Further comment would be superfluous:

"TOPEKA, Kan. - (KRT) - None of the eight intelligent design proponents who testified at the Kansas State Board of Education's evolution hearings Friday have read the science standards they want changed. Under cross-examination, all eight admitted they simply read the 28-page minority report and not the full 107-page draft of proposed science standards, most of which is not controversial."

Derb - My gal was having a fine time until I asked her if she thought Fabianism was a gnostic heresy.

To which she replied, "ask me that when you can do it while making eye contact."

…on Blair and his lies. He faults the Tories for attacking Blair as a liar:

It especially doesn't work for the Tories because they're accusing Prime Minister Blair of duplicity on an issue about which they actually agree with him. Conservative leader Michael Howard says he would have supported the invasion of Iraq even without weapons of mass destruction — the subject of Blair's supposed dissembling. By nevertheless making the L-word the centerpiece of today's election, Howard comes off as opportunistic and unprincipled.

This, I am afraid, is nonsense. The accusation, entirely deserved by the way, that Blair is a liar did not revolve around the war; the point that the Conservatives were making (not that effectively, admittedly) was that Blair’s lies over the war were just one example among many. Blair simply cannot be trusted, really, on anything.

As Blair’s own finance minister, loopy Gordon Brown, told the PM last year, “there’s nothing that you could ever say to me now that I could ever believe.”

What a pity that a trusting 37 percent of British voters (Blair’s share of the poll) disagreed.

Monday-morning quarterbacking someone’s predictions is all too easy, and all too unfair, but this comment from Boot also made me laugh:

The biggest change Howard has promised is a reduction in immigration. This may snare some votes among xenophobic yobs, but it has also led (Arnold Schwarzenegger, pay attention) to a backlash against "mean-spirited" right-wingers.

Some backlash, Max.

Incidentally, in a recent interview on the BBC, Blair was asked eighteen times for an estimate as to how many illegal immigrants there were in England. He refused to answer. I guess he thought the plebs (sorry, Max, ‘yobs’) didn’t deserve to be told. Charming.

UPDATE

From the Guardian:

Labour feared last night that a pincer movement of working-class antipathy to immigration and middle-class opposition to the Iraq war had cut Tony Blair's majority by much more than he had hoped.

Some backlash, Max.

The Irish people once gave the EU Commission the ‘wrong’ result in a referendum. Such errors cannot be allowed to happen again:

The Irish government is considering amending the national constitution to allow for major future changes to EU rules to be made without a referendum, according to a report in The Irish Times on Friday.

George Bush decided, quite rightly, to go to Riga, Latvia, ahead of his trip to Moscow to attend the ceremonies marking the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II.

That was the right thing to do. The annexation of the Baltic States was a disgraceful episode even by the disgusting standards of that Soviet Union of which Vladimir Putin is, apparently, now so proud. The presidents of Lithuania and Estonia are quite right to boycott the Moscow event. It is a shame that their Latvian counterpart is not doing the same.

As the Daily Telegraph reports, one of Putin’s spokesmen takes a different view:

Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Russia's point man on relations with the EU, claimed yesterday that the Red Army was welcomed into the Baltics. He said: "One cannot use the term occupation to describe these historical events. At that time, the troop deployment took place on an agreed basis and with the clearly expressed agreement of the existing authorities in the Baltic republics. There was no occupation of foreign territory seized by military means.

Words fail me.

Until Russia begins to acknowledge its past, the prospects for its future look grim.

A long post on this subject at Brain-Terminal. Very useful stuff. Anybody who sees a problem with this route, please lemme know.

What a motley collection of moperists and goat herders.

Actually just kidding. Delightful, smart, funny bunch of people. My only regret is that I didn't jump on the Cinco de Mayo buffet table and scream: Mennnnnnndooooooozzzzzzzzzzaaaaa!!!!

Other than that, a wonderful time was had by all (I think and hope).

A reader writes:

Jonah,

Verizon, SprintPCS, and T-Mobile all sell PC card thingamajigs for making
cellular internet connections. The 15" and 17" PowerBooks have PC card
slots, the 12" PowerBook and the iBooks (all) don't have a PC card slot.

I've been using the SprintPCS PCS Connection Card for over 2 years in my 15"
PowerBook. It's $80/month for unlimited data.

Verizon now offers BroadBandAccess cards which work on the Mac. I haven't
tried it myself, but I understand that in the cities that have the latest
infrastructure (New York, Washington, Seattle, others) it's the equivalent
of cable or DSL in the home. In cities without the latest infrastructure
(Harrisburg PA, where I am) it will still connect at speeds equivalent to
the SprintPCS card (i.e. slightly faster than a 56k dial-up). Verizon's
service is also $80/month for unlimited data.

A friend had the T-Mobile AirCard, but was not happy with it. I don't know
what the speed was.

All of these cards are measured by volume of bits and bytes sent and
received, not minutes used like cell calls. Their are cheaper options than
$80/month, but you're limited to a certain bandwidth. Check the company web
sites for plans.

I've recently canceled the SprintPCS service, as I'm not traveling as much
for work as I used to. If my travel picks up again, I'll try the Verizon
service. There was a web site of Verizon/Mac users I found (can't remember
the URL at the moment) with lots of good info. Maybe try googling for it.

Subject: NR ON THE BRIT ELECTIONS

Mr. Lowry,
I'm not sure who on the NRO staff wrote the editorial but it is without a doubt one of the best analyses of the elections I've read to date. Whoever it is deserves a raise.

And we began to be heated. I was arguing with him. He accused me of fabricating the things that I had contained in the letter. I don't recall if he had a letter at that point, or he was simply going on reports from Matthew Freedman, but I do remember that we began to shout at each other. And at some point during this, I'd say, about 15- to 25-minute conversation, Mr. Bolton punctuated his frustrated by just throwing a folder off the table, and a -- a folder full of papers -- and, at that point, I said, "This meeting is over," and I got up, (inaudible) and returned to my hotel room.

In the second meeting, Mr. Bolton began the same place he did. There was no attempt to, sort of, defuse the anger with which he was approaching the situation. He reiterated all the things he said before, and, you know, it went on for about ten minutes, and then he accused me of being unstable, and he demanded, once again, that I recant my statement to AID about IBTCI, their performance on the contract. Again, we began shouting. And I stood up and made to leave for the door, and Mr. Bolton was, you know -- you know, shouting and speaking quite forcefully that I was making the biggest mistake of my life, and that there would be litigation that followed. And he said, "You know, you're crazy." And I -- and I said something to the effect of, "What, are you going throw something else at me again?" And he waved a roll of tape at me. And I left, with him shouting down the hall at me, and-- that, you know, I was going to regret everything that I'd done.

For Mac folks only, for you are the Chosen People.

The Hotlanta trip sealed the deal. I want a cellular modem thingamajig for my laptop. Ponnuru has one and I cannot abide him having one when I don't. Also, I travel a lot and being able to file/post/timewaste from anywhere is just too attractive an option. The costs, according to Ramesh are tolerable, especially when you figure I can drop my account with T-Mobile for use at Starbucks, etc. The question is, do they make such things for the Mac universe? A quick search of the Apple Store was to no avail. If they do make 'em, what should I get? If they don't, is there a third party solution? Can I make one myself with twine and duct tape?

Note: PC jingoists don't need to send me emails making fun of Macs and the like. I've heard it all before and I won't be switching.

From a reader:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

I have been following with interest the exchanges between you and the
increasingly hyperbolic Andrew Sullivan.

With respect to "fundamentalism," it is probably worth noting that the term
has a precise definition. A fundamentalist is anyone who agrees with the
Five Points of Fundamentalism, a statement of faith formulated at the
Niagara Bible Conference of 1895. The Five Points are: 1) the inerrancy of
scripture; 2) the virgin birth of Jesus Christ; 3)the substitutional theory
of atonement; 4) the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ; and 5) Christ's
imminent bodily return to the world.

The Niagara Bible Conference was a conservative Protestant response to the
same phenomena of Modernism that elicited the condemnation of Pope Pius X.
The points avoid most of the touchy theological issues that divided
Protestant denominations from each other (as well as from Catholicism and
Orthodoxy), and so just about any Christian who can recite the Apostles' or
Nicene Creeds in a spirit of sincere belief is appropriately called a
fundamentalist.

Correct usage of the term is NOT reflected in the usage of secular or
liberal religious commentators, for whom "fundamentalist" is nothing but a
pejorative to describe someone whose religious beliefs they don't like.

One of the most egregious examples of bias in the media is the use of
"fundamentalist" as a description of certain typically fanatical and violent
Muslims. Because "fundamentalist" specifically refers to a type of Christian
belief, applying that adjective to Islam makes about as much sense as would
applying the adjective "Talmudic" to Buddhism.

The Islamic sect most often called "fundamentalist" is Wahhabism. The
Wahhabis refer to themselves as "al-Muwahhidun," which is most accurately
translated "unitarians." Of course, it wouldn't do to say that the Twin
Towers were attacked by "fanatical unitarians." The term "fundamentalist" is
used because the commentators' real agenda is to suggest that Pat Robertson
or James Dobson are comparable threats to the American Way of Life as is
Osama bin Laden. This cheap and dishonest rhetorical trick is Sullivan's
stock in trade.

Yours sincerely,

House rules say such trips are acceptable only if they are principally designed for information gathering, and Mr. DeLay's visit to Scotland and London was billed as an effort to promote an exchange of ideas with British conservatives.

Still, lobbyist Jack Abramoff's heavy involvement and the recreational nature of much of the trip raise questions about the true purpose of the Scottish leg of the expensive outing, which Mr. Abramoff initially helped pay for, according to travel documents and billing records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The new information suggests instead that recreation was the primary purpose of going to Scotland, and the excursion appears more a gift and contrary to House rules defining "necessary" travel expenses as not including "entertainment or recreational activities."

From almost any conservative angle, Britain’s election result is disappointing.

From the standpoint of a British conservative, the Tory party lost a third election and gained very little ground — less than 1 percent of the popular vote. From an American conservative standpoint, Tony Blair, who is a loyal friend of the United States, is today in a noticeably weakened political state. Though he won a third term — the first Labour prime minister to do so — he saw his majority substantially reduced and his share of the popular vote fall to a derisory 36 percent. If the British electoral system had not become so lopsidedly biased, he would have almost no majority at all.

From the standpoint of a foreign-policy conservative, Blair’s loss is a sign of weakening support for the U.S. across Europe, even in America’s most reliable ally. Blair is generally reckoned to have lost a large number of “middle-class progressive” votes (i.e., Guardian-reading, muesli-eating, electric-car-driving voters) to the Liberal Democrats because of their hostility to the Iraq war.

I attended the American Jewish Committee annual dinner last night; John Negroponte spoke and, as our chief spy, he naturally said little of substance. What struck me instead was the parade of foreign leaders that always address this dinner -- this time, the foreign ministers of Singapore, Romania, and Chile; in earlier years, the president of Spain, the prime minister of Argentina, et al. And it's always the same: We love the Jews! We love Israel! This from countries that routinely vote against Israel in the UN. The guy from Chile added a twist -- he boasted that the head of his country's public libraries was Jewish. Libraries! How about letting an Arab run the libraries and instead stop singling out the Jewish state in the UN.

Now, for American dignitaries to address an important, politically active constituency is perfectly normal. But the foreigners have flown thousands of miles just to address the event, and you know what's got to be going through their heads: "The Jews run America, so let's go make nice with them." As my charming tablemate said, everyone but the Jews seem to believe the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Fidel Castro reads NR, but he doesn’t learn anything from it. On April 30, he quoted from Otto Reich’s cover story in our April 11 issue, on the partnership between Castro and Venezuela’s strongman Hugo Chávez. (The two were having a summit in Havana.) Reich had written, “With the combination of Castro’s evil genius, experience in political warfare, and economic desperation, and Chávez’s unlimited money and recklessness, the peace of this region is in peril.” According to Reuters, “Castro, 78, read out Reich’s words to a delighted audience in Havana’s Karl Marx Theater.” Delighted, we’re sure — not half as delighted as Cubans will be when the tyrannical old bastard finally meets his reward. Why doesn’t he read out those words, next time he’s in the Karl Marx Theater?

Fr. George Rutler invites you to a concert of music performed by Johannes Somary, on the occasion of the dedication of the Eileen Grady Manning Memorial Organ, at the Church of Our Saviour, 59 Park Avenue (at 38th Street), on Thursday, May 5, at 6 p.m.

To be honest I haven't looked at Andrew Sullivan's debate page much. When I get the chance I will respond to his longer stuff (Right now I've got to walk Coz, pack, and head to Atlanta for the Sourthern leg of NRfest '05). But he does have an answer for my post yesterday -- where I suggested that he seemed to be practicing precisely the sort of moral equivalence he was once so eloquent denouncing after 9/11. He says:

I wrote "Christian fundamentalism" not Christianity; and I wrote "open and proud homosexuality", not just homosexuality. I completely agree that the murderous threat of Islamist fundamentalism is far graver than the threat of Christian fundamentalism. (Although it's worth noting that America's recent domestic terrorism has come from the extreme right, and that Erik Rudolph, a Christian fundamentalist terrorist, specifically targeted gays for murder.) But I also believe that the war against Islamic fundamentalism is indeed linked to the struggle against similar extremists within Christianity. We are in a global war for secular society, in which the search for religious truth is and must be protected but religious truth is not and must not be the basis of a political order. The external enemies of such secularism are far worse than the internal ones. But their ultimate mindset remains the same. It has always struck me as odd that some of those most opposed to Islamist fundamentalism are completely untroubled by the Christian variety. Or maybe Hitch and I are the only ones to see a connection.

If Andrew had written anything like this to start, I never would have commented. That's not to say that I agree with it. But it's not what he originally wrote. He wrote:

THE DUTCH CONFLICT: A good friend of mine dares to walk hand in hand with his boyfriend in Amsterdam. Yes, Amsterdam. A "Moroccan-looking" guy with a heavy accent spits at him in the face, mutters something about "f****ing fags", and then a small gang beats him up. His story is here, including a picture of his bloodied face. Hatred of open and proud homosexuals is intrinsic to Islamist fundamentalism, as it is to Christian fundamentalism. The struggle against both is the same one - at home and abroad.

Anyway, as for his response, fine. But I would add that Erik Rudolph is not a trend. He's a man. John Ashcroft -- the poster child for everything Andrew dislikes about the GOP -- very aggressively sought the death penalty for Rudolph and if I recall correctly the "theocrats" didn't object. Meanwhile, it's simply not true that terrorism in America has only come from the extreme right. Yes, there was Oklahoma City (though those nutjobs were hardly Christian fundamentalists, and -- again -- John Ashcroft sought the death penalty to the applause of the supposedly Talibanish GOP). But there was also the Unabomber who was in fact defended -- or at least apologized for -- by some on the respectable left. Moreover, environmental terrorists groups are a real trend in this country. And, I should add, apologists of foreign terror of the Ward Churchill variety far, far, far outnumber anything of the sort on the right.

Oh, I think I should clarify something myself, particularly in response to the pissy post Andrew links to refute me (interesting where Andrew finds allies these days). When I wrote,

"Christian fundamentalism gave birth to the Protestant reformation, individual liberty, the American nation, the modern American university, and the like. This is not a minor distinction either."

I should have been more precise. I was in my own mind referring to the sorts of things Andrew calls Christian fundamentalism -- i.e. conservatism of faith, politics of faith, using faith to reach policy conclusions etc. I was not trying to discuss the historical concept in and of itself. I do understand that what we call Christian fundamentalism has gone through some changes over the years. Though there is no denying that a politics of faith was behind, for example, the founding of most of our leading universities and liberal arts colleges. And if this Duss guy is a stickler for precision when it comes to use of the term, I assume he'll be taking a hatchet to Sullivan's prose any day now. I'd respond more in depth, but Cosmo awaits the park.

William Mellor writes: "Without realizing it, liberals and conservatives are working from opposite ends of the political spectrum, under opposing rationales, to reach the same end: expanded government power." Liberals don't care about economic liberty, only "personal" liberty, while conservatives don't want judges overriding legislative decisions, and therefore the courts aren't protecting economic liberty.

It's an interesting argument. I'm not sure how unwitting this collaboration is. Let's say you're a conservative who believes, say, that the Founders did not intend for the federal courts to override (some) state infringements of economic liberty. Wouldn't you be happy that on this point, at least, liberals, for whatever reason, came down in the right place?

I'd have to know a lot more history on this point to venture a judgment about whether that hypothetical conservative is right. But I don't think the argument that Mellor makes--that politicians don't have the proper incentives to protect economic liberties and therefore judges should--works. On his own account, judges don't appear to have felt any incentive to protect economic liberties either.

The fact that his article has received some incredibly stupid responses, as provocative articles sometimes will, does not establish that Oderberg's basic argument is sound. I think it is not, nor are some of the frills on top of it.

Oderberg contrasts the moral views of the late Pope John Paul II with those of our current president. Where the two agree, as on abortion, Oderberg agrees with both of them. Where they disagree, as on war and capital punishment, Oderberg believes Bush's views to be more "traditional" and "defensible" than the pope's.

First of all--and I don't see how anyone could really deny this point--the fact that a particular moral view is "traditional" cannot establish its rightness, even if one judges the tradition of which a view is a part to be generally sound (and even if one therefore gives a particular traditional view a respectful hearing because it is part of that generally sound tradition). Oderberg's references to Aquinas tend to establish that there has been a development of Catholic doctrine on the death penalty, but they don't go anywhere in telling us whether earlier or later views were more defensible.

Second: What the heck does Oderberg mean by this? "Indeed it is somewhat amazing that John Paul seems to have remained so unmoved by the unrelenting violence, sexual decadence, and drug-fuelled vice of modern materialist society (the very society he chastised over and over for its naked greed) as never once to have advocated executing some of the criminals who make contemporary life such a misery for so many people" (emphasis his). Are we to picture JPII saying, "Let me--just this once--say, I really think this guy needs to be fried?" And to regret that it did not happen? And who is Oderberg suggesting that the pope should have come out for executing? Rapists? Drug dealers? Sellers of pornography? The passage sweeps pretty broadly. It's a weird and troubling view of things that imagines that you haven't been truly "moved" by negative social trends until you've been moved to kill people over them.

Yer right, I posted the subservient chicken last year.

Congressional negotiators have agreed to keep the Real ID Act in the emergency Iraq appropriations bill, which should be voted on in the House tomorrow and the Senate next week. The most important element seeks to bar illegal aliens from getting drivers licenses. Unfortunately, the version that is likely to pass contains a loophole that would allow states to issue two kinds of drivers licenses--the regular kind, that illegals couldn’t get, and thus would be acceptable for federally mandated uses like boarding airplanes or entering nuclear power plants, and a second version, usually called a “driving certificate,” which wouldn’t require the applicant to prove he’s in the country legally, but which would have to indicate something like “Not for identification purposes" on the front. Of the 11 states that allow illegals to get licenses, Tennessee and Utah already do it this way, and the danger, as I see it, is that this loophole will be taken by the states as a cue from Washington, and we could end up with more and more states doing it, states that otherwise wouldn’t have issued illegals any kind of license at all.

The problem with this approach is twofold: First, any kind of official documentation provided to people who aren’t supposed to be here helps incorporate them into our institutions and is one more step toward amnesty; and second, despite any disclaimers printed on the illegals-only licenses, they will inevitably end up being accepted for identification purposes anyway. This is what we saw in Tennessee, where the certificates say “Not valid for ID” right on the front, but which the state police said from the get-go that they would just accept as ID anyway.

I debated the head of the immigration lawyers guild (“Jihad Jeannie” Butterfield) last night on the NewsHour, and she gave all the usual talking points against the bill, but I don’t understand why the open-borders crowd is fighting it--the two-tier license loophole is their best shot at providing documents for illegals across the country and thus taking a big step toward a de facto amnesty. Maybe they’re just following Jefferson’s advice when Britain transferred Florida back to Spain in 1784--object just enough to make your enemies think you oppose the move, but not enough to stop it, since it’s in your interests to let it continue.

has written an unintentionally hilarious piece for the New Republic comparing today's Christian conservatives to the "radical multiculturalists" of the 1990s. The latter were threats to "American pluralism," in their day, as Christian conservatives are today. (Wait a second. Weren't the Christian conservatives supposed to be threats to American pluralism back in the early 1990s, too?) I won't linger on the thesis, since it's unassailable--as long as "American pluralism" is identified with New Republic-style liberalism, and Christian conservatism requires a commitment to views that are not held by, say, a majority of opponents of abortion. (Stanley: You'll be delighted to see that the word "dominion" gets mentioned.)

Odder is this passage: "[C]onservative nominees to the bench are not under attack from liberals for holding Christian beliefs; they are under attack for advocating a judicial philosophy that would impose those religious beliefs--on same-sex marriage, on abortion, on stem-cell research--on other Americans" (emphasis his). What world is Reifowitz living in? Where is the judge who has said that he would ban abortion or stem-cell research or same-sex marriage even if the public wanted to allow these things? Justice Scalia hasn't said anything like this. Nor have the mainstream opponents of judicial nominees such as Bill Pryor and Priscilla Owen--until, that is, this weekend, when Mario Cuomo made the same bizarre claims in the Democratic response to the president's radio address. Maybe Reifowitz is getting his information from Cuomo? In reality, the people who want judges to overturn or block democratic decisions in this area are our liberal "pluralist" friends.

The amusing part of the article comes at the end, when Reifowitz explains the strategy for defeating Christian conservatism: "[L]iberals will have to reach out to conservatives who care deeply about pluralism. . . . We are starting to see signs of dissent among Republicans and conservatives, most notably in recent comments by Christie Todd Whitman, Christopher Shays, and John Danforth. (Andrew Sullivan did his part in last week's TNR cover story.) Whitman, a moderate former governor and EPA chief, called her book It's My Party Too. Shays, a member of the House since 1987, commented on March 25 that 'this Republican party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy.' Danforth, in an eloquent New York Times op-ed on March 30, argued that religious conservatives have 'hijacked' the GOP. 'Republicans,' he wrote, 'have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. . . . [I]t has become the political extension of a religious movement.' Whitman, Shays, and Danforth should receive support from liberals in these efforts." Oh, they do.

What they don't receive is much support from actual self-described conservatives, who tend to see them as has-beens whose hold on their party was defeated a long time ago.

I wrote two posts about Senator Danforth's op-ed that I may as well link here. I would add that we should resist the devaluation of the word "eloquent" into a word of empty praise for anyone who has said anything with which we agree.)

Class:

CBS

Late Late Show

May 3, 2005

34:00

Bill Maher: "I think that there is no perspective. People have no perspective, especially about crime. You know, zero tolerance. You know, of course, nobody ever wants to see a child, you know, diddled. That’s just plain wrong. But even the people who are testifying against him, they’re saying that he serviced them. They didn’t service him."

Craig Ferguson: "You don’t have kids, do you, Bill?"

Maher: "No."

Ferguson: "No. I have a son. It makes me crazy, this thing, this Michael Jackson thing. It drives me, the idea of someone touching my kid, I would go, I nearly swore there. I’d go crazy."

Maher: "Very wrong. But, you know, I remember when I was a kid. I was savagely beaten once by bullies in the schoolyard. Savagely beaten. If I had a choice between being savagely beaten and being gently masturbated by a pop star. It’s just me."

Ferguson: "The always controversial Bill Maher, everybody."

Maher: "What? That’s it?"

Ferguson: "Bill Maher. We’ll be right back with Rain Pryor."

While everyone gets onto their high horses (so many possible jokes, so little time) over Laura's naughty joke, apostate, heretic, and all-round good guy Robert A. George has the last word:

"Laura Bush: Uniter Not a Divider: Liberals without a sense of humor meet conservatives without a sense of humor. Hijinks ensue!!"

From a reader:

Jonah

Having served with Vietnam Vets (many of them highly decorated) and done extensive research on the war itself, I can assure you that your impression of the Nam was more to the point than Mitchell's.

After Tet of 1968 one fellow told me that the VC could had held a convention of all the remaining VC in the area in a phone booth.

One of my Bttn Commanders, Cruse McCollough, (ex SF, Central Highlands, ex 173rd ABN) messed up the VC in his area so bad that they put a 10 thousand Piaster reward on him. It was never collected, and he steadily messed up VC ops in his Area of Operation. Cruse was/is a hell of a man, and my troops and myself would follow him into the gates of hell itself.

(note: Hes a big, gentle soul, with steel grey eyes and a very gentle polite way of talking and has a Missouri drawl.)

Armored Cavalry units had established such normalcy in civilian areas that the civilians went about their daily routines of fishing and planting rice without VC interferance in a lot of areas.

In short, the "bad guys" were losing the war, we were winning, and then the "bad guys" over here were making us lose the political side of it. And I never forgot that, and I never ever forgave them.

Thats my two cents

From a reader:

Jonah, As you know, I've been a Lesbian for less than 24 hours so I might not be qualified to comment on Sullivan and his views on Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, but I will do it anyway. Andrew ignores the fact that Christians aren't imposing their will on the rest of the world. The truth is, it's the Christians that are under attack from people like Sullivan and groups like the ACLU. As soon as Christians start circumcising non believers, I will start making some comparisons.

Q Are you aware of any contacts that she had with John Bolton?

MR. JONES: Well, at the time, I don't remember every having a contact with John Bolton. I don't remember ever having a contact. I mean, Melody is very descriptive, and the stories were going around, and can I remember one story or another, no, but she felt extremely uncomfortable, and I think that's probably a slight understatement, in that whole situation.

Q: Did people, as those stories would go around, I assume you're meaning, in Moscow.

MR. JONES: And in Washington.

Q: Do you know anybody who said, did you hear anybody say, particularly contemporaneously with these events, "That's just nuts," or any kind of question, question the stories? Did people accept them?

MR. JONES: The quick answer is I don't remember how people reacted. …

Q: So, did you hear the stories about this from Melody while you were in Moscow, or --

MR. JONES: That I don't remember. But probably when I got home, because I don't know when I left, but I probably left shortly after the meeting.

Q: But it sounds like she must have said this to a bunch of people if there's all these rumors flying around.

MR. JONES: Well, it's a very small community, at least with our -- we didn't have that many people involved and it was not the normal sort of thing that happens every day or every week, and Melody is colorful at times, and talks to people, and so it was around.

Q: Can you tell us what you remember hearing?

MR. JONES: No. I just remember hearing that she felt very uncomfortable, and didn't like her situation and was asking for help and how do we solve it, how do I get myself out of this, and --

Q: Asking for help regarding -- ?

MR. JONES: No, just more in terms of her own personal situation, what's going on, it's very uncomfortable, I don't know what's going to happen, I mean, she's still over there.

Q: It's very uncomfortable because of her contractor? In other words, it seems I've gone -- I'm paraphrasing -- in other words, I've gone behind my contractor's back to AID, my contractor is now not very happy . . . .is she uncomfortable with her professional situation?

MR. JONES: No, more personal situation.

Q: Because she's stuck in a hotel and doesn't know where her next job is?

MR. JONES: Part of that, yeah.

Q: What's the other part?

MR. JONES: And just being uncomfortable in this situation of this controversy.

Q: Do you remember talking to her specifically about her contacts with John Bolton?

MR. JONES: No, I don't remember. I've tried to remember, but I can't remember whether, and if she did, and mentioned it to me, I've certainly forgotten.

Q: Well is this discomfort you're reporting related to her interactions with John Bolton, or the situation more generally.

MR. JONES: That immediate, specific situation. In other words, her discomfort had nothing to do with her professional life, or her professional desire to stay in that area of the world and do that work. She felt uncomfortable during that, this particular episode and this conflict, if you'd call it that, was making her very uncomfortable.

Q: But was it just the conflict with her employer and with IBTCI, or was it also specific to John Bolton?

MR. JONES: That I can't, that would be unfair of me to pin it down. The only thing I can remember is she's a single, young woman out there, she's having problems with Matt Friedman, she's having problems with IBTCI, she doesn't know where she's going to go next, and she's stuck in the Aerostar Hotel in the middle of Moscow.

Andrew Sullivan writes:

Hatred of open and proud homosexuals is intrinsic to Islamist fundamentalism, as it is to Christian fundamentalism. The struggle against both is the same one - at home and abroad.

I'm sorry. But:

1. Even if hatred of homosexuality were intrinsic to Islamist and Christian fundamentalism, the fight against Islamic fundamentalism isn't about homosexuality. It's just not and no matter how much you care about the issue, it won't ever be.

2. Islamic fundamentalism and Christian fundamentalism aren't the same thing. They can both be "bad" but that doesn't mean they are the same. Depending on what you mean by Christian fundamentalism, I don't think it's bad. I certainly don't think it's bad if you go by Andrew's expansive use of the phrase. But even if I did, I would recognize some important differences between the two. Like: Christian fundmentalists have not constructed a grand theological construct to justify mass murder in the modern era. No followers of Jerry Falwell are suicide bombers. This is not a minor distinction. Christian fundamentalism gave birth to the Protestant reformation, individual liberty, the American nation, the modern American university, and the like. This is not a minor distinction either.

3. Writing things like this makes it nearly impossible to defend Sullivan from the charge that he lets homosexuality color his perceptions of every other argument and issue.

Addendum: It occurs to me that a charitable explanation of Sullivan's statement is that he's trying to persuade liberals -- gay or otherwise -- to understand the threat from Islamic fundamentalism in terms they can appreciate. Alas, Andrew's recent diatribes against fundamentalism don't really jibe with this interpretation. And, besides that wouldn't absolve the slander or inaccuracy.

...none of those officials who angered Bolton were punished, and in fact they were often promoted, the interviews show. With the exception of the Westermann case, Bolton's complaints were directed at the officials' superiors, who either rejected Bolton's concerns or ran interference within the State Department.

Democratic aides say Bolton's failure to win support for his efforts to reassign lower-level officials demonstrates his lack of judgment. They say his actions may have had a chilling effect on the behavior of analysts and other aides, though they have not found evidence of that.

Yeah, I had the same reaction to that piece in the Post today.

It seems to me the anti-Bolton forces are in trouble. The whole essence of the serial abuser charge is the serial part. It seems like the anti-Bolton Dems can't come up with a real, clear, pattern of dubious or irresponsible behavior. If the Dems accusation were true it still wouldn't merit disqualifying him, but it would certainly be easier to prove.

Worth a gander.

By the way, as a couple readers have noted, this guy says he's transforming himself into a tiger in accord with his Indian heritage. But, uh, since when are tigers indigenous to the Michigan region?

It's part of who he is.

I'm sure Rich -- cat guy that he is -- would give this cat guy a job.

Looking freakishly like a tiger has gotten Dennis "Cat" Avner lots of attention. But it hasn't paid many bills.

That's one reason why Avner is leaving the tiny East County community where he has lived for six years and moving to Washington state. There's not much demand in San Diego County for a computer and electronics technician with tattooed stripes on his face and fangs in his mouth.

Avner, 46, began his transformation 25 years ago, undergoing up to a dozen surgeries. He offers a simple explan