The British Indepdent offers this headline about the Alexander the Great bomb (nod to Peter Schramm at No Left Turns):

Alexander the (not so) Great fails to conquer America's homophobes

Oops--was already mentioned earlier. Still High-larious.

Kathryn -- I thought readers of The Corner might find this interesting/maddening/amusing. Note the differences between how AP introduces the nominee for Commerce vs. how the NYT does. Here's the AP:

"WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush on Monday chose Carlos Gutierrez, a native of Cuba who rose from truck driver to chief executive officer of Kellogg Co., to be secretary of Commerce. "

Here's the Times, or at least what goes out to the Times News Service:

"BUSH FILLS FOURTH SLOT IN SECOND TERM CABINET
" (For use by New York Times News Service clients.)
" By STEWART M. POWELL û
" c. 2004 Hearst Newspapers û

" WASHINGTON - President Bush on Monday named multimillionaire Carlos Gutierrez, the Cuba-born head of the $9 billion-a-year Kellogg cereal company, to join his 15-member Cabinet as secretary of commerce in a continued shake up for the second term.

" Bush announced the selection of the 51-year-old corporate executive..."

Amidst all the turmoil in the Ukraine, I expected at least one person in the Corner to mention that nation's last foray into mainstream culture. In the great Risk episode of Seinfeld, Kramer is battling away destroying Newman's armies. While riding the subway, the following scene takes place:

Newman: I'm not beaten yet. I still have armies in the Ukraine.

This comment perks up the ears of what appears to be a Russian immigrant.

Kramer: Ha ha, the Ukraine. Do you know what the Ukraine is? It's a sitting duck. A road apple, Newman. The Ukraine is weak. It's feeble. I think it's time to put the hurt on the Ukraine.

Ukrainian: I come from Ukraine. You not say Ukraine weak.

Kramer: Yeah, well we're playing a game here, pal.

Ukrainian: Ukraine is game to you?! Howbout I take your little board and smash it!!

The Ukrainian pounds the game board, destroying it and sending army pieces flying.

I think this episode should be front and center in the formulation of US policy during the current crisis.

From a reader:

Jonah, Watch the knee-jerk there, pal. To condemn private property in land is not to condemn private property. Rousseau's point, which was made even more clear by Henry George about a hundred years or so later, was that you can't just fence off a piece of land, hoist a flag, and declare it yours. If no one was in California, and I fenced it off and named it after myself, would I then have the right to charge people to settle on it? C'est ridicule!

The fact is that no one can really "own" land because no one made land.
People do however, improve land all the time. To these improvements people
can claim full rights. There is however, an underlying value in improved
land, the value of the land in its unimproved form. To grant people rights to
that value is, at its heart, anti-capitalist.

Consider the idea of licensing. The government grants licenses to a certain
amount of cabbies in any given city. Because of this, there are less cab
drivers than their would be if there was no required license. This government
imposed quota on the number of cabbies drives profits in the cabbie industry
above what they would be in a purely competitive cabbie market. These excess
profits are what economists call "rent." The emergence of unlicensed black
market cab drivers in many US cities is an example of entrepreneurs trying to
get a piece of that rent, those excess profits.

The same thing happens with land; the government grants artificial rights to
"own" land the same way it grants artifical rights to drive a cab. Excess
profits again arise, but it's more difficult for a uh, land-owning black
market to emerge as well.

Keep fighting the good fight.

Sincerely,
a conservative on campus

It's funny, I was saying almost the exact same thing to my wife this morning. But I was too lazy to look up the transcript. From a reader:

Amidst all the turmoil in the Ukraine, I expected at least one person in the Corner to mention that nation's last foray into mainstream culture. In the great Risk episode of Seinfeld, Kramer is battling away destroying Newman's armies. While riding the subway, the following scene takes place:

Newman: I'm not beaten yet. I still have armies in the
Ukraine.

This comment perks up the ears of what appears to be a Russian immigrant.

Kramer: Ha ha, the Ukraine. Do you know what the Ukraine is? It's a sitting duck. A road apple, Newman. The Ukraine is weak. It's feeble. I think it's time to put the hurt on the Ukraine.

Ukrainian: I come from Ukraine. You not say Ukraine weak.

Kramer: Yeah, well we're playing a game here, pal.

Ukrainian: Ukraine is game to you?! Howbout I take your little board and smash it!!

The Ukrainian pounds the game board, destroying it and sending army pieces flying.

I think this episode should be front and center in the formulation of US policy during the current crisis.

Kind of makes it hard to like the guy. From a friend:

I think your learned reader may have missed some things, like this from JJR's Discourse on Inequality: "The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. Humanity would have been spared infinite crimes, wars, homicides, murders, if only someone had ripped up the fences or filled in the ditches and said, "Do not listen to this pretender! You are eternally lost if you do not remember that the fruits of the earth are everyone's property and that the land is no-one's property!" '

From a poli-sci prof:

Jonah -

ah poor Rousseau, so maligned and yet in many ways so deserving. He gets it
from both sides because there are so many contradictory strands in his thought.
One point about your column - Rousseau makes an important and clear distinction in Book II of the Social Contract between the "general will" and the "will of all." The general will requires that each member of the community will the common good above their own particular good. The general will is not the
aggregate of everyone's particular goods. The general will does not exist if
each person is willing their particular good - thus whatever is reflected in
public opinion polls about abortion or whatever, it is certainly not Rousseau's
general will. That being said the general will has no substantive content -
rights or anything else - all that really matters is that the proper procedure
is involved. The whole point of having a constitution is to bind our law to
certain principles that exist independently of the majority's belief in them.
If the constitution only means what people think it means, then what the hell
is the point. The general will is not bound to recognize any principle beyond
the one in fact creates it. Under the social contract Rousseau style, citizens
have no rights that the general will is bound to respect - no rights that they
do not surrender as part of the social contract. That is why Madison
(following Locke) thought Rousseau was full of crap. (Jefferson by the way was
a big fan - which is one of the myriad reasons that I am not a fan of
Jefferson).

love your stuff.
[Name withheld]

Mark makes a good point, though I don't think it muddies the issue much about which side to root for. Ukraine means, "border." Which is why it was always referred to in English (but I don't think in Russian) as "The Ukraine" joining a long list of proud "the" places: The Netherlands, The Hague, The Levant, The Bronx, the East Indies, The Sudan, The Yukon, The Falklands, the Seat of My Pants, etc.

Personally, I think nations and places with "the" in their name should form an association or commonwealth. But that's mostly because I'm feeling very silly.

Update: I should have remember that the Russians don't use "the." I think the Mongols stole all the "thes."

Which is often, like today, a mixed blessing.

But I do like the first post in the comments section which responds to Drum's assertion that 9/11 was the CIA's biggest failure in history. The poster writes "9/11 was the biggest CIA success in history. Please try to understand the real situation."

Interesting subject. More important, create an instalanche by clicking here. Seriously click it right now. Click it. Click it I tell you!

From a reader:

Having only read about 1,000 pages of Rousseau, I am at a distinct disadvantage to the e-mailer who wrote you earlier. Thus I am forced to conclude that other than his rejection of constitutionalism, his desire to overthrow the existing social order, his wish to replace organized religion with a state-sponsored civil religion, his embrace of untempered, majoritarian democracy, his utter abandonment of the idea of community, and his not so subtle advocacy of totalitarian measures of thought control, Rousseau is truly a philosopher that conservatives should hold as one of their own.

Good point Rich. But as I'm sure you know, and as I recently argued in a column, the media clamor for more dissenters is a ruse. If they wanted more dissenters they'd be demanding to know why Bush hasn't appointed people to his right too. No the clamor for dissenters from Bush's critics is really a demand that Bush hire more people who agree with Bush's critics. The same goes with Congress. Bold, brave, "independent" congressmen are liberal Republicans who make like difficult for Bush. Obstructionists are conservative congressmen who prevent Bush from doing what liberals think he should do.

Boswell: "Do you really think him [Rousseau] a bad man?" Johnson: "Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal, who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him: and it is a shame that he is protected in this country." Boswell: "I don't deny, Sir, but that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad." Johnson: "Sir, that will not do. We cannot prove any man's intention to be bad. You may shoot a man through the head, and say you intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you to be hanged. An alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice. Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations."

"He’s part of the taste of America, the stuff that gets under your skin – from the not entirely “home-made” pies rotating at the diner to the red, white and blue Jell-O salad at the Fourth of July fireworks. That’s how he deserves to be celebrated: take 1 pkg of Jell-O, throw in 1 pkg of Cool Whip, add Tang, mix, lob in a couple of Pop Rocks, and stand well back.

Political theory sunday seems to have a half-life. From a reader in response to today's syndicated column in which I wrote, ""Saying that the courts should follow the Rousseauian General Will of the people isn't "moderate" at all —
indeed, it's a form of radicalism.":

This is ironic considering my comments on Rousseau
when I emailed you about Niet. this weekend. You are
just wrong on this, and howsoever much I love what you
and Rich Lowery do (and I love it very much since I
have been coming back for more for the last-almost
12-years, since I was 14), you-especially he-have this
thing against Rousseau that is totally wrong. There
is nothing in 1) The Social Contract, 2) the First
Discourse, 3) the Second Discourse, 4) the Letter on
Stage Spectacles, 5) The Confessions, 5) The Discourse
on Political Economy, 6) The Discourse on the Origin
of Languages, 7) The Essay on Heroic Virtue, 8)
Narcisse, or, the Self-Admirer, 9) the first parts of
the Letter to Count Weilhorski on the Government of
Poland or 10) several letters from Rousseau to
Voltaire, Diderot, etc. that in any way contradicts
originalism, traditionalism, conservatism, capitalism,
or anything else that you hold dear (also, just incase
you were wondering about this, Rousseau was not
French, he was a citizen of Geneva). I have read the
entirety of everything I have just mentioned (so for
the Letter on Poland, I have only read a little of
it), plus parts of "La Nouvelle Eloise," and a little
of Emile (I don't know if Emile's educational theory
is as bad as Lowry thinks it is, it may be, but the
whole of Emile I think is less than 600 pages, all the
reading I have described to you is about 1500 pages).
And all of it is 1) very good, 2) often as
nationalistic as John O'Sullivan (so the thing Lowry
has against Kant, the one bad thing about Kant, his
love for a UN before we-sadly-got one, Rousseau is
innocent of), 3) the greatest stuff out there against
euthanasia and the so-called "right-to-die" and at no
point is the "general will" confused with the impulse
of the mob-though Rousseau hated all indirect
democracy, and therefore he did not approve of our
Anglo-American system (he knew how M.P.'s in England
were elected, I think his views on this were stupid,
but they only occupy one footnote in the Social
Contract), anyway, believing that we should all be
like Geneva (or Rome before the Empire) where everyone
in the "city" can vote, and thus, we should all live
in city-states is something that Aristotle too
believed-and all the Alastir MacIntyre-Leon Kass
people never have to defend their hero's conservatism
to you guys, even though Aristotle DID defend
infanticide and euthanasia (which is bad stuff,
right?).
You and Lowry are great, but-like Burke, you seem
to think that just because Robespierre *said* he was a
disciple of Rousseau, he was in fact one. Justice
Brennan quoted George Washington, but you'd never
saddle the Father of the Country with that moral
relativist idiot's "work" on the Supreme Court, people
at NR should read more Rousseau before they attack
him, they will find that there is precious little to
attack.
Thank you for your time.

Academia responds to the charge they no write good. And since Orwell's come up around here, here's my take on the issue. I've always been fond if this column.

As with most such polls, the respondents to this poll were clueless as to the subject matter. The funny thing though is that the poll results prove this fact, although the story doesn't bother to point it out.

The story begins by saying that "Six in 10 Americans say there should be a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court Justices". Then, just three sentences later, the author admits that 59% of the respondents did not know what job William H. Rehnquist, holds.

The chattering continues.

I agree with everything he stands for. I voted for him four years ago. But this election was just plain obvious. The choice was to vote for a politician or vote in a President. Kerry had nothing. The polls of people who voted for Kerry found that they voted for him because he wasn't Bush, which doesn't make sense to me. I don't see why people didn't vote for Bush. I heard, “Well, he went to Iraq and we didn't find weapons of mass destruction.” What? That's why you don't like him. That's all you got. We're saving lives here. We liberated 50 million people and we took Saddam out of power.

Peter - Funny you mention this. I was telling Rich not long ago that I thought it would be fun to launch an occasional feature at NRO where we set readers on a scavenger hunt of some kind. My idea would be to enlist various NR types to construct riddles, trivia questions, historical arcana, puzzles, poems whatever that would reveal new clues toward finding a hidden NRO-Treasure. I suspect Derb would be particularly good at the math riddles. We could reveal the riddle on a Monday and provide the answer on a Friday. Anyone who figured it out before then would have a headstart.

We could launch it in one city or go nationwide or whatever. Contestants could bring digital cameras and send in pictures of their "adventures." I'm not entirely sure why I think this is a good idea, but I think something along these lines could be a lot of fun and extend further NRO's wacky, pioneering, fun-loving NRO-ness. I haven't passed the idea by K-Lo yet (though I suppose I just did) and I haven't exactly thought it all through. But maybe in the Spring we can figure something out. Or...maybe not. I have these crazy ideas all the time and my colleagues generally humor me until I forget them.

Academics such as the next secretary of state still decorate Washington, but academia is less listened to than it was. It has marginalized itself, partly by political shrillness and silliness that have something to do with the parochialism produced by what George Orwell called "smelly little orthodoxies."

A reader offers an interesting clarification:

The fact in the LA Times story should be put in context: Bush won 81% of all counties nation wide, according to uselectionatlas.com, so winning 97% of the fastest growing counties is not as astounding as one might initially think. It's still good news, though.

Color me dubious. From the Jerusalem Post:

Sheikh Hassan Yusef, head of the Hamas political bureau in Ramallah said Monday that Hamas is willing to declare a 10 year hudna, or ceasefire.

In an interview with Israel Radio, the senior Hamas leader said that the Islamic movement would consider committing to a ceasefire in order to ultimately join a national unity government with the Palestinian leadership, as Hamas is interested in playing an active role in the new Palestinian government and participating in national decisions.

He did not reject the possibility that Hamas would stop terror attacks against Israel during negotiations. However, a truce with Israel, Yusef said, would be dependant on an end of the Israeli occupation of the territories, release of security prisoners and "elimination of Israeli violence." When asked which borders "occupation" was referring to, he said the borders of 1967, not 1948.

Yusef also called on the United States and the international community to reconsider their definition of Hamas a "terror organization."

The statements came following Mahmoud Abbas's (Abu Mazen) appeals to end the state of anarchy and illegal armament in the territories.

Sheikh Yusef, who was recently released from an Israeli prison after completing a two-year-and-four-month sentence for membership in an illegal movement, was a close associate of the late PA chairman Yasser Arafat and is considered a senior and influential member of Hamas.

Senior Hamas members in the Gaza Strip and abroad have not yet reacted to Yusef's declarations.

Security sources in Gaza have said that the Palestinian Authority has put together a security plan that will attempt to put an end to the illegal carrying of weapons on the Palestinian street.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, who served as Arafat's spokesman for the past decade, also recently came out against the prevalent trend of illegally bearing arms. In an interview with al-Jazeera, Rudeineh said, "Both the Fatah and Hamas need to understand that this phenomenon will harm the Palestinians rather than strengthen them."

Report: PA calls to stop incitement against Israel

Meanwhile, according to London based pan-Arab newspaper a-Sharak al-Awsat, the Palestinian Authority leadership has instructed its media to halt all incendiary broadcasts against Israel, especially songs and video clips directly calling on audiences to continue the Intifada.

The newspaper claimed that the order was given less than 24 hours after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon demanded that the Palestinians stop incitement against Israel if they want to renew negotiations, Army Radio reported. Sharon made the statements in a speech to the Likud faction a week and a half ago.

At the same time, PA sources are reportedly assembling a collection of statements made by Israeli politicians, military officers and rabbis which discriminate against Palestinians to prove that Israel is guilty of incitement and sedition as well, Army Radio reported.

Yesterday's Washington Post featured an interesting -- though not exactly spell-binding -- article by John Harris on whether or not the GOP 2004 victory signals a realignment. There was one eye-popping statistic in there though:

Mark Gersh, a leading elections analyst with the Democratic-supporting National Committee for an Effective Congress, said he does not believe a realignment has occurred, but he does fear that the results highlight serious structural problems for Democrats. In addition to the higher number of Republican-leaning states -- a major GOP advantage in the Senate -- the Democrats are getting trounced in the outer suburbs of metropolitan regions. While these areas still produce relatively few votes, they are the fastest-growing areas of the country. A Los Angeles Times analysis found that Bush won 97 of the 100 fastest-growing counties. [Emphasis mine]

This op-ed by David Satter in today's WSJ (Sub req'd) is the best piece I've read on the Ukranian situation. If you feel like you've fallen behind on events or that you haven't read up enough, this is an outstanding cheat-sheet and a powerful essay at the same time.

Glenn Reynolds (AKA Instapundit) has a very good piece on Kofi Annan and why we should replace him with my man Vaclav as well. Which also may be the shortest op-ed I've seen in a while.

From a Johns Hopkins student:

Hey Jonah,

Just thought I'd add something a little late to the ongoing Corner
Debate. I went this morning to register for January short courses that
they offer here at JHU between semesters, and what do I see but:

AS 191.308 (S) THE LEFT/RIGHT NIETZSCHEAN DEBATE (2)
What is Nietzsche's legacy for contemporary political theory? This
course stages a debate between a Left Nietzschean, Gilles Delenze, and a
Right Nietzschean, Leo Strauss.

Apparently someone here in our Poli Sci department considers Strauss a
Nietzschean in some form, if that counts for anything. Unfortunately
the timing of the class is off such that I can't take it and report
back. Sorry!

The United Nations nuclear watchdog said Monday it had verified that Iran's suspension of uranium enrichment-related activity was now complete.

From a reader, re that heroin story below:

Jonah, The article you quoted said: Three years ago, it recorded more overdoses than any other major European city. Now, after a two-year decline in drug deaths — in part because of the war in Afghanistan, which interrupted the production and distribution of heroin — the number of overdoses is rising. Proof that the Taliban did nothing to curtail the flow of heroin from Afghanistan. We have been told that the Taliban hated the drug trade and was successful in stopping it.

We're not going to rehash (no pun intended) the whole drug war thing today (NR's agin' it, I'm fer it, though I'm in favor of decriminalizing pot). But this LA Times story strikes me as worth reading. Here's the opener:

OSLO — She said she only smoked heroin, but there were needle bruises on her neck. She said she loved her boyfriend, but she stood on a corner and offered herself to others. She said she was a girl, but then remembered she had become a woman. She said she wanted to quit, but she knew she wouldn't.

Across town in a brick chapel, Father Jon Atle Wetaas lighted three votive candles. "These are for peace and reflection," the priest said. "We never know what we'll meet out there." Then he and a nurse loaded a camper with clean needles, medicine and coffee and drove the streets searching for some of the estimated 5,000 to 7,000 heroin addicts that shadow this Norwegian port city.

They came upon the woman on the corner, a shattered 18-year-old desperately looking to fill her empty syringe. Her name was Katrin Nygard Helgeland.

"I try to quit," she said, her face pale in the autumn half-light. "I get depressed, and I run away inside myself."

Clean and tidy Oslo, the capital of a nation with one of the highest standards of living and some of the best social programs in the world, is one of Europe's heroin havens. Three years ago, it recorded more overdoses than any other major European city. Now, after a two-year decline in drug deaths — in part because of the war in Afghanistan, which interrupted the production and distribution of heroin — the number of overdoses is rising.

Worst idea ever. I mean we conservatives may or may not have some great cooks amongst us, but who on earth would buy a cookbook based on the politics of the recipe writers? Vegan eating Mother Jones nutjobs are about the only demographic I think might respond to such a thing.

DO IT! Sell a million and give yourselves a raise. I'll buy at least one.
Thanks for all yall do.