France continues to wrestle with the implications of its large Muslim population. Now our old friend Dominique de Villepin (he’s the interior minister now) is advocating the training of ‘French’ imams. Such a notion may sound strange to Americans schooled in the tradition of separation of church and state, but it’s not a bad idea, particularly when one considers the current reality:

“The problem of radical Islamic clerics preaching a message contrary to French law and values is a pressing one: government figures show 27 Muslim prayer leaders have been deported on public order or human rights grounds since 2001 - more than half of them since last July. Abdelkader Bouziane, the 52-year-old imam of a Lyon mosque, said in an interview that the Koran authorised husbands to hit their wives, that polygamy was right, that women were not men's equals and that music was a sin. Asked whether he approved of the stoning of unfaithful wives, he replied: "Yes." He was deported on Wednesday, a week after Abdelkader Yahia Cherif. The self-proclaimed imam of Brest in Brittany had asked his congregation to "rejoice in the Madrid bombings" that killed 191 people.

“According to the interior ministry, France's 5 million-strong Muslim community, Europe's largest, is ministered to by between 1,000 and 1,500 imams. Only 10% of them are believed to be citizens, less than half speak French, and "probably a majority" are illegal immigrants. Most hail from abroad - 40% from Morocco, 24% from Algeria, 16% from Turkey and 6% from Tunisia - where any advanced religious training they receive is increasingly likely to be in fundamentalist Islamist views that clash with secular French laws.”

The struggle against extremist Islam is a battle that will be fought as much within Islam as from the outside. De Villepin’s move is welcome recognition of that fact.

One of the obsessions with the EU’s leadership is that the bloc should catch up with the US economically. That’s a perfectly respectable aim, but the composition of a new “high level” group formed by Brussels to help that process along, suggests that this might take a while. The 13-person team is made up of representatives of, dread word, ‘stakeholders’ (defined as trade unions, business, political authorities, academics)," a stale corporatist concept that tells you that it is doomed to failure before it has even begun. Its membership comprises four politicians, one journalist (our old friend, Will Hutton, naturally), two academics, three trade unionists and, in a nod to the capitalism it is meant to be promoting, three (count ‘em) businessmen.

America can, I think, relax for now.

Why do I get angry about the drug war? Oh, stories like this:

”Although prosecutors admitted Paey was not a drug trafficker, on April 16 he received a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years for drug trafficking. That jaw-dropping outcome illustrates two sadly familiar side effects of the war on drugs: the injustice caused by mandatory minimum sentences and the suffering caused by the government's interference with pain treatment. Paey, a 45-year-old father of three, is disabled as a result of a 1985 car accident, failed back surgery, and multiple sclerosis. Today, as he sits in jail in his wheelchair, a subdermal pump delivers a steady, programmed dose of morphine to his spine…”

Read the whole thing, and also notice, once again, the impact of “mandatory minimums”. They are not about justice.

Via Reason’s indefatigable Jacob Sullum.

Michael Moore, April 14th, 2004:

“The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win.”

Hi:

All of the polls are showing the race between Arlen and Toomey is neck and neck. I am very worried (this is an understatement).

Please take time and email and call your family, friends, neighbors and every Republican you know in PA and ask them to come out and vote for Arlen.

In November of 2003, Susan Gantman, who ran Statewide for Superior Court, won her race by 24 votes. 2 million people voted in this race.

People need to realize that their vote counts. People need to realize that this is going to be a tight race and need to be encouraged to come out and vote. Your friends, family and co-workers need to hear from you that it is important to vote in on Tuesday.

Several times a day, including today, people tell me Arlen is a shoe-in. This is not true! Today, a number of people told me they don't believe the polls on this race. The polls are accurate! Arlen is not going to win if voters have a complacent attitude and stay home on Election Day. We need a wake-up call to all Republican voters.

Please help with this effort. Please make calls and send out your own email, urging people to come out and vote for Arlen this coming Tuesday, April 27th. Please talk about the race with everyone with whom you come in contact.

If you need any facts on Arlen, check out his website www.specter2004.com .

Thank you.

Tracey

Belgium’s ‘far right’ Flemish nationalist party, the Vlaams Blok, is undeniably, a party with some very unsavory elements indeed. It is also a party that has benefited from the tensions caused by mass immigration and Belgium’s continued rule by a political establishment that is as revolting as it is corrupt. Take your pick from a few recent stories, whether it’s the endemic anti-Americanism, the foreign minister’s attempt to play down his country’s genocidal role in the Congo, the arrest of a distinguished investigative journalist or the increasingly troubling suggestions of a massive cover-up of the truth behind the Dutroux pedophile murders, and one is left with the impression that Belgium is a cesspit nation, a state that is rotten to the core. Add a long history of division between Belgium’s French and Flemish-speakers to an already poisonous political mix, and it should be no surprise that the VB has been gaining traction. In last year's parliamentary elections it won nearly 18 percent of the vote in Flanders and in 2000, 33 percent of voters supported it in municipal polls in Antwerp, the region's largest city.

That, clearly, is not acceptable to Belgium’s ruling class. A court has now found that some of the VB’s propaganda has broken the country’s anti-racism law. The party has been fined and, critically, will lose the state support to which most political parties are entitled. Now, and I should stress this, I don’t know what all the offending materials said, and political parties, of course, should not be above the law. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to read this story without the suspicion that the courts are being used to achieve that which free and open debate could not. And that’s not a pretty thought.

Stephen Pollard has more.

Again, Why George W. Bush Must be Tried as a War Criminal Tehran Times - 3 hours ago

Arinze was asked whether…Kerry should not request or be given communion for his unapologetic support of human rights, including a woman's right to abortion [emphasis added].

Someone who wasn't overly impressed with Pat Tillman's call to duty was Simeon Rice, a former Cardinals teammate who now is with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Earlier this year, on Jim Rome's national radio show, Rice said Tillman "wasn't that good, not really." He went on to imply that Tillman probably wasn't going to be around the NFL much longer anyway, so joining the Army was no big deal.

Only after Rome gave him repeated opportunities to amend his comments did Rice finally say, "I think it's very admirable, actually." He added of Tillman's motivation: "Maybe it was the Rambo movies? Maybe it's Sylvester Stallone and Rocky?"

American Collegians for Life and Feminists for Life are cosponsoring a Women Deserve Better® Symposium on Women and abortion for college students on Saturday, April 24. Speakers include:

Sally A. Winn, Vice President, Feminists for Life of America Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, MD, Breast Cancer Prevention Institute Georgette Forney, Co-founder of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign Cathleen Cleaver Ruse, USCCB Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities

”Those…who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion.”

In any diocese, the decision about whether to enforce this canon rests with the bishop. Yet even where bishops choose to ignore it, canon 915 should enable the laity to ask a few very awkward questions. Consider, for example, several queries for the cardinal archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick:

*Throughout his public career, Your Eminence, Senator John Kerry has supported abortion on demand, advocating federal funds for abortions in a variety of circumstances, and the very day you met him earlier this month Senator Kerry began airing pro-choice campaign commercials on television. In advocating abortion on demand, is Senator Kerry guilty of “manifest grave sin?”

*If not, Your Eminence, why not?

*If so, Your Eminence, why have you failed to ban Senator Kerry from receiving communion in your archdiocese? And why has Archbishop Sean O’Malley failed to ban the Senator from receving communion in Boston?

From a reader:

Jonah,

At the conclusion of Bill Clinton's trial in the
Senate, Arlen Specter's Scottish vote gave Ted Kennedy
the ability to crow that supporters of removal were
not even able to muster a majority (the final vote was
50-50). Kennedy used that fact to argue, with some
effectiveness, that Republicans had wasted the
country's time.

I vowed that day that if I ever had an opportunity to
vote against Arlen Specter in a primary, I would walk
over broken glass to do it. I am one happy
Pennsylvania Republican this week. My fingers are
crossed.

I am amazed by the number of angry liberals who've written to me arguing that Kerry's service in Vietnam equals being strong on defense. Period. Time and again the argument lacks any reflection or nuance. He served nobly in uniform [and you didn't!] therefore he's strong on defense and you're a traitorous scumbag for suggesting otherwise.

There's so much that is baffling about this position. First of all, no one among the Democrats ever made anything like this argument when Clinton was the standard bearer. Indeed, countless Democrats, including Kerry, ridiculed the suggestion that service in Vietnam or the lack of it was particularly relevant. Second, it should be noted that any number of legitimately traitorous scumbags, starting with Benedict Arnold, served honorably in uniform. Third, there's this odd identity politics thing going on which treats Vietnam vets as this homogeneous bloc that Kerry gets to speak for and who all think the same way. From my own limited experience, I've found Vietnam vets to be about as diverse politically as any other [Bleg: have their been surveys on their political attitudes?]. Even on the war itself, attitudes differ dramatically.

But most of all, what bothers me is the willful abdication on the importance of ideas. It's as if Kerry's voting record and speeches are entirely beside the point, as if what a candidate has done out of uniform matters not a whit compared to what he once did in uniform. This is man-on-a-white-horse thinking and considering how much the left pretends to reject such views, the hypocrisy is offensive...and a bit scary.

The Kerry campaign flubs a big one. From the Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON -- Vietnam combat records posted on John F. Kerry's campaign website for the month of January 1969 as evidence of his service aboard swift boat No. 94 describe action that occurred before Kerry was skipper of that craft, according to the officer who said he commanded the boat at the time. ADVERTISEMENT

On the site, the Massachusetts senator is described as the skipper of Navy boat No. 94 during several actions in late January 1969.

However, Edward Peck, who was the skipper of the 94 before Kerry took over, said combat reports posted by the campaign for January 1969 involve action when he was the skipper, not Kerry. Peck, who was seriously wounded in fighting that took place on Jan. 29, 1969, said he believes Kerry campaign aides made a mistake in claiming Kerry as skipper of the 94 at that time.

On the Kerry website, the report of the combat on that day on the 94 boat is posted as occurring during Kerry's time as skipper of the boat. Peck said Kerry replaced him after the Jan. 29, 1969, event.

"Those are definitely mine," Peck said, referring to the combat reports that the Kerry campaign posted as representing Kerry's action. "There is no doubt about it."

Standing at the bow of a 25-foot power craft called "Fishing Magician" inspecting coastal erosion in southern Louisiana reminded Kerry of his days as commander of a Navy "swift" boat 35 years ago.

"I looked out at the shoreline and I commented that parts of it looked a lot like the rivers and coastline that I went through in Vietnam," the Massachusetts senator said.

He told about 100 supporters sweltering in the heat on the banks of the Mississippi that he had spent a lot of time "in a habitat that looked a little like this" as a young Naval officer. He said the 50-foot gunboat he commanded was built "right here in Louisiana."

From a Jerusalem Post story on Farouk Kaddoumi, the PLO's hard-line "foreign minister":

Commenting on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, Kaddoumi said: "If Israel wants to leave the Gaza Strip, then it should do so. This means that the Palestinian resistance has forced it to leave. But the resistance will continue. Let the Gaza Strip be South Vietnam. We will use all available methods to liberate North Vietnam."

Let's not make too much of a habit of this sort of thing, this isn't a personals page. But he asked so nicely:

I'm a new library school graduate. I am very surprised that Corner reading librarians are in abundance given my experience in school and at national conferences. I've looked for some type of conservative librarian listserv, but the one that did exist is no longer active. Would you be able to post this email address? Librarians are generous when it comes to knowledge and resource sharing, and I'd like to trade business cards, so to speak. This might be a bit corny but I have been rather disappointed with the lack diversity in the field. newlibrarian@mail.com

A reader forwarded me an email from Ted Kennedy's office announcing two job openings. Here's position #2:

2) Driver for Senator Kennedy: Responsibilities will include driving, advance for events, and general administrative assistance. It is important that this individual be mature, well-organized, flexible, proactive, and hardworking. We are looking for someone who has a good head on theirs shoulders, is able to multi-task, has good interpersonal skills, and an interest in Government.

Joseph Bottum has an article in the Standard on the subject. This seems as good a time as any to respond to the couple of emails I got taking issue with, or asking me to clarify, my remark the other day that "I think that Catholic bishops are probably obligated to withhold communion from pro-abortion politicians (after first talking with them privately)."

I think two things have often been lost in the discussion about that idea. First: The withholding of communion should be seen not as a punishment so much as an act of charity. The Catholic church teaches that the act of denying justice to the unborn (by voting for abortion) is a grave sin. The politician who persists in it is endangering his soul. To encourage him to mend his ways is to do him a favor, albeit one that he will understandably not recognize as such. Second: The church cannot fail to offer this charity. If my reasoning is correct, this is not a discretionary matter for the bishops. Thus: Even if the bishops knew to a certainty that withholding communion from Kerry would generate a backlash that helped him, and the Bush campaign were pleading with them not to do it, they would, if I am right, still have to do it for Kerry's sake.

People concentrate too much on the fiscal side of the Social Security problem. But it's worth noting that higher productivity won't solve it. If higher productivity translates into higher wages, then it means higher benefits paid out of the program as well as higher revenues paid in. (Benefits are tied to wages.) So the problem is just pushed into the future. Bringing in more immigrants, or having more babies, similarly pushes the problem into the future. The structural imbalance between payout and pay-in rates remains the same.

To the extent that Social Security allows people to free-ride on other people's having children, I would favor payroll-tax cuts based on the number of kids people have. But there is no substitute for cutting future benefit levels. (Ideally, this would be coupled with private accounts.)

From a reader:

Regarding the responses to the "silly screed" on the Patriot Act - the reason why the readers can't figure out what the lady is talking about regarding the misc Section of the Patriot Act is because she's referring to the so-called "Patriot Act II" - WHICH NEVER PASSED CONGRESS.

So, basically, the lady is railing about "the Patriot Act" as cover for railing about things that were never made into law….sheesh!

See here for zany comments regarding "Patriot Act II":

The imperialistic, capitalistic Christian Crusaders and their Jewish overlords have made video games that are so good Arab kids can't avoid playing them even though they're racist:

Cairo - Glued to computer screens in a Cairo cybercafe, Egyptian teenagers lead United States forces against China and a shadowy Middle Eastern group, while most of the country seethes in anger against US policy in the region.

The US-produced computer game Command and Conquer: Generals portrays a scenario in which the US and China battle the Global Liberation Army (GLA), a Middle Eastern underground movement with a fondness for chemical weapons.

The teenagers say the game reinforces the western image of Arabs as "terrorists" with introductory scenes showing them gunning down civilians and stealing US aid, but the graphics and high-octane action keeps them hooked.

"I really like the game. I play it every day. I miss it if I don't play it for a day. I know it's racist but what can I do? It's a good game," said 16-year-old Ahmed Mohsen.

First from the gub'ment the second from the private sector:

Jonah,

I am a macroeconomic theorist. There is nothing about increasing rates
of productivity which requires a high or low birthrate.
Generally, increasing productivity is an unmitigated good thing. You
can use the higher productivity to produce the same
amount of stuff with fewer workers or fewer hours per worker, or use
the extra productivity to produce more stuff, or anywhere
in between.

But for all you keep saying that you don't know economics, as usual,
you have things basically correct. We could, in theory,
have relatively few do all the work as productivity increases. For
example, if all we wanted to do was have a 1910 standard of
living, we certainly could achieve this with a very small fraction of
the population working. Of course, we can do better than
this. Who wants that much leisure if your standard of living is that
low?

Generqally, economics is quite silent on what birthrates "should" be.

You're right, increased productivity helps ease the burden a lot. But the models that anyone runs to estimate Social Security obligations account for productivity growth. Of course, differing opinions on the speed of productivity growth will change the estimated date of bankruptcy for the program, but I don't think many economists expect productivity to grow fast enough to keep the program flush for baby busters.

I would be curious to hear NRO contributors comment on immigration policy as it relates to this problem.

In the wake of the Saudi car bombings, Saudi Arabia's top cleric declares that suicide bombers -- who kill Muslims, of course -- will "burn in hell."

From a Hill-wonk:

Jonah, your analysis on whether or not rising productivity will mitigate the problem of lower birth rates is a bit off. As far as output is concerned – you are completely correct. We can make more with less when productivity increases. With regard to Social Security, however, it’s a problem because the gross amount of taxes paid into Social Security are affected more by the quantity of workers than the quantity of output. At the moment, the cap on payroll taxes prevents the exploitation of the highly compensated (and I don’t think raising taxes is really the best way to face the demographic and fiscal challenges posed by Social Security). While it is unequivocally true that productivity in the long-run increases wages and standard of living, the demographic problem with Social Security independent of productivity is that we just won’t have enough workers paying taxes to support the vast number of retirees drawing money from the system. Outsized increases in productivity may actually serve to exacerbate the problem. This is not to say that productivity is bad – it’s not. It’s the primary means by which we increase our wages and standard of living while keeping inflation low. If anything, it’s yet another reason why Social Security needs to be modernized in the very near future so that we can avoid this kind of fiscal calamity.

Lots and lots of active Corner readers are librarians (draw your own conclusion about what that says about their workload). We welcome and appreciate them. Nonetheless, I do like this email:

Hi Jonah. As a professional librarian, in both the corporate and the academic world, for over 17 years I think I can provide you with some insight into why librarians are so sensitive about their image.

The dirty secret that no ones wants to own up to about this profession
is that it really isn't a profession at all, certainly not in the way
lawyers or doctors or engineers use the term. It's more like a trade
that any intelligent 20 year old could be trained to do in 6 months.
Sure, there are a lot of things that you pick up from experience but
the idea that you need a masters degree to do this job is just
ridiculous. But they (ALA, etc.) set up barriers, like the requirement
of a Masters, in order to provide the image that there is more to this
job then their really is. Librarians know this deep down, they
basically have a chip on their shoulders about not being taken seriously
as a profession, so they go out of their way to inflate their importance
to society. Thus we have the ALA's "Banned Book Week" when in fact any
intelligent person knows full well that there are no banned books in
this country at all. Just because a library doesn't have a book in its
collection doesn't make that book banned, but apparently the ALA defines
banned as meaning that someone might have to go on Amazon.com and buy it
themselves. The leftists at the ALA just can't stand that fact that some
right wing tax payer would have the gall to object to his or her tax
dollars being used to purchase books that they object to (Heather Has
Two Daddies, etc.). What they really object to of course is having
someone question their "professional" judgment. So they use a
deliberately provocative term, banned books, to conjure up images of
Nazis burning books. Likewise, the ALA has to treat the Patriot Act as
some monstrosity that we need them to protect us from in order for them
to be able to portray themselves as important to societies future.. It
is true that we keep circulation records confidential and there are good
reasons for that. But to say that because the FBI or some other law
enforcement agency now has the right to take a look at those (with a
court order I might add) that we are now in some sort of police state
only goes to show how desperate the majority of the "leaders" of this
profession are to maintain the fiction that they are important and
needed gate keepers for society.

Better not post my name with this if you put it on the Corner, this is
traitorous hate speech to this crowd.

I've gotten a lot of email from folks dissecting that silly screed about the Patriot Act I linked to yesterday in this post. I thought I was making it clear that I tought there were all sorts of other things wrong with the op-ed other than the thing about libraries, I just was too tired to get into all of it. Anyway, lots of folks have done my work for me. I particularly like this one:

Jonah,

There are no Sections 126, 128, or 129 in the USA PATRIOT Act. Title I stops at Section 106. As for Sections 321 and 322, Sec. 321 simply extends the definition of "financial institution" to credit unions and futures commission merchants, commodity trading advisors and commodity pool operators.

Sec. 322 applies existing law governing fugitive disentitlement to corporations if a majority shareholder or an individual acting in the name of the corporation is a fugitive from justice.

N.B. Although Sec. 322 of the Patriot Act says "Section 2466 of title 18", this is a misprint, as there is no Section 2466 in title 18. It meant title 28, and this has been corrected in the latest version of the US Code.

In addition, the author states, "[u]nder Section 312 of the Patriot Act, a suspected terrorist can be arrested and detained if he or she says something the government does not agree with." Section 312 is about standards for financial accounts maintained foreign individuals and has nothing to do with alleged seditious speech.

None of the sections described by that article (even the ones that actually exist) has anything whatsoever to do with "credit records, library records and homes", nor is Sami Al-Arian going to be prosecuted under the Patriot Act for "a statement he made ... in Arabic about Israel." In short, it helps to READ the bill before waxing apoplectic.

It seems that the issue I spent so much time boning up on at the begining of my "career" in Washington is moving back on the radar: Population trends. I used to work for Ben Wattenberg, author of the Birth Dearth and other controversial demographic polemics, and he would make me read about Total Fertility Rates in the Third World and everywhere else all day. Anyway, the other night I saw a scare-mongering documentary on Nova about population trends around the world and then yesterday I listened on NPR to an author from the New America Foundation talking about his book on the problems of declining birthrates here in the US. Plus the issue comes up more and more in the immigration and Social Security debates.

To sum it up, Americans -- like everyone else in the industrialized world -- are having too few babies. If, by "too few" you mean not enough babies to replenish the workforce going into entitlement-rich retirement. Not enough workers at the bottom of the system means not enough taxpayers to generate Social Security checks. In America we offset this problem to a certain extent with immigration. We import young workers to make up for the ones we don't manufacture at home.

Anyway, suddenly, some liberals are becoming pronatalists (i.e. someone who favors policy supporting higher birthrates) when a little more than a decade ago they were saying folks like Wattenberg were right out of the Handmaid's Tale. That's cool.

But here's my question and it is entirely theoretical (for I am still very much a pronatalist): Don't the unprecedented increases in productivity mitigate the pronatalist argument somewhat? In theory couldn't we make a comparatively small handfull of workers (or, heh, nanobot androids) so productive that we wouldn't need that many more workers? Is there anything in the realm of pure economic theory which says that a very large society couldn't simply exploit the highly productive (and therefore highly compensated) labor of a relatively small few? Or am I missing something having been absent from this issue for so long?

I was intrigued by this idea of half a million soldiers doing house-to-house searches in Frankfurt. What I found was that it was not limited to Frankfurt, that it was called "Operation TALLYHO", and that it occurred on the weekend of 21 July 1945.

The best resource I have found so far is in Chapter 17 of the book "THE U.S. ARMY IN THE OCCUPATION OF GERMANY: 1944-1946" by Earl F. Ziemke, published by the U.S. Army Center of Military History, available online here. [To quote:]

"As a kind of housewarming for the zone, USFET [U.S. Forces European Theater]planned and, in forty-eight hours beginning at daybreak on 21 July, executed a check and search operation code-named TALLYHO. The objectives were to check the credentials of all persons in the zone, civilian or military; to search all premises and individuals for prohibited articles, such as firearms and stolen US government property; and to search for evidence of black-marketeering. Staged in secret, to the extent that an operation employing 163,000 troops in the Western Military District alone could be kept a secret, TALLYHO apparently did at least take most Germans by surprise. It raised a fast-traveling wave of rumors: that there had been a jailbreak, that an American officer had been shot, that the Americans were making a last minute search for loot before turning the zone over to the Russians. After the surprise wore off, which took no more than four hours, the Germans became quite co-operative; and some of them began to arrange their property in neat displays, as if for ‘showdown inspection.’ The search brought in 2,747 illegal small arms, 2,658 miscellaneous items of Army clothing and equipment, 340 AWOL soldiers, and evidence for 23 fraternization cases. The confiscated black-market goods amounted to 100 gallons of gasoline, 1,000 pounds each of sugar and flour, 75 pounds of coffee, 138 automobile tires, and 300 pairs of shoes, which in total, [the American forces]…concluded with not quite flawless logic, constituted ‘no evidence of an organized black market.’ Of the 83,000 Germans arrested, 77,000 were held for nothing more than improper identification papers. In the end, however, USFET believed TALLYHO was a success in that it impressed German population ‘with the serious intention of the American troops.’”

It was Reagan who re-moralized American foreign policy after years of Nixonian detente and it's simply not accurate to say that Reagan did so solely or even primarily as a mouthpiece for the neocons.

Here is how the imperialist plot in Iraq was proceeding until recently. The Shiite Muslim pilgrimages to Najaf and Karbala and the Sunni pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina had been recommenced after a state ban that had lasted for years and been enforced in blood. A new dinar had been minted, without the face of the dictator, and was on its way to becoming convertible. (Indeed, recent heists at the Beirut and Baghdad airports suggested that the Iraqi currency was at last worth stealing.) The deliberately parched and scorched wetlands of the south were being re-flooded. At the end of June, the American headquarters was to be converted into an embassy. At that point, almost $100 billion was to become available for the reconstitution of the Iraqi state and society. By the end of the year, campaigning would be under way for the first open election in Iraqi memory, and the only such election in the region (unless you count Israel)….

Of what does this confrontation remind you? Why, of Vietnam, says Sen. Edward Kennedy.

I do hope no one thinks it too inappropriate that I pass on tidbits from pops. If it helps, it's not like I post all of them.

Derb - Please take this in the spirit it was meant. From Poppa Goldberg:

Derb cites the old cliche that nothing rhymes with "orange." For decades I have pointed out to those foolish enough to listen that the solution to this is "Not so far, Inge." William Inge is the famous playwright (now dead) -- Picnic, Come Back Little Sheba, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, etc. I leave it to Derb - if he wishes - to create the poem or dialogue around this phrase....[I think] It is a better rhyme than the one he chose, which depended on spelling more than sound.

I'm too tired to wade into or care about all of this, but I love this part:

Under Sections 126, 128, 129, 321 and 322 of the Patriot Act, the government can search credit records, library records and homes of suspected terrorists or, as the Bush administration says, “enemy combatants” without obtaining a warrant. Someone someday is going to check your library records, people, so I suggest you be careful. [Emphasis mine]

What is so sacred about libraries? What, aside from access to internet porn, is so sensitive that critics of the Patriot Act single out libraries above all other things? Seriously, what's the worst case scenario? I mean even if you took out the most radically subversive tracts in history, no one would care. And for most of us it'd be funny, not scary. Dear God! The G-Men know I'm reading back issues of Cracked and Omni!

UPDATE: WOOPS! I didn't include the link. Here it is. Sorry about that.

David Cay Johnston's latest attack on Bush's tax cuts is one of his weirdest. Supposedly the tax code now violates principles of "horizontal equity" (similarly situated people should pay the same rate) and "vertical equity" (people with a greater ability to pay should pay more) that were valued by the citizens of Athens, John Locke, Adam Smith, and even the Cato Institute.

Johnston uses the Bush and Cheney tax returns to illustrate the supposed problem. The Cheneys had more than twice the income of the Bushes but paid about the same in taxes. The Cheneys paid a lower tax rate than most people in their income range. Much of the difference, as Johnston acknowledges, has to do with the taxation of dividends. But a reduction in the double taxation of dividends is compatible with both horizontal and vertical equity; it just changes the definition of that equity. To make the point as simply as possible: If all the dividends were taxed at the individual level and left untaxed at the corporate level, Johnston's "problem" would go away--yet nothing substantial would have changed.

It all depends on definitions of terms such as "income"--and "equity." Here's Johnston: "The Bush and Cheney returns also show the collapse of vertical equity, under which one's tax burden rises with income and which the libertarian Cato Institute calls a 'bedrock American principle.'" I googled "cato institute 'bedrock american principle'" and got an article that does indeed suggest that at least one Cato policy analyst is against something he calls "vertical inequality." But this analyst means something quite different from what Johnston means. He fairly clearly is suggesting that it is unfair to tax someone at a higher rate just because he makes more money. That's not quite what Johnston has in mind.

Libertarian Reluctantly Calls Fire Department

CHEYENNE, WY—After attempting to contain a living-room blaze started by a cigarette, card-carrying Libertarian Trent Jacobs reluctantly called the Cheyenne Fire Department Monday. "Although the community would do better to rely on an efficient, free-market fire-fighting service, the fact is that expensive, unnecessary public fire departments do exist," Jacobs said. "Also, my house was burning down." Jacobs did not offer to pay firefighters for their service.