Thank you for your e-mail alerting us to this situation, as until today, we were unaware of it. Surprisingly, we did not know this content resided on our Web site and you are right, it should not be there. This is a purchased library program, and we should have taken greater care in ensuring this information was not included. We are working now to delete this content from the library and hope to have this corrected promptly. Again, thank you for alerting us and for your concern for the protection of Catholic teachings and Providence Health System.

Jews and Christians had centuries to accomplish the transition from public and political religion to private and communal religion, whereas circumstances press moderate Muslims to do this on the spot. The two older religions did so under duress, chaotically, and with limited success. Whether Islam can make such a transition at all remains doubtful.

...The tragedy will continue to unfold, and at a faster pace. Jews and Christians have learned to accept humiliation. God's love for the individual soul remains valid despite worldly reverses, and failure in the temporal realm provides cause for self-evaluation. Humiliation is intolerable to Islam; Allah sets the spin of every electron around every nucleus by a discrete act of will, and reverses in the temporal world challenge Islam's promise of success.

STATEMENT BY THE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY

The United States is deeply disturbed by extensive and credible indications of fraud committed in the Ukrainian presidential election. We strongly support efforts to review the conduct of the election and urge Ukrainian authorities not to certify results until investigations of organized fraud are resolved. We call on the Government of Ukraine to respect the will of the Ukrainian people, and we urge all Ukrainians to resolve the situation through peaceful means. The Government bears a special responsibility not to use or incite violence, and to allow free media to report accurately on the situation without intimidation or coercion. The United States stands with the Ukrainian people in this difficult time.

A note from a cruiser:

I am also decompressing from the cruise and thought you'd appreciate an observation that was made after you were spotted on the Lido Deck for the first time and news of your arrival spread like wildfire among the fellow-cruisers.

"We just a bunch of conservative nerds."

I've decided I finally know what it feels like to be at a Star Trek convention ("Look, there's the guy who played Shish-Tak from the Third Episode of the Second Season!") but without the funny ears and costumes.

Thanks for the great memories.

Because of the cruise I didn't follow this story too closely and now I feel hopelessly behind. So let's just set the record straight. If anyone in the GOP thinks it's a good idea for the Congress to be able to troll through the income tax records of private citizens, I think they're nuts. That said, since the GOP seems to have realized this was a bonehead mistake and not a real plan, I can't get too worked up over it. However, if someone's actually defending the idea on the merits, I'd love to hear about it since it sounds so idiotic. Maybe I'm missing something.

Drudge has this item:

ADDRESSES CBS NEWSROOM AT APPROXIMATELY 1:39PM EST [Partial transcript -- joined in progress]: No matter what you hear elsewhere, this was a mutual decision. The timing has to do with (wanting to separate) this decision to leave the anchor chair... from the (investigation) of the 60 MINUTES report. The decision got made the way I described. There is nothing more important (to me) than how honored I am to work with the greatest news organization in the world. Thank you for coming. We're not going to spend much time (on questions) because we have news to cover. (Offered to answer questions, but staff simply gave his signature 'hip hip' three cheers.) Let's get back to work. Thanks everyone.

If I'm reading this right, you gotta love that the "greatest news organization in the world" didn't see much need to ask questions. They have "news to cover" after all. But then again they're treating Rather's departure as big news, but they don't have any questions, even though the chief source is right there. You can't beat that kind of news sense my friends.

If you can stand two e-mails from Wyoming on this topic, union organizing is the actual reason Wal-Mart and others are eliminating solicitations. The National Labor Relations Board has repeatedly held that if an employer allows an undefined amount of charitable solicitation on the premises, the employer cannot prohibit unions from coming on the property to solicit employees to join the union or sign a card calling for a union election. To make matters worse, the rule has no bright line -- no employer knows with any degree of comfort how much charitable solicitation is too much. If an employer unwittingly crosses the gray area, and then refuses to allow a union to come onto the property, the union can file an unfair labor practice charge alleging the employer discriminated against union organizing in violation of federal law. Wal-Mart, Target, and the rest are likely recognizing this risk.

If you would like to see the application of this rule taken to its absurd extreme, review the opinion letter of the NLRB General Counsel issued shortly after 9/11 as it relates to charitable solicitations arising from that event.

I know there are people in publishing out there who read the Corner, so let me just vent for a monent. Over a lunch of some reheated, home-made, pizza I picked up a copy of the Weekly Standard. In it is a very nice review of Gertrude Himmelfarb's new book, The Roads to Modernity. She's been working on this book for a very long time and I've been waiting for it to appear for a very long time. Did I get a review copy in the mail? No I did not. Indeed, I rarely get review copies of books that would make any sense for me to review. I get lots of paperback releases by lesbian poets and deaf African-Americans overcoming their hardships. I get review copies of self-published books by authors seeking to blow the lid off the upholstery business (yes, that's an Odd Couple reference). But when it comes to the books I might actually be inclined to review I get nada, bupkis, zilch. Now I know this sounds kind of spoiled, since most people don't get review copies. And that's why I haven't complained about this in the past. But, look, I'm a slow reader and a busy guy. If I wait for these things to hit the stands, it's a lot harder for me to write something before it's too late. Moreover, my wife has issued a fatwah that I'm no longer allowed to buy books off of Amazon -- or anywhere else -- because I bought so many doing research (a similar fatwah exists against subscribing to more magazines). Besides I should get review copies. NRO is read by 9 trillion people, by my own estimate. My syndicated column appears in many of the top 20 newspapers around the country.

So look folks at Knopf and elsewhere: I won't be writing any reviews of books about what it was like to grow-up hemaphroditic on the African veldt. But I just might write about big cool books about history, public policy, philosophy and stuff like that. If you want to know where to send them, you know how to find me.

Stuart Taylor Jr. recycles the conventional wisdom that overturning Roe v. Wade would be a disaster for Republicans--which doesn't mean he's wrong! He cites polls selectively to show that Roe, and abortion-on-demand, are popular--but those polls reflect real tendencies in American opinion. Here, however, is where Taylor (along with the CW) becomes questionable: "But it seems pretty clear that headlines such as 'Bush Court Overrules Roe v. Wade' would be a disaster for the Republican Party. And its candidates would then have to choose between alienating most voters by mounting a futile push to outlaw abortion (which the Court would not do) and alienating the most loyal Republican voting bloc by not doing so" (emphasis added).

A lot would depend on how President Bush (or the leading Republican of the day) reacted. (An object lesson in what not to do can be had by reviewing the reaction of Bush's father to the Court's Webster decision in 1989.) Anyway, the assumption seems to be that the idealism of the pro-life movement will overwhelm their pragmatism. What if the first move of pro-lifers after Roe were to try to ban third-trimester abortions? The courts would no longer be in the business of rescuing pro-choice Democrats' most extreme positions. Wouldn't the shoe be on the other foot then? The Democrats would then have to choose between satisfying hard-core pro-aborts and appealing to the center.

I can't say what the political circumstances would be in a post-Roe world (though I'd be delighted to find out). Maybe pro-lifers would go too far too fast; maybe pro-choicers would quickly abandon weak positions. I can think of two reasons for thinking pro-lifers would come out ahead here. The first is that, while pro-lifers have often been depicted as absolutists and fools, they have played the hands they have been dealt pretty well (and increasingly well). The second is that I assume pro-choicers have a reason for fighting so hard to protect Roe.

From a reader:

In honor of Dan Rather’s new job, perhaps we all should watch “Network” again to remind ourselves what happens when a news anchor gets fired.

Dan Rather as the “mad prophet of the airwaves?” That remains to be seen.

I find this particularly interesting because just today I bought some care packages and phone cards at the USO site. From a post on Craig's list:

I am sick and tired of the "we support our troops" mantra. Ever since Vietnam, it has been heresy to say anything other than "we stand behind the troops 100%."

It's now time for that mindless, absurd bromide to end. You want to participate in the invasion of a foreign nation on false pretenses then, after the entire planet has realized you're there on a resource grab, you are still killing unarmed civilians in mosques? You want to murder entire families at checkpoints because they don't slow down enough for you? You want to shut down religious newspapers and imprison clerics? You want to torture, murder, and sexually abuse prisoners in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention, destroying centuries of moral high ground our ancestors spent their lives building?

You're on your own, soldier. We do NOT sanction that, you don't represent us, and we do NOT support you in any way.

Are the soldiers "just doing their job"? Are they "just following orders"? Yes, they ARE following orders--just as German soldiers did at the concentration camps in World War II. When you willingly obey the immoral, illegal orders of others, you become inextricably linked to their immorality and their evil. Following orders is a rationalization; it is NEVER an excuse. You are no different than those issuing the orders simply because you're just being a "good German" and doing your job.

Update: The post has been removed.

I've been wondering who to write to about this ever since the story "broke" and you guys are the lucky winners. I just don't understand what all the hoopla is about surrounding this bell-ringer ordeal.

It was only within the last two Christmas seasons that local Wal-Mart -- yes, Wal-Mart -- stores here in Wyoming, conservative capital USA, banned Salvation Army bell-ringers from its store property. The reason? The same reason they banned Girl Scouts and church groups as well... they banned every group that was soliciting something. No more bake sales, bell ringing, cookie selling, etc. Why? Because legally, if they allowed one group on the premises, they had to allow any other group the same amount of allotted space. So, to curb the problem before it got out of hand, they just banned all soliciting....And now that Target has done the same thing, there are thousands of people up in arms about it....The real story here shouldn't be that Target made the same decision that dozens of other retailers, including Wal-Mart, have already made. The real story ought to be invasive laws passed by our government that force stores to make those decisions or have their customers bombarded with solicitors when trying to enter the building. Let's not demonize Target without understanding the whole situation.

My original post was before I learned that they're keeping him on at CBS. Still the media thumbsuckers will treat this as sad news, I still predict. Nevertheless, this emailers expresses a reasonable and common response:

You're wrong - it won't be reported as a "tragedy". It'll be reported as non-news, because it doesn't really have anything to do with the Bush Guard memos. It's just a normal "evolution of his career". And they'll use the fact that he's still staying on 60 minutes, where he launched the damnable memos in the first place, as evidence of it. Until he's fired from CBS altogether, with Memogate as the directly attributed reason, this is a non-victory.

Re today's G-File:

Dude.

Fine, mock Brown all you like (class of '93), but GAMBLOR is my personal ridiculously obscure Simpsons reference, so back off.

BTW: Big fan.

Ron

Let me be perfectly clear: it is wonderful, wonderful news that Dan Rather is stepping down. The media will report on this -- I predict -- as if it is some kind of tragedy. Too many big league journalists are too invested in the notion that news anchors are American heros for them to read this event any other way. Expect downplaying and derision aimed at the bloggers, conservaatives etc. Dan Rather has plenty to be proud of to look back on -- particularly given his biases -- and he's got piles and piles of cash to boot. Shed no tears, make no apologies. He deserved to lose his job for Memogate -- and no matter what they say, he did. This is just wonderful, wonderful news.

ASA SPONSORS CAPITOL TOUR FOR LOCAL STUDENTS

Sousa Middle School Students Tour Capitol

(Washington, DC) Thanks to American Student Assistance (ASA) and Senator Ted Kennedy’s office, nearly 50 eighth graders were given a special tour of the Capitol yesterday.

“It is important for these kids, who live in the shadow of the Capitol Dome, to have the opportunity to see the inner workings of their Capital,” said Shelley Saunders, Executive Vice President for ASA. “Maybe it will ignite a spark of enthusiasm for public service or government work.”

American Student Assistance provided the bus and lunch for the students. Liz Maher of Senator Kennedy’s office arranged the tour....

to go home early: a rambling G-file on conservatism, Safire and some other stuff is now up.

Together forever.

I like this email:

I met my future wife after I broke a guy’s nose that had dumped a cup of beer on her. Chivalry is not dead!

From a reader:

Jonah, Your linked article is quite relevant to this discussion and should be read by those wishing to participate. There is a distinction between private and public actions. Although bad behavior does warrant a good ass kicking, Public bad behavior is best handled by "the Authorities". i.e. police, courts, the NBA, the house ethics committee- whoever. A private a**-kicking...encourages corrective behavior. A public one (the basketbrawl) can start a riot. An a**-kicking society may be a polite one, but a lawful society is an orderly one.

And, from another reader:

I'm so tired of reading and hearing comments like those expressed in the Artest email that you recently posted. The night of the brawl John Saunders said on ESPN that if you're walking in Times Square and someone throws a beer at you, you'd do the same thing. Both the email writer and Saunders improperly compare two disparate events.

Society expects and demands extraordinary behavior from certain individuals or certain classes of individuals. Jackie Robinson took a lot more abuse than Ron Artest, but he never retaliated. He knew that to do so would damage his career and the potential careers of black athletes that would follow him. Restraint was demanded and he accepted that responsibility.

Similarly, we demand restraint from law enforcement officials, your "hidden law" column notwithstanding. And it has been a not-unspoken rule that we insist that professional athletes not go into the stands after idiotic fans. A professional athlete is required to consider these situations ahead of time. He knows that he will be performing in hostile arenas half the time. He has to be aware that idiots and alcohol might combine to create situations such as the one that occurred the other night -- athletes get stuff thrown at them all the time. He has to understand that no matter what happens, he must rely on security to handle such situations.

The entire event would have been over with no fan involvement if Artest had not climbed into the stands. "Hidden laws" are supposed to make things run BETTER. Artest's actions made everything much, much worse. There's NO justification for what he did, none. I'm sure this is a girl thing (never have I been more convinced of the superiority of females than I have during the past few days), but it never would have occurred to me to do what Artest did. I can't say -- as so many sportswriters have -- that "I understand why he did it, but..."

I know you said you didn't "entirely" agree with the email that you posted -- but you posted it just the same. I want to be on the record saying that I entirely disagree with the email because the premise that what Ron Artest experienced was the same as what anyone experiences when a cup of beer is thrown in one's face is faulty. The email may have been clever and witty but it's still basically stupid.

And now I'm going to get in sooooo much trouble from Kathryn for the public bawdy language this (now hopefully concluded) series of posts has generated.

And we are happy for it.

Folks, just to be clear, I am all in favor of Artest's punishment. I don't follow the NBA really at all. But it seems to me very close to a prison league with better salaries in terms of the role models and style of play it promotes. Besides, the NBA is a private league and I am all in favor of private institutions putting the interests of the institution (and, in this case, the country) above the interests of its individual members. But I do stand by the general principle that if you throw a beer in a dude's face you shouldn't cry like a little girl if you get decked for it (that was the point I liked about the initial email). In this actual instance the extenuating circumstances don't back Artest up. Again, I don't follow this stuff closely, but these two emails are fairly representative and persuasive in my book:

maybe what Ron Artest did should constitute a hate crime? When Ben Wallace shoved Artest, his reaction was of complete calm. Artest knew that Wallace was going to be suspended and since Indiana and Detroit are two top teams, Ron made a conscious decision to NOT fight back. He knew he'd be suspended if he fought back against Wallace. So, in the heat of the moment, we know that Artest can think things through...

But when a white fan throws a plastic cup of beer on him, all hell breaks loose. Surely the Wallace shove was more physical and potentially damaging than a plastic cup of beer.

Plus, we don't live in a self regulating society...if we did, the fans who saw Ron Artest attack the wrong guy would, in your poster's world, have the right to knock the snot out of Artest for his misdeed.

And...

Throw a cup of beer in someone's face and get beat up, sure. But isn't there an also an unwritten rule that when you get jacked up, chased down the court, and have a towel thrown on you, you stand your ground and fight? Because that's what Ben Wallace did to Artest. And in response, Artest, tough guy that he is, laid down on the scorer's table. But when some scrawny little guy in the stands chucks a soda on him, all of a sudden he's gotta defend his manhood?

I agree with the taking a beating point. But the person who should have taken his beating like a man, or as a standup guy or whatever, was Artest. If it's a long standing social tradition to get beat up for beer throwing, then it's also a long standing tradition to heap opprobrium on the guy who runs away from the big guy to beat up the little guy.

From another reader:

While I enjoy the Heinleinesque attitude Artest attacked the wrong guy! He jumped the guy next to the thrower. I think he should be banned for life.

One of the oldest themes in my columns is the concept of the "hidden law." Maybe that's why I liked this email (sent to me and Geraghty) even if I don't completely agree with it:

I think it a simple rule of life: Throw a cup of beer in someone’s face you get your a** kicked. I think this a conservative position; it has been a rule for thousands of years. This rule has been passed down from our Mongol, Viking, even the French forefathers. I have personally observed this rule in effect in the civilized and conservative communities of South Philadelphia and the Harvard campus. Why should we expect 20 year olds to ignore thousands of years of social conditioning simply because they make $6 million a year?

Artest showed great initiative and perseverance in kicking that guy’s ass, a model of individual responsibility in a self regulating society. In fact, absent the subsequent activities of lawyers, I am certain that the a**-kickee will think twice about throwing further cups of beer. To paraphrase Robert A. Heinlein ‘an a** kicking society is a polite society’.

I grew up in South Philly (yo) and strongly believe that ‘taking a beating’ for improper conduct is a social good. During the 1980’s, and I assume to this day, the honorable Philadelphia police would offer a beating as an alternative to arrest for minor offenses. If you took the beating the cops then thought of you as a stand-up kid.

This fall I'm planning on finally dumping AOL and updating my entire web/email world. I'm going to buy a new blackberry doohickey (my old one was the lame AOL Mobile Communicator, long defunct), change my email system etc. etc. Here's the problem, I used to be fairly techno savvy, but years of Mac and AOL use has caused my muscles to atrophy -- both literally and in the sense that I no longer have a firm grip on what PPOEs and DNS watchyamafradgets are. So here's what I'm looking for and I would appreciate any guidance.

1. First, No web-based email. I simply don't like the feel of 'em.
2. I want to be able to synch everything: laptop, blackberry, desktop etc.
3. I want everything to be easy. I know that PC people think that it's not "serious" unless it's difficult and involves a whole bunch of dot-sys-batch files and C-prompts. But I want to make this one upgrade and then continue on my blissful slide into ignorance about how it all works.

My systems: I'm a Mac Guy -- and that will not change. I have a G-4 laptop (on its last legs) and a G-5 desktop. I haven't bought the PDA doohickey yet. My ISP is a local cable company. I do most everything on WiFi.

So what I'm looking for is the best email software, the best blackberry (probably PDA-phone combo) and the best way to hook 'em all together (blue tooth etc). Another thing: I would like to have, if possible, multiple email addresses that can all be checked easily and interchangeably by my various devices without mucking up the synching and the rest. Guidance would be very much appreciated.

But one more favor: please please send all suggestions, advice and criticisms on this issue to JonahResearch@aol.com. My JonahNRO email can't withstand the onslaught of a tech bleg, and keeping it all there helps me refer back to it. I don't mean to sound cranky, but for reasons that should be pretty obvious, techblegs for a readership which is by definition fairly computer savvy always result in lots and lots of email.

Thanks again and any help really is very much appreciated.

The DoD just launched www.AmericaSupportsYou.mil so that servicemen and servicewomen and all Americans can log on and see how communities are displaying support for America’s armed forces. Those who log on are also encouraged to share stories of their own support.

I came across a mention of National Review...in the book The Interrogators. The was highlighting how many of the Intel guys were leftists. However, there was one young man who in his spare time in Afghanistan read the National Review.

Dear Sir,

I am french and I am outraged by this book you just wrote. I don't know what your intentions are, but I can see nothing good in calling another country "the oldest ennemy".

This very title is proven wrong right away by the small excerpt presented online. You rightly remind that Chirac was the first foreign leader on ground zero. You could have call it "the new enemy". I still would have hated the intention, but at least it wouldn't be misleading for the many who will not read the book and don't know anything about history. It sounds like you made an historical research and found out that France really has been an ennemy over time, which is false: you are only studying the last 4 years!!

We are thankful for what the US did in WWII, but we gave our lives for your freedom long before you did for us. Do I have to remind you that France helped liberating the US in the first place? So no doubts we don't owe you anything but friendship.

I won't bother you much more with my views, which you probably don't care about anyway since I'm one of those "enemy", but I just want you to know that France will always be on the side of Liberty and Human Rights, and that we are actually proud to be considered like an enemy by people like you. The parallel you're making with Ivory Coast only proves your total ignorance of History and Africa. Today, the UN security council gave an UNANIMOUS (US included) clearance of french action in this country. The same cannot be said over Irak!

The US are falling in the trap of Ben Laden, and only religious fanatics can buy it so easily and forget about international law for example! Your work will contribute to the end of the union of the western civilisation and eventually of democracy. You can be proud!

No salutation.

[name withheld]