And as you begin your military careers, proceed with confidence, because our citizens are determined, our country is strong, and the future belongs to freedom. Across the world, liberty is on the march. In the last 18 months, we have witnessed a Rose Revolution in Georgia, an Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, a Purple Revolution in Iraq, a Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and a Cedar Revolution in Lebanon -- and these are only the beginning. (Applause.) Across Central Asia and the broader Middle East, we are seeing the rise of a new generation whose hearts burn for liberty, and they are going to have it. America is standing with these democratic reformers because we know that the only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror, and replace hatred with hope, is the force of human freedom. And by extending freedom to millions who have not known it, we will advance the cause of peace and make America more secure. (Applause.)

Some of our men and women in uniform have given their lives in this cause, and others have returned home with terrible injuries. America honors their sacrifice, and we will uphold the cause they served. You are the ones who will take up their mantle, and carry on their fight, and ensure the triumph of liberty in the century ahead.

You are now part of the greatest force for freedom in the history of the world -- the Armed Forces of the United States. In the years ahead, you will see dramatic changes taking place all around you. Yet amid all the tumult and change, there is one thing that won't change -- and that is character of our men and women who wear the uniform. This is your generation's moment. Your mission is necessary and it is noble. The weapons you use will be more powerful and precise than those available to Annapolis graduates who came before you, and you will face enemies they never imagined. But what will make your success possible is the same thing that made their success possible: the courage and honor and personal integrity that you learned at this Academy.

We're going to give you the tools you'll need to prevail in today's war on terror, and the capabilities you'll need to protect us against the dangers that may yet emerge. Now the task is in your hands, and that means it is in the best of hands. Thank you for your courageous decision to serve. Bring honor to the uniform, security to our country, and peace to the world. And congratulations to every member of the class of 2005.

May God bless you.

Democrats clear way for Senate vote on Bolton

Tuesday, May 24

By Vicki Allen WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats agreed on Tuesday to clear the way for the Senate to vote on the controversial nomination of John Bolton as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, which was expected to pass mainly on party lines.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said he expected a vote this week on Bolton's confirmation, but an agreement to limit debate still was being worked out.

Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, lifted a procedural hold she had put on the nomination in an unsuccessful effort to wrest more documents on Bolton from the administration.

"We're disappointed that we didn't get the information from the administration," said Boxer's spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz.

But she said Boxer had agreed with Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, to let the nomination come up for a Senate vote.

The agreement on Bolton came a day after Senate Republicans and Democrats reached a compromise to end years of roadblocks against Bush's judicial nominees.

"You keep mentioning the word 'monogamy'," a staffer named Roland Foster recalls one young woman asking after a lecture. "What is that?"

"That's when you have sex with only one partner," Coburn responded.

"You mean at a time?"

Conservative Christian leaders and STDs are in many ways a natural match. Seen from a biblical mind-set, the growing prevalence of STDs looks like the wages of sin, the price American society pays for the sexual revolution. And even medical experts agree that delaying sex until age 19 or 20 lowers the risk, and the only sure way to avoid ever contracting an STD is to be in a relationship where neither person has ever had another sexual partner.

Also Thursday, several trustees expressed dismay about the gender imbalance at [the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill], where the 2004-05 freshman class was 58 percent female. Among recipients of the Carolina Covenant scholarships for low-income students, the disparity was even greater, with 69 percent women.

That prompted two trustees to ask whether the university could give men admissions preference or start programs such as engineering that might attract more men.

Affirmative action for men is not likely, said Jerry Lucido, vice provost for enrollment management. "It's just extraordinarily rare for a public university to do that," he said.

Sokolove also wrongly stated that "the late Gov. Robert Casey Sr. ... was barred from speaking at the 1992 Democratic National Convention because of his antiabortion views." Though the media have repeated this falsehood numerous times (see here, here, here, here, here, and here), the truth is that convention organizers denied Casey a speech in 1992 because he refused to endorse the Clinton-Gore ticket, not because of his views on abortion. Further, several speakers who opposed abortion rights did address the convention in 1992, and abortion rights opponents have spoken at every Democratic convention since then.

I didn’t know Governor Casey personally. But back in 1992, fate put me within a few feet of him inside Madison Square Garden during the Democratic National Convention. That was when Clinton officials refused a place at the podium for the Democratic governor of America’s fifth-largest state while also providing speaking slots for six pro-choice Republican women. To make sure the point was delivered, one of these was a pro-choice woman who had campaigned for Casey’s Republican opponent.

On Election Day 2004, the silencing of Bob Casey thundered through America’s polling booths. In vain, Casey in 1992 had warned his fellow Democrats about allowing the Party to be become “little more than an auxiliary of NARAL.” In his autobiography he put it this way: ["]Many people discount the power of the so-called “cultural issues”—and especially of the abortion issue. I see it just the other way around. These issues are central to the national resurgence of the Republicans, central to the national implosion of the Democrats, central to the question of whether there will be a third party. The national Democrats may, and probably will, get a temporary bump in the polls—even, perhaps, one more national election victory—from their reactive strategy as the defenders of the elderly and poor who rely on Medicare and Medicaid. But the Democrats’ national decline—or better, their national disintegration—will continue relentlessly and inexorably until they come to grips with these values issues, primarily abortion.["]

To the women of New York City, who like many of their sex in so many places have suffered long lines to answer nature's call, relief is on the way. To the women who have ducked into the men's restroom to avoid embarrassment, the City Council has heard your woes and acted.

The council this week unanimously passed legislation -- dubbed Potty Parity by New York's ever-vivid tabloids -- that establishes a 2-to-1 ratio for women's restrooms in new public venues including, bars, restaurants and concert halls.

From where we sit, then, the actions of the Republican compromisers look like not a capitulation but a way of letting Democrats back down from a losing position without being humiliated.

Why not humiliate the Democrats? Well, here's one reason: "Democrats agreed on Tuesday to clear the way for the Senate to vote on the controversial nomination of John Bolton as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, which was expected to pass mainly on party lines," Reuters reports. Had the Senate gone nuclear yesterday, Bolton's nomination would be suffering from the fallout.

HUSBANDS are such a nuisance. They hog the family computer, watch television at nerve-grating volume, clutter up every flat surface with their hobbies and mess up a room with their very presence. Now a Japanese company thinks it has found the solution: lock up the monster in a soundproof wooden box.

Yamaha has come up with the Avitecs MyRoom, a 2.5sq m (27 sq ft) den that can stand in the corner of the average-sized lounge and perform — albeit on a cramped scale — the functions of a study, cinema and garden shed.

WASHINGTON — For the first time, a majority of Americans say they are likely to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she runs for president in 2008, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday.

A&E doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing.

A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon.

Iraqi authorities are preparing to launch the largest show of force in the capital since Saddam's ouster in a bid to curb the rampant insurgency, which has killed more than 650 people since the country's new government was announced April 28.

More than 40,000 Iraqi police and soldiers, backed by American troops and air support, will set up hundreds of checkpoints, raid houses and search vehicles as part of Operation Lightning, Iraqi's interior and defense ministers announced Thursday.

On Monday Republicans were within hours of passing a procedural rule that would have eliminated the Democrats' unprecedented use of the judicial filibuster. It would not only have freed from filibuster limbo seven Bush nominees to the appeals courts, but it would also have ensured future nominees, particularly to the Supreme Court, up-or-down votes.

Then the Republicans flinched. They settled for something less. Far less. How much less is still a matter of dispute, but the fact that they settled when they had within their reach the means to restore Senate practice to the status quo ante 2001 is indisputable. That in itself is a victory for the Democrats and a defeat for the Republicans...

And this is why people loathe the Senate, because some empty, vapid, puffed-up poser, just sobbing and bleating about his grandchildren on there, I mean there are one hundred U.S. Senators out of a potential pool of 300 million. 400 million if you include all the fine, upstanding members of the undocumented American community in your part of the country.

And it should be possible to get a hundred people who can stand there and discuss the issues in an articulate way, instead of blathering cliches about the well being dry. And it isn't. It's overflowing with his sob sister routine.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D. (R-TN) made the following statement today after the Senate denied the cloture motion on the nomination of John Bolton as United States Ambassador to the United Nations:

“Earlier today the Democratic Leader gave a speech denouncing the ‘crossfire of partisan sniping’ in Congress and pressed for comity and cooperation. But tonight, after the Democrats have launched into yet another filibuster of a presidential nomination – this time on John Bolton to serve as UN Ambassador – those words seem empty and hollow.

“Some 72 hours after hailing an agreement that sought to end partisan filibusters, the Democrats have launched yet another partisan filibuster.

“Actions speak volumes, and so does inaction. Given the chance to advance the cause of comity in the Senate, the Democrats have chosen partisan confrontation over cooperation. And rather than working to advance America’s agenda and act by voting on the floor, the Democrats keep stepping on the brake.

“This is a critical time for the United States and for the world. Because of the President’s vision and commitment, democracy is on the march around the globe. And with sensible reform, the United Nations can and should be vital in advancing these developments. But we need to get a UN ambassador in place.

“The cause of peace and international cooperation should not be held hostage to partisan sniping. I would urge my colleagues to end this partisan filibuster of John Bolton.”

I can see the TV ads now:

JD: Hereby I call out all you simplistic, overly optimistic, slippery-slopist, bright-line Papo-cons! This Thursday night at the Nassau Colosseum, I will crush you beneath an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space of PAIN!

RP: Assuming arguendo you could, you won't! You can't tell your modus ponens from your modus tolens! The only slippery slope is the one YOU'RE GOING DOWN!

KJL: If error has no rights, then Derb's got nothing to protect him from a big-time smackdown! Santiago! Matamoros! DURAN DURAN!

Smash cut to logo: NR SMACKDOWN! IT'S THE BLASTOCYST BLAST! ($39.95. Not available in UT, NYC, and Canada.)

...Our position on Hamas is very clear, it's a well-known position and it hasn't changed about Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist group, it's on a terrorist list for a reason. As the elections go forward, of course, we want everybody to participate in the vote. There is something healthy about people campaigning, saying, this is what I'm for. The President ran on a peace platform; you know, maybe somebody will run on a war platform -- you know, vote for me, I promise violence. I don't think they're going to get elected, because I think Palestinian moms want their children to grow up in peace just like American moms want their children to grow up in peace. As a matter of fact, I think the people that campaign for peace will win.

The goal of a -- is, of course, a Palestinian state based upon rule of law, and you cannot have a democracy based upon rule of law if you have armed bands of people who will use their weapons to try to achieve a political outcome. We discussed this with the President....

The Post objects to Tom DeLay's speech against federal funding for embryo-destructive research for two reasons.

First, it says DeLay is guilty of "irresponsible rhetoric" in saying that the other side would "fund with taxpayer dollars the dismemberment of living, distinct human beings for the purposes of medical experimentation." You could object to the word "dismemberment" on hypertechnical grounds, I suppose. But what DeLay said is a fair summary of why most opponents of the bill object to it. Is there another wording the Post would have preferred? Or are those of us who object to the bill to be silent about it because the Post, for reasons undisclosed, thinks our speaking up would be "irresponsible"? (Where would the goo-goo editorialist be without that word? And was the Post irresponsible ten years ago, when it had better editorialists working on these issues?)

Second, it says that DeLay, if he is to be consistent, should also 1) try to ban the freezing of embryos in IVF clinics as a form of torture and 2) try to ban the common fertility-clinic practice of "discarding" "unused" human embryos. There are specific logical problems with the first point, but let me address the general argument that to be principled a politician must either try to prohibit all moral evils or none of them.

Let's say a politician was in a place and time where people approved stoning homosexuals to death--which is not at all a theoretical possibility; there have been places and times like this. Let's say that politician himself believes that the principle of the equal dignity of all human beings entails not stoning homosexuals to death, not criminalizing their sexual conduct, and allowing same-sex couples to marry. There are serious people who believe all these things flow from a valid principle of equality. Leaving aside whether those people are right about these conclusions, what's a politician with those convictions to do?

If he comes out for same-sex marriage, he may lose the ability to make progress on the stoning front. (Or, to transport the debate to, say, Texas in the 1990s: A politician who argued for same-sex marriage might very well lose his ability to make progress in getting rid of anti-sodomy laws.) Since political prudence militates against his pushing for the full realization of his principle, is he therefore to do nothing? If he works within the bounds of the possible, does he therefore have no principles?

The Washington Post's editorial is titled "An Illogical Standard." But its own standard is one it would not apply to any other issue. You could, of course, make the same debater's points in reverse: The Post, to be consistent, should be for infanticide.

Note also that the Post's argument tends to validate slippery-slope fears about the sanctity of life. If we hadn't allowed the routine killing of human embryos by fertility clinics, people wouldn't be trying to use it to justify new moral evils today.

A pro-life position not rooted in logic ends up having the same line- drawing problem. When do pro-life supporters of stem-cell research believe life begins? They would seem to believe that a clump of matter that is not a person somehow becomes inhabited by a person as it develops. Rather than defend this theoretical disaster bordering on superstition, some of these pro-lifers have resorted to the name games that pro-choicers have used in the past: Blastocysts aren't embryos, embryos that have not been implanted are pre-embryos, etc. But none of these nominal distinctions-nor the biological distinctions they denote- mark a point of moral distinction.

[Robert] Bartley describes himself as a member of the "mushy middle" on abortion as though it were good in itself not to draw principled distinctions. He opposes partial-birth abortion because it is ugly, supports stem- cell research because nobody grieves for blastocysts, seeks a middle ground because the extremists are off-putting: a clump of positions united only by sensibility.

The trouble with this middle ground is that, in addition to giving up territory that should be defended, it is itself indefensible territory. Slippery slopes are slippery because the logic that starts you down them will lead you further down. During the stem-cell debate, people have said that it's okay to use embryos for research because we already "discard" plenty of embryos as a byproduct of in vitro fertilization; they could with equal validity say that we should allow research on five-month-old fetuses because we allow them to be aborted. Judges have said that we have to allow partial-birth abortion, or even euthanasia, because we allow abortion. The Washington Post says that the logic of abortion rights does not permit the law to charge people with murder when they kill an unborn child in the course of an assault on a pregnant woman, even if the woman considers it murder.

Slippery-slope arguments rarely succeed because people discount the possibility of remote future horrors; they think they will be able to stop the slide. But horrors can get less horrible as the future becomes less remote. People adjust their sensibilities. In 1973, not even pro- abortion lawyers were challenging Texas's law against partial-birth abortion. Back then, embryo-killing research would have seemed monstrous. I have read the argument (in Reason, the libertarian magazine, as it happens) that people predicted all kinds of dire consequences from in vitro fertilization that did not happen, so why not allow cloning? One of the dire consequences of in vitro fertilization, however, is precisely that we are debating cloning now.

A common trope of the press coverage of the stem-cell conflict-which reeks of weariness at the continued existence of pro-lifers-is that it's a shame this "scientific issue" has gotten caught up in the "politics" of abortion. But it is caught up in the issue because the premises of the arguments are the same: Either conception results in a new human being deserving of legal protection or it doesn't. No amount of sophisticated hairsplitting over bioethics is going to work if it ignores that awkward, obvious question.

1) I don't think that the phrase "genuinely right or wrong" implies absolutism, although it does imply the existence of objective moral truth.

2) I don't think I've committed "metaphysics" any more than when I say that killing infants is wrong (or, for that matter, when I give an account of walking down the street). Nor does classifying a question as "metaphysical" eliminate the possibility of there being a rationally derivable correct answer to it.

3) It should be possible for a majority of the public to reject the idea that early-stage human embryos deserve legal protection without reaching the conclusion that parents should be legally obligated to see that their children get medical treatments derived from killing human embryos--which was the topic that gave rise to your disagreement with the phrase "genuinely right or wrong." Imposing that obligation on parents strikes me as more likely to give rise to "social disorder" than not imposing it.

4) In some sense, public policy will always be something the public is willing to put up with--and that sense is obviously stronger in a democracy. I am not proposing to abolish representative forms of government in order to impose an embryo-protective policy that the public hates. I do think it important to try to persuade voters and their elected representatives to move toward a more embryo-protective policy. It is no objection to that project to say that public policy should reflect public opinion.

5) The proposition that "not many Americans" object to the deliberate destruction of week-old human embryos strikes me as simply untrue.

6) The analogy to the voting age, where an arbitrary line must be drawn, is open to question. For one thing, society does not have to draw a line--it could prohibit the deliberate killing of any member of the human species. For another, the right to vote is not as basic a human right as the right not to be killed.

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark has taken a high-profile role, both on and off Capitol Hill, as a Democratic spokesman and foreign policy adviser, stoking speculation that he is planning another national campaign in 2008.
Clark has emerged as a regular presence on Capitol Hill in the last few months. His allies paint him as a “go-to guy” for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) on foreign policy matters, pointing out that he has been repeatedly invited by the duo to address their respective caucuses on the handling of current military situations in Iraq and Afghanistan....

Our moral sentiments are an indispensable prop to our moral conduct. Many times, we can see that an injustice is being done without having to think too hard about it. But moral sentiments are not an unfailing guide to justice. Much of the task of a moral education is to train the sentiments to accord with justice. It is very easy for human beings to assume that others who do not “look like us” do not have any rights that we must respect—especially when ignoring their rights offers, or seems to offer, benefits to us. We need to think about the human embryo, not just look at it and conclude it is worthless except as an object of research.

We know that the embryo is alive, not dead or inanimate. We know that it is not just alive the way that one of our skin cells is alive: It is a distinct organism, not a part of some other organism. It has the capacity, under the right circumstances (circumstances that are in an important sense “normal”), to direct its own development from the embryonic to the fetal to the infant stages of development and beyond. And we know that this organism is human and does not belong to some other species.

We do not generally believe that the right of members of the human species to live—that is, not to be killed—depends on their size, age, location, condition of dependence, or number of limbs. Any claim that the embryo does not have a right to be protected from killing has to involve a denial of the idea that “mere” membership in the human species is enough to confer that right. That right will instead have to be posited to depend on some accidental quality that some human organisms have and others do not. Perhaps that quality is sentience or rich relationships with others or an ability to perform high-order mental functions or something else.

But whatever that something is, making the right to life depend on it creates serious problems. First, it is not just embryos who will be denied protection. Newborns can’t perform high-order mental functions either, which is why philosophers who are consistent about denying the importance of membership in the human species, such as Peter Singer, approve of infanticide. Second, these qualities vary continuously. It is impossible to identify a non-arbitrary point at which an entity would have enough of the quality in question not to be killed. Third, for the same reason, it is impossible to explain why some people do not have more or fewer basic rights than other people depending on how much of this quality they possess. The foundation of human equality is denied in principle when we allow some members of the human species to be treated as mere things.

From one of my economics Hill guys:

Jonah, I thought I might shed some light on your question about possible trends in the size and direction of revisions to GDP data. According to a 2004 study by the Bureau of Economic Analysis of GDP revisions from 1983 through 2004, “none of the mean revisions in GDP are statistically different from zero.” While it may appear to the naked eye that revisions are generally in a positive direction, that is not the case.

I don't know why exactly, but if Derb can have "Pop Culture is Filth" as his slogan, I'd like to see this on a t-shirt:

"Because tsunamis happen, is it okay to slaughter Asians?"

From a military medical guy:

Jonah,

Wow! Finally a corner topic about which I have some actual expertise! The photo certainly could be real and looks like someone with one of the craniosynostosis syndromes, such as Crouzon syndrome (as mentioned in the snopes article), caused by premature closure of the sutures of the bones of the skull. My second opinion is that Voinovich is emotionally unsuitable for public office, and McCain is still a weasel. (well, OK, three opinions)

No names please, or I'll end up with an even worse assignment.

I prefer Weekly Review of National Standards, simply because it would horrify Franch Rich more. From a reader:

I've discovered the plan!!!

The addition of Podhoretz to the corner is a prelude to a full fledged merger of WS and NRO,

To be called: Weekly National Standard Review!!

What a title!!!

From someone in a position to know in Ohio state government:

Though I wish to remain anonymous, you can share with your readers if you wish that I've checked with the people who would know in both the Ohio Adult Parole Authority and the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, and I can confirm that the Freaky Dude is no hoax, unfortunately (or fortunately, I suppose, given your most recent comment).

From a reader:

Here's an assertion which I don't have the time to check today (I'll see if I can find some stats to either prove or disprove this assertion tonight):

"For an accelerating economy, revisions are generally upwards. For a decelerating economy, revisions are generally downwards."

This makes some abstract sense if you assume a) that GDP estimations are measuring "things" that are coming into and out of existence and b) your best first estimate of the rate of change in the current number of those "things" is the measure from the previous quarter. For instance, consider the creation of companies during an economic cycle.

Now estimating the number of companies in a large economy can be a pretty difficult task. Assuming the change in number of companies is the same as the previous quarter is not a bad first estimate. However, for an accelerating economy, that leads to an undercount in the first estimate as the acceleration has led to a faster growth rate. Similarly during decelerations, that first estimate leads to an overcount.

Now, I'm an engineer, not an economimst, (Dammit Jim!) so the assertion might well be wrong, but it does gives the GDP economists an "out" for being off by 10% for some scenarios.

He thinks that the president's event with families who had adopted "unused" embryos and raised them as children was emotionally manipulative. I suppose we should go back to the sober, rational debate we were having with pictures of disease-stricken celebrities.

His only argument is a version of the naturalistic fallacy: A lot of human embryos die because they fail to implant, therefore they weren't alive in the first place. In other words: because they die naturally, it's okay for us to kill them deliberately. Because tsunamis happen, is it okay to slaughter Asians?