Here’s some more on the Franco-German plan (known, it seems as ‘Mirage’, a somewhat unfortunate choice of name) – in English this time. Meanwhile, a reader has kindly written in with a translation of the Spiegel piece. It’s too long to reproduce in its entirety, but the idea seems to be that ‘thousands’ of UN troops would take control of the entire country for years in order to guarantee a "durable disarmament regime." The US troops already in the region would remain there as guarantors of the UN incursion.

According to the magazine, Iraq would become for all practical purposes a protectorate of the UN, with Saddam remaining as only the formal head of state. If the Saddam regime were to collapse as a result, that would be “acceptable”, but that’s not the primary purpose of the exercise.

Apparently, Mirage has already been discussed “with other critics of the US strategy”, such as Mr Simitis, president of Greece (and, for six months, the President of the EU Council), Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President-Designate Hu Jin Tao.

Here's an interesting article from the Guardian (yes, I know) on morale among Iraqi conscripts. The interviewee is a deserter, so he may not be entirely representative, but his story seems to ring true. His concluding comment is worth noting:

"I haven't heard of Tony Blair. But if George Bush wants to give us freedom then we will welcome it."

The Iranian regime is no monolith. The political situation within that country is more complicated than is often claimed (not least by the Bush administration), suggesting that some form of dialog may be possible and, indeed, desirable. Chris Patten, however, has got it wrong. There's a surprise. The New York Times notes that on a recent three day trip, the EU’s “foreign affairs commissioner” met with Iran’s former president, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, a gesture that has “caused consternation [to] reformists who view [Rafsanjani] with suspicion, even loathing.”

The West should be looking to encourage Iran’s opposition. Patten doesn’t appear to realize that meetings such as his only do the opposite.

Something that gains, however, from translation is this:

“Primates capitulards et toujours en quete de fromages”.

According to the London Times, that's Le Figaro's attempt to translate “cheese-eating surrending monkeys.”

Cap that, Jonah.

A few weeks back, the New Yorker ran an entertaining piece by John Lanchester on writers who write under the influence of various questionable substances. One impressive example was W.H. Auden. He “swallowed Benzedrine every morning for twenty years, from 1938 onward, balancing its effect with the barbiturate Seconal when he wanted to sleep. (He also kept a glass of vodka by the bed, to swig if he woke up during the night).”

Lanchester's piece also contained this quote from Sartre (caffeine, drink, barbiturates):

“But it should be noted that this regulatory totalization realizes my immanence in the group in the quasi-transcendence of the totalizing third party; for the latter, as the creator of objectives or organizer of means, stands in a tense and contradictory relation of transcendence-immanence, so that my integration, though real in the here and now which define me, remains somewhere incomplete, in the here and now which characterize the regulatory third party. We see here the reemergence of an element of alterity proper to the statute of the group, but which here is still formal: the third party is certainly the same, the praxis is certainly common everywhere; but a shifting dislocation makes it totalizing when I am the totalized means of the group, and conversely.”

Perhaps it loses something in translation.

Canadian Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal is a leading figure in that country’s effort to ratify the Kyoto Treaty. Reason magazine reports that he’s also the owner of two SUVs - one for Ottawa and one for his home in Vancouver. Reason notes that “Canada’s plans to implement Kyoto include a call for people to drive small cars that use less fuel.”

Whoops.

In a week when the chairman of the EU’s ‘convention’ has produced a first draft of a laughably grandiose ‘constitution’, Brussels has shown that its overreach is not confined to the big picture. The latest step in the Commission’s bid to build a united Europe is a requirement that farmers must stamp every egg they sell with their home address, the details of the hen which laid the egg, the method of production, the code for the producer-packer, and a sell-by date.

The Daily Telegraph is not impressed.

Europeans have, as is well known, an aversion to genetically modified food, none more so than Prince Charles. Now James Watson, the Nobel-prizewinning scientist jointly credited with the discovery of DNA, has (the Daily Telegraph reports) taken him to task:

"It is nothing less than an absurdity to deprive ourselves of the benefits of GM foods by demonizing them; and, with the need for them so great in the developing world, it is nothing less than a crime to be governed by the irrational suppositions of Prince Charles and others. As our society delays in sanctimonious ignorance, we would do well to remember how much is at stake; the health of hungry people and the preservation of our most precious legacy, the environment."

Watson makes a good point, although, to be fair, it is worth noting that Charles’ ‘organic’ farms do make some very good cookies.

The New York Sun is running a story (no link available) this weekend about a mosque director arrested on charges that “he helped more than 200 aliens sneak into or stay illegally in America.”

The alleged offenses apparently revolve around the INS’ Religious Worker Program. According to the Sun, the “program allows aliens with religious training and experience to obtain work visas and green cards if religious organizations sponsor them”. It would be interesting to know more about this program, which is justified, presumably, by the assumption that the presence of additional “religious workers” in this country must automatically be a force for the good. That may or may not have been true in the past, but in an age when the US is threatened by an ideology with, to put it mildly, a strong religious component, it is clearly no longer the case.

It’s time for a closer look at this program.

One adjective in the opening paragraph of this week’s New Yorker piece by Hendrik Hertzberg says more about the attitude of certain sections of the intelligentsia to George W. Bush than any number of books, petitions or agonized interviews on NPR:

“The most tasteless passage in last week's State of the Union Message came about half an hour into the speech, as President Bush was enumerating his Administration's successes against Al Qaeda. Three thousand suspected terrorists have been arrested, he said. "And many others have met a different fate," he went on. "Let's put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies." Talk about smoking guns. You could almost see the President blowing across the upturned barrel of his Colt .45.”

Tasteless?

I don’t know what is worse about the use that word – the self-congratulatory sense of moral superiority that it implies or the feckless suggestion that this conflict should now be judged on aesthetic grounds. These terrorists are fanatics’ fanatics, foot soldiers or worse in a movement that would eliminate both us and our civilization, a civilization that includes everything that the New Yorker is supposed to stand for. We can – and should – mourn the way that these individuals chose to waste their lives, but their deaths, like the deaths of, say, an SS trooper or a Gulag guard, are hardly a matter of regret.

Rather the reverse, I would think.

The latest attempts to reform Britain’s ‘Senate’, the House of Lords, took place in the early years of the Blair government with significant changes in the membership of that supposedly august body. The hereditary component was greatly reduced, leaving effective control with the so-called ‘life peers’, a motley collection of the (supposedly) good and the great appointed to the House by successive governments. This change was always seen as a first step in the modernization process – the next step was, allegedly, to try and make the House of Lords rather more democratic. Prime Minister Blair, who always rather liked the idea of packing the place with ‘Tony’s cronies’, was never quite so sure.

And, nor it seems, are Britain’s dim Tories. In a number of votes last week, they showed once again that they are incapable of embracing either good sense or popular policies. More Conservative MPs voted for Blair’s preferred option of an all-appointed Lords than opted for their own leader’s proposal - an all-elected Lords.

Losers.

In the Islam means Peace argument:

SAN`A, Yemen (AP) _ A Yemeni man irritated by noisy nut sellers outside his house threw an explosive device at them Friday, seriously injuring four people, security officials said.

The blast rocked a crowded market place in downtown San`a, located near the headquarters of the country's intelligence services.

Security officials speaking on condition of anonymity said the man who threw the bomb was arrested shortly after the blast.

The officials said the man became irritated by the noise being made by people hawking nuts outside his home. The market area was particularly busy ahead of an Islamic holiday period.

The Attorney General announced the security alert? Um what's the Director of Homeland Security for if not to make announcements about homeland security? Just a question.

When I briefly lived in Prague, I heard sentiments like this all the time:

Your pointing out the view from Kosovo reminds me of why my East-bloc-born wife insisted our son be named Ronald when he was born last year. When she was a girl, she remembers her grandfather listening to VOA secretly and she wasn't allowed to tell anyone at about it. She remembers her fathers secret recordings of American jazz, and his greatest prize was a bootleg copy of jimmy hendrix' "star-spangled banner'. She remembers the embers of hope that sparked when Mr. Reagan denounced the Evil Empire, hope that America was aware of their misery and that through this their liberation would come. I have met many people from E. Eur and this story is common, if seldom reported. And none of the people I have met ever said they dreamed liberation would come from France or Germany.

Unlike, say, France some countries are grateful to their liberator. (Found at OpinionJournal)

Hans Blix, the chief UN inspector, appeared flummoxed when questioned about the case this week but said that he would consider raising it in his talks tomorrow in Baghdad....He added that Iraqi scientists could find “more elegant ways” of approaching UN inspectors.

Great, Kathryn. I'm upstairs just now, unable to get to sleep, thinking about Derb's essay. I come downstairs to get a glass of water, log on for a sec to check The Corner -- and ba-da-bing, the FBI is telling us all to worry a whole damn lot.

You know what I thought was so effective about Derb's piece? It was the scariest doomsday scenario essay I've read that didn't require the reader to believe that any of these dire things going on in the world were part of some divine chastisement, or scheme set out in the book of Revelation. It was an entirely secular case for apocalypse now. And thus more chilling, at least to me. One doesn't have to believe in an eschatological vision to recognize, as Derb does, that the world might or might not be ending, but a world certainly is.

I had lunch with an NYPD friend last week. He said to me that he was at a loss to explain why terrorists haven't gotten away with anything else here since 9/11. So many of us get through the day depending on dumb luck and thoughtlessness. I suppose if we really stopped to think about what could happen, we'd never leave the house -- or we'd head for the hills.

Well, that does it. I'm up for the night. Hell, I might as well see if there's a "Jerry Springer" re-run on now...

If you're wondering why I've been a bit absent from the Corner the last couple days it's because I've been getting a couple other things done. I will have a piece in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow on shuttle coverage and a piece in another newspaper next week on the....the French! It was supposed to be for this Sunday but is being held. I'll let ya know for sure when I do. I will have a G-File tomorrow unless my lovely bride's due date comes true and Goldberg the Next Generation arrives tomorrow.

One thing Colin Powell said yesterday, when listing the Iraqi WMDs, might have escaped your notice, but I can't help thinking about it this morning. He spoke of what we know about Iraqi UAV's, small robot drone aircraft. Powell says we know Iraq has tested models that have a range of 500 km (roughly 300 miles). The secretary also said they can be modified to carry biological or chemical agents, and would be devastating to the United States and other countries far away from Iraq if they were transported.

Think about that: the Iraqis could quietly park boats big enough to launch these small planes from in international waters anywhere off the U.S. coast, and launch a swarm of these things against our cities. Little robot planes, on kamikaze missions to spray botulinum over New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle... . We'd never see it coming.

I have to say the email from my
syndicated column on animal rights has elicited some fascinating email. Some are fascinating for their thoughtfulness, some for their asininity. The column is basically a teaser for my NRODT piece about going vegan which, if you stopped eating lead paint chips and subscribed to NR, you should have read by now. I didn't have room in my mag piece to get into my thoughts on Matthew Scully's Dominion so I went into it a bit in the syndicated column. Basically I found Scully's book to be outstanding though not fully persuasive. He certainly managed to change the terms of the debate on the right -- by jettisoning the buffoonish arguments over "animal rights" and making the issue about human compassion.

Anyway, what's interesting about the email is that it confirms a point I made in both the column and the magazine article, one which highlights a problem with Scully's analysis. Meat-eaters take food just as seriously as vegans, it's just that they imbue their food with different meaning.

All of your points are well-taken. I have only one objection. Never, ever, ever take Mary McGrory seriously. It can cause dizziness, nausea and blurred vision. Still, if I were a smart Iraqi intelligence guy, I would take her column seriously for one reason. She is a canary in the coal of mine of liberal obstructionism. When McGrory -- for all of the shabby bad faith reasons you list -- gets on the war bandwagon, it's time to get your family out of Baghdad and into a Paris hotel as quickly as possible.

This is probably a bad idea, but wouldn't it have been nice if Powell had said something in his prepared remarks about how the other memebers of the Security Council have "prepared responses." I mean the French and the Chinese chimed in without making any reference to the substance of Powell's comments. If he'd said something like "I know my colleagues here cannot respond intelligently about the evidence I've provided here without consulting their governments..." it would have made their "responses" look absurd.

I know it could have backfired by forcing those governments to lock into the positions articulated in those "responses" but it would have been fun nonetheless.

Here’s more on the latest ten European countries, this time all from the former Communist bloc, to distance themselves from France and Germany. As they explain:

"Our countries understand the dangers posed by tyranny and the special responsibility of democracies to defend our shared values.”

How strange that Germany, in particular, should appear to have forgotten that lesson.

Want to know why the International Criminal ‘Court’ is such a bad idea? Well, for reasons like this.

And this, by the way, is how the court’s ‘judges’ are being selected. Connoisseurs of such matters will note that this whole process has, apparently, been heavily influenced by ‘non-governmental organizations’.

Who elected them?

Before I forget in this post-Powell gullywasher of blogging, I want to say, Kathryn, that the Vatican document is better than I expected, given the statement that Archbishop Fitzgerald gave to the magazine Inside the Vatican, about the thing:

"There is no condemnation here," said Archbishop Michael L. Fitzgerald, President of the Council for Inter-religious Dialogue. "This is a study and we hope to have some feedback. This is not definitive document."

Drudge got a peek at the German papers.

I thought it was a masterful presentation. I think Powell could have been a bit more dramatic in his style. He sometimes seemed to be racing through all of the substance. Still, the substance was very impressive. Beyond all of the obvious points about the power of his argument, I thought the impression of his argument may have been more important and influential. When you watch the Secretary of State run through the phone intercepts, the satellite photos etc. you get the sense that the United States is one serious country. We take our work seriously and we know what we're talking about. The look on the Pakistani ambassador's face seemed to say, "Dang! I wonder if their satellites have the goods on us too?"

The pose from the French -- and it has been a pose -- has been struck to suggest that the United States is a foolhardy cowboy which doesn't have the intellectual heft to conduct serious diplomacy. I think that general myth was deeply punctured by Powell's presentation. You simply couldn't watch that and think America's going off half-cocked to war in order to bolster Bush's poll ratings etc.

There can be no doubt that Iraq is very close to having a nuclear bomb, and has been trying very hard to cross the nuclear line. The missiles they are developing today, Powell just showed, can deliver nuclear warheads as far as Cairo and Ankara -- and even into the southernmost parts of the former Soviet Union. Do the French, the Russians, and the Germans, to say nothing of the Arab/Islamic governments whose people would actually be threatened with mass death, really want to permit a Kim Jong-Il in the Middle East.

Powell also just said that Iraq has been modifying drone aircraft to fly, unmanned, for hundreds of kilometers to deliver biological weapons.

Here's part of that audio excerpt, between two Republican Guard officers:

1st Officer: "Remove."
2nd Officer: "Remove."
1st: "The expression."
2nd: "The expression, I got it."
1st: "Nerve agents."
2nd: "Nerve agents."
1st: "Wherever it comes up."
2nd: "Wherever it comes up."
1st: "In the wireless instructions."
2nd: "In the instructions."
1st: "Wireless."
2nd: "Wireless."

Translation: Quit talking about the nerve agents that we have, because they're listening.

Powell also said defectors have said Saddam is doing chemical weapons experiments on death-row prisoners.

My former landlord Eric Alterman has a piece/advertorial up on NRO today in our new regular debate feature. The subject is media bias and Alterman manages to cram a lot of condescension into a mere 500 words (note how many times he uses the word "smart"). A case in point, he offers this gratuitous swipe:

Here's how I put it in the book: (And for you Goldberg/Coulter fans, those little numbers are called "footnotes." They allow other people to check your work.)

I thought he meant me and posted a response earlier this morning. We Goldbergs may not all look alike, but when I see the name on my own site I sometimes get confused. Anyway, it was quickly pointed out to me that Alterman must mean Bernard Goldberg, author of Bias. And I unthinkingly erased the entry. I probably should have left it up. Good blogger form requires us to leave our mistakes up so we can atone for them for all eternity. Anyway, I acted too quickly and I still think the jibe is a dumb one. As I understand it, Coulter's book has plenty of footnotes. And besides, with condescension like Alterman's, less is more (note how many times he uses the word "smart."). Still, my apologies if you saw the first post and then saw it disappear. I'm not trying to hide anything.

For literally more than two decades my dad has been trying to get me to read The Intelligent American's Guide to Europe by Erik Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (a former NR-nik). I just never got around to it. Last Thanksgiving he brought it down and pressed it into my hands. I finally started skimming through it a couple of weeks ago and now I have to say it is one of the most interesting, wide-ranging, thoroughly engaging history books I've ever read. It reminds me of when I first read Modern Times by Paul Johnson. But it's even more encyclopedic. Almost every sentence -- never mind every page -- has an "I didn't know that" or "I never thought of it like that" kicker. He makes statements in parentheses it would take me a year of reading to feel confident enough to make. Alas, I see from Amazon that it's out of print. But if you spot one in a used book store -- and you're a history buff -- you must pick up a copy.

The British Army is, er, under fire for sexism. Amongst its crimes, referring to “manning” rather than ‘staffing”. Full details are available in a taxpayer-funded report called Gendered Bodies, Personnel Policies and the Culture of the British Army.

Its title tells you all that you need to know.

Amongst the greatest of the many stupidities of the asinine ‘war on drugs’ is the government’s crusade against ‘medical marijuana’. In the latest chapter of this endless, and depressing, saga, federal prosecutors have now distinguished themselves by securing the conviction of one Ed Rosenthal for growing marijuana – marijuana that was going to be used to treat the sick. The judge who heard the case ruled that the jury could not be told that Rosenthal’s crop was part of Oakland’s medical marijuana program, a plan developed by the city in the wake of the California vote ‘legalizing’ the medical use of the normally prohibited plant. Mr. Rosenthal now faces years in jail and some members of the jury that convicted him are said to be appalled that they were denied the right to hear the full facts before they came to their verdict.

It’s a case that has, understandably, infuriated many (check out Instapundit for more), but the truth is that, while the Justice Department team can – and should – be criticized for wasting government resources in choosing to prioritize the prosecution of a case like this, they were only doing their job. Equally, the judge who excluded any discussion of the ‘medical’ defense was technically quite correct. This seems like a clear case where federal law overrides a state’s jurisdiction and federal law simply does not recognize the defense of medical necessity. What’s more, as Jacob Sullum points out over at Reason, it appears that the jurors did know why the defendant was growing marijuana, even if the poor man was not allowed to talk about it in court.

No, it’s no use blaming the Justice Department, the trial judge or the jury. They all did what they were meant to do. The system worked. And when the system is used to enforce an unjust law, the result will be injustice – as the luckless Mr. Rosenthal has now discovered.

The only solution is to change the law at the federal level. Hoping for a retreat from prohibition is, alas, too much to hope for, but a small, faltering step in the direction of sanity and compassion would be the legalization of medical marijuana.

How about it, Doctor Frist?

The army relieved an honor guard because he issued a brief prayer before presenting a flag at burial services. The guard, Patrick Cubbage, did so only when proscribed by his manual (when the family requested religious services by having a minister etc... present) and the message was a simple and brief "God bless your family and God bless the United States." Hardly cause for consternation. Nevertheless, in a case of political correctness run amok, the department administration relieved him of duties for his "breaking protocol." Here's the story in the Philly Inquirer.

Jonah,

Congratulations are in order - you got my 17 year old son to start reading NRODT.

I left a copy of the latest issue on the kitchen table. My wife came into the kitchen and found my son laughing hysterically. He was reading your article "Soy Vey." (My son loves meat.)

Note this is a kid who doesn't read anything but Star Wars books and video game chat.

I think you've scored a breakthrough!

I don't have the opportunity to talk much with anti-war people from the Left. Nearly all of the anti-war people I know are on the Right. Listening to some of them, particularly those who defend the United Nations (perhaps for the first time in their lives), I get the feeling that they are like the doves columnist Matthew Parris (himself a dove) describes here:

Like the admiral who gave 12 reasons for not firing a salute, the twelfth of which was that he had no powder, a certain kind of doveish commentator’s position can be summed-up thus: “I’m against war because I’m not convinced Iraq is harbouring weapons of mass destruction, but even if they are I’m against war because the UN has not authorised it, but if they do I’m against war because an invasion would prove a military fiasco, but even if it didn’t I’m against war because toppling Saddam would destabilise Iraq, but even if it didn’t I’m against war because it will antagonise moderate Arab opinion.”

This will not do. It is not honest.

In this Times of London essay, Parris suggests several things anti-war people should do to keep themselves honest.

Regarding the Pa. sexual predator to be released Friday, a reader writes:

I was an assistant district attorney in Pennsylvania for 3 years, 1 of which was spent prosecuting juvenile offenders. The story of Brian Calabrese, unfortunately, is neither rare nor unusual. I have seen several young sexual predators who should be locked up forever, but will be released, without supervision on their 21st birthday. What is maddening is that everyone, from judges, DA's, defense attorneys, to juvenile probation officers know that these kids are ticking time bombs just waiting to explode, but nothing can be done about them.

Do I have a solution? No, I don't. Off the top of my head, the only possible thing I could think of is what we call a "302 commitment" under the Mental Health Act. This is an involuntary commitment wherein a person could ask the Commonwealth to commit an individual to a mental health facility on the basis that they are a danger to themselves or others. Still, that is not permanent, and sadly, someone is going to have to pay a horrid price for this gap in the law.

APNewsAlert

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) _ U.N. inspectors report finding another
empty chemical warhead.

It figures the TAPPED story didn't scan. My apologies for not digging deeper. Usually when I find a barrel of manure I look at the top of the barrel and say, "Hey look: manure." It only makes sense that if you dig deeper it turns out there's more manure beneath the surface.

Interesting poll numbers from Gallup. From their site:

Overall, these results show that 31% of Americans are firmly committed to an invasion, and 13% are firmly opposed. Another 27% lean toward an invasion, but could change their minds; 25% lean against war, but could change their minds. An additional 4% express no opinion, making a total of 56% who could be persuaded either way.

Blogging is not a science and it is not a professional guild. Anyone can do it -- which is the best and worst thing about blogs after all. For an example of really poor blogging we have this installment from TAPPED:

VERDICT: NOT GUILTY. The Wall Street Journal's op-ed-page editor, Paul Gigot, recently went out to solicit a letter of support for the Bush administration from eight European leaders, which was then published on the op-ed page. He then apparently got the Journal to cover the letter as a news story. Pressed as to whether or not this was crossing the line between opinioneering and William Randolph Hearst-ish, you-furnish-the-pictures-and-I'll-furnish-the-war politicking, Gigot replied: "We've committed news and I plead guilty to practicing journalism."

If so, journalism is in worse shape today than Tapped thought. We're not sure exactly how to define "journalist," but we do know one when we see one. Gigot is a journalist like Zell Miller is a Democrat: in name only. He is, more accurately, a hack, an apologist and a purveyor of propaganda.
Posted at

The reason this is so lame, as if you couldn't tell, is not that they call Gigot "a hack, an apologist and a purveyor of propanda." Though that is transparently stupid (I thought Gigot's old "Potomac Watch" was one of the best reported columns in America). What's so lame is that they provide no evidence and no argument. They simply bang their spoons on their high-chairs without giving the reader any reason to join them in their conclusions. Maybe what Gigot did was wrong -- frankly I don't see it at all. That letter was, in fact, news. Right? When Tom Friedman of the New York Times got the Saudis to offer their "peace plan" through his column, the Times covered it as news. Was the Times spreading propaganda? Maybe TAPPED thinks so (though I doubt it). But if they do, they should mention that. In other words, make an argument fellas, because you sound hysterical, shabby, and more than a little arrogant when you assume smart people will share your conclusions when you give them no reason to.

There was once -- and still is -- a man named Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. He wrote a book "Hitler's Willing Executioners." As most of you probably know, he is not me and I am not he. But because the name Jonah half the name Goldberg are in there, lots of people think I am the author of that book. Someone, somewhere, on the internet must have recently re-asserted this because I'm a big influx of new email from people about how I could write that book and this or that in my columns. Here's the latest.

I read your latest column about killing "the baby," and thought I would pass on a thought or two that perhaps hadn't crossed your mind. While you are a good writer and an intellegent person, I find it ironic that you write about Vietnam vets being called "baby killers" with a certain amount of outrage when in fact, we all know that some were actually that - they killed babies, women, girls, old men, etc. etc. These are facts and have been documented with photos. The reason I find this odd is because in your book, "Hitler's Willing Executioners," you obviously were quite shocked and outraged, and rightly so, by the killing of Jewish babies by the Nazis.

My question to you is this: Why are you defensive about the American atrocities committed in Vietnam and why do you not show the same level of outrage for Vietnamese babies killed by Americans?

It's funny how morality is always viewed differently when it's our guys doing the killing, don't you think?

According to the London Times, Abu Hamza al-Masri, the self-styled ‘cleric’, who is Britain’s most notorious Islamic extremist, has now decided to reveal his explanation for the Columbia tragedy. Apparently, God destroyed the shuttle. God’s reason? The spacecraft was "a trinity of evil because it carried Americans, an Israeli and a Hindu, a trinity of evil against Islam.”

Adding superstition to bigotry and to hatred, al-Masri reportedly also claims to see divine significance in the fact that the first Israeli in space was killed over a place in Texas by the name of Palestine.

Chirac’s attempts to promote France’s interests (as he sees them) may help French business win a contract or two in Iraq – and other unsavory spots – but it comes at a price.

The Daily Telegraph is reporting that Tony Blair has blocked a decision to award a French company a £3 billion contract to build the Royal Navy's two new aircraft carriers because of his annoyance over Chirac's behavior over Iraq and Zimbabwe.

Somewhere, Admiral Nelson is smiling.

Talking to Israeli reporters on Sunday, Rona Ramon, the widow of Ilan
Ramon, said that her husband was at his peak when he died, the newspaper Yediot Ahranot reported:

"He was a happy and an optimistic person. When he left for space, he
left us this wonderful feeling that we are also part of this amazing
thing. He had to write a will but at the end didn't because he thought
it was unnecessary. He always had a smile and he wanted us to keep on
smiling. We are not falling apart. We are strong for Ilan's sake. We
will keep his spiritual will alive and he would want us to be happy,
calm and smiling."

"We stood and waited at the end of runway for the landing. It was a
beautiful day and the clock was ticking. When it got down to 10 seconds,
we started a countdown, just like in the liftoff, to hear the sonic
booms. But they didn't come. We started to worry, and then they took us
to the side and told us that they didn't know what had happened, but we
already knew. I didn't even have to tell the kids, they knew
immediately".

A lot of attention has been paid to Col. Ilan Roman, the Israeli astronaut who died on Columbia, but Dr. Kalpana Chawla was a space pioneer beloved by people in her native country too. A reader of Indian heritage writes:

As an American I am saddened by the events of this weekend. I am heartbroken for Israel as well - that country has suffered so much and now this. I just wanted to add that this is also a tragedy for Indians. Although Dr. Chawla was a naturalized American citizen, she apparently kept in contact with her Indian roots and was an inspiration to little Indian boys and girls who now dream of space and conquest and adventure because of her courage.

Read this New York Times story to get an idea of what the reader is talking about.

Amy Welborn is shutting down her blog today (which is why I don't provide a link to it), saying she's got too many irons in the fire to keep up with it. Those of us who make our living by writing can certainly understand, but it's still a shame to see her go. She really made a difference. Amy is not only a fine writer, but a faithful Catholic. Her blog, which appeared (or at least first came to national notice) about a year ago, quickly became a must-read Internet site for news and commentary on the Church sex-abuse scandal. Many of her regular readers (who numbered in the thousands) would argue incessantly in the blog's comments section over this or that aspect of the scandal, sometimes generating more heat than light, but always doing what rank-and-file American Catholics have not been able to do prior to the Internet: honestly discuss the good, the bad and the ugly in our Church.

Amy's site was one of the top blogspots for orthodox Catholics seeking real news and commentary on the scandal. There is no question that her site, and the host of others she's spawned, kept the story alive for many concerned and curious Catholics around the country, whose local media weren't covering the story comprehensively, and whose diocesan publications were, predictably, as useful and newsy as Pravda and Izvestia. These blogs have become a 21st-century Catholic samizdat for thousands of us. There's been a lot written about blogging as a new form of journalism; in the case of the Catholic blogs and the Scandal story, they aren't only a new form of journalism, they are a highly significant new form of journalism. When the history of this agonizing era of Church history is written, faithful Amy Welborn will have a place of honor for the pioneering media work she did in service of the Church she loves. I salute her, and I'll miss her.

I'm off to go window shopping. Literally. We need to buy new windows. We might as well have iron bars instead of glass panes the way this house leaks heat. Nothing more exciting than spending thousands of dollars on stuff you can't play with, eat or drive.

But I have one request. If anyone's read a particularly good article on the economic and political ideology of fascism, I'd be interested in knowing about it. I'm not looking for anything about the racial theories of fascism. I mean all the other stuff. If you could send emails to me at this addresswith "fascism" in the header, that would be great. I'll explain later.

I can understand why so many people might think that my brief against the French is their cowardice. After all, the phrase is "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," not "clove-smoking real-politickers." But if you actually read what I've written about the French recently, you'll see that my real brief isn't cowardice. It's hypocrisy. Yes, the French are being bold and brash. Yes, they are ambitious. But they are doing it under the guise of "enlightened opposition" to the United States. As Rich and so many others have pointed out, this is just rhetoric to coceal their real aims. But what galls me (no pun intended) is that their rhetoric is simultaneously dishonest and anti-American. We do not try to justify our foreign policy as a "check" on French influence. We do not claim that France is up to no good in the world (I do, but "we" don't). The French claim to champion human rights and peace, often suggesting that the United States does not. They claim they are injecting morality into foreign policy checking America's amoral or immoral foreign policies. And, frankly, (another pun!) they are lying. There's almost no nasty charge you can make about American foreign policy which does not better describe French foreign policy. For example, when it comes to imperialism, we are pikers compared to them.

I have no problem with the assertion tha the French are "boldly" acting on their self-interests. Indeed, I have no problem with self-interestedness in general. But I am appalled at those who look to the French including, of course, the French themselves, as a moral authority or arbiter of America's foreign policy. America has done more for human rights, more to relieve man's estate, and much more to preserve and foster liberty and prosperity in the world than the French ever dreamed. France can claim to be or aspire to be a check on America in the world. Bully for them. But that makes them a problem in my book. They're not enemies and they're not evil. But they're not part of the solution either.

A few months ago the Hilldale College newspaper ran a cranky rant about how NRO -- and particularly me, if I recall correctly -- was losing its edge. I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now. But, for those of you looking for something completely different, today's G-File should help (or dismay). The first half is a short story of a sort. Don't worry, I'm not turning into fiction guy (yet).

I won't be following every new development in the shuttle disaster. I truly feel terrible for the families of these astronauts. The idea of your entire family waiting with pride and excited expectation only to see that is wrenching. I have sympathy for the program and all of the people who feel personally invested. Obviously it's a tragedy. But I simply do not feel swept up in the sense of national tragedy. Bush gave a wonderful speech and he backed it up by offering more money for the program, which I heartily support (I'm one of those "let's build cathedrals in space" guys). It seems to me that if you support hurling human cargo into the farthest reaches of the cosmos, you are of necessity supporting life-or-death risk taking by incredibly brave and talented people. To me it's a no-brainer that the space program should continue as much as it would've been a no-brainer that man should still explore if Lewis and Clark or Columbus had died en route.

I could psychoanalyze myself as to why I think the media is going way overboard or I could psychoanalyze everybody else instead. But maybe that would be disrespectful to those who really feel this is a JFK-assasination or Challenger-disaster kind of moment. So let me just close by saying, I don't feel it and I suspect I am not alone.

For the last few weeks, I've had to put up with TV sparring partners who insist that Bush has been leading Americans into an unpopular war nobody supports. I've never particularly cared about the polls redarding Iraq, except of course as a purely political issue. I never said, "The American people want war, so we should do it" because that's a fundamentally illegitimate argument (let's all vote on killing someone). The consent of the governed maters, obviously, but the anti-war crowd has argued war is bad policy because of the polls -- as if war against Japan in WWII would have been a bad idea if polls said so. I wonder if now that more than 2/3rds of Americans support a war and over half support one without UN backing, they'll still think it's bad policy. Actually, I don't wonder at all, but it's worth asking the question.

They're finding charred body parts in east Texas, reports the NYTimes:

In Plainview, Tex., Tammy White's three sons — 4, 6 and 8 — were riding a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle when they came across a charred leg. "They've been asking questions," Ms. White said.

Late today, Ms. White said she had seen a person's charred and badly disfigured upper body, including the head, at a neighbor's property a mile from her own. "I do not even know what to begin to say," she said. "There's nothing I can say."

Should be up in a few hours. I must have eaten Chief Wiggums chili, if you know what I'm saying.

In some respects, the initiative, modeled after a program developed in Uganda, dovetails neatly with Mr. Bush's conservative views. The Ugandan effort relies on what is known as the "ABC approach." The message is: First, abstain. If you can't abstain, be faithful. If you can't be faithful, use a condom.

Edward C. Green, a medical anthropologist at Harvard School of Public Health, has followed the Ugandan program, which began in 1986. He offers the following statistics as evidence that "partner reduction," as he calls it, is the single most effective way of reducing the spread of AIDS.

At the peak of the Ugandan epidemic, in 1991, an estimated 21 percent of Ugandans were infected, as measured among pregnant women. By 1995, 95 percent of Ugandans from age 15 to 49 reported having either no sexual partners in the previous year or just one partner.

By 2001, the infection rate had dropped to 6 percent — a dip experts say reflects a reduction in high-risk behavior, but also the fact that large numbers of people had died.

"The A-word, abstinence, has become a political lightning rod," said Professor Green, whose views have made him a hot property among conservatives in Washington these days. "As soon as my colleagues hear it, they say, `This is the Bush administration moralizing.' I wish we didn't even have that word in our vocabulary."