Recognizing that there is a religious component to the terrorist threat is simply a matter of commonsense, and downplaying it is sheer stupidity. For the West to ‘declare war’ on Islam would be lunacy, but for the West to ignore the fact that a certain (and, yes, by no means representative) segment of Islam has declared war on the West is suicidal. This assault is both literal (the terrorist attacks) and ideological. The West is responding to the former, but, hog-tied by the pieties of multiculturalism, seems by and large incapable of doing anything about the latter.

The platitudinous ‘can’t we all get on’ mush peddled by the likes of George W. Bush and Joe Lieberman is an insult both to our intelligence and the intelligence of those who the US needs to convince. It’s time to argue back, and when this takes place, there should be no hesitation about framing the argument in secular as well as religious terms. One alternative, of course, to extremist Islam is the far more benign form of that faith practiced (despite the best efforts of Wahhabi missionaries) in large parts of the Islamic world. Another alternative is a purely secular worldview – and it’s time that case was made. The fascinating articles from Reason (on, of all things, music videos) here and here show that, contrary to the entirely misguided conventional prejudice, Arabs are quite capable of looking at more than the mosque to help form their identity.

As this story from the Daily Telegraph would suggest, British Home Secretary Blunkett seems to understand some of this, although one small detail in the report makes for curious reading:

“Ministers of religion, including Muslim imams, are allowed permit-free employment in Britain.”

Why?

(There is, I believe, a similar provision in the law over here).

With her Sale of The Century, The Financial Times’ Chrystia Freeland wrote what is probably the best single book on Russia’s oligarch years. Today the FT is running a must-read piece by her on the battle between Vladimir Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky now preoccupying Russia. Frankly, I don’t yet know what to make of the story (Khodorkovsky is no saint, and there’s more to this than the simplistic ‘return of the KGB’ story that it is being touted around some places, but at the same time…), but Freeland’s article is an excellent place to begin.

Whatever else he may be, Khodorkovsky is a very bright – and brave – individual. His insights on Russian history (quoted by Freedland) bear repeating.

On Peter the Great:

"We have to remember that under Peter the Great there were 24 million Russians and 300,000 of them died building St Petersburg.

“There were 2 million fewer Russians when Peter the Great died than there had been when he became tsar. We have developed quickly, and we have developed slowly, but in all this time, human life in Russia has not been worth even a kopek."

On dealing with the Bolsheviks:

“In 1929 and in 1917 people thought, 'let's compromise'. It ended with 5 million killed and tens of millions in prison. Our White officers fled the country, not wanting to fight for their rights at home. And how did it end? If they had stayed and fought perhaps 30 million of their fellow citizens would have lived."

Food for thought, I reckon.

Here’s a fascinating story from Austria (yes, really!) by way of blogger Bill Dawson. The background is the arrival of an Austrian delegation in Moscow in 1955 to negotiate the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Austria. Leopold Figl, the Austrian foreign minister, was chatting to Soviet foreign minister Molotov. Figl had been in a concentration camp from the time of Austria's annexation by Germany in 1938 until the end of the war. This is what he said to Molotov:

“Your name has always made an impression on me. Most of all it made an impression on me when we in the concentration camp had to assemble in the yard at five o'clock in the morning. It was cold and we had to stand there for hours. Suddenly your voice came over the loudspeaker. That was when you had concluded the pact with Hitler-Germany [Hitler-Stalin pact, 1939].”

Well said.

Molotov, like so many of the old Communist butchers, got away with it. He lingered on in Moscow until the late 1980s, If I recall correctly, a nasty old pensioner who should have had the death of millions on his conscience except for the fact that he didn't have one.

From the reports (and remember that we haven’t yet seen the damn thing – so there’s always the chance, however unlikely, of a positive surprise) the upcoming CBS show on the Reagans looks like a piece of distasteful ahistorical trash, but the request by the Republican National Committee to allow a team of historians and friends of the Reagans to review the show is a mistake. Curiously, it runs the risk of giving the show some legitimacy (“we allowed them to review it, but we thought that their comments lacked merit”) and it also smacks far too much of political interference in a zone (TV programming) where it should never be seen.

The RNC should back off.

Castro has apparently been querying Schwarzenegger’s brainpower. That’s a touch cheeky given the Cuban dictator’s continued adherence to communism – that curious and cranky cult that brought the world nothing but mass murder, concentration camps, economic failure and, how can we forget, 'universal literacy'.

It’s strange too to see the old egotist (yet another five hour speech!) still described by Reuters as a ‘bearded revolutionary’. The beard’s true, I suppose, but it’s about forty years since this ancient caudillo was a revolutionary.

October 31, 2003

Ban Realistic Looking Toy Guns
Cosponsor H.R. 211
Dear Colleague:

The recent toy gun incident that closed the offices on Capitol Hill for two hours was another reminder that the problems of toy guns are real. The fact that a toy gun could close down one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the country shows how much trouble one toy gun can cause. While this misunderstanding was resolved without anyone losing his or her life, toy guns can and have resulted in fatal shootings.

When toy guns look real, in the eyes of law enforcement, they are real. Police officers have to make split second decisions and often do not have the opportunity to distinguish a real gun from a toy. In fact, past studies show that every year hundreds of crimes are committed using toy guns. It seems that the only thing toy guns accomplish is to make it easier to commit a crime or wet kids appetite for a real gun when they get older. They serve no purpose in society and should be banned.

That is why I have introduced H.R. 211 which would ban toys which in size, shape, or overall appearance resemble real handguns.

In 1988, Congress tried to ban toy handguns by requiring that all toy handguns be marked with bright orange at the muzzle or made of a transparent or bright color to distinguish from real weapons. However, an evaluation by the National Institute of Justice determined that the marking system failed to enable police officers to identify the weapon as a toy.

I have sponsored toy gun trade-in days at local schools and churches to offer an educational toy in exchange for toy guns. Hundreds of toy guns have been turned in through this program and it has helped make parents aware of the real problems that toy guns pose. But more needs to be done.

If you would like to cosponsor this important bill or need any additional information, please contact Andrew Delia, of my staff at xx-xxxx.

Sincerely,

Edolphus "Ed" Towns
Member of Congress

MCCLELLAN:

On Wednesday, the president will meet with the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo -- of the Congo and then he will sign the Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003, and that will be at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington.

Kevin Holtsberry objects to my description of the state of play on sales taxes in Ohio (second item here). He calls that description “simplistic” and “disingenuous,” although he is kind enough to say (in an email informing me of his post) that he’s generally a fan of mine. I’m generally a fan of his, too, but I’m not persuaded by his arguments.

Which are: 1) The Ohio Republican establishment rejects Ken Blackwell not because he’s a conservative, as I wrote, but because he puts himself before the party; 2) Referenda, such as Blackwell’s referendum to repeal a recent sales-tax hike, are bad; 3) Ohio has kept spending flat except for Medicaid and education, so a tax increase was necessary.

My responses: 1) Assuming that Blackwell is putting himself before the state’s Republican party—and it is not obvious to me that support for tax increases really serves the interests of the party—so what? It is a good thing for politicians to be motivated by self-interest to support good policies. What if Blackwell were devoid of personal ambition, and were supporting this referendum purely on principle? Are we really to believe that the party establishment would then look on him with favor?

2) A lot of conservatives are suspicious of referenda, and there are reasonable arguments against it (although I personally find less persuasive in today’s context than I would if we had governments in line with the Founder’s intentions). These arguments, it seems to me, have whatever force they have chiefly against laws and constitutional amendments that authorize referenda. When the law provides for referenda, particular referenda should be judged on their merits.

3) This is the heart of the matter. The state budget, overall, is up 11 percent. Education and Medicaid account, as Holtsberry writes, for most of the increase. Perhaps judicial decree makes it impossible to cut education spending. But why should Medicaid spending be untouchable? The federal government does not mandate that Ohio cover as many people or services as it does through Medicaid. For that matter, why should we assume that the state’s government spending in 1996 on all other programs is to be taken as a minimum from which the only direction to go is up?

Finally, let me provide a little bit of context—although not the context Holtsberry had in mind when he complained about the lack of it in my item. Gov. Taft is not a fiscal conservative who has been forced by circumstances and against his will to raise taxes as a last resort. He spent the boom years raising spending and various minor taxes. He also complained about Bush’s tax cut this year and lobbied for federal subsidies. I hope Blackwell succeeds in his referendum, and that spending control comes to Columbus.

Based on my personal experience, I'm confident that had the respondants in that Fox poll gotten all the facts they would NOT have voted to remove Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. My wife, my brother and three co-workers were all in favor of it, until I gave them more of the story than the media did.

The truly unfortunate thing is that the media has been very successful in framing this story as "poor suffering soul just wants to die with dignity", and far too many people have been content to leave it at that.

I recently returned from a yearlong tour in the region, and over 4 months in Iraq. [Steven Vincent’s] comments really hit the mark, especially the one about the electric grid and jobs like, now! In my view, our problems are stemming from what I call the "Spoiled Child" syndrome. In this, they were liberated and want everything NOW. They seem to feel like they dont have to work for anything, and excuses are abound.

Dear K-Lo,

I just found out this morning that an interview my wife and I did on gay "marriage" will be aired this afternoon on All Things Considered on NPR. I draw this to your attention because we were both very surprised to find that the default position for many of the people there was not favorable to gay "marriage". Yes, at NPR. We are only a small part of a half-hour special report, but it may be interesting to see how this report comes down on the issue, given the position of those involved in the editorial process. If it strongly favors gay "marriage" or at least gives an impression in that direction, that would run counter to what we discovered.

Keep up the good work.

One more thing: My area of teaching doesn't allow it, but have you pushed to get Legacy assigned for college classes. I know there are other Political Scientists reading NRO. How about targeting them?

Yours,

Geoffrey

Geoffrey M. Vaughan, D.Phil.
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Maryland

There are those of us garden-variety men [non-metrosexual] who are counter-motivated by nagging. The greater the nagging, the greater our resolve to ignore or otherwise passively resist the nagger's instructions.

Despite my strong personal interest in the book (not otherwise discouraged by Lowry's overt Yankeeism), I have yet to buy a copy of Legacy. And, I lay the blame squarely on your nagging fingers. Stop already and in two weeks or so--when you have demonstrated your ability to control this obsessive behavior--I will buy a copy. Promise…

P.S.-Otherwise, keep up the good work. And I do appreciate that your nagging tendencies come from an inscrutable and irresistible feminine source and are horribly exacerbated by the likes of no doubt exasperating Goldberg, Derbyshire and the other rambunctious and precocious postadolescents in the NR Corner classroom.

I'm getting a flood of angry email from people with AOL addresses. Many of them keep mentioning Rush Limbaugh too, so I'm wondering if somewhere in the bowels of AOL someone's saying something bad about me or linking to me. Anybody know? I can't get a straight answer out of these people.

Woops. Never mind, I found it. I'm linked on their news/opinion section.

I'm gonna be out for a while. But here and here are a couple Holloween-related G-File from the archives in case anyone's interested.

Read this to balance Krugman.

Concerning your corner comments on the "gender genie". I went to the Project Gutenberg home page, and found a text of "Emma", by Jane Austen.

I copied and pasted the following text, from the beginning of the book into the genie. It concluded that the writer was male, although it was close. When I filled in that the author was actually female, the pop-up window comment was "That is one butch chick".

It came to the same conclusion on a snippet from NRO's Meghan Cox Gurdon.

You're in good company.

My syndicated column has generated more anti-Semitism, death threats, etc. than anything I've written in a long time. You never know if it's because a link was posted on a particularly vile website. But I got quite a few like the one below. I particularly like the fact that he credits Saddam's word in a Dan Rather interview as all the proof we needed (I've added the asterisks, obviously):

Saddam told Dan Rather to his face on TV he didn't have WMDs and wasn't a threat. Bush said he had all kinds. Saddam offered to debate Bush by satelite and Bush chickened out. Saddam is the only one who told the truth. Bush and all his loser scumbags lied their f***ing asses off.

Oh yeah, it was the Bush admin and you scumbag jews who CAUSED 9/11 and killed 3,000 of our own people... just to go to illegal war. You're going to be tortured in hell forever... after I rip your f***ing head off and s**t down your f***ing neck. Millions of us know the truth and you are going to hang!!!!

Reuters on knives found on an airplane:

FBI Special Agent Linda Vizi said there were no indications that items discovered Tuesday were linked to the activities of violent militants. [Emphasis mine]

Makes you wonder what Reuters would do if we renamed it to the "War on Violent Militants."

I don't know, I feel for the guy. Yes, he was wrong to start Litigating the Eschaton -- which, still, isn't as bad as immanentizing it. But it seems to me he made a classic new-to-the-web blunder. This sort of thing happens when you're new to the hurly-burly argy-bargy of the interent and you think you have to take every little thing seriously. I used to respond to sooo much hate mail and every bit of criticism from every loony site -- because I thought it would make a difference. I still get peeved when bloggers and other websters lie about their traffic numbers. I remember one website where there was a transgender poet who wanted to do something particularly worrisome to me with what some might call a marital aid. But what are you going to do?

The ironic thing is that Krugman himself is a great example of this sort of thin-skinnedness. Remember how he freaked out about Andrew Sullivan's criticism, talking about his site like it was some sort of neo-Nazi compound?

Best thing to do with folks like Atrios is ignore 'em. Threatening them only boosts their self-esteem. Live and learn.

Matt Yglesias takes exception to my skewering of Kerry and Edwards for voting against the reconstruction money. He suggests it's unfair for me to suggest Kerry and Edwards don't have a plan for Iraq. Rather Kerry and Edwards simply voted against Bush's plan because they have a better one. As Yglesias seems to understand -- since he thinks Kerry and Edwards should have voted in favor of the bill -- this really doesn't cut it. At the end of the day, you get an up or down vote. The choise was yes or no, plan or no plan. This is a point Gephardt made at the Detroit debate:

I think we all try to do what we think is right. That's what I try to do. I thought the right thing to do, even though I want part of it to be a loan and have a lot of other suggestions about where the money could come from, in the end you're presented in the Congress with a vote, up or down on the $87 billion. And I can't find it within myself to not vote for the money to support the troops, our young men and women who are over there protecting us, dodging bullets in a very tough and difficult situation. And so, I felt the right thing to do was to do that.

If we're going to have a new standard which says legislators get a free pass for not supporting X or Y so long as they can claim to have a "better" plan for X or Y, then I do hope we'll never hear about Republicans voting against Bill Clinton's economic plan ever again.

Moreover, while I'm sure Yglesias follows the finer points of Edwards' and Kerry's policy positions, I have to say having listened to them in numerous interviews it's pretty generous to say they had "alternative plans." All I've heard is a cacophony of double-talk from Kerry, Edwards and Clark. Dean's actually offered a bit more substance -- bad substance, but substance nonetheless.

From: House Emergency Communications Center
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 2:13 PM
To: All House Staff
Subject: USCP Alert Notification

This Message is from the U.S. Capitol Police - October 30, 2003 2:13 PM

1. Due to an ongoing police situation the Capitol Police have closed access to the Cannon House Office Building.

2. The Capitol Police are conducting a search of the building for an individual.

3. Personnel in Cannon, Rayburn and Longworth House Buildings should remain in their offices until further notice.

From a reader:

Dear Mr. Goldberg

Just as a to add on to a previous posting about Ramadan, the Islamic calendar, while lunar like the Jewish calendar, doesn't make any attempt to reconcile itself to the solar calendar. While an extra month is added seven out of every nineteen years to the Jewish calendar, the Islamic calendar just starts about ten days earlier (according to the Gregorian calendar) every year. Ramadan can therefore occur in any season, making for longer fasting periods in the summer. Not that this argues against your point at all, but those summer fasts must be pretty awful, regardless of latitude.

[Name withheld]

From a liberal G-File reader:

As a liberal who was decidedly ambivalent about the war (I loved the idea of taking out Hussein and the Baathist, but thought Bush's unilateralist track record leading up to the conflict put us in a weak position to rally an effectively ass-covering coalition) I have to admit that your critique about the Dem's stand on reconstruction is right on. What choice do we have, strategically or morally? It's so depressing that they're playing politics with this, even if many Republicans played similar games with Bosnia/Kosovo, which I believe had much more strategic importance than Haiti (though I supported that action too).

From my famed "Islamic stuff" guy:

Jonah,

You're right on Ramadan, mostly. It's never been a truce month in warfare (even intra-Muslim warfare), as some of the "we're shouldn't bomb during..." people seem to insist. But as far as the fasting goes, it's actually fairly onerous. Don't forget that most of the Islamic world is closer to the equator than we are, so that days don't shorten as dramatically.*

You basically have a billion people wandering around cranky as hell for a month. (And some really pious Muslims take the stricture to mean that nothing goes down your throat--so no smoking, and for some, no swallowing your own saliva. Some people wander around spitting all day.)

Plus, all this is aggravated by the fact that it's a big holiday. Everyone's family comes to town and stays for a month. You think the goyim have it bad between Christmas and New Year's. But, yeah, in furtherance of your point, the consumption of meat, sugar, etc., all goes UP during Ramadan, because everyone pigs out every night. Sort of a Yom Kippur-meets-Thanksgiving deal, but for a freakin' month. Can you blame them for being a tad irritable? : )

in her passing jabs at the women's movement, she displays more homey wisdom and common sense than vituperation. A staunch opponent of affirmative action, Decter failed to understand "why any woman would fight for years to become a member of a club whose majority were opposed to allowing women to join." How could affirmative action under such conditions result in anything but "massive seizures of self-doubt"-as she believes it has for "some blacks in elite colleges and women learning to be fighter pilots"? Comments and reflections like these, which she drops throughout the book, remind the reader that she is also the author of The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women's Liberation--and of countless other directly political interventions that more acerbically dissect what she views as the failures and outright dishonesty of the last three decades of affirmative action and identity politics.

Like some of the other accomplished women of her generation (one thinks of Himmelfarb and Carolyn Graglia), Decter minimizes the difficulties that she, as a woman, encountered during the course of her career. Indeed, she places little emphasis on her feelings in general. The spare account of her private life leaves no doubt that she must have been a young woman of singular determination. The youngest of three daughters of a Jewish shopkeeper in St. Paul, Minn., Decter early developed a secret longing to live in New York; and after dropping out of the University of Minnesota, she moved there. Decter says nothing about having been discouraged in her pursuit of education. (To the contrary, her parents expected her to finish college, leave home, and embrace a career.) She says only that, even though she knew a college degree could prove useful, she hated school. So, armed only with her self-confidence and minimal typing skills, she left for New York to perfect her Hebrew "at the College of Jewish Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and otherwise, as the cliche of the time would have it, [to] 'find myself.'"

Several readers have objected to the reader comment that Gore presided over a boom when in fact the economy was already starting to slide into recession. Here's an interesting email (and then I'm done with this topic for a while):

Dear Jonah,
Your correspondent's harping on Gore and the economy is misplaced. 1. The stock market was already in freefall by the time of the election so everyone with 401K plans or other investments was beginning to feel less comfortable about their economic well-being. 2. Bush wasn't proposing anything that could be argued reasonably as being a major detriment to the economy. There was no reason to expect different economic performance under Bush than under Gore except in a way positive for Bush because he advocated cutting taxes.

The result was that Bush appealed to those who were growing concerned about the economy and didn't frighten those who thought everything was still peachy.


This time, however, all the major Democratic candidates have announced their intentions to roll back at least part of Bush's tax cuts. Most people realize that the rollback will significantly impact their wallets and probably the economy. It is doubtful that the majority of voters will perceive no important differences between Bush and the Democrats as to how they will handle the economy. The difference will favor Bush.


Pax,
[Name withheld]

(Bush v. Gore was essentially a race for president of the fraternity council. Gore was Greg Marmalard. Smug and smarmy but apparently competent. Bush was Otter. Likable, but potentially incompetent. The DUI news added to the incompetent impression of Bush and may have swayed some last minute deciders to go with the "competent" prick. Having watched Bush in office the issue of incompetence won't fly. Likability (George Will's living room test) will have more weight. I think most Americans will prefer Bush to Howard (The personification of weenie) Dean.)

From a reader:

Easy on the giddy, gleeful gloating on the GDP numbers:

1) They're going to be adjusted downward most likely when the Fed gets more
information.

2) A fat lot of good presiding over a boom did for Gore. My point is that 2000 calls into question the syllogism that if the economy is growing, then the incumbent sails to re-election. Granted, it's not a detriment, but it's no longer a guarantee.

3) Expect the Dems/the media attacks on Iraq to go from semi-focused and irritating to white-hot at a much higher volume.

That being said, Krugman's cat was kicked so hard it's now in the parallel universe where Krugman is the editor of NR, you are a vegan and a PETA
organizer, Ramesh writes for The Nation, and Lowry is a Red Sox fan and runs an anti land mine NGO in Boston and just coauthored Queen Noor's autobiog.

From another reader:

Well my liberal friends have already begun to spin the numbers. They cite a 10.9% unemployment level for people ages 18-24. For one, I can't seem to verify that number, and two, that's an awful narrow age margin to cite. It's like saying the unemployment level for people ages 2.5-2.6 is 100%. The bottom line, when the economy is sluggish (when is the US economy in really bad shape? It hasn't been in "bad" since the Carter years) the dems love to cite GDP data, but when the GDP data looks good, they turn to other stats to back up their assertions. And when all the economic data looks good, they'll rely on deficit numbers (which is a legit concern for this admin, but should be remedied with spending cuts). Furthermore, as any good supply-sider knows, if the economy is moving along at an annual rate of 3.3+% growth, the tax revenue brought in this year should help with the deficit problem (though we should still cut spending). So all the dems have left to hope for is that Americans die in Iraq and that Iraqis are unable to establish some form of stable government to replace the Baathist regime. I'd be pretty depressed if I was a dem.

From a reader:

Jonah, The question is a no brainer. This is the best economic growth since the 80's so they will switch to 80's style tactics. The ecomomic growth will be denounced as symptomatic of corporate greed. Halliburton and the Defense Industrial Complex are making a killing on the war and American tax dollars, driving the economy higher, but at the expense of the poor and the middle class. The Dems will latch onto lagging unemployment numbers as proof. Expect soundbites from the primary contenders such as: "This Administration is rolling back the clock to the times of corporate corruption, greed and record deficits. We are abandoning education, worker's rights, sound fiscal policy and basic health care to fund million dollar corporate birthday parties and international adventurism. Republicans then have the gall to point to the thickening wallets of corporate fat cats as proof that the economy is improving, while average Americans are waiting in ever lengthening lines to get their unemployment checks." You watch. It will happen. Joe Frye Don't withhold my name.

From a reader:

Wesley Clark: "Well, as I have always said, the Bush team is doing a great job, just a great, great job...oh crap, I forgot, it's 2003 now, not 2002."

Al Sharpton: "Maybe the WHITE MAN's economy is doing better, but the BLACK MAN still lives in the shadow of the JEW BLOODSU...er, that is to say, I mean, my people are still in need!"

Joseph Lieberman: "The Bush team has cynically arranged so that the economic boom affects only Republican donors in the upper income quintile, while the poor continue to live in a grainy, black-and-white Depression. A Lieberman boom will spread the wealth around!"