The latest issue of Vanity Fair continues plenty that’s well worth reading, including an interesting piece on the Bushes and the Bin Laden family. There’s a touch of conspiracy mongering about it, to be sure, but the administration needs to understand that, so long as the US relationship with the Kingdom remains shrouded in so much secrecy (how about those 28 pages?), it is opening itself up to the worst of speculation.

The highlight of the issue, however, is a piece by Christopher Hitchens on his recent visit to Iraq. There’s plenty of scope for controversy about on how matters are progressing over there, but few, one would hope, should disagree with this:

Hitchens is discussing the US forces, and then takes a look at their opposition:

“Against this [the US presence] are ranged the absolute scum of the earth. First one finds the remnant of the so-called Fedayeen Saddam: a cruel militia which used to be employed filling in those mass graves and performing other lowly tasks and which has never lost a battle against civilians. Before the war its ranks had already been augmented by imported “jihad” fighters from other countries, who have assisted the Baath Party in its mutation from pseudo-secularist Fascism into full-fledged Islamic dogmatism. The fanatics of the sole party meet the fanatics of the sole deity: a recent Saddamist “resistance” leaflet in Baghdad spoke of “One Leader/One Nation/One God,” and the rhetoric generally is the drone of “martyrdom” and “the infidels...”

That is the way to talk about the enemy.

I'd advise you follow your conscience, which sounds like it's leaning toward McClintock. Imagine how much worse you'd feel if you voted for Arnold and he raised your taxes and damaged California Republicans even more. So far, all you're getting from Arnold are empty, pleasant-sounding platitudes. Would you really be happy with yourself by voting for THAT?

As wonderful as McClintock is, it ain't gonna happen. Don't be like those Ross Perot voters who gave us Clinton. (Although thank God for those Ralph Nader voters who gave us Bush.)

I was struck by a quote in Mike Potemra’s review of your book in NRODT. He refers to your quoting of Rev. Lorenzo Albacete:

“We all have to take reality as it comes to us--presidents popes, all of us. [The question is] what you choose to do with reality.” I was immediately struck by the close similarity to lines from The Lord of The Rings, spoken by Gandalf to Frodo:

FRODO: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had ever happened.

GANDALF: So do all that come to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

That Tolkien was a devout…Christian is not unrelated….I thought the many Corner readers who are also Lord of the Rings fans would appreciate the heads up.

I had to pause…for a moment [while reading your book] to pull out my old copy of Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Here’s an excerpt:

"Individuals who depart from the norms - heroes, saints, sages, artists, and poets, as well as madmen and criminals - look for different things in life than most others do. The existence of people like these shows that consciousness can be ordered in terms of different goals and intentions. Each of us has this freedom to control our subjective reality."

FYI, I'm writing occassionally for the Times of London now. My first piece is up, but I don't have time to go through all the registration stuff to get you a link (I'm running out of the house). It's a painfully short piece (a mere 700 words), but I thought I should let everyone know. Cheerios, or whatever those people say.

“Since the days immediately after 9/11, the Attorney General has pledged repeatedly to use every lawful tool at our disposal to protect innocent Americans from future terrorist attacks. Imagine our surprise, then, when we read on ABC’s ‘Nightline’ website last night the following promotion for their September 4, 2003 show on the USA PATRIOT Act: ‘Imagine a nation where police can search your home without a court order or a warrant. Don’t look too far, it’s already here.’

“Perhaps the ‘Nightline show should have been tagged, ‘Name that law.’ Could they be referring to the USA PATRIOT Act? What law allows this? Having never heard of such a law, Justice Department lawyers quickly consulted the books to see what ‘Nightline’ was referencing. But we came away empty-handed. We couldn’t find it in the USA PATRIOT Act. We couldn’t find it in the revised FBI investigative guidelines. We couldn’t find it in the laws that pre-date the war on terror. And we certainly couldn’t find it in the Constitution.

“We hope ‘Nightline’ will either support this claim or issue a retraction.”

It is with deep regret that I have decided that I can no longer serve as the media critic for The American Enterprise. It's a great magazine with a great staff and I'm sure I'll realize the folly of my ways. But my workload is too great with my book and all and I just had to do it. But I remain a big fan of the magazine.

Another incredibly immature site.

I could swear there was all sorts of tittering on the left when the first George Bush and others tried to compare Saddam Hussein to Hitler. This was a sign of "desperation" a "real stretch" etc. Somehow, it was silly fearmongering to call the head of a party (the Baath Party, not the GOP) which was modeled in part on the Nazi Party, who talks about Iraqis in exactly the same terms as the Germans used to talk about Aryans, who gassed his own people, slaughtered hundreds of thousands and launched wars for lebensraum, Hitler-like. But calling a president who said his favorite political philosopher was Jesus Christ, who talks about compassion constantly and won't stop calling Islam a religion of peace a new Hitler makes perfect sense.

HE: Why do you believe there has been almost no attention in the liberal press to Bustamante's association with MEChA?

McClintock: (Chuckles) I can't imagine why. (Laughter.)

I got this outrageous email from someone at PETA:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

I found your "Bush equals Hitler" article very interesting. While certain comparisons to the Holocaust and to Hitler are a bit far-fetched (to say the least), there are some which have strong historical backing and present-day significance. As a Jew, the most striking to me is perhaps the gross similarities between the Holocaust and modern-day meat production, both in methods and mindset. During the Holocaust, average people allowed the concentration camps to operate by turning away from cruelty. They separated themselves from the victims and used that as a justification to allow the abuse to go on. Today, people use the same justification to allow cruel factory farms to operate, and support them each time they sit down to eat. When people eat meat they are supporting a system that rips children away from their mothers, transports innocent beings over hundres of miles through all weather extremes, confines them in cramped, filthy conditions, and herds them to their deaths in assembly line fashion. This is the same system that was used to exterminate Jews and others during the Holocaust. Nobel Prize winning Yiddish author, Isaac Bashevis Singer noted that, "To animals, all people are Nazis." Theodor Adorno, another noteworthy survivor, said that "Aschwitz begins wherever ones sees a slaughterhouse and thinks: they're only animals."

I urge you to visit www.masskilling.com to find out more information about the link between the Holocaust and factory farming.

The debate was mostly on Iraq and the economy. Language issues (my specialty) came up just twice tonight.

North Carolina Senator John Edwards repeated his call for "a national translation center, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week" for Spanish speakers to receive medical translations. (He made a similar proposal to MALDEF last June.) Taxpayers would do well to ask themselves why Edwards, who made his fortune as a personal injury lawyer, seeks to expand a whole new category of malpractice litigation -- erroneous translation.

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean received the first question of the night and called for Iraq to be occupied "preferably with Muslim troops, Arabic-speaking troops." For Dean, respect for Iraq's national language and culture is paramount. No word yet on whether he applies the same principle to the United States.

The last topic of the night was (surprise) amnesty for illegal aliens. The responses to the question, "Do you support [amnesty]?", were as follows:

Kerry: "Absolutely."

Gephardt: "I'm proud of that [amnesty] bill [I introduced].

Graham: switched the topic to Puerto Rico's status. "We have not yet solved what relationship [Puerto Rico] has with the United States.

Kucinich: "Yes, I'm for amnesty."

Dean: switched the topic to racial profiling.

Edwards: "They have earned the right to citizenship."

Moseley-Braun: "I would agree with legalization."

Lieberman: "Mexicans are dying in the desert. That is no longer acceptable. . . . Bush has used 9/11 as an excuse. . . . lift the cap on family reunification.

Sharpton did not participate in the debate.

Both Lieberman and Kucinich attacked Dean directly. (Kucinich noted, pointedly, that Vermont did have a military to fund in budget Dean boasted of balancing.) This led Chris Suellentrop of Slate to comment:

The buzz among the press corps before the debate is that John Kerry is finally going to go toe to toe with Dean, in an attempt to close the double-digit lead that the former Vermont governor has opened over Kerry in New Hampshire. But it's wallflower Joe Lieberman who pummels Dean instead. Rocky showed up to fight Apollo Creed, but somehow he ended up in the ring with Paulie.

I've gotten a huge and overwhelmingly positive response to yesterday's G-File. However, among the critics the same two or three points keep coming up. The gist of my column, if you haven't read it, is that it's not only moronic to compare Bush to Hitler but it is also slanderous to the United States and a form of Holocaust denial to boot. See my syndicated column for more on the Holocaust denial part.

In response, a few lefty types have offered the following points. First, conservatives said outrageous things about Bill Clinton -- comparing him to Hitler, Hussein or Stalin -- and so we/I have no right to complain when liberals do the same to Bush now. "Payback is a bitch" quoth several. This is asinine on every level. First, if you are willing to concede that it was absurd to call Bill Clinton Hitler, you must concede that it's wrong to call Bush Hitler too. And if you concede that, but still insist on making the Nazi comparison, you are in effect knowingly lying simply out of spite, not conviction. Moreover, this is not about defending Bush, it is about defending the integrity of fundamental historical truths and moral categories. To willingly compare Bush to Hitler even though you know it is absurd, does very little damage to Bush but a great deal of damage to the truth.

Also, in my own defense, I made these exact same points many times during the impeachment madness. And this was at a time when Clintonites were literally siccing private detectives on my family and Clinton supporters were phoning me -- and emailing me -- with death threats. I made this point in speeches and in the nascent Goldberg File. I don't have time to scour the archives, but I did find two examples. Here and here .

Relatedly, several readers have made the point that conservatives call liberals "communists" all the time and isn't that just as bad? Well, yes and no. First of all, right or wrong there is cultural unanimity on the evilness of the Nazi regime. Sadly, the evils of Communism are more controversial, particularly because liberals and leftists refuse to concede the enormity of Stalin's and Mao's crimes. And yes it is true that conservatives correctly compare those monsters to Hitler, but people of left not only reject the comparison they also go to great lengths to make the fair point that not all people who call themselves communists are Stalinists or Maoists. There are certainly Communists or orthodox Marxists in every major univeristy faculty in this country. Nobody calls him or herself a Nazi.

And lastly, several readers and a few bloggers apparently think I'm a hypocrite because NRO sells Iraq-style playing cards with Hillary as the Ace of Spades. I have no problem with the cards, but I'm not in charge of advertising even if I did. More to the point, the cards are clearly a joke. I'm not opposed to all forms of humor. The problem with the buffoons who call Bush a Nazi is not that they are joking, it's that they're serious. That is why they should be ashamed.

Spain arrests Al-Jazeera correspondent, alleges al Qaeda links

From CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman

MADRID (CNN) -- Spanish police arrested Al-Jazeera TV correspondent Tayseer Allouni at his home in southern Spain Friday, using an arrest warrant that accuses him of having links to "important members" of al Qaeda and using his status as a journalist to get an interview with Osama bin Laden in October 2001, his wife told CNN in a phone interview.

"A group of police came with a judicial order at noon today and searched the home," for about three hours while Allouni was present, before taking him away, his wife, Fatima Hamed Layasi, told CNN from their home in Granada, in southern Spain.

She said the arrest warrant was from Judge Baltasar Garzon, who has been leading the investigation in Spain into alleged members of al Qaeda and other militant Islamic groups.

Asked if the charges were true, Hamed Layasi said, "Surely it is not so."

She said she would soon hire a lawyer to defend her husband.

She said the warrant says that Allouni "took advantage of his status as a journalist to get an interview on Oct. 7, 2001, with Osama bin Laden, where bin Laden called for a holy war."

Police took several books and newspapers in Arabic and two computers, one belonging to Allouni's son and another, a laptop, belonging to a production company that Hamed Layasi identified as Andalusia Directo, which she said provides programming to Al-Jazeera.

In case TaPpeD (I refuse to be a slave to unorthodox capital letter schemes) won't take Jon or the White House counsel's word for it, maybe they'll listen to the editorial board of the Washington Post. They take some shots at the Republicans too, but they agree that the Democrats acted shamefully.

Apparently, she's poisoned the name "Hillary" for a generation.

Not only is this a sad day for Miguel and Laurie Estrada, but we have all let something unfortunate occur in Washington. We allowed the U.S. Senate to erect a "glass ceiling" in our courts--you can do all the right things in America, but if you do not agree with Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, you need not apply as a federal judge. This is the message that Democrats hope minorities, in particular, get from their victory as they succeeded in repelling a talented man, who happens to be Hispanic, from public service. For the hard left, Miguel Estrada was not qualified to be a federal judge because he would not march to their drumbeat.

....each of us is partly responsible for Miguel's decision to withdraw his nomination. What did you and I do to discourage an honorable man who is mainstream and qualified from serving his country? It's not enough to look the other way as the left makes charges that go unanswered. Miguel Estrada is no extremist. It is the left that wants to capture the federal judiciary, as it claims is the goal of the right. I've seen this before--when those on the left accuse you of something they are guilty of themselves.

...the battle is whether there will be an independent judiciary or a liberal litmus test to transform our courts into another political branch. Miguel Estrada said yes to public service for 29 months; what did we do in that same time frame and what can we do now to help good people serve?

The hasty turn to the United Nations smells of panic, unwarranted panic at that, and even worse, the foolish subordination of Iraq policy to electoral concerns.

The administration may genuinely believe it isn't engaged in a humiliating climbdown, but that is inevitably going to be the perception, here and abroad.

The practical point of the move, to the extent it has any, is to obtain the U.N. fig leaf that will make politically possible the deployment of troops from India, Pakistan and Turkey.

But even if it were worth eating some humble pie to bring in three divisions from those countries — and that's debatable, given the horrifyingly brutal counter-insurgency records of all three militaries — the timing of the pie-eating could hardly be more dangerous.

To go crawling back to the United Nations, tail between our legs, only a week after the Najaf bombing, tells the world — and, more importantly, the people of Iraq — that the bombings and attacks on U.S. troops have succeeded. It signals that America is, if not exactly on the run, severely rattled.

According to Vicki Saporta of the pro-choice National Abortion Federation, violence against clinics typically increases in the months following an extremist's conviction....Until now, most had assumed that the abortion battle's bloodiest days had passed. After the 1998 killing of an abortion doctor (there have been seven abortion-related murders and 17 attempted ones so far, according to Saporta), Attorney General Janet Reno established a task force to combat such violence, and it abated.

FEDERICO de Jesus owes Victor David Hanson an apology.

De Jesus, a staffer for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., falsely accused Hanson, the distinguished author of the just-published book "Mexifornia" (Encounter, 2003), of racism and xenophobia at a recent Capitol Hill briefing.

During his introduction, Hanson, a scholar of ancient Rome and Greece, was aptly described as "a classicist." De Jesus somehow interpreted that to mean that the author had a white "classist" bias against immigrants. Pelosi's aide, who somehow earned a diploma without being able to make a distinction between a classicist and a classist, got ugly with Hanson and stormed out of the briefing in protest.

The first lesson of Estrada is that Schumer has won the battle within the Democratic Senate Caucus. Ideology is now on the table. Prediction is perilous, but now that the Democrats have opened the door to open ideological warfare, it does seem unlikely that Republicans will choose to remain on the stoop if and when the tables are turned and they find themselves able to block a qualified Democratic nominee of good character whose ideology they find objectionable. . . .

Couldn't the filibuster be broken if the Republicans forced the Democrats to go 24/7? No. Because the 24/7 option actually gives an advantage to the minority. Why? In order to force a 24/7 filibuster, the majority must maintain a quorum at all times, but the minority need only have one Senator present to maintain the filibuster. So 24/7 both exhausts and distracts the majority, while allowing the minority the opportunity to rest and carry on their ordinary business. No modern filibuster has been broken by the 24/7 option. . . .

[A] gaggle of conservative law professors, lead by Doug Kmiec, have argued that the constitution requires that a Senate majority be able to change the cloture rule. I'm not sure Kmiec is right, but I'm not the judge of this issue. And neither are the courts. When it comes to this issue, the highest constitutional court is the Senate itself. Here is the bottom line. Unless the Senate leadership pushes hard for a rule change, it looks like the filibuster of judicial nominees has been entrenched as consistent with the customs and rules of the Senate.

Maybe it's true. At any given time a significant number of Americans in a given time zone are heading into either breakfast, lunch or dinner. If we're talking about Americans who are not asleep, 30 million might be exactly right, or even a little low.

Another possibility is that 30 million sounds a little like FDR's "A Third of a Nation" mantra and that's why it sticks around.

Or maybe they're all just a bunch of liars. Who knows? I'm too hungry to think about it.

From a reader in response to today's G-File:

Don't be silly, Bush isn't Hitler. He's the man of perdition predicted in the Book of Revelation. 7 is the biblical number of perfection. 6 is the biblical number of deception. Jesus himself said that "many will come in my name to deceive the elect." Bush claims to be a Christian, but what are his fruits? War, strife, discord, greed, aravice, corruption, and death are his works. Despite his claims of Christianity, he embraces Islam, allows God's law to be removed from public view, displays arrogance and seeks to be worshipped. These are hardly works which would be considered the fruits of a humble, God-fearing man.

From a reader:

I see your column every once and while in the Boise Weekly, the alternative newspaper here in Boise. You are the token fascist and your column is usually placed next to Ted Rall's, whose work better reflects the opinions of most readers. Your appearance has generated a lot of angry letters, since they see you as contaminating an otherwise excellent newspaper. However, the Weekly generated a lot more mail when they briefly cancelled the x-rated personals.

Personally, I'd rather track your column down on the web.

By the way several new newspapers around the country have been running my syndicated column lately to test it out. The most prominent of them is the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. Also, the Dallas Morning News has just picked up my column. Anyway, if you ever see my biline in your hometown paper and you like seeing it there, please feel free to let the newspaper know. I'm not asking for any letter writing campaigns or anything like that, but newspapers do pay attention to the reaction they get from new columnists. And any positive response in my favor are greatly appreciated. Needless to say, you should do the same thing for Rich's syndicated column as well. Thanks.

WALLACE: But he chose not to travel to northern California where the top five candidates in the recall race squared off in the first debate. Most of the 90 minutes focused on taxes.

HOWARD DEAN (R), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I am the one candidate who has taken the no tax pledge. I will not raise taxes.

WALLACE: And the budget deficit.

Der Arnold wins--and raises taxes. At this point the leading Republican in the state would be pro-tax and pro-choice and pro-everything else that Reagan Republicans oppose. Maybe Arnold would be able to register a whole slew of new Republicans, which would put California senate republicans into a better position, possibly even pave the way for a non-RINO Republican to ascend to the governorship someday. All this is not to mention keeping...[out of office Bustamante,] who PROMISES to raise taxes by about 73 gajillion dollars (you might want to check that number).

I bet I could kill Alec Bldwin by making him die from laughter if only I could get this URL to him. Warning: This may be the most immature thing I've ever linked to.

Yes, I know it's preety insufferable of me to call attention to these guys again, but the folks at G-Philes have revamped their site and they're even talking about Joss Whedon and other geek things.

The Goldberg File is up.

Jonah also rebuts the civil rights argument that the denial of same-sex marriage is equivalent to the denial of inter-racial marriage. Why? Jonah argues that it's because no blacks back in the 1960s entertained radical notions about marriage and family life. Really? Has he read much cultural history? In 1967, when blacks first won the constitutional right to marry whom they pleased, you could also have had a front-page story in the New York Times citing many blacks who disapproved of inter-racial marriage. A hefty plurality still do. Would Jonah have written a column saying: "See? Those negroes don't even want to marry whites! Why should we debase this sacred institution for just a few of those people who don't represent most blacks anyway?"

As Stanley mentioned, my friend Andrew Sullivan is quite perturbed by my syndicated column on gay marriage, which is kind of cool because I get so much angry email from folks who say I’m in his thrall. Anyway, Andrew plays a bit of sleight of hand in describing what I wrote in order to rebut me.

In my column, I make what I think is a fairly reasonable point: If the goal is to undermine and/or rewrite the rules of marriage – a goal not shared by all gays to be sure -- then maybe marriage isn’t the right institution for same-sex couples (I favor civil unions of some kind). Indeed, what is usually so compelling about Andrew’s arguments for gay marriage is his deep understanding of the conservative and “conservatizing” power of the institution. If that aspect of marriage – in shorthand, monogamy – has to hit the cutting room floor for marriage to be “inclusive” for homosexuals, then why even bother calling it marriage anymore at all?

What so disturbed me about that article wasn’t that I “discovered” there are homosexual radicals out there, as Andrew suggests. No, what I found so disturbing about the prominent front page story in the paper of record was how clearly it signaled that many advocates of gay marriage simply cannot be trusted – Andrew not included. The Times has been waxing eloquent about how gays are just like everybody else and therefore it is a matter of basic decency to treat them thus. This argument is very compelling, obviously. But if the Times – never mind Hollywood, the professoriate, and cultural libertarians and libertines everywhere – is willing to sell out their avowed principles and arguments on the issue of gay marriage for the momentary frisson of siding with gays who want to challenge the bourgeois and boring notion that monogamy is the bedrock of marriage, then folks like Andrew are going to have to do a far better job persuading average Americans that the liberal side of the culture war can be believed when they say they want the same rules for gays as for everybody else. The issue is not that some “straights” oppose monogamy and some gays surely support it. No doubt that’s true. It’s that many pro-gay marriage advocates either want to redefine the institution twice over – marriage can be same-sex and it’s perfectly okay to introduce your husband to your date – or that they are liars saying they want the same rules for everybody, but really don’t mean it.

Tom McClintock’s performance reminded me of the old line that when you tell the truth, you don’t have to worry about keeping your stories straight. Whatever you might think of him and his ideas, it can’t be said that McClintock trims his sails to match his audience. This is a man who knows what he believes and isn’t going to be shaken from it. He also knows how to say it in 60 seconds if that is what you give him, or 30, or even 15. He distinguished himself as a conservative’s conservative, on everything from taxes to abortion, the death penalty, immigration and the environment. I still don’t think he’s in the mainstream of the electorate, but he has the look of a guy who is willing to wait for the rest of us to figure out what he’s known all along.

What do you mean "we," Cruz? In 1998, California's voters passed the Unz initiative (Proposition 227) which replaced state-mandated bilingual education with English immersion. Achievement tests scores soared the following year. Where was Cruz Bustamante?

To prove his case, Walker quotes what he thinks is the Patriot act’s “definition of cyberterrorism.” Actually, the quoted passage is not a definition of anything at all.

Here's what happened. Patriot includes amendments to the computer hacking statute. Most of what Walker quotes has been on the books since 1986, just in a slightly different section of the code and in slightly different language. This is a little (but only a little) easier to see here.

The chief addition to the law in this section is that it adds “damage affecting a computer system used by or for a government entity in furtherance of the administration of justice, national defense, or national security” to the list of types of intentional damage to computers covered by the hacking statute. Even though this change appears in a section of the law including the word “cyberterrorism” in the title, the law does not say that this act amounts to terrorism. So, for example, the procedures and penalties that would apply to someone who, say, hijacks an airplane to ram it into a building would not apply here.

Teresa Heinz, chairman of the Heinz Family Philanthropies and The Heinz Endowments and a visionary, passionate philanthropist, will be awarded the 2003 Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism, The Johns Hopkins University announced.

Heinz is being recognized for her efforts to protect the environment, to promote healthcare and education and to improve the lives of women and children around the world, said the university, which administers the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. "She is willing to invest herself in these things she cares passionately about. She doesn't just give money; she gives of herself," said Jared L. Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who nominated Heinz for the award. "I applaud her personal and passionate efforts, but I marvel at the way she also brings out the best in others. She is a catalyst of humanitarian acts."

The Schweitzer Gold Medal, named for medical missionary, theologian, musician and environmentalist Albert Schweitzer, was established in New York in 1986 by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to honor von Humboldt's service to humanity and to advance humanitarianism in the United States by recognizing exceptional achievement in the service of humanitarian causes. Previous recipients include former President George Bush, who received the award in 1997 for his role in negotiating the peaceful unification of Germany. Recipients of the parallel Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, also administered by Johns Hopkins for the foundation, have included Jimmy Carter, Marian Wright Edelman, Norman Cousins, Ted Turner and C. Everett Koop.

The daughter of a Portugese doctor, Heinz grew up in Mozambique, in East Africa, where she developed a strong passion for the environment and a respect for nature and the natural order. She grew up accompanying her father on his rounds to see patients, and that early experience has profoundly influenced her on issues relating to women's and children's health. Observers say the worldliness has made her passionate and humble, an inspiration to others.

With a degree from the Interpreter School at the University of Geneva, Heinz is fluent in five languages. Now married to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), she is the widow of Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.), who died in 1991. After his death, she was urged to run for his seat in Congress, but she chose instead to assume the stewardship of the Heinz family philanthropic operations. Since then, she has made the foundations she oversees widely known and respected for developing innovative strategies to promote public health, protect the environment, enhance the lives of young children, improve education, broaden economic opportunity and support the arts.

The Gold Medal will be awarded at an 8 p.m. ceremony on Tuesday, Sept. 23, in Shriver Hall Auditorium on the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus at 3400 N. Charles St. in Baltimore.

No I haven't forsaken it. It is written. But, for technical reasons far too complex for me to understand without a slide rule and some hand puppets, it won't be up until tomorrow morning. My apologies. In the meantime, if you can think of any Simpsons quotes remotely relevant to imperialism, let me know. I'm writing a piece for somebody else, if you hadn't guessed.

I'm no fan of Scientology. I am a fan of Fox News. So I found this story
on FoxNews.com intriguing. Apparently, the "Church" of Scientology is insisting that its members -- namely a host of Hollywood big shots -- sign a "Spiritual Contract" which forbids them from seeking psychiatric help of any kind. Scientologists are afraid of psychiatrists for reasons that should be obvious. The story is intriguing because Greta Van Susteren is a major Scientologist. So I wonder if Fox News will ask her is she'll sign the contract too.

I just got a galley for Charles Murray's new book, Human Accomplishment. Very, very cool looking book. I'm kind of scared to start reading it though because it looks like the kind of book you can't stop reading. I think it's going to be a big deal.

A while back I got a very thoughtful and interesting email from a reader in grad school on the subject of empires. He was studying the intellectual history of empires. Keying off something I'd said in my column, he'd told me that it's still a relatively new development for the word "empire" to have a negative connotation. This only makes sense when you think about it, but if that reader is around or if somebody else has anything to offer on this point, I'd love to hear more. Specifically, I would love to read a published essay on this point, full of Derb-like insights and surprising facts.

I've got to run out of the house, but I thought it might be fun to post this Reason article by Julian Sanchez ridiculing defenders of the Patriot Act. I think there are a few stolen bases here, but the piece is written judiciously enough that I want to double check my objections before I raise them. But if Ramesh wants to play whack-a-mole, or if Rich -- who is attacked by name -- would care to defend himself, that would be great.

But I can offer a two points now. Sanchez makes it sound as if critics of the Patriot Act have been making careful, nuanced, subtle arguments over the least year. I have no idea what debate he's been watching. To suggest that the assault on Ashcroft and the Patriot Act has been finely tuned and careful is absurd, and Sanchez surely knows this. Second, he says -- or seems to -- that conservatives have called all opponents of the Patriot Act "Fifth Columnists." Maybe this is simply rhetorical fluorish on Sanchez' part, but a very quick Nexis search on my part reveals that the term has never been used in conjunction with critics of the Patriot Act, by conservatives. Not once.

Since the US and Saudi Arabia were at odds on the militants’ issue, it was only a matter of time before Saudi policy makers began looking for friends elsewhere.

Actually, I'm quite enjoying the debate, even though the big words confuse me mightily. Until now I just thought Eliot was that kid in E.T.

It's when Rod says stuff like that it makes me think his life has been far more, um, yeasty than one might think.

The show was Welcome Back, Kotter. I was typing fast. "Welcome Back Carter" is what the calvalcade of mediocre presidents (from the Simpsons) often say when Jimmy comes back from a peanut break.

Ninth circuit commutes over 100 death sentences.

As several readers were quick to note, Dana Barron also appeared in Death Wish IV. A truly, truly terrible film, if memory serves. And, if memory serves, Washington from Welcome Back Carter was a hooligan in the first Death Wish movie. I can stop if there's an aspect of T.S. Eliot left to discuss.

The Atlanta -Journal Constitution apologized for running a picture of Madonna and Britney Spears kissing. I don't see why they should apologize. The photo probably came as a pretty big shock to a lot of parents and, in that sense, had serious news value. (If it didn't come as a shock, those readers were probably thrilled). The photo shows where the culture is going and what today's kids are exposed to. What the AJC might apologize for is not running an article explaining such trends as new, disturbing news. Rather, it ran -- as did most papers -- a light, approving entertainment piece on the subject.

I went to high school with that awful Grubman girl who ran over those people at the Hamptons. She was a couple years younger than me. I also went to high school with Dana Barron, the sister from National Lampoon's Vacation and several episodes of Beverly Hills 90210. She was a year or two ahead of me. Not that anyone asked.

If there are Corner readers who went to Dwight in the mid-80s in New York City, drop me a line. But, please, share no Jonah trivia with Dreher or the others.

I had forgotten that FX runs 24 hours of the Fox show 24 every labor day. I don't watch the show during the season, but for the second year in a row I caught up with the entire series in one giant bite. It got in the way of a great deal of work, but I must say it was worth it. It's an extremely addictive show. But, to be honest, I wouldn't mind getting a lot of my TV intake that way -- i.e. simply sit down and watch 30 episodes of NYPD Blue in a single weekend and that way not worry about it for a whole year.

In David Frum's "What's Right" column in the current issue of NR, he discusses the continuing buffoonery of those who throw around the necon label too glibly. In one passage, about anti-war conservatives in particular, David writes, ""Sometimes, when the screeds really get going, they will add my name to the list after their top hate-figures: Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Bill Kristol, and of course, NR's Jonah Goldberg."

Now, any time I'm on a list like that, I'm pretty psyched. But, for intellectual honesty's sake, I must say that I think David's being too, um, kind. Yes, yes, I know I am unpopular in many corners, but in this particular realm David Frum is surely more unpopular than lil' ol' me.

This week alone brings some crucial developments in the Invisible Primary, most notably the first DNC sanctioned presidential debate this Thursday in Albuquerque, New Mexico. All nine declared candidates are scheduled to attend this event, hosted by Governor Bill Richardson and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The debate, parts of which will be in both English and Spanish, is expected to be a conversational affair on domestic and international issues.

Keyes: ""You have done nothing to respond to this [a Texas town declaring itself to be Spanish-only]. What action do you plan to take to show the people that you stand for one nation, one language rather than a nation linguistically divided?

Bush: "No es la verdad." [That is not true.]

Keyes: "Es la verdad, Senor." [Yes it is true, Sir.]

Bush: "Un momento. I did talk to . . . (Crosstalk) I don't want this town's business being conducted in Spanish. It ought to be conducted in English."

No doubt the silence stemmed from the fact that this story appeared on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, but I'm really surprised the front page article in the NYT on gay marriage in Canada hasn't sparked more of a reaction. It speaks directly to the arguments of Frum, Kurtz, Derb and others -- and gives them a great deal of ammo. Gays in Canada don't want marriage because marriage is "too conservative" for folks who don't believe in such things as monogamy. Here's a quote worth pondering:

"Ambiguity is a good word for the feeling among gays about marriage," said Mitchel Raphael, editor in chief of Fab, a popular gay magazine in Toronto. "I'd be for marriage if I thought gay people would challenge and change the institution and not buy into the traditional meaning of `till death do us part' and monogamy forever. We should be Oscar Wildes and not like everyone else watching the play."

Fine, fine. But if that's the attitude toward marriage, they shouldn't have marriage as an option. This just demonstrates how the analogy to blacks is so flawed. Blacks didn't say they wanted to change the institution of marriage when they sought to overturn interracial marriage. Jackie Robinson didn't want to change the rules of baseball, he wanted to play by the rules of baseball.

While I'm certainly no fan, I almost feel sorry for John Kerry. He's been planning on running for President for pretty much his entire life. He's honed his strategy and molded his biography for decades. And now some obnoxious New England transplant from Park Avenue is cleaning his clock. But one of the things that drives me nuts about Kerry is when he says -- as he did on Meet The Press last Sunday -- that he's running for President because he's angry about this or that Bush policy. Garbage. Bush could be doing everything perfectly and Kerry would still be running because that's his life ambition.

The other day I mentioned that I was vaguely disappointed with William Manchester's The Arms of Krupp. I'm not caving to the complaints from Manchester partisans, but I might have been too harsh. My disappointment was merely the result of my heightened expectations. Also, my wife picked up the book one day when I left it around and has since become entirely engrossed with it. So maybe that's a better barometer.

Mike Allen, writing in the Washington Post, calls President Bush's remarks yesterday "an acknowledgment that unemployment is a potential political liability." That may be true--although the furthest I would go is to say that the president recognizes that appearing indifferent to unemployment would be politically hazardous. Does unemployment itself pose a danger to him?

Arguably, the last time unemployment really affected a national election was in 1982--and even then, redistricting accounted for 15 of the 26 House seats the Republicans lost. In 1992, Michael Barone has shown that Bush I lost votes where housing values had declined, not where unemployment had increased. Since 2000, more Americans have lost wealth in the stock market than have lost their jobs. I suspect that in next year's election, the markets will matter more than unemployment--and GDP growth will probably matter more than unemployment too.

I keep hearing -- reading actually -- pro-Palestinian types complain that Israel's security wall is a new "Berlin Wall." The analogy seems pretty shoddy to me. Ok, yes, it's a wall. Yes, it's a military wall. But beyond that, the purposes seem completely different. The Berlin Wall was not intended to keep people out -- save, perhaps, for a few Western spies. It was built to keep people in. East German citizens were considered prisoners of the communist state. The Soviets and their German lackeys insisted on building it because too many East Germans were voting with their feet and escaping. Israel's wall -- whether it's a good idea or not -- is being built for exactly the opposite reason; the Israelis want to keep their citizens safe. Israelis are free to leave the country as they please. The wall is intended to make it more difficult for murderers to get into the country. Again, you can debate whether or not the wall is a good idea, but if you're looking for a historical analogy, better to call it the Great Wall of Israel.

John - Excellent point. But I think the article is even more biased than you suggest. The author keeps referring to poverty as if it is solely a materially defined concept, i.e. if poor blacks had more stuff, their IQs would rise. But this is undermined by the fact that as difficult as it may be to live in material poverty today, poor people today live better than most middle class people a generation or two ago. The study sounds very plausible to me, but it really only makes sense if -- as you suggest -- the influence of poverty is behavioral not material. The habits and lifestyles of those living in poverty -- homes where reading is nonexistent, parental supervision too -- have to be a much bigger factor than who has a color tv or a microwave oven or a car -- because most of America's poor have those things too. If you talk to people who work on AIDS in urban minority communities, they will tell you that poverty is a big problem, of course. But beneath the surface what they mean by poverty is the chaos and irrationality of life in the underclass. A stable two parent family is surely a better hedge -- as studies have shown -- than material wealth or enrollment in Head Start.

Indeed, you'd think the author might have mentioned that Head Start isn't very successful over the long run. The gains children achieve in the early years evaporate over time. That may be an argument for more funding of and a more aggressive form of Head Start -- you can draw a liberal or conservative lesson from that fact. But, somehow I doubt the reason kids lose the advantages of Head Start has to do with a lack of cash-on-hand.

In response to an aside in an earlier post that mentioned this topic, a reader kindly sent in a link to this excellent article by James Q. Wilson. I wouldn’t agree with all of it (pedestrianization, for example, generally rips the heart out of cities), but it’s well worth a read, especially this closing section:

“But even if we do all the things that can be done to limit the social costs of cars, the campaign against them will not stop. It will not stop because so many of the critics dislike everything the car stands for and everything that society constructs to serve the needs of its occupants.

Cars are about privacy; critics say privacy is bad and prefer group effort. (Of course, one rarely meets these critics in groups. They seem to be too busy rushing about being critics.) Cars are about autonomy; critics say that the pursuit of autonomy destroys community. (Actually, cars allow people to select the kind of community in which they want to live.) Cars are about speed; critics abhor the fatalities they think speed causes. (In fact, auto fatalities have been declining for decades, including after the 55-mile-per-hour national speed limit was repealed. Charles Lave suggests that this is because higher speed limits reduce the variance among cars in their rates of travel, thereby producing less passing and overtaking, two dangerous highway maneuvers.) Cars are about the joyous sensation of driving on beautiful country roads; critics take their joy from politics. (A great failing of the intellectual life of this country is that so much of it is centered in Manhattan, where one finds the highest concentration of nondrivers in the country.) Cars make possible Wal-Mart, Home Depot, the Price Club, and other ways of allowing people to shop for rock-bottom prices; critics want people to spend their time gathering food at downtown shops (and paying the much higher prices that small stores occupying expensive land must charge). Cars make California possible; critics loathe California. (But they loathe it for the wrong reason. The state is not the car capital of the nation; 36 states have more cars per capita, and their residents drive more miles.)

Life in California would be very difficult without cars. This is not because the commute to work is so long; in Los Angeles, according to Charles Lave, the average trip to work in 1994 was 26 minutes, five minutes shorter than in New York City. Rather, a carless state could not be enjoyed. You could not see the vast areas of farm land, the huge tracts of empty mountains and deserts, the miles of deserted beaches and forests.

No one who visits Los Angeles or San Francisco can imagine how much of California is, in effect, empty, unsettled. It is an empire of lightly used roads, splendid vistas, and small towns, intersected by a highway system that, should you be busy or foolish enough to use it, will speed you from San Francisco to Los Angeles or San Diego. Off the interstate, it is a kaleidoscope of charming places to be alone.

Getting there in order to be alone is best done in one of the remarkably engineered, breathtakingly fast, modern cars that give to the driver the deepest sense of what the road can offer: the beauty of its views, the excitement of command, the passion of engagement.

I know the way. If you are a friend, you need only ask.”

Sweden is about to hold a referendum on whether to sign up for the suicide pact better known as the Euro. Current indications are, thankfully, that the ‘no’ side is going to prevail (although, interestingly – in a contrast with the British political scene – most opposition to the currency is found on the left), despite the fact that the campaign in favor of the EU’s single currency has been far, far better funded than that of their opponents. The occasional British euroskeptic has, however, been flying over to help the 'no' side, perfectly reasonable in the context of an open debate and perfectly logical in the context of a 'union' moving (however regrettably) towards permitting voting on the grounds of EU rather than national citizenship.

EU enthusiasts are never comfortable with awkward democratic phenomena such as dissent and, as this story from the Observer reveals, their Swedish rank and file is no exception. The wild comments about foreign ‘loonies’ from former Prime Minister Carl Bildt (he’s a once promising politician who managed to blow Sweden’s best chance at sustainable center-right government, and has long since retreated from electoral combat to a more 'respectable' role in Europe’s international establishment) are typical of a side that knows it has lost the intellectual argument.

The sad story of David Kelly (the British scientist whose suicide triggered the Hutton inquiry) is, by now, well known – or so one would have thought. Now, the Observer is publishing an analysis that Kelly wrote, which makes interesting reading, to say the least. Here's an extract of what the paper has to say:

“Kelly's article reveals a hawkish stance on Iraq which will come as some comfort to Number 10. 'Iraq has spent the past 30 years building up an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction [WMD],' he wrote. 'Although the current threat presented by Iraq militarily is modest, both in terms of conventional and unconventional weapons, it has never given up its intent to develop and stockpile such weapons for both military and terrorist use.'

Kelly argues that any co-operation with UN weapons inspectors was superficial and that rockets specifically for chemical and biological use had been found.

'Amer al-Saadi - formerly responsible for conserving Iraq's WMD, now its principal spokesman on its weapons - continues to mislead the international community,' Kelly said before the war. 'It is difficult to imagine co-operation being properly established unless credible Iraqi officials are put into place by a changed Saddam.

'Yet some argue that inspections are working and more time is required; that increasing the numbers of inspectors would enhance their effectiveness. Others argue that the process is inherently flawed and disarmament by regime change is the only realistic way forward.' Kelly said the UN had been trying to disarm Iraq since 1991, but had had no success in what he described as an 'abject failure of diplomacy'. He argued that diplomatic splits had only served to exacerbate the problem.

'The threat of credible military force has forced Saddam Hussein to admit, but not co-operate with, the UN inspectorate,' he wrote. 'So-called concessions - U2 overflights, the right to interview - were all routine between 1991 and 1998. After 12 unsuccessful years of UN supervision of disarmament, military force regrettably appears to be the only way of finally and conclusively disarming Iraq.'

'War may now be inevitable,' he wrote. 'The proportionality and intensity of the conflict will depend on whether regime change or disarmament is the true objective. The US, and whoever willingly assists it, should ensure that the force, strength and strategy used is appropriate to the modest threat that Iraq now poses.'

'The long-term threat, however, remains Iraq's development to military maturity of weapons of mass destruction - something that only regime change will avert.' “

There are two things to remember about this: (1) It was an unpublished analysis [the full text is available here], so it cannot be considered to be Kelly’s final word on this topic (and indeed it wasn’t) and (2) it could, perhaps, be claimed that it does not directly relate to the immediate public justification for the war that is, of course, the subject of the current controversy in the UK. Nevertheless all this gives further support to those who argue that Tony Blair was acting in good faith.