It was the Dalai Lama.

Babies smiling and crying in the womb.

Despondent CA Democrats may yet be able to count on help from an unexpected quarter.

On September 11th, a three judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard the ACLU's complaint that the use of punch card voting in the recall election would discriminate against residents of Los Angeles and other localities.

According to the Los Angeles Times: "[Deputy Attorney General Douglas J. Woods] appeared sufficiently concerned about the prospect that the appeals court would halt the election that he asked the judges to give him sufficient time to appeal such a ruling to the Supreme Court" (emphasis added).

Woods proved he could listen ("Comments by the judges had lawyers for a coalition of minority groups wondering after the argument whether it could have possibly gone any better," says The Recorder. He also proved he could count. Kausefiles noted last week (scroll down to September 5th) :

Hold on to your chad: The ACLU appears to have won the Ninth Circuit lottery in its bid to have the federal appellate court postpone the scheduled October 7 California recall election. The 3-judge panel on the case--Harry Pregerson, Richard Paez, and Sidney Thomas--seems both a) liberal and b) willing to make trouble . Here's an excerpt from a highly informative piece by Jason Hoppin in The Recorder:

Pregerson is the ex-Marine who recently declared that he could not, "in good conscience," go along with the U.S. Supreme Court's jurisprudence on California's Three Strikes law.

He'll be joined by judges Sidney Thomas and Richard Paez, both appointees of President Clinton. Paez's nomination languished for years after conservatives tagged him as too liberal. Thomas, a soft-spoken Montanan, proved he is just as fearless as Pregerson this week when he reversed the death sentences of more than 100 prisoners throughout the West.

"Big, unthinkable tragedies happen. Now, instead of keeping that and developing hatred or sense of revenge, instead of that, think long-term. The negative event, try to transform into a source of inner strength."

Heading to Burlington, Vermont on Sunday to do some research. Nominations for places to see, things to do etc. welcome.

Peter - I hear you and I'm sorry if I was snippy before -- I hadn't had my coffee. That said, do we really want to create a situation where conservatives seem like apologists for anything the private sector does for fear the government might be enticed into doing something stupid? I make the case all of the time that something can be constitutional and still be wrong. Why I can't we say something is shady and a bad business practice without saying it warrants more regulations?

I was talking with a friend of mine today who works in a related industry and he made the point that the issue with Grasso is simple hypocrisy. The NYSE has been "super preachy" about governance, transparency, conflicts of interest etc. And now it turns out Grasso's got to get his own house in order.

Meanwhile, Gregg Easterbrook says the issue isn't hypocrisy, it's corruption .

And while I'm here I may as well let you know your campaign of incessant blegging worked on me and I subscribed to NRD this morning. I'm on a tight budget at the moment so I had to forego my annual fantasy football news service to pick it up, but I trust I won't be disappointed.

Well, you know...

From a reader:

Mr. Goldberg,
I have enjoyed your writing, but now I wish to thank you for getting the magazine put on-line. I just subscribed to NR Digital. I have been a subscriber and/or reader of the magazine since 1964 or 65. I did not renew my subscription this year, after being assigned to Germany, precisely because of the problem with the mail. I have faithfully read NRO everyday, but I have missed the exhaustive analyses and other features of the magazine. By putting the magazine on-line you have definitely improved the morale of this military man. I thank you and keep up the good work!

VR
John

I'm getting a lot of these sorts of things in response to yesterday's G-File:

Jonah,

As an Army reservist, I have been trained at some length about the Middle East -- probably a total of 60 hours of classes in all. What I've heard from numerous experts essentially agrees with your column about how superstition and ignorance are rampant in the Arab world.

One particular comment stays with me, this from an American woman who is fluent in Arabic and has spent much of her life in different Arab countries. She told us that a typical American high school graduate has probably learned enough first aid to be considered at least a nurse if not a physician by many Arabs "on the street".

She also told us that the germ theory of disease -- one of the bedrocks of modern medicine, I think it's fair to say -- is widely disbelieved among Arabs. "If God wants me to get sick, I will get sick. " is their idea.

If you refuse to believe in germs, then a magic rock that can ward off bullets is not such a stretch....
[Name withheld]

I was going to mention this angle, but frankly I don't know enough on the subject. This emailer clarifies:

In repsonse to Peter Robinson's question 2 - since NYSE is private, whose business is it what Grasso gets paid, a half-hearted answer: NYSE is not exactly and totally private. It is a corporation that is not publicly traded, but it has been granted extreme protections by the US government, to govern itself, and to attract and keep stocks listed (including the well-known "roach motel" listing clauses that almost completely prevent voluntary DE-listing by a company on the big board). It exists, and is protected by the SEC, to make markets in stocks, to the benefit of companies and stockholders. We may argue about the efficacy of the SEC, and whether we could have efficient markets without government intervening to "make" them, but at least in the moment, Grasso is a quasi-public official, and the way our markets are structured, he's not just a purely private actor, like the CEO of a privately-held company. His large salary for doing arguably nothing (ARGUABLY - Peter does have a point re: saving the Big Board) is evidence of rent-taking by NYSE's near-monopoly status granted by the Feds. We ought to be concerned, for two reasons - one, maybe it's a sign we should end the monopoly - if they are capable of extracting such large rents, maybe it's not efficient. Two, maybe we can't come up with a better way to "make" the markets we want to have, so we ned to squawk about stuff like this to ensure that the folks we've entrusted with making markets know they are being watched and thus can't extract monopoly rents. NYSE's extraction of ANY rent is in some sense a deadweight loss - a theoretically perfect market would have no transaction costs. Of course, we can't get to "theoretically perfect" but Grasso's salary indicates that we could get more efficient than NYSE - or they wouldn't have the cash to drown him in. And stockholders should care. I own companies traded on the Big Board, and my trades are going to line his pockets, instead of my own. Naturally, my views are not necessarily the views of my employer.

[Name withheld]

Peter -- On point number one, I think you make some fine points, though I am unconvinced that Grasso deserved an extra $5 million for doing what he was already paid -- what? -- 25 million to do.

But on point number two I say "Booooooo!" No offense, but I'm not a big fan of the "whose business?" rejoinder. Many colleges, museums, newspapers, rock bands, magazines, think tanks, baseball teams are "private institutions." If that is a bar to public comment or criticism I'd better go back to my dream of writing comic books and sci fi novels because I don't want to write about politics for the rest of my life if culture is off limits. I am not proposing -- I don't think -- that the Feds should arrest or regulate anybody or anything in the Grasso matter. But does that mean I can't comment on it? It seems to me that if conservatives are going to be for limited government we should be for more unlimited criticism. After all we are the ones who say that society and culture can be self-regulating through the application of norms, shame etc. Well, that only works if we are allowed to actually comment negatively on those things we believe the state should not tamper with. I think this is a major fault line between two brands of conservatism -- those who are anti-left and anti-State, or at least that's what I've been arguing for a while.

Congratulations! You have convinced a poor college student (although a non-traditional one) to subscribe. I used to have NRODT, but had let it expire. I have always felt a little guilty about reading NRO and not having to pay for it...I mean, how could something so great be FREE????....but perhaps this is a little way I can contribute. Your website is my favorite, and I have let my friends and family know that. Keep up the great work!

Most Swedes are still in shock from the hideous murder of their country's foreign minister, Anna Lindh, but the government has said, quite rightly, that the Euro referendum will still take place on Sunday. The no camp was well ahead before the attack on Ms. Lindh (who was the most popular advocate of the single European currency in Sweden), but the likely result now is far less clear, although the best guess is still that the Euro will – as it should – be rejected.

Meanwhile, the Guardian has an interesting and subtly written piece today on the situation in Sweden. This extract, in particular, is worth pondering:

“Something remarkable emerged in Sweden's euro debate, the crystallisation of a new set of political dividing lines, in which right-wing and left-wing activists find themselves in alliance against powerful, cross-border, private-public bureaucracies. On one side, the small, the local, the personal, the individual, the accessible, the familiar, the inherited; on the other, the big, the transnational, the impersonal, the mass, the remote, the alien, the acquired.”

Steve - I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. I take a back seat to no one when it comes to contempt for Hollywood. But Hollywood salaries make so much more sense to me than this Grasso thing. That Adam Sandler makes so much money is almost a pure market function. He is a meat prop. If millions of people wanted to look at a lamp or a dog the owner of said lamp or dog could charge huge sums of money to Hollywood studies to put these objects on display on the big screen. Sandler's talent or lack thereof is meaningless (though I have liked a couple Sandler movies), the market supports what he makes. Sure it's unfair that Sandler makes so much money, but it's not unfair that investors have the opportunity to place their bets on him.

What market mechanism justifies Grasso's bonus? It strikes me this was simply a case of buddies and cronies rewarding somebody with little to no justification. If Grasso were making $300K a year I could see getting a huge bonus. But he was already making $500K a week.

TLC is running a wonderful 2 hour program on the President's view of 9/11: "9/11: The President's Story." V. well done and balanced, but (and?) comes off as way pro-Bush (as it must). The show repeats tonight at 11 eastern. Watch it!

This is so COOL! My husband and I are sitting in our favorite reading chairs, each with our laptop, reading the new National Review. We get to discuss as we go along now, instead of waiting until we are both done with the magazine. “Did you read Derb’s dictionary?” “Yeah, did you read the one for self esteem?” “I was LMAO!” “Read Jay’s article on Bush, it’s good.” “Did you read the Long View—it’s great!” On and on it goes. I am so lucky to be married to a conservative intellectual….and that he started reading NRO in the days when Jonah would answer his every e mail.

The rest of you are just sitting there wondering what I am talking about, unless you sign up!

Do it for “the children”, just think, what if Jonah gets blamed by the “suits” and poor Lucy never gets to college…..

Look: I'm willing to defend income inequality, sweat shops, child labor, tax cuts and the like, if the merits are there. I'd privatize everything but the army and maybe four other things if I had my way. In other words, I'm no softy on these issues. But am I the only one in the corner offended by Dick Grasso's 9/11 bonus? I mean at a time when everyone was talking about sacrifice and loss, when we were touting the resumption of our normal lives as a patriotic counter-strike to the terrorist menace, Dick Grasso get's a five million dollar bonus on top of his enormous salary because the stock market re-opened? I despise financial populism of any kind, but this just strikes me as galling.

Just a few weeks ago I started volunteering at the National Archives and Records Administration's regional location in Laguna Niguel, California. My task has been to work on archiving records from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, which straddles the New Mexico and Arizona border (Laguna Niguel houses the documents for the western region forests). The records I've seen for this particular forest date back to at least 1916 and without a doubt the overwhelming nature of the documents relate to the working use of the lands in the forest. I've seen box upon box of grazing permits for thousands of head of cattle, horses, sheep, and goats. Special use permits for homesteads, road building, and facilities for outdoor sportsmen. Right-of-ways for power lines and other energy facilities. Our forests have been leveraged in a myriad of ways for at least a century.
It was interesting to note that right around 1970 the tenor of some of the correspondence changes. Forest supervisors begin sending out memos to staff reminding them to carefully word their external correspondence to reflect their careful stewardship of the land . . .
TAPped is definitely uninformed when it comes to forest policy.

I've gotten a few nice notes from readers about the Democratic Undergound nonsense I linked to. It's very kind of you but, really, you learn to tune such folks out. Just remember though, these are Howard Dean's people. Anyway, here's one nice note:

The link that you posted to the Nazi-Bush comparisons was amusing for about 2 seconds. I read all of the postings and I have to admit that I ran a progression of emotions from amused to angry to terrified.

I also noted that one supposed post-grad student in history said that you are "fairly light academically" and that someone else would be better qualified to ascertain whether the comparison is valid. I wonder if he is nominating himself. If so - maybe he should learn how to spell comparison. Not to be small about it, but he did it in more than one post so it was obviously not a typo.

I could never do what you do. I got angry FOR you reading this tripe and it really made me think that I'd like to kick this guy's behind. Imagine how I'd feel if he'd said those things about me!

I was talking to a Democrat with ties to one of Howard Dean's rivals and he was saying that all of Dean's flip-flops were going to hurt him in time. But which of Dean's rivals is well positioned to make the case for him as a flip-flopper? Joe Lieberman, who's flipped on Social Security and affirmative action? Dick Gephardt, who's had more political personae than Hillary Clinton's had hairstyles? Dennis Kucinich, who discovered he was for Roe after thirty years in politics? John Kerry, that paragon of consistency? This is a flip-flop-rich field, at least compared to the Republican field in 1988, 1996, or 2000, or the Democratic field in 1988 or 1992. (Although the Democrats' 1988 field included a bunch of abortion flippers.)

This Democrat went on to complain about Dean's "adulatory press." He also said that the question of Dean's electability was being temporarily "blunted": "Conservative columnists are now pumping him up, pretending to be afraid of him for I think less than honorable reasons."

He wrote a piece in the Times Magazine on Sunday that I had meant to comment on. His thesis is that the Supreme Court, by issuing the ruling it did in Texas v. Lawrence (the sodomy case), was reigniting the culture wars. I think that this is true, although to the extent it is a bad thing it is a vice secondary to the constitutional nuttiness of the Court's opinion.

But one comment of Rosen's really stuck in my craw. He wrote, "In the Reagan and both Bush administrations, lower court and Supreme Court nominees were selected largely because of their perceived opposition to Roe, which was used as a litmus test of judicial virtue. The result is a polarizing gap between the moderate views of the country as a whole on abortion and the radical opposition it continues to inspire among conservative legal elites."

Never mind that Clinton had a publicly announced litmus test for Roe, as do many of the current Democratic candidates for president. Reagan and Bush I didn't, and any unannounced litmus test they had was rather less effective than the Democratic one, as witness O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter on the one hand and Breyer and Ginsburg on the other.

There is no "radical opposition" to abortion among conservative legal elites. There is opposition to Roe--which is entirely defensible, as Rosen himself concedes that it is "constitutionally questionable." That opposition is rather less implacable than I wish it were--Kenneth Starr and Michael McConnell both seem to have made their peace with Roe. Finally, what about the polarizing gap between the public's moderate views and the substance of Roe?

I've just added NORAD to my NRoDT. Searching NR for keywords is too good to pass up. Also, regarding honey vs vinegar, I'd be glad to provide a bit of honey to entice subscribers. I'll provide a nice dinner to any subscribers to NORAD, provided they meet a few, understandable qualifications. [1] Maybe you can harness reader power to enlarge your base.

Thanks for NR, in all it's forms.

[1] - Qualifications: female, between 25 & 35, living near Seattle, single. :)

Maybe instead of threats like, "If you don't sign up for NR Digital, Derb will come after you. (He doesn't know it, but he will. And assign you many, many hard math problems. Or some other torture.)," a bribe like, "Derb will provide emergency homework bailout help for mathematically incompetent parents whose children need assistance, if you sign up for NR Digital," might work better. I know I'd sign up immediately.

You got me. I can justify the purchase of a NROVDT subscription as a birthday present for myself (9-13-76). All the whining made me cave a couple of days early! Please let all the uptight, backwards thinking publishers that I will continue to maintain my NRODT subscription as well because it's a little difficult to throw an electronic copy of NR on liberal co-workers desk in order to get that sweet sweet look of horror.

From a reader:

Regarding your last two posts: At this moment you are a bore, boring.

G-File is up.

AP News Alert

JERUSALEM (AP) Israel's security Cabinet decides in principle to expel Arafat but puts off immediate action, Israeli TV says.

Re-reading that bore post, I seem to be saying Derb isn't an American. He is now, of course, and we're glad to have him. We'll not all of us, but everyone around here is.

Hmmmmm... I see you are using the British-ified connotation of bore. To be a "frightful bore" about this and that. I don't think Americans really use the word the same way anymore. Either something is, or is not, boring. But you folks tend to use bore as a stand-in for droning on and on and on about something. To be tedious and repetitive. To say the same thing over and over again. I'm not sure if Americans use the phrase the same way anymore. But I could be wrong.

Been thinking about NRODT subscription, then you finally came up with NRD.

I prefer NORAD: NationalReview Online Release, Availability, and Distribution.

Sounds more kicka**.

After looking at my 9/11/01 G-File a reader suggests that I might have been the first to make the you're either with us or against us declaration. President Bush apparently didn't say it until Nov. 6, 2001. . It'd be cool, no doubt, if I was the first. But my guess is that this was all in the air back then and claiming credit for that sentiment would be like claiming credit for being the first to yell, "Bastards!" on 9/11.

On the way to work, I was listening to the radio and caught an “On This Day in History” segment sponsored by The History Channel. It talked about how the twin towers and the Pentagon were attacked by “International Hijackers”.

International Hijackers???

Conspicuously missing (IMO) were the words “terrorists”, “Islamic”, and “extremists”.

Normally I think it would be a profoundly interesting and educational experience to sit next to you on a plane or be stuck in an elevator with you. But when you say stuff like that I am forced to re-think such views.

Rarely in the annals of the world have more people been more excited about an issue that mattered so little.

Many of our friends and loved ones were sitting at their desk or a conference table when McVeigh's bomb went off. They were doing what Americans do best, working when they were suddenly removed from this life.

I am not an architect nor have I seen the plan for the Pentagon memorial so I can't comment on that; I am just a friend of some killed that April while working in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. When I first saw the chairs at the OKC bombing memorial, my first thought was the suddenness of my friends death, at work. The symbolism worked for me.

From a very strong editorial in the Washington Post. Here's the bit on John "F" Kerry:

Tuesday night Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry -- who at least has the good grace to acknowledge his vote in favor of the Patriot Act -- noted, as he surveyed the debate audience, that there were "people from every background, every creed, every color, every belief, every religion. This is, indeed, John Ashcroft's worst nightmare here."

Ernie Fletcher, a Republican congressman from Kentucky who's running for governor, agreed to vote for school choice for D.C. only on the condition that the program be restricted to low-income students from failing schools. He wants "failing schools" to be defined as schools judged to be failing under the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act--which would reduce the number of schools involved from more than 100 to less than 20. (Which tells you something, by the way, about how much "accountability" NCLB brought to the public schools. This is D.C. we're talking about.)

It's hard to imagine that the voters of Kentucky would punish Fletcher for giving kids in the District a chance. He's worried about the NEA attacking him. But getting a robust school-choice program for D.C. ought to be a higher priority for conservatives than a Fletcher win in the Kentucky governor's race.

From a reader:

"The suits" understand that the marketing bogeyman of "cannibalism" is flawed, and usually the result of the preexisting unit/division reacting defensively to a new idea. A multichannel strategy ultimately increases overall revenue to the firm...the key metric is revenue per individual. For example, several retail chains with a catalogue and physical store channels who added an internet option have seen increased revenue for all three. People tend to buy more when there are more "interfaces" from which to buy.

And other way to put it is, subscribe or the suits will twist my little rigoletto -- as Oscar Madison might say.

Personally, I find it hard not to go back and read what I've written on previous September 11ths. With all modesty, I think they hold up pretty well. In fact, I guess I'm kind of proud of them. Here's last year's G-File and here's the one I wrote from Pendleton, Oregon on that dark day.

Update: These links were kerflunky before. I fixed them.

I appreciate your brief commentary on the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial. Light Benches? They look like diving boards or playground equipment. As an architect, I am stunned by two things. First, that my colleagues' best efforts to memorialize the tragic death of their fellow citizens boils down to one notion: empty furniture. It's insulting, not only to the victims and their families, but to everyone of the thousands of people who will visit the memorial. Second, like the Oklahoma City memorial, I am aghast at the selection committees that refuse to grasp the civic beauty inherent in a well executed memorial. It's a shame. Not that I'm looking for far out symbolism or abstraction, but some more rooted in tradition...some thing more inspiring than benches.

My syndicated column, fyi.

You know our favorite refrain from the New York Times? The one about how crime rates keep falling even though prisons keep filling? Well there's a similar version to that argument for the war on terrorism. Gwynne Dyer of the Toronto Star seems to think were fighting terrorism too much because terrorism is going down.

On this second anniversary of 9/11, we should set aside our partisan bickering, our personal resentments and prejudices, and recognize that our government has done a remarkable job since that tragic day. We have been kept safe, despite the fury of the terrorists at the damage we have, repeatedly, inflicted upon them.

Every day without a terrorist attack on our country or its citizens is a triumph, but the struggle must be renewed each day, one second after midnight. If we insist on setting unrealistic goals, we will defeat ourselves. You cannot fight terrorism with a stopwatch, and you can't fight it on the cheap.

Iraq will never become Iowa - our goal should be a better, if still imperfect, Iraq. Afghanistan will always remain Afghanistan. It is enough if it is a somewhat-improved country, less dangerous to us and less oppressive to its citizens. By such rational measures, we already have achieved notable victories.

DESPAIR is the preferred narcotic of the intellectual classes. The rest of us must stand up for what we know in our hearts and souls to be right and true. Our cause is just. Our efforts in this great, global war have been admirably successful. Our soldiers have kept us safe and made us proud. We owe them unity, not divisiveness.

No power on this earth can defeat us, unless we defeat ourselves.