicans adopt reflexively whenever a minority conservative gets criticized is really pretty disgusting -- and it's really getting old," he writes after posting a long excerpt from Hannity and Colmes.

In one sense I think he makes a fair point. But frankly, I just don't think liberals like the gang at Tapped have much credibility when it comes to this sort of gripe (remember their insistence that Hillsdale is racist because it showed some white kids in an ad with a tagline "remember the good old days?").

The argument that Hannity uses, I suspect, would not raise an eyebrow (at least not in public) from Rosenfeld and his colleagues were it to come from Mary Francis Berry, Julian Bond et al and if it was aimed at conservatives. Indeed, Hannity's argument is exactly the sort of thing we hear every day from liberals. He's pointing to disparate impact, in effect. I think this is a shabby form of argumentation, but if liberals are going to insist that A) this sort of thing is not only fair when they do it, but B) that it is a moral obligation to translate this logic into law and that C) anyone who disagrees is in effect a racist, they should keep their traps shut when their opposition buys into it. Rosenfeld can gripe about bad arguments getting old after spending his entire adult life being accused of racism because he opposes giving the sons of rich black doctors preferential treatment over the daughters of poor whites, Asians, Jews, et al. Or when he applies this complaint in defense of conservatives who've whethered such accusations unjustly. Until then he should celebrate the victory Hannity's argument represents.

But, hey, maybe, I've missed Rosenfeld's color-blind philosophy on display in the past. I eagerly await the opportunity to correct my impression.

Your statement about Vincent Astor being 'in the womb' on the TITANIC was waaaay wrong. Vincent was born in 1891, the son of John Jacob and Ava (Pilling, or Pulling). He never had children. There was a sister Alice, too, who married two or three times and had four children in total, I believe. Brooke had been married previously and had a son (at least one), John Marshall.

Vincent was in disbelief at the news of the TITANIC, went to meet the Carpathia etc. Because the trip to Europe by his father was the latter's wedding-trip, JJA had not revised his will so Vincent inherited most of the fortune.

The 'babe in the womb' became another John Jacob Astor, and was an international 'playboy' and in assorted scrapes and scandals, a media celebrity in the 40s and 50s. He was quite the reverse of Vincent!

Vincent's mother, after divorcing the TITANIC's John Jacob Astor, went to England and married Lord Ribblesdale. Alice died in '56 or '57 and Lady Ribblesdale in '58 (both in NY).

Our nation also honors the men and women who've been injured in the line of duty. I met some of these Americans. This Saturday, I'll be going to Bethesda to meet more. Many face a hard road ahead. They've inspired their comrades with their strength of will. General Sattler recently visited with some of the wounded in the Fallujah campaign. One Marine was pretty beat up, but when he saw the General, he lifted his hand and said, "Sir, I've still got my trigger finger. I can get back out there." That is the spirit of the Corps. And America will show the same sense of duty.

He writes today: "[T]he same people who claim that Social Security isn't an independent entity when it runs surpluses also insist that late next decade, when the benefit payments start to exceed the payroll tax receipts, this will represent a crisis--you see, Social Security has its own dedicated financing, and therefore must stand on its own.

"There's no honest way anyone can hold both these positions, but very little about the privatizers' position is honest."

There isn't even an inconsistency here, let alone dishonesty. Krugman would have a point if reformers had ever claimed that the Social Security surplus did nothing to balance the government's books. But they haven't. They recognize that the surplus does help with the total budget balance, and that future deficits will make the total budget picture much worse. That's a consistent treatment of Social Security as part of the government. (I'm using the phrase "help with the total budget balance" in a specific sense here: if you hold other spending and taxes outside of Social Security constant, the excess of payroll taxes over current benefits helps the total budget. If the existence of that excess makes it easier for Congress to cut other taxes and raise other spending, the statement ceases to be as true.)

What reformers have denied is that past and present Social Security surpluses help (or help much) with the deficits in the future. For more on the subject of Social Security, and Paul Krugman's standards of honesty, go here.

I want to be very clear: I don't care about this subject at all. I know nothing about it and desire to read no email or anything else on it. But in the interests of those who do, here's a note from a reader:

Jonah, Nobody in the Corner seems to give a twit that a supreme act of injustice has denied Cal its rightful berth in the Rose Bowl. It is outrageous that the #4 team the nation should be relegated to playing the #23 team . . . in the Holiday Bowl? Is that a ceramic something with trees and Santa Clauses on it that you put out at this time of year to hold the nuts? Besides, anyone with any sense of tradition at all knows the Rose Bowl is a Pac 10 POSSESSION, not to be invaded by interlopers. Come on; the BCS has to be an Islamist plot. Now I freely acknowledge that I am probably one of the very few Cal grads regularly in the Corner, but we need some support here!

Although its regrettable that another school will abandon single gender education, at least this one was the result of a freely made decision, which is reported to have been based on market conditions in the culture (i.e., dwindling demand). I much prefer this demise to the bitter experience of my alma mater, the Citadel, which was forced to admit women by Justice Ginsburg and the federal government in her opinion United States v. Virginia. As Justice Scalia said in his dissent,

"And all the federal military colleges -- West Point, the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and even the Air Force Academy, which was not established until 1954 -- admitted only males for most of their history. Their admission of women in 1976 came not by court decree, but because the people, through their elected representatives, decreed a change . . . Today, however, change is forced upon Virginia, and reversion to single-sex education [by publicly funded colleges] is prohibited nationwide, not by democratic processes but by order of this Court." See United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 567-70 (1996).

I am glad that the SCOTUS showed mercy and left privately funded colleges to their own choices and market forces despite some private colleges for women receiving up to 19% of their budget from public sources. How magnanimous of Justice Ginsberg and the federal government to have allowed private colleges to continue as they desire. At least Wells has the freedom to run their school as they wish.

That's what NRO calls the oil-for-food scandal in our latest editorial (Note: I obviously didn't work on the editorial). This is a common talking point, and as far as I know it's entirely accurate. Still, I was wondering if there haven't been greater corruption scandals in history that we are discounting because we aren't accounting for inflation or because we've simply forgotten them. Unfortunately I don't know enough history. This is more of a question for Derb or VDH: were there greater scandals during say the Ming Dynasty? Or some other period from antiquity? What would be the top five? These are the sorts of questions the Corner exists to answer -- along with what's tatier Ring Dings or Ho-Hos?.

The witch-hunt against Kofi Annan and the United Nations over the Iraq oil-for-food scandal is, quite simply, a scandal all on its own. The leaders of this lynch mob in the US Congress and the rightwing commentariat are not gunning for Mr Annan so much as aiming to destroy the UN as an institution. That would be a disaster - for all of us, including, especially, the US. ...

First, the oil-for-food policy was devised and run by the member states of the UN Security Council, not by the UN Secretariat. All of the roughly 36,000 contracts were approved by a Security Council committee dominated by the US and the UK. Of these, about 5,000 were held up. But objections were entirely about imports to Iraq that might have offered Baghdad dual-use technology with which to reconstitute its weapons programmes. There was not one objection about oil-pricing scams, although UN officials brought these to the attention of the committee on no fewer than 70 occasions. ...

If the independent inquiry headed by Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, finds any UN official complicit in Iraq's roughly $4.4bn oil price skimming, then that person should have his diplomatic immunity lifted and be prosecuted. But there is nothing here to be laid at the door of Mr Annan, even though the lobbying activities of his son Kojo, who was still receiving severance payments from a company seeking Iraq's trade after oil-for-food started, will have hurt him.

Confessore is particularly vexed by the fact that Republicans who don't like the UN at all are claiming to care about the UN's credibility in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal. Now, while I haven't followed it that closely, I do think the FT's point about the Security Council deserving more blame is a sound one.

Nevertheless, as someone who has consistently stood on solid principle that the UN sucks (let's not gild the lilly), let me see if I can clarify what is not an inconsistent position at all.

Countless liberals have imbued the UN with a glowing moral stature that has never existed. Because they want the UN to be great, they often lapse into believing the UN is great. A classic case of confusing ought and is. Meanwhile, people like me see the UN as a flawed institution which relentlessly exploits this misperception. But, because UN-lovers have so skewed the debate, it is almost impossible to persuade the unpersuaded that the UN sucks unless you speak in "responsible" terms. Saying US out of the UN, UN out of the US in "sophisticated" company is seen as no less antediluvian than fretting about fluoridated water sapping our precious bodily fluids. And, since it's not going anywhere (sigh) one must fight for the changes one can. Holding Kofi accountable for that hothouse of sanctimony and quasi-legalized corruption seems like a nice place to start. I know a lot of liberals who loathe, say, Fox News but who constantly use the same language -- "losing it's credibility" etc -- that the Republicans Confessore dislikes are using about the UN. Should liberals who think the world would be better off without Fox News be considered inconsistent hypocrites for sounding like they actually care about Fox's credibility?

I've received numerous emails conveying this sentiment:

Jonah,

As a prolife pro-big-family conservative, I assure you, it's not, as Brooks suggests, that we are "too busy to fight the culture wars". We do our part every day. It just doesn't make the evening news.

What WE DON'T DO is carve out time from work and school to take our kids to ridiculous protest marches, bang bongo drums in the streets, wear stupid contumes, chant silly slogans, and disrupt other people's businesses and schedules.

Or is that what Brooks really means when he refers to being "active in the culture wars"??

"The British establishment's current complacent approach accepts that ever greater and ever more violent crime is a fact of life, rather than a historical aberration encouraged by the unprecedented constraints placed on the law-abiding and the boundless licence extended to the criminal class. That policy leads remorselessly to more deaths, and to lives lived under small but ever more insidious and corrupting restrictions. The Tories' big mistake was their failure to understand that "freedom" isn't just about consumer choices or buying your council flat. It's also about being free to defend your home - after all, you're there on the scene and the West Midlands Police 24-Hour Crime Hotline answering machine isn't. And an assertive citizenry, confident in its freedoms and its responsibilities, is a better bet for long-term survival than the passive charges of the nanny state. If... the police persist in victimising the victims of crime, then I hope we'll see widespread jury rebellion and a refusal to convict."

There's no informed reason for optimism, but it'd be nice if this panned out:

CAIRO (Reuters) - Palestinians and Israelis have agreed in principle to proposals aiming to end their conflict, Egypt's official news agency MENA said on Tuesday.

Quoting unidentified high-level sources, it said the steps, including an Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire, had the support of both the United States and the European Union.

There was no immediate official comment from Israel, the Palestinians or from Egypt which has tried to play the role of mediator in previous efforts to ease Israeli-Palestinian violence.

"High-level sources confirmed an important understanding -- reaching the point of an agreement in principle -- has been completed between Egypt, Israel, the Palestinians and several active international parties, America and Europe, regarding a comprehensive settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle," MENA said.

Update Another positive sign.

Good thing this isn't a fireable offense at NR.

In the last tape to come out, Osama Bin Laden admitted that he was behind the 9/11 attacks. But the BBC writes: "The Taleban had given sanctuary to Osama Bin Laden and members of his al-Qaeda network, who are accused of carrying out the attacks."

In related news, a new museum exhibit dealing with Adolf Hitler, who was accused of ruling the Third Reich which was alleged to have killed many Jews and others, opened today...

Ramesh -- Very good point. But isn't this a round-about way of discussing the more basic fact that conservatives, cultural and otherwise, are now overwhelmingly Republican and the demographic trends that are associated with conservatives are now -- as you say -- associated with Republicans?

My old boss Ben Wattenberg (for whom I was studying TFR's and UN population projections) has come out with a new book demography called Fewer about declining birth rates. From Andy Ferguson's column:

``Our traditional view of those countries is completely outdated -- the population explosion and all that,'' Wattenberg says. ``Forty years ago, less developed countries averaged about 6 children per woman. Now it's about 2.8 -- still a growing population. But the UN projects it will fall to 1.85 --a declining population.''

Wattenberg sees world population, now 6.4 billion, trending to 8 billion over the next several decades, then beginning to fall. At a 1.85 replacement rate, world population would decline to 2.3 billion people by 2300.

The great exception to these trends is the U.S., where the fertility rate is just below replacement and moving higher. The UN projects 400 million Americans by 2050, up from about 285 million. Much of the U.S. growth is fueled by immigration.

A Matter of Choice

So what does this all mean? ``Never before in history have populations chosen not to reproduce themselves,'' Wattenberg says. ``Declining populations have always been a result of plague or famine.''

For those people weaned on the small-is-beautiful humbug of the 1960s and '70s -- which saw humans as a kind of blight on a pristine planet -- news of a population implosion will be good news indeed. But for a ``pro-people'' futurist like Wattenberg, who sees human beings as a positive good and growth as a gift, the implosion carries ominous implications.

``The repercussions touch every aspect of our lives,'' he says. What is commonly called the ``aging problem,'' for example, is better understood as a low-fertility problem.

In 1950, 8 percent of Europeans were over 65. That percentage will rise, by 2050, to 28 percent.

As a guy who spent his first couple years in Washington having to learn about Total Fertility Rates and memorizing UN population projections, I find the new politics of birth rates fascinating, if oddly otherworldly. A decade ago, it was still a major talking point of the sophisticated left to talk about overpopulation, not just in the Third World but here. And not just because of immigration, but because Americans were supposedly having too many children. Of course, this argument was -- and still is -- linked to the notion that Americans are a disproportionate "drag" of the global environment. But that's a tangent will ignore for now.

As for Brooks' point as well as Ramesh's emailer, I'm not convinced that the political significance of red-state natalism isn't overblown (though I haven't read Steve Sailer's piece which many smart folks liked). Red states are culturally conservative. Culturally conservative people have more kids. People with more kids tend to be culturally conservative. People with lots of kids in liberal places tend to move to places that are more conservative. At some point, isn't this the repetition of basically the same point from different angles? The YaYa plant grows in blue soil. Plants in blue soil tend to be YaYa plants. And, besides, was it not ever thus?

I can see why the red-state natalism stuff might be an important longterm trend, but let's not forget that many of the red states tend to be underpopulated and the centuries-long American story of young people moving to cities for fun and opportunity isn't likely to end any time soon. Many red states consider the on-going brain-drain from their universities to out-of-state cities to be one of their most pressing problems.

Anyway, I'm not dismissing this as a non-story, I'm just not convinced this is the mammoth, important trend some people are claiming it to be.

Stephen Moore argues that he is a good man, that he is being treated shoddily, and that conservatives should get behind him. Based on my limited acquaintance with him, I'll agree with the first point. I'll agree with the second, too: That Washington Post leak was brutal. I can't agree with the third.

Moore says that Snow is right about the dollar, which should be set by markets and not politicians. I think that oversimplifies the issues involved, but let's assume Snow is right. Does it really make sense to have a Treasury secretary whose inartful comments roil the currency markets? (The second Treasury secretary in a row, I might add.)

Speaking of inartful comments: Moore defends Snow's pre-election remarks about the jobs situation in Ohio by not directly quoting them. The thrust of his remarks, Moore says, was accurate. Well, that's lovely. Cabinet secretaries are, however, supposed to have enough political competence to avoid saying things that can be taken out of context in a way that is damaging to the president. Appearing to say that job losses in Ohio were a "myth" was not at all helpful to Snow's boss.

And this record does make one wonder about what Snow might say while Congress is debating Social Security reform.

David Brooks notes the link between family size and party affiliation. (And he's got a good headline, too.) A friend emailed me yesterday about a related trend: "I was looking through some demographic numbers today and came across something very interesting in a publication by the National Center for Health Statistics. The data was from 2002 and show the median age of women in each state at first birth. In states where the median age at first birth is 24 or less, Bush won 199-3 in electoral votes. The only exception was DC. In states with a median age at first birth of 25, the electoral vote split was 118-87 in Kerry's favor. In states with a median age of 26 or more, Kerry won 131-0."

Brooks tries, unpersuasively, to minimize the political effects of the trend he describes. Politicians shouldn't "pander" to natalists because they are less interested in money than in values, and they should understand that the natalists are too busy to be culture warriors. Well, there's pandering and there's pandering. Federal tax policy has gotten much tougher on large middle-class families over the last few decades, and I suspect that they would appreciate a reversal of that trend. Social Security is an implicit tax on large families, and I can see a case for reducing its anti-natalist bias. As for the "culture wars"--horrible phrase--I suspect that large families do tend to have more conservative views on issues such as abortion. People with conservative social views must be more likely to have large families in the first place, and then having them reinforces those views. Can Brooks really think otherwise?

Maybe it's just me, but I think there's a certain poetry that today is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor and it is also the date that the first popularly elected President of Afghanistan was sworn-in. 9/11 was our Pearl Harbor and just three years afterwards we've made taken this huge symbolic stride.

Today happens to be my 25th wedding anniversary. My father-in-law was the first to suggest our nuptials would be another great American disaster. The Charming and Delightful and I disagree.
Cheers to us, and doubly to NR for 50 great years. Congratulations!

The law said that defendants like Mr. Pabon, who was convicted two years ago of advertising to receive or distribute child pornography over the Internet, should be fined or receive a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years "and both."

The appeals court said this language "makes no sense."

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Crusading New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer will announce Tuesday that he will run for governor in 2006, his spokeswoman Cindy Darrison said.

"He's announcing that he has decided to run for governor," Darrison said of the state's top prosecutor, who has used his office to take on Wall Street for fraudulent stock research, and mutual funds for overcharging ordinary customers.

Poor Frank J. he's been emailing me for weeks. He's threatened to kidnap Cosmo. He's flattered, he's cajoled, he's made some funny jokes. And all the while I've refused to endorse him as the best humor blogger in those now hopelessly befuddled Weblog Awards. Indeed, I turned my indifference up an existential notch. I refused to care who wins said award. But then James Taranto went and endorsed Scappleface as the funniest blog, or hairiest blogger or something. Again: the caring is not a huge priority. But poor Frank seems to care. Apparently Scrappleface is the one-eyebrowed baby to his Maggie Simpson. Right now he's huddled in the corner screaming "it burns! it burns!" but when I told him I'd put a good word in their for him, he started shrieking "Festival! Festival!" like the those Landru-worshipping Archons and gleefully twirling around the room like Michael Moore after those first bogus exit poll numbers came in.

So anyway, as Bernie Bernbaum says to Tom in Miller's Crossing, "look in your heart" and see if you can throw a vote or two towards this pathetic, twisted angry young man. You can read some of his stuff here and here. But please note, I am not disparaging Scappleface nor am I trying to engage Jim Taranto in a proxy war, though that might be fun.

I am pleased that the chain-of-command issues Chairman Duncan Hunter has raised have been resolved so that our war-fighters will not be put at risk. Unfortunately, even with these improvements, the current bill is woefully incomplete and one I cannot support.

Americans deserve a complete bill so that we can prevent another 9/11 from occurring. Border security and immigration reform are vital components of our homeland security efforts, so why are they not included in this legislation? The time to address these issues is now, not next month, not next year. Hollow promises of future consideration are just that - hollow promises.

Marta Andreasen was the EU’s chief accountant. Here’s what happened to her:

“In 2002 I was appointed chief accountant to the European Commission to help — as I then believed — to reform the inadequate systems and stamp out fraud. I drew attention to those inadequacies; I refused to sign accounts that I believed unreliable; for two years I was suspended from my job, obliged to live in Brussels yet forbidden to enter any EU building; and in October I was dismissed, the charge against me being disloyalty, a decision against which I am appealing.”

It appears that the results of last night's talks are:

1. Sides agreed that the Supreme Court decision gave the framework for resolving the political conflict and must be carried out by all sides.
2. Sides agreed that the President would cut short the authority of the Central Election Commission and introduce changes to the make-up of the CEC and submit those changes to the Parliament for ratification.
3. Sides agreed that changes and amendments need to made to the law on presidential elections to make them transparent leading to a fair vote that would limit abuse and falsification.

It also appears that once points 2 + 3 are completed, the opposition will unblock access to government buildings. (Though I surely hope they monitor who goes in and out of the president's administration building - - and what they come out with.)

These things were agreed to by Yushchenko, Yanukovych (with reservations); Lytvyn (given they are upheld by Parliament’s Council of Faction Leaders and Committee Chairmen); and Kuchma (same reservations as Lytvyn).

As I understand it going into the talks, Viktor Yushchenko wanted two groups of issues discussed: a small group and a wider group. The aforementioned issues is what he would refer to as the small group. We’ll see if and when the Rada and President move on these issues. Hopefully, today.

At the table talks the problems occurred in the voting over the wider set of issues.

And at the Parliament (Rada)

Yesterday, the Rada agreed to the following sequence of events: Kuchma dismisses government; then parliament votes in a block changes and amendments to the election law and to the constitution. The changes to the constitution take effect September 1, 2005 if the changes to local self-government are approved. If not, then the changes to the constitution take effect January 1, 2006.

At this point we understand that Yanukovych did not agree on dismissal of the government and instead took a leave of absence (or vacation). This is what broke off talks between the sides.

This was not something that Kuchma was expecting. He thought the opposition would not agree to the changes in the constitution and thus he could blame the lack of progress on Yushchenko. Now it turns out his own man - - or the man who had up until that point been "his" man - - is holding up the progress and not letting Kuchma get the "reforms" sought by the president. This deserves very close scrutiny.

Some Muslim activists are attempting to have Danish broadcasters prosecuted under blasphemy laws for having broadcast an extract from the murdered Theo van Gogh’s Submission. Doubtless the case will fail, but in the current climate the chilling effect on free speech of such litigation should not be underestimated.

It’s time to repeal such laws. All of them.