I watched it TWICE with my 3 children. I, like Derb, believe "popular culture is filth". But this movie is an exception to that rule.

What, exactly, were the police thinking? From Sky News:

“Daryl Hannah has been questioned by police after acting like her Kill Bill: Vol 2 character at the LA premiere. She aroused suspicion by doing kung fu poses and behaving cockily…”

That’s an offense?

A bastard, apparently:

“The following dolphin-perpetrated atrocities have been widely documented: gang rape of dolphin females; prostitution of same; porpoise holocausts; adults grabbing adorable baby dolphins in their beaks and whacking them to death.”

Sharks, the lot of them.

As tens of thousands of victims could testify (at least those who were left alive) brutality has been as much a characteristic of Castro’s regime as economic failure, oppression and lies. You would think, however, that, these days, Castro’s thugs would have the sense to confine their violence to their home turf. Apparently not.

“After the United Nations Commission on Human Rights narrowly passed a resolution today [April 15] critical of Cuba, members of Cuba's governmental delegation attacked Frank Calzon, executive director of the Washington-based Center for a Free Cuba.”

Wait, what am I saying? Those goons knew they would be safe:

“The attack took place inside the United Nations building in Geneva.”

Kerry, at least, is not inevitable, but over at Instapundit there’s some discussion as to what the Democratic candidate has been doing when taxes strike home. It appears (and note that word) that, in the past Kerry has declined to participate in a masochistic opportunity offered by the Massachusetts tax code. In Massachusetts, state taxpayers can choose an optional higher tax rate of 5.85% - instead of the normal 5.3%. Personally, if Kerry didn’t pay this extra, I wouldn’t blame the guy one bit, and, yes, he could make some ‘free rider’ arguments to defend his stance. Nevertheless, this could be something worth remembering next time you hear Kerry preaching about ‘the rich’ needing to contribute more.

You first, Senator.

And, while on the topic of tax, what about Mrs. Kerry’s returns? She’s not releasing them, citing her own privacy. That’s understandable. In some ways, we ask politicians to disclose too much of their personal business, let alone their personal lives, and that’s even more true of their families. Hillary Clinton, a ‘co-president’ with an explicit role in policy-making was one thing, but disclosure by a Mrs. Dean (whose general insistence on her right to live her own life was, I thought, entirely praiseworthy) or, possibly, Mrs. Kerry might be a different matter altogether. Then again, the sums of money at Mrs. Kerry’s disposal are, reportedly, so large that they raise issues in their own right.

Over to you, Senator.

Well, this looks absurd. CNN is reporting that “U.S. radio broadcasters have asked federal regulators to bar rival satellite radio services from offering content tailored to local markets.” The FCC is, apparently, ‘reviewing’ this request.

“Reviewing?”

What’s to review? The broadcasters should be told to take their request, and shove it.

"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country's flag," she said.

And at the end of the conversation, the question was, "By the way, we understand there’s a possibility you may not be supporting the senator." And I said, "Well, you’re right, I’m supporting U.S. Rep.Pat Toomey." And the tenor of the conversation changed very quickly. They said, "If that’s the case, your rail initiative will come to a sudden end, and it will never happen."

My anti-Franken column has generated some hysterical (in every sense) emails. Most are wayyyyyyyy too long to post, which in itself is a sign of hysteria. But here's an okay one, but it is brief:

Hypocrisy thy name is republican!! The word has become ugly among many on the left and the middle. I voted for George Bush in the 2000 elections and it's the worst mistake I've ever made. I'll never vote for another republican as long as I live. Why did I go to the left? Because I see a pervasive movement among the people on the right to take away my rights in the country. My rights as a woman (abortion legislation) and my rights as a citizen (Patriot Act). I am also VERY alarmed at the influence the religious right has over the current administration. Considering your name is Goldberg (I'm assuming your Jewish) you should be deeply concerned about this as well. I also see a profound level of secrecy in this administration that has not been seen since the Nixon administration. What do they have to hide? Lots. People seem to forget- these people are suppose to be working for us. In addition to the complete lack of accountability.... need I go on? How are republicans so blind to the dubious acts of this administration? How can you justify us taking valuable and limited military resources out of Afghanistan to fight an uneccessary war in Iraq? How can you excuse the promotion of freedom and democracy for Iraq by this administration when they're shutting down their newspapers? You people call yourselves conservatives but YOUR president has taken us from a substantial surplus to billions of dollars in debt, that is going to take generations to pay off. How can you excuse the inexcusable? The list is growing ever longer. You say Al and Air America have no content? How arrogant and absurd. Looking at the current situation the only people I see without a leg to stand is you sir and the people you represent. Liberal now and never going back....

From a reader:

Jonah,

I think your assessment of college voting patterns is pretty much
dead-on. One thing, though, that's important to remember is that
a large portion of college students -- those at public universities
in particular -- are effectively on the dole. Between the government
funding of their institutions coupled with perpetually rising tuition
that necessitates more and more government-backed loans and grants,
it's the equivalent of welfare recipients voting for the person who'll
give them more. (Never mind the fact that the flood of money chasing
finite supply only drives tuition still higher, in a vicious cycle.)
And only this week has Kerry been talking about giving college
educations away in exchange for "public service". It's all bread and
circuses.

I recall my own fit of insanity in the 1988 election, when I was all for
Dukakis simply because Reagan's tax cuts meant that scholarship
income not used for books and tuition were taxable, which had not been
the case before the reform. In time, I came to my senses about the
big picture, and perhaps many of the college students will, too.

Matt Yglesias draws much comfort from some data showing that college kids lean Democratic. That's fine. But he erects something of a strawman by saying that "There's been a campaign under way for several years now to convince the world that young people in general, and college students in particular, are a bunch of Bush-loving rightwingers." I'm sure some folks have been involved in what Yglesias calls "myth-making" but on the whole I think he misses the real effort and the real argument. The twofold argument I've been hearing from conservatives in recent years (inlcuding from me) is that the left's generations-long myth making about the inherently progressive nature of "the youth" is a bunch of bunk. And Yglesias' preferred numbers demonstrate that ably. Kerry leads Bush among college kids by 48-38 and does even better among likely voters. Okay. But more than a third of college kids don't like Kerry. And, I'll not only bet you those numbers will improve in Bush's favor as they are "soft" but I'll also bet that most of these numbers are personality driven rather than ideology driven.

Second, the trend conservatives have been noting is that the students are to the right of the professors -- which I think is undoubtedly true. I would also bet that they are even further to the right of the administrators. The fact that support for Nader is declining among college students further illustrates that the liberal babyboomers' solopsistic B.S. about college kids being inherently radical is so much wishful thinking.

I'd also add that college kids are increasingly libertarian these days. Whether that holds over time remains to be seen since collegiate libertarianism is often (but not always) based in a desire to be cool and rebellious against the right and the left. But, it's certainly true that a libertarian, principled or otherwise, could go either way between Bush and Kerry

Look, I have a long track-record of disdain for "youth" oriented politics of all kinds, but if Yglesias is basically putting a cheery spin on both a trend and a revelation that does not help the left. Sure, it's a myth that college kids are all Burkeans today. But I don't know anyone who ever said they were. I do know lots of people who've said and believe that being young is synonymous with being liberal, or "progressive". And that's bunk, and largely always has been.

SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS CHARLES DOYLE, second baronet (1810-1888), came of military stock and most of his male relatives seem to have been colonels at the very least. He went to Eton and Oxford, where, the D.N.B. [= Dictionary of National Biography] reports, "his intercourse with Gladstone became very intimate." Called to the bar, he later received the appointment of receiver-general of customs. To compensate perhaps for remaining a civilian, he wrote stirring military ballads: "The Red Thread of Honour" was translated into Pushtoo and "became a fovarite among the villagers on the north-western frontier of India." To crown his literary ambitions, he was elected professor of poetry at Oxford in 1867.

[I]n a closely divided Senate, Specter's tendency to side with liberals on social issues, as well as his willingness to challenge the worst excesses of the right on judicial nominations, tax cuts, the minimum wage, school choice and tort reform, has made him a Republican that Democrats can deal with. ...

But if Republicans maintain control of the Senate after November, Specter and a handful of other renegade GOPers, ranging from Rhode Island's very nearly liberal Lincoln Chafee to conservatives with maverick streaks like Arizona's John McCain and Ohio's George Voinovich, could be the only roadblocks to right-wing hegemony.

Jonah, no disrespect at all, on the contrary, just disagreement, lots of it! You’re quite correct, there’s no point in going through the drug debate again, but as you sort of, do so shall I. Sort of.

Let’s start with those offending adjectives, and, at the risk of being called Clintonian, some parsing. Remember too that this discussion was kicked off by reference to a striking dishonestly commercial that, in essence, impugned the patriotism of millions of Americans, rough talk indeed at a time of war.

When I used the terms you objected to, I was talking very specifically about ‘drug warriors’. You are quite right that there are many good reasons to oppose legalization. It’s a perfectly respectable point of view held by you and many other reasonable people. The motives of the ‘drug warriors,’ basically the political and ‘moral’ activists who have subjected this country to the disaster of what is, yes, a truly “fatuous” (‘foolish,’ ‘silly’) crusade, are, however, often something else. For far too many of them, their stance is either about political advancement, proclaiming their moral superiority or both. Given that their crusade has, in my view, been immensely destructive to this nation, describing it as ‘self-indulgent’ seems, if anything rather mild.

Turning quickly to the wider subject we’re not meant to be discussing, I certainly don’t think that ending prohibition would be a panacea (we are an imperfect species), but I’m convinced that it would solve more problems than it created.

You mentioned the tragic story of your friend. Awful. Horrific. But no reason to espouse a policy that has wrecked far more lives than legalized heroin ever would. It's worth recalling that ‘addiction’ is a far more complicated phenomenon than drug warriors usually admit. Is an addict a slave to the drug, a zombie who has lost his ability to take decisions for himself? No, of course not, not physically anyway. Cold turkey from opiates is unpleasant, very unpleasant, basically like a very, very nasty case of the flu, but it’s perfectly possible to get through it. What’s more, the idea that the decision to take, and continue taking drugs, is ‘irrational’ is, in fact, usually wrong. Drug taking may be misguided, and it may be self-destructive, but that does not make it irrational.

Are there some people, your ‘irreducibles’ perhaps, who cannot find the strength to quit? Sure, but their problems are better dealt with by physicians than prosecutors. How many junkies have died, I wonder, because the criminalization of their habit pushed them into an environment where medical help was elusive, needles were infected (‘fatuous’ does not even begin to describe the rules against needle exchanges), and cravings were fed by pushers whose only interest was in increasing the dose, the dependency and thus the danger?

Vast subject, so that’s it - for now…

I'm off to bed. Will be on CNN at 8:35ish in the AM. My socks won't match but you'll never be able to tell.

From a "reader":

Considering it was only kikey little farts who led the chorus of anti-French rants, it was worse than racist. It was whiny Jew racism, the worst kind.

Andrew - I have neither the time nor the inclination to restart an argument we've (meaning all of us at NRO) have had many times before. But let me say for the record that I'm often astounded by the inability of drug war opponents to treat with respect or good faith those they disagree with.

I know you obviously meant no offense to me personally, but the phrase "fatuous and self-indulgent," it seems to me, could very well apply to countless legalization advocates who refuse to recognize that there is a good faith argument on the other side. Indeed, I think many of the folks who glibly talk about legalization as if it were a cure-all, a nigh-upon utopian remedy to the very real problems of the drug war miss a simple fact: If we legalized drugs tomorrow, America would have a lot more drug addicts the next day. Not a lot fewer. That would mean a lot more ruined lives. Having watched what drugs have done to people very close to me, including one friend who died in his twenties after years of heroin addiction, I don't think a lot more cases like his would constitute huge progress.

Indeed, I think it is fatuous and self-indulgent to think so. Fatuous because there are simply no truly good answers (except perhaps in some future technology which makes for better drugs or better treatment) and self-indulgent because so many people who've used drugs and stopped think it's just as easy for everybody else to do the same. I like personal responsibility too Andrew, but personal responsibility requires humans to have the capacity to be rational actors. Drug addiction robs many people of precisely that capacity.

I understand that there are real problems of constructing public policies around the misfortune of a relatively small number of individuals. I just wish more pro-legalization conservatives would make the small concession of admitting that they are comfortable with the fate they will in all likelihood be consigning those individuals to if they got their way.

Amid all the talk about European 'appeasement', it's worth reading this extract from a Reuters story:

"ROME, April 15 (Reuters) -...Fabrizio Quattrocchi, one of four Italian security guards abducted [in Iraq] earlier this week, was shot dead on Wednesday after Italy refused to bow to the kidnappers' demands that it withdraw its troops from Iraq. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said a video recording of the killing showed that Quattrocchi was hooded when his kidnappers put a gun to his head. "When the murderers were pointing a pistol at him, this man tried to take off his hood and shouted: 'Now I'm going to show you how an Italian dies'. And they killed him," Frattini said. "He died a hero," he added..."

Indeed he did. The murderers that butchered him are, needless to say, beneath contempt.

"The CPA and the White House must also accept that not all Iraqi militias were created equal, or evil. There are Iraqi security forces willing and able to fight against the Baathist remnants, foreign gangs and Shiite brigands who have put sections of the country in flames.

But Kurdistan's pesh merga commandos and fighters from the Iraqi National Accord, the Iraqi National Congress and other political organizations have been devalued and restrained by the CPA's apolitical occupation strategy.

Those with a political vision of an Iraq worth fighting for have largely been disqualified from defending it at the side of American forces.

Instead, the CPA championed a hastily trained, three-tier Iraqi internal security force of army, police and civil defense guards vetted and signed up by Americans with no way of verifying the backgrounds of the people they recruited.

The CPA-designed structure crumpled when U.S. Marines launched the siege of Fallujah and fighting flared with Shiite militiamen. Many Iraqi police and troops abandoned their posts.

The important exceptions to this pattern of flight have been kept unpublicized, apparently for operational reasons. The 36th Battalion of the Iraqi Army, fighting under U.S. command, has performed well in Fallujah.

This became known in Baghdad after the unit was praised by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez at a meeting with the Iraqi Governing Council on Monday.

'Shouldn't we form more like it?' asked Jalal Talabani, whose Patriotic Union of Kurdistan has joined its once bitter rival, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Arab political organizations in contributing 700 soldiers to the 36th Battalion. Bremer immediately opposed Talabani's suggestion, according to meeting participants. Adding militiamen would 'politicize' the army, Bremer reportedly said.

Tell that to the Marines, who have suffered heavy casualties as they moved to establish control in Fallujah after taking over from more static U.S. Army units a few weeks ago. Gen. John Abizaid, U.S. theater commander, may have other views on the future. He met on Tuesday with Iraqi political leaders who have contributed troops to the 36th Battalion."

Numerous readers -- as expected -- don't like my defense of the drugs-help-terrorists ads. Several have noted that buying oil helps terrorists because it sends money to the Saudis and the Saudis give that money terrorists. Others say buying anything could support terrorism because money doesn't support terrorists, people with money suppport terrorists.

I concede the point.

However, terrorists will seek out sources of revenue which are more likely to be invisible to law enforcement. For example, if you buy bootleg cigarettes you are more likely to be supporting terrorists than if you buy regular cigarettes.

Also, by definition, if you buy something illegal you are helping criminals, some of whom might be tied to terrorism in some way. Buying stolen property aids criminals, buying illegal weapons aids criminals and buying illegal drugs aids criminals. You could say if drugs weren't illegal you wouldn't be giving money to outlaws. But I already conceded that point.

The French US Ambassador claims it was "racist" to mock the French in the run-up to the war.

I'm crashing on a deadline. But I'll have comments later.

I seem to recall there was a lot of mocking and sneeering around here -- and certainly elsewhere -- when the Drug Policy folks were running ads linking drug use to terrorism. Well it turns out that drug use funded the Madrid bombing.

Yes, yes, yes: I understand that drug legalization advocates can claim this as evidence as to why we should de-criminalize drugs. Fine. But, that doesn't change the fact that the drug-use-helps-pay-for-terrorism argument is essentially valid.

From a reader:

I know the inscription, courtesy of GK Chesterton: “A man like Shaw could invent a new sophistry every ten minutes. It’s as easy as lying, because it IS lying.” (The quote is from “Orthodoxy.”)

Fair point from a reader:

Jonah,

Those great people in the flight that crashed into the field in Pennsylvania fought back, God bless them.

From a reader:

I consider myself fairly intelligent- BBA and JD. But when I read the Corner about the topics your requesting for your book, I get the feeling I will need to go back to school first and get a Masters in Liberal Arts, political science (a minor of mine) or perhaps European History in order to understand it fully. Not saying I am not going to buy it, that a definite, but just think its going to be one of those books with a billion footnoted references, all of which will be required reading before taking on the subject and ideals you intend to expound on. My limited knowledge of fascism is limited to my pol-sci professor calling me one for stating that I did not think the Vietnam war was immoral or un-winable and that our leaders only need to stop fighting a war in a PC fashion and carpet bomb the north with daisy-cutters until they surrender unconditionally ala Japan in WWII.

Me: Fear not. I just want to make sure I know what I'm talking about. Nothing in this book will go over anybody's head and it won't go too far in the weeds, except in the appendices where I might tackle some of the academic issues.

Here's another one. I've got an okay file on this already, but I am always looking for more. Some of the least enthusiastic Nazis were German conservatives in the tradition-bound Army etc. Nazism was a revolutionary ideology after all, and traditionalists in all parties have trouble with revolutionaries. If any students of the era know of any particularly apposite anecdotes, books or essays on this theme please drop me a line at JonahResearch@aol.com.

From the AP:

Once again, President Bush (news - web sites) misspoke on a weapons issue, telling the nation that 50 tons of mustard gas were found in Libya — twice the amount actually uncovered.

Maybe, the AP began a lot of stories about Bill Clinton with "Once again, Clinton boinked an intern..." or "Once again, the President perjured himself..." or "Once again, the President blamed others for his mistakes...." but I don't remember it.

One of the most common complaints from liberal readers of my syndicated column yesterday is that blaming Bill Clinton is pointless since "George Bush is the president now." Bush is running for president and so his actions are more relevant etc. Many also go one to whine about my "obsession" with Clinton etc.

Fine, fine, fine.

There's just one problem. The 9/11 Commission is not supposed to care that this is an election year! And, to the extent the press is supposed to be covering the substance of the commission's work, it shouldn't care that this is an election year either.

If we are asking the question, "How did 9/11 happen?" then Bill Clinton's blame-worthiness is not an academic or petty issue. For eight years he set the foundation for what happened on 9/11. By all means, let's also look at George Bush's 8 months. He was the guy at the wheel after all. But if the Commission is true to its mission then Bill Clinton's culpability is entirely pertinent.

Okay, since pretty much all of the academics are too afraid of the JSTOR cops to give me access to their accounts, I'll just throw this bleg out there. One of the many things about the history of fascism I am investigating is the evolution of fascism as not only a synonym with "conservatism" (which is nonsense) but it's segue into a psychological state. In other words capital F Fascism was once an ideology but in the 1950s it became lower-case f fascism and came to describe personality types who were invariably "right wing." Bullies, police, prudes, et al all became "fascists" psychologically. Adorno's "The Authoritarian Personality" was obviously a major source of this cultural trend. Hebert McClosky's 1958 paper, "Conservatism and Personality" in the American Political Science Review was also seminal (though I haven't read it yet, hint hint). The most recent example of this was that idiotic Berkeley study which claimed to have identified the conservative psychosis common to Reagan, Hitler etc.

Anyway, if any researchers, academics or layman run across anything they think would be particularly useful to this story, I would love to see it. I'm interested in the academic stuff as well as instances in the popular press and popular culture where the word "fascist" was cavalierly hurled at Republicans, conservatives, the police etc. Please send suggestions, examples, articles, leads etc to JonahResearch@aol.com. In fact, feel free to send anything you think might be of interest to me in regard to my book to that address.

From a reader (unsure of what he wanted, I edited out the name of his school):

I used to be a network admin at [Name of State University Withheld]. The amount of half-lobed projects that libraries engage in was a constant source of amazement to us geeks, even on a campus where WOMBAT (Waste Of Money, Brains And Time) was the norm. The last library project I was asked to assist with was a automated book scanner (with a nifty page turning device). The thing looked like the ACME corporation's best effort at new market penetration since Wile E. Coyote retired. The library used it to service remote requests through inter-library loan.

What is particularly idiotic is that once the requested pages were scanned, they were simply printed, on dead tree, and mailed to the requesting library. The existing electronic version was not even saved for future requests. Higher Ed institutions, have _really_ fast Internet access (we had 20 MB/s for freaking [Our State]), not to mention Internet 2 (145 MB/s!!!) between universities, and the librarians could not let go of the paper, even though the original request came in electronically.

The sad part of the story is that the machine was paid for thanks to the service fee tacked to everyone's phone bill to make libraries more 'Internet friendly'. I am so very glad not to work for a state government anymore. I still get flashbacks every April 15, though.

As far as electronic journals are concerned, it wouldn't be nearly as expensive for Lexis and JSTOR to provide centralized content repository and searching service if the participating journals submitted their issues electronically, under a standard format (which includes search keywords...) THAT would imply an unfathomable yoke on the Freedom of the luminaries writing the articles in the first place. Only Political Scientists shall rule Political Science journals! However, as a Master's (Liberal Studies) student, I can attest that most of those journal articles, even in electronic format, are not worth the paper they're printed on.

Sorry, but this is important. JSTOR is not a for profit enterprise! From their website :

"It is a priority for JSTOR to ensure that our content is available and accessible to all of our users.... As a not-for-profit organization with the mission to act as a trusted archive, JSTOR is in a unique position with regard to making content accessible."

One point I did mean to mention, which numerous readers have reminded me of, is that the "truce" offer from Bin Laden could also be a great sign of our success. Crying uncle is never a sign of strength, even if you're just crying uncle to your European relations.