IF THE NOOSE FITS:

Khaddam’s Bombshell Tightens Noose Around Syria: Experts (Ahmed Fathy, December 31, 2005, IslamOnline.net)

The bombshell dropped by former Syrian vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam on a possible Syrian role in the assassination of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri has sent seismic waves in Damascus and would tighten the noose around the Arab country, experts agreed on Saturday, December 31.

“Khaddam’s testimony at this critical juncture in Syrian history has, in effect, sent shock waves across the country’s political landscape and ushered in grave consequences,” Syrian opposition writer Akram Al-Beni told IslamOnline.net.

FIRST FARRIS HASSAN, NOW HER:

Response to “Why?” (Mike Luckovich, December 29, 2005, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

on 10-26, i did an illustration depicting the word “why” using the names of the 2,000 troops who had, at that time, died in iraq. here on this blog, the feedback from readers, both pro and con was enormous. in response, a young woman, an 11th grader, has created the response above. what do you all think?

APPOINTABLE, NOT ELECTABLE:

Chalabi Named Iraq Oil Minister (Jonathan Finer and Naseer Nouri, December 31, 2005, Washington Post )

As a fuel crisis deepened in Iraq, the government replaced its oil minister with controversial Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi, whose poor performance in the Dec. 15 elections was a setback in his recent attempt at political rehabilitation.

THOSE WHO THROW LIKE FRENCHMEN:

BASEBALL’S PHONY CLASS WAR: Why blame Steinbrenner? (Russ Smith, NY Press)

Even though J.D. throws like a girl, the latest NYC celebrity is a huge plus for Joe Torre’s team, since he has few equals at running down fly balls in center field. His addition to an already packed lineup is ominous for the Red Sox and the resuscitated Blue Jays. It doesn’t really matter that he might resemble the Bernie Williams of 2005 in a few years since his addition has already made the Yankees the A.L. East favorite, at least according to most sportswriters. I’d be more chagrinned if Brian Cashman had landed a young, workhorse-starting pitcher, but there’s time for that, and time for Boston’s management to recover. At this point in Damon’s career, I’d rather have Cleveland’s Coco Crisp—and not just because he has the coolest name in baseball—leading off for the Sox.

My most immediate concern upon reading about Damon’s sensible nod to the club who offered him the most was breaking the news to my 11-year-old son Booker, who’s dreaded since last summer that Johnny, his favorite athlete, would leave the Sox. Though very disappointed, he took this turn of events in stride, saying, “I’ll always like Johnny, but I hope he pulls a hamstring on opening day and goes on the disabled list.” [...]

More seriously, how can you explain Jonathan Alter’s unhinged online Dec. 19 Newsweek column, in which he thunders: “We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.” And Joe Conason, in last week’s New York Observer, was just as hysterical: “Recklessly and audaciously, George W. Bush is driving the nation whose laws he swore to uphold into a constitutional crisis. He has claimed the powers of a medieval monarch and defied the other two branches of government to deny him.”

You hear, from certain elements of the Bush-hating media, about Constitutional crises as often as the absurd cliché that the Yankee ballplayers are the embodiment of “class.” No wonder Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor who far prefers John McCain over Bush, to write in the magazine’s current issue: “What is one to say about these media—Democratic spokesmen for contemporary American liberalism? That they have embarrassed and discredited themselves. That they cannot be taken seriously as critics. It would be good to have a responsible opposition party in the United States today. It would be good to have a serious mainstream media. Too bad we have neither.”

But at least, as Alter and Conason point out, we do have a medieval dictator.

OUT WITH THE NEW, IN WITH THE OLD:

2005: A Tipping Point?: It was a bad year for "New Democrats," but a good year for new democrats (Duncan Currie, 12/30/2005, Weekly Standard)

[R]epublicans had a bad 12 months. But their plight looks rather enviable when compared with the Democrats' current muddle. They are now the "No" party: the party of intractable opposition to George W. Bush. But while Democrats are brimming with antagonism for the president's agenda, they are bereft of the intellectual munitions needed to formulate their own.

Then there is the party's cleavage on matters of war and peace. "Defeating terrorism is the supreme military and moral mission of our time," says the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. Try telling that to the anti-Bush Left, whose proxies now dictate and jaundice the tenor of intra-party debate. Indeed, while it was a good year for new democrats in Iraq, it was a dreadful year for "New Democrats" in America.

Take poor Joe Lieberman. Only five years ago he was a few hundred Florida votes away from being Al Gore's veep. Today, Sen. Lieberman is perhaps the loneliest Democrat in Washington. The reason why is as basic as it is disheartening for party centrists: Iraq. Lieberman believes Bush has a plan for victory--and he believes that plan is working. For the MoveOn types, such comments would be heresy enough.

But Lieberman really set the cat amongst the pigeons when he questioned his party's attacks on Bush. "History will judge us harshly if we do not stretch across the divide of distrust to join together to complete our mission successfully in Iraq," he said in early December. "It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril."

The left-wing blogosphere erupted--as did prominent Democratic leaders. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi each took a swipe, with Reid claiming Lieberman was "at a different place on Iraq" than most Americans and Pelosi saying she "completely" disagreed with him. Party chairman Howard Dean also reproached Lieberman, and threw his lot in with Congressman John Murtha's call for a hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops. Liberal activists have even urged Lowell Weicker, whose Connecticut Senate seat Lieberman won in 1988, to challenge Lieberman in 2006 on an anti-war platform. That Lieberman's Iraq stance has apparently made him such a pariah affirms, once again, that this really is George McGovern's Democratic party.

Make that George McGovern and Frank Church's Democratic party, as witness the recent scrap over extending the Patriot Act and using wiretaps to spy on al Qaeda. Liberals' hostility to both reflects two impulses: their propensity, even in wartime, to make a fetish of ACLU-style civil libertarianism, and their desire to play "Gotcha!" games with the White House in hopes of derailing the Bush presidency.

Neither impulse is a responsible one. And each goes a long way toward explaining the public's lingering wariness of Democrats on national security issues. As blogger and Daily Standard contributor Ross Douthat has keenly observed, the spat over wiretapping just reinforces the perception that Republicans will err on the side of doing too much to protect Americans, while Democrats will err on the side of doing too little.

THAT SADDAM, WHAT A KIDDER:

Myth and reality in Iraq (The Boston Globe, DECEMBER 31, 2005)

When Craig Jeness, an official of the United Nations' election-monitoring mission in Iraq, confirmed Wednesday that the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections there were "transparent and credible," he was not only affirming the validity of the vote and the honesty of Iraq's own electoral commission. In a way, Jeness, a Canadian, was also doing a favor for the Sunni Arab political leaders who have been alleging large-scale electoral fraud.

Those leaders had been telling their followers that if they got out the Sunni Arab vote, they would win a share of representation commensurate with that of the major Shiite parties. This forecast was based on a myth that many Sunni Arabs tell themselves: that they are in the majority, as befits their previous role as the dominant group in Iraq's political and economic life.

Since there has been no real census in Iraq since 1957, no reliable figures are available for the current population. Most informed estimates, however, place the Sunni Arab share at 20 percent or less. Some estimates go as low as 13 percent.

Whatever the actual percentage may be, it is almost certain to fall far short of a majority. But it has become a matter of sectarian pride for Sunni Arabs to deny the likelihood that there may be three times as many Shiites in Iraq as Sunni Arabs.

The upshot of this persistent denial of reality is that the grass-roots supporters of the Sunni Arab parties find it hard to accept that, though they turned out in force for the recent elections, preliminary results indicate their parties are likely to gain between 40 and 50 seats in the new 275-seat national assembly. This is about the same portion that the Kurds, who make up roughly 20 percent of the population and who voted in large numbers, expect to receive.

JUST PROVIDE THE ILLUSION OF DOING SOMETHING AND THEY'LL BE HAPPY:

New controls in place at all U.S. entry ports (Eric Lipton, 12/30/05, The New York Times)

With the installation of a new immigration control system at 18 border-crossing posts last week, the Department of Homeland Security has reached a milestone.

Every port of entry into the United States - land, sea or air - is now equipped with the system, US-Visit, which takes fingerprints and digital photos of many entering foreigners to check them against criminal and terrorist watch lists. The 115 U.S. airports with international traffic, as well as 15 sea and 154 land ports of entry, all now have the equipment, which is linked to a national computer network that in a matter of seconds can check a visitor's fingerprints against a database of known terrorists and criminals.

But most Canadians and Mexicans, in addition to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, are not subject to the checks. As a result, only about 42 percent of people arriving at the airports or seaports must submit to fingerprinting. At land borders, the number is only about 2 percent. Because of those and other limitations, some question whether the program, which has cost more than $1 billion so far and could ultimately cost as much as $10 billion, is a worthwhile investment.

"US-Visit is an attractive showpiece, but it is not capable of delivering all that it is being sold to deliver," said Kathleen Campbell Walker of El Paso, vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

AS THE MANDATE SLIPS AWAY:

Journalists protest Chinese censorship (David Lague, DECEMBER 30, 2005, International Herald Tribune)

In a rare protest against an official media crackdown, about 100 journalists from one of China's most aggressive daily newspapers have gone on strike after the paper's editor and two of his deputies were fired, local journalists said Friday.

The editor of The Beijing News, Yang Bin, and deputy editors, Sun Xuedong and Li Duoyu, were dismissed Wednesday as part of what media watchdog groups describe as a sweeping government campaign to tighten control over the media and the Internet.

The striking journalists, about a third of the staff, stopped work on Thursday after editors from The Beijing News's conservative parent paper, the Guangming Daily, were appointed to replace Yang and his deputies.

GAY-BASHING NEVER GOES OUT OF STYLE:

A Chorus of Hoover Critics: More conservatives join the call to take his name off the FBI Building. (Johanna Neuman, December 31, 2005, LA Times)

Every year for the last three years, Rep. Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana, has introduced a bill to strip J. Edgar Hoover's name from the FBI's headquarters — an initiative that has been largely ignored.

Now, however...the effort to rename the Hoover building is starting to attract more supporters, most recently U.S. Circuit Judge Laurence H. Silberman, a Republican who was a leader of the presidentially appointed commission on pre-Iraq-war intelligence.

"This country — and the bureau — would be well served if his name were removed from the bureau's building," Silberman, a Reagan appointee, told the 1st Circuit Judicial Conference in June.

GOD HELPS THOSE...:

Anguished by the Suffering, a Cleric Keeps on Talking: Pius Ncube is the chief Zimbabwean critic of leader Robert Mugabe. Some fear for his life (Robyn Dixon, December 31, 2005, LA Times)

Nearly a quarter of Zimbabwe's population has been pushed to the edge of starvation by five years of economic mismanagement and hyperinflation. Unemployment is estimated at 80%. A campaign this year by President Robert Mugabe's government to destroy squatter camps and street stalls left about 700,000 people homeless. Mugabe repeatedly has been accused of rigging elections to stay in power.

Witnessing all of this, Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo has become the president's most prominent internal critic. He acknowledges that he prays for Mugabe's death.

D'OH JONES:

Why Dow May Be Off the Money: The index's weak year raises concern, but some question its value as an economic crystal ball (Tom Petruno and Josh Friedman, December 31, 2005, LA Times)

any investment professionals remain bullish about 2006. They expect that the Federal Reserve soon will stop tightening credit and that energy prices won't rise much more, giving the economy room to run.

"We think the catalyst for further stock market gains will be what it has been: global and U.S. economic growth chronically stronger and more durable than most anticipated," said James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis.

As for the Dow, many believe the 109-year-old index of 30 large, blue-chip companies hasn't been an accurate barometer of the economy or the broader stock market for the last two years.

Although the Dow lost ground in 2005, the average New York Stock Exchange stock was up nearly 7%. That also was the gain of the average U.S. stock mutual fund, according to fund tracker Morningstar Inc.

Shares of many smaller companies scored even better returns, which weren't necessarily reflected in the modest yearly gains posted by the broad Nasdaq composite index or the Standard & Poor's 500.

Jim Peoples, 61, a retired healthcare executive in Agoura Hills, estimated that his portfolio rose about 10% this year, thanks to healthy advances in smaller stocks and in such market sectors as energy.

"I've definitely done better than the Dow and the other indexes," Peoples said.

The Dow also was the weakest of major stock indexes in 2004, when it added just 3.2%. Despite that poor performance, the economy expanded at a brisk pace in 2005, and corporate earnings grew at a double-digit rate, on average.

The Dow has struggled as 16 of its 30 stocks fell this year.

WWII AS MODEL:

Truman Declares Hostilities Ended: 51 Statutes to Die Government's Power to Seize Plants and 1 1/2 Billion Taxes to Go: 18 of Laws End at Once States of Emergency and War Continue-Sudden Action a Surprise to Washington (BERTRAM D. HULEN, 12/31/46, The New York Times)

An Administration official who has worked closely on the problem explained the significance of the action informally at the request of The New York Times.

"The proclamation terminating hostilities affects fifty-one laws," he said. "Twenty-nine of these laws are of relatively little importance, and have not been used for some time. Those considered to be of some importance at the present time continue on for periods, the majority of which are for six months so that any need for certain laws in the immediate future will be satisfied by the additional period in which they will continue to be effective.

"The most important law affected is the War Labor Disputes Act, commonly called the Smith-Connally Act. It will end July 1, 1947. However, under the operation of that law the Government will be unable to take over any new operations inasmuch as hostilities have now been declared to be terminated. It can continue to operate, however, in the meantime in any industry now in possession of the Government--the coal mines and the tugboats on the Great Lakes.

"There are three technical 'states' that have existed since 1939. The first is the state of emergency that consists of limited and unlimited emergency and special emergency. Those are still in existence. The second is the state of war, the third is the state of hostilities, now ended.

"The termination of a state of emergency continues to be a joint responsibility of Congress and the President. That doesn't mean it takes concurrent action to terminate. But the President should consider the attitude of Congress, and Congress should consider the attitude of the President in so far as state of emergency is concerned.

"The termination of all of the states of emergency would be a more serious matter than the termination of hostilities. It would affect a greater number of laws and would also create serious questions of policy in various industries, wages in shipyards, for example. The termination of hostilities does not have that effect.

"The third and most important is the state of war. Termination of this would affect something in the neighborhood of 250 statutes and also would create a number of important policy questions. It must be worked out gradually between Congress and the President."

President Truman told his news conference the time had come when the Executive Branch should give up some of the powers exercised during the war. He then announced his proclamation, gave out a list of the laws affected, and read a prepared statement which emphasized that his action was "entirely in keeping with the policies which I have consistently followed, in an effort to bring our economy and our Government back to a peacetime basis as quickly as possible."

In a few instances, he continued, the statutes affected contained powers that should be maintained during peacetime or for the remainder of the period of reconversion and in these instances he would make recommendations to the new Congress. Also, he said, he would make recommendations to Congress. Also, he said, he would make recommendations to Congress "in the near future" with respect to the still-continuing states of emergency and the state of war itself."

Upon concluding the reading of the statement, Mr. Truman sought to bring the conference to an end by wishing those present a happy New Year and saying he would meet them at another press conference on Thursday afternoon. But he finally yielded to persuasion and replied to a few questions with answers along the lines of his formal statement.

Asked whether this was a step in his promise to cooperate with the new Republican- controlled Congress, he replied that this was co-operating with Congress.

The President's action was generally regarded here as chiefly important from the psychological standpoint. It was viewed as a move to demonstrate that he wants to be a constitutional President and not to hold on to excessive powers granted to the Chief Executive through emergency proclamations and a state of war.

In addition, it is looked upon as an example to other nations to return to a peacetime structure. In effect, it was remarked in political circles, the President has said to Messrs., Attlee, Stalin and others that it is time for all the countries to get back to normal.

Politically, the action was regarded as anticipating any move the Republicans in Congress might have made to put Mr. Truman into a position of clinging to powers that they want to take away. The President for his part now says that he will tell Congress in a few days about the powers he needs to retain.

ANOTHER INSTITUTION BASTARDIZED:

In a Daring Leap, Ringling Loses Its Three Rings (GLENN COLLINS, 12/31/05, NY Times)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, step right up and meet the no-ring circus.

For the first time in its history, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus will present a new show to its audiences without three rings, or two - or even one.

When the 136th edition of the circus opens on Wednesday at the St. Pete Times Forum here in Tampa, where Ringling maintains its winter quarters, the elephants, clowns, aerialists and acrobats will roam an arena floor. In as big a departure, the show will have a story line instead of being simply a cavalcade of acts.

NOT EVEN HONEST ACCIDENTS CAN BE JUSTIFIED TO PROP UP AN EVIL SYSTEM:

In Worker's Death, View of China's Harsh Justice (JIM YARDLEY, 12/31/05, NY Times)

From the prison cell where he contemplated an executioner's bullet, a migrant worker named Wang Binyu gave an anguished account of his wasted life. Unexpectedly, it rippled across China like a primal scream.

For three weeks, the brutal murders Mr. Wang committed after failing to collect unpaid wages were weighed on the Internet and in Chinese newspapers against the brutal treatment he had endured as a migrant worker. Public opinion shouted for mercy; lawyers debated the fairness of his death sentence. Others saw the case as a bloody symptom of the harsh inequities of Chinese life.

But then, in late September, the furor disappeared as suddenly as it had begun. Online discussion was censored and news media coverage was almost completely banned. Mr. Wang's final appeal was rushed to court. His father, never notified, learned about the hearing only by accident. His chosen defense lawyer was forbidden from participating.

"All of you are on the same side," Mr. Wang, 28, shouted during the hearing, his father said in an interview here in the family's home village in northern Gansu Province. "If you want to kill me, just kill me."

On Oct. 19, they did. Mr. Wang was executed so quickly, and quietly, that it took weeks for the word to fully trickle out that he was dead. [...]

There is widespread suspicion, even within the government, that too many innocent people are sentenced to death.

SERPICO NATION:

Bank Robber Turned in by Sons Gets 40 Years (JOHN O'CONNOR, December 30, 2005, Associated Press)

To his family and neighbors, Alfred Ginglen was a pillar of community life. The married father and ex-Marine served in local civic groups, even working in town as an auxiliary police officer. But in his diary, he documented his other side: a life filled with prostitute visits, a secret girlfriend, a crack habit.

That life began to unfold in 2004, when his police officer son recognized his father in a surveillance image. Thursday, Ginglen was sentenced to 40 years in prison for a string of rural bank robberies after being turned in by his own sons. Authorities said he needed the money to support his double life.

U.S. District Judge Jeanne Scott called Ginglen's sons "the greatest credit of your life."

"They acted in an exemplary fashion under circumstances that must have been incredibly difficult," she said.

His son, Jared Ginglen, a Peoria police officer, said he had no regrets about turning his father in. Jared and his brothers, Clay and Garrett, have said their father always taught them to do the right thing.

"It had to be done," he said.

AND SAFER:

Crime Numbers Keep Dropping Across the City (AL BAKER, 12/31/05, NY Times)

Crime has fallen across New York City for the 17th consecutive year, with subway crime down by more than 5 percent from last year and the number of recorded murders virtually certain to be the fewest in any single year since 1963, new Police Department statistics show.

PROHIBITION BY DEGREES:

Repeat drunken driving arrests fall: 44 percent drop follows start of Melanie's Law (Stephanie Ebbert, December 31, 2005, Boston Globe)

Since Melanie's Law started cracking down on habitual drunk drivers, the number of repeat offenders being arrested has plummeted, records at the Registry of Motor Vehicles show.

Over the last two months, 1,051 repeat offenders were charged with drunken driving, down 44 percent from the same period last year, when 1,889 were charged.

WHY DO THEY WEAR SPIKES IF NOT TO CARVE A GUY LIKE HIM UP?:

Di Canio 'fascist but not racist' (BBC, 12/23/05)

Lazio striker Paolo Di Canio has defended the raised-arm salute that earned him a one-game ban by saying he is "a fascist but not a racist".

THE GERMAN PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

Muslims to face loyalty test to become German (Kate Conolly, The Daily Telegraph, December 31st, 2005)

Muslims intent on becoming German citizens will have to undergo a rigorous cultural test to gauge their views on subjects ranging from bigamy to homosexuality and honour killings.

In what is believed to be the first test of its kind in Europe, the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg has created the two-hour oral exam to test the loyalty of Muslims to Germany.

It is to be taken on top of the standard test for foreigners wishing to become German citizens, which includes language proficiency skills and general knowledge. It also requires applicants to prove they can provide for themselves and their families.[...]

Until now, all applicants have simply had to tick a Yes or No box to answer whether they feel loyalty to Germany or not.

But now they will be quizzed on their attitudes to homosexuality and Western clothing for young women, and whether or not husbands should be allowed to beat their wives.

Other questions covering topics such as bigamy and whether parents should allow their children to participate in school sports, have been classed as "trick questions," meant to catch people off guard.

Dieter Biller of the Foreign Ministry in Stuttgart, the state capital, said the test would help bureaucrats to form opinions as to whether citizenship applicants were suitable or not.

"It covers everything from sexual equality, violence, school sports and religious freedom," he said.

Torquemada would be impressed, but even if they give all the right answers, they still won’t be accepted as Germans.

NOT:

4-way Manny frenzy: Execs buzzing over potential Mets megadeal (BILL MADDEN and ANTHONY McCARRON, 12/31/05, NY DAILY NEWS)

Manny Ramirez is eager to forget Boston, and Mets want him.
The Mets have been engaged in ongoing talks with the Devil Rays about reliever Danys Baez, but, according to multiple baseball sources, those discussions could bloom into a blockbuster four-team trade scenario in which Manny Ramirez winds up at Shea and similarly disgruntled slugger Miguel Tejada lands in Boston. [...]

The basics of the four-team deal that had the baseball executives buzzing yesterday and would appear to satisfy the needs of all four clubs would have Tejada and Tampa Bay's Joey Gathright going to the Red Sox to fill Boston's holes at shortstop and center field.

Ramirez and Baez would go to the Mets, giving them one of the game's best sluggers and a setup man. The Orioles would satisfy their need at shortstop by getting Julio Lugo from Tampa Bay and add pitching by getting Matt Clement from Boston and possibly Kris Benson from the Mets.

The Devil Rays, who have always been difficult to deal with, especially in complicated transactions, are seeking top prospects and young pitching and would be satisfied in that regard by getting third baseman Andy Marte from Boston and Jae Seo and Aaron Heilman from the Mets. In addition, the Mets would send Kaz Matsui to Tampa to give the D-Rays a stopgap shortstop replacement until prospect B.J. Upton is ready.

SOME LIKE IT HOT (via Tom Corcoran):

Evolution's Thermodynamic Failure (Granville Sewell, 12/28/2005, American Spectator)

The first formulations of the second law were all about heat: a quantity called thermal "entropy" was defined to measure the randomness, or disorder, associated with a temperature distribution, and it was shown that in an isolated system this entropy always increases, or at least never decreases, as the temperature becomes more and more randomly (more uniformly) distributed. If we define thermal "order" to be the opposite (negative) of thermal entropy, we can say that the thermal order can never increase in a closed (isolated) system. However, it was soon realized that other types of order can be defined which also never increase in a closed system. For example, we can define a "carbon order" associated with the distribution of carbon diffusing in a solid, using the same equations, and through an identical analysis show that this order also continually decreases, in a closed system. With time, the second law came to be interpreted more and more generally, and today most discussions of the second law in physics textbooks offer examples of entropy increases (order decreases) which have nothing to do with heat conduction or diffusion, such as the shattering of a wine glass or the demolition of a building.

It is a well-known prediction of the second law that, in a closed system, every type of order is unstable and must eventually decrease, as everything tends toward more probable (more random) states. Not only will carbon and temperature distributions become more disordered (more uniform), but the performance of all electronic devices will deteriorate, not improve. Natural forces, such as corrosion, erosion, fire and explosions, do not create order, they destroy it. The second law is all about probability, it uses probability at the microscopic level to predict macroscopic change: the reason carbon distributes itself more and more uniformly in an insulated solid is, that is what the laws of probability predict when diffusion alone is operative.

The reason natural forces may turn a spaceship, or a TV set, or a computer into a pile of rubble but not vice-versa is also probability: of all the possible arrangements atoms could take, only a very small percentage could fly to the moon and back, or receive pictures and sound from the other side of the Earth, or add, subtract, multiply and divide real numbers with high accuracy.

The discovery that life on Earth developed through evolutionary "steps," coupled with the observation that mutations and natural selection -- like other natural forces -- can cause (minor) change, is widely accepted in the scientific world as proof that natural selection -- alone among all natural forces -- can create order out of disorder, and even design human brains with human consciousness. Only the layman seems to see the problem with this logic. In a recent Mathematical Intelligencer article ("A Mathematician's View of Evolution," 22, number 4, 5-7, 2000), after outlining the specific reasons why it is not reasonable to attribute the major steps in the development of life to natural selection, I asserted that the idea that the four fundamental forces of physics alone could rearrange the fundamental particles of nature into spaceships, nuclear power plants, and computers, connected to laser printers, CRTs, keyboards and the Internet, appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics in a spectacular way.

BOWLING ALONE? NOT US:

Thanks to everybody who signed up for the College Bowl Pick'em: We've got 22 participants, which is better than I expected for a registration-based game. I'll run a few contests during the next two weeks and invite people to pick scores. Winners get books -- what's not to like?

Good luck to everybody and to your teams unless you're rooting for Miami or against Nebraska.

YOU CAN'T BREAK EGGS WITHOUT...:

Abortion Drug Adverse Events Reported: Reports Include Infection and Severe Bleeding (Salynn Boyles, December 29, 2005, WebMD Medical News)

The FDA received reports of 607 adverse events involving the abortion drug RU-486 over a four-year period, it was reported this week.

The adverse events included five reported deaths and 68 cases of severe bleeding that required transfusions.

Late last month, federal officials confirmed that five women who died of toxic shock syndrome within a week of taking the drug to induce abortions had the same rare bacterial infection. Four of the deaths occurred in California and one in Canada. Three of these deaths were not among those included in the FDA's 607 events.

THERE'S NO SHAME IN WINNING:

This is the country of Drake and Pepys, not Shaka Zulu (Max Hastings, December 27, 2005, The Guardian)

[T]he world's development in the past 500 years has been dominated, for good or ill, by what westerners have thought and done. Other societies, again no matter whether for good or ill, have been losers whose power to determine their own destinies, never mind anyone else's, has been small.

History is the story of the dominance, however unjust, of societies that display superior energy, ability, technology and might. If one's own people were victims of western imperialism, it is entirely understandable that one should wish to study history from their viewpoint. But, whatever the crimes of our forefathers, this is the country of Drake, Clive and Kitchener, not of Tipu Sultan, Shaka Zulu or the Mahdi.

TANNED, RESTED & READY:

Former Syrian VP: Dangerous things were said to Hariri (JPost staff and AP, Dec. 30, 2005, THE JERUSALEM POST)

Embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad was dealt more bad news Friday night after former Syrian Vice President Abed al-Halim Khadem said that Assad "could have prevented the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri."

Khadem also acknowledged that Hariri was threatened by Syria months before he was assassinated. [...]

Khadem made the claim as he declared a formal break with President Bashar Assad in a television interview from Paris, citing corruption within the regime and its failure to reform.

AND NO MIRANDA RIGHTS EITHER

Airbus pilot maroons drunken passenger on desert island (Nigel Bunyan, The Telegraph, December 30th, 2005)

A drunken holidaymaker has been dumped on a desert island after launching a foul-mouthed tirade at the crew of a passenger jet.[...]

The unnamed passenger's difficulties began on Tuesday evening at 35,000 ft when he began abusing the cabin crew of flight ZB558 from Manchester. He refused to calm down and then turned his attention to the other 210 passengers.

Eventually the pilot decided that he posed a risk to safety and had to be removed.

Rather than continue for a further 45 minutes to Tenerife he diverted his Airbus A321 to Porto Santo. Within moments of the plane touching down the passenger was escorted to the terminal. Last night he remained a castaway on the Portuguese-controlled island. His New Year home is a mere 10 miles long by three miles wide with a population of 4,000. There is little entertainment apart from walking on the sand dunes.

How many hours of the average lifetime are spent dreaming of meting out some richly deserved summary justice like this?

FOLLOW THE WINNER:

The Peace Epidemic: The world isn't so dangerous after all. (Timothy Noah, Dec. 29, 2005, Slate)

Although it's widely believed that the long standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union brought peace, that wasn't really true. Mutual deterrence successfully prevented war between the two great powers, and we can all be very grateful that humankind avoided nuclear annihilation. But the Cold War turned hot in a variety of proxy wars in which the United States supported one side and the Soviet Union supported the other. The human cost was enormous. By the report's reckoning, the number of "state-based armed conflicts" in the world increased by a factor of three between 1946 and 1991. Dire predictions that the Cold War's end would bequeath a long epoch of tribal anarchy may have seemed plausible in the early 1990s, as the Balkans were beset with ethnic violence. But in the end the jeremiads weren't borne out. The death of Soviet communism didn't just make the West safer; it made the entire world safer. (The report says the end of Western colonialism also played a role; because of anticolonial conflict, the greatest number of wars fought between 1946 and 2003 were waged by the United Kingdom, which fought 21, and France, which fought 19. The United States ranks next with 16, and the Soviet Union brings up the great-power rear with 9. Josef Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union until 1953, was no slouch in the killing department, but he tended to prefer murdering his own countrymen.)

One region must be excepted from this calculus. Interestingly, it isn't the Middle East (though certainly that region is a violent one). It's Africa. According to the Human Security Report, more people are being killed in wars in sub-Saharan Africa than in the rest of the world combined. [...]

If you go by the numbers, our planet is becoming less violent, not more so. Francis Fukuyama (who himself faltered slightly after 9/11) looks fairly prescient right now for predicting back in 1989 the "end of history," with "history" defined as "the evolution of human societies through different forms of government." In effect, Fukuyama was predicting an end to global armed ideological conflict, since "the evolution of human societies" is almost always achieved through warfare. The Human Security Report 2005 bears Fukuyama out. History may come back, but at the moment it's blessedly on the wane.

IF THE GRAND AYATOLLAH WON'T FIX THE PROBLEM THEN WE'LL HAVE TO:

German media: U.S. preparing Iran strike (Martin Walker, December 30, 2005, UPI )

The Bush administration is preparing its NATO allies for a possible military strike against suspected nuclear sites in Iran in the New Year, according to German media reports, reinforcing similar earlier suggestions in the Turkish media.

The Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel this week quoted "NATO intelligence sources" who claimed that the NATO allies had been informed that the United States is currently investigating all possibilities of bringing the mullah-led regime into line, including military options. This "all options are open" line has been President George W Bush's publicly stated policy throughout the past 18 months.

But the respected German weekly Der Spiegel notes "What is new here is that Washington appears to be dispatching high-level officials to prepare its allies for a possible attack rather than merely implying the possibility as it has repeatedly done during the past year."

The German news agency DDP cited "Western security sources" to claim that CIA Director Porter Goss asked Turkey's premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide political and logistic support for air strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets.

UNSERIOUS, BUT WITH A NICE NAZI TOUCH:

German Proposes Tagging Islamic Militants (Reuters, 12/29/05)

Known Islamic militants should be electronically tagged so their movements could be tracked, a regional German interior minister proposed Wednesday.

"This would allow us to monitor the roughly 3,000 Islamists who are prone to violence, hate-preachers and fighters trained in terrorist camps," the Lower Saxony interior minister, Uwe Schünemann, said in an interview with the newspaper Die Welt.

Mr. Schünemann said electronic tagging was a viable alternative to holding the militants in protective custody, as suggested by the former German interior minister, Otto Schily. Mr. Schünemann was quoted as saying that his proposal would not be against Germany's Constitution.

"It's practical for all Islamists who are prone to violence and who we can't expel to their home countries because they could be tortured," Mr. Schünemann said.

THE GOP CAN'T EVEN GET A RACE WAR RIGHT:

Assumptions about Katrina victims may be incorrect, data reveal (JOHN SIMERMAN, DWIGHT OTT AND TED MELLNIK, 12/29/05, Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Four months after Hurricane Katrina, analyses of data suggest that some widely reported assumptions about the storm's victims were incorrect.

For example, a comparison of locations where 874 bodies were recovered with U.S. Census tract data indicates that the victims weren't disproportionately poor. Another database, compiled by Knight Ridder of 486 Katrina victims from Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, suggests they also weren't disproportionately African-American.

WERE HIS FINGERS CROSSED?:

I'm a Soldier, Not a Spy (Grant Doty, December 30, 2005, Washington Post)

As Americans take stock of the news that the government has been involved in domestic warrantless eavesdropping as well as surveillance of "potentially threatening people or organizations inside the United States," many people are troubled, including me.

Although the government may be interested in my ACLU membership, my wife's participation in war protests or my affiliation with the liberal United Church of Christ, my real anxiety stems from the fact that I am a soldier and may now be under suspicion from my friends and neighbors.

Specifically, given the information slowly leaking out of Washington, it may not be farfetched for some to think that when I "stumble across people or information" that might be of interest to the government, I might report it to the Pentagon's three-year-old Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA). [...]

Yes, I took an oath to defend the United States against all enemies "foreign and domestic"...

RWR SLEW THE GREEN EYESHADE REPUBLICAN:

November Is Ten Months Away: Time for Bush to nationalize the midterm elections. (Larry Kudlow, 12/30/05, National Review)

Citizens Against Government Waste calls 2005 a record year for pork. The group identified 13,997 pork projects in the fiscal 2005 appropriations bills, costing taxpayers $27.3 billion, an increase of 31 percent over fiscal 2004. These are sickening facts. The president must work overtime to erase them in 2006 and truly produce a taxpayer protection budget.

SOME FOLKS NEVER LEARN:

Ex-envoy to Uzbekistan goes public on torture (Anne Penketh, 30 December 2005, Independent)

Britain's former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has defied the Foreign Office by publishing on the internet documents providing evidence that the British Government knowingly received information extracted by torture in the "war on terror".

16 September 02

SUBJECT: US/Uzbekistan: Promoting Terrorism

I quite understand the interest of the US in strategic airbases and why they back Karimov, but I believe US policy is misconceived. In the short term it may help fight terrorism but in the medium term it will promote it, as the Economist points out. And it can never be right to lower our standards on human rights. There is a complex situation in Central Asia and it is wrong to look at it only through a prism picked up on September 12. Worst of all is what appears to be the philosophy underlying the current US view of Uzbekistan: that September 11 divided the World into two camps in the "War against Terrorism" and that Karimov is on "our" side.

If Karimov is on "our" side, then this war cannot be simply between the forces of good and evil. It must be about more complex things, like securing the long-term US military presence in Uzbekistan. I silently wept at the 11 September commemoration here. The right words on New York have all been said. But last week was also another anniversary – the US-led overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile. The subsequent dictatorship killed, dare I say it, rather more people than died on September 11. Should we not remember then also, and learn from that too?

IT WOULD BE AMUSING ANYWAY:

Well, would you hire
this man to be gov? (JOE MAHONEY, 12/30/05, NY DAILY NEWS)

Could New York's state capitol building become the next Trump Tower?

Republican sources said The Donald - who in 1999 toyed with the idea of running for the White House on the Reform Party line - is mulling a bid to persuade New Yorkers to hire him as their next governor.

LITTLE BOY:

Robot car: streets ahead in cities of the future (Alok Jha, December 29, 2005, The Guardian)

It is not every day that a concept car re-writes the rules of more than 100 years of motoring. In development for four years by a team of architects and engineers led by William Mitchell, former head of the school of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as part of his Smart Cities research group, a new MIT car is borne of a complete rethink of people's relationship with their cars in the ever-expanding cities of the future.

Prof Mitchell expects we will share cars that will be easier to drive in congested cities, will be pollution-free and can be customised at will.

The city car concept, with styling input by architect Frank Gehry, will be completed and delivered by MIT to General Motors early next year.

"Primarily we're interested in urban living," says Ryan Chin, an architect and engineer at MIT's media lab and a member of Prof Mitchell's research group. "Everything scales down from what we think the city of the future is."

The Smart Cities group focused on how cars could be better adapted to get round familiar problems of city life, namely congestion, pollution and parking. Motor companies are well aware of the issue. But the group felt the companies had missed the point, even with city cars such as the Smart, the iconic two-passenger cars introduced by Swatch and Mercedes in 1998.

"We have to think of city cars as not just small-footprint vehicles that can squeeze into tight spaces but ones that can work in unison and also be almost like a parasite that leeches on to mass-transit systems," says Mr Chin. While Smart changed the way people think about parking and size, the MIT engineers felt that, as it had not been widely adopted and congestion and pollution problems had got no better, its success had been limited.

STRAYING FROM THE TALKING POINTS:

Palestinians in Iraq Pay the Cost of Being 'Saddam's People' (Doug Struck, December 30, 2005, Washington Post)

For years, Saddam Hussein harbored a small population of Palestinians in Iraq, trotting them out to cheer whenever he went to war -- which he routinely justified as essential to Arab nationalism and the Palestinian cause.

SO HARD TO TELL AN IRISHMAN FROM AN ISLAMICIST:

Irish President Offered Nazis Condolences (SHAWN POGATCHNIK , 12.30.2005, Forbes)

Ireland's president during World War II offered condolences to Nazi Germany's representative in Dublin over the death of Adolf Hitler, newly declassified government records show.

Until now, historians had believed that Ireland's prime minister at the time, Eamon de Valera, was the only government leader to convey official condolences to Eduard Hempel, director of the German diplomatic corps in Ireland. De Valera's gesture - unique among leaders of neutral nations in the final weeks of World War II - was criticized worldwide.

VENGEANCE IS MINE...:

England Burned in Prison Kitchen Accident (AP, 12/30/05)

Lynndie England, the U.S. soldier who posed for some of the most infamous pictures of detainee abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, suffered burns at the prison where she is serving her sentence, her family said Friday.

OF COURSE, THIS ONE LIKELY CAME FROM ROVE TOO:

Justice Dept. Probing Domestic Spying Leak (TONI LOCY, 12/30/05, Associated Press)

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of classified information about President Bush's secret domestic spying program, Justice officials said Friday.

The officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, said the inquiry will focus on disclosures to The New York Times about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

WHERE THE KIDS ARE MORE MATURE THAN THE LEFT:

AP Exclusive: U.S. teen runs off to Iraq (JASON STRAZIUSO, 12/29/05, Associated Press)

Maybe it was the time the taxi dumped him at the Iraq-Kuwait border, leaving him alone in the middle of the desert. Or when he drew a crowd at a Baghdad food stand after using an Arabic phrase book to order. Or the moment a Kuwaiti cab driver almost punched him in the face when he balked at the $100 fare.

But at some point, Farris Hassan, a 16-year-old from Florida, realized that traveling to Iraq by himself was not the safest thing he could have done with his Christmas vacation.

And he didn't even tell his parents.

Hassan's dangerous adventure winds down with the 101st Airborne delivering the Fort Lauderdale teen to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, which had been on the lookout for him and promises to see him back to the United States this weekend.

It begins with a high school class on "immersion journalism" and one overly eager - or naively idealistic - student who's lucky to be alive after going way beyond what any teacher would ask.

Excepts from an essay written recently by Farris Hassan, 16, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who traveled to Iraq without telling his parents:

There is a struggle in Iraq between good and evil, between those striving for freedom and liberty and those striving for death and destruction. You are aware of the heinous acts of the terrorists: Women and children massacred, innocent aid workers decapitated, indiscriminate murder. You are also aware of the heroic aspirations of the Iraqi people: liberty, democracy, security, normality. Those terrorists are not human but pure evil. For their goals to be thwarted, decent individuals must answer justice's call for help ... So I will.

Life is not about money, fame, or power. Life is about combating the forces of evil in the world, promoting justice, helping the misfortunate, and improving the welfare of our fellow man. Progress requires that we commit ourselves to such goals. We are not here on Earth to hedonistically pleasure ourselves, but to serve each other and the creator. What deed is greater than sacrificing one's luxuries for the benefit of those less blessed? ...

I know I can't do much. I know I can't stop all the carnage and save the innocent. But I also know I can't just sit here ...

UPICK-EM:

The Office Pool, 2006 (WILLIAM SAFIRE, 12/30/05, NY Times)

HERE is your 32nd annual chance to Beat the Pundit. In each multiple choice, pick one, none or all. In a good year, a master prognosticator gets four right.

1. U.S. troops in Iraq at 2006 year's end will number: (a) current "base line" 138,000; (b) closer to 100,000; (c) closer to 90,000; (d) 80,000 or below. [...]

12. Thinking outside the ballot box - the dark-horse line for the 2008 presidential race will pit: (a) Virginia Democrat Mark Warner against Massachusetts Republican Mitt Romney in the battle of centrist capitalists; (b) Dems' iconoclastic Senator Russ Feingold vs. the G.O.P.'s nonpartisan Mayor Mike Bloomberg to compete for evangelical vote; (c) the Dems' favorite Republican, Chuck Hagel, against the G.O.P.'s favorite Democrat, Joe Lieberman; (d) domestic centrists and foreign-policy hardliners Hillary ("You're a Grand Old Flag") Clinton against Condi ("I am not a lawyer") Rice.

13. Conventionally, inside the box: (a) Bill Richardson vs. Rudy Giuliani; (b) Hillary vs. John McCain; (c) Warner vs. Romney; (d) Joe Biden vs. George Allen.

14. As Bush approval rises, historians will begin to equate his era with that of: (a) Truman; (b) Eisenhower; (c) L.B.J.; (d) Reagan; (e) Clinton.

THE WAR ON CARS CONTINUES APACE:

Internet Sales Show Big Gains Over Holidays (MICHAEL BARBARO, 12/30/05, NY Times)

Online retailers, whose growth was expected to level off after a decade of dizzying gains, experienced a stellar holiday season, according to two preliminary reports released yesterday, as traditional stores like Wal-Mart and Target cemented their place on the Web.

Consumer spending online reached $18.1 billion in November and December, a 25 percent increase over 2004, according to the research firm ComScore Networks.

Nielsen/NetRatings, another research firm, said Web purchases totaled $30.1 billion in the period, an increase of 30 percent. Unlike ComScore, Nielsen includes spending at online auction sites like eBay, accounting for its higher figure.

Online commerce still represents less than 6 percent of all retail sales, but the numbers indicate that it has finally become part of mainstream American shopping.

IF YOU HAD ANY SKILLS WHY WOULD YOU STAY?:

China's looming talent shortage: To make the move from manufacturing to services, China must raise the quality of its university graduates. (Diana Farrell and Andrew J. Grant, McKinsey Quarterly)

With a huge supply of low-cost workers, mainland China has fast become the world's manufacturing workshop, supplying everything from textiles to toys to computer chips. Given the country's millions of university graduates, is it set to become a giant in offshore IT and business process services as well?

New research from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) suggests that this outcome is unlikely. (The full report, The Emerging Global Labor Market, is available free of charge online.) The reason: few of China's vast number of university graduates are capable of working successfully in the services export sector, and the fast-growing domestic economy absorbs most of those who could. Indeed, far from presaging a thriving offshore services sector, our research points to a looming shortage of homegrown talent, with serious implications for the multinationals now in China and for the growing number of Chinese companies with global ambitions.

COME FAIL WITH US:

German finance minister urges fairer tax competition within EU (Lisbeth Kirk, 12/30/05, EU Observer)

German finance minister Peer Steinbruck has urged new EU member states to raise their taxes and ensure "fair tax competition" among the 25 members of the bloc.

WELL, AT LEAST THEY AREN'T COLLABORATING:

Gaza protests force EU monitors to flee (Lisbeth Kirk, 12/30/05, EU Observer)

AND THEY WISELY ESCHEWED DEPICTING MOPERY:

Bollywood film in Time's Top 10 (BBC, 12/30/05)

Bollywood film Black has been selected as one of the top films of 2005 in a listing by American Time magazine.

Directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Black is about a relationship between a deaf-blind child and her teacher.

"Black is more than a noble weepie; it is the ultimate Bollywood love story," Time magazine said of the film.

WEREN'T 500,000 DEAD IRAQIS ENOUGH?:

US threat over N Korean food aid (BBC, 12/30/05)

The US says it will stop giving food aid to North Korea unless it lets international relief workers monitor its distribution.

The US said it wanted to check aid - channelled through the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) - reached the needy.

The statement comes as the WFP prepares to halt food aid to North Korea after Pyongyang said it was no longer needed.

NO WONDER HIS FICTION LEADS AN ESCAPE:

O'Brian, Sailing Under False Colors: a review of PATRICK O'BRIAN: The Making of the Novelist, 1914-1949 By Nikolai Tolstoy and THE CATALANS: A Novel By Patrick O'Brian (Gregory Feeley, Washington Post)

For most of the last years of Patrick O'Brian's life, when his novels set during the Napoleonic Wars were gaining increasing acclaim, he appeared to be one of those writers whose command of his subject arises from a lifetime of firsthand acquaintance. Biographical information was fiercely guarded, but O'Brian had at times let out that he was Irish, privately educated, that his nautical expertise was grounded in his own sailing experience, and other details that later proved to be untrue. When journalists discovered in 1998, just two years before he died, that O'Brian had been born Richard Patrick Russ, an Englishman who had published his first novel at 15 and had left his wife and two small children (one of them dying) in an act of self-reinvention that he then sought to hide from the world, the response was not charitable. An early biography by Dean King added more facts, although King's lack of access (O'Brian had instructed friends not to cooperate) proved a serious limitation.

Nikolai Tolstoy, O'Brian's stepson, has set out to correct all this with "Patrick O'Brian: The Making of the Novelist, 1914-1949," the first of two planned volumes. His portrayal -- based on extensive research, access to O'Brian's personal papers, and more than 40 years' personal acquaintance -- shifts our image of O'Brian still further, though perhaps not in the direction he intended. The author of the Aubrey/Maturin novels, so worldly and assured in his self-presentation, was not merely a British eccentric but a profoundly damaged individual, whose psychic scarring and resulting haplessness places him in a class with Malcolm Lowry and T.H. White. Though he wrote with assurance and calm authority from his earliest days, O'Brian was a psychological basket case, so incapable in dealing with other people or managing his business and personal affairs that, were it not for his extraordinary literary gift (which manifested itself early) and -- like Lowry -- good fortune in his second wife, he would likely have proven incapable of supporting himself.

The outlines of O'Brian's early life are largely what Dean King found them to be, although Tolstoy provides immeasurably more detail, is often able to provide answers where King was compelled to speculate and -- as he is quick to note -- corrects a large number of errors. That his portrayal of O'Brian is at least as disturbing as King's, despite Tolstoy's recurrent tone of defensiveness and (sometimes) special pleading, is testimony to his honesty. [...]

The story of Dr. Alain Roig, who returns to his Catalan home town after years of medical research in the Far East to intercede in an imminent family scandal, is drolly observed, beautiful in its evocation of place, and -- like O'Brian's later novels -- often mordantly funny.

Admirers of O'Brian's historical novels will be struck at how much of his skill, verve and humor were evident this early in his career, but they will be sobered by the revelations in Tolstoy's work.

THEY"VE PAID A TERRIBLE PRICE FOR OUR FAILURE TO CHANGE THE REGIME:

Raiding the Icebox: Behind Its Warm Front, the United States Made Cold Calculations to Subdue Canada (Peter Carlson, 12/30/05, Washington Post)

Invading Canada won't be like invading Iraq: When we invade Canada, nobody will be able to grumble that we didn't have a plan.

The United States government does have a plan to invade Canada. It's a 94-page document called "Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan -- Red," with the word SECRET stamped on the cover. It's a bold plan, a bodacious plan, a step-by-step plan to invade, seize and annex our neighbor to the north. It goes like this:

First, we send a joint Army-Navy overseas force to capture the port city of Halifax, cutting the Canadians off from their British allies.

Then we seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so they freeze in the dark.

Then the U.S. Army invades on three fronts -- marching from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, charging out of North Dakota to grab the railroad center at Winnipeg, and storming out of the Midwest to capture the strategic nickel mines of Ontario.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy seizes the Great Lakes and blockades Canada's Atlantic and Pacific ports.

At that point, it's only a matter of time before we bring these Molson-swigging, maple-mongering Zamboni drivers to their knees! Or, as the official planners wrote, stating their objective in bold capital letters: "ULTIMATELY TO GAIN COMPLETE CONTROL."

SUKED INTO THE QUAGMIRE:

Stem Cell Advance Is Fully Refuted: Investigator Says Korean's Colonies Do Not Exist (Rick Weiss, December 30, 2005, Washington Post)

The scandal surrounding disgraced South Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk deepened yesterday as an investigator told reporters in Seoul that none of the 11 tailor-made cell colonies Hwang claimed to have created earlier this year actually exist.

Korean news outlets also reported that the ongoing probe into one of the biggest scientific frauds in memory had broadened to embrace allegations that government officials -- concerned about the shame such revelations could bring upon their country -- may have attempted to bribe scientists who were considered potential whistle-blowers.

The still-evolving quagmire...

BUT...BUT...BUT...GERHARD SCHROEDER AND TED KENNEDY SAID TO STOP...:

Covert CIA Program Withstands New Furor: Anti-Terror Effort Continues to Grow (Dana Priest, , December 30, 2005, Washington Post)

The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al Qaeda has grown into the largest CIA covert action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics, according to former and current intelligence officials and congressional and administration sources.

The broad-based effort, known within the agency by the initials GST, is compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs, details of which are known mainly to those directly involved.

GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world.

Over the past two years, as aspects of this umbrella effort have burst into public view, the revelations have prompted protests and official investigations in countries that work with the United States, as well as condemnation by international human rights activists and criticism by members of Congress.

Still, virtually all the programs continue to operate largely as they were set up, according to current and former officials. These sources say Bush's personal commitment to maintaining the GST program and his belief in its legality have been key to resisting any pressure to change course.

WHEN YOU GROW UP, SON, YOU CAN FILL IN THIS FORM AND TAKE A NUMBER YOURSELF

It's official: Britain is run by bureaucrats (The Telegraph, December 30th, 2005)

re has been a slight expansion in the numbers of front-line workers, the real bonanza has been in administration. Our public services resemble a South American army, where a handful of miserable conscripts sustain hundreds of self-important generals. The NHS, for example, uniquely in the world, now has more officials than beds.

The TaxPayers' Alliance, which deserves a medal for having trudged through an entire year's worth of Guardian appointments sections, estimates the total cost of these non-jobs in 2005 to be £787,319,556.31. This is bad enough. But think of the opportunity costs. Imagine if these battalions of bureaucrats were making or selling things, instead of plaguing the rest of us. How much more freely Britain would breathe.

The grim truth is that these positions are, in the main, not merely useless, but actively malign. There might be some sort of warped Keynesian argument for spending £800 million to keep a few thousand unemployables off the street, harmlessly sending each other memos and suing each other for sexual harassment.

But many state workers have a tangible and deleterious impact on public policy. A racism awareness counsellor needs to justify her salary by constantly finding instances of racism, so ensuring that her employers are distracted from their main business. A police force that hires diversity directors is not concentrating on catching scoundrels.

By bloating the state in this way, Labour has created a caste of people with a vested interest in pursuing certain policies. It doesn't much matter how we vote, nationally or locally, as long as decisions are in the hands of strategy co-ordinators and policy directors.

Mr Blair himself has run up against the immobilism of the public sector; how much more would a Tory administration. The sad fact is that, whoever is in office, Britain will still be run by overpaid jobsworths.

It is an almost universal modern conceit that our society is both freer and more democratic than, say, a hundred years ago. Perhaps we need this myth to protect us from the depressing horrors of facing open-eyed the combined effects of bureaucratic sovereignty, judicial supremacy and non-discretionary spending entitlements,

THAT DEVIL'S DEAD:

Novel that Stalin banned grips Russian television audience (Andrew Osborn, 30 December 2005, Independent)

Joseph Stalin banned it, while the Russian Orthodox Church worried that its text might undermine people's faith. Its plot lampoons state authoritarianism and censorship in a country that has atradition of both.

Now the first screen adaptation of Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov's novel Master and Margarita, one of the Communist era's finest pieces of literature, has been shown on Russian television. More than half of the adult population has tuned in over the past few weeks and revelled in a plot in which the Devil takes centre stage. [...]

Bulgakov died in 1940, thinking that Master and Margarita would never see the light of day.

THE CURSE OF OIL

Prosperity cheques provide post-Christmas teen dreams (Judy Monchuk, The Globe and Mail, December 29th, 2005)

And thanks to Alberta's energy bonanza, Shelby will be getting $400 from the province early in 2006 that could make her dream a reality. She and her friends say there's only one option for what the government has termed prosperity cheques.

“A big shopping spree,” the Grade 8 student said with a laugh as she browsed through racks of clothing at Chinook Centre, Calgary's largest mall.

Shelby's mom has thought about letting her daughter have a portion of the windfall to indulge her consumer fantasies, but it's a tough decision.

“It's caused conflict in a lot of families I know,” said Tammy Airth. “For the government to say each individual will get $400 is absurd. Every kid I know is pumped about the $400 that they're getting. That money should go towards offsetting high energy bills, but of course these guys don't see that. They see $400 that the government is giving to them.”

Ms. Airth scoffs at Premier Ralph Klein's suggestion that kids — or their parents — can put the money into education accounts or donate it to the homeless if they feel that's the best use of the cash.

“Kids don't care about their education when they're 12 or 13 years old: they want the money, they want to go shopping and blow the money,” said Ms. Airth.

Historian David Mills says no one should be surprised by the reaction of teens and even pre-teens to what's essentially free cash — a $1.4-billion “rebate” shared by every man, woman and child in Alberta because of soaring oil and gas prices.

“It's almost as if we live in an age of entitlement,” says Mr. Mills, who teaches pop culture at the University of Alberta.

Yes, almost. A few more years of this and Albertans will be importing thousands of Filipino guest workers to do their work for them.

PISS-EU

Outrage as porn posters of the Queen 'promote' EU presidency (Roger Boyes, The London Times, December 30th, 2005)

Pornographic posters showing naked figures wearing masks portraying the Queen, President Chirac and President Bush have created fierce controversy in Austria on the eve of the country taking over the EU presidency from Britain.

The posters, which went on display this week in Vienna, were financed by a €1 million (£680,000) grant from the Austrian Government. It had hoped that a series of pictures by artists from all member states would reflect the social and political diversity of the EU. Instead, the work has provoked an unseemly row.

The posters are mounted on rotating boards and are visible for only seconds at a time — but that is long enough for most passers-by to identify the three figures. The George Bush figure is a woman model using the appropriate mask. She is seen bending over, with the Queen and President Chirac kneeling behind her. The Queen can be seen clutching the hips of the George Bush character.

“Absolutely outrageous!” the tabloid Krone Zeitung declared. “This will overshadow the beginning of our EU presidency.”

The posters are part of an artistic project known as Europ-art that is intended to stir interest in the European Union. Austria now ranks as one of the most sceptical EU partners and its Government has been struggling to find ways of engaging the interest of young people in European issues. The group sex scene was created by Carlos Aires, a 31-year-old Spanish artist.

The second poster by Tanja Ostojic, a Balkan artist, is causing even more anger. It shows a woman’s spread thighs wearing blue knickers embroidered with the stars of Europe. [...]

“The EU knickers are depraved and sexist and can only damage the European idea,” Gabi Burgstaller, governor of the Salzburg region, said.

We yield to no one in our prudish condemnation of pornography, but we do understand why the artists couldn’t think up anything better.

THE REASON GOD MADE CELLULOID:

New DVD's (DAVE KEHR, 12/27/05, NY Times)

Here at the height of white elephant season, with the theaters full of overstuffed Oscar contenders, it's a relief to return to the world of what the critic Manny Farber defined as "termite art" - those buzzy little B-movies, exploitation pictures and oddball imports that were never intended to win awards, but nonetheless offer cinematic pleasures often beyond their bloated, big-budget brethren. What follows is a roundup of some of the last few weeks' smaller, more insidious titles, presented with the assurance that none of them ever received a Golden Globe nomination. [...]

Fox in a Box

From MGM, the current owners of the American International library, comes a boxed set collecting three Pam Grier features from the 1970's heyday of the black exploitation film: Jack Hill's "Coffy" (1973) and "Foxy Brown" (1974), plus William Girdler's "Sheba, Baby" (1975). These look to be the familiar, nonanamorphic MGM transfers of 2001, though repackaged with a fourth disc combining a pair of documentary appreciations of Ms. Grier produced by Vibe magazine. But here she is in her stereotype-shattering glory, playing her perennial part as the strong black woman on a solo campaign to rid her community of pimps, pushers and the corrupt white politicians who protect and profit from them. Some of the 70's fashion statements threaten to short out the color circuitry on your television, but those were exuberant days. $29.95; "Coffy" and "Foxy" are rated R, "Sheba" PG.

AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY:

Rail rivals roll past U.S. (John Tagliabue, DECEMBER 30, 2005, The New York Times)

As countries like Italy and Spain - and emerging markets like China and Russia - open their pocketbooks for huge high-speed rail development, the United States remains on the sidelines, risking to lose out on new technologies for propulsion and vehicle control.

For those who thought railroads were basically 19th-century technology, think again. Thanks to miniaturization, these powerful new trains have motors built into the axles of every second rail car, rather than concentrating the pulling power in the locomotive, as was done in traditional pull-push trains.

The new technology makes the trains lighter and enables the trains to go faster, to brake and accelerate more easily, and to cause less wear on rails and wheels. It also frees up locomotives for up to 20 percent additional seating space. The newer generation of very high-speed trains has other breakthrough features, including so-called eddy current brakes, which employ electromagnetic fields rather than brake disks to slow and stop.

WE DECIDE WHAT SOVEREIGNTY YOU HAVE:

Italy's Pursuit of CIA Operatives Stalls: Resistance by Berlusconi government and apathy about being able to keep the U.S. from infringing sovereignty fetter case of imam spirited abroad. (Tracy Wilkinson, December 30, 2005, LA Times)

The pro-U.S. government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is refusing to forward the extradition requests and instead has asked for more documentation, a highly unusual request that prosecutors regard as a delaying tactic.

Berlusconi has repeatedly denied that his government knew about or authorized the abduction, even as former CIA officers in Washington said the operation was conducted with Italian government cooperation.

Berlusconi shrugged off the contradiction. Last week, he justified the operation, saying governments should not be expected to fight terrorism "with a law book in hand."

The ease and openness with which the operatives acted in Milan suggest that they knew they had the green light from Italian authorities. Among other activities, they ran up bills totaling more than $150,000 at some of Milan's best hotels.

"Berlusconi was an accomplice," said Giusto Catania, a leftist Italian member of the European Parliament who sits on its civil liberties committee. Catania is one of a group of EU lawmakers spearheading a continent-wide investigation into alleged CIA activities, as reports of secret prisons and flights mount.

It is not in the prime minister's interest for the Italian inquiry to advance, Catania said, because of his apparent role in permitting the rendition.

Berlusconi believes he will weather any domestic criticism, said a senior advisor to the prime minister, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. [...]

Italian prosecutors said the CIA operation was an egregious violation of national sovereignty, a call taken up by some members of the political left. [...]

Italian prosecutors have tried to broaden the prosecution of his captors. But, in addition to official roadblocks, they are confronted with a general sense of resignation among Italians, another obstacle to the criminal case. Outrage over the abduction has been tempered by a feeling among many Italians that the Americans will do as they choose on national territory, and nothing can be done about it.

"In a certain sense, Italians expect Italy to be taken for granted," said Giuseppe Cucchi, a retired army general with Italy's civil protection office who is familiar with intelligence operations.

NAE BOTHER:

English Murder (Ferdinand Mount, The Spectator)

[T]he most remarkable fact about homicide in Britain today is that it has increased at a gallop over the past 40 years.

I don't think this was an inevitable historical trend. After all, from 1946, when Orwell wrote his essay, to 1965, the rate of homicide actually declined slightly, from 340-370 cases per year to 300-325.

Then, in 1965, capital punishment was abolished. Thereafter, there has been a remorseless increase in the number of homicides recorded by the police, to 396 in 1970, 621 in 180, 661 in 1990 and 853 in 2003-04. This increase has been matched by the number of convictions secured. In 1965, a mere 58 people went to prison under the mandatory life sentence that replaced the hangman. By 2003, the figure had risen to 277.

With most crime statistics, there is room for dispute. Their ups and downs may be due to the diligence of a new chief constable or some more or less subtle change in recording practice. But about a pile of dead bodies there cannot be much argument.

These homicide statistics are in fact the most reliable evidence for the claim that England and Wales have become progressively more violent. Nowhere near as violent as South Africa or Russia - or Scotland. But certainly something disquieting is happening. It is not all whipped up by the tabloids.

Yet when the Law Commission this week put out its consultation paper calling for a new Homicide Act, these facts seemed to play no part in its argument. In fact, the homicide statistics were excluded altogether from the 53-page overview and were only to be tracked down in appendix G, on page 323 of the full document.

Nor was there any mention of the startling growth in homicide in the approving leaders in The Times and in the Guardian, which called the commission's proposals "both logical and judicious".

Mr Justice Toulson and his colleagues complain that the present law of homicide is "a mess". They propose instead to create American-style first and second degrees of murder. These, along with a reformed offence of manslaughter and the sentencing tariffs that guide judges these days, would enable them to grade and label different types of murder.

The whole question is seen from the point of view of securing a satisfactory internal consistency of treatment, so that judges can totter off to their lodgings with the warm inner glow of one who has just solved a fiendish sudoku.

Nowhere does the commission appear to ask itself the larger question: will these proposals act as a stronger or weaker deterrent to anyone preparing to inflict grievous bodily harm on his neighbour?

NO ONE LIVES LESS COMFORTABLY THAN THEIR PARENTS DID:

Better living ... as measured by PCs, VCRs (Mark Trumbull , 12/30/05, The Christian Science Monitor

In case there was any doubt, a study has confirmed that Americans have a lot of what economists know, technically, as stuff. The computer has surpassed the dishwasher as a standard household appliance. The poorest Americans have posted a sharp rise in access to air conditioning. [...]

It's only one piece of the overall picture of economic progress and doesn't resolve the question about future generations. But it confirms that what the Census Bureau calls "material well-being" abounds for regular folks today in ways that Louis XIV - for all his palaces, silk stockings, and ruffled finery - could barely have imagined.

CAN THEY REALLY NOT FIGURE THIS OUT?:

Former Iraq Hostage Makes Bizzare TV Appearance (Der Spiegel, 12/29/05)

If former hostage Susanne Osthoff had been better advised, she probably would have opted against appearing on German television entirely covered in a black headscarf. The hijab, which left only a pair of slits for her eyes, made the freed hostage look like a disturbing cross between a Chechen Black Widow suicide bomber and a ninja.

On Wednesday night, 10 days after her release from captivity, a televised interview with Osthoff, who had been held in Iraq for three weeks, was broadcast on the German public television channel ZDF. In the interview's introduction, the presenter explained that Osthoff's choice of dress was suposedly intended to preserve her identity --a bizarre thought considering that Osthoff's face has been all over the front-pages since November and most people in Germany must be quite aware of what she looks like. Besides, she didn't wear a headdress in her interview with Arab broacaster Al-Jazeera earlier this week.

The second shock for viewers was the rambling, incoherent nature of Osthoff's answers. Even the heavily edited version (ZDF spokesman: "We wanted to protect Osthoff from herself.") of the original 15-minute interview was barely comprehensible. Questions were left unanswered and at times Osthoff rambled off into non-sequiturs about how badly she had been treated by her landlord back in Germany. When asked how the kidnapping had been carried out, she was evasive, simply responding: "I think these details are not interesting. That doesn't interest anyone. Generally kidnappings are carried out quite violently. People watch a lot of television and realize perhaps that you don't let yourself get abducted voluntarily."

SHALLOW THROAT:

CIA couple outed by 5-year-old son (Tabassum Zakaria, 12/29/05, Reuters)

The Washington couple at the heart of the CIA leak investigation had their cover blown by their small son as they tried to sneak away on vacation on Thursday.

"My daddy's famous, my mommy's a secret spy," declared the 5-year-old of his parents, former diplomat Joe Wilson and retired CIA operative Valerie Plame.

JANET, FULL OF DISGRACE:

College Student Sues Over Mistaken Drug Bust (AP, 12/29/05)

When college freshman Janet Lee packed her bags for a Christmas trip home two years ago, her luggage contained three condoms filled with flour - devices that she and some friends made as a joke.

Philadelphia International Airport screeners found the condoms, and their initial tests showed they contained drugs. The Bryn Mawr College student was arrested on drug trafficking charges and jailed. Three weeks later, she was released after a lab test backed her story, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Thursday.

Lee filed a federal lawsuit last week against city police, seeking damages for pain and suffering, financial loss, and emotional distress. She was arrested on Dec. 21, 2003, and was held on $500,000 bail and faced up to 20 years in prison had she been convicted of the drug charges.

"I haven't let myself be angry about what happened, because it would tear me apart," Lee said. "I'm not sure I can bear to face it. I'm amazed at how naive I was."

JUST ONE MISERABLE KID PER FAMILY:

Nick's Cultural Revolution (DAVID BARBOZA, 12/29/05, NY Times)

When Nickelodeon's popular "Kids' Choice Awards" program came to China last month, the producers were forced to make some serious modifications. There would be no voting on favorite burp. Nor would children judge which movie character was the best at breaking wind.

There was, however, sliming, a highlight of the American version of the show, which involves dumping, squirting and otherwise propelling green gooey stuff at people. And adults repeatedly were whacked by children - with balloon bats, of course - just to give the Chinese a taste of the freedoms afforded to children in the United States.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the show's national television broadcast was that children in China seemed to think that even this much kinder, gentler version of the program was wonderfully, outrageously transgressive. [...]

In the cutthroat competition of contemporary Chinese society, parents invest heavily in what is often their only child. Urban children especially may attend school from 7 a.m. till 4 p.m., followed by hours of homework, music lessons and other enrichment courses. Deviating from this rigorous program is not encouraged.

"We don't allow him to watch too much TV," Qiu Yi, a 41-year-old advertising salesman in Shanghai, said of his 11-year-old son. "I'm not against cartoons. But I try to encourage him to watch documentaries on dinosaurs and the Second World War. These programs are useful to his study."

What's on television in China seems to be not all too dissimilar from what's happening in the classroom. Youth programming in China tends to be dry, conservative and pedantic. It consists mostly of quiz shows, team competitions and endless lineups of youngsters, dressed uniformly, standing at attention and answering questions like Boy and Girl Scouts. [...]

"A lot of children's programming is really bad in China," said Li Yifei, managing director of MTV Networks China and considered one of the most powerful women in Chinese television. "It's condescending and more about lecturing to children. Fun - that's what's desperately needed."

HEAR WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TERRORIST WHO TRIED KEEPING QUIET?:

Al-Qaida operative became fountain of information for U.S. (JOHN CREWDSON, 12/28/05, Chicago Tribune)

Consider Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 39-year-old former al-Qaida operative who was the Sept. 11 mastermind and bearer of many al-Qaida secrets.

If anyone had a motive for remaining silent it was the man known to terrorism investigators as "KSM." But not long after his capture in Pakistan, in March 2003, KSM began to talk.

He ultimately had so much to say that more than 100 footnoted references to the CIA's interrogations of KSM are contained in the final report of the commission that investigated Sept. 11.

Not that everything KSM said was believable. But much of his information checked out in separate questioning of other captures al-Qaida figures.

What made KSM decide to talk? The answer may be waterboarding, to which KSM was subjected on at least one occasion, according to various accounts.

TRICKS HE WILL DO:

Brit Jew marries dolphin (Joe Kot, 12/29/05, ynet)

Till death do us part? An unusual wedding ceremony was held in the southern resort town of Eilat on Wednesday, as Sharon Tendler, a 41-years-old Jewish millionaire from London married her beloved Cindy, a 35-years-old dolphin, Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Thursday.

The groom, a resident of the Eilat dolphin reef, met Tendler 15 years ago, when she first visited the resort. The British rock concert producer took a liking to the dolphin and has made a habit of traveling to Eilat two or three times a year and spending time with her underwater sweetheart.

"The peace and tranquility underwater, and his love, would calm me down," the excited bride said after the wedding.

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT OF THE WAR ON CARS:

Navigating future for road charges (Paul Rincon, 12/29/05, BBC News)

[I]n a few years, sat-nav will be doing far more than simply telling drivers how to get to their destination. [...]

Powerful applications are expected on the roads; the Galileo network would allow a vehicle's exact movements to be tracked, presenting new possibilities for road-user charging and tolling.

The precision and availability of the Galileo signal would facilitate the application of charges according to the distance travelled by a vehicle, along with other parameters.

"For example, you might want to vary the charge according to speed, or whether someone is travelling through a city centre," Hans-Peter Marchlewski, general counsellor for the Galileo Joint Undertaking, told the BBC News website.

The time signal produced by Galileo would also allow different charges for driving at different times of the day.

"This we are able to do without any support from bridges or ground stations. You can do everything with the [Galileo] signal," explained Mr Marchlewski.

Each motorist would, of course, need to carry a satellite-linked "smart box" in their car, but Galileo-based systems would also dispense with much of the roadside infrastructure to collect tolls and charges.

Galileo sat-nav could potentially form the basis for general "pay-as-you-go" road pricing proposed for the UK as a replacement for road tax and petrol duty.

NEATNESS DOESN'T COUNT:

Democracy Test: As 2005 began, President Bush set the spread of democracy as his primary goal. How did he do? (Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey, Dec. 28, 2005, Newsweek)

It only seems fair to judge someone’s year on their own terms. So in the holiday spirit, it’s worth looking back at President George W. Bush’s 2005 by using the standard he set for himself: the success of liberty.

As he explained in his Inaugural Address in January, his second term--and his legacy--depends on spreading democracy and the rule of law around the world. “We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion,” Bush declared on the steps of the Capitol. “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.” That wasn’t just something for future generations to worry about. Just before flying off to Camp David last week, and then his Texas ranch for a holiday, the president summarized his own year in front of the cameras on the South Lawn of the White House. “This has been a year of strong progress toward a freer, more peaceful world, and a prosperous America,” he said before citing the elections in Iraq. “This is an amazing moment in the history of liberty.”

Set aside, for a moment, the question of civil liberties at home--even though the debate has barely begun into why the administration bypassed the courts to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens. Just how amazing was the year in terms of liberty around the world?

CHEAPENING TRAGEDY:

THE DISPUTATION: Our Role in Promoting Holocaust Denial (David Klinghoffer, December 30, 2005, Forward)

Lately we Jews have displayed a weakness for a style of rhetorical overreach in which the Holocaust is deployed as a stick to threaten those whom some of us find objectionable. It should not startle anyone if Jew haters, seeing what a favorite weapon the Holocaust has become, seek to wrestle it out of our hands by denying it ever happened.

Some illustrations:

Last month in Houston, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, leader of the 1.5-million-member Reform movement, compared religious conservatives to Nazis for retaining the idea that marriage is a partnership of a man and woman. Yoffie said, "We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations."

Placing conservative Christians in the same tradition that brought us the Holocaust was a theme already familiar in the statements of prominent Jews. When Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" came out last year, even some usually perspicacious analysts couldn't resist linking the traditionally Catholic Gibson with Hitler and the Holocaust.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer linked Gibson's movie to the "blood libel that... led to countless Christian massacres of Jews and prepared Europe for the ultimate massacre — 6 million Jews systematically murdered in six years."

In The Washington Post, Richard Cohen summarized his own view: "I thought the movie was tawdry, cartoonish, badly acted and antisemitic, maybe not purposely so but in the way portions of the New Testament are — an assignment of blame that culminated in the Holocaust."

Walter Reich, former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, found in Gibson's "Passion" signs of "that kind of anger that became the seedbed in which the antisemitism that flourished in the last century, and the Holocaust it produced, took root."

The Anti-Defamation League's national director, Abraham Foxman, said that he is "always hesitant to make comparisons of today's evils... to that of Adolf Hitler." But that didn't stop him from locating "The Passion" in the same vein of hate that led to the Holocaust. "The very reason that Jews have gone through so much is the thinking and viewpoint reflected in the Gibson film," he explained to the New York Post. "For 1,950 plus years the accusation that the Jews killed Jesus has been the source of antisemitism — inquisitions, expulsions, pogroms and eventually the Holocaust."

The fact that Gibson's film led to no manifestation of increased antisemitism anywhere in the world has not, to my knowledge, resulted in any of these commentators retracting their statements.

It's not only Christians, however, against whom we wield the ax of Hitler's incomparable genocide. When Israel's incomparably humane plan to evacuate Gaza of its Jewish residents was carried out, one found Jewish settlers comparing themselves to Holocaust victims — wearing orange Stars of David to recall the yellow star that Jews in the Nazi era were compelled to wear. An Israeli housing minister noted, "Unfortunately, I am no longer surprised when a Jew compares me and other Israeli officials to Nazis."

MAKING CARS OBSOLETE:

Working at Home Gets Easier: Advances in Technology Make Telecommuting More Feasible (CHRISTOPHER RHOADS and SARA SILVER, December 29, 2005, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)

The three-day transit strike was just the latest opportunity for some workers to put telecommuting technology to the test. Post-Sept. 11 concerns about terror attacks, growing fears of pandemics from severe acute respiratory syndrome and the avian flu, the increase in hurricanes, higher gas prices and greater traffic congestion, among other factors, have encouraged more people to find ways to work outside the office.

This year, 82.5 million workers world-wide have done their jobs at home one day a month, more than double the figure from 2000, according to Gartner Inc., a technology research firm. It predicts the figure will grow to more than 100 million workers by 2008.

The U.S., where some states as well as the federal government have passed legislation recently to enable more telecommuting, leads the development, according to Gartner. More than 23% of the country's work force worked at least one day a month at home this year, up from 12% in 2000, it said. It predicted that figure will grow to 27% by 2008. (The Gartner figures don't include corporate professionals who travel and work regularly from planes and hotels.)

Advancements in technology -- most notably the proliferation the past few years of high-speed Internet access in homes, cafes, airports and other locations -- has made the increase of telecommuting, or teleworking, possible and much easier than in the past.

"Broadband technology has made all of this a lot more feasible than five or six years ago," says Brett Caine, group vice president of Citrix Online, which makes software for teleworkers. Citrix Online is a unit of Citrix Systems Inc., Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

What is new, teleworking consultants agree, is a growing comfort with working from a remote location.

TOO EASY A CHOICE:

You choose: Civil liberties or safety? (James P. Pinkerton, December 29, 2005, Newsday)

Revelations about the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping rocked the civil liberties establishment, but the country as a whole didn't seem upset. Instead, the American people, mindful of the possible danger that we face, seem happy enough that Uncle Sam is taking steps to keep up with the challenges created by new technology.

Ask yourself: Do you think it's a bad idea for the feds, as U.S. News & World Report mentioned, to monitor Islamic sites inside the United States for any possible suspicious radiation leaks? The Council on American-Islamic Relations is up in arms - but are you? If you were to read in the paper that some FBI agent has gotten in trouble over pointing a Geiger counter at a mosque, would you be inclined to give the FBI agent the benefit of the doubt? I thought so.

Or take another example: Wednesday's USA Today details government plans to deploy security agents at major airports to engage in "behavioral screening." That is, agents chat up passengers, looking for anything suspicious. It's a tactic that's worked in Israel for years, and it's being introduced here, starting with Boston's Logan Airport. That airport, some might recall, was the departure point for two of the doomed flights on 9/11.

But of course, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts has already sued to oppose any such program. Who do you think the overwhelming majority of Americans want to see prevail on this question?

IT'S THE SAME ALL OVER....:

Sex bombs at the box office in 2005 (Indo-Asian News Service, December 29, 2005)

Bollywood seemed obsessed with sex and sleaze in 2005 but the flirtation rebounded, with the dozen-odd movies of this genre fading out without a whimper. [...]

The list of box office casualties is long.

Neha Dhupia, who seemed to believe that exposure was a sure means to success, had to face twin disappointments this year. Two of her films, Sheesha and Siskiyan which had elements of titillation failed to lure audience and bombed miserably. [...]

Perhaps the year's most sensational release - Vinod Pande's Sins - a film about forbidden love between a Catholic priest and a disciple - blew the lid off sexual inhibitions in Indian cinema but failed to pull the crowds.

Producer-director Mahesh Bhatt, arguably one of the most prolific filmmakers in Bollywood, has become a front-bench loyalist and tries to provide the audience instant gratification through his films.

He uses sex and sleaze as publicity gimmicks to promote his films. And to market his thriller Nazar he deliberately blew lip-locking scenes between Pakistani actress Meera and Ashmit Patel out of proportion. As anticipated, it annoyed Pakistani fundamentalists.

Bhatt ignored the box office verdict - poor - and churned out another cheesy film called Kasak with Meera and Lucky Ali. That too fell flat.

Even Rituparno Ghosh's Antarmahal was full of intimate scenes that made a few conventionalist eyebrows rise. In fact, some critics lashed out at Ghosh and even labelled him a porn-filmmaker.

But actor-turned-director Deepak Tijori, who startled filmdom with his sexually explicit films Oops! and Khamosh, seems to have learnt from his past mistakes and has moved on to comedy.

He says: "The success of a genre depends upon the audience's liking. At this point of time comedy is working and double meaning dialogues are titillating people. Also, films with two-three heroes are doing well at the box office."

Films sans sex or nudity did well at box office this year. But there are a few stubborn filmmakers who still refused to accept that verdict.

NO ONE WORKS HARDER THAN THEIR PARENTS DID:

Twenty Years Later, Buying a House Is Less of a Bite (DAVID LEONHARDT and MOTOKO RICH, 12/29/05, NY Times)

Despite a widespread sense that real estate has never been more expensive, families in the vast majority of the country can still buy a house for a smaller share of their income than they could have a generation ago.

A sharp fall in mortgage rates since the early 1980's, a decline in mortgage fees and a rise in incomes have more than made up for rising house prices in almost every place outside of New York, Washington, Miami and along the coast in California. These often-overlooked changes are a major reason that most economists do not expect a broad drop in prices in 2006, even though many once-booming markets on the coasts have started weakening.

The long-term decline in housing costs also helps explain why the homeownership rate remains near a record of almost 69 percent, up from 65 percent a decade ago.

Nationwide, a family earning the median income - the exact middle of all incomes - would have to spend 22 percent of its pretax pay this year on mortgage payments to buy the median-priced house, according to an analysis by Moody's Economy.com, a research company.

The share has increased since 1998, when it hit a low of 17 percent before house prices began rising sharply in many places. Although the overall level has reached its highest point since 1989, it remains well below the levels of the early 1980's, when it topped 30 percent.

Whether a harbinger of troubled economic times or a quirk due to light trading around the holidays, this week's flip in the bond market — where long-term investments for a while fetched lower interest rates than short-term ones — bears close watching.

Yields, or the return, on 10-year Treasury notes on Tuesday dropped slightly below the yields on two-year notes, marking the first time this has happened in five years. This phenomenon, also evident for part of the trading session Wednesday, is called an "inverted yield curve" and in the past it has often preceded a recession.

Typically, longer-term instruments carry higher interest rates than shorter-term ones to compensate investors for tying up their money over a longer time frame, a decision that can be fraught with uncertainty.

When the situation reverses, it signals that bond investors are betting that interest rates down the road will move lower, something that can happen in the event the economy were to slow down or slip into a recession, thus blunting any concern about inflation.

MORE:
The Most Important Economic News of the Year (Arnold Kling, 29 Dec 2005, Tech Central Station)

The table below presents annualized productivity growth for various five-year periods, starting with the period 1955-1960 (from the fourth quarter of 1955 to the fourth quarter of 1960). [...]

What the table says is that the economy today is in great shape. The average productivity growth rate in the last five years is the highest over the past half century.

NO ISLAND IS ISOLATED THAT HAS AMERICA AS A FRIEND:

Growing Japanese Isolation: Koizumi's Obsession with the Past Makes for an Uncertain Future (Wieland Wagner, 12/28/05, Der Spiegel)

Go to the movie theater in Japan these days and one of the more popular choices is a film about the country's past -- about a past Japan just can't seem to shake. The plot centers around a group of exhausted soldiers battling a vastly superior squadron of American aircraft. A scene of spurting blood, massive and deafening explosions and clouds of smoke marks the sinking of the "Yamato," then the world's largest battleship, in the Pacific Ocean, together with its crew of about 2,500 sailors. The message of the film -- that Nippon's heroes in World War II did not die in vain -- is hard to miss. And it's one that finds resonance with the Japanese public.

The battle portrayed in the film happened 60 years ago. In an attempt to delay an American invasion of the Japanese homeland, the Japanese military command sent the "Yamato" to an almost certain demise off the coast of Okinawa. The suicide mission created a long-lasting myth of heroic sacrifice for the fatherland, a myth that has never failed to get the Japanese reaching for their handkerchiefs.

This wartime tearjerker is symptomatic of a year in which Japan has marked the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and of the ensuing American occupation. It was also a year made conspicuous by the lack of remorse the Japanese have shown for the atrocities they committed against their Asian neighbors -- and for the country's enthusiastic commemoration of the fallen soldiers of the former Japanese empire. Indeed, mindless sacrifice seems to have become a virtue -- one which many in Japan credit for its dramatic rise out of the ashes of World War II.

And the past is increasing in relevance in Japan recently. Once again, Japan feels it is surrounded by enemies. This time, though, the adversary isn't the United States -- on the contrary, America as an ally has become more indispensable than ever. Rather, the rising global power China is making Japan nervous, as is the former Japanese colony Korea.

MAKING MOVIES FOR THEMSELVES (via Gene Brown):

Hollywood's misunderstood terrorists (Victor Davis Hanson, 12/29/05, Honolulu Advertiser)

Take this fall's "Flightplan," [which] warns us that the real threat after Sept. 11 is certainly not young Middle Eastern males on planes who might hijack or crash them into iconic American buildings. No, more dangerous in Hollywood's alternate universe are the flight officials themselves — who in reality on Sept. 11 battled terrorists only to have their throats cut before being blown up with all the passengers.

A slickly filmed "Syriana" is the worst of the recent releases. The film's problem is not just that it predictably presents the bad, ugly sheik as a puppet of American oil interests while the handsome and good independent crown price is assassinated for championing his oppressed people against Western hegemony. Or that the conniving corporate potentates have big bellies and Southern accents while the goodhearted, sloppily dressed George Clooney is double-crossed by his stylish, pampered CIA bosses safe in the Washington, D.C., suburbs.

"Syriana" also perverts historical reality. [...]

Plus, in the real world outside Hollywood, does the United States really assassinate Gulf royalty who wish to liberalize their economies and give women the right to vote?

Contrary to the premise of "Syriana," the gripe against contemporary American foreign policy is just the opposite. Realists, isolationists and leftists alike damn the United States as naive or foolish for obsessing over democratic reform in Afghanistan and Iraq, pressuring Saudi Arabia and Egypt to hold valid elections and insisting that the terrorist patron Syria leave the voters of Lebanon alone.

The price of gas skyrocketed after the American invasion of Iraq. And oil companies, especially French and Russian, were furious when Saddam Hussein's kleptocracy fell — and their sweetheart deals were nullified by a new democratic Iraqi government.

Moral equivalence is perhaps the most troubling of Hollywood's postmodern pathologies — or the notion that each side that resorts to violence is of the same ethical nature.

THANK GOODNESS HENTOFF'S ONLY IN THE VOICE:

McCain's Retreat: Praise for the president's yielding to John McCain ignored the awful details in fine print (Nat Hentoff, December 23rd, 2005, Village Voice)

To begin, McCain, before his White House rapprochement with the president, had accepted administration language in his human rights amendment to give paid legal counsel and a certain amount of legal protection to interrogators—including the CIA's—accused of abusing prisoners. Their defense would be that a "person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful." Also, as at the Nuremberg trials after World War II, the defendants would say they were only following orders.

But as Josh White pointed out in the December 16 Washington Post, if these orders were plainly illegal, they would have to be disobeyed. In that case, what penalties would the commanders themselves, who gave the unlawful orders, face— including the top of the command at the Defense Department, the Justice Department, and the White House?

The Bush administration pressured McCain to accept this additional language in fear that, eventually, courts would decide that U.S. "coercive interrogations" have indeed violated U.S. law and international treaties we have signed. The ACLU and human rights organizations have already filed lawsuits making these claims against high levels of the administration.

Much more serious— and ignored by most of the media—is an amendment— voted for by McCain—to the Defense Authorization bill by Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Carl Levin (D-Michigan), and Jon Kyl (R-Arizona).

Tom Wilner, a constitutional lawyer who represents a number of Kuwaiti detainees (a/k/a prisoners) at Guantánamo, gets to the chilling core of the amendment:

"This amendment [which McCain has approved] tears the heart out of anything good that the McCain prohibition [against cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment] does. It strips the right of habeas corpus from detainees at Guantánamo, prohibits them from suing U.S. officials for their treatment, and in new language slipped into the bill [during the House-Senate conference committee sessions] actually authorizes the tribunals at Guantánamo [for enemy combatants] to use statements obtained through coercion [including torture] as 'probative' [testimony]. That provision works a significant change of existing U.S. and international law and actually provides an incentive for U.S. officials or officials from other governments through [CIA] rendition [sending terrorism suspects to other countries to be tortured], to obtain such coerced statements." (Emphasis added.)

Accordingly, Tom Wilner tells me, this "McCain/Graham/Levin/Kyl package is a disaster—a giant step backward for human rights. . . . By eliminating the Great Writ [habeas corpus] and authorizing the use of coercion, this amendment un- dermines the very foundation of our system.

"These changes far out- weigh the language for which Senator McCain has been so complimented, prohibiting the government from torturing or engaging in cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment."

Furthermore, how does this administration actually define torture anywhere? From a December 16 Washington Post editorial after Bush's "surrender" to McCain: "Mr. Bush's political appointees at the Justice Department [Alberto Gonzales at the top] and the Pentagon [Rumsfeld et al.] have redefined both 'torture' and 'cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment' as not covering in all circumstances such CIA techniques as 'waterboarding,' or simulated drowning; 'cold cell,' the deliberate inducing of hypothermia; mock execution; and prolonged and painful 'short-shackling.' It has taken these positions, even though 'cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment' as defined by the Senate [passage of the McCain amendment] covers everything that also would be prohibited by the Constitution [against prisoners held in the U.S.]. . . .

"[Accordingly,] the administration has adopted logic that accepts, in principle, the idea that the FBI could constitutionally use them on U.S. citizens in certain circumstances."

NOT NEAR AS GLOOMY AS THEY SHOULD BE:

Population gloom: A new study says Russia's demographic 'devastation' has left it facing increasing crisis (Tom Parfitt, December 29, 2005, Guardian Unlimited)

Boris Vasiliev stomped down the snow-covered track that is the main street of his village and paused outside a dilapidated single-storey building.

"That used to be the doctor's surgery," he said, and then pointed back the way he had come. "Down there was the shop. A bit further, the social club."

Either side of the track were two long lines of empty wooden cottages. Buyavino, in the Tver region 130 miles north of Moscow, is one of tens of thousands of Russian villages slowly dying out as the country faces an alarming decline in its population.

When Guardian Unlimited visited earlier this year, Mr Vasiliev, a 58-year-old forestry worker, was the youngest person in the village and the only one with a job. [...]

Russia's population has plummeted by almost 7% to 143 million in the last 15 years, and is predicted to drop by another 20 million by 2025. And as Moscow gears up to take over the presidency of the G8 on January 1, the Kremlin is being urged to meet the crisis head on.

In a report published last week, Delovaya Rossiya, a business lobby group, predicted that the country would lose an astonishing $400bn (£232bn) in the next two decades if it failed to tackle the population dive.

Inadequate government efforts to encourage immigration, support young families and promote healthy eating are having a disastrous effect on President Vladimir Putin's oft-repeated desire to double GDP, it said.

SOUNDS LIKE IT'D GO QUITE WELL WITH FOOTBALL ON TV:

Recipe of the week (Chicago Tribune, 12/29/05)

Mexican baked eggs with sausage and cheese

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Chilling time: 4 hours or overnight
Cooking time: 55-60 minutes
Servings: 6

The sausage can be omitted if desired; just increase the salt to 1 teaspoon.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups fresh bread crumbs, crusts trimmed
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
6 large eggs plus whites from 2 large eggs
4 ounces sausage, hot (or regular)
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 large white onion, split lengthwise, thinly sliced
1 green pepper, roasted and peeled, see note below, cut into short, thin strips
1 jalapeno, seeded, minced
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
3/4 tsp. salt
8 ounces shredded chihuahua cheese
Freshly ground black pepper
Salsa, corn tortillas for serving

1. Mix crumbs, milk and water in medium bowl. Whisk eggs and egg whites in another bowl until frothy. Set both aside.

2. Cook sausage in large skillet over high heat until crumbled and browned, about 4 minutes. Set aside on paper towels. Drain fat from pan.

3. Add oil to pan. Add onion, green pepper, jalapeno, garlic and salt. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring often, until onions are soft, about 6 minutes. Remove pan from heat. Add reserved sausage, bread crumb mixture, frothed eggs, 1 1/3 cups of the cheese and black pepper. Mix well. Sprinkle 1/3 cup cheese on bottom of greased 6-cup shallow baking dish. Ladle in egg mixture. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Cover with plastic; refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight. Remove plastic before baking.

4. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Cook in oven until well browned and puffy, about 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Serve hot, pass salsa and warm corn tortillas separately.

IN SCIENCE TRUTH IS REVEALED ONLY ACCIDENTALLY (via Brian Boys):

Did Early Humans First Arise in Asia, Not Africa? (Nicholas Bakalar, December 27, 2005, National Geographic News)

The authors maintain that, although there is no absolute proof, putting all the evidence together requires an open mind about other geographical origins of the first humans.

The authors point out that there is very little solid information about the first early humans in Asia, and paleontologists are left with assumptions that are too often treated as historical facts.

There is no archaeological or fossil evidence to prove that early humans moved from southern Africa to the Nile Valley in the early Pleistocene (1.8 million years ago to 11,500 years ago), they say.

WHO NEEDS 'EM?:

Patriotism is back in intellectual fashion (David Green, 27/12/2005, Daily Telegraph)

Can an intelligent person be patriotic? Or is national loyalty a base emotion, fit only for the tabloid-reading masses? In the 1940s, George Orwell remarked that Colonel Blimps and highbrow intellectuals both accepted as a law of nature that patriotism and intelligence were divorced.

England was, he thought, the only great country whose intellectuals were ashamed of their own nationality and felt it their "duty to snigger at every English institution". [...]

Patriotism as Orwell defined it - "devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people" - is making a comeback among members of the intelligentsia.

EVEN RANDY LIKES IT (via Mike Daley):

OLD-FASHIONED MEAT LOAF

2 cups finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 celery rib, chopped fine
1 carrot, chopped fine
1/2 cup finely chopped scallion
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2/3 cup ketchup plus additional as an accompaniment if desired
1 1/2 pounds ground chuck
3/4 pound ground pork
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
2 large eggs, beaten lightly
1/3 cup minced fresh parsley leaves

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large heavy skillet cook onion, garlic, celery, carrot, and scallion in butter over moderate heat, stirring, 5 minutes. Cook vegetables, covered, stirring occasionally, until carrot is tender, about 5 minutes more. Stir in salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and 1/3 cup of ketchup and cook, stirring, 1 minute.

In a large bowl combine well vegetables, meats, bread crumbs, eggs, and parsley. In a shallow baking pan form mixture into 1 10-by 5-inch oval loaf and spread remaining 1/3 cup ketchup over loaf. . DO NOT COOK IN LOAF PAN!

Bake meat loaf in oven 1 hour, or until a meat thermometer inserted in center registers 155°F.

THE FEDERALIST FUTURE:

Aceh marks final troop withdrawal (BBC, 12/29/05)

A ceremony has taken place in Aceh marking the withdrawal of Indonesian troops sent there to combat an uprising which has cost more than 15,000 lives.

The pull-out is the final military step in a peace deal agreed with rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (Gam) aimed at ending 26 years of bitter conflict.

The rebels have already handed in their weapons and dissolved their armed wing.

The peace deal finally came together following the tsunami a year ago which devastated large parts of the province.

More than 120,000 Acehnese were killed in the disaster - and in the face of such widespread loss of life, the two sides appeared no longer to have the stomach for the fight, reports the BBC's Jakarta correspondent, Rachel Harvey. [...]

Under the peace deal agreed in August, the rebels dropped their demand for full independence in return for more autonomy for the province, which lies at the northern tip of the island of Sumatra.

A GREAT AMERICAN TREE AND A PRETTY GOOD WEAPON:

Trying to Light A Fire Under Chestnut Revival (Washington Post, December 29, 2005, )

They aren't just for Christmas anymore.

Agricultural researchers at the University of Missouri at Columbia's Center for Agroforestry are experimenting with more than 50 varieties of chestnuts. The goal: to bring back the American chestnut.

A century ago -- before an Asian blight devastated most of the country's millions of chestnut trees -- chestnuts were a staple of American diets, particularly for recent immigrants. The trees' rot-resistant timber was used to build barns and beams, its bark provided tannin for leather.

While the chestnut remains an oddity for most Americans, commercial production is increasing, and so is demand.

"The American Chestnut Foundation has worked very closely with the Agriculture Department to come up with a disease-resistant strain of the American chestnut," President Bush said when he planted a 16-foot chestnut tree on the White House grounds to mark the 133rd annual celebration of Arbor Day on April 29. "One day the American chestnut . . . will be coming back. And this is our little part to help it come back."

TIME FOR PEACE ABROAD AND WAR AT HOME:

Bush Team Rethinks Its Plan for Recovery: New Approach Could Save Second Term (Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei, December 29, 2005, Washington Post)

President Bush shifted his rhetoric on Iraq in recent weeks after an intense debate among advisers about how to pull out of his political free fall, with senior adviser Karl Rove urging a campaign-style attack on critics while younger aides pushed for more candor about setbacks in the war, according to Republican strategists.

The result was a hybrid of the two approaches as Bush lashed out at war opponents in Congress, then turned to a humbler assessment of events on the ground in Iraq that included admissions about how some of his expectations had been frustrated. [...]

The lessons drawn by a variety of Bush advisers inside and outside the White House as they map a road to recovery in 2006 include these: Overarching initiatives such as restructuring Social Security are unworkable in a time of war. The public wants a balanced appraisal of what is happening on the battlefield as well as pledges of victory. And Iraq trumps all.

"I don't think they realized that Iraq is the totality of their legacy until fairly recently," said former congressman Vin Weber (R-Minn.), an outside adviser to the White House. "There is not much of a market for other issues."

IT'S A START:

39% live in areas limiting smoking: Six more states pass restrictions in 2005 (Wendy Koch, 12/29/05, USA TODAY)

Six states enacted indoor smoking bans in 2005, more than in any previous year, as public sentiment appears increasingly anti-tobacco.

Thirty-nine percent of Americans are covered by statewide or local laws limiting smoking, according to Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. In 1985, there were fewer than 200 such state and local laws in the USA. Today, there are more than 2,000. Of those, 118 state or local governments ban all smoking in restaurants, bars and other workplaces.

It's all part of a growing sentiment for a smoke-free environment at work, in public places, even outdoors.

MUSTN'T LET THEM GET SUCH NOTIONS IN THEIR LITTLE HEADS:

'Saint Bob' accused of betraying poor (GERRI PEEV , 12/29/05, The Scotsman)

ANTI-POVERTY activists have attacked Sir Bob Geldof for signing up to David Cameron's new Conservative think tank, accusing the aid campaigner of becoming a propaganda tool for politicians and betraying the poor in Africa.

Geldof's recruitment to the Global Poverty Challenge has alarmed activists who fear his involvement will reinforce the idea of free-market policies being the only way to tackle hardship.

WHAT'S THE HURRY:

Teaching jobs in doubt as pensioners set to outnumber pupils by 2009 (PETER MACMAHON, 12/29/05, The Scotsman)

SCOTLAND'S demographic time-bomb will explode in three years, when the number of pensioners north of the Border overtakes the number of children in school, the Executive has been warned.

SOLID:

Last-Minute Gift Buying Boosts Retailers: Sales at big chains rise 3.9% last week from a year earlier. Volume this week also may be good. (Leslie Earnest, December 29, 2005, LA Times)

Procrastinators again gave retailers a last-minute present this holiday season, as sales in the week before Christmas rose 3.9% from a year earlier.

The International Council of Shopping Centers, reporting its tally of 69 chains nationwide, said Wednesday that sales volume and customer traffic accelerated in the seven days before the holiday.

With shoppers gravitating back to stores to return unwanted presents, snap up bargains and redeem gift cards, retailers could log another solid week, said Michael Niemira, the group's chief economist.

NOT EVEN AQUAWOMAN COULD GET OUT OF THIS FIX:

After Storm, She Tries to Mend State, and Career (JAMES DAO, 12/29/05, NY Times)

She is struggling to rebuild a shattered state. But along the way, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana is also working to repair a wounded reputation - her own.

She has been mocked as weepy and indecisive by radio talk show hosts who deride her as "momma governor." She has feuded with the White House, which did not invite her to a recent announcement on levee protection. She has been criticized on Capitol Hill by Republicans as having made a "dysfunctional" response to Hurricane Katrina. [...]

The question now is whether Ms. Blanco can regain enough political traction to lead her state out of its trauma. A post-hurricane poll showed that only 19 percent of voters would definitely support her for re-election in 2007. The depopulation of New Orleans, her party's base, has emboldened Republicans. And some Democrats question whether she has a vision for reconstruction, beyond the laundry list of needs she ticks off in news releases.

"She's got problems facing her," said Bernie Pinsonat, a pollster. "I don't know if any governor could survive this."

A SQUANDER:

New York Transit Deal Shows Union's Success on Many Fronts (STEVEN GREENHOUSE, 12/29/05, NY Times)

He was excoriated on tabloid front pages and by the mayor and governor. As thousands streamed across the Brooklyn Bridge on a frigid night during last week's transit strike, someone in a car yelled out his name, prefacing it with a curse.

But now, a day after details of an agreement between the transit workers and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority were spelled out, Roger Toussaint, the union's president, seems to have emerged in a far better position than seemed likely just a few days ago.

A VERY SATISFACTORY LATE CHRISTMMAS GIFT:

Sox in hunt for Tejada (Chris Snow, December 29, 2005, Boston Globe)

Dealing Miguel Tejada within the division remains a road the Orioles would rather not go down, but the Red Sox, according to a source with direct knowledge of the team's pursuit of the shortstop, have made a ''pretty good offer" that has positioned them as a legitimate contender for the 2002 American League Most Valuable Player.

The Sox, who initially offered Manny Ramírez for Tejada straight up, recently offered Ramírez and righthander Matt Clement, according to the source.

TURKEY IS, AFTER ALL, JUST A GRAVY DELIVERY SYSTEM:

The essential gravy Mastering the art of flavorful gravy (Russ Parsons, 12/29/05, Los Angeles Times)

There are few foods on the holiday table that carry the mystique of gravy. At its most basic level, it's nothing more than a paste of flour and fat thinned with turkey stock, yet it somehow has the capacity to strike fear in otherwise brave-hearted cooks.

Granted, there are enough bad gravies out there to give a cook pause. But making a good gravy — one that tastes of turkey essence and not flour and that lightly naps the food rather than smothering it — is only a little more complicated than stirring together a white sauce. [...]

The most critical phase of making gravy is right at the start, when you make the paste and add the first bit of liquid to it. This is what makes the difference between a gravy that is silky and one that is lumpy. After that, everything is easy. [...]

Giblet gravy

Total time: 45 minutes plus stock-simmering time
Servings: Makes about 3 cups

Ingredients:
1 onion, quartered
1 cup chopped carrot
1 cup chopped celery
Assorted turkey pieces — neck, wingtips, tail, gizzard and heart (but not the liver)
1 bay leaf
1 bunch (about 14 sprigs) parsley
1 sprig fresh thyme
1/4 cup fat skimmed from roasting pan, with butter added if necessary to make 1/4 cup
1/4 cup flour
Salt to taste
1/4 tsp. powdered sage (if serving sage dressing)
Freshly ground black pepper

1. In a large saucepan, combine the onion, carrot, celery, turkey pieces, 6 cups water, the bay leaf, parsley and thyme. Bring to a simmer, partially cover and cook for at least 2 hours.

2. After cooking, strain the stock into a measuring cup. You'll need about 3 1/2 to 4 cups of stock. Peel the tough skin from the gizzard; chop the gizzard and heart finely. Set aside.

3. When the turkey comes out of the oven, remove it to a platter to rest. Place the roasting pan over a burner set to high. Remove any garlic, onions, herbs or aromatics with a slotted spoon and discard. Let the pan sizzle for a minute; add the stock, scraping the pan with a wooden spoon to free any browned bits.

4. Pour this mixture into a fat separator or back into the measuring cup and set aside for a couple of minutes to let the fat separate.

5. In a saucepan over medium heat, add one-fourth cup skimmed fat or whatever amount of fat you have plus enough melted butter to make about one-fourth cup. Whisk in the flour and let it cook for 1 to 2 minutes, whisking constantly.

6. Slowly add 1 cup of stock, whisking constantly, being careful to add as little of the top layer of fat as you can. The sauce will thicken almost immediately. Gradually add more stock, about 1 cup at a time, whisking until the gravy is just thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

7. When all of the stock has been added, season to taste with salt, sage and a couple of grinds of black pepper. Simmer over low heat for 15 minutes to cook out the taste of the raw flour. Occasionally, use a large soup spoon to skim off the skin of protein that forms on the top.

8. About 5 minutes before serving, stir in the chopped giblets. Ladle into a warmed gravy boat.

WHAT'S A LITTLE SLAVERY BETWEEN FORMER FRIENDS:

N. Koreans Toil Abroad Under Grim Conditions: Women provide badly needed labor in Czech towns and elsewhere. Pyongyang keeps a tight rein on them and takes most of their wages. (Barbara Demick, December 27, 2005, LA Times)

The elementary school closed long ago for lack of students. The entire village 20 miles west of Prague has only about 200 people.

The schoolhouse is now a factory producing uniforms. Almost all the workers are North Korean, and the women initially looked delighted to see visitors. It gets lonely working out here, thousands of miles from home. They crowded around to chat.

"I'm not so happy here. There is nobody who speaks my language. I'm so far from home," volunteered a tentative young woman in a T-shirt and sweatpants who said she was from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

But as she spoke, an older woman with stern posture and an expressionless face — a North Korean security official — passed by in the corridor. The young women scattered wordlessly and disappeared into another room, closing and bolting the door behind them.

Hundreds of young North Korean women are working in garment and leather factories like this one, easing a labor shortage in small Czech towns. Their presence in this recent member of the European Union is something of a throwback to before the Velvet Revolution of 1989, when Prague, like Pyongyang, was a partner in the Communist bloc.

The North Korean government keeps most of the earnings, apparently one of the few legal sources of hard currency for an isolated and impoverished government believed to be living off counterfeiting, drug trafficking and weapons sales. Experts estimate that there are 10,000 to 15,000 North Koreans working abroad in behalf of their government in jobs ranging from nursing to construction work. In addition to the Czech Republic, North Korea has sent workers to Russia, Libya, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia and Angola, defectors say.

Almost the entire monthly salary of each of the women here, about $260, the Czech minimum wage, is deposited directly into an account controlled by the North Korean government, which gives the workers only a fraction of the money.

To the extent that they are allowed outside, they go only in groups. Often they are accompanied by a guard from the North Korean Embassy who is referred to as their "interpreter." They live under strict surveillance in dormitories with photographs of North Korea's late founder Kim Il Sung and current leader Kim Jong Il gracing the walls. Their only entertainment is propaganda films and newspapers sent from North Korea, and occasional exercise in the yard outside.

"This is 21st century slave labor," said Kim Tae San, a former official of the North Korean Embassy in Prague. He helped set up the factories in 1998 and served as president of one of the shoe factories until he defected to South Korea in 2002.

It also was Kim's job to collect the salaries and distribute the money to workers. He said 55% was taken off the top as a "voluntary" contribution to the cause of the socialist revolution. The women had to buy and cook their own food. Additional sums were deducted for accommodation, transportation and such extras as flowers for the birthdays of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

The women even had to pay for the propaganda films they were forced to watch. By the time all the deductions were made, each received between $20 and $30 a month. They spent less than $10 of it on food, buying only the cheapest local macaroni.

"They try to save money by not eating," said Kim, the former embassy official. He says that his wife, who accompanied him on visits to the factory, was concerned that women's menstruation stopped, their breasts shriveled and many experienced acute constipation. "We were always trying to get them to spend more on food, but they were desperate to bring money home to their families."

Kim said that Czechs often mistook the North Korean women for convict laborers because of the harsh conditions. "They would ask the girls, 'What terrible thing did you do to be sent here to work like this?' "

In fact, the women usually come from families deemed sufficiently loyal to the government that their daughters will not defect. With salaries at state-owned firms in North Korea as low as $1 per month, the chance to work abroad for a three-year stint is considered a privilege.

Having shed its own communist dictatorship, the Czech Republic is sensitive to human rights issues. On the other hand, the country has to employ about 200,000 guest workers, largely to replace Czechs who have left to seek higher wages in Western Europe.

PICK THE ALAMO BOWL SCORE, WIN A BOOK:

Everyone is invited to participate -- even those not signed up for our little contest. Please post your guesses below. I'll give a prize to whoever comes closest to guessing the true point spread without going over.

General game info: The game is the Nebraska Cornhuskers versus the Michigan Wolverines. Both teams are 7-4. Michigan is generally listed as a 10.5 to 11-point favorite. Michigan is probably the better team but their fans are outnumbered and Michigan doesn't appear excited about playing in this particular bowl game.

If the winner picks Nebraska, he will receive a free copy of Pauline Maier's book American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. If the winner picks Michigan, he will receive a Howard Zinn book (in fairness, this last point is subject to negotiation).

Have fun!

...AND LOWER...:

Why energy prices are cooling off: Home-heating oil prices have declined by some 60 cents a gallon since September. (Ron Scherer, 12/29/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

Already there are reports that OPEC will cut production, perhaps by as much as one million barrels of oil per day, to try to keep prices from falling. "In the second quarter of the year, demand is at its lowest," says Mr. Routt. "If they continued pumping when demand eases they could be accused of crushing the market."

Oil prices have remained below $60 a barrel for six months. Combined with lower demand for gasoline, this has helped bring down the price for motorists. Wednesday, GasPriceWatch.com reported the national average at $2.15 a gallon.

SAY GOOD-BYE TO THE FILIBUSTER:

2006 economy looks solid: Most forecasters see growth of at least 3 percent, which means more jobs and higher pay. (Mark Trumbull , 12/29/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

A fifth straight year of economic expansion in 2006 promises to mean new jobs, higher pay, and maybe even fatter investment portfolios for millions of Americans. [...]

The consensus forecast calls for:

• Rising pay. Disposable incomes will rise by 3.2 percent, after inflation, more than double this year's gain.

TCHATKES FOR PEACE

Number of tour groups leaps in 2005 (Hilary Leila Krieger, Jerusalem Post, 12/28/05)

The number of tour groups visiting Israel jumped substantially in 2005, including from Arab and Muslim countries, according to figures provided by the Interior Ministry Wednesday.

Jordan sent its first tour groups ever - totaling 64 individuals - according to the ministry, and Egypt's numbers rose from 47 tour participants in 2004 to 432 in 2005.

Indonesia and Malaysia - two countries that don't have official diplomatic relations with Israel - sent 7,234 and 1,431 tourists respectively on organized tours. The numbers were 4,755 and 654 apiece the year earlier.

THERE'S MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM:

Huge new oil discovery in Brazil (BBC, 12/28/05)

Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, says it has discovered a huge new offshore oil field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state.

The Papa-Terra field was found in the Campos Basin, which is already Brazil's most important oil-producing region.

Petrobras estimates it contains at least 700 million barrels of crude - about 10% of Brazil's current reserves. [...]

The new field is expected to help Petrobras achieve its goal of making Brazil self-sufficient in oil. Since 2003, the company has been meeting 91% of the country's needs.

SHOULD THEY BE EXPECTED TO IMITATE THE FAILURES INSTEAD?:

The Steady, Strategic Ascent Of JetBlue Airways (Knowledge@Wharton, 12.28.05)

The brainchild of industry veteran David Neeleman, who is the company's chairman and chief executive, JetBlue has tried to combine the best features of low-fare carriers, like Southwest, and traditional ones, like UAL's United and AMR's American. Like Southwest, it eschews hub airports in favor of point-to-point flights and looks for innovative ways to cut costs. Its 1,100 call-center operators, for example, don't work in a center at all, but at their homes in and around Salt Lake City. "I have had some investors ask, 'Do they have uniforms?'" Barger quips. "And I'm like, 'I have no idea whether they are wearing anything at all.'" Nor, he said, does he care--as long as they provide excellent customer service.

Like traditional carriers, JetBlue offers assigned seats and in-flight entertainment. Recently, for example, it announced that it was adding 100 channels of satellite radio. The company had to do business differently if it was to succeed in a "broken industry," Barger said. "Today, three out of every ten seats flown are on a bankrupt carrier. We are growing our company and trying to fend off competition that is insensitive to price. In bankruptcy, companies have protection, and underneath that umbrella they can offer very low fares. Independence Air is offering $59 from Washington to the West Coast. How do you compete with that?"

One way is to find markets with fewer competitors. That strategy motivated JetBlue's recent purchase of 100 of Embraer's 190 aircraft. The smaller planes will enable it to economically serve less-crowded markets, such as Richmond, Va., and Austin, Texas. "A smaller airplane has some inefficiencies, but it allows us to mine markets that Southwest, Frontier and America West aren't in," Barger noted.

One criticism of JetBlue has been is that it's little more than a Southwest copycat. Barger admitted that his company has borrowed from the only major airline that has continued to thrive amid the industry's recent slump. "We have taken some aspects of Southwest. Why? Because they work. There's no pride of authorship there."

OBLIGATORY CASTRO COMPARISON:

The Castro show just keeps getting weirder (ANA MENENDEZ, 12/27/05, Miami Herald)

Poor Fidel. It's not easy being a dictator these days, not when your sworn enemy has stolen your playbook and recast it as democracy. How sad it must be to come up with all these creative governing principles -- listening in on private phone calls, reading personal mail, secretly video-taping protestors -- only to live long enough to see a third-rate intelligence like George W. Bush adopt them all as his own. It's enough to drive anyone nuts.

WHAT STORM?:

Consumer Confidence Up As Gas Prices Fall (EILEEN ALT POWELL , 12.28.2005, Forbes)

Consumer confidence surged in December as declining gasoline prices and improving job opportunities buoyed spirits, boding well for spending in the new year.

The Conference Board said Wednesday that its Consumer Confidence Index advanced to 103.6 this month after recovering to 98.3 in November. That was better than the 103.0 reading analysts had expected for December.

December's rise put the index at its highest level since Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29, devastating Gulf Coast states and disrupting fuel and trade for much of the nation. Last August, before the storm, the index registered 105.5.

THE GOOD OLD DAYS:

JAILED FOR THEIR WORDS: A law passed during World War I pitched Montanans into prison for critical remarks; law students are seeking clemency for them (Maurice Possley, December 28, 2005, Chicago Tribune)

On April 23, 1918, with the U.S. in the depths of World War I, Fred Rodewald, a German immigrant homesteader who had settled with his family on 320 acres in eastern Montana, uttered a sentence that forever changed his life.

He suggested that Americans "would have hard times" if Germany's kaiser "didn't get over here and rule this country."

That remark earned him 2 years in prison for violating Montana's Sedition Act. When he went off to the penitentiary in Deer Lodge, the 42-year-old Rodewald left behind a pregnant wife and eight children. An armistice ended the war less than a month later.

Now, nearly 90 years later, law students at the University of Montana have begun a quest and are prowling dusty archives and musty courthouse storage rooms across the state to clear Rodewald and 73 other Montanans convicted of sedition.

The project provides a contrast between the waning days of World War I, when a farmer could be jailed for suggesting that it was "a rich man's war," and today, when citizens can criticize the war in Iraq without fear of prosecution, if not without fear of government surveillance.

SPYING ON TERRORISTS IS ALMOST AS POPULAR AS ABU GHRAIB:

National Security Agency (RasmussenReports.com, December 28, 2005)

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 23% disagree.

THE LEAST OF THEIR PROBLEMS:

Centrist Democrats hit anti-Bush tactics (Donald Lambro, 12/28/05, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

"The Republicans still hold the advantage on every national-security issue we tested," said Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster and former adviser to President Clinton, who co-authored a Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) memo on the party's national-security weaknesses.

Nervousness among Democrats intensified earlier this month after Democrats led a filibuster against the Patriot Act that threatened to block the measure, followed by a victory cry from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, who declared at a party rally, "We killed the Patriot Act."

After Mr. Bush sharply attacked Mr. Reid, saying lack of the Patriot Act "will leave us in a weaker position in the fight against brutal killers," Senate Democrats dropped their filibuster and accepted a six-month extension. A Republican-backed five-week extension was adopted last week by the House and Senate.

Recent polls say 56 percent of Americans approve of the job Mr. Bush is doing to protect the country from another terrorist attack.

"In shaping alternative policies -- particularly on national security, terrorism and Iraq -- Democrats have to be extremely careful to avoid reinforcing the negative stereotype that has cost us so much in the last two national elections," the recent DLC memorandum said.

MORE:
Life Keeps Getting Better, Americans Say (Nathan Burchfiel, December 27, 2005, CNSNews.com)

Most Americans say 2005 was a better year than 2004 and they're optimistic that 2006 will be even better, according to a poll released Monday by Quinnipiac University.

The school surveyed 1,230 Americans and found that 53 percent feel that 2005 was "a better year for [them] personally" than 2004. Nearly 80 percent expect 2006 to be better than 2005.

Republicans feel better about the direction of their lives than Democrats, according to the poll. Sixty-five percent of Republicans felt this year was better than last, compared to 41 percent of Democrats.

FIFTY WASTED YEARS:

Peace on Earth? Increasingly, Yes. (Andrew Mack, December 28, 2005, Washington Post)

The Human Security Report, an independent study funded by five countries and published by Oxford University Press, draws on a wide range of little publicized scholarly data, plus specially commissioned research to present a portrait of global security that is sharply at odds with conventional wisdom. The report reveals that after five decades of inexorable increase, the number of armed conflicts started to fall worldwide in the early 1990s. The decline has continued.

By 2003, there were 40 percent fewer conflicts than in 1992. The deadliest conflicts -- those with 1,000 or more battle-deaths -- fell by some 80 percent. The number of genocides and other mass slaughters of civilians also dropped by 80 percent, while core human rights abuses have declined in five out of six regions of the developing world since the mid-1990s. International terrorism is the only type of political violence that has increased. Although the death toll has jumped sharply over the past three years, terrorists kill only a fraction of the number who die in wars.

What accounts for the extraordinary and counterintuitive improvement in global security over the past dozen years? The end of the Cold War, which had driven at least a third of all conflicts since World War II, appears to have been the single most critical factor.

NOTE THAT THIS IS THE DAILY NEWS, NOT THE POST (via Gene Brown):

Chuck and Hil play risky Patriot game (NY Daily News, December 27, 2005)

Absent full ringing Senate support for the renewal of those expiring sections of the Patriot Act - apparently it is beyond some of our good senators to comprehend that there really is a war on terror - we will, along with President Bush, settle for the temporary five-week extension that got okayed Thursday night as the pols beat it out the door for the holidays.

Fine. Let them continue to wrangle over this and that technical detail for a few weeks when they return in January. Let some have a good crow over the "defeat" they've just handed the administration. The important thing is that come the new year, the Patriot Act will still be in place and the FBI and CIA will continue to be able to share terrorism information. So, sorry, terrorists. Guess you can't start using your cell phones again after all.

As for our own Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, who joined their colleagues in that filibuster against the renewal of an utterly essential terror-fighting instrument - well, that was pretty outrageous of them, given that New York City and the security thereof is one of the primary reasons for the very existence of the Patriot Act in the first place.

WHEN FEDERALISM IS YOUR WORST CASE SCENARIO YOU'RE IN AWFULLY GOOD SHAPE:

Devout Democracies: Self-Rule in the Middle East Will Have a Religious Component, but that Doesn't Mean It Won't Work (Reuel Marc Gerecht, December 27, 2005, The Weekly Standard)

In fragile societies trying to establish democracy, where communal and individual trust are integral, suicide bombings, if they come in unending waves, could, conceivably, destroy everything. In all probability, this scenario is too pessimistic. The backlash in the Iraqi Sunni community, as elsewhere in the Sunni Arab world, against the horrific slaughter of women and children has already started. It may be a spur to political compromise among the Sunni Arabs in Iraq (for fear of the holy warriors and the Shia, who may eventually let loose a pitiless, all-consuming revenge). And in Afghanistan, the cult of the suicide bomber is still in its infancy. Pashtun society, which is where such holy-warriorism will have to grow, would probably offer sufficient resistance to keep this kind of terrorism from becoming a plague.

Suicide bombing possibly aside, a comparison of Afghanistan and Iraq ought to calm American nerves about the political evolution in Mesopotamia. What doesn't really bother us in Afghanistan-the participation of devoutly religious Muslims in the political process-shouldn't bother us elsewhere. We may view Afghanistan with the bigotry of low expectations: Since Afghans have been calling themselves mujahedeen, holy warriors, for nearly three decades, and political Islam has been swirling through the Afghan bloodstream for even longer, we don't expect their political system to be all that secular. That Afghans, who have developed a certain penchant for making personal and political differences a casus belli, can sit together under one roof and scream but not shoot is an achievement for the new parliament. However imperfect, this is the birth of tolerance. For Americans and their European allies in Afghanistan, and for the Afghans themselves, watching ultraconservative turbaned men, veiled women, and opium-enriched warlords rub shoulders with expatriate suits and ties and women showing hair and a bit of a female form is a very good beginning.

We should have, mutatis mutandis, similar expectations in Iraq. Iraqis, we were told by a long list of Iraqi exiles, journalists, and scholars, are much less fervent believers. On the Shiite, Sunni, and even Kurdish side, this assumption of rather advanced secularization was misplaced and, more important, harmful to our understanding of how democracy would take root in Iraq. We should realize that in Mesopotamia, as in Afghanistan, democracy will be either made or broken by men and women of serious, not particularly reformed faith-not by secular liberals, Muslim progressives, or "moderates" (probably best defined as Muslims who act more or less like ordinary faithful Christians). All of the explicitly secular and moderate candidates did rather poorly in Iraq's national elections on December 15, even though the United States, with the Central Intelligence Agency in the lead, probably poured a small fortune into helping their cause. One can feel considerable sympathy for the liberal Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya, who recently gave an analytical cri de coeur in the New York Times, dissecting all the reasons we should fear Iraq's new constitution, with its fissiparous potential. It is, without doubt, a flawed document. One can easily wish for a little less federalist enthusiasm on the Shiite and Kurdish sides.

And one can wish for more vigorous checks and balances. As the late, great historian Elie Kedourie once speculated, Middle Eastern countries, in their earlier democratic moments, might have done much better if they'd used America's presidential system rather than Europe's parliaments as a model. A strong executive constantly checked by strong legislative and judicial authorities might have kept the Middle East's homegrown and imported authoritarian impulses from dominating. Such a constitutional setup today in Iraq would probably improve the odds of surviving sectarian strife.

Furthermore, when one scans the Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish communities, one isn't particularly inspired by the Iraqi founding fathers. For a secular, liberal Iraqi like Makiya, things are not good. But they are far from hopeless. The Islamic-Iraqi identity on the Shiite side still seems quite solid: From the most secular to the most religious, the nationalist component has not been subsumed. It is possible that it could be: The savage battering of the Shia by Sunni holy warriors and insurgents could make the Shia think of themselves first and always as Shiite, and therefore less willing to compromise with Sunnis, who fear being impoverished in a federalist system that would effectively deny them future oil revenue. Something like this almost happened in Lebanon, when the ideas and foot-soldiers of Iran's very Shiite Islamic revolution struck Lebanon after decades of Christian and Sunni Lebanese neglect and abuse of the Lebanese Shia, even worse Palestinian oppression of the Lebanese Shia, and the Israeli invasion in 1982. In Iran, the revolution and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war engorged the Shiite side of the Persian brain, altering temporarily the complex balance that makes the Shiite-Iranian identity.

But we're not quite there yet in Iraq. We will unquestionably see a federalist Iraq-at a minimum the Kurds will guarantee this. And the Shia have now understood that federalism checks centralized power, which has historically brutalized them. (Until the Shia become more self-confident as a community--and they still appear fearful of the Arab Sunnis' greater martial prowess--federalism will retain strong appeal for them.) But the language of the Shia still seems overwhelmingly Iraqi in content and tone. For anyone raised in the 1980s on militant Shiite Islamist thought, Iraq just doesn't do it. Compared with Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps at their most fervid, the young radical Iraqi cleric Moktada al-Sadr seems like a pretty prosaic nationalist. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa party, the two oldest Shiite religious parties, don't seem at all ready to give up on the idea of a nation that incorporates and compromises with Arab Sunnis. Abdul al-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of SCIRI, may have many sins, but he is not a fanatic. SCIRI's likely parliamentary chief, Adel Abdel Mahdi, is a thoughtful man who absolutely doesn't want to push Iraq into civil war.

And there remains the huge fact of the Shiite population in Baghdad, which would be excluded from any Shiite semi--autonomous zone in the south. Baghdad is a majority Shiite city. And it simply cannot be compared to any other city in Iraq-certainly not impoverished and broken Basra, the other possible pole of Shiite urban influence. (The impoverished Shiite south of Iraq actually reminds one of Afghanistan.) For the foreseeable future, the centripetal power of Baghdad will remain. The exclusionary, defensive, federalist impulses of the Iraqi Shiite community, which Makiya rightly fears, can go only so far before they provoke real, paralyzing Shiite resistance from Baghdad. If for no other reason, the Baghdad Shiite factor will likely guarantee sufficient tolerance toward the Sunnis for democratic progress to continue.

An Afghan parallel again has value. Despite the strife and civil war that fragmented loyalties, the Afghan national identity is still alive.

THE MEDICAL MERRY-GO-ROUND

Revealed: the pill that prevents cancer (Jeremy Laurance, The Independent, 12/28/05)

A daily dose of vitamin D could cut the risk of cancers of the breast, colon and ovary by up to a half, a 40-year review of research has found. The evidence for the protective effect of the "sunshine vitamin" is so overwhelming that urgent action must be taken by public health authorities to boost blood levels, say cancer specialists.

A growing body of evidence in recent years has shown that lack of vitamin D may have lethal effects. Heart disease, lung disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis are among the conditions in which it is believed to play a vital role. The vitamin is also essential for bone health and protects against rickets in children and osteoporosis in the elderly. . . .

Countries around the world have begun to modify their warnings about the dangers of sunbathing, as a result of the growing research on vitamin D. The Association of Cancer Councils of Australia acknowledged this year for the first time that some exposure to the sun was healthy.

Australia is one of the world's sunniest countries and has among the highest rates of skin cancer. For three decades it has preached sun avoidance with its "slip, slap, slop" campaign to cover up and use sunscreen. But in a statement in March, the association said: "A balance is required between avoiding an increase in the risk of skin cancer and achieving enough ultraviolet radiation exposure to achieve adequate vitamin D levels." Bruce Armstrong, the professor of public health at Sydney University, said: " It is a revolution."

In the latest study, cancer specialists from the University of San Diego, California, led by Professor Cedric Garland, reviewed 63 scientific papers on the link between vitamin D and cancer published between 1966 and 2004. People living in the north-eastern US, where it is less sunny, and African Americans with darker skins were more likely to be deficient, researchers found. They also had higher cancer rates.

The researchers say their finding could explain why black Americans die sooner from cancer than whites, even after allowing for differences in income and access to care.

STUPID BEAT LOAF:

Meatloaf Popularity Grows Among Foodies (JEFF BARNARD, December 27, 2005, The Associated Press)

Mom made meatloaf to stretch the food budget. Dad ate it because it tasted good, especially with lots of ketchup. Now Baby Boomers are ordering it in restaurants. Meatloaf may not be tops on the healthy food list, though it can certainly be made that way with lean meats and lots of veggies. But this comfort food that became an American staple during the Depression is hanging on, growing up and branching out. [...]

Meatloaf comes out of the late 19th century, when meat grinders became popular, said Lynne Olver, editor of the Web site Foodtimeline.org. The 1884 "Boston Cooking School Cookbook" has recipes for ground veal mixed with breadcrumbs and eggs, baked in small individual molds. [...]

The word meatloaf appears regularly in the New York Times in the 1930s and 1940s, when the Depression and World War II made stretching food dollars imperative. But it was the 1950s when America "embraced" meatloaf.

"I have cookbooks from the '50s with all sorts of filled meatloaf, gourmet meatloafs, meatloaf for the grill," Olver said.

James E. McWilliams, assistant professor of history at Texas State University at San Marcos and author of "A Revolution in Eating, How the Quest for Food Shaped America," sees meatloaf's roots in scrapple, a mixture of ground pork and cornmeal made by German-Americans in Pennsylvania since Colonial times.

"It's a food that's quite consistent with an American attitude," McWilliams said. "It is so open to interpretation and flexible. Its origins are humble."

President Ronald Reagan was a famous fan, and writer Jean Shepherd included family battles over meatloaf in the movie "A Christmas Story." Little brother Randy declares he hates meatloaf, and The Old Man threatens to use a screwdriver and plumber's helper to get some down him.

UNREQUITED:

Munich mastermind spurns Spielberg's peace appeal (Nidal al-Mughrabi, Dec 27, 2005, Reuters)

The Palestinian mastermind of the Munich Olympics attack in which 11 Israeli athletes died said on Tuesday he had no regrets and that Steven Spielberg's new film about the incident would not deliver reconciliation.

RHETORIC CREATES REALITY:

When Chinese Sue the State, Cases Are Often Smothered (JOSEPH KAHN, 12/28/05, NY Times)

China's legal system often hands down verdicts that the powerless consider unfair. But a bigger problem is that courts often refuse to issue any verdict at all - or even acknowledge that some bothersome legal complaints exist.

The English translation is simply "put on the record" or "register a case," but in China "li'an" is so fraught with official meddling that for many with complaints against the government, the judicial system is closed for business.

Since Communist China first created the semblance of a modern legal system a quarter-century ago, criminal cases - the state suing individuals - mostly go through the courts. Private citizens and businesses now often resolve civil disputes in court. But the third and most sensitive use of the judicial system, a 1989 statute that entitles people to sue the state, remains a beguiling fiction, scholars say.

"The number of people wanting to sue the government is large and growing," says Xiao Jianguo, a legal scholar at People's University in Beijing who has studied the issue. "But the number of people who succeed in filing cases against the government is miniscule. So you could say there is a gap between theory and practice."

Though fast-rising China wants to persuade the outside world that it is governed by law, pressure to improve the system comes mainly from within. Protests are erupting around the country over land seizures, pollution, corruption and abuse of power, with 74,000 officially recorded incidents of mass unrest in 2004.

China's leaders know they need to manage such unrest. Indeed, President Hu Jintao says "democratic rule of law" is a crucial ingredient of his plan to build a "harmonious society."

Such pledges spread awareness of legal rights, but have yet to change legal procedures. It is not clear how many protests follow failed attempts to settle disputes in court. But lawyers say the judicial system bars its doors to so many contentious cases that it effectively forces people to take to the streets.

IT'S WARTIME, NOT CRIMEBUSTERS:

Defense Lawyers in Terror Cases Plan Challenges Over Spy Efforts (ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN, 12/28/05, NY Times)

Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.

DREAMING UP THE JUST SO STORY OF HOW MAN BECAME HOMOPHOBIC (via Pepys):

Brokeback Mountain: The guilt trip continues (Robert Wright vs. Mickey Kaus, Blogging Heads)

Not only is this hilarious conversation --which is essentially just two guys trying to escape the moral nature of the fact they find anal sex repulsive-- devastating to Darwinism and homophilia but it's all made superfluous by just one line from Mark Helprin: "It should not be necessary to explain a praiseworthy revulsion."

THEY'RE SO MODERN:

Thatcher-basher Geldof advises Cameron's team (David Charter, 12/28/05, Times of London)

BETTER known for turning the air blue, Bob Geldof has agreed to act as an unpaid adviser on global poverty relief for the new light blue Conservative Party.

The former rock star turned millionaire poverty campaigner famously clashed with Baroness Thatcher in the 1980s but was successful in changing Conservative policy when she eventually agreed to waive the VAT on the Band Aid single.

Like his fellow Irish rock ambassador Bono, who endured the wrath of campaigners by sitting down with President Bush, “Saint Bob” has risen above partisan political concerns to promote his anti-poverty message.

IT ALL COMES back to the classics. Anyone who wants to understand the changes that are now taking place in the Tory party should begin by considering a Latin tag — suaviter in modo, fortiter in re. Like most of the best Latin phrases, it is so pithy as to be almost impossible to translate, but applied to politics it means “be firm on the essentials of policy, while using conciliatory language to explain yourself to the public”. That is Cameronism, Even if David Cameron has not said anything about detailed policies, his willingness to think boldly has alarmed a number of Tories who prefer to cling to Thatcherite certainties and Thatcherite rhetoric. [...]

Lady Thatcher has endowed British political vocabulary with two words, “Thatcherism” and “cuts”, which are widely believed to be synonymous. She never used the term “cuts”, but her body language gave it credence. Yet there were no cuts. During her years, tax revenue hardly fell as a proportion of GDP, while public expenditure went on growing, especially on health. Mrs Thatcher once insisted that “the NHS is safe in our hands ”. So it was.

DOING BETTER BY IRAQ THAN WE EVER DID BY POLAND:

Poland postpones Iraq withdrawal (BBC, 12/28/05)

Poland's government says it has taken the "very difficult decision" to extend its military deployment in Iraq until the end of 2006.

The new conservative government's decision reverses the previous leftist administration's plan to pull troops out in early 2006.

Poland, a staunch ally of the US, has about 1,500 troops stationed in Iraq.

BUBBLICIOUS:

Print Reports Snow Readers On Housing: Reports hype November sales drop while ignoring that 2005 will break 2004 new house-sale record. (Ken Shepherd, Dec. 27, 2005, Free Market Project)

The front page of the December 27 Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) joined other print outlets in blowing hot air on the so-called “housing bubble” with “Home Sales Plunge as Prices Pull Back and Supply Swells,” as reporter Kirk Shinkle painted a chilly winter landscape for the housing market. [...]

Yet a month prior, The Washington Post’s Sandra Fleishman reported on government figures showing sales for October 2005 had leapt 13 percent over September, “a monthly increase not seen in a dozen years, according to a government report.” In her November 30 report on the October numbers, Fleishman voiced caution from unnamed experts, noting that the “unexpected burst of activity in sales of new homes, particularly a 47 percent rise in sales in the West, could be an error in reporting,” adding that experts say, “monthly new-home statistics are volatile and often subject to revisions.”

Shinkle hyped one month’s aberrant statistics to hint at a housing bubble burst and warned new home building “might only add to a growing glut on the market.” That is only the latest example of the media eagerly misreporting the news to forecast a housing bubble burst which has not yet happened, despite four years of doom-saying. The Free Market Project placed the housing bubble myth as number five in its year-ending list of the Top Ten Economic Myths of 2005. The November 30 Free Market Project study on housing bubble coverage is also available at FreeMarketProject.org.

BUT I'M THE SMART ROCK! (via Mike Daley):

Love in the Age of Neuroscience (Mickey Craig and Jon Fennell, The New Atlantis)

Late last year, over a period of several months, America and Britain were awash in reviews of I Am Charlotte Simmons, the latest novel by Tom Wolfe. Most reviews criticized the novel’s cheap and tiresome devices (excessive repetition, capitalized words, overly dramatic punctuation), stock characters (the ingénue, country bumpkins, frat boys, salacious sorority sisters, dumb jocks, politically correct professors), and, most egregiously, its preoccupation with student sex. Several reviewers were disturbed by the reference to “loamy, loamy loins” by an author in his mid-seventies—a man thoroughly out of touch with his young subjects, perhaps even jealous of their vivacious sex lives. But these critics, with rare exception, entirely overlooked the central themes of the novel. As John Derbyshire wrote in National Review, I Am Charlotte Simmons is a reminder of the “darker side” of recent discoveries in the human sciences, especially in neuroscience and genetics. At stake is the “metaphysic” which provides sense and direction to our lives, including the complicated encounter between men and women. The novel invites us to ask: Is love possible in the age of neuroscience? Or have we unmasked human beings only to discover that love is an illusion?

The university, like American and Western society as a whole, was transformed by the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Grounded in an uncompromising individualism of personal choice, the sexual revolution established the legitimacy of casual, pleasure-seeking sex, independent of procreation, family, and even affection. The story of Charlotte Simmons explores the consequences of this momentous change in human behavior and association. Wolfe helps us see that there is no free lunch: In giving full rein to our biological impulses, there is a toll to pay in human longing and human happiness. As Peter Berkowitz reflects in a superb review essay in Policy Review:

[W]hat if men and women are different in ways that go beyond the structure of their sex organs, and so experience sexual relationships differently? And what if the exercise of the new freedom imparts lessons to both men and women about life, and develops habits of heart and mind, that interfere with the capacity to give oneself to and care for another...? What if relationships teach how to withhold one’s heart, to embrace another with one eye always fixed on the exit...? And what if such lessons, habits, and teachings are more easily acquired than discarded?

Charlotte’s experiences at the fictional Dupont University shed light on these questions, as the ambitious girl from backwater North Carolina is transformed by her sophisticated and salacious surroundings. Far from being the path to higher civilization and refinement of character, Dupont is a toxic impediment to the yearning for higher things, built on a dogmatic denial that higher civilization and refinement of character are even possible. Where, in a former age, the impressionable young student might have aspired to religious salvation or genuine wisdom, today’s typical college student lives more for entertainment, sensation, and release, all the while demanding and largely getting immediate gratification. The individual still seeks status and recognition. But the marks of distinction are all too often inebriation, “hooking up,” expertise at sarcasm (“sarc one,” “sarc two,” and “sarc three”), and insouciance toward matters intellectual and moral. As students learn about and fall into this new ethic, the university not only fails to stand in opposition, it accelerates the process. Dupont, that composite of Duke, Stanford, Yale, and the University of Michigan, corrupts the promising young Charlotte. For revealing this disturbing truth, the author has been reviled by those who are thereby revealed.

More importantly, the teaching of Dupont University is precisely that the soul and the moral dimension of being are illusions. In the past, the university (at its best and in principle) sought to cultivate the human soul toward completion or excellence. The modern university, as Wolfe portrays it, denies that there are truthful distinctions between higher and lower; it teaches that the soul is not real, and that perfection of the soul is thus a thing of the past.

The setting of I Am Charlotte Simmons is truly “postmodern”—a world dominated by Nietzsche and neuroscience, a world which has jettisoned the moral imagination of the past. Not only is God dead, but so is reason, once understood as the characteristic that distinguishes man from the rest of nature. We now understand ourselves by studying the behavior of other animals, rather than understanding the behavior of other animals in light of human reason and human difference. We learn that it is embarrassing for any educated person to be considered religious or even moral. Darwin’s key insight that man is just another animal, now updated with the tools and discoveries of modern biology, has liberated us from two Kingdoms of Darkness. Post-faith and post-reason, we can now turn to neuroscience to understand the human condition, a path that leads to or simply ratifies the governing nihilism of the students, both the ambitious and apathetic alike. [...]

The task of neuroscience is to understand human behavior as it really is, without illusions. This new way of seeing the mechanisms of man confirms that the soul does not really exist and that our behavior is simply a physical reaction to stimuli over which we have no control. Human beings think they have free will and that their choices have meaning. But this is one of the comforting myths of the past that neuroscience is proud to overcome. As Dr. Starling explains, this time with a thought experiment borrowed from a fellow neuroscientist:

Let’s say you pick up a rock and you throw it. And in mid-flight you give that rock consciousness and a rational mind. That little rock will think it has free will and will give you a highly rational account of why it has decided to take the route it’s taking.

In other words: Human beings are simply rocks. Neuroscientists are rocks who know they are rocks. Human beings are bodies in motion, bodies that falsely believe they have free will. But neuroscience, armed with tools like fMRIs and PET scans, promises a true description of human behavior, a final lifting of man’s religious and moral illusions. And that life without illusions may amount to nothing more than the joyless quest for joy or the soulless interactions of the soulless. The consequences of this shift in human self-understanding are enormous.

MORE:
He Is Charlotte Simmons: a review of I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tiom Wolfe (Peter Berkowitz, Policy Review)

The governing theme of I am Charlotte Simmons is introduced by Wolfe in an entry from (the fictitious) Dictionary of Nobel Laureates, 3rd ed. that he places at the front of the novel. In 1983, 28-year-old Dupont University assistant professor of psychology Victor Ransome Starling removes the amygdala, which controls the emotions in higher mammals, from 30 cats. This causes the cats to enter a state of hypermanic sexual arousal. When Starling opens one of the cage doors to show an assistant the results of the experiment, the cat leaps out, immediately wraps its legs around the assistant’s leg, and begins thrusting with its pelvis. But Starling is startled when the assistant points out that the desperate animal is actually one of the control cats whose amygdala has not been touched. Pondering the implications of the replication by the control cats of the amygdalized cats’ hypermanic sexual arousal, Starling is led to the discovery for which he is awarded the Nobel Prize, namely, “that a strong social or ‘cultural’ atmosphere, even as abnormal as this one, could in time overwhelm the genetically determined responses of the perfectly normal, healthy animals.”

This sets up the experiment that Wolfe’s novel is meant to conduct: What happens if a talented, attractive and ambitious young person instilled with a conservative sensibility who wishes to pursue the cultivation of the mind is parachuted into a contemporary university? Indeed, Dupont University — a composite institution located like Swarthmore on the outskirts of suburban Philadelphia next to Chester; carrying the cache of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton; and like Duke or many major state universities boasting a national-caliber athletic program — initially overwhelms Charlotte Simmons of Sparta, North Carolina. The product of a poor family in a small town on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the heart of Red America, Charlotte excelled in her studies, was taken under wing by a devoted, spinster high-school teacher who taught her to take pride in her intelligence and to love literature and learning, and won a scholarship to one of America’s finest bastions of higher education. Encouraged by her hardworking and devout parents, Charlotte leaves them behind to pursue an education in the best that has been thought and said. Little does she understand, nor do those who love her back home in Sparta, that Dupont sustains a cultural atmosphere at war with the beliefs and practices developed over millennia to guide normal, healthy young people in their transition to responsible adulthood.

Indeed, consistent with the discovery for which Professor Starling wins his Nobel prize, Charlotte’s moral conservatism and hunger for knowledge prove no match for the larger lessons about sex and the soul that social and academic life at Dupont incessantly drum into students’ heads. Right from the start, Beverly Amory, her wealthy, haughty, emaciated, sexually sophisticated Groton-educated roommate, causes Charlotte to feel clueless about how to speak and what to say, and embarrassed about what she wears and how little she has to spend. Striving to remember that she is, after all, Charlotte Simmons, committed to high ideals and expected by family and friends in Sparta to achieve great things, Charlotte finds herself yearning for a place of honor in the strict campus pecking order. To achieve that very human goal, she is resolved to excel in her studies. But the rigorous rules for social advancement require that she also have sex and find a boyfriend, in no particular order. And as a healthy and attractive young woman, Charlotte understandably feels some thrill at that message.

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE THERE'S WITCHES (via JD Watson):

Sinclair Letter Turns Out to Be Another Exposé: Note found by an O.C. man says 'The Jungle' author got the lowdown on Sacco and Vanzetti. (Jean O. Pasco, December 24, 2005, LA Writer)

Inside the box, an envelope postmarked Sept. 12, 1929, caught [Paul Hegness's] eye. It was addressed to John Beardsley, Esq., of Los Angeles. The return address read, "Upton Sinclair, Long Beach."

"I stood there for 15 minutes reading it over and over again," Hegness said of the letter by the author of "The Jungle," the groundbreaking 1906 book that exposed unsanitary conditions at slaughterhouses.

The last paragraph got the Newport Beach attorney's attention. "This letter is for yourself alone," it read. "Stick it away in your safe, and some time in the far distant future the world may know the real truth about the matter. I am here trying to make plain my own part in the story."

The story was "Boston," Sinclair's 1920s novelized condemnation of the trial and execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian immigrants accused of killing two men in the robbery of a Massachusetts shoe factory.

Prosecutors characterized the anarchists as ruthless killers who had used the money to bankroll antigovernment bombings and deserved to die. Sinclair thought the pair were innocent and being railroaded because of their political views.

Soon Sinclair would learn something that filled him with doubt. During his research for "Boston," Sinclair met with Fred Moore, the men's attorney, in a Denver motel room. Moore "sent me into a panic," Sinclair wrote in the typed letter that Hegness found at the auction a decade ago.

"Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the full truth," Sinclair wrote. " … He then told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them."

THE ONLY SCIENTIFIC STANDARD:

Leave evolution out of standards, Bush says (Associated Press, December 28, 2005)

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has portrayed himself as a friend of science, going so far as to spearhead a deal to bring an arm of the prestigious Scripps Research Institute to South Florida.

But don't count on him to defend one of the pillars of modern science.

Bush said last week he did not think Darwin's theory of evolution needed to be part of the state's public school science standards, according to an account in the Miami Herald.

"I think people have different points of view and they can be discussed in school," Bush said. "They don't need to be in the curriculum."

OBLIGATORY AFRIKAANER COMPARISON:

The 'I' Word: Expect 2006 to offer up Nixon-era nastiness and a chorus of calls to impeach Bush. (Howard Fineman, Dec. 27, 2005, Newsweek)
Where’s the Outrage? (Arlene Getz, Dec. 21, 2005, Newsweek)

Back in the 1980s, when I was living in Johannesburg and reporting on apartheid South Africa, a white neighbor proffered a tasteless confession. She was "quite relieved," she told me, that new media restrictions prohibited our reporting on government repression. No matter that Pretoria was detaining tens of thousands of people without real evidence of wrongdoing. No matter that many of them, including children, were being tortured—sometimes to death. No matter that government hit squads were killing political opponents. No matter that police were shooting into crowds of black civilians protesting against their disenfranchisement. "It's so nice," confided my neighbor, "not to open the papers and read all that bad news."

I thought about that neighbor this week, as reports dribbled out about President George W. Bush's sanctioning of warrantless eavesdropping on American conversations. For anyone who has lived under an authoritarian regime, phone tapping—or at least the threat of it—is always a given. But U.S. citizens have always been lucky enough to believe themselves protected from such government intrusion. So why have they reacted so insipidly to yet another post-9/11 erosion of U.S. civil liberties?

TIME FOR A BIG OLE FRENCH FRY:

French ban petrol in cans amid fear of New Year riots (Colin Randall, 28/12/2005, Daily Telegraph)

Fears of a new outbreak of street violence in France have prompted many areas to ban the sale of petrol in cans.

Setting fire to cars on New Year's Eve has become a tradition among lawless youths on estates with large immigrant populations in the Parisian suburbs and Strasbourg.

The wave of rioting that swept the country for three weeks from the end of October has led to widespread concern that troublemakers may try to stage a show of strength this weekend.

The bans affect most areas around Paris and several provincial cities that suffered during the earlier riots. Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, insisted that November's state of emergency would not be lifted at New Year.

NO ONE DEMANDS PRIVACY WHO ISN'T ENGAGED IN EVIL:

Unwarranted Complaints (DAVID B. RIVKIN and LEE A. CASEY, 12/27/05, NY Times)

[I]t is highly doubtful whether individuals involved in a conflict have any "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their communications, which is the touchstone of protection under both the Fourth Amendment and the surveillance act itself - anymore than a tank commander has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his communications with his commanders on the battlefield. The same goes for noncombatants swept up in the hostilities.

Even if Congress had intended to restrict the president's ability to obtain intelligence in such circumstances, it could not have constitutionally done so. The Constitution designates the president as commander in chief, and Congress can no more direct his exercise of that authority than he can direct Congress in the execution of its constitutional duties. As the FISA court itself noted in 2002, the president has "inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance."

In this instance, in addition to relying on his own inherent constitutional authority, the president can also draw upon the specific Congressional authorization "to use all necessary and appropriate force" against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks "in order to prevent any future attacks of international terrorism against the United States." These words are sufficiently broad to encompass the gathering of intelligence about the enemy, its movements, its abilities and its plans, a core part of the use of force against Al Qaeda and its allies. The authorization does not say that the president can order the use of artillery, or air strikes, yet no one is arguing that therefore Mr. Bush is barred from doing so.

The fact that the statutory language does not specifically mention intelligence collection, or that this matter was not raised by the White House in negotiations with Congress, or even that the administration had sought even broader language, all points recently raised by former Senator Tom Daschle, is irrelevant.

Overall, this surveillance program is fully within the president's legal authority, is limited in scope (involving communications to or from overseas related to the war against Al Qaeda), and is subject to stringent presidential review. The contretemps its revelation has caused reveals much more about the chattering classes' fundamental antipathy to strong government in general, and strong executive power in particular, than it does about presidential overreaching.

2%, HERE WE COME:

Contractors Are Warned: Cuts Coming for Weapons (LESLIE WAYNE, 12/27/05, NY Times)

It was a message that the industry has been bracing for. The Pentagon budget, James F. Albaugh, chief executive of Boeing's $30 billion military division, said at the conference, has "been a great ride for the last five years." But, he added: "We will see a flattening of the defense budget. We all know it is coming."

The issue, however, goes beyond tightening budgets. Mr. Henry told the contractors that the Pentagon was redefining the strategic threats facing the United States. No longer are rival nations the primary threat - a type of warfare that calls for naval destroyers and fighter jets. Today the country is facing international networks of terrorists, and the weapons needed are often more technologically advanced, flexible and innovative. [...]

In the years ahead, Mr. Henry said, the Pentagon would like to move "away from massive force." This would mean, for instance, that fewer fighter jets would be needed because the upcoming Joint Strike Fighter F-35 has more capabilities than the existing F-16's.

He noted that special operations forces played a big role in the early days of the Iraq war - once controlling up to two-thirds of the country - and are expected to be used in greater numbers in the future. This would mean the Pentagon would want to buy more of the highly agile and high-technology weapons that they need. Specialized skills like language, intelligence and communication are also becoming top priorities.

As for aerospace, he said the Pentagon would be looking for aircraft with longer ranges, and, therefore, did not need ships or nearby bases for them to land. Increasingly, the Pentagon will be depending on unmanned aerial vehicles, which can work longer hours than piloted craft and do not put Air Force lives at risk. In the future, he said, unmanned craft will be used not only for surveillance, as they are in Iraq, but for combat as well.

HARD TO IMAGINE BETTER NEWS:

Iraq Vote Shows Sunnis Are Few in New Military (RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr., 12/27/05, NY Times)

An analysis of preliminary voting results released Monday from the Dec. 15 parliamentary election suggests that in contrast to the remarkable surge in Sunni Arab participation in the political process, the Sunnis still have comparatively little representation in the Iraqi security forces. [...]

It has been suspected that Sunni Arabs are underrepresented in the new military and police. Election officials believe that a special tally from the Dec. 15 vote helps to detail the disparity, mostly because voting in Iraq has almost completely been along ethnic and sectarian divisions.

In the special tally - which the officials said overwhelmingly consisted of most of the ballots cast by security forces, but also included votes from hospital patients and prisoners - about 7 percent of the votes were cast for the three main Sunni Arab parties. Across the whole population, though, officials have estimated, Sunni Arab candidates won about 20 percent of the seats in the new Parliament.

WE HAVEN’T BEEN THIS EXCITED SINCE THE PEPPERED MOTHS

Evolution 'breakthrough of the year,' Science journal declares (CBC News, December 22nd, 2005)

The journal Science has declared genetic studies of evolution the breakthrough of 2005. [...]

"In 2005, scientists piled up new insights about evolution at the genetic level and the birth of species, including information that could help us lead healthier lives in the future," the journal's editors wrote.

"Ironically, these often-startling discoveries occurred in a year when backers of "intelligent design" and other opponents of evolution sought to renew challenges to this fundamental concept."

Uncanny.

THE ASCENT OF SPECIOUS (via Robert Schwartz):

SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH EVOLUTION PHILOSOPHER DANIEL DENNETT: "Darwinism Completely Refutes Intelligent Design" (Der Spiegel, 12/27/05)

SPIEGEL: Your colleague Michael Ruse has accused you of stepping out of the field of science and into social science and religion with your theories. He's even said you are inadvertently aiding the Intelligent Design movement as a result.

Dennett: Michael is just trying to put the implications of Darwin's insights into soft focus and to reassure people that there is not as much conflict between the perspective of evolutionary biology and their traditional ways of thinking.

SPIEGEL: And what about the accusation that you are aiding Intelligent Design?

Dennett: There is probably an element of truth to it. I've just finished writing a book in which I look at religion from the perspective of evolutionary biology. I think you can, should, and even must take this route. Others say 'no, hands off! Just don't let evolution get anywhere near the social sciences.' I think that's terrible advice. The idea that we should protect the social sciences and humanity from evolutionary thinking is a recipe for disaster.

SPIEGEL: Why?

Dennett: I would give Darwin the gold medal for the best idea anybody ever had. It unifies the world of meaning and purpose and goals and freedom with the world of science, with the world of the physical sciences. I mean, we talk about the great gap between social science and natural science. What closes that gap? Darwin

MORE:
Cardinal Schönborn on God and Creation: "It Is the Very Dignity of the Creature to Have Received Everything From Him": Here is a provisional translation of a catechetical lecture given by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, last month on creation and evolution. (ZENIT, 19 DEC. 2005)

A scientist wrote me in response to my article in the New York Times that he would like to believe in a creator but just cannot believe in an "old man with a long white beard." I answered him saying that no one expects him to believe this. On the contrary, such a childish conception of a creator has nothing to do with what the Bible says about the creator and with the article of the creed that says, "I believe in God, the father almighty, the creator of heaven and earth."

In my response I wrote him that it would be a good thing if his religious knowledge would not lag so far behind his scientific knowledge and if his vast knowledge as a scientist did not go hand in hand with what is after all childish religious conceptions. For an old man with a long white beard is certainly not what is meant by the creator. I recommended that he simply read what, for example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says on this subject.

Now there is another misunderstanding that is constantly found in the ongoing discussion, and I have to deal with it right here at the beginning. I refer to what is called "creationism." Nowadays the belief in a creator is automatically run together with "creationism." But in fact to believe in a creator is not the same as trying to understand the six days of creation literally, as six chronological days, and as trying to prove scientifically, with whatever means available, that the earth is 6,000 years old.

These attempts of certain Christians at taking the Bible absolutely literally, as if it made chronological and scientific statements — I have met defenders of this position who honestly strive to find scientific arguments for it — is called "fundamentalism." Or more exactly, within American Protestantism this view of the Christian faith originally called itself fundamentalism. Starting from the belief that the Bible is inspired by God, so that every word in it is immediately inspired by him, the six days of creation are taken in a strict literal way.

It is understandable that in the United States many people, using not only kinds of polemics but lawsuits as well, vehemently resist the teaching of creationism in the schools. But it is an entirely different matter when certain people would like to see the schools deal with the critical questions that have been raised with regard to Darwinism; they have a reasonable and legitimate concern.

The Catholic position on this is clear. St. Thomas says that "one should not try to defend the Christian faith with arguments that are so patently opposed to reason that the faith is made to look ridiculous." It is simply nonsense to say that the world is only 6,000 years old. To try to prove this scientifically is what St. Thomas calls provoking the "irrisio infidelium," the scorn of the unbelievers. It is not right to use such false arguments and to expose the faith to the scorn of unbelievers. This should suffice on the subject of "creationism" and "fundamentalism" for the entire remainder of this catechesis; what we want to say about it should be so clear that we do not have to return to the subject.

And now to our main subject: What does the Christian faith say about "God the creator" and about creation? The classical Catholic teaching, as we find it explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or more compactly presented in the Compendium of the Catechism, contains four basic elements.

1. The doctrine of creation says that there is an absolute beginning — "in the beginning God created heaven and earth" — and that this absolute beginning is the free and sovereign act of establishing being out of nothing. This is the main theme of today's catechesis: the absolute beginning.

2. The doctrine of creation also says that there are various creatures. This is the distinction of creatures, "each according to its kind," of which we read in the first chapter of Genesis. This is the work of the first six days as related on the first page of the Bible. I will speak on this subject in the next catechesis, in which I will ask what it means to say that according to our faith in creation God has willed a multiplicity of creatures.

3. We come now to a point of fundamental importance for the Christian belief about creation. It is also a point about which we will be speaking later today. We believe not only in an absolute beginning of creation but in the preservation of creation; God holds in being all that he has created. We refer here to his continuing work of creation, which in theology is called the "creatio continua," the ongoing act of creation.

4. And finally, the doctrine of creation most definitely includes the belief that God directs his creation. He did not just set it in motion once at the beginning and then let it run its course. No, the divine guidance of creation, which we call divine providence, is a part of the doctrine of creation. God leads his work to its final end.

ESCAPE FROM TOKYO (via Robert Schwartz):

Japan's humanoid robots: Better than people (The Economist, 12/20/05)

HER name is MARIE, and her impressive set of skills comes in handy in a nursing home. MARIE can walk around under her own power. She can distinguish among similar-looking objects, such as different bottles of medicine, and has a delicate enough touch to work with frail patients. MARIE can interpret a range of facial expressions and gestures, and respond in ways that suggest compassion. Although her language skills are not ideal, she can recognise speech and respond clearly. Above all, she is inexpensive . Unfortunately for MARIE, however, she has one glaring trait that makes it hard for Japanese patients to accept her: she is a flesh-and-blood human being from the Philippines. If only she were a robot instead.

Robots, you see, are wonderful creatures, as many a Japanese will tell you. They are getting more adept all the time, and before too long will be able to do cheaply and easily many tasks that human workers do now. They will care for the sick, collect the rubbish, guard homes and offices, and give directions on the street.

This is great news in Japan, where the population has peaked, and may have begun shrinking in 2005. With too few young workers supporting an ageing population, somebody—or something—needs to fill the gap, especially since many of Japan's young people will be needed in science, business and other creative or knowledge-intensive jobs.

ROBERT FISK, LOGICAL POSITIVIST

Telling it like it isn't (Robert Fisk, Los Angeles Times, December 27th, 2005)

This is only the tip of the semantic iceberg that has crashed into American journalism in the Middle East. Illegal Jewish settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land are clearly "colonies," and we used to call them that. I cannot trace the moment when we started using the word "settlements." But I can remember the moment around two years ago when the word "settlements" was replaced by "Jewish neighborhoods" — or even, in some cases, "outposts."

Similarly, "occupied" Palestinian land was softened in many American media reports into "disputed" Palestinian land — just after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, in 2001, instructed U.S. embassies in the Middle East to refer to the West Bank as "disputed" rather than "occupied" territory.

Then there is the "wall," the massive concrete obstruction whose purpose, according to the Israeli authorities, is to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from killing innocent Israelis. In this, it seems to have had some success. But it does not follow the line of Israel's 1967 border and cuts deeply into Arab land. And all too often these days, journalists call it a "fence" rather than a "wall." Or a "security barrier," which is what Israel prefers them to say. For some of its length, we are told, it is not a wall at all — so we cannot call it a "wall," even though the vast snake of concrete and steel that runs east of Jerusalem is higher than the old Berlin Wall.

The semantic effect of this journalistic obfuscation is clear. If Palestinian land is not occupied but merely part of a legal dispute that might be resolved in law courts or discussions over tea, then a Palestinian child who throws a stone at an Israeli soldier in this territory is clearly acting insanely.

If a Jewish colony built illegally on Arab land is simply a nice friendly "neighborhood," then any Palestinian who attacks it must be carrying out a mindless terrorist act.

And surely there is no reason to protest a "fence" or a "security barrier" — words that conjure up the fence around a garden or the gate arm at the entrance to a private housing complex.

For Palestinians to object violently to any of these phenomena thus marks them as a generically vicious people. By our use of language, we condemn them.

So, in the name of preserving the integrity of the English language, let's blow up some Israelis.

FIRST THE FAITH, THEN THE SCIENCE:

Is Creationism Destructible?: Where to go from Dover. (William Saletan, Dec. 21, 2005, Slate)

In his 139-page ruling on the Dover, Pa., "intelligent design" case, federal district Judge John E. Jones sets out to kill ID's scientific pretensions once and for all. [...]

Scientifically, Jones settles the issue. Culturally, he fails. And until we learn the difference, the fight over creationism in schools and courts will go on.

The decisive assumption in Jones' opinion is the definitions of science proposed by the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. First, scientific explanations must be natural, not supernatural. Second, they must be testable. These criteria instantly kill ID as science. Its explicit aspiration was to defeat "methodological naturalism." Once you accept naturalism, as Jones does, you guarantee his conclusion that supernatural theories are a "science stopper."

A MAN WHO KNOWS HIS PRIORITIES

Dying patients 'can aid stem cell research' (The Guardian, December 27th, 2005)

Professor Ian Wilmut, creator of Dolly the sheep, today said experimental stem cell therapy should be carried out on terminally ill patients to speed up the pace of research.

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SO MUCH FOR THE BIG SPENDER LABEL:

THE BIG THREE BUDGET EATERS (NY Post, December 27, 2005)

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid consumed nearly half of all federal spending in 2004, and budget analysts expect them to account for an even bigger share in the future.
They accounted for more than $1 trillion in the 2004 budget year, says the Consolidated Federal Funds Report released today by the Census Bureau.

Overall federal spending was $2.2 trillion, an increase of 5 percent from 2003,

This was a slightly smaller increase than in recent years, said Gerard Keffer, chief of the bureau's federal programs branch.

WHEN IT STOPPED BEING A RUBBER STAMP IT STOPPED BEING TOLERABLE:

Bush was denied wiretaps, bypassed them (UPI, 12/27/05)

The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation.

But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for surveillance by the Bush administration, the report said. A total of 173 of those court-ordered "substantive modifications" took place in 2003 and 2004. And, the judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years -- the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court's history.

GROWN-UPS IN CHARGE:

Iraqi poll winners woo rivals (Shamal Aqrawi, 12/27, Reuters)

Leaders of the Shi'ite and Kurdish blocs that emerged triumphant in this month's Iraqi election agreed on Tuesday to push ahead with efforts to bring Sunni and other parties into a grand coalition government.

The visit of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim of the Shi'ite Islamist Alliance to the Kurdish capital Arbil opened a series of planned meetings among rival factions intended to ease friction over election results which Sunni and secular parties say have been rigged and to begin building a consensus administration.

"We agreed on the principle of forming a government involving all the parties with a wide popular base," Kurdish regional leader Masoud Barzani told a joint news conference after talks with Hakim, the dominant force in the Alliance.

THE COARSENING OF CANADA:

Blog bombshell hits GritsParty exec quits over slurs on Web (TARA BRAUTIGAM, 12/27/05, CP)

A high-ranking official within the Liberal Party of Canada resigned yesterday after he called NDP Leader Jack Layton an "a--hole" and compared Layton's wife Olivia Chow to a dog on his Internet blog.

Mike Klander, executive vice-president of the federal Liberal party's Ontario wing, stepped down after photographs of Chow, the NDP candidate for the Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina, and a chow chow dog were posted on his blog dated Dec. 9 under the heading "Separated at Birth."

The blog also slagged Layton.

"I'm going away for a couple of days so I thought I would find something smart and witty to put up on my blog before I left," the blog said, dated Nov. 23. "Unfortunatley (sic) I couldn't think of anything so I just want to say that I think Jack Layton is an a--hole ... for no reason other than it makes me feel good to say it ... and because he is."

I JUST KNOW THIS IS THE WEEK KRUGMAN ADRESSES THE GAS BUBBLE...:

Natural Gas Prices Decline 10 Percent (AP, 12/27/05)

Natural gas futures plunged 10 percent Tuesday, settling at their lowest level in three and a half months amid forecasts calling for mild U.S. weather over the next week. It was the third straight decline for natural gas prices, which have fallen 23 percent since Wednesday, and the selloff triggered a decline in other energy futures.

BADLY DESIGNING WOMEN (via Mike Daley):

Too Few Good Men: a review of Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas and American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare by Jason DeParle (Amy L. Wax, Policy Review)

Edin and Kefalas are talented and sedulous ethnographers. [....]

Nonetheless, their book ultimately fails. Despite promising beginnings, the authors fall victim to tired social science dogmas. Their fealty to bad ideas hinders a full excavation of the rich lode of material they have so painstakingly assembled. They miss the message of their own fieldwork and the clear implications of broader social trends. The result is a lost opportunity to discover the true causes of family upheaval and to think constructively about the cures for its decline.

Why do the women in this study so rarely marry and so often end up as single mothers? Most express a strong desire to marry and view extra-marital childbearing as “second best.” Yet almost all remain single. The authors offer this explanation: Expectations for marriage have risen across the board. People now regard marriage as a luxury good rather than as a necessity. They refuse to tie the knot unless they have first achieved economic success. A house, a well-paying job, and enough money for a nice wedding are now needed before considering a trip to the altar. But few of the unskilled can make good on their aspirations because wages at the bottom have stagnated or declined. To their credit, the authors do not exaggerate the extent of these trends. Although they note (correctly) that unskilled men’s earnings have lost ground relative to college graduates’ and that some well-paying jobs have disappeared, they acknowledge that the overall economic prospects of men with a high school education or less are not significantly worse than in past decades when marriage rates were much higher. It’s not that most unskilled men are less able to support a family than they were decades ago; earnings for this group were always modest. Rather, the problem is that women — and men — expect far more.

In contrast, conclude Edin and Kefalas, having children carries no such inflated requirements. Babies need not await the achievement of an elevated position in life, because childbearing is a fundamental hallmark of female adulthood that is central to poor women’s dignity and identity. In the authors’ words, “women rely on their children to bring validation, purpose, companionship, and order to their often chaotic lives — things they find hard to come by in other ways.” In a perverse inversion of old values, these woman have come to regard lone motherhood as the ultimate heroic act, the proving ground of their responsible devotion to others.

At first blush, the authors’ theory about why marriage is unpopular among the less educated appears to explain demographic reality. Rising expectations generate a class divergence in marriage rates for the simple reason that the well-off are better able to fulfill those expectations than the poor and uneducated. Yet despite superficial appeal, the authors’ explanation just doesn’t fly. First and foremost, their conclusions are at odds with what their women subjects actually say. More broadly, the authors’ thesis cannot be reconciled with the full range of facts regarding racial and class differences in family structure. A growing body of social science evidence suggests that group mores and personal behavior, not insufficient resources, are the most important cause of marital decline.

SELF ABOVE ALL:

GOP Lawmaker Relishes Role as a Flamethrower: Illegal immigration, and not party loyalty, is Rep. Tom Tancredo's burning issue (Mark Z. Barabak, December 27, 2005, LA Times)

And once he damages the GOP does he expect Democrats to do his bidding?

THEY'RE MORE LIKELY TO GIVE SADDAM A NOBEL:

Finally, All the World Can Be His Stage: The work of Adil Kadhim, once shaped by Hussein's censors, speaks of a more open society and a cultural bridge to the West. (Alissa J. Rubin, December 27, 2005, LA Times)

When Saddam Hussein was in power, Adil Kadhim would rise at 6 each morning in his cramped apartment, set a pot of water on the stove for tea, and begin writing.

His work, like that of all authors, had to pass regime censors. One of his television series was an allegory about power, and made it to the screen by being set in 1950s Baghdad rather than in the later Baathist era. A television movie sang the praises of the Iraqi army, and another script used Julius Caesar rather than Hussein to describe the life of a dictator. These innocuous and popular shows made Kadhim one of the best-known theatrical writers in Iraq.

But the work dearest to his heart he stuffed into drawers. Much of it drew together figures from East and West, a motif viewed with suspicion by the regime. In one play he put on trial several notorious figures, including Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden, who in the name of purifying humanity commit heinous acts. In another, an Iraqi woman who murdered her husband shares a prison cell with two heroines of Greek tragedy, Electra and Antigone, and the three discuss the men who led to their ruin.

Occasionally a foreign director visiting Iraq would see a draft and take it out of the country to produce. But Kadhim was careful not to seek attention from outsiders. In Hussein's Iraq, too much notice was dangerous. He had spent time in prison as a young man, and his brother was kidnapped by Hussein's secret police and never seen again. For Kadhim, who has a wife and two daughters, survival trumped art.

Now, with Hussein himself in prison, Kadhim, 64, no longer needs to smuggle his writing out of the country. In the last two years, he has written full-length plays that take on previously forbidden subjects, including the Iraq-Iran war and the repression of women in rural Arab society, as well as current events, such as the U.S.-led invasion and continued military presence.

MAKING THE SINNERS PAY:

State's Tobacco Revenue Surges: California counters a national trend, using aggressive enforcement to bring in millions of cigarette tax dollars even as smoking declines (Evan Halper, December 27, 2005, LA Times)

State officials are reporting an increase of tens of millions of dollars in tobacco taxes for the first time in years, even as smoking in California declines.

California has taken in more than $124 million in new tobacco-tax receipts over the last 20 months. Officials credit a unique new program that includes stamping every cigarette pack sold in the state with a counterfeit-proof sticker.

Investigators, armed with hand-held devices, visit stores and scan the stickers to see whether a package of cigarettes is licensed for sale, where it came from and whether the distributor paid the required taxes. They seize illegal products as they find them and then begin tracking their sources.

The stickers, along with more inspectors and strict new licensing requirements, have helped the state bust scores of smugglers and retailers, seizing millions of illegal cigarettes. At the same time, the federal government has ramped up its sting operations in California, making high-profile arrests that have saved the state millions.

STOF DEFENDING ME, SON:

Twisting Vonnegut's views on terrorism (Mark Vonnegut, December 27, 2005, Boston Globe)

FOR THE past month or so it's been said and repeated that my father supports terrorism. The desire to have it be true is almost palpable. If novelist Kurt Vonnegut supports terrorism, then maybe all critics of the war are on some level proterrorist. [...]

My father cares not a fig about the Middle East.

COSTS LESS TIME AS WELL AS LESS MONEY:

Retailers take steps to keep lines moving: New tactics ease a holiday peeve (Jenn Abelson, December 27, 2005, Boston Globe)

Fixing the problem of long lines has never been at the top of the agenda for retailers. For one thing, they know Americans are used to standing in line: By some industry estimates, we spend an average of two to three years of our lives waiting in line at airports, grocery stores, and traffic jams.

Ever notice how department stores and supermarkets place gum, candy, and other items at the register? That's because the longer the customer waits in line, the more likely he or she is to purchase something else. Or so the theory has gone.

But a growing number of consumer complaints -- along with competition from line-free Internet shopping -- has prompted retailers to buckle down when it comes to curbing unruly waits.

''When our customer is ready to check out, they're ready to check out," said Rick Webb, Wal-Mart's vice president of customer experience. ''They're not very tolerant of waiting in lines."

As Gillis, who bailed out of the Wal-Mart line, put it: ''After struggling through the crowds, I am fairly well frazzled by the time I go to pay. So, to then see that a store may have 15 checkout lanes but only four cashiers working, yes, I am bothered by the lines."

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, recently began expanding ''line rushing" technology, a mobile scanner that allows employees to check out merchandise while customers wait in line. Customers receive a print-out with a bar code, so cashiers only need to scan the paper and take payment.

Apple stores take mobile technology one step farther. Last month, Apple introduced hand-held checkout devices that allow people to pay anywhere in the store, and customers are e-mailed their receipt. IKEA, a Swedish furniture chain with a new store in Stoughton, allows people to pay with a credit or debit card while waiting in line.

This year, Wal-Mart also started using forecasting technology that helps predict in 15-minute intervals how many registers are needed, based on past sales. To better train new workers hired for the holiday season, Wal-Mart began putting cash registers in the employees' back room so that they can practice.

In recent months, T.J. Maxx and Marshalls started introducing the line queue concept, which puts customers in one big line that snakes back and forth rather than at individual registers.

''You don't have to play those games trying to figure out which line to pick or whether to switch lines if the person in front of you has a problem," said TJX spokeswoman Sherry Lang. ''We've all been there. This is a fair system, so you're not waiting in line longer than anyone else."

14TH OF NEVER:

Foes cite Alito's stance on liberty: Say he targeted issue key to Roe (Charlie Savage, December 27, 2005, Boston Globe)

During his years on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. repeatedly tried to limit the court's interpretation of the 14th Amendment's protection of ''life, liberty, and property" -- one of the key legal underpinnings of the Roe v. Wade abortion case.

The appeals court had ruled in a series of cases that the 14th Amendment protects people against arbitrary decisions by their local government, such as zoning board officials who deny permits for no good reason.

Alito, now a nominee to the Supreme Court, rejected such rights, writing that ''only in extreme circumstances is it proper to invoke" 14th Amendment protections. [...]

''There are many very important and serious legal scholars who take issue with [liberty rights] because it very quickly becomes what the judge thinks the law should cover," said Sean Rushton, of the conservative Committee for Justice.

In recent decades, the Supreme Court has invoked liberty rights to strike down laws forbidding contraception, abortion, interracial marriage, and gay sex between consenting adults; a zoning law that prevented extended families from living together; and a law that forced parents to let grandparents visit their children.

But because the Constitution does not explicitly list the rights protected by those decisions, some legal conservatives reject the rulings as mistakes.

HAVING TWO WOULD HELP:

The true reason for UK's woeful tennis record? We've been using wrong balls (EBEN HARRELL, 12/27/05, The Scotsman)

BRITISH tennis players are failing on the world stage in part because they have been using the wrong ball, according to Davis Cup captain Jeremy Bates.

DOESN'T SHAME REQUIRE A CONSCIENCE?:

Most of Europe set to miss Kyoto goals: study (AFP, Dec 27, 2005)

Most of Europe, which has criticized the United States over its stance on global warming, looks set to miss a set of goals to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol, a study revealed on Tuesday.

The findings by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) will make embarrassing reading for European governments that have berated Washington for its refusal to ratify the United Nations pact.

Of 15 countries in Europe signed up to Kyoto, only Britain and Sweden were on target to meet their commitments on reducing harmful gas emissions by 2012, said the IPPR, Britain's leading progressive think tank.

WHEN THE LIGHTERS GO ON AGAIN....:

In French suburbs, rage 'is only asleep' (Katrin Bennhold, 12/26/05, International Herald Tribune)

"Burn!" A knot of young men join their voices in a battle cry as they edge closer to the silhouette of a parked Mercedes, some of them aiming what look like handguns, others reaching for lighters.

In the harsh light of an underground parking lot in this grim suburb northwest of Paris, the guns and lighters are imaginary - but the sense of aggression is real. As one of the young men films with a digital camera, the others move to the angry beat of music blasting out of an open car door, echoing into the dark December night.

They sing about the riots that erupted two months ago, about being Muslim and about not feeling French in France. For them the unrest is not over, it is waiting to break loose again.

MORE:
Skinhead racist murders spark protests from foreign students (Jeremy Page in Moscow, 12/27/05, Times of London)

LIKE thousands of Africans every year, Kanhem Leon came to Russia in search of the education that would give him a better life back home in Cameroon. Instead, the devout Christian was stabbed by a gang of skinheads in St Petersburg on Christmas Eve and left to die in the snow.

Elsewhere, such a brutal attack might be regarded as a random act of violence. But not in Russia’s picturesque second city. Mr Leon, 28, was the second African student in as many months to have been murdered by skinheads in St Petersburg, and dozens more have been beaten or injured in knife attacks.

Foreign students have accused the Government of turning a blind eye to neo-Nazi “death squads” who openly patrol the city in combat fatigues and carry out regular attacks on non-Slavs with knives and clubs.

AND LE BAND PLAYED ON (via Ali Choudhury):

Canada's group sex club patrons swinging free (Robert Melnbardis Mon Dec 26, 2005, Reuters)

On a recent night out on the town, Michel and Chantal Delbecchi left their suburban Montreal home and drove to the L'Orage Club in the city's east end, where they had sex with a couple they had never met before.

The Delbecchis, husband and wife since 1978, are "echangistes," French for "swingers," who for the past 21 years have been visiting clubs like L'Orage (Thunderstorm) to have consensual sex in a group with one or more other people. [...]

The ruling sparked outrage, largely in English-speaking parts of Canada, where critics said it would erode limits on indecency or obscenity, encourage prostitution and even contribute to the corruption of minors.

In the mainly French-speaking and predominantly Catholic province of Quebec, however, the decision caused barely a ripple of adverse reaction. Newspaper editorialists fumed in Toronto, but largely yawned in Montreal.

Swingers across Canada cheered the ruling, especially those in Quebec, where adherents go to clubs not only to meet others like them, but also to have sex on the premises.

NAKED NATION (via Gene Brown):

I AM Canadian (David Warren, 12/26/05, Ottawa Citizen)

[T]he slanders against the U.S., and the Conservative opposition, are things that don’t touch me. They can defend themselves. Were people better informed, they might not feel the need. Take for instance the anti-American blather over the Kyoto protocol. Since 1990, “greenhouse gas” emissions have risen by 14 percent in the U.S., and by 25 percent in Canada. There are no legs on the horse Mr Martin has mounted. Or, the attempt to cast Mr Harper as a narrow religious bigot when he is, firstly, not especially religious, and secondly, timidly defending moral principles held by all the major religions in common.

If the Liberals were not provided with a karaoke chamber by the Canadian media, they would be naked on stage. There would be nothing for people to look at except their record of criminal corruption, moral perversion, and catastrophic waste. Which is not to suggest any elaborate conspiracy, for the journalists here are like those in most other Western countries -- a class, sharing backgrounds and material interests, who hang out mostly with each other. They are united by a worldview, enforced by peer pressure. It just happens that this worldview is toxic.

For contrast, consider the Alberta oil patch, which is staffed with another class, sharing a different worldview. You will find about as many liberal and socialist dissenters in the oil patch, as you will conservative dissenters in the media. It is how the world works: by peer pressure.

Let them be them. What annoys me most about the Liberal campaign, may be summarized in the words, “Choose your Canada.” The insinuation of this slogan is that people not sleepwalking to the Liberal themes, are not really Canadian. Now, that I take personally.

WHAT IF THE OUTSIDE OF HIS BUBBLE WALL IS ACTUALLY THE INSIDE OF YOURS? (via Gene Brown):

The New York Times' Christmas Gift (Michael Barone, 12/26/05, Real Clear Politics)

n the Dec. 15 Chicago Tribune, John Schmidt, associate attorney general in the Clinton administration, laid it out cold: "President Bush's post-Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents."

"News stories" in the Times and other newspapers and many national newscasts have largely ignored this legal record. Instead, they are tinged with a note of hysteria and the suggestion that fundamental freedoms have been violated by the NSA intercepts.

Earlier this month, a Newsweek cover story depicted George W. Bush as living inside a bubble, isolated from knowledge of the real world. Many of the news stories about the NSA intercepts show that it is mainstream media that are living inside a bubble, carefully insulating themselves and their readers and viewers from knowledge of applicable law and recent historical precedent, determined to pursue an agenda of undermining the Bush administration regardless of any damage to national security.|

THE CONUNDRUM

The one thing Jesus is not (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, reprinted in The Spectator, December 17th, 2005)

God sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again and, by his death, has somehow given new life to men. He also selected one particular people and spent several centuries hammering into their heads the sort of God He was — that there was only one of Him and that He cared about right conduct. Those people were the Jews, and the Old Testament gives an account of the hammering process.

Then comes the real shock. Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world Who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men’s toes and stealing other men’s money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned; the person chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history.

Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is ‘humble and meek’ and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

THE SPIRIT OF GALLIPOLI

Aussies rise to challenge of Canadian sperm (Anne-Marie Owens, National Post, December 26th, 2005)

Lured by ads in the University of Calgary student newspaper that declared, in bold letters, SPERM DONORS NEEDED, WE WILL PAY, RETURN AIR FARES TO AUSTRALIA, TWO WEEKS ACCOMMODATION, DAILY ALLOWANCE, the unusual call-to-arms was a bit of a no-brainer for healthy, young university students with the desire to travel.

But a strange thing happened once the campaign went public.

This is the story of a small fertility clinic that announced it was going to Canada to look for sperm and unwittingly provoked so much Australian male pride that it suddenly found more than enough donors domestically.

After several years of failing to raise enough donors in Australia, despite advertising widely, Reproductive Medicine Albury found the intense publicity about its other-side-of-the-world sperm search last year delivered a new batch of homegrown donors.

Not to be outdone by Canadian donors, it seems, Australian men reacted to the campaign as a point of pride. "It was a bit of, 'What? Isn't Australian sperm good enough, then?' " says Dr. Scott Giltrap, director of the fertility centre.

Good to see those Aussie men are still stepping up to the plate to protect home and family.

SHARED INTERESTS:

Hizbullah is Lebanon's bulwark against Al-Qaeda: 'We do not have any relations with that group' (Clancy Chassay, 12/24/05, The Daily Star)

Since the events of September 11, 2001, there have been numerous attempts to link Hizbullah to Al-Qaeda - some more plausible than others. Investigation, however, reveals considerable animosity between the two groups, and two leading academics on the subject suggest Hizbullah may be Lebanon's best protection against an Al-Qaeda presence in the country. [...]

Amal Ghorayeb of the Lebanese American University believes any operational cooperation between the two groups is out of the question. "Hizbullah would in no way share Al-Qaeda's goals. The Americans have to understand Al-Qaeda is a threat to American security, Hizbullah is simply a threat to American interests," says Ghorayeb.

An expert and writer on Hizbullah, Ghorayeb says: "Al-Qaeda would never work with Hizbullah; their greatest enemies are the Shiites. There is a very strong cultural and religious animosity on the side of Al-Qaeda."

Last week a Shiite cleric in Lebanon received a death threat from an Al-Qaeda-type Salafi jihadist group confirming this hostility.

CUT IT OUT

Spy chief planning to curb spending (Siobhan Gorman, The Baltimore Sun, 12/26/05)

Some intelligence veterans say $44 billion a year is not enough to meet the growing demands placed on U.S. intelligence agencies since Sept. 11. Cutting growth in spending for the intelligence agencies would stunt the growth of a nascent intelligence reform effort, they contend.

RACE TRAITOR:

Powell Speaks Out on Domestic Spy Program (STEVEN R. WEISMAN, 12/26/05, NY Times)

Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said on Sunday that it would not have been "that hard" for President Bush to obtain warrants for eavesdropping on domestic telephone and Internet activity, but that he saw "nothing wrong" with the decision not to do so.

"My own judgment is that it didn't seem to me, anyway, that it would have been that hard to go get the warrants," Mr. Powell said. "And even in the case of an emergency, you go and do it. The law provides for that."

But Mr. Powell added that "for reasons that the president has discussed and the attorney general has spoken to, they chose not to do it that way."

"I see absolutely nothing wrong with the president authorizing these kinds of actions," he said.

Asked if such eavesdropping should continue, Mr. Powell said, "Yes, of course it should continue."

WORTH FRAMING

Wake up, racism is global (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, December 17th, 2005)

What's the deal with these riots in Sydney? You switch on the television and there's scenes of urban conflagration and you think, "Hang on, I saw this story last month." But no. They were French riots. These are Australian riots. Entirely different. The French riots were perpetrated by - what's the word? - "youths". The Australian riots were perpetrated by "white youths". Same age cohort, but adjectivally enhanced.

And, being "white youths", they thus offered "a chilling glimpse into the darker corners of Australian society", as Nick Squires put it last week, "with thousands of white youths rampaging through a well-known beach suburb, attacking people of Middle Eastern background. They were egged on by white supremacists and neo-Nazis."

Gotcha. White youths egged on by white supremacists. You can't make a racist omelette without egged whites...

Some days this guy is so good you can’t finish the article for the tears.

THAT'S NOT WHAT THE TEACHABLE MOMENT WAS SUPPOSED TO DEMONSTRATE:

On Gulf Coast, Cleanup Differs Town to Town (ERIC LIPTON, 12/25/05, NY Times)

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Harrison County, the home of Biloxi, and Jackson County, where Pascagoula is located, each had about 10 million cubic yards of debris to clean up. Both counties took up the federal government on its offer to foot the bill.

But while Harrison County and all but one of its cities hired contractors on their own, Jackson County and its cities, at the urging of the federal government, asked the Army Corps to take on the task. Officials in Jackson County said it was a choice they had regretted ever since.

The cleanup in Jackson County and its municipalities has not only cost millions of dollars more than in neighboring counties, but it is also taking longer. The latest available figures show that 39 percent of the work was complete in Jackson County, while 57 percent was done in Harrison County and its cities that are managing the job on their own, according to federal records.

"Something is very wrong here," said Frank Leach, a Jackson County supervisor. "Our federal government is paying an extraordinary amount of money for services that are not being performed adequately."

HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM

O come, all ye faithless (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, December 17th, 2005)

It’s hard to persuade an atheist to believe in God. But unless he’s the proverbial ‘militant atheist’ — or, more accurately, fundamentalist atheist — the so-called rationalist ought to be capable of a rational assessment of the comparative strengths and weaknesses of different societies. If he is, he’ll find it hard to conclude other than that the most secular societies have the worst prospects. Rationalism is killing poor childless Europe. But instead of rethinking the irrationalism of rationalism, the rationalists are the ones clinging to blind faith, ever more hysterically. At that ridiculous climate conference in Montreal, Peyton Knight of the National Center for Public Policy Research encountered Richard Ingham, a correspondent for Agence France-Presse: ‘He demanded to know the National Center’s stance on global warming. I began to explain to him that it is our view that mankind is not causing the planet to get appreciably warmer. Before I could delve into any specifics, he cut me off, shouting: “Why? Because it isn’t in the Bible? It isn’t in Genesis?”’

The bit I like isn’t in Genesis, but Psalms: ‘What is man, that thou art mindful of him...? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea....’

Let’s suppose that there is no God and that the Psalmist just conjured that up out of thin air. Nevertheless, it accurately conveys the central feature of our world — our dominion over pretty much everything else out there. A couple of months back, I was asked about creationism and ‘intelligent design’. Not my bag, so I kept it short. But I did say that the Psalmist had captured the essence of our reality rather better than your average geneticist. I’d just been told that not only does man share 98.5 per cent of his genetic code with the chimp but he shares 75 per cent of it with the pumpkin. If that’s so, it doesn’t seem a terribly useful scale for measuring the differences in our respective achievements. As I put it, ‘The fact is that this is a planet overwhelmingly dominated and shaped by one species, and our kith and kin — whether gibbons or pumpkins — basically fit in the spaces between.’

This modest thought provoked Paul Z. Myers, professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, into paroxysms of scorn: Steyn, he scoffed, ‘must not possess a gut populated by intestinal bacteria. We are at their mercy; without them, we suffer horribly for a while and die.... He must not have any wooden furniture in his home, or plastic ...made from the carbon left by ancient forests.... It’s a good thing he doesn’t eat, or he’d have to excrete — without any bacteria or fungi or nematodes or flatworms, the shit would just pile up (this would explain his written output, though).’

Oh dear. All I was doing was making a simple point about the scale of man’s domination, and all Professor Myers’s demolition does is confirm it. My intestinal bacteria may indeed be doing a swell job, but living in my gut isn’t exactly a beach house at Malibu. Yes, I’ve got wooden furniture. I live in the Great North Woods and the house and practically everything in it is made from those woods. But I sit on the chair, the chair doesn’t sit on me. And as for my excreta and the hard-working nematode, who gets the better end of that deal?

In a way, Professor Myers is only taking transnationalism to its logical conclusion. After all, if one is obliged to pretend that the Americans, Belgians, Greeks and Canadians are all equal members of a military alliance, it’s not such a stretch to insist that the Americans, the flatworms, the intestinal bacteria and your Welsh dresser are all equal partners in some grand planetary alliance. Nonetheless, if we are virtually the same as a chimp, the 1.5 per cent of difference counts for more than the 98.5 per cent of similarity. The Psalmist seems to find that easier to understand than the biologist does.

Natural evolution stumbles horribly and often hilariously when trying to explain human history and human nature, which perhaps explains the zealotry with which its proponents drop all pretense to objective inquiry, deny the overwhelming evidence before their eyes and insist there is nothing intrinsically special about man.

DESIGNING PROBOSCIDEA:

A mammoth task: New technology sequences part of the genome of an extinct behemoth, and promises to help unravel other ancient DNA (Byron Spice, December 26, 2005, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

A week ago, an international team including Dr. Schuster and Penn State colleague Webb Miller, announced they had recovered DNA from a woolly mammoth that had been preserved in the permafrost of northern Siberia for 27,000 years and used a new gene sequencing technology to unravel a portion of its genetic code.

"I'm convinced we'll be able to sequence the entire genome," said Hendrik N. Poinar, a molecular evolutionary geneticist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and lead author of last week's report in the journal Science.

That will enable researchers to compare and contrast the extinct behemoth's genome, which is almost as large as a human's, with that of the African elephant. And that will allow scientists to get a better idea of what evolutionary changes occurred that caused woolly mammoths and African elephants to diverge 5 million to 6 million years ago, Dr. Poinar said, as well as to better understand why the elephant survived while the mammoth went extinct.

MORE:
Global Polio Largely Fading: Stronger Vaccine Is Playing Key Role (David Brown, December 26, 2005, Washington Post)

The 17-year effort to eradicate polio from the world appears to be back on track after nearly unraveling in the past three years.

A new strategy of using a vaccine targeting the dominant strain of the virus appears to have eliminated polio from Egypt, one of six countries where it was freely circulating. That approach is on the verge of doing the same in India. Twenty-five years ago, India had 200,000 cases of paralytic polio a year. A decade ago, it was still seeing 75,000 cases annually. Through November this year, it recorded 52.

Such dramatic successes, many the result of a more potent formulation of polio vaccine, have once again made eradication of the paralyzing viral disease a realistic goal. Only one human disease -- smallpox -- has ever been wiped out, and that was almost three decades ago.

Intensive immunization campaigns targeting tens of millions of children in Africa have suppressed polio transmission in countries where it reappeared after the continent's most populous nation, Nigeria, halted universal polio vaccination in 2003. [...]

Since the vaccine went into use in Egypt this spring, polio has disappeared there. UNICEF has ordered 600 million doses and plans to use it throughout much of Africa.

Next year, India may be free of polio. One former hotbed -- Bombay -- already is.

Since April, no polio virus has been detected in that city's sewage. That is indirect evidence the virus is no longer carried by any of its 12.7 million residents -- undoubtedly for the first time in history.

SOME SHOOT BACK:

U.S. Seeks To Escape Brutal Cycle In Iraqi City: 3rd Try at Pullout Depends on Police (Ann Scott Tyson, December 26, 2005, Washington Post

Using bulldozers and armored earthmovers, Army engineers encircled Samarra with a wall of dirt, sealing off the many small roads that insurgents used to move weapons into the city. Signs warned that anyone trying to cross the berm would be met with deadly force -- and some were, according to battalion officers.

The wall sent a panic through Samarra that a major offensive was imminent. "We helped spread that rumor," Walsh explained, "to get people to leave, so citizens of Samarra would be more inclined to give up the insurgents. Cooperate, or we'll clear the city." Tens of thousands fled, reducing Samarra's population to about 70,000. Half the working police force quit.

Meanwhile, in a change of tactics, soldiers began taking up unpredictable, covert positions in houses and abandoned buildings. "We got more sneaky," said 1st Lt. Adam Hurley, 24, of Raleigh, N.C., whose soldiers shot insurgents as they were placing artillery rounds in freshly dug holes.

"We had to do some deep-seated military operations," Walsh said. "We had to take a step back versus going forward. We took one step back, instead of destroying the city."

After Samarra was walled in, attacks in the city dropped sharply, from seven or eight a day last summer to one or two now, according to the military. Since October, only one roadside bomb has exploded on the main portion of highway running past Samarra, and there has been only one car bomb, in contrast with two or three a month previously.

The security has come with a cost. Long lines of vehicles sit idle at the city's three checkpoints, where crossing can take as long as an hour. "It completely disrupted the city market," said Hurley, adding that farmers especially suffered. While thousands of residents have returned to the city, the population is still down by about a fourth from a year ago.

Now, the U.S. military is embarking on a gradual plan to cut its forces and pull out of the city -- a plan that ultimately depends on a local police force that trainers say is undermanned and years away from being up to the task.

In a new police headquarters in Samarra's barricaded government Green Zone, a block from the old one that was gutted by insurgent bombs, a few police officers sat around on the roof. Only one sits in a guard tower, his hands folded on his lap. Beds with blankets were situated under an awning, and Islamic prayers wafted from a cassette player.

Two battalions of special police commandos returned to Samarra from Baghdad in December to bolster the local police but plan only a short stay. "Right now the police are capable of defending themselves," the commandos' chief, Col. Bashar Abdullah Hussein, asserted between cell phone calls in his office. The commandos will be in Samarra "not more than three months," he said.

But Capt. Barry Humphrey, who trains local police, says the vast majority of policemen don't come to work, and those who do often put in only a few hours. Several hundred idle police are on the payroll under a patronage system tolerated by the current police chief.

"The biggest problem we have so far is accountability of people," said Humphrey, 30, of Montgomery, Ala. With competent leaders, he estimated it will take two years to generate the planned local police force of 1,200 men.

On a foot patrol Dec. 2 in a violent part of Samarra called Abu Bas, Humphrey was with a police patrol when two men in black robes and head scarves flew around the corner and opened fire. They shot one policeman in the forehead and shoulder. But instead of taking cover, five police officers went forward in pursuit. Ultimately, the attackers were caught trying to escape through a checkpoint. To Humphrey, it was a small step forward.

"This time," he said, "some of them did shoot back."

THE QADDAFIS AND THE MUBARAKS FEEL THEIR WAY:

Egyptian dissident gets 5-year prison sentence (The New York Times, Reuters, 12/25/05)

An Egyptian court sentenced Ayman Nour, a leading political opposition figure, to five years of hard labor on forgery charges, prompting protests among many Egyptians and a statement from the United States questioning the validity of the nation's judicial process.

Nour was convicted in a case widely seen as a political prosecution intended to silence a challenge to President Hosni Mubarak. Nour, a 41-year-old lawyer, was sentenced Saturday to five years in prison on the charge that he forged documents to found El Ghad, or the Tomorrow Party. Nour was Mubarak's main challenger in the September elections and has denied the charges.

In a courtroom packed with uniformed police and state security officers, it took just minutes for a judge to read out the verdict and sentence in a nearly inaudible whisper, provoking Nour, locked inside a foul-smelling, filthy cage inside the courtroom, to break into a chant of "Down with Mubarak!"

Diplomats from the United States, France, Norway and the European Union were seated in the courtroom. Political analysts, diplomats, scholars and writers have said that the charges appeared little more than political persecution, especially after one of the prosecution's main witnesses said he testified against Nour only after state security forces threatened his nieces.

The Libyan Supreme Court on Sunday overturned the convictions of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who had been sentenced to death on charges of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the HIV virus. The politically charged case was sent back to a lower court for a retrial.

The action, which came on the heels of an international agreement to set up a fund that will pay for the children's medical care, raised hopes that the medical workers might eventually be freed.

"The court has accepted the appeal of the Bulgarian nurses and ordered that a new trial take place at the criminal court of Benghazi," the Supreme Court's president, Ali al-Alus, told Agence France-Presse, referring to the coastal Libyan city where the infections took place. [...]

Although Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, did not intervene in the case, one of his sons, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, has been involved in negotiations. He said a year ago the defendants would not be executed.

FORESIGHT IN HIS TEMPERAMENT:

Hornblower, Still Under Full Sail (JONATHAN YARDLEY, December 26, 2005, Washington Post)

Earlier this month, for its annual holiday issue, Book World asked several literary eminentos "what book they would recommend to a friend craving a little escape from the world's cares." My answer would have been ridiculously easy: any of the 11 "Hornblower" novels by C.S. Forester, most particularly the first in the series, "Beat to Quarters."

For more than five decades I have escaped into the "Hornblower" novels as often as time and occasion have permitted. I was introduced to them as a middle-schooler in the early 1950s by my father, who adored them. The first that I read, "Mr. Midshipman Hornblower" (1950), doubtless was given to me because my father knew I would identify with the mere boy who was its protagonist, but over the years the three novels about Horatio Hornblower when he was in his thirties and held the rank of captain -- "Beat to Quarters," "Ship of the Line" and "Flying Colours," all of them, incredibly, published in 1938 -- have been my favorites, and they remain so to this day.

It seems most unlikely that many readers now need to be introduced to Horatio Hornblower. All the novels chronicling his long career are very much in print and, if sales rankings at Amazon.com are any guide, continue to sell remarkably well. The 1951 film "Captain Horatio Hornblower," directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Gregory Peck in the title role -- my father and I drove across the state of Virginia to see it -- was well received and remained popular for years. More recently, the BBC made a "Hornblower" series with Ioan Gruffudd perfectly cast as Hornblower; eight episodes are available on DVD, and all are terrific, completely faithful to the original and considerably grittier than the 1951 movie.

Forester is now known almost entirely for "Hornblower," but when he began to write "Beat to Quarters" in the mid-1930s at age 38, he was a well-established, successful author of highly literate, carefully researched novels of adventure and suspense, most notably "Payment Deferred" and "The African Queen." He had published two dozen books and had been lured to Hollywood, which he found not to his taste. He fled back to England aboard a Swedish freighter, a leisurely voyage during which he thought through the personality and character of his flawed but heroic protagonist, a British naval officer serving during the Napoleonic Wars. Forester decided to name him Horatio, "not because of Nelson but because of Hamlet," from which "it seemed a natural and easy step to Hornblower."

That is how Forester put it in "The Hornblower Companion," published two years before his death in 1966. This book, with its detailed maps of all of Hornblower's naval engagements and its candid, instructive account of how Forester wrote fiction, is a useful supplement to the novels, but reading it really isn't necessary because Forester's descriptive powers are so keen that every location and battle comes vividly alive in the reader's imagination. Although he wasn't in love with the movie industry, he obviously had a highly cinematic mind and animated scenes with clarity and immediacy.

THE LEFT WAS ON THE WRONG SIDE IN THE LAST WAR TOO:

Review of Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World New York (Richard B. Speed, December 17, 2005, HNN)

As Andrew explains, Soviet interest in the “third world” went back to Lenin who had called for “world revolution,” and to the Congress of the Peoples of the East held at Baku in 1920. But Soviet hopes for revolution in the “east” had been disappointed until after the Second World War, when European empires in Asia and Africa began to crumble. With Joseph Stalin’s death and the emergence of Mao’s China as a competitor for worldwide revolutionary leadership, Nikita Khrushchev began to turn Soviet attentions to the former colonies. During the famous 1956 speech in which he denounced the crimes of Stalin, Khrushchev also asserted that “The new period in world history which Lenin predicted has arrived, and the peoples of the East are playing an active role in deciding the destinies of the world . . . .”

The successful revolution in Cuba a few years later seemed to demonstrate that even the nations of Latin America which Stalin had written off as a series of American puppet states, might follow Fidel Castro’s lead into the Soviet camp. This achievement, combined with the necessity to fend off the growing Chinese challenge for revolutionary leadership fired Khrushchev’s endorsement of KGB Chairman Alexander Shelepin’s 1961 proposal to “promote armed uprisings against pro-Western reactionary governments” in the “third world.” Khrushchev’s departure in 1964 did not diminish Soviet support for the strategy of third world revolution. Indeed it was enthusiastically supported by Leonid Brezhnev and his successor, the former KGB chief, Yuri Andropov. It wasn’t seriously questioned until the Afghan quagmire absorbed the attention of Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s.

According to Andrew, the KGB conducted an aggressive campaign against the “Main Enemy” in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which began in 1960-61 and lasted until the mid-1980s. As one young intelligence officer put it, “we were guided by the idea that the destiny of world confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, between Capitalism and Socialism, would be resolved in the Third World.” The Soviet Foreign Ministry however was never enthusiastic about this new turn. Under Andrei Gromyko, the Foreign Ministry continued to focus on the competition in Europe. Thus it fell to the KGB to lead Soviet policy in the “third world.” As Andrew writes, “The initiative for ‘global struggle’ came from the KGB rather than the Foreign Ministry.”

The book is organized into four major sections corresponding to Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Each section has several chapters dealing with KGB activities in the major nations and some of the lesser countries in each region. China and Japan are each treated in separate chapters. India, the “the Third World country on which the KGB eventually concentrated most operational effort during the Cold War,” is covered in two chapters as is Afghanistan, the nation where Soviet policy suffered its final defeat. KGB involvement in Middle Eastern terrorism is likewise covered in a separate chapter.

The general reader will find innumerable stories about such events as Indian diplomats seduced by Soviet “swallows” into turning over the embassy’s codebooks. Among other things, the book reveals that “Fear of a pre-emptive Soviet strike seems to have been a major reason for the Chinese decision to enter the secret talks . . . which led to . . . Sino-American rapprochement . . . .” In short, just as Richard Nixon was playing the “China card,” Mao was playing “the United States card.”

In the fifteen years or so since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, historians have been revising their understanding of that conflict in the light of new revelations from behind what was once known as the Iron Curtain. The World Was Going Our Way contributes to that process by demonstrating the centrality of the KGB to the “third world” struggle which dominated so much of the thirty year period after 1961. It also serves as a counterpart to the numerous works dealing with the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency which have appeared since the Church Committee hearings in 1975. Overall Andrew concludes that despite numerous tactical successes, often attributable to its “active measures,” the KGB’s effort to win the Cold War in the “third world” was a strategic failure.

ONLY HUMAN:

Some Border Patrol Agents Take a Chance on Love: It's an open secret: By day they deport illegal immigrants, but at night they date them. (Nicholas Riccardi, December 26, 2005, LA Times)

Terrazas faces deportation again and Ruiz, 30, is on leave from the patrol. A second agent has been charged with felonies for giving Terrazas a short ride across the border from Mexico. It is one of four felony cases stemming from a federal crackdown against corruption on the Arizona border.

That push has highlighted an open secret along the border: romance between illegal immigrants and those responsible for deporting them.

Some locals say that such relationships are inevitable in a town where the nearest movie theater is 51 miles north and the nearest nightclubs lie just across the border in Agua Prieta, Mexico. The clandestine romances, they add, also make a mockery of efforts targeting illegal immigrants, such as laws being considered by Congress that would mandate fences along sections of the border and fine employers who hire illegal aliens.

But such lines between the legal and illegal can be hard to draw on the southwestern border. For generations, families have easily moved back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico, and even Douglas' mayor says he doesn't know whether longtime residents are in the country legally or not. Border Patrol agents, often young, single and new to the area, can get caught between the clear dictates of U.S. immigration law and the ambiguities of the heart.

"The absurdity of it gets played out in the day-to-day lives of Border Patrol agents," said Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network, an immigrant rights group based in Tucson. "Everybody knows somebody [in the U.S. illegally] who has some kind of relationship with a Border Patrol agent. Either someone in their family is married to one, or they're sleeping with one. People's lives are very complicated and intertwined and they're not very clear-cut."

REVOLUTIONARY! (via Mike Daley):

Capacity Constraints (Irwin Stelzer, 12/19/05, Sunday Times of London)

If the Federal Reserve Board's monetary policy gurus have any doubt that "possible increases in resource utilization … have the potential to add to inflation pressures", as they said in last week's statement accompanying their 13th consecutive increase in interest rates, they need look no further than Shell Oil's announcement the following day.

The new consensus that crude oil prices will stay at or above $50 per barrel has had several consequences. Like its oil-industry competitors, Shell has upped its exploration and development expenditures, in its case by 27% to $19 billion. Kuwait has decided to draw on Western expertise to help it develop its untapped reserves, which look a lot more attractive at $50 than they did at $10. Other oil companies are scrambling for drilling rigs, labor and supplies.

HARD TO BALANCE THAT JOB WITH CHIEF OF STAFF:

Don Evans Rejects Top Russian Oil Job (NewsMax, 12/20/05)

Former Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, a close friend of President Bush, said Monday he will not accept the offer of a top job at Russian state oil company OAO Rosneft.

Evans said he had decided against pursuing the offer because he could not commit to the time required to do the job correctly.

THE CIVIL WAR WORKED OUT PRETTY WELL, NO?:

Detainees Face Limited Access to Courts: But Bill Awaiting Bush Signature Would Shield Terror Suspects from U.S. Abuse (Josh White, December 24, 2005, Washington Post)

An amendment sponsored by Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) eliminates detainees' ability to challenge the condition of their detentions through habeas corpus petitions. Graham, asserting that U.S. courts have become clogged by "frivolous" claims on behalf of nearly 300 detainees in Cuba, favored denying foreign terrorism suspects the same rights in federal court that are afforded to U.S. citizens.

Instead, he proposed allowing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the Combatant Status Review Tribunal decisions, in which detainees are ruled "enemy combatants" or "no longer enemy combatants."

Those who are considered enemy combatants can be held indefinitely. Detainees convicted by military commissions -- of which there have been none completed in the four years the Guantanamo Bay prison has operated -- are afforded federal court review.

Graham has called it "a balanced approach" that will allow Congress more oversight and have the federal court "looking over the tribunal's shoulder."

Military law experts worry that the legislation actually strips the federal courts of some of the judicial branch's integrity, for the first time since the Civil War suspending of habeas corpus rights and removing the courts from evaluating the executive branch's decisions to hold detainees indefinitely.

WHEREAS THE LEFT THINKS THEY'VE BEEN TRICKED INTO HATING ALL MUSLIMS:

The future of America -- in Iraq (Robert D. Kaplan, December 24, 2005, LA Times)

IF YOU WANT to meet the future political leaders of the United States, go to Iraq. I am not referring to the generals, or even the colonels. I mean the junior officers and enlistees in their 20s and 30s. In the decades ahead, they will represent something uncommon in U.S. military history: war veterans with practical experience in democratic governance, learned under the most challenging of conditions. [...]

Regardless of whether you support or oppose the U.S. engagement in Iraq, you should be aware that that country has had a startling effect on a new generation of soldiers often from troubled backgrounds, whose infantry training has provided no framework for building democracy from scratch.

At a Thanksgiving evangelical service, one NCO told the young crowd to cheers: "The Pilgrims during the first winter in the New World suffered a 54% casualty rate from disease and cold. That's a casualty rate that would render any of our units combat ineffective. But did the Pilgrims sail back to England? Did they give up? No. This country isn't a quitter. It doesn't withdraw."

Not withdrawing means bringing stability and liberal values to a society in which people have been trained to be subjects, not citizens. Young commanders in Iraq are experiencing in the bluntest terms the intractable cultural and political realities of a world that the U.S. seeks to remake in its own image, even as their own life struggles — as well as their religious faith, which is generally deeper than that of secular elites — make them not only refuse to give up but to feel betrayed by those who would.

To label them conservative is to miss the point. Having ground-truthed the difficulty of implanting democracy in a place with no experience of it, Iraq has stripped them of any ideology they might have had. At the same time, they have become emotionally involved with building Iraqi democracy. They have developed a distrust of an American media that have not, in their eyes, recorded advances they feel they have made in reducing the level of combat or getting a nascent electoral system started. In a vast country of 23 million people, they rarely see the car bombings that kill a few dozen every day and are reported on the news at home. But they daily see the progress in front of their eyes.

MORE:
Freedom had a good year (Joshua Muravchik, December 24, 2005, LA Times)

This week, Freedom House released its survey for 2005. [...]

Eight countries plus the Palestinian Authority, not yet officially a country, moved up — either from "not free" to "partly free" or from "partly free" to "free." Four countries moved down. In all, this made it a good year for freedom.

But here's the really interesting part. Of the nine countries that improved their ratings, no fewer than six are Muslim countries. Indonesia moved from "partly free" to "free," while Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mauritania and the Palestinian Authority moved from "not free" to "partly free." Of the four countries that became less free in 2005, none was a Muslim country.

To anyone who has followed the Freedom House data year to year, these changes are remarkable. Since the fall of Portugal's military dictatorship in 1974, a tide of freedom and democracy has washed over the globe. Every region has recorded strong gains, including even such a poor and troubled area as sub-Saharan Africa and the socially mutilated lands of the former Soviet empire. But until this year, the Muslim world had remained a stubborn exception.

In 2001, Freedom House first highlighted this remarkable disparity. Of the 47 countries that had Muslim majorities, only one was "free," 18 were "partly free" and 28 were "not free." Among the non-Muslim countries, the proportions were nearly the opposite: 85 were "free," 40 "partly free" and only 20 "not free." Worse, the Muslim world was growing more repressive, not more free.

THEY MUST HAVE STRONG ROOFS:

Joyous Christmas celebrations across India (Times of India, Dec 25, 2005)

Christians across India on Sunday joyously observed Christmas, a festival that has acquired a universal appeal in this land of over one billion, with people from other religions too joining in the festivities.

From Chandigarh in the north to Chennai in the south, and from Mumbai in the west to Kohima in the northeast, the faithful flocked to churches for the midnight mass and to pay obeisance at the nativity tableau that depicts the birth of Jesus Christ.

Millions of homes across the country were gaily decorated with lights, buntings, stars, Santa Claus cut-outs and Christmas trees from under which children eagerly sought out the gifts laid out for them.

ASK NOT FOR WHOM THE ANACONDA COILS:

For Gorshkov, Navy pilots head to US for training (SHIV AROOR, December 24, 2005, Indian Express)

By the time Russian-built aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov arrives in 2008, the Navy will have a contingent of 32 pilots, trained in specialised deck-based fighter operations at the US Navy training command in Pensacola, Florida.

With the first batch of four Lieutenant-rank officers are already under training there, the next is scheduled to go in March.

The selection of venue for training to operate Russian-built MiG-29K fighters off the Gorshkov may seem strange but the government was compelled to accept the Pentagon’s offer because Russia has no facilities for intermediate deck-based flight training. The US Navy training school in Pensacola trains Naval F/A-18 Super Hornet pilots.

SING IN LATIN, AT MIDNIGHT MASS, FOR THE FULL EFFECT:

O Come All Ye Faithful : Lyrics

O Come All Ye Faithful
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him,
Born the King of Angels;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

O Sing, choirs of angels,
Sing in exultation,
Sing all that hear in heaven God's holy word.
Give to our Father glory in the Highest;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

All Hail! Lord, we greet Thee,
Born this happy morning,
O Jesus! for evermore be Thy name adored.
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

Adeste Fideles

Adeste Fideles
Laeti triumphantes
Venite, venite in Bethlehem
Natum videte
Regem angelorum
Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus,
Venite adoremus, Dominum

Cantet nunc io
Chorus angelorum
Cantet nunc aula caelestium
Gloria, gloria
In excelsis Deo
Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus,
Venite adoremus, Dominum

Ergo qui natus
Die hodierna
Jesu, tibi sit gloria
Patris aeterni
Verbum caro factus
Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus,
Venite adoremus, Dominum

COVERING FOR THAT CRACKER IN THE WHITE HOUSE:

Levees Weakened as New Orleans Board, Federal Engineers Feuded (Stephen Braun and Ralph Vartabedian, December 25, 2005, LA Times)

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and New Orleans levee officials joined forces in July 1985 to protect the city from a long-feared hurricane, the two agencies could not agree on how to proceed. It was the beginning of a dysfunctional partnership that ushered in two decades of chronic government mismanagement.

Corps engineers wanted to install gates in front of the city's three main internal canals to protect against violent storm surges from Lake Pontchartrain. The Orleans Levee District, the city's flood protection agency, preferred to build higher flood walls for miles along the canals. For five years, neither side yielded.

But in October 1990, a deft behind-the-scenes maneuver by the levee board forced the corps to accept higher flood walls. As Senate and House negotiators gathered to craft the Water Resources Development Act of 1990, Louisiana's congressional delegation quietly inserted a lobbyist's phrasing ordering the corps to raise the levee walls.

"It was stealth; legislative trickery," recalled New Orleans lawyer Bruce Feingerts, who lobbied for the levee board. "We had to push every button at our disposal."

The gambit was a crucial victory over the corps by the Orleans district, the most powerful and well-financed among 18 Louisiana boards that supervise more than 340 miles of storm levees across the hurricane-prone southern half of the state. The corps had to abandon its floodgate plan and shoulder 70% of the project's costs while allowing the Orleans board to hire its own consultants to design the strengthened levees.

But their fractious partnership proved disastrous. While the corps and the Orleans board settled into an acrimonious 15-year relationship, spending $95 million to buttress the city's canal levees, their shared supervision failed to detect crucial weaknesses inside the flood walls before Hurricane Katrina struck.

"No one felt the urgency, none of us," said Lambert C. Boissiere Jr., a former Orleans levee commissioner. "The corps and our own engineers told us the levees were strong enough. They were all dead wrong."

LET'S SEE THE LEFT TRY AND MAKE THAT AN ISSUE:

In Criminal Cases, a Court Nominee Hews to Rules (JONATHAN D. GLATER, 12/25/05, NY Times)

Perhaps not surprisingly, the judge, a former federal prosecutor, has often - though far from uniformly - ruled against defendants. But it is not clear that he stands out: In appeals of criminal convictions generally, defendants face a steep uphill battle. Nationally, just 5.6 percent of such appeals result in some kind of reversal, according to the federal Office of Court Administration.

Judge Alito's opinions in criminal cases are meticulously written, with careful deference to the findings of trial court judges and juries and scrupulous determination to fit his decisions into the framework built by past cases. He hews to the rules.

"The perception is, he's coming from an extremely conservative point of view," said George Newman, a defense lawyer in Philadelphia who has argued cases before the judge. "He's not a good defense judge."

GOD IS MADE OF STERNER STUFF:

God's old neighborhood a review of Where God Was Born A Journey by Land to the Roots of Religion by Bruce Feiler (Jonathan Kirsch, December 25, 2005, LA Times)

Feiler tends to dramatize his own experiences. Thus, for example, an excursion by helicopter above the land of Israel is rendered as a moment of crisis and then revelation: "I feel as if I'm in a full-body migraine," writes Feiler. "And then, just as suddenly, quiet. The sound dissolves, my body relaxes. I'm in the air, in a war. I'm at peace," he continues, referring to the armed conflict between Israel and its Palestinian-Arab adversaries. Indeed, "Where God Was Born" is essentially a confessional work. [...]

Nor does Feiler shrink from the harsh theological implications of violence in the name of God. "There is one God, and God controls the world," insists a Hasidic Jew in the aftermath of a terrorist suicide bombing in Jerusalem. "God controls the bomb, and the bomber." In fact, Feiler, who is Jewish, experiences a soul-shaking spiritual crisis after visiting the Jewish homeland, and he ends up distancing himself from the Bible: "I was learning that I could no longer rely on the once familiar pillars of my religious identity: King David, the Temple, the Western Wall. I had to find my own route to God."

But Feiler is always looking for points of connection and reconciliation among Jews, Christians and Muslims, all of whom share a scriptural tradition that seems only to sharpen the conflicts among them. He acknowledges that King David is depicted in the Bible as a bloodthirsty warrior and conqueror, but he also reminds his readers of the linkage between David and Jesus: "The interfaith roots of David run deep in this soil." He shows us the contents of the field kit issued to chaplains who accompany U.S. troops into battle: "a crucifix, a screw-together chalice, communion wine and wafers, a rosary, a kippah [Jewish head covering], teffilin (Jewish prayer boxes), and Muslim prayer beads."

For Feiler, the contrast between the Promised Land and the Babylonian Exile is especially instructive, and he explicitly defends the Diaspora as a crucial element of Jewish identity. Indeed, he seems to suggest that "Holy" and "Land" ought to be decoupled. "The surprising lesson of the Exile is that God does not abandon us in moments of despair, nor does he save us," affirms Feiler. "Only we can save ourselves from exile. By the rivers of Babylon, we should not weep for Zion. We should not seek vengeance on our enemies. We should redeem ourselves."

UNLEASH NATIONALISM YOU GET NATIONALIST RABBLE ROUSERS:

China 'jails democracy activist' (BBC, 12/25/05)

A Chinese democracy activist has reportedly been jailed for 12 years for helping to organise anti-Japanese protests in China earlier this year.

The wife of Xu Wanping said he had been found guilty of incitement to subvert state power at a closed hearing.

SPEAKING OF DEMOCRATS' WEDGE ISSUES...:

Mo. May Vote on Stem Cell Research: Scientists Fight Possible Ban as Criticism Mounts (Peter Slevin, December 25, 2005, Washington Post)

The Stowers Institute and Washington University in St. Louis are potent lobbying forces and prime backers of the Missouri amendment drive. The national roster of supporters includes the Lance Armstrong Foundation, the Christopher Reeve Foundation, the Parkinson's Action Network and the American Diabetes Association.

Before voters can address the amendment, which would also create oversight mechanisms and outlaw the creation of a cloned human, supporters must overcome a legal challenge filed by the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund.

"The primary evil with human cloning is they're cloning a human for the purposes of harvesting the parts, the stem cells," said lawyer Kevin Theriot. "The real problem is the ballot title and summary says the purpose of the initiative is to ban human cloning when in fact it authorizes a type of human cloning."

Cole County Senior Judge Byron Kinder set a hearing for Jan. 19. "I assume we're going to have to go into the question of when does life begin," Kinder said.

The principal local challenger is Missourians Against Human Cloning, incorporated last month by Missouri Catholic Conference executive Weber. The Catholic conference and the Missouri Baptist Convention formally joined the case last week.

Catholic bishops asked parish priests and deacons to speak about the issue at Mass.

St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke has described the proposed research as "intrinsically evil." Burke -- who said he would deny communion to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a Roman Catholic, because of his support of abortion rights -- said parishioners must not succumb to "false promises and statements by this initiative's proponents."

The stunning revelation that a South Korean researcher faked landmark stem cell experiments has sparked an intense new debate about the safeguards designed to prevent and catch scientific fraud.

While it remains unclear what motivated Hwang Woo Suk, the case has highlighted how the increasingly rapid pace of science, and rising international competition, may be intensifying the temptation to fake results, experts said.

20 FREAKIN' %?:

In Iraq, A Push For Unity On Vote: Factions Negotiate Following Protests (Jonathan Finer, December 25, 2005, Washington Post)

Each of the country's three largest communities -- Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs and ethnic Kurds -- voted overwhelmingly on Dec. 15 for lists of parliamentary candidates that represented its own group. According to preliminary, unofficial ballot counts, the largest share of votes was won by the alliance of Shiite Muslim religious parties that leads Iraq's outgoing government. Minority Sunni Arabs, meanwhile, appeared to have won fewer votes than they had anticipated.

That voting pattern, and the subsequent unrest and charges of fraud by Sunnis, exacerbated long-standing fears and distrust that had emerged since the fall of Saddam Hussein almost three years ago, Iraqi officials and Western diplomats said. In recent weeks, Shiite and Sunni leaders have called for the formation of sectarian armies to police their respective regions, a step some observers say could be a precursor to open clashes between the groups. The Kurds, who dominate most of northern Iraq, already have their own fighting force, as do several Shiite parties.

"Every group here is afraid of every other group: The Sunnis are afraid, the Shiites are afraid, and the Kurds are afraid," said a Western diplomat in Baghdad who agreed to be interviewed on the condition he not be named. "And the response to that has been to sort of draw together as a kind of self-preservation tactic. When it came down to it, people voted on the basis of identity, and now it is time to walk everybody back and choose a government that represents the country. This is a critical time."

RUBE GOLDBERGISM:

Constituting Israel: Israel, like Britain, has no written constitution. Most Israelis today say the country should have one. But can Israel ever agree on how to define itself as a nation? (David B. Green, December 25, 2005, Boston Globe)

If Sharon's stroke had been more serious, the country, between governments, could well have been plunged into a constitutional crisis. That is, if it had a constitution.

When Israel came into existence as a state, in May 1948, its founders expected it to be a matter of years, if not months, before it adopted a constitution. Until then, its Declaration of Independence enumerated the basic principles upon which the state would stand, including equality of rights for all citizens, and ''freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the Prophets of Israel." It also anticipated the preparation of a constitution, and when it became clear that that wasn't happening, the Knesset resolved to enact a number of initial ''basic laws," which were meant to set out the workings of the fundamental institutions and principles of the state and to serve as the building blocks of the eventual document.

Nonetheless, 57 years and 11 basic laws later, Israel still lacks a constitution. Some would even say that the country's lack of a document of basic principles of government explains the political mess that it is in.

Nearly three-quarters of the Israeli public is in favor of a constitution, and a committee of the Knesset has spent the past three years holding hearings on the subject, preparing to draft its own version of one. But saying that Israelis desire a constitution is like saying that they would like to be at peace with their Palestinian neighbors: It doesn't begin to suggest the major constitutional issues that divide them.

UNIQUE EVEN WITHIN THE ANGLOSPHERE:

On the beach: Why the recent riots in Australia should surprise no one (Yvonne Abraham, December 25, 2005, Boston Globe)

Part of the animus can be explained by familiar factors. Sept. 11 and the terrorist attacks in Bali and London have bred anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiment. And as in France, young Muslim men in Sydney's heavily Lebanese west and southwest, with disproportionately high unemployment and poverty rates, are disaffected. Additionally, Lebanese gangs have committed several violent, high-profile crimes in recent years, including a series of horrific rapes, feeding stereotypes and ill will.

But another part of the tension is peculiarly Australian. Despite its reputation for welcoming immigrants-30 percent of Sydney's current population is foreign-born-Australia can be a difficult place to be one. Especially if you're Lebanese. And especially lately. Over the past 10 years, Prime Minister John Howard's Liberal-National coalition government has taken a harder official line against immigrants in a quest for more conservative votes. Further widening the divisions between Lebanese and Anglo-Australians, many Lebanese youth live in more insular communities than the generations that preceded them. They are also less willing to behave like guests in somebody else's country.

Growing up in working-class Sydney in the '70s, being Lebanese was the second-worst thing imaginable. Only Aborigines ranked lower. ''Wogs," the Anglos called us, and often ''dirty wogs." We heard it everywhere: shouted from passing cars, on the playground, at shopping malls.

They could spot us a mile away. In the United States, assimilation comes relatively easily for many Lebanese immigrants, particularly for those who are Christian, like my family. When I arrived in Boston 12 years ago, I was struck by how quickly I went from being a member of an easily identifiable, oft-maligned minority to being simply white.

SO MUCH FOR THEIR RECOVERY:

Cabinet approves austere 2006 budget worth 79.7 trillion yen (MAYUMI NEGISHI, 12/25/05, Japan Times)

The Cabinet formally approved on Saturday a 79.686 trillion yen general account budget for fiscal 2006 that would help slow down growth of the nation's debt. [...]

Starting in January, taxpayers will see income taxes go up by roughly 10 percent when tax breaks in place since 1999 are halved. The government plans to completely remove the 20 percent tax break worth a maximum 250,000 yen in January 2007. Meanwhile, a residential-tax cut of 15 percent will also be rolled back in two stages starting in June.

In addition, the ruling coalition has agreed to raise tobacco taxes next July, increasing the cost of a pack of cigarettes by 20 yen. Liquor taxes on low-malt beer and wine will also go up.

"We need to re-examine our preconceptions of the elderly as weak members of society who need protection," said Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki. "We need to ask people to bear a burden that reflects their ability to pay, so that we do not leave a heavy burden for our children to carry."

With these tax hikes along with hefty tax revenue from large corporations, the government expects revenue to rise to 45.878 trillion yen in fiscal 2006, up 4.3 percent from the current year.

MORE:
Falling birth rates not just a problem in Europe (MARK STEYN, 12/25/05, Chicago SUN-TIMES)

Here's a story from Friday's Japan Times:

''Japan's population has started shrinking for the first time this year, health ministry data showed Thursday, presenting the government with pressing challenges on the social and economic front, including ensuring provision of social security services and securing the labor force.''

Happy New Year, guys! And, as the reporter adds, ''Japan joins Germany and Italy in the ranks of countries where a decline in population has already set in.'' And don't forget Russia, which is even further ahead in the demographic death spiral. Of the great powers of the 20th century, America's still healthy birth rate, like its still healthy Christianity, is now an anomaly.

Demography is not necessarily destiny. Today's high Muslim birth rates will fall, and probably fall dramatically, as the Roman Catholic birth rates in Italy, Ireland and Quebec have. But demographics is a game of last man standing. It's no consolation that Muslim birth rates will be as bad as yours in 2050 if yours are off the cliff right now. The last people around in any numbers will determine the kind of society we live in.

You can sort of feel that happening already. ''Multiculturalism'' implicitly accepts that, for a person of broadly Christian heritage, Christianity is an accessory, an option; whereas, for a person of Muslim background, Islam is a given. That's why, as practiced by Buckinghamshire County Council in England, multiculturalism means All Saints Church can't put up one sheet of paper announcing its Christmas carol service on the High Wycombe Library notice board, but, inside the library, Rehana Nazir, the ''multicultural services librarian,'' can host a party to celebrate Eid.

To those of us watching Europe from afar, it seems amazing that no Continental politician is willing to get to grips with the real crisis facing Europe in the 21st century: the lack of Europeans. If America believes in the separation of church and state, in radically secularist Europe the state is the church, as Jacques Chirac's ban on head scarves, crucifixes and skull caps made plain. Alas, it's an insufficient faith.

HERE'S A TASK FOR YOU--TRY AND FIND A JOB THAT PAYS MINIMUM WAGE:

Democrats to woo voters on wage issue: Frozen minimum pay seen as spur (Rick Klein, December 25, 2005, Boston Globe)

New Year's Day will bring the ninth straight year in which the federal minimum wage has remained frozen at $5.15 an hour, marking the second-longest period that the nation has had a stagnant minimum wage since the standard was established in 1938.

Against that backdrop, Democrats are preparing ballot initiatives in states across the country to boost turnout of Democratic-leaning voters in 2006. Labor, religious, and community groups have launched efforts to place minimum-wage initiatives on ballots in Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Arkansas, and Montana next fall.

Democrats say the minimum wage could be for them what the gay-marriage referendums were in key states for Republicans last year -- an easily understood issue that galvanizes their supporters to show up on Election Day.

OUR SIDE:

Rumsfeld eats Christmas dinner with troops in Iraq (Reuters, Dec 24, 2005)

"When you read things and hear things that express doubt about the future here in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, know that there have always been doubts expressed, there have always been those who have suggested that the cause could not be successful, that the cause would be lost," he said.

"In fact it was the people who persevered that proved them wrong. The great sweep of human history is for freedom and we're on the side of freedom.

"In the struggle between freedom and tyranny, freedom ultimately prevails."

Rumsfeld said the war in Iraq would go down in history as the "liberation of a country that once was an ally of terrorists".

"It will recount the battles that defeated Saddam's regime and the struggles that helped Iraq along its path to democracy, ushering in a new chapter in the Middle East, a hopeful era."

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HANNUKAH, JIGGY KWANZAA, MOROSE DARWIN DAY TO ALL:

I've posted some stuff from our Christmas archives, but there's more here. At any rate, the standing rib roast will be done this afternoon, then its gifts, an outdoor candlelight service with living nativity in Lyme, NH, and then stockings tomorrow and the Chanukah services at the Roth Center.

All of us hope that you and yours will have a healthy and happy Christmas and Hanukah. You bring us an enormous amount of enjoyment throughout the year, but it's always a pleasure to take time to tell you how much we appreciate everyone's participation at Brothers Judd. Be well, friends.

FRAUD WITH AN IMPRIMATUR (via Robert Schwartz):

Global Trend: More Science, More Fraud (LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN and WILLIAM J. BROAD, December 20, 2005, NY Times)

The South Korean scandal that shook the world of science last week is just one sign of a global explosion in research that is outstripping the mechanisms meant to guard against error and fraud.

Experts say the problem is only getting worse, as research projects, and the journals that publish the findings, soar.

Science is often said to bar dishonesty and bad research with a triple safety net. The first is peer review, in which experts advise governments about what research to finance. The second is the referee system, which has journals ask reviewers to judge if manuscripts merit publication. The last is replication, whereby independent scientists see if the work holds up.

But a series of scientific scandals in the 1970's and 1980's challenged the scientific community's faith in these mechanisms to root out malfeasance. In response the United States has over the last two decades added extra protections, including new laws and government investigative bodies.

And as research around the globe has increased, most without the benefit of such safeguards, so have the cases of scientific misconduct.

WOULD YOU TRUST YOUR NATIONAL SECURITY TO THIS MAN?:

Liberal judge (Robert Novak , 12/24/05, Townhall)

Federal District Judge James Robertson, who resigned from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court in protest over secret wiretaps ordered by President Bush, is regarded in Washington legal circles as one of President Bill Clinton's most liberal and partisan judicial appointments.

Robertson, 67, has ruled consistently against the Bush administration's handling of enemy combatants. On July 15 this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed his 2004 ruling that a military commission could not try alleged terrorist Salim Ahmed Hamdan.

CLOSE ENOUGH FOR GOVERNMENT WORK:

IMF deems Iraq stable, grants $685 million loan (Patrice Hill, December 24, 2005, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

The International Monetary Fund yesterday approved a new $685 million loan for Iraq, saying the country has stabilized its economy despite continued violent conflict.

The loan, the second from the IMF after a $436 million emergency loan in 2004, reflects the lending agency's judgment that Iraq's government is doing its best to revive the war-torn economy. The loan clears the way for major debt relief from Western nations.

"The Iraqi authorities were successful in promoting macroeconomic stability in 2005, despite the extremely difficult security environment," said IMF Deputy Managing Director Takatoshi Kato. He noted growth slowed in 2005 after a strong spurt in 2004.

"The medium-term outlook for Iraq is favorable, but subject to many risks," he said.

YOU MEAN DICK DURBIN'S WRONG ABOUT THEM BEING NAZIS?:

From Heckles to Halos: In dramatic contrast to the Vietnam War era, U.S. service personnel now are being treated to strangers' spontaneous bursts of gratitude. (Faye Fiore, December 24, 2005, LA Times)

There's a diner called Peggy Sue's about eight miles outside of Barstow, and as hard as Lt. Col. Kenneth Parks tries, he can never seem to pay his bill.

He orders a burger and a chocolate shake. But before he's finished, the waitress informs him the tab has been taken care of by yet another stranger who prefers to remain anonymous but who wants to do something for a soldier in uniform.

Many Americans have conflicted feelings about the Iraq war, but not about the warriors. The gestures of gratitude and generosity that occur with regularity at Peggy Sue's — across Interstate 15 from Ft. Irwin, a military desert training site — have become commonplace across the United States.

A spontaneous standing ovation for a group of soldiers at Los Angeles International Airport. Three $20 bills passed to a serviceman and his family in a grocery store in Georgia. A first-class seat given up to a servicewoman on a plane out of Chicago.

These bursts of goodwill have little to do with the holiday season or with political sentiments about the war. In contrast to the hostile stares that greeted many Vietnam veterans 40 years ago, today's soldiers are being treated as heroes throughout the year, in red states and blue, by peace activists and gung-ho supporters of the Iraq mission. The gestures are often spontaneous, affiliated with no association or cause, and credit is seldom claimed.

During world war two American troops away from home for Christmas were entertained by Marlene Dietrich, Bing Crosby and the Marx Brothers. Even in Vietnam Bob Hope was guaranteed to put in an appearance. But soldiers in Iraq are more likely to get a show from a Christian hip-hop group, a country singer you have probably never heard of and two cheerleaders for the Dallas Cowboys.

Just as the seemingly intractable nature of the war has led to a growing recruitment crisis, so the United Services Organisation, which has been putting on shows for the troops since the second world war, is struggling to get celebrities to sign up for even a short tour of duty.

SCRATCH AN EXTINCTION, FIND AN INTELLIGENT DESIGN:

Scientists find 'mass dodo grave' (BBC, 12/24/05)

Scientists have discovered the "beautifully preserved" bones of about 20 dodos at a dig site in Mauritius.

Little is known about the dodo, a famous flightless bird thought to have become extinct in the 17th century. [...]

The dodo was mocked by Portuguese and Dutch colonialists for its size and apparent lack of fear of armed, hungry hunters.

It took its name from the Portuguese word for "fool", and was hunted to extinction within 200 years of Europeans landing on Mauritius.

LE PEN DID QUITE WELL, AFTER ALL:

Sarkozy rebuts the critics who label him far-rightist (Agence France-Presse, DECEMBER 23, 2005

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister who has ambitions to become president in the 2007 election, hit back Friday at critics accusing him of far-right tendencies in a lively and direct interview with the newspaper Libération.

"I am a scrupulous republican, probably less narrow-minded than you," he told the left-leaning daily.

He dismissed recent campaigns against him as being too quick to draw parallels between him and Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, or FN, for Sarkozy's vigorous crackdown on illegal immigration and his promotion of increased policing and law-and-order legislation.

Such campaigns included an AIDS activist group, Act Up, whose posters of Sarkozy's photo with the tag "Vote Le Pen" appeared in Paris this week.

Sarkozy said his firm policies on the right drew voters away from the more radical positions of Le Pen, who placed second in the first round of the 2002 presidential election, which was eventually won by Jacques Chirac.

"Who are the FN voters?" Sarkozy asked. "No doubt there is a small number of true fascists and racists, but the overwhelming majority are people who are crying out for help. They are afraid, feel abandoned.

"The fact that I am being heard by all these people should make you happy."

DAM TESTS:

Vast dam proposal is a test for China (Jim Yardley, DECEMBER 23, 2005, The New York Times)

Far from the pulsing cities that symbolize modern China, this tiny hillside village of crude peasant houses seems disconnected from this century and the last. But follow a dirt path past a snarling watchdog, sidestep the chickens and ducks and a small clearing on the banks of the Nu River reveals a dusty slab of concrete lying in a rotting pumpkin patch.

The innocuous concrete block is a symbol of a struggle over law that touches every corner of the country.

The block marks the spot on the Nu River where officials here in Yunnan Province want to begin building one of the biggest dam projects in the world. It would produce more electricity than even the mighty Three Gorges Dam but would also threaten a region considered an ecological treasure. This village would be the first place to disappear.

For decades, the Communist Party has rammed through such projects by fiat. But the Nu River proposal, already delayed for more than a year, is now unexpectedly presenting the Chinese government with a quandary of its own making: Will it abide by its laws?

MORE:
China's Probe of Mining Disasters Finds Corruption, Chaos (Edward Cody, December 24, 2005, Washington Post)

The Chinese government announced Friday that it found "astonishingly serious" corruption, chaotic management and lax enforcement of safety rules in investigating coal mine disasters that have killed thousands of Chinese workers this year.

Li Yizhong, who heads the cabinet-level Work Safety Administration, said at a news conference that 96 people have been turned over for criminal prosecution this year for their roles in the explosions and floodings that occur with relentless regularity in the coal industry as mine owners race to keep up with demand. In addition, 21 mine managers and 105 government and Communist Party officials were demoted, fired or otherwise sanctioned, including two deputy provincial governors, he said.

More than 6,000 workers perished in Chinese coal mines during 2004, making mines here the most dangerous in the world. More than 4,000 miners were killed in the first nine months of this year, and the rhythm has continued unabated, including 171 who died last month at the state-owned Dongfeng Coal Mine in Heilongjiang province.

AXIS OF GOOD FILES:

Japan backs joint US missile plan (Leo Lewis, 12/24/05, BBC)

Japan has approved a joint missile defence programme with the US.

The project aims to produce an advanced version of the US system, which seeks to destroy incoming missiles before they reach their targets.

THANKS, ADMIRAL POINDEXTER:

Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report (ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN, 12/24/05, NY Times)

The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said. [...]

Officials in the government and the telecommunications industry who have knowledge of parts of the program say the N.S.A. has sought to analyze communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to and from Afghanistan, for instance, are known to have been of particular interest to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said. [...]

The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush administration in other contexts has raised strong objections, most notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system, developed by the Pentagon for tracking terror suspects, and the Department of Homeland Security's Capps program for screening airline passengers. Both programs were ultimately scrapped after public outcries over possible threats to privacy and civil liberties.

PAID BY ANOTHER DRAWN SWORD?:

What Bush could learn from Lincoln (Robert Kuttner, December 24, 2005, Boston Globe)

MY CHRISTMAS present to George W. Bush is a copy of Doris Kearns Goodwin's splendid study of Lincoln and his Cabinet, ''Team of Rivals." President Bush believes in redemption, and so do I. Here are just a few things Bush might profitably learn from our first Republican president.

Lincoln assumed the presidency at a time when the nation was horribly divided, not into culturally warring ''blue" states and ''red" ones, but into a real civil war between blues and grays -- the states that stayed in the Union and those that seceded. Even among the unionists, Lincoln's own Republican Party and Cabinet were bitterly rent between those who wanted to accelerate emancipation and punish the South and those who gave top priority to keeping the Republic whole.

Lincoln's priority, always, was to preserve the Union and to reduce the sectional and ideological bitterness. As Goodwin brilliantly shows, he did so by the force of his personality and the generosity of his spirit.

YOU CAN COME OUT FROM UNDER THE BED:

Student's tall tale revealed: Confesses fabricating US surveillance story (Jonathan Saltzman, December 24, 2005, Boston Globe)

It rocketed across the Internet a week ago, a startling newspaper report that agents from the US Department of Homeland Security had visited a student at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth at his New Bedford home simply because he had tried to borrow Mao Tse-Tung's ''Little Red Book" for a history seminar on totalitarian goverments.

The story, first reported in last Saturday's New Bedford Standard-Times, was picked up by other news organizations, prompted diatribes on left-wing and right-wing blogs, and even turned up in an op-ed piece written by Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the Globe.

But yesterday, the student confessed that he had made it up after being confronted by the professor who had repeated the story to a Standard-Times reporter.

The professor, Brian Glyn Williams, said he went to his former student's house and asked about inconsistencies in his story. The 22-year-old student admitted it was a hoax, Williams said.

SHOULD HAVE JUST BANNED CARS IN BOSTON INSTEAD:

Big Dig costs may rise by millions: US memo says total could reach $14.7b (Raphael Lewis, December 24, 2005, Boston Globe)

The US Department of Transportation's inspector general has drafted an internal memo that says the Big Dig's cost may rise by tens of millions of dollars, according to state, industry, and federal officials.

One of the officials pegged the estimated increase at $75 million. If the estimate proves accurate, the project would cost $14.7 billion instead of the current $14.625 billion, an increase that Massachusetts taxpayers or tollpayers would have to absorb, because the federal government has capped its contribution to the controversial megaproject.

A spokesman for the inspector general's office emphasized that the document is a draft and may change.

IF THE WORK IS HARD THOSE DOING IT ARE IMMIGRANTS:

Immigrants find opportunity in ruined New Orleans (Jeff Franks, Dec 23, 2005, Reuters)

Much of New Orleans lies abandoned and destroyed after Hurricane Katrina struck nearly four months ago, but for Latin American immigrants the storm-ravaged city has become a land of opportunity.

While New Orleans residents are slow to return, the immigrants, most of them illegally in the United States, have swarmed in to do the hard work of cleaning up and rebuilding that others so far have shunned.

They are not here because of altruism -- New Orleans is just another place in a strange land to them -- but because there is a huge unfulfilled demand for labor and, as a result, high wages they cannot get in their homeland or in other U.S. cities.

In a sight common in the southwestern U.S., but new to New Orleans, they crowd street corners starting at daybreak, offering themselves as day laborers to anyone who needs them.

RELIGION IF NECESSARY, BUT NOT NECESSARILY RELIGION

While we’re at it (Fr Richard Neuhaus, First Things, November, 2005) (Scroll Down)

Don’t we know how pushy those evangelical Christians can be? That is among the questions raised in protest against what I thought was a rather light-hearted comment in the October issue about the problem of “pervasive religion” at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. Well yes, some people—not only evangelicals and not only Christians—can be pretty obnoxious in pressing their convictions on others. And not only their religious convictions. Their causes would be better served by the learning of elementary good manners. An almost certain way of exacerbating bad manners in the public square is to try to impose good manners by regulations of law. Civilization, as has often been observed, depends upon obedience to the unenforceable, which is another way of saying that civilization depends upon civility. In my commentary I suggested—in a spirit of what now appears to have been unwarranted hopefulness—that that lesson had been learned at the Air Force Academy. But here is a Laurie Goodstein story in the New York Times with the headline “Air Force Bans Leaders’ Promotion of Religion.” It seems new Air Force guidelines will proscribe anything that might be perceived as favoring a particular religion or even, according to the proposed text, “the idea of religion over nonreligion.” The guidelines were largely drafted by Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff, a former navy chaplain and former director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, who was hired as special assistant to the secretary and chief of staff of the Air Force. The need for such guidelines had been pressed by Representative Steve Israel of New York, an influential member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate who has agitated against the Christian tenor of activities at the school. A professor of law at Yeshiva University is quoted on the new rules: “What I liked about them is they went so far out of their way to say the government should not be endorsing religion, because that’s not always been true in the military.” That, one might observe, is a breathtaking understatement. From George Washington’s Farewell Address and throughout American history, government leaders have strongly and explicitly endorsed religion, and nowhere has that been so emphatically the case as in the military. The attempt to extirpate religion from the official life of the military is a rewriting of history in the name of pluralism and sensitivity. Despite the adage that there are no atheists in foxholes, there have always been those in the military who dissent from the dominant religious affirmation. They were and are a small minority. The new thing, following a half century of Supreme Court rulings in hostility to religion, is the idea that a minority has the right to be protected from reminders that it is a minority. This gives even the smallest minority effective veto power over the public voice under government auspices, and nothing is more comprehensively under government auspices than the military. Anything the minority deems offensive or not to its liking must be excluded. Also in the military, the protocols of civility are subject to negotiation, but the new Air Force regulations are riddled with confusions that are likely to increase the putative problems they are designed to resolve. For instance, says the Times, “they allow for ‘a brief nonsectarian prayer’ at special ceremonies like those honoring promotions, or in ‘extraordinary circumstances’ like ‘mass casualties, preparation for imminent combat and natural disasters.’” Is a mention of Jesus or Sinai sectarian? How brief is “brief,” and how many casualties are required to warrant an extra minute of prayer time? Perhaps most important, why should the government endorse or any observant Jew, Christian, or Muslim go along with the idea that public prayer should be limited to “extraordinary circumstances”? The limitation of prayer to moments of great mourning or danger encourages the most debased notion of “the God of the gaps”—of religion in the form of last-resort superstition reserved for times of crisis. Although one notes that prayer will be permitted also for “honoring promotions,” which perhaps reflects the belief of the Air Force in the dubious notion that God has a hand in its personnel decisions. The proposed regulations are a prime instance of attempting to turn faith into a tame and inoffensive civil religion that should offend everyone who understands that the nation and its military are “under God”—meaning the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Who cannot be recruited to anyone’s service. All that having been said, I am reliably informed that some evangelical officers at the Air Force Academy were seriously out of line in using their rank to promote their faith on military time. If true, that needed to be corrected, but is better corrected by obedience to the unenforceable than by regulations that invite evasion.

To the secular mind set, secular jerks are just marginal aberrations, to be dismissed summarily as a dysfunctional minority, but religious jerks are a mainstream menace, formed intrinsically by their faith.

WHAT, YOU THOUGHT WINK, WINK MEANT I APPROVED?:

Among Those Told of Program, Few Objected (DOUGLAS JEHL, 12/22/05, NY Times)

As members of Congress seek more information about the eavesdropping program authorized by President Bush, their requests are being complicated by the fact that Congressional leaders in both parties acquiesced in the operation. [...[

"The record is clear; Congressional leaders at a minimum tacitly supported the program," Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the chairman of House Intelligence Committee, said this week. Mr. Hoekstra said Democrats should "attempt to understand why their leaders did not feel the same sense of outrage about the program" that some in the party are now expressing. [...]

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, released a letter this week that he sent to Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003 expressing concern about the program.

But Senator Roberts issued a statement on Tuesday saying that he had "no recollection of Senator Rockefeller objecting to the program at the many briefings he and I attended together," and that "on many occasions Senator Rockefeller expressed to the vice president his vocal support for the program; his most recent expression of support was only two weeks ago."

At least seven Democratic lawmakers are known to have been briefed about the program since its inception in 2001, and only two, Mr. Rockefeller and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, are known to have expressed written concern about it. A third, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the former Senate Democratic leader, said in an e-mail message on Thursday that he too had expressed "grave concern for this practice" of eavesdropping on American citizens inside the United States.

Among the others, Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, acknowledged in a statement this week that she had been briefed about the program since 2003 and regarded it as "essential to U.S. national security."

MORE:
Power We Didn't Grant (Tom Daschle, December 23, 2005, Washington Post)

The shock and rage we all felt in the hours after the attack were still fresh. America was reeling from the first attack on our soil since Pearl Harbor. We suspected thousands had been killed, and many who worked in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were not yet accounted for. Even so, a strong bipartisan majority could not agree to the administration's request for an unprecedented grant of authority.

The Bush administration now argues those powers were inherently contained in the resolution adopted by Congress -- but at the time, the administration clearly felt they weren't or it wouldn't have tried to insert the additional language.

MORE:
Presidential Wiretapping: Disaggregating the Issues (Cass Sunstein, December 20, 2005, The Faculty Blog)

The legal questions raised by President Bush's wiretapping seem to me complex, not simple. Here is a rough guide: (1) Did the AUMF authorize his action? (2) If not, does the Constitution give the President inherent authority to do what he did? (3) If the answer to (1) or (2) is yes, does his action violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)? (4) If the answer to (3) is yes, is FISA constitutional, or is it inconsistent with the President's inherent authority? (5) If the answer to (1) or (2) is yes, does the wiretapping nonetheless violate the Fourth Amendment?

I have already suggested that it is plausible to give a "yes" answer to (1), certainly if we do not consider the effect of FISA. It needn't be conclusive that Congress didn't "intend," with the AUMF, to authorize wiretapping. Once the AUMF is in place, the President can certainly engage in surveillance of some kinds, eg, surveillance of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. It isn't a big stretch to say that he can engage in surveillance of people with known Al Qaeda affiliations who are calling to or from the United States. (If Osama Bin Laden is calling New York, it's clear, I think, that the AUMF allows the President to listen to the call.) If there were doubt about the President's power under the AUMF, a plausible claim of inherent power, under (2), would justify reading the AUMF to allow the President to engage in surveillance. (Of course nothing I have said suggests that under the AUMF, the President can engage in surveillance of people without a tie to organizations or nations associated with the attacks of 9/11.)

What about (2)? The Supreme Court has not decided this question, and some lower courts seem to have ruled in the President's favor on this one. Orin Kerr, at the Volokh Conspiracy, has an excellent post that covers this issue (and others I am discussing here). It is not clear that the President is right on (2), but it isn't clear that he is wrong.

IF IT'S FRIDAY, IT MUST BE CADMIUM:

2nd toxic spill poses threat; benzene hits Russian city (Chicago Tribune, December 23, 2005)

China's government rushed Thursday to shield the country's southern business center, Guangzhou, from a toxic spill of cadmium flowing toward the city of 7 million--the second manmade disaster to hit a Chinese river in six weeks.

THAT'S WHAT THE AXIS IS FOR:

Who Lost Nepal? (Robert Kaplan, December 2005, Wall Street Journal)

Nepal, sandwiched between the two rising economic and demographic behemoths of the age—China and India—could be the first country since the fall of the Berlin Wall where communists emerge triumphant. If the Bush administration does not act decisively, that's what might happen. The administration should not take solace in the flurry of negotiations between the Maoist insurgents (who control most of the hinterlands) and the country's political parties in Kathmandu, which could undermine the last vestige of legitimate royal authority while further strengthening the insurgents.

By canceling Special Forces training missions to the besieged Royal Nepalese Army, and with the possibility of lethal cuts of American aid to the local military, the administration, along with Washington, has bought into popular abstractions about how to best implant democracy while ignoring the facts on the ground.

Nepal is fast becoming a replay of both Cambodia in the mid-1970s and El Salvador a decade later. In Cambodia, the monstrous Khmer Rouge were threatening the capital of Phnom Penh, home to a pathetically undemocratic yet legitimate regime to which a Democratic Congress had cut off aid—a result of the Watergate-inflicted weakness of the Nixon administration. In El Salvador, murderous right-wing forces that nevertheless represented a legitimate state were pitted against murderous left-wing ones that represented the geopolitical ambitions of the Soviet Union and Cuba. Though the media emphasized the atrocities of the right wing, the Reagan administration had little choice but to work with them. Eventually, the right wing in El Salvador, with the help of a small number of Army Special Forces trainers, won the day. And in the years that followed the Salvadoran state and military were reformed.

Winning the day did not mean outright success on the battlefield. It meant bloodying the left's nose enough to give the state an edge in negotiations. Ronald Reagan, a Wilsonian, was also a realist. President Bush now needs to take Reagan's El Salvador model to heart in Nepal.

THIRD WAY REVOLUTIONARY AND CONSERVATIVE AREN'T CONTRADICTIONS:

On the home stretch (Paul Kelly, December 24, 2005, The Australian)

JOHN Howard began the year being accused of timidity and finished it being accused of ruthlessness. Most professionals believe Howard will remain in office for another election, but Howard's 2005 successes are so comprehensive that they suggest a career near to completion.

This year offered powerful evidence that Howard's image as a conservative is utterly misleading. History will show that Howard is better understood as a change agent, a complex mixture of pragmatism, ideology and utilitarianism. The key to understanding Howard lies in the way he constantly shifts his balancing point between preserving tradition and advancing reformist change. His judgment about this trade-off defines his political success.

Howard's opponents are prisoners of this schism. They decry him as a bone-hard conservative, then brand him as an extremist at decisive moments such as the 1998 GST debate, the 2001 refugee crackdown and this year's industrial shake-out.

The past year has exposed Howardism as a philosophy in a purer form than before. This is because some of the previous constraints on Howard's operations were lifted. What made 2005 different from Howard's previous nine years of power was his Senate control despite the Barnaby Joyce break-outs.

This year Howard converted into laws the potential bequeathed by the 2004 election when the Coalition won control of both houses of federal parliament for the first time since 1981.

MORE:
Labor's hold on states at risk (Ean Higgins and Sean Parnell, December 24, 2005, The Australian)

THE Liberals and Nationals have moved within striking distance of breaking Labor's stranglehold on state power, with Labor losing its lead in NSW and struggling in Queensland.

Two Newspolls show the ALP's two bastion states are up for grabs at their next elections, due in 2007.

While Queensland's Peter Beattie faces declining personal support and has failed to break a deadlock in party preference, in NSW Labor has lost its lead over the state Coalition for the first time since the departure of former premier Bob Carr in July.

The Newspolls, conducted exclusively for The Weekend Australian over the past two months, show a voter backlash after a series of crises engulfed the two longest-serving Labor administrations in the country.

REARGUARD ACTION (via The Other Brother):

Evolution takes science honours (Paul Rincon, 12/23/05, BBC News)

Research into how evolution works has been named top science achievement of 2005, a year that also saw fierce debate erupt over "intelligent design".

DON'T YOU FEEL VIOLATED?:

US monitored Muslim sites for radiation: report (Reuters, 12/23/05)

U.S. officials have secretly monitored radiation levels at Muslim sites, including mosques and private homes, since September 11, 2001 as part of a top secret program searching for nuclear bombs, U.S. News and World Report said on Friday.

The news magazine said in its online edition that the far-reaching program covered more than a hundred sites in the Washington, D.C., area and at least five other cities.

NO WMD...NO OIL...NO BASES...:

No Plans for Long-term U.S. Bases in Iraq, Rumsfeld Says (Jim Garamone, Dec. 23, 2005, American Forces Press Service)

The United States has not discussed basing American troops in Iraq, and would do so only following negotiations with the new Iraqi government, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said here today.

"At the moment, there are no plans for long-term bases in the country," Rumsfeld told a Marine during a question and answer session here today. [...]

The United States would base troops in the nation only if it would be mutually beneficial, he said.

IN OTHER WORDS, THE REPORT IS USELESS

Government Finds Seesaw View of Housing Market (The New York Times, Vikas Bajaj, 12/23/05)

New home sales make up just 15 percent of all housing sales. That is one reason economists caution against reading too much into this report. Another is its significant margin of error, which was plus or minus 8.9 percent this month, enough to erase most of the drop in sales.

HARRIETISH:

Alito Said Attorneys General Can't Be Sued for Illegal Wiretaps (Bloomberg, 12/23/05)

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito wrote in a 1984 memo that U.S. attorneys general should be immune from being sued for ordering illegal wiretaps.

Even so, Alito, then a Justice Department lawyer, recommended against pressing the claim in a case involving 1970s wiretaps ordered by former Attorney General John Mitchell to investigate a suspected plot to kidnap National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and blow up utility tunnels in Washington.

``I do not question that the attorney general should have this immunity, but for tactical reasons I would not raise the issue here,'' Alito wrote in the June 12, 1984, memo to then-U.S. Solicitor General Rex Lee. ``I start from the premise that absolute immunity arguments are difficult to advance successfully.''

Instead, Alito, then an assistant to the solicitor general, recommended the government ask the Supreme Court to allow the Justice Department to appeal a lower court's ruling that Mitchell could be sued over the wiretapping.

THAT'S SOME BRIAR PATCH

President Bush Job Approval (Rasmussen Reports, 12/23/05)

Fifty percent (50%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. That's up six points since the President's speech on Sunday night.

THE SHRIVELLING OF BLUE AMERICA:

Census estimate a concern for state: Seats in Congress, US funding at risk (Scott Helman, December 23, 2005, Boston Globe)

Massachusetts lost residents for the second year in a row, new federal Census estimates show, underscoring an accelerating population shift from the Northeast to the South and West that threatens to erode the state's political and economic clout.

Only two other states, along with the District of Columbia, lost population from July 1, 2004, to July 1 of this year, according to US Census estimates released yesterday. The Bay State lost about 8,600 residents, or .1 percent of its population, according to the estimates.

If the trend continues, specialists say, the state will face serious consequences: fewer seats in Congress, companies choosing to locate or expand elsewhere, a shrinking labor force, and less federal funding for transportation, housing, and other initiatives.

WHAT A CRACK UP:

Moongazing reveals the chaotic world of Uranus (Kelly Young, 22 December 2005, NewScientist.com)

WHERE WERE THE MINUTEMEN?:

Mexicans Head North to Snare Holiday Bargains: The annual border crush illustrates growing social and economic ties in the San Diego-Tijuana region. (Richard Marosi, December 23, 2005, LA Times)

The pedestrian lane at the San Ysidro port of entry backed up nearly a quarter-mile into Mexico, weaving past the churro vendors, discount drugstores and tin-shack candy booths.

Gloria Escobar, standing near a display of Santa Claus pinatas, already had waited half an hour to cross into California. Only one more hour left, she hoped.

"It's worth the sacrifice," Escobar said one morning this week. "In San Diego, the stores are better than Tijuana…. Everyone in this line is going for Christmas shopping."

The annual holiday season crush at the border reached its height this week as Dodger Stadium-size crowds from Mexico headed north in search of bargains at swap meets, outlet stores and suburban shopping malls.

They endured extra-long waits in the pedestrian and vehicle lanes, which were already jammed with thousands of Mexicans who commute regularly to jobs in the San Diego area.

MY NAME IS W:

U.N. Hit by a Bolt From the Right: John Bolton is seen as 'brilliant' or as 'a bully.' But the U.S. ambassador is having an impact. (Maggie Farley, December 23, 2005, LA Times)

Some call him "a bully," and others say he is "brilliant." But opinion is divided about whether he is effective — if he is cleaning up the mess, or adding to it.

"He is having a definite impact," said Ambassador Mihnea Motoc of Romania, a temporary member of the Security Council. "Others wish they could do things the same way." [...]

Just as member states were brushing themselves off from the last collision Bolton precipitated, over an agreement on how to reform the U.N. before the World Summit in September, the U.S. ambassador is setting up a new showdown.

He has threatened to block the world body's budget for 2006-07 unless diplomats commit to "real reform" by the end of 2005, a year that has seen the organization severely damaged by revelations of corruption and mismanagement in the Iraq oil-for-food program, the disclosure of sexual exploitation by peacekeepers and the U.N.'s difficulty in remaking itself.

The budget battle prompted Secretary-General Kofi Annan to cancel a trip this month to Asia and warn that Bolton's gambit could exacerbate the very problems it is meant to solve.

"He has an agenda, and he's pursuing it with a conviction that is uncommon here," said Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali, who sometimes clashes with Bolton in the Security Council but considers him a friend. "He's doing it his way, which is not the way we do it at the U.N. We are used to a little more compromise."

OUR KIDS GOT THEM IN THEIR HAPPY MEALS YESTERDAY:

Notebooks Come in at Under a Thousand With Speed and Style (THOMAS J. FITZGERALD, 12/22/05, NY Times)

The first notebook computers to dip below $1,000 were slow, not very stylish and not widely embraced by consumers. That was more than five years ago, which in the digital era is a lifetime.

Since then, competition and lower-cost components have driven down notebook prices over all, giving consumers a broad array of machines in the sub-$1,000 range - many of them able to handle the computing needs of mainstream users.

In fact, the average price of notebooks sold at major retail stores in November fell to $980 - a 19 percent drop from November 2004, when the average price was $1,215 - the first time the average price dipped under $1,000, according to a monthly survey by Current Analysis, a research company based in Sterling, Va.

Units below $1,000 are available from most major notebook makers and offer a range of features, including wide-screen displays, fast processors, built-in wireless connectivity, DVD burners, productivity software and all of the ports and slots found on more expensive models. Features they tend not to have are extra-large screens, ultrasmall designs, large hard drives and high-end processors and graphics abilities.

THE DATELINE IS LIKE A KNIFE

Bush Cutting U.S. Troops Levels in Iraq (Rober Burns, AP, 12/23/05)

FALLUJAH, Iraq - President Bush has authorized new cuts in U.S. combat troops in Iraq, below the 138,000 level that prevailed for most of this year, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday. Addressing U.S. troops at this former insurgent stronghold, Rumsfeld did not reveal the exact size of the troop cut, but Pentagon officials have said it could be as much as 7,000 combat troops.

BLOOMBERG TO BIG APPLE TAXPAYERS, DROP DEAD::

Workers Choose to Come Back and Talk (STEVEN GREENHOUSE and SEWELL CHAN, 12/23/05, NY Times)

Thousands of New York City transit workers put down their picket signs and streamed into bus depots and railyards last night to restart the nation's largest transit system, after leaders of their union agreed to a tentative framework for a new contract and ended a 60-hour strike that hobbled the city. [...]

The abrupt return - many strikers simply laid down their placards and walked into the buildings they had been picketing - capped a day of fast-moving developments in a labor showdown that just a day before seemed headed for an intractable and ugly stalemate.

Despite the end of the strike, a final settlement of the dispute remains to be reached. But officials hinted that in exchange for the union's ending the strike, the authority would significantly scale back or even abandon its insistence on less-generous pensions for future workers. In return, the union would consider having its members pay more for health insurance. The negotiations will now resume under an agreement among all parties not to speak with reporters.

NEARLY DONE:

Blair, in a surprise visit to Iraq, finds progress (The Associated Press, Reuters, DECEMBER 22, 2005)

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain paid a surprise visit to Iraq on Thursday, saying that the country's security and political situation had improved over the last year, but refusing to set a timetable for the withdrawal of British troops.

His visit came hours before the U.S. defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, flew into Baghdad on another surprise visit. Rumsfeld, one of the architects of the downfall of Saddam Hussein, whose trial was adjourned Thursday until Jan. 24, was visiting U.S. commanders and assessing the situation on the ground.

Rumsfeld said any cutbacks in troop levels beyond those in place before the elections for the Iraqi Parliament last week would depend on assessments on the ground, while Blair said Britain might start pulling troops out in six months.

He cited a sea change in the situation in Iraq compared with a year ago.

TONY BLAIR yesterday signalled that British troops could begin to leave Iraq within six months as he made a surprise visit to Basra to tell servicemen they should be "very, very proud" of their role in its transition to democracy.

In a fleeting visit to the British-controlled south of Iraq, the Prime Minister told soldiers that they had dealt terrorism a "huge blow" by creating the conditions for the election earlier this month which will now lead to a full Iraqi government.

While he said the new ministers could decide whether coalition troops stay or go, he gave his clearest sign yet that the Ministry of Defence plans to start winding down troops from next summer.

President George W Bush has authorised cuts in US troops levels in Iraq, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said during a visit to the country.

Speaking to troops in Falluja, Mr Rumsfeld did not specify a number but said the US force would be cut by two brigades - several thousand staff.

Further reductions will be considered "at some point in 2006", he said.

NATURE SELECTS FOR PIPES AND SLIPPERS

Freedom to swing (National Post, December, 22nd, 2005)

For decades, social scientists have worried that the breakdown of the traditional family would lead to the total erosion of sexual mores in mainstream society. In this brave new post-Christian libertine world, it was feared, wife-swapping, neighbourhood orgies and key parties would become mainstays of middle-aged couples' weekend social agendas.

Needless to say, this never happened. It turns out that, whatever licence society may give us, common sense alone is enough to keep most people from throwing their Camry key into a neighbour's salad bowl. The 1960s ideal of "free love" is a myth: In the real world, sexual promiscuity and "open" relationships typically lead to confusion, heartbreak and shattered homes -- not to mention venereal disease. This is something mature people recognize instinctively.

But it is not the role of government to enforce life lessons. And if people want to go on trying to have their cake and eat it, too, the law should let them. That is why we applaud the Supreme Court of Canada for its judgment regarding the prosecution of James Kouri and Jean-Paul Labaye.

Messrs. Kouri and Labaye operated swingers clubs in Montreal, in which visiting adults would swap sexual partners. Both were originally convicted of operating a bawdy house. But on appeal, Mr. Kouri's conviction was affirmed while Mr. Labaye's was overturned. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that both men should go free. In so doing, it properly articulated a narrow definition of indecency. "The threshold is high," Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote. "As members of a diverse society, we must be prepared to tolerate conduct of which we disapprove, short of conduct that can be objectively shown beyond a reasonable doubt to interfere with the proper functioning of society."

As noted above, swinging is an unpopular activity because the damage it does to relationships can generally be expected to outweigh the transient sexual thrills it provides. But as with such obsolete crimes as fornication and adultery, the harm is confined to those adults who freely partake in it: In the cases at issue before the Supreme Court, no one was coerced, bribed or tricked into swinging. Since there is no "victim," we find it hard to see why such activity should be outlawed.

Canada’s principal conservative newspaper is commenting here on yesterday’s Supreme Court decision that effectively threw out any notion of public decency as a legitimate basis for law and mandated the old J. S. Mill objective “harm” test beloved by liberals for generations. Presumably the near dead silence with which the decision was received indicates most people either agree or are completely unable to articulate any misgivings. What strikes one about this analysis is the complete denial of sweeping social changes that have occurred since the sixties and the confident assumption that most people will naturally adhere to a religiously-inspired morality on grounds of rational self-interest. It is amusing how, when discussing issues like divorce and gay marriage, liberals and libertarians will evince horror at the cruelty and injustice of a thwarted sexual-urge, but then blithely assume the vast majority of people are actually quite boring and will naturally shrug off temptation and choose traditional middle-class virtue unaided. Reading the Post’s confident assurances here, one would never suspect we live in an era of forty percent divorce rates, parentless and poor children, an explosion of porn for all tastes, teenage mental illness and an exploding sex industry with all manner of attendant exploitation and crime. It is one thing to argue that it is all a necessary price of freedom, quite another to look at it all with eyes wide open and tell oneself a modern fairy tale about how there are no victims.

MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE, THE TRAINS ARE BACK:

Grudging Praise for an Absent System (JAMES BARRON, 12/23/05, NY Times)

For three days, New Yorkers could not watch the closing doors, could not try to make sense of garbled announcements, could not wonder why the express always pulls out just as the local pulls in.

So the news that transit workers were going back to work left many New Yorkers thinking one of those only-in-New-York thoughts: a subway car is a beautiful thing. As they looked forward to swiping their MetroCards again and squeezing into sardine-tight seats in impossibly crowded cars, they voiced grudging affection for a subway system they wish they did not have to live with but cannot live without.

"We all whine in the subway," said Samuel Kroma, a messenger who lives in Jamaica, Queens, "but we all want it. There's no other means of transportation. This city wasn't planned for cars."

THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY FORWARD:

Britain's new political setup (DAVID HOWELL, 12/23/05, Japan Times)

Just as commentators have been writing about a fundamentally new political "setup" in Japan, following Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's overwhelming election victory, so also the same language is being used about British politics. [...]

[I]n establishing, and giving credibility to a new political setup, Cameron, who is 39, and his chief lieutenant, George Osborne, who is only 34, have to confront exactly the same two facts of 21st century life as those facing Japan.

These are, first, that the needs of a modern society can no longer be met by an all-powerful state that owns and provides everything centrally for its citizens' welfare, and second, that people must feel they live in a nation with a purpose and international status that deserves their loyalty and distinguishes it from the globalized culture that threatens to drain countries of their personality and diversity.

THE DEFEATED IN DECLINE:

Population already contracting (Japan Times, 12/23/05)

Japan's population has started shrinking for the first time this year, health ministry data showed Thursday, presenting the government with pressing challenges on the social and economic front, including ensuring provision of social security services and securing the labor force.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry's annual survey estimates the balance of domestic births of Japanese against deaths in 2005 to be minus 10,000, marking the first natural decline since the government first began compiling the data in 1899.

Even on an aggregate population basis, including foreign residents, the balance is projected to be minus 4,000 in 2005, registering a fall one year earlier than projected by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, which had predicted a decline after 2006.

Japan joins Germany and Italy in the ranks of countries where a decline in population has already set in.

TOO BAD THERE ARE SO FEW MODERATE LIBERALS:

Europe: A History (Norman Davies)

Conservatism began to crystallize as a coherent ideology in conjunction with liberal trends. It was not opposed to democracy or to change as such, and should not be confused with simple reactionary
positions. What it did was to insist that all change should be channelled and managed in such a way that the organic growth of established institutions of state and society--monarchy, Church, the social hierarchy, property, and the family--should not be threatened. [...] Like the liberals, the conservatives valued the individual, opposed the omnipotent state, and looked for a reduction of central executive powers. Through this, they often turned out to be the most effective of would-be reformers, toning down proposals coming from more radical points on the spectrum, and acting as the go-between with the ruling court. The ultimate distinction between liberal conservatives and moderate liberals was a fine one. In many democracies, the large area of agreement between them came to define the "middle ground" of political life.

FINALLY, SOME STAGE MANAGEMENT:

They would take one of us away and he'd return in a sheet, dripping in blood: A brave Iraqi takes the stand and tells how seven of his brothers were tortured and killed 'on Saddam's orders' (Adrian Blomfield, 22/12/2005, Daily Telegraph)

It was the first time since he went on trial that Saddam Hussein seemed lost for words.

Gone were the histrionics and bluster of previous court appearances, when the former dictator upstaged everyone from judge to fellow defendants with his interruptions and grandstanding.

Instead the limelight was taken by a softly spoken witness who comported himself in every way Saddam has not since he took to the dock. Ali Hassan al-Haidari was dignified, erudite, compelling - and brave.

While the vast majority of other witnesses have so far chosen - understandably so - to testify behind a curtain, sometimes with their voices distorted, Mr Haidari stood just feet away from the once most feared man in Iraq.

Saddam seemed to shrink beside him. He sucked his glasses, and occasionally took notes. Much of the time he seemed to be doodling. It was as though he could not meet the eyes of his accuser.

Dressed almost identically to Saddam in a brown suit and a white shirt, Mr Haidari recalled the 1982 massacre at Dujail, where Saddam is accused of orchestrating the mass reprisals in retaliation for an alleged attempt on his life. Mr Haidari, who was only 14 at the time, told how he and all 43 members of his family were rounded up and taken to the Ba'ath party headquarters in Dujail.

"I saw my brother being tortured in front of my eyes," he said, looking straight at Saddam. "I was terrified. They would take one of us away and he would return in a sheet, dripping in blood."

Seven of his brothers were executed, he testified. Like so many Iraqis, he has no idea, he said, where they were buried.

OUT WITH THE NEW, IN WITH THE OLD:

Blair appeals for party support to fight challenge of resurgent Tories (George Jones, 22/12/2005, Daily Telegraph)

Tony Blair admitted yesterday that he was "battling on all fronts" as he faced a resurgent Tory Party led by David Cameron and increasing opposition from Labour MPs to his health, education and welfare reforms.

He appealed to his party not to retreat to its "political comfort zone" but to fight Mr Cameron's attempts to reclaim the centre ground which had delivered three election victories for New Labour. [...]

"What's the big idea coming from the Conservative Party? To try and become more like New Labour.

"The truth is we should be confident as New Labour in the reform programme, because whether it is on pensions, or it is on school standards, or it is choice in the NHS free at the point of use, or on anti-social behaviour, or even difficult things like Europe, we are the ones making the weather. That is why, however difficult it is, we stick with it and we carry it through."

But he signalled that he was ready to compromise on education reforms, which have run into strong opposition within the Cabinet and the Labour Party.

THEY WANT THE WHOLE ENCHILADA:

Hong Kong votes down political overhaul (Keith Bradsher, DECEMBER 22, 2005, The New York Times)

Democracy advocates on Wednesday defeated a government-backed legislative proposal to revamp the political system here, dealing a sharp setback to the chief executive and Chinese leaders in Beijing, as well as to the prospects for any substantial political changes soon.

Donald Tsang, the Beijing-backed chief executive, had lobbied lawmakers extensively for the past two months and, in a departure from past practice for leaders here, had even walked city streets to buttonhole passers-by and ask them to support the plan. The two-part proposal called for doubling the number of people allowed to vote for chief executive here, to 1,600, and for expanding the 60-member Legislative Council to 70 members.

But democracy advocates were united in opposing the plan because it did not include a timetable for one-person, one-vote general elections.

THE PRC OR THE FAITHFUL?:

Chinese priests defiant in pre-Christmas standoff (Ben Blanchard, 12/22/05, Reuters)

Dozens of Chinese Catholic priests and nuns holed up for a week in a building they claim as their own vowed to stay put on Thursday, just three days before Christmas, until they get their way.

Surrounded by police in the empty building in northern Tianjin and braving freezing nights, the group of about 50 said they were not going anywhere.

"We're desperately hoping for a resolution as soon as possible," priest Wu Jingwei said. "We've not come to cause trouble and we don't want this to escalate.

"We're priests, we don't fight. We've never experienced this before. We want the government to take this thing seriously and sort it out soon," he added.

"But we cannot be frightened out. We will not compromise."

The Tianjin conflict is the latest of several arrests and confrontations that have highlighted tensions between religious forces and government control in China, even as Beijing seeks diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

EVEN OUR PARIS IS UNFRENCH (via David Hill, The Bronx):

Screws Tighten on NYC Transit Union (DAVID B. CARUSO , 12.21.2005, Forbes)

Threatened with huge fines and possible jail time, the city's transit union suggested Wednesday that it would be willing to end a strike that has shut down bus and subway service for two days - if the city drops its plan for changing workers' pensions. [...]

On the streets Wednesday, commuters struggled through the first day of winter.

At Pennsylvania Station, railroad officials used bullhorns to corral people trying to board the commuter train lines and closed off a city block to line people up. At Grand Central Terminal, more than 1,000 people pushed to get on shuttle trains to the Bronx.

Isaac Flores, who works at a law firm in midtown, was part of a complicated, four-person car pool.

"They're too spoiled," Flores said of the transit workers. "They want to retire at age 55. They're making more money than a cop."

Myra Sanoguet, who was with him, said they saw a group of pickets during the drive. Just briefly, "we were thinking about running them over," she said.

MORE:
Tough Stance, Tougher Fines: Union Leader Is in a Corner (STEVEN GREENHOUSE, 12/22/05, NY Times)

When Roger Toussaint, the president of the transit workers' local, defiantly announced a strike, he proclaimed that his union was taking a proud stand against the concessions that employers had demanded nationwide.

But Mr. Toussaint has quickly discovered that engaging in an illegal walkout can leave a union with a weak hand. His union faces a $1 million fine for each day on strike, a state judge is threatening to throw him in jail and thousands of individual strikers stand to lose two days' pay for each day out.

Not only that, but the mayor, the governor and editorial writers are denouncing the union as greedy and showing contempt for the law. The front page of The New York Post screamed, "You Rats." And the transit workers' parent union has come out in opposition to the strike.

NO, THANKS, WE DON'T CARE FOR ANY KOOL-AID (via Gene Brown):

War and Peace: Lincoln and Bush on vigilance and responsibility. (Mackubin Thomas Owens, 12/21/2005, Weekly Standard)

IN JUNE of 1863, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Erasmus Corning, who had sent him the resolutions of the Albany Democratic convention censuring the Lincoln administration for what it called unconstitutional acts, such as military arrests of civilians in the North. This letter remains the best articulation of the problems that a democratic republic faces when confronted by a crisis that threatens the very existence of that republic.

The essence of Lincoln's argument was that certain actions that are unconstitutional in the absence of rebellion or invasion become constitutional when those conditions exists--in other words, "that the Constitution is not in its application in all respects the same in cases of rebellion or invasion involving the public safety, as it is in times of profound peace and public security."

This past Saturday, President Bush issued his equivalent of the Corning letter. [...]

THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY of the American republic, there has been a tension between two virtues necessary to sustain republican government: vigilance and responsibility. Vigilance is the jealousy on the part of the people that constitutes a necessary check on those who hold power, lest they abuse it. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "[I]t is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those whom we are obliged to trust with power."

But while vigilance is a necessary virtue, it may, if unchecked, lead to an extremism that incapacitates a government, preventing it from carrying out even its most necessary and legitimate purposes, e.g. providing for the common defense. "Jealousy," wrote Alexander Hamilton, often infects the "noble enthusiasm for liberty" with "a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust."

Responsibility, on the other hand, is the prudential judgment necessary to moderate the excesses of political jealousy, thereby permitting limited government to fulfill its purposes. Thus in Federalist 23, Alexander Hamilton wrote that those responsible for the nation's defense must be granted all of the powers necessary to achieve that end. Responsibility is the virtue necessary to govern and to preserve the republic from harm, both external and internal. The dangers of foreign and civil war taught Alexander Hamilton that liberty and power are not always adversaries, that indeed, the "vigor" of government is essential to the security of liberty.

President Bush, like Lincoln before him, has taken actions that reflect his agreement with this principle.

MORE:
Arrests reveal Zarqawi network in Europe (Anton La Guardia, 22/12/2005, Daily Telegraph)

A wave of arrests across Europe has thrown new light on a European terrorist network being developed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most prominent insurgent in Iraq.

A growing number of terrorism investigations in Britain, Germany, Bosnia, Denmark and most recently Spain and France are linked to the man who has masterminded countless suicide bombings in Iraq, personally beheaded hostages and bombed three hotels in his native Jordan.

Some of the suspected networks appear to be involved only in supporting his operations in Iraq. But counter-terrorism officials are worried that Zarqawi could be planning to use his base in Iraq to start attacking Europe.

Security officials are particularly worried by indications that he wants to recruit white extremists who will be more difficult to detect than Arabs or Asians.

SIMPLIFY AND CODIFY:

A Flat-Out Winner for Tax Reform (Daniel J. Mitchell, December 22, 2005, Washington Post)

The flat-tax revolution in Eastern Europe is particularly compelling. Nine nations from the old Soviet bloc have adopted the flat tax -- which taxes income at one rate -- and others are poised to. In an ironic twist, these countries are rejecting the class-warfare politics of yesteryear and building tax systems specifically designed to attract investment, fuel economic growth and treat all citizens fairly.

Russia, for instance, enjoys the benefits of the 13 percent flat tax it adopted in 2001. The tax quickly yielded positive results. Revenue poured into government coffers as tax evasion and avoidance became much less profitable. Inflation-adjusted personal income tax revenue has more than doubled since the flat tax was implemented.

But Russia was simply learning from its neighbors. Estonia was the first, adopting a 26 percent flat rate in 1994. Latvia and Lithuania followed in the mid-1990s, with 25 percent and 33 percent rates, respectively. Serbia was next; in 2003 it went with a 14 percent rate. Last year, it was Slovakia (19 percent) and Ukraine (13 percent). This year it's been Romania (16 percent) and Georgia, which boasts the lowest rate -- 12 percent.

Estonia has been cutting its rate: It's at 24 percent and will drop to 20 percent before the end of the decade. Lithuania also has decided to make its flat tax more competitive; the rate will go from 33 to 24 percent.

The flat tax is not a silver bullet. But combined with other market reforms, it provides a significant economic boost. All three Baltic nations are enjoying strong growth, averaging over 5 percent per year. No wonder the "Baltic Tigers" became role models for the region. This growth is generating plenty of tax revenue, in part because tax evasion has been dramatically reduced. And the rich are paying the lion's share: In Estonia, for instance, the top 10 percent are paying 41 percent of the tax.

MORE:
The Tiny Tigers: Accepted into the European Union last year, the former eastern bloc countries are the latest to capitalize on globalization. Followed by Slovenia and Slovakia, the Baltic States have set a cracking pace with their radical economic reforms. Their fervor is alarming its old-school neighbors in the West. (Marion Kraske and Jan Puhl, 12/22/05, Der Spiegel)

In no other place in Europe are entrepreneurs and consumers as optimistic as in Poland. Last year the country boosted its export volume by nearly 12 percent. The World Bank recently upgraded the "emerging" Czech Republic into a "developed" nation. Former Deputy Prime Minister Martin Jahn forecasts: "There will be fewer and fewer investments where low-cost labor plays a central role." The subtext: We can be both low-wage and high-tech.

Even remote Lithuania, the poorest country in the EU along with Latvia, is planning its offensive: "The initial upswing was driven by booming exports; most recently, domestic demand is booming," the World Bank said of the Baltic republic.

Hungary and Slovenia have been ranked the top economies of all the countries in transition by the rating agency Dun & Bradstreet. Germany is Hungary's biggest foreign investor with about €10 billion. In addition to Audi and Deutsche Telekom, the country has attracted scores of automotive suppliers. Slovenia has sewn up the Balkans as an investment destination: Slovenian companies are thriving in the countries that emerged when multi- ethnic Yugoslavia fell apart. They speak the language; they understand the mentality.

Today, low wages are but one of many selling points in these countries. They have shed layers of bureaucracy, simplified their tax systems, invested in education, and overhauled their infrastructure. A bottomless resolve to make up for all the deprivations of the socialist regime is fueling these changes. The economic creed of eastern Europe is defined by a mood of new departure. "In the next 10 years, the gap between per capita incomes in the old and new EU member states will progressively close," forecasts Andreas Polkowski of the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA). "Some regions may even overtake us." [...]

Slovakia's meteoric rise began as late as 1998 with the fall of autocratic leader Vladimír Meciar. Since then, launching a company just takes a matter of days, the national pension system is being supplemented by capital funding, and unemployment benefits are accorded only to those who actively look for work and are willing to do part-time community service - until a real job materializes. But the heart of Slovakia's reforms is a flat tax rate.

Since January 1, 2004, a uniform rate of 19 percent has applied to income, corporate and value-added taxes. The driving force behind the reforms is Deputy Prime Minister and Treasury Secretary Ivan Miklos, who considers himself a trailblazer on the European reform stage.

When he talks about the major economies in the western half of the continent, sympathy and arrogance mingle. Of course, the 45-year-old says, large countries can institute reforms, too. But they only opt to do so "when they're at the point of no return."

The Latvians are equally self-confident. Their capital of Riga has seen a major makeover in the past few years. The once cold and remote Soviet satellite has become a modern city with Scandinavian chic. The buildings in its old quarters have been renovated; luxury limousines squeeze through their narrow lanes. Porsche can't even keep up with orders for Cayennes and 911s. At least that's the word at trendy cafes such as "Sarkans."

THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC ISN'T PLATO'S:

The Trouble With Hillary: How running for president, alas, makes her even less likable. (Kurt Andersen, New York Magazine)

Each time John McCain stoops to commit some purely, nakedly political act, like campaigning for George W. Bush’s reelection or giving his okay to the teaching of “intelligent design” in public schools, I cringe. There are so few national politicians wired to speak candidly, from the heart and the hip, that I have a soft spot for almost all of them—Bob Kerrey, sure, but also Bob Dole and Bill Weld, even nuts like Jesse Ventura. So when McCain behaves like a normal politician, it’s a disturbing departure from my Frank Capra script for him.

The same kind of gesture from Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, simply confirms what one thinks already, since the script for her (more Cukor, less Capra) is all about cool calculation and calibration in service to the main chance. She is, after all, the feminist who at age 35, seven years married, started calling herself Hillary Rodham Clinton in order to give her husband a better chance at winning back the governorship in old-fashioned Arkansas. So when she announced the other day that she was signing on as a co-sponsor of a new anti-flag-desecration bill—Look at me! I’m jerking right!—it seemed in character. It was one more fragment of evidence, unattractive but inevitable, that she is not really running for reelection to the Senate from New York.

Duh. But I still found it disheartening. Not because I imagine the Flag Protection Act poses any serious jeopardy to free speech. Rather, as an exemplary gesture by the presumptive 2008 nominee, it was a vivid small example of the routine, ritual dishonesty that infuses our political discourse so thoroughly.

MORAL MAJORITY:

In Poll, 54% Back Alito's Confirmation (Richard Morin, December 22, 2005, Washington Post )

A majority of Americans now support the confirmation of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court to fill the seat of retiring Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey found that 54 percent say the Senate should confirm Alito, while 28 percent say he should not be approved. That marks a modest increase in public support for Alito since November, when 49 percent said he should be confirmed and 29 percent said he should not. In both surveys, about one in five Americans said they did not know enough about the nominee to have an opinion.

Alito, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, is now about as popular as John G. Roberts Jr. was on the eve of his Senate confirmation hearings in September, the survey found.

IT ALWAYS WINS WITH THE VOTERS:

Petition vs. gay marriage advances: Number of signers breaks state record (Raphael Lewis, December 22, 2005, Boston Globe)

Backers of a constitutional ban on gay marriage in Massachusetts have shattered a 20-year-old record for the most certified signatures ever gathered in support of a proposed ballot question.

Secretary of State William F. Galvin this week certified the signatures of 123,356 registered voters, nearly twice as many as the number required to get on the ballot. [...]

The petition drew the signatures of Governor Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann; former House speaker Thomas M. Finneran, now the president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council; and former Boston mayor Raymond L. Flynn. If the petition receives the support of at least 25 percent of the Legislature in two successive sessions, it would appear on the ballot in November 2008.

MORAL CLIMATE CHANGE MATTERS MORE:

A Risk of Total Collapse (Dylan Evans, 22 December, 2005, Dylan.org.uk)

Is it possible that global civilization might collapse within our lifetime or that of our children? Until recently, such an idea was the preserve of lunatics and cults. In the past few years, however, an increasing number of intelligent and credible people have been warning that global collapse is a genuine possibility. And many of these are sober scientists, including Lord May, David King and Jared Diamond - people not usually given to exaggeration or drama. [...]

The collapse of modern civilization would entail the deaths of billions of people but not the end of the human race. A few Mayans survived by abandoning their cities and retreating into the jungle, where they continue to live to this day. In the same way, some would survive the end of the industrial age by reverting to a pre-industrial lifestyle.

MORE:
No to gay vows (Michael Harvey and Ben Packham, 23dec05, Herald Sun)

SIR Elton John and his gay partner might have said "I do", but John Howard says "I won't".

The Prime Minister yesterday ruled out following Britain's lead in officially allowing gay marriages.

Entertainer John and his long-time partner David Furnish were among 700 homosexual couples to marry, giving them similar legal rights as heterosexual couples.

However Mr Howard said he opposed gay unions and felt marriage could only exist between a man and woman.

THE DENIAL OF EVIL:

Immoral equivalence: Spielberg's not so subtle commentary about our post 9-11 world is the ultimate obscenity (Jonathan Tobin, Dec. 22, 2005, Jewish World Review)

It should be noted that the film has already come in for justified criticism for being primarily based on a book whose primary source was a fraud. Vengeance by George Jonas purported to tell the tale of a disillusioned Mossad agent, but it turned out the man was just a cab driver with an Israeli accent, and not an ex-spy. But even if we discount this, the film still fails its subject matter. That's because the goal here is not merely to wrongly argue that the battle against Palestinian terror is as criminal as anything the terrorists have done; its purpose is also to humanize the terrorists.

In a Time magazine story on his movie, Spielberg said the insertion of a fictional conversation between the leader of the Israeli team and a PLO operative was essential to his vision of the film. In it, the Arab speaks of his longing to recover his family's dignity and property that he claims they lost to Israel.

Without this and other elements that serve to break down the legitimacy of killing the men behind the attack on the Olympics, he says the film would not have been worth making. What Spielberg seems most proud of is the fact that those who seek to destroy Israel — and either slaughter or scatter its people — are not "demonized." They are, he insists, "individuals. They have families."

To which we can only reply, "So what?" You could say the same of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as the operatives of Hamas, and Fatah (from whom the members of "Black September" — a front for the PLO — came) who have cut down Jews in pizza parlors, bus stops and at Passover seders. And even go on and include the German villains of Spielberg's World War II films.

But the problem with this film isn't just an obsessive refusal to be judgmental about terrorism or the tedious speechifying that overwhelms the action. There's something even more insidious at play here.

The main character, the Israeli agent Avner (played by Eric Bana), doesn't just loose his marbles because of a mission whose efficacy might well be debated. Spielberg's Avner rejects not merely a policy but Israel itself, which he abandons for the apparently more humane confines of Brooklyn, N.Y.

THE LIFE YOU TAKE MAY BE YOUR OWN:

More convicts reoffend after release from jail (Richard Ford, 12/22/05, Times of London)

MORE criminals are returning to a life of crime within months of serving jail or community sentences than at any time since Labour came to power, figures released quietly yesterday show.

More than 60 per cent of young male thugs and muggers are convicted of another offence within two years of ending their sentence. Three quarters of young male burglars and thieves also reoffend, according to the Home Office figures placed unannounced on its departmental website.

A massive 90 per cent of offenders on the drug treatment and testing order, designed to tackle the link between drug use and prolific offending, go on to commit more crimes. The programme costs the Government £53 million annually. There is also a high dropout rate by offenders given the orders, which were introduced across England and Wales five years ago.

The figures are a severe blow to the Government, which is attempting to end the “revolving-door” syndrome, in which offenders are constantly in and out of jail.

CAN'T CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION BY STATUTE:

'Warrantless' searches not unprecedented (Charles Hurt, December 22, 2005, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

Previous administrations, as well as the court that oversees national security cases, agreed with President Bush's position that a president legally may authorize searches without warrants in pursuit of foreign intelligence.

"The Department of Justice believes -- and the case law supports -- that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the president may, as he has done, delegate this authority to the attorney general," Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick said in 1994 testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

That same authority, she added, pertains to electronic surveillance such as wiretaps.

More recently, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- the secretive judicial system that handles classified intelligence cases -- wrote in a declassified opinion that the court has long held "that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information." [...]

In a 2002 opinion about the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the USA Patriot Act, the court wrote: "We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."

NOT GELLIN':

In Berlin, a Cultural Wall Sets Turks Apart: In a Muslim enclave, many find their futures -- and identities -- are torn between countries. (Jeffrey Fleishman, December 22, 2005, LA Times)

The Gummi Bear marked the cultural divide between Annette Spieler and the inquisitive little girl.

The principal at the elementary school in the Wrangel neighborhood here, Spieler offers candy as rewards for good grades. One Muslim student asked whether Gummi Bears were made with gelatin, an ingredient often derived from pigs. Spieler had never encountered such a question, but upon checking, she discovered that they were.

"The girl refused it," Spieler said, sitting in her office the other day as stragglers from recess echoed through the hallway. "It was an indication of how the neighborhood has changed. When I came here in 1991, I didn't see as many head scarves as I see now, or as many immigrant women wrapped up all over. But now I see it everywhere. The Islamic religious life is strengthening and it's coming into the schools."

The 12-square-block neighborhood in west Berlin has long been a place where new arrivals to the city flock, struggling to establish themselves and then to escape the incessant hum of courtyard factories and the rattle of machine shops. Bordered by a canal and train tracks, colored with graffiti and scented with wood smoke, the neighborhood today is a glimpse of the immigration pressures that Germany and the rest of Europe face.

It is a microcosm of how a nation's half-hearted efforts at integration have instead created a troubled immigrant population with its own languages, codes and ethos — a separate world. [...]

"I saw my first Turk in 1962," said Harald Zugehoer, who was born in Wrangel in 1949. He moved to a country house south of Berlin years ago, but kept his metal shop in the neighborhood. "People who say integration will never work are right. Berliners are half-spiritual and half-atheist. They can't handle this dogmatic kind of Islam."

THE GHOST OF SENATOR CLELAND MUST NOT SPEAK:

New Life for Patriot Act Is No Bush Win: The Senate's six-month extension effectively kills a deal to make key provisions permanent. (Richard B. Schmitt and Mary Curtius, December 22, 2005, LA Times)

In a major setback for the White House on a top domestic priority, the Senate on Wednesday passed a six-month extension of the Patriot Act, due to expire Dec. 31, even though President Bush had demanded that most of the law become permanent.

THE SECOND FACE (via Mike Daley):

Religion in the Public Square: A Textbook Case (Joseph Knippenberg, 12/21/05, The American Enterprise)

One of the great debates in contemporary legal and political theory is how various participants in a liberal and pluralistic political order should make their arguments. One of the most prominent arguments, advanced by the late Harvard philosophy professor John Rawls and his followers, calls for everyone who wishes to participate in the public square to make use of “public reason,” articulating positions in such a way as in principle to be accessible to everyone. In other words, to be entitled to participate in the public debate, I have to be prepared to offer arguments that depend, not upon a revelation given “only” to me, but upon reasons that are intelligible to our “unaided reason” (I’m tempted to say “to the reason God gave us”). If I can’t offer such reasons, so the argument goes, if I rely upon a faith that I share only with my fellow churchgoers, then my position can’t be admitted into the debate. I’m not entitled to win the argument because, in effect, my victory would mean that an essentially and exclusively religious position would gain the force of law. If my voice is motivated by what some would call an “irrational animus,” it must be marginalized, lest I use it to oppress others. If I can’t in principle persuade by an appeal to reason, then I can’t be permitted to participate in the debate.

NEVER TRUST A FED MAN OVER 30:

If Inflation Falls in the Forest…: If we listened to the media, no one would have heard the biggest price decline in 56 years. (Noel Sheppard, Dec. 21, 2005, Free Market Project)

Ever since Hurricane Katrina made landfall in late August sending oil prices to $70 per barrel and gasoline above $3 a gallon, the media have been in a panic over a return of ’70s-style inflation. Such concerns reached a fevered-pitch in October when a gauge of consumer prices rose by the largest amount in 25 years. Yet, when the Labor Department released numbers last week showing that inflation had declined by the greatest percentage in 56 years, rather than using this data to ease the public’s concerns about rising prices, the press either downplayed the report or totally ignored it. [...]

America has been in a disinflationary cycle since the early ’80s, with a few very short-lived spurts of above-trend price rises since. Yet, the thought of a return to ’70s-style stagflation strikes fear into all who lived through it. As a result, the press have a solemn responsibility to report these figures to the public in as impartial and factual a manner as possible…or is that asking too much?

WAR?:

Presid