Martyrs or Fools?

Rich Lowry on the Plame Affair's MSM "victims".

Some Things You Might Not Know About Black History

At least not if you were educated in the American public school system or relied solely on MSM for your history.

Deroy Murdock has the goods:

January 26, 1922: The U.S. House adopted Rep. Leonidas Dyer's (R., Mo.) bill making lynching a federal crime. Filibustering Senate Democrats killed the measure.

May 17, 1954: As chief justice, former three-term governor Earl Warren (R., Calif.) led the U.S. Supreme Court's desegregation of government schools via the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. GOP President Dwight Eisenhower's Justice Department argued for Topeka, Kansas's black school children. Democrat John W. Davis, who lost a presidential bid to incumbent Republican Calvin Coolidge in 1924, defended "separate but equal" classrooms.

September 24, 1957: Eisenhower deployed the 82nd Airborne Division to desegregate Little Rock's government schools over the strenuous resistance of Governor Orval Faubus (D., Ark.).

May 6, 1960: Eisenhower signs the GOP's 1960 Civil Rights Act after it survived a five-day, five-hour filibuster by 18 Senate Democrats.

July 2, 1964: Democratic President Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act after former Klansman Robert Byrd's 14-hour filibuster and the votes of 22 other Senate Democrats (including Tennessee's Al Gore, Sr.) failed to scuttle the measure. Illinois Republican Everett Dirksen rallied 26 GOP senators and 44 Democrats to invoke cloture and allow the bill's passage. According to John Fonte in the January 9, 2003, National Review, 82 percent of Republicans so voted, versus only 66 percent of Democrats.

True, Senator Barry Goldwater (R., Ariz.) opposed this bill the very year he became the GOP's presidential standard-bearer. However, Goldwater supported the 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights Acts and called for integrating Arizona's National Guard two years before Truman desegregated the military. Goldwater feared the 1964 Act would limit freedom of association in the private sector, a controversial but principled libertarian objection rooted in the First Amendment rather than racial hatred.

And yes, that was the same Robert Byrd the MSM insists on calling "the conscience of the Senate."

It's a pretty sad thing that the Democratic Party successfully engaged in electoral sharecropping from the Johnson Administration on, and that people who very well knew better in the press maintained the fiction that the Left in this country was interested in doing anything more than exploit the legitimate racial grievances of an oppressed minority for the ongoing electoral power of their oppressors.

Abraham Lincoln and the men of the party he championed may not have a spotless record, but at least it's not the dark, evil litany Robert Byrd and his fellow Democrats boast of when the cameras aren't rolling.

Mothering: Blessing or Bother?

John Podhoretz has an article that's sure to get the better of the navel-gazing "me first-ers". Hint: parenting is selfless, tiring work.

Hat Tip: Between Two Worlds

60th Anniversary of Iwo Jima

Today is a landmark day---six decades since the Battle of Iwo Jima.



As an avid student of military history, I am often awed by the magnitude of what soldiers faced and accomplished. I frankly wonder if, faced with the same daunting challenges, I would have been able to accomplish what these men did.

I don't wonder when it comes to Iwo Jima---there's no way I would have had the steel in my blood that the Marines had throughout that bloody battle.

Might I Suggest Settling Matters in Thunderdome?

Nothing better than watching two liberals hate on each other, for once.

I particularly enjoyed this bit, from the woman who gets her talking points from the Democratic leadership and who claims the Republicans are big meanies:

My suggestion that your publishing it would be better (for you too) than my having to go outside somehow constitutes me blackmailing you is so outlandish that it underscores the question I've been asked repeatedly in recent days, and that does worry me, and should worry you: people are beginning to think that your illness may have affected your brain, your judgment, and your ability to do this job. The fact that you were not in Los Angeles all week hardly helps matters, nor does the fact that you don't return phone calls. You are making things worse for yourself.

I don't know what horrifies me more: that she accuses a man suffering from Parkinson's Disease with being mentally unstable (Parkinson's doesn't do anything of the sort), or that someone who is supposed to be a writer can't seem to write a simple, clear sentence. Subject. Verb. Object. Repeat.

(HT: The Corner).

BlogRoll: The Volokh Conspiracy

All right, I admit it: I goofed.

Eugene Volokh's one of my regular reads and I just plain forgot to include him in the BlogRoll to this point.

If you don't know why The Volokh Conspiracy's a must-read for bloggers, you simply haven't read it.

And with a heave, and a ho,
To the BlogRoll it will go!

There Ain't No Free Lunch: Union Blues

Why have unions declined?

The American Spectator has a simple answer:

What's that gag from one of Shakespeare's sonnets? The poet nods and says, "'Tis, true, 'tis true," about some wheeze or other, and then disagrees? I read John Carlisle's "Shrinking Union Labels" on our site last week and agreed with every bit of it. Yes, unions are out of touch with their workers' politics, and yes, they're corrupt, and yes, the union bosses don't really care what the workers want anymore, and all the rest.

But something far more dramatic than that caused private sector union membership to shrink from a third of the U.S. work force in the 1950s to about 12 percent today. The high-tech revolution caught unions flat-footed. They just plain got out-accelerated. I saw it happen. I worked through the whole thing.

Why did companies choose to invest in expensive equipment and training to reduce the amount of labor in their production processes? Because unions made the labor too expensive relative to the price of automation.

There ain't no free lunch, unless you're a union leader getting fat on dues pilfered from the rank-and-file.

BlogRoll: Beltway Buzz

I love NRO, the online community of National Review magazine. If Bill Buckley's aim was to stand athwart history and bid it "Stop!", NRO's taken a very futuristic path of accomplishing that goal.

In addition to The Corner and Jim Geraghty's TKS, I will now be reading Eric Pfeiffer's Beltway Buzz blog regularly.

Here's a sample which demonstrates why:

Reid Between The Lines
02/18 10:55 AM
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid paid a visit to Jim Lehrer and the “News Hour” on PBS last night. During their chat, Reid dropped a few interesting comments, including acknowledging that Social Security has been a “good program for Democrats.” Here’s the full quote:

Lehrer: “So you think the president is really motivated by a desire to get rid of Social Security?” Reid: “Well, I'm a great fan of public broadcasting. I listen to public radio every morning and try to watch you as much as I can. Last week on public radio, you had a couple of Republican operatives, one of which was Grover Norquist, talking about their effort to get rid of Social Security. It's been a successful program for the Democratic Party, and they're committed to getting rid of it.”

Now, this next comment is less revealing than it is desperate. There has been a fair share of grumbling about the president’s failure to place a specific Social Security plan on the table. But it’s not getting in the way of Reid’s strategy. Lehrer: “So you're going to do everything you can to keep the president's plan from being enacted into law?” Reid: “Oh, we certainly will.”

More Lehrer: “So you're going to define your job or define success in your job is in stopping the president from doing things rather than enacting things that you think should be enacted? Reid: “Of course, that's one of the things that I think is successful.”

So, when he’s not putting us to sleep, Reid’s asleep at the wheel of opposition party politics. Not that we’re craving success for Reid, but can’t he shoot higher than being a watered down Daschle?

And with a heave, and a ho, to the BlogRoll it will go!

26th Annual W.C. Handy Award Nominees Named

The Blues Foundation just released the list (my picks in italics):

2005 - 26th W.C. Handy Blues Awards

Acoustic Blues Album of the Year
Paul Oscher - "Alone With The Blues"
Billy Branch & Kenny Neal - "Double Take"
Corey Harris - "Mississippi To Mali"
Paul Rishell & Annie Raines - "Goin' Home"
Carey & Lurrie Bell - "Second Nature"


Acoustic Blues-Artist of the Year
Paul Oscher
Corey Harris
David "Honeyboy" Edwards
Paul Rishell & Annie Raines
Eric Bibb


Best New Artist Debut
Watermelon Slim - "Up Close & Personal"
John Lee Hooker, Jr. - "Blues With A Vengence"
Nora Jean Bruso - "Going Back To Mississippi"
Michael Powers - "Onyx Root"
The Bo-Keys - "The Royal Sessions"


Blues Album of the Year
W.C. Clark - "Deep In The Heart"
Mavis Staples - "Have A Little Faith"
The Holmes Brothers - "Simple Truths"
Guitar Shorty - "Watch Your Back"
Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers - "Keepin' It Real"


Blues Band of the Year
Little Charlie & The Nightcats
Smokin' Joe Kubek Band
Rod Piazza & The Mighty Flyers
Magic Slim & The Teardrops
Anson Funderburgh & The Rockets
The Holmes Brothers


Blues Entertainer of the Year
Bobby Rush
Kim Wilson
B.B. King
Pinetop Perkins
Solomon Burke


Blues Song of the Year
"Alone With The Blues" - WRITER Paul Oscher , Performed by Paul Oscher
"Have A Little Faith"- WRITER Jim Tullio and Jim Weider, Performed by Mavis Staples
"Run Myself Out Of Town"- WRITER Wendell Holmes, Performed by The Holmes Brothers
"Piecework Politicians" - WRITER James Harman, Performed by James Harman
"Nothin' Ever Hurt Me"- WRITER EG Kight, Performed by EG Kight


Comeback Blues Album of the Year
Big Joe Duskin - "Big Joe Jumps Again!"
Gary U.S. Bonds - "Back In 20"


Contemporary Blues Album of the Year
Charlie Musselwhite - "Sanctuary"
The Holmes Brothers - "Simple Truths"
Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters - "Now My Soul"
Guitar Shorty - "Watch Your Back"
Michael Powers - "Onyx Root"


Contemporary Blues-Female Artist of the Year
Janiva Magness
Marcia Ball
Shemekia Copeland
EG Kight
Deborah Coleman


Contemporary Blues-Male Artist of the Year
Kim Wilson
Chris Thomas King
Charlie Musselwhite
James Harman
Robert Randolph


Historical Blues Album of the Year
Hound Dog Taylor - "Release The Hound" (Alligator Records)
Charles Brown - "A Life In The Blues" (Rounder Records)
Muddy Waters - "Hard Again" (Epic/Legacy)
Johnny Winter - "Second Winter" (Columbia/Legacy)
Lucille Bogan - "Shave 'em Dry" (Columbia/Legacy)
Muddy Waters - "I'm Ready" (Epic/Legacy)


Instrumentalist-Bass
Bob Stroger
Willie Kent
Bill Stuve
Calvin "Fuzz" Jones
Mookie Brill
Sherman Holmes


Instrumentalist-Drums
Jimi Bott
Popsy Dixon
Sam Carr
Sam Lay
Willie "Big Eyes" Smith


Instrumentalist-Guitar
Ronnie Earl
Duke Robillard
Kirk Fletcher
Bob Margolin
Roy Rogers


Instrumentalist-Harmonica
Kim Wilson
Charlie Musselwhite
Rod Piazza
James Harman
Paul Oscher


Instrumentalist-Horns
Calvin Owens - Trumpet
Mark Kazanoff - Saxophone
Roomful of Blues Horns
Greg Piccolo - Saxophone
Sax Gordon - Saxophone


Instrumentalist-Keyboards
Henry Butler
Honey Piazza
Dave Maxwell
Marcia Ball
Jon Cleary


Instrumentalist-Other
Robert Randolph - Pedal Steel Guitar
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Fiddle
Sonny Rhodes - Lap Steel Guitar
Otis Taylor - Banjo
Andra Faye - Mandolin


Soul/Blues Album of the Year
Mavis Staples - "Have A Little Faith"
Bobby Rush - "Folk Funk"
W.C. Clark - "Deep In The Heart"
Tad Robinson - "Did You Ever Wonder?"
Charles Wilson - "If Heartaches Were Nickels"


Soul/Blues-Female Artist of the Year
Mavis Staples
Bettye LaVette
Etta James
Toni Lynn Washington
Barbara Lynn


Soul/Blues-Male Artist of the Year
Bobby Rush
Tad Robinson
Little Milton
Solomon Burke
W.C. Clark


Traditional Blues Album of the Year
James Cotton - "Baby Don't You Tear My Clothes"
Jody Williams - "You Left Me In The Dark"
Duke Robillard - "Blue Mood: The Songs Of T-Bone Walker"
Pinetop Perkins - "Ladies Man"
Sam Myers - "Coming From The Old School"


Traditional Blues-Female Artist of the Year
Jessie Mae Hemphill
Nora Jean Bruso
Ruth Brown
Koko Taylor
Maria Muldaur


Traditional Blues-Male Artist of the Year
Robert Lockwood Jr.
Jody Williams
Sam Myers
Hubert Sumlin
Pinetop Perkins

What's This? Dirty Tricks at the DNC?

Say it isn't so, Joe:

Former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe left a few surprises for incoming DNC chair Howie Dean. Perhaps the biggest was McAuliffe's decision to give to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) full access to the DNC's donor database known as "Demzilla."

McAuliffe didn't consult with Dean or any of Dean's advisers in giving the two congressional campaign committees access to the list. For years, the RNC has given its party's House and Senate campaign committees access to its version of the data base, but that's partly because both committees help finance the list and its upkeep. Neither Democratic committee will be paying the DNC a dime for what many on Capitol Hill consider a huge windfall to the DCCC and the DSCC.

Dean was not happy when he learned of McAuliffe's decision. "He was pissed," says a former Dean campaign staffer, now at the DNC. "Demzilla is one of the few tools the DNC had that it can leverage for fundraising. The money we raise would then be used to help support Democratic candidates and the party operations. Now everyone has the same list, the same data. The DNC has no chit to play."

According to a senior adviser to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, McAuliffe was approached about opening up Demzilla during a Democratic retreat after the November elections. New campaign committee chairmen Rep. Rahm Emanuel and Sen. Chuck Schumer, along with Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, lobbied McAuliffe for full access. "Each of them made the point that given Dean's background and the doubts Reid and Pelosi had about him, it would be most helpful to give them the same tools the DNC would have. This was a pure power play by Pelosi and Reid, nothing more, and a slap at Dean."

Dean had better watch his back. Not every Democrat is pleased with his ascension.

Reliable Sources: Jeff Gertz

There's a war on, you know, and information on global foreign policy and military doings is at a premium. Fortunately, Bill Gertz of The Washington Times is available.

Gertz is easily one of the best-connected and most knowledgeable resource for all things military.

Case in point, where else have you seen this?:

Moscow-Caracas axis

The Washington Times reported last week that the Bush administration secretly had protested to Russia its plan to sell Venezuela more than 100,000 AK-47 automatic rifles.

The story included an anonymous State Department official saying the fear is the weapons will be used to arm militias in Venezuela and left-wing rebels in South America.

The story had repercussions. The day it ran, the State Department put on the record to reporters its objections to the sale. Both Moscow and Caracas lashed out at the State Department. And then, the designer of the ubiquitous assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, spoke out. Interfax caught up with him this week in Abu Dhabi.

"We have been blamed and will be blamed for many things," Mr. Kalashnikov said. "We need to treat these accusations critically, as they are, as a rule, prompted by the Americans' desire to bar us from entering new markets."

He added, "I believe we need to continue to promote our Russian weapons on foreign markets, because they must safeguard peace and friendship between nations."

Gertz is the snopes.com of the Defense Department, and for that, he's one of MoltenThought's Reliable Sources.

Horeshoes, Hand Grenades, and Small Nuclear Weapons

Close enough for government work, I guess:

Britain's biggest nuclear site can't account for 30 kilograms of plutonium – enough to make seven or eight nuclear bombs.

But officials with the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority said Thursday that it's a measurement problem and the plutonium is not really missing.

Of course, the only way you could know for sure is to measure it in some more robust fashion, but why bother? Not like there's a bunch of Muslim fanatics trying to get their hands on nuclear material or anything.

I Would Have Expected This of the Lynchblogs

I am shocked---shocked!---that the MSM practice of "editing" didn't prevent this:

The Boston Herald was ordered Friday to pay $2.1 million for libeling a Superior Court judge in articles that portrayed him as lenient toward defendants and quoted him making insensitive comments about a 14-year-old rape victim.

In a case closely watched by the media and legal communities, a jury deliberated for more than 20 hours over five days before finding that the newspaper and reporter David Wedge were guilty of libeling Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy.

Murphy claimed Wedge misquoted him as telling lawyers involved in the case about the teenage rape victim: "Tell her to get over it."

Must have been competitive pressures. Yeah, that's it.

I'm Sick of Being Hassled by the Julii

You hear me, Rome? Your centuries of enslaving the Portuguese will not stand!

Judges: Better than the OC

I'm on a self-guided program to read the Bible in one year. I've done this before, but find that the text is more valuable the better one knows it. Right now (having been through the tedium of the Law) I am entering the time of the Judges in Old Testament Israel. In so doing, I've rediscovered some storylines which rival prime time.

If you know the Bible through the end of Joshua, you know that the Law has been handed down through Moses, he's died, Joshua is leading the people, they've finally stepped into the Promised Land, taken down Jericho (and just about anyone else who gets in their way), and have split the land up according to tribe. They're fat and happy and the last leader to witness the miracles of the Lord, Joshua, has just asked Israel to take an strict oath to follow God. They've agreed and even set up a stone in remembrance of their oath. Everything is going well until the second generation grows up. Apparently, their parents were too busy being serious about their God that they forgot to teach their children about Him. The result? A second generation who didn't know or follow God and instead got friendly with the surrounding nations and their gods instead:

Judges 3:1-11 --
1 These are the nations the LORD left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan 2 (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience): 3 the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath. 4 They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the LORD 's commands, which he had given their forefathers through Moses.
5 The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 6 They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
Othniel
7 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD ; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs. 8 The anger of the LORD burned against Israel so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim, to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years. 9 But when they cried out to the LORD , he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, who saved them. 10 The Spirit of the LORD came upon him, so that he became Israel's judge and went to war. The LORD gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered him.

11 So the land had peace for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz died.

Notice the incredible patience and grace of God. Make no mistake, Israel wasn't merely going astray, becoming lukewarm or apathetic, they were literally worshipping other gods. But still, when they cried out for help, God rescued them.

Judges 3:12-14 --
Ehud
12 Once again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD , and because they did this evil the LORD gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel. 13 Getting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him, Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the City of Palms. 14 The Israelites were subject to Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years.

Again, making their own choices not to follow the Lord and His decrees (which are sound and good and beneficial) they subjected themselves to the natural consequences of their choices. And God took His hands off, letting them reap the consequences of their evil. "Oh, you don't want to follow me? You think I'm too hard on you? Fine! Here -- live under this dictator. Is that better?"

Judges 3:15-25 --
15 Again the Israelites cried out to the LORD , and he gave them a deliverer-Ehud, a left-handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab.

16 Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a foot and a half long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. 17 He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man. 18 After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way the men who had carried it. 19 At the idols near Gilgal he himself turned back and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king."

The king said, "Quiet!" And all his attendants left him.
20 Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace and said, "I have a message from God for you." As the king rose from his seat, 21 Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly. 22 Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. 23 Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.

24 After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, "He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the house." 25 They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their Lord fallen to the floor, dead.

This reminds me of the scene in The Godfather II where young Vito Corleone finally vindicates the honor of his family by taking down the man who killed his father, mother and brothers. Who says the Bible is boring?

Judges 3:26-31 --
26 While they waited, Ehud got away. He passed by the idols and escaped to Seirah. 27 When he arrived there, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went down with him from the hills, with him leading them.
28 "Follow me," he ordered, "for the LORD has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands." So they followed him down and, taking possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab, they allowed no one to cross over. 29 At that time they struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong; not a man escaped. 30 That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years.
Shamgar
31 After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel.

So, recap: we've had a major coup, peace in the land for over eighty years and (apparently) a rekindling of Israel's love of their Lord. And then, as if they hadn't already learned their lesson:

Judges 4:1-3 --
1 After Ehud died, the Israelites once again did evil in the eyes of the LORD . 2 So the LORD sold them into the hands of Jabin, a king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth Haggoyim. 3 Because he had nine hundred iron chariots and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the LORD for help.

Okay, the Israelites are subject to... let's see... Jabin the king and his evil general Sisera...

*Sigh*

I don't know how the Lord felt about this one. Just as I can't imagine how He feels every time I ask forgiveness for the sins I commit. But I know in human terms, I would be pretty sick of helping these people out yet again for the SAME STINKING THING. Again, we are poised for God to deliver the people, we assume it's going to be a warrior or general. But wait! What's this?

Judges 4:4-7 --
4 Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time. 5 She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites came to her to have their disputes decided. 6 She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, "The LORD , the God of Israel, commands you: 'Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead the way to Mount Tabor. 7 I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.' "

I'm sorry, what? I thought only men were allowed to have any power in the Bible. Well, maybe in the New Testament where Jesus proclaimed us all equal and women were allowed to teach and heal, but in the Old Testament?! I wonder where the feminists stand on this one... Hmm... And notice the job description of a Judge of Israel: she was a settler of disputes and a prophetess, which gave her sway as a sort of informal commander. Oh, and by the way, she was a WIFE as well, though her husband is mentioned only in name. Wonder what he thought about her position?

Judges 4:8-11 --
8 Barak said to her, "If you go with me, I will go; but if you don't go with me, I won't go."
9 "Very well," Deborah said, "I will go with you. But because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours, for the LORD will hand Sisera over to a woman." So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh, 10 where he summoned Zebulun and Naphtali. Ten thousand men followed him, and Deborah also went with him.

This guy has so much regard for her power that he's scared to go to battle without her! But notice her reaction. She doesn't get up on a high horse and expound on the equal rights of women in combat. She rebukes him for his fear. His regard should be for God's power, not hers.
God has, in essence, offered him the chance to lead Israel in battle and become a leader in his own right. This is proper and fitting if we remember our Mosaic Law. Women and men are dependent upon each other, but they were both made for specific roles. Neither role negates the power or the importance of the other. We cannot exist without one other. Deborah warns Barak that his request upsets this balance and brings the men of Israel under the leadership of a woman. It makes the men (who are built and called to protect and fight) look like mamma's boys cowering beneath the kitchen table.

Judges 4:11-24 --
11 Now Heber the Kenite had left the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses' brother-in-law, and pitched his tent by the great tree in Zaanannim near Kedesh.
12 When they told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, 13 Sisera gathered together his nine hundred iron chariots and all the men with him, from Harosheth Haggoyim to the Kishon River.
14 Then Deborah said to Barak, "Go! This is the day the LORD has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the LORD gone ahead of you?" So Barak went down Mount Tabor, followed by ten thousand men. 15 At Barak's advance, the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled on foot. 16 But Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as Harosheth Haggoyim. All the troops of Sisera fell by the sword; not a man was left.
17 Sisera, however, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there were friendly relations between Jabin king of Hazor and the clan of Heber the Kenite.
18 Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, "Come, my Lord , come right in. Don't be afraid." So he entered her tent, and she put a covering over him.
19 "I'm thirsty," he said. "Please give me some water." She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.
20 "Stand in the doorway of the tent," he told her. "If someone comes by and asks you, 'Is anyone here?' say 'No.' "
21 But Jael, Heber's wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.
22 Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. "Come," she said, "I will show you the man you're looking for." So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple-dead.
23 On that day God subdued Jabin, the Canaanite king, before the Israelites. 24 And the hand of the Israelites grew stronger and stronger against Jabin, the Canaanite king, until they destroyed him.

Again, a man let his guard down and cowered in fear behind a woman. This time, a woman with strong and deadly intention. Again I ask: the Bible? Boring?

In Judges 5, we hear The Song of Deborah, a tradition of nearly every ancient oraliterate culture. If you've read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, you know this form. But what is noticeable, is how many tribes of Israel came to fight and how many didn't. Deborah alludes to the already weakening state of the nation of Israel which will lead to their eventual collapse and exile.

All The Votes They Can Steal

It's official---the Democrats court the criminal vote:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a possible White House candidate in 2008, joined 2004 nominee John Kerry and other Democrats Thursday in urging that Election Day be made a federal holiday to encourage voting.

She also pushed for legislation that would allow all ex-felons to vote.

So much for "moderate" Hillary.

Somebody Get Al Franken on the Phone, Stat!

Looks like warmed-over Bolshevism does not a good media company business model make.

Here's my 3-point plan to help PBS come back:

1. Refuse all government funding.
2. Spin off Children's Television Workshop into its own autonomous division, something like The History Channel is to A & E. It's a cash cow that should stand on its own two feet.
3. Sell PBS timeslots to any and all buyers, with the exception of pornography. This will make it truly "public"---an open forum for documentarians and talkers on a wider range of issues than anything out there today aside from the blogosphere.

No Habla Estupido

If the Bush Administration is so worried about al Qaeda infiltration through the Mexican border, why are they trying to make it more porous?

Intelligence that "strongly suggests" that Al Qaeda operatives have considered using the Mexican border as an entry point was cited in written testimony by Adm. James M. Loy, the deputy secretary of homeland security. But he wrote that there was "currently no conclusive evidence" that this had succeeded.

In the past, law enforcement officials have said Al Qaeda might try to use the Mexican border, but the testimony on Wednesday seemed to suggest increasing concern. In response to questions from the senators, Admiral Loy described it as a "very serious situation," while Robert S. Mueller, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, listed first among his current concerns what he said might already be "the threat from covert Al Qaeda operatives inside the United States."

"Finding them is the top priority for the F.B.I., but it is also one of the most difficult challenges," Mr. Mueller said. He said covert operatives could include "a true sleeper operative who has been in place for years," or someone who entered the country recently.

Isn't it time we became a lot more serious about controlling our borders?

With Bated Breath

If Michelle Malkin's truly waiting for Bret Stephens to call and get her side of the Easongate story, I hope she's lying down and hooked to a nutritional IV. The glaciers will bump Los Angeles again before that happens.

Should American Journalists Be Americans First?

Myrna Blyth has some thoughts on the sobering reality.

I think I know how Joe Galloway would answer that question, at least for himself.

Oh, Yeah? Well My Blogfather's An Astronaut...

Hugh Hewitt, Blogfather, tells the MSM he's willing to pit bloggers' credentials against journalists' credentials any day of the week.

No surprise that successful bloggers tend to be successful people as well.

Patriotism---The Little-Used Refuge of the Left

Guess who funded terrorist-toady Lynne Stewart's defense?

Peggy Noonan's Back on My Christmas Card List

After this:

"Salivating morons." "Scalp hunters." "Moon howlers." "Trophy hunters." "Sons of Sen. McCarthy." "Rabid." "Blogswarm." "These pseudo-journalist lynch mob people."

This is excellent invective. It must come from bloggers. But wait, it was the mainstream media and their maidservants in the elite journalism reviews, and they were talking about bloggers!

Those MSMers have gone wild, I tell you! The tendentious language, the low insults. It's the Wild Wild West out there. We may have to consider legislation.

She's just getting started. Read the whole thing.

Mystery Illness Stalks Returning Soldiers

This is disturbing.

She Oughtta Know

Alanis Morissette, semiretired silly person, becomes a semi-American:

The 30-year-old singer was among some 4,500 people who took the citizenship oath during a ceremony last week at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Morissette isn't turning her back on Canada — she's maintaining dual citizenship.

"I will never renounce my Canadian citizenship," Morissette said in a statement Wednesday. "I consider myself a Canadian-American.

"There was a turning point during the ceremony where I felt connected to this country in a way that I didn't quite expect," she said. "America has been really great to me and I have felt welcomed since the day I came here."

She surely doesn't live in my neighborhood. We don't tend to welcome her sort of people.

I thought America didn't allow dual citizenship. Technically, it looks like Alanis violated her Oath of Allegiance straight away:

The oath of allegiance is:

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

Isn't it ironic?

He Said, She Said: Evangelism

Word Girl and I occasionally debate spiritual matters. She is far more learned than I in such things, and despite this typically refrains from crushing me with scriptural references.

We have had recurring debates on a few matters. In this inaugural edition of "He Said, She Said", we'll be having a public debate over one of these: evangelism.

I'll get things rolling, since we're on her home turf. Word Girl will hopefully use the comments for her response, at which point I will respond, and so on.

I Am Not An Evangelist

I am not an evangelist. While my own faith is sound, I do not seek to convert anyone nor proselytize to anyone on the subject. Further, I hold that such efforts are almost invariably doomed to failure.

First, in the modern era there are precious few people who have not at least heard of Jesus Christ and what he means to Christians. This is in stark contrast to the state of affairs in the world when he was crucified. Then, a handful of people in a backwater part of a mighty Mediterranean empire were aware of what had transpired, and few of these had enough experience with Jesus to know the arc of his life and ministry.

Evangelism was absolutely essential to the survival of Christ's teachings in the first and second centuries A.D. The good news of Christ's death and resurrection needed to be propagated widely, and in an era of slow communications, this chiefly involved first word-of-mouth and then the publishing of written gospels.

If you were a member of an Inuit tribe at this time, there was no reason short of God Himself speaking to you for you to know of Christ's sacrifice. Thanks to continuing evangelism over the next few centuries, as well as the vast improvement of communications technology, I dare you to find me an Inuit now of sound mind who is ignorant of Christ's story.

I am therefore not an evangelist because evangelism is not necessary to communicate Christ's message.

Second, I would argue that faith is fundamentally a function of individual choice, all the way back to the Garden of Eden. God grants us free will, and that free will requires of us a willing choice to heed our Creator. If we are aware of God and of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our salvation, yet we choose not to believe this, it strikes me as a tragedy. It is also an individual tragedy, between the nonbeliever and God. No amount of evangelism will change the fact that one must willingly open their heart and soul to God. Faith is a retail, not wholesale affair.

Third, if one is not prepared to accept God and to acknowledge the path to Him represented by Jesus, evangelism will not change this fact. If one's faith is so tenuous as to require the weak buttressing provided by Man, it is no faith at all, I would hazard. Put more baldly, if you believe in God because peer pressure so compels you, it would likely be better if you did not profess to faith in God at all.

Fourth, evangelists themselves often evangelize to "win souls for God." At the hazard of establishing a strawman only to knock it down, let me say that while questionable motives may be commonly manifest among evangelicals (are you serving God or scoring points?), I believe this to be a minority of this community. For all I know, every evangelical is heeding the siren call of our Lord. Some, at least, seem to take more pride in counting than in counseling, and this gives me some pause. Moreover, I believe this type of "in-your-face" evangelism actually drives people from God. Nothing is quite so repulsive as someone who seems possessed of certainty when you are struggling with uncertainty.

Finally, I believe that the purpose of our free will is to allow us to struggle honestly with God, as one would wrestle with an angel. Evangelism strikes me as a bit of a copout. Roll with the consensus, do as you're told, join us. My own bent is more to attempt to wrestle directly with God, without intermediaries. Having someone push their own doctrines upon me strikes me as the easy way out, rather like painting by the numbers rather than confronting that blank canvas, dipping your brush into the glob on the pallet, and beginning to fill what had been empty whiteness with bold colors.

I reserve the right to be wrong, and the right to change my position if Word Girl can convince me otherwise.

Over to you, WG.

If You Ask Me, I Blame George Lucas

An Antidote to Eason Jordan

Joe Galloway with a moving tribute to a soldier he proudly called his friend:

All of America should join me in mourning the death Monday of Sgt. 1st Class David J. Salie. Sgt. Salie was killed on Valentine's Day on a mean street in the Iraqi city of Baqouba, and I'm grieving the loss of my friend along with his wife, Deanna, and their three children.

Read the whole thing. It brought tears to my eyes in a way David Gergen lamenting the loss of an empty-headed skirtchaser like Jordan never could.

Let's Do the Time Warp Again

It's just a jump to the left for the Democrats, according to Larry Kudlow.

The Democrats' "Tender Psychoanalysts"

Tim Graham isn't havin' none of that Jeff Gannon guff, no sir he isn't:

After that came Gannon #2, batty Sarah McClendon, once the classic poster girl for the loose credentialing process at the White House. Reporters laughed when Clinton went beyond the front row to pick her as she yelled to get his attention. Standing to show her snappy navy-blue beret, McClendon asked: "Sir, will you tell us why you think the people have been so mean to you? Is it a conspiracy? Is it a plan to treat you worse than they treated Abe Lincoln?" That allowed Clinton to make jokes. I don't remember the Columbia Journalism Review huffing that she "had to go" and her hard pass should be revoked.

Then, the seventh reporter called on, ABC's Sam Donaldson, finally asked about Broaddrick's charge of rape, which Clinton circumnavigated and declined to deny. Donaldson followed up: "Can you not simply deny it, sir?" Clinton insisted: "There's been a — a statement made by my — my attorney. He speaks for me, and I think he spoke quite clearly. Go ahead, Scott." Scott Pelley of CBS changed the subject back to Kosovo. Using the usual liberal complaint that a Gannon lets down the public when he fails to follow up on a tough question that has not been answered, Pelley and everyone after him failed that test on that day in 1999.

After Pelley came Gannon #3, John F. (for Fawning?) Harris of the Washington Post: "Sir, George Stephanopoulos has written a book that contain — contains some tough and fairly personal criticism of you. Earlier, Dick Morris had written a somewhat similar book. How much pain do these judgments by former aides cause you? And do you consider it a betrayal for people to write books on the history of your administration while you're still in office?" See how these reporters feel Clinton's pain? Tightening the press credentials won't solve the problem of long-established media outlets acting like tender psychoanalysts for liberal presidents.

When the Cavalry Is Tardy

I'd been wondering where Brent Bozell and the Media Research Center were through all the Eason Jordan mess. I wonder no more:

But then Jordan and CNN added to the outrage by refusing any attempts to release a transcript or videotape of the off-the-record panel discussion. What a spectacle: a news outlet always championing the public’s "right to know" and crusading for "full disclosure" clamping down like the stereotypical arrogant multinational corporation they like to expose. Richard Nixon, meet Eason Jordan. Does anyone believe that if President Bush (or Vice President Cheney or Secretary Rumsfeld or fill in the blank) claimed in an off-the-record forum overseas that Ted Kennedy was a murderer, that CNN wouldn’t be in the front of the line demanding that the administration release the videotape?

The controversy was deepened by the fact that Jordan already carried heavy baggage on this issue. He admitted to the world in 2003 that CNN kept a lid on news exposing the horror of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime to maintain its access to Iraq and preserve the lives of its staffers there. CNN plays the same shut-up-for-access-to-dictators game with its Havana bureau to this day.

Controversy was also deepened when bloggers like Ed Morrissey (at his blog "Captain’s Quarters") reported that this was not a one-time gaffe for Jordan. Morrissey said Jordan had also "accused the US military of torturing journalists (November 2004) and the Israeli military of deliberate assassinations (October 2002) at journalistic forums, all overseas and outside the reach of most American media."

These accusations are stop-the-presses huge. So why didn’t CNN ever produce some evidence for these charges and put them on the air? And if they weren’t true, why wasn’t this man fired long ago?

Wake Me Up Before He Go-Goes

There are three days in my life which I shall never forget---the day Ronald Reagan was shot, the day the space shuttle Challenger exploded, and the day Wham! broke up. Today is another dark day.

So When Will Mars First! Start Trashing NASA Rovers?

Big news, if it pans out:

A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.

The scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, told the group that they have submitted their findings to the journal Nature for publication in May, and their paper currently is being peer reviewed.

What Stoker and Lemke have found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth.

Porter Goss Ain't No Pushover

At least not judging from this CIA assessment of the China threat:

The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency has warned that China's military modernisation is tilting the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait and increasing the threat to US forces in the region.

Delivering the agency's annual assessment of worldwide threats on Wednesday, Porter Goss, a former Republican congressman who was named in September to head the CIA, dropped any mention of the co-operative elements of the US-China relationship that characterised recent CIA statements. Instead, he said China was making determined military and diplomatic efforts to “counter what it sees as US efforts to contain or encircle China”.

A most welcome development. The CIA should be realistic, not diplomatic or idealistic.

Arlen Specter Needs Your Prayers

Senator Specter and his family have received some very bad news:

United States Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) has announced that he has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, in a press release from his office Wednesday afternoon.

Here's hoping for a speedy and full recovery.

Replacement Kneecaps On Sale This Week At Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart takes a bold stand against labor unions.

The chief executive of WAL-MART on Friday will defended the retailer's decision to close a Canadian store after its employees voted to form a union.

"You can't take a store that is a struggling store anyway and add a bunch of people and a bunch of work rules that cause you to even be in worse shape," H. Lee Scott Jr. explains in an interview set for Friday editions of the WASHINGTON POST.

Scott says WAL-MART saw no upside to the higher labor costs and refused to cede ground to the union for the sake of being "altruistic."

The chief argument for unionizing is that the unions provide skilled tradesmen and enforce standards to achieve more productive labor---that's the whole crux of the "Look for the Union Label" ad campaign still fondly remembered from decades back.

The problem is that retail personnel aren't skilled tradesmen. Moreover, labor union leadership's socialist bent has meant that corporate leaders today would rather kill a business than have it infected with the cancer of labor unrest caused by unionization.

I've worked for unionized companies and non-unionized companies. I much, much prefer the latter, and relations throughout all levels of the company structure are simply better without the non-value-added labor of shop stewards and union lawyers constantly conspiring against the company leadership.

Good for Wal-Mart---in so many ways, a quintessential American company.

Update:

The American Spectator become Wal-Mart shoppers

Hillary Rodham Clinton Should Be Very Happy

After all, making abortion rare is one of her goals, isn't it?

Lent -- A Re-examination: Going Vegan

I'm an old pro at the hyped-up church service.

More Sundays than not when I sang in a 100-strong gospel choir, I belted so hard my head hurt. I'd been accused in the past (rightly) of wearing my big hoop earrings on purpose so that when my head got to lolling with the groove of the bass line, I could have more "attitude." (It was fun. I'm a white girl. What do you want?!) I've been in services where people prophesied, laid hands on the sick, prayed for the gift of speaking in tongues, shouted, danced, and hollered. We prayed and sang so hard one night that the power went out! (The windstorm had nothing to do with it.) And when it did, we kept right on singing. And all the instruments that weren't electric kept right on playing. It was pretty cool. And loud. And fervent... And white knuckled... And divisive... And ascetic... And I was taught that was the proper and most effective way to experience and communicate with God.

So when I finally made the difficult decision to leave that church I had to adjust. I didn't want the screaming and foaming anymore, but it was comfortable all the same. I was afraid that I couldn't know God without it. But if I didn't know God without the screaming and foaming then I didn't know God. Quietness crept into my life. And it was unsettling. I felt guilt grasping at me with accusing fingers, pulling on my heart to the point of pain. Then I remembered Elijah:

1 Kings 19:11-14 --
11 The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD , for the LORD is about to pass by."
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD , but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

I heard that Voice last Ash Wednesday. There was no trumpet, no fanfare; the choir entered the back of the church in total silence. Some hymns were sung and some words said, but mostly, there was silence. And when the ashes were crossed on my forehead, I was quietly instructed to "repent, and believe the Gospel." How simple. How beautiful. How effective.

The fasting on Ash Wednesday wasn't too hard. (If you read my previous post, you know why.) And so I entered the Lenten Season promising to eat as a vegan. Yes, I miss my coffee creamer, my yogurt, my ice cream, my cheese, etc. But with so many alternative products out there, it's not nearly the hardship it once was. I found some great Asian and Mediterranean inspired vegan products that taste like heaven (vegan "chicken" salad, vegan steamed dumplings, tofu dill spread, eggplant hummus, vegan "sushi", vegan scrambled "eggs"). And while most people I know don't like their food in quotes, I'm having few problems.

I've actually noticed that I'm feeling better. I know that sounds like hogwash to you committed carnivores in the crowd. In the first place, the diet is not for everyone. In the second place I'm a girl! I truly think we're wired differently. Most of the women I know are semi-vegetarian anyway. Not for ethical reasons or anything, our bodies just naturally gravitate more towards veggie foods than toward meat. We like it. It's cheap, easy, fast, tasty, fresh, light, easy on calories, good for you -- why not?! I personally have had so much energy, I'm driving myself crazy. I'm sleeping well at night, my focus is better, I don't have the 3 pm doldrums. (The gas is atrocious, but I've heard that wears off.) I've been feeling fabulous! Almost like this was not such a big deal. Until today.

Ladies, you know about once a month we need a chocolate IV drip; A pint of Ben and Jerry's; a hot and cheesy beef and lard burrito -- something! Yeah. So you feel me then.

Packed a salad this morning -- spring greens, almonds, chick peas, sliced carrots, sliced grape tomatoes, kalamata olives, herbs, lime juice. Didn't want that. WANTED solid food. But the stupid spring mix expires on the 13th. Gotta' use it! Can't WASTE food! Don't ever -- EVER -- eat spring mix past its expiration. Why? Because it tastes like the smell of a bitter lawn and leaf bag, that's why.

I live in a city that has more than one natural foods store. My regular grocery store even has a pretty hefty natural foods selection, lots of interesting produce off the beaten path, etc. BUT. The town I work in... Exhale. In the town I work in, were I to announce I was vegan, it would be tantamount to announcing I've an odd tropical disease. Everyone sort of moves away from you at the deli counter. Not the most welcoming place to find a package of Tofurky, 'kay? Not that this would help me now. I know I could go and buy a sweet potato or a banana and some natural peanut butter (Smuckers make a good one). But I don't WANT that. I want FOOD. Real food. Animal flesh. Barbecued animal flesh with sweet hot sauce, potato salad with mayonnaise, cornbread, OREO ICE CREAM!!!

But then I remember my promise. And His promise.

SO...

I'm here with the freshly cut grass that used to be lunch. And even after I picked out all the toppings I'm still hungry. Guess I'll make some hot chai and pray. Hard. Still doesn't ease my hunger or my cravings.

But He sweated and fasted in the desert for 40 days. And He sweated blood in Gethsemane so He could suffer for me some more.

I think I can wait for ice cream until Sunday.

Oh, Jacko. Jacko, Jacko, Jacko...

Seems as if another "flu bug" has the King of Pop out of action for jury selection. I have it on good sources that not only is he not sick, he's also pulled this gag before.

Jacko: We're not buying it this time. You're actually going to have to go to school today. Stop with the tummy ache already, 'kay?

Big Trouble at Black Rock

The CBS News fiasco isn't over:

But Mr. Howard’s complaint about Mr. Moonves’ remarks could pose a serious problem for CBS. Sources close to Mr. Howard said he believes that the report—which was assembled by an outside team of former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and former Associated Press head Louis Boccardi Jr.—contradicts Mr. Moonves’ statement about Mr. Howard’s share of the blame.

Mr. Howard also believes, those sources said, that the report itself excludes evidence that would implicate top management at CBS and restore Mr. Howard’s reputation in the television news business.

A senior official at CBS told NYTV that Mr. Howard’s claims had no basis in fact and that management had only acted on the findings of the report, which the company deemed thorough, accurate and independent.

Jay Goldberg, a civil litigator who has represented Donald Trump, said the idea of asking employees to resign "is really offered by the employer for protection for any breach of contract," as "an inducement to the employee to walk away with his tail between his legs and put him in a position so he cannot sue."

According to Mr. Goldberg, if a chief executive made public statements about employees that cannot be supported by facts—i.e., by the narrative of the Thornburgh report or, worse, other unreported material—it could open the company up to trouble.

"They were very foolish to go public with an attack on these people, because they lose their immunity to be sued for defamation," Mr. Goldberg said. "Whereas if they had put these very same things in court paper, they could not be sued."

Martin Garbus, a First Amendment lawyer, said that Mr. Moonves’ statement may well give Mr. Howard grounds for a defamation suit. "He has a claim," said Mr. Garbus. "Anything that they say bad about him, and that impugns his reputation in the business in which he’s in—basically, they’re saying that he’s incompetent. That’s not opinion, that’s specifically stating. One way in which you protect yourself from libel is that you always say ‘in my opinion.’ But [Mr. Moonves] didn’t say it. He’s saying, ‘The producer did this, the producer did that.’"

Not to mention Mary Mapes likely won't go quietly into this good night.

Rathergate---a gift that just keeps giving.

(Hat tip: Drudge)

Your Love's Like Feces and Ice Cream

...or it is if you love the United Nations, according to Mark Steyn:

It's a good basic axiom that if you take a quart of ice-cream and a quart of dog faeces and mix 'em together the result will taste more like the latter than the former. That's the problem with the UN. If you make the free nations and the thug states members of the same club, the danger isn't that they'll meet each other half-way but that the free world winds up going three-quarters, seven-eighths of the way. Thus the Oil-for-Fraud scandal: in the end, Saddam Hussein had a much shrewder understanding of the way the UN works than Bush and Blair did.

Read the whole thing.

Someone Even A Lawyer Could Loathe

Rachel Zabarkes Friedman doesn't much care for Lynne Stewart or her defenders:

It would be heartening, in fact, to see mainstream liberals condemn Stewart's actions — and her ilk — more forcefully. Distaste for or concern about the Bush administration shouldn't undermine the rational judgment that Stewart did something unacceptable, and should pay a price for it. There is also a larger danger to think about: that, as Kurlantzick warns, "the ideas propagated by the hard Left-Islamist alliance could also seep into the wider political culture, poisoning the mainstream Left and otherwise sane liberals." In that regard, the intellectual danger of not condemning Stewart may be even greater than the practical danger she posed by what she did.

Think Kos will have anything to say about this?

Of Course, It Will Only Be Used Against America

...or against killer rabbits.

The irony, of course, is rich:

The Navy will commission its newest nuclear-powered attack submarine Jimmy Carter on Saturday, Feb. 19, during an 11 a.m. EST ceremony at Naval Submarine Base New London, Groton, Conn.

The attack submarine Jimmy Carter honors the 39th president of the United States.

President Carter is the only U.S. president to have qualified in submarines. He has distinguished himself by a lifetime of public service, and has long ties to the Navy and the submarine force. Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946, served as a commissioned officer aboard submarines, and served as commander-in-chief from 1977 to 1981. Carter's statesmanship, philanthropy and sense of humanity earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner, a classmate of the president who served in the Carter administration as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, will deliver the ceremony's principal address. Rosalynn Carter is the sponsor for the ship named for her husband, with daughter Amy serving as matron of honor. In a time-honored Navy tradition, Rosalynn Carter will give the first order to "man our ship and bring her to life!"

It is fitting that the man who gutted the military will be honored by the man who gutted the CIA.

Keep a close eye on the poor sailors who form the mandatory crowd at this event if you want to learn the difference between a grimace and a smile.

Waitaminute! I Thought Journalists Were Above the Law

Man, is this the worst week for the MSM in a long time or what?

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling against two reporters who could go to jail for refusing to divulge their sources about the leak of an undercover CIA officer's name.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with prosecutors in their attempt to compel Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and The New York Times' Judith Miller to testify before a federal grand jury about their confidential sources.

"We agree with the District Court that there is no First Amendment privilege protecting the information sought," Judge David B. Sentelle said in the ruling, which was unanimous.

Every American citizen is expected to respond to a subpoena and to testify within the constraints of the Fifth Amendment. I'd personally welcome seeing a couple of these folks spend some time reporting on the quality of prison food, and I have no problem with Bob Novak being one of them if he refuses to testify as well.

Yet Another Difference Between Christian and Muslim Nations

Insult Islam, get a fatwa.

Insult Cat Stevens, pay the man---bigtime.

Whew, That's A Relief

We'll never have to worry about spam and viruses again!

Microsoft Corp. will release a new version of Internet Explorer, the world's most popular Internet browsing software, with new, built-in security features, Chairman Bill Gates said on Tuesday.

In a speech at a major security conference here, Gates said Internet Explorer 7.0, with new anti-spyware features, will be released for preliminary testing this summer.

The move comes three years after Microsoft, the world's biggest software company, launched a major initiative to improve the reliability and security of its software, which runs on about 90 percent of all personal computers.

Easomon

Numerous differing perspectives on Eason Jordan from the Right (since the MSM won't touch it).

First, the Washington Times responds to the recent Wall Street Journal editorial concering the Eason Jordan "kerfuffle." (Perhaps Word Girl can enlighten us as to what that means).

Then, Bob Dole's former press secretary declares the MSM's death knell. "Et tu, Blogger?"

Finally, Andrew McCarthy attempts to shed some light on the WSJ's odd editorial.

As for my take, the steaming goat entrails I just read point toward a continuing MSM meltdown.

And Speaking of Communists...

...there's Communist-cum-Islamofascist Lynne Steward. Andrew McCarthy lends some personal insights:

Don't get me wrong. I do despise what Lynne represents. To hear the media's "civil rights lawyer" tag monotonously attached to her name is Orwellian to the point of inducing dysentery. In America, we have an ingenious constitutional framework that promotes unprecedented economic and social freedom, not to mention nigh-uninhibited human creativity. It is rightfully the envy of the world. It is the fortress that safeguards all civil rights worthy of the name. And ... it is the system that Lynne Stewart, in her hallucinogenic adulation of bloody revolution for the sake of nothing more than revolution (and its attendant idol worship of monsters like Mao and Stalin and Castro and, of course, Abdel Rahman), would supplant. Thus, it's been impossible to read the fawning pro-Stewart coverage in the New York Times for the past two years and not wonder whether either the newspaper or Lynne understands that if the causes they promote ever actually achieved their ends, the very first thing the new regimes would do is shut down useful idiots like the New York Times and Lynne Stewart.

The best indication of the fallen state of one's honor is the ability to praise loathsome Lynne Stewart, as the New York Times and the rest of the MSM have done.

You lack any sense of honor if you fail to see why so many Americans have a visceral dislike for Lynne Stewart and Eason Jordan, two media darlings. An instinctive distaste for sedition and treason are the hallmarks of integrity.

Death of a Low Man

Terry Teachout has Arthur Miller's number.

One aspect of the rise of the blogosphere will hopefully be the elimination of the fetishistic cult of Communist worship in the U.S. Miller and his ilk played the victim card early and often, but there's no reason why Americans decades removed from leftist hysterics shouldn't call a spade a spade now.

Besides, the mere mention of Alger Hiss' name is enough to cause old Bolshies to throw a clot.

When Adults Run Foreign Policy

(Hat tip: Drudge)

Syria's on the hot seat:

The United States has recalled its ambassador to Syria amid rising tensions over the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon.

Before departing, U.S. Ambassador Margaret Scobey delivered a stern note, called a demarche in diplomatic parlance, to the Syrian government, said an official who discussed the situation only on grounds of anonymity.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, announcing the move, said it reflected the Bush administration's "profound outrage" over Hariri's assassination.

Can you imagine how weak John Kerry's response would have been?

Richard Holbrooke would have been cooling his heels in Assad's waiting room just like Warren Christopher did.

Ponch & John & Sahib and Mohammed

How do you tame the wild highways of Iraq?

With an Iraqi highway patrol, of course.

I Miss Johnny Carson More Than Ever

New White House Press Pass Application

Over at Brainster's.

Courtship Blogging

NRO interviews Dr. Neil Clark Warren, founder of eHarmony, the online matchmaking service:

NRO: As many happily married couples as you've helped get together, there's definitely a stigma when it comes to online matchmaking. Only losers would have to opt for paid cyberdating, some (many?) would say. How do you overcome that presumably huge obstacle?

Warren: I've heard this argument hundreds of times. I staked my own professional reputation on my belief that it is terribly wrong. Only the Internet allows a person to get into a large pool of candidates (which makes more and more precise choices possible). And only the Internet allows for the massive storing and accessing of huge amounts of data which can be used to help people determine their level of compatibility with others over all these dimensions.

The stigma of meeting on the Internet has diminished enormously over the last three or four years. My prediction: In five or ten years, there will be such an awareness of the massive challenge of finding someone with whom you have broad based compatibility that almost everyone will use the internet for this critical task.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I met the love of my life through eHarmony and am not in the least bit objective when it comes to this wonderful, Christian-friendly service.

I came to eHarmony after doing a bit of probabilistic thinking. It's not hard. Just choose four or five aspects of your perfect mate, figure out how prevalent each is in the population, than multiply the probabilities together. The result is the percent of the population possessing all of these traits.

For example, if you're interested in someone college-educated (20%), internet-savvy (20%), voted for Bush twice (50%), and attends church regularly (35%), you're going to be discarding 99.3% of the female population. Not quite a needle in the haystack, but you're going to be attending a lot of God-Bloggers for Bush rallies in order to improve these odds.

That's what Dr Warren has realized and built into a very successful business model.

Saudi Glasnost?

Peter Bergen seems to think so:

A couple of days after the conference ended, Riyadh was the first city to vote in the only nationwide elections that have been held since the modern Saudi kingdom was founded three quarters of a century ago. Neither the conference nor the election — which was for only half of the seats on Riyadh's municipal councils — was anything more than an incremental step along the road to an honest self-assessment about how al Qaeda was incubated within the kingdom, but both are indicative of a gradualist Saudi glasnost that may mark the beginnings of democratization and an enlarged civil society no longer amenable to the breeding of terrorists.

I think this will turn out to be as much of a sham as Gorbachev's glasnost, but if the end result is the same, count me for it.

Moyers Update

Hindrocket of Powerline puts Bill Moyers in his place.

If some of this sounds vaguely familiar, check out our fisking of Moyers.

But When Will She Drop Her Husband?

Anyone who is surprised by this hasn't been paying attention (Hat tip: Drudge):

A campaign convenience is no more.
According to The Washington Times, Teresa Heinz, the erstwhile Teresa Heinz Kerry, has stopped using the last name of her husband, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, last year's Democrat presidential nominee.

Preceding its Women Who Make a Difference Awards dinner next month, the National Council for Research on Women is featuring "a conversation with Teresa Heinz," according to a release from the organization. The council failed to mention the final half of the Fox Chapel ketchup heiress' formerly elongated last name in several other references.

"I just checked and she no longer uses her (entire) last name; only during the (presidential) campaign did she use Kerry," campaign spokeswoman Tamara Rodriguez Reichberg said.

Will 2008 see the return of Hillary Rodham, or will Hillary's political advisors be too smart for that?

Count Every Vote---Er, Democrat Vote

Gateway Pundit is making a huge blogroll bid with continuing coverage of election fraud. This time, a Democrat GOTV effort nets a conviction:

Big Vote was part of a national campaign -- promoted by Democrats -- to register more black voters and get them to vote in the November elections.

Montgomery is accused of hiring about 30 workers to do fraudulent voter-registration canvassing.

They were supposed to have canvassed black neighborhoods and recorded names of potential voters to be contacted later to vote in the Nov. 7 election. And they were paid by the number of cards they filled out.

Instead of knocking on doors, however, they sat down at a fast-food restaurant and wrote out names and information from an outdated voter list.

The charges stem from about 1,500 fraudulent voter registration cards that were turned in to the St. Louis Board of Elections on Feb. 7, 2001, the deadline for registering for the mayoral primary.

Board employees realized that there was a serious problem with some of the cards when they spotted the name of longtime alderman Albert “Red” Villa, who died in 1990.

Remember this whenever Sonorous John gets up and starts recycling urban legends about how the Democrat vote was "suppressed" in the cities.

Howard Kurtz: Fair and Balanced

...or reasonably so, in my estimation, based on this transcript from today's "Reliable Sources".

My major quibbles are Kurtz still not mentioning Eason Jordan making similar remarks regarding the U.S. military "targeting" journalists long before the Davos conference and his willingness to post outrageous hypotheticals concerning the dark nature of the blogosphere.

Still and all, I think he at least addressed the issues and had a decent representative for the anti-Jordan side of the blogosphere in Jeff Jarvis.

(HT: Instapundit)

Easongate Omerta in the MSM

Rathergate.com has an excellent, insightful, and probing wrapup of the Easongate affair:

It is odd, to say the least, that the mainstream media and its house organs stayed eerily mum on Jordan. Despite a unifying factor of liberal bias, news agencies are fiercely competitive for shrinking customer bases and advertising dollars and love to discredit a rival’s sloppy work – they immediately leaped on “Memogate” when it became blindingly obvious that not only did CBS air fraudulent information, but also apparently coordinated with the Kerry campaign.

Perhaps the mainstream press is fearful after CBS’ fall and did not want to again react to the blogosphere. Maybe they just did not want to give the blogosphere the satisfaction of ending yet another distinguished journalism career. Maybe their attitudes toward the military made the media fall for the same trap that CBS fell into with Bill Burkett’s memos and the Boston Globe fell into with its doctored pictures of U.S. troops raping Muslim women. After all, everyone knows that the military are a bunch of hairy-knuckled brutes (just look at the Abu Ghraib pictures), so what Jordan said is true, regardless of whether he has the evidence to support it, right?

But the media’s silence speaks volumes about their ulterior motives and their agenda. Jordan leveled a charge that, if true, would bring down the President, his Cabinet, and essentially the entire Republican Party. It would make Watergate look like the Scott Peterson trial. Silence. Two Congressmen, both liberal Democrats, expressed outrage at Jordan’s slandering of U.S. troops without evidence. The crickets could still be heard chirping in the newsrooms.

Now suppose for argument’s sake that Jordan was, say, a corporate executive who made controversial comments and refused to release a transcript of the event. The American public would never hear the end of it. The media would pull their hair and gnash their teeth over the veil of secrecy over corporate America and the lack of “transparency.”

But when the comments are from a media bigwig whose incorrect assumptions conveniently match the lockstep groupthink of many a newsroom, down comes the wall of silence.

This is a very interesting point. First, I think competition in the MSM is overrated. Most of the MSM recycles the exact same content from the New York Times, the font of their collective wisdom. Think of White House press briefings and how many times MSM reporters back each other up by asking slight variations of the same question, using their valuable question time to be part of the media herd. Think of the silence on undeniably great stories such as Juanita Broadrick's rape allegations against Bill Clinton, or on the Swift Vets' charges against Kerry. Truly competitive media outlets would have swarmed for interviews, at least to get something on air or in print. They held fire, awaiting the next Kitty Kelly anti-Bush screed or Dan Rather fabrication.

Second, I think the MSM circles the wagons collectively whenever actively threatened. The MSM view of talk radio, for example, is monolithically against. There's no revolving door between talk radio hosts and the MSM the way there is between the MSM and Democratic administration water-carriers. Sure, there's Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly on the radio, and Mara Liasson and Juan Williams on NPR, but I can't think of anyone beyond Fox News allowing such an easy transition. Likewise, I think the MSM view the blogosphere as a growing threat. Thus any story coming from blogs (or at least blogs which aren't wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party) are strictly verboten.

I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

The Air Force Needs To Aim Higher

Ralph Peters has an interesting take on the Air Force's performance in the Iraq War. I won't address his position here, just his recommendations:

A revitalized transport fleet: We rely on the workhorse C-130 for tactical lift, but the design is nearly a half-century old. The Army and Marines are told to make tomorrow’s combat vehicles fit into the C- 130’s tight hold. That’s backward. Nextgeneration combat vehicles will be so systemsrich that no amount of miniaturization will let them fit in a C-130. We need to design the fighting systems we need, then build planes to lift them.

This is very true, and a glaring weakness in the U.S. military's ability to quickly deploy globally. The Gulf War buildup took a solid six months to get everything in place, and the vast majority of those supplies arrived via ship, not aircraft.

The new C-17 is a good start, but the bottom line is the U.S. military could save a ton of money by getting rid of standing bases overseas (which frankly upset the locals, at least until we announce we're shutting them down). The problem is that the Air Force is run by fighter pilots (thanks, Tony McPeak) and transports are dead last on the list of aircraft fighter jocks would ever opt to fly. Given a choice between funding fighters or transports, we know where the money's going.

An affordable replacement for the great, but aging B-52 bomber: Those magnificent craft continue to outperform later, platinum-priced bombers, such as the Rube-Goldberg B-1 and the fragile B-2. We need a new, cost-efficient and robust bomber to replace B-52s nearly twice as old as their crews.

I'm not so sure about this one. The B-52 has been threatened with replacement many, many times over the years, but it remains a terrific weapons platform. Systems have been replaced many times over within the airframe, so what would be the advantages of modifying the airframe itself? Why mess with success?

A no-nonsense ground-attack aircraft to replace that splendid killing machine, the A-10. Ground-attack operations — especially in urban environments — are the wave of the future. The Air Force needs to stop dreaming of the missions it wants and face the missions we’ve got.

I love the Warthogs, and I think it's a sin that these wonderful aircraft the Soviets used to call "The Devil's Cross" fell victim to Army-Air Force squabbling in the budget battles. Let's face it---the A-10 has proven it's more survivable, more reliabile, and more lethal than any of the attack helicopters which were supposed to fill its close air support role on the battlefield. Why not just bring them back? Why mess with success, and another run in with the type of consensus-based mediocrity that almost invariably emerge from R&D efforts these days?

A multi-role-fighter fleet that rejects Cold-War-era designs and starts afresh. Billions already spent are no reason to waste billions more on yesterday’s concepts. Don’t throw good money after bad. Our Air Force needs fresh thinking, adequate funding and an increase in the numbers of airplanes we can launch. Instead, we get old thinking, massive waste and a shrinking fleet.

Here's the problem---you can't assume American air superiority.

Do you recall who had the best aircraft coming out of WWI?

Probably the Americans, perhaps the Brits.

There's no doubt about who had it when WWII broke out (the Germans and the Japanese), and the reason for this was largely because the respective defense departments of the United States and Great Britain refused to modernize their air forces in areas they felt they were ahead. Each incurred large losses until new designs could be fielded.

Is that a price we want to pay?

The Air Force hasn't done a bad job of planning ahead. The primary purpose of the F-22 is not bombing weak foes in the desert. It is first to outfight anything in the air, and then to employ precision bombing techniques to destroy hardened facilities well-protected by air defense. Facilities like the ones in which Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs reside.

Say what you will about the Air Force, but do you really think the Army can take out a rogue nation's nuclear weapons before they deploy them?

If I had my wish, I'd encourage the Air Force to get a lot more into space-based weapons systems, drones, and logistics. Given that will not be embraced by fighter pilots (the same folks who managed to convince NASA to put useless flight controls in space capsules), I doubt it will happen.

What If We Held An Election and EVERYBODY Came?

60% turnout in Iraqi elections.

Of course, for the MSM that won't quite be good enough. I'm still waiting for the member of the Hair Helmet Hamas bold enough to suggest that by applying these "higher standards" to the Iraqi elections retroactively to the U.S. that no U.S. government seated in recent memory has been legit as turnout has not exceeded 60% and in some voting districts turnout was abysmal.

In the Belly of the Beast

Patterico boldly goes where no man has gone before---into the heart of the L.A. Times to remind them that the Blogger's Code of Mistake Correction would serve the MSM well.

Perhaps not burying his comments in the Sunday edition might provide a bit more visibility, no?

Your Prayers Would Be Welcome...

...for Blogger First Class and Captain of the luxury blog Captain's Quarters' wonderful First Mate.

You're in our prayers, Ed.

Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, The Tooth Fairy, and Outsourcing

Among the great modern-day myths is the Outsourcing Boogeyman:

Concerns about outsourcing overseas as a source of job loss have been overstated in the media. A recent government report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that in only 2 percent of recent layoffs of 50 or more people was offshore outsourcing even a factor.

There is a right way and a wrong way to expand economic opportunity in individual states around the country. The wrong approach is to implement measures that would restrict trade, invite retaliation, or violate the U.S. Constitution. The right way is for legislators to adopt positive measures to create jobs, including lowering the tax, regulatory, and litigation burden on employers.

Anyone in an undergraduate economics class ought to be able ace their final exam with one phrase: "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

This is very, very easy to understand.

Labor remains a major component of the price of products and services. For most businesses, 80% or more of their operating budgets consist of personnel-related costs (salaries, benefits, etc). To significantly cut costs, particularly when your revenues are down (people aren't buying as much of your stuff), you almost always have to touch personnel.

This is an unpopular thing to do, both within and without the company. Nobody wants to do it, and managers go to considerable lengths to resist doing it.

One method for making this whole labor cost flexibility issue less painful is to not hire employees in the first place, but to outsource the labor. That makes life a lot easier for the company, as it can then flex labor in an area quickly and easily by placing new orders or placing fewer orders.

Since there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, the price they pay for this flexibility is the overhead necessary to monitor it, the markup from the company the labor is purchased from, and the political excoriation from the usual suspects who understand nothing at all about business or the economy.

Outsourcing has been a productivity engine for American business. We have a dwindling labor pool in the United States, dictated in part by demographics (the Baby Boomers are leaving the workforce, meaning we'll have a lot more jobs than workers in the future) and in part by the failure of American educational institutions to put out large numbers of highly-qualified workers.

There are a couple of ways to address this worker scarcity issue. Since there ain't no free lunch, there are downsides to each:

1. Import more workers. This is very tricky since the very labor we need most is the kind that will absolutely rankle the Left---high-tech, high-skill white collar labor. Universities in India, China, and Eastern Europe produce lots of these folks, very talented, very hardworking. You can hear the outcry now among the same folks who are all for uneducated agricultural labor to come in by the millions, so long as they know enough English to cast fraudulent ballots for the right party come election time.

2. Grow less. This is the option the Democratic Party actually pushes relentless, from their overblown inflation concern (inflation is a consequence of economic growth to a large extent) to their constant battle to establish protectionsit trade policies and tax wealth. Just about everything Democrats propose acts as a brake on economic growth. Less growth, less jobs, more dependency on government. Get it? The downsides of less growth are obvious, despite Ted Kennedy's "Free Lunch Here" sandwich board.

3. Outsource the things you don't do well to places where they can be done cheaply and well. The downside is that the economically ignorant will never forgive you for "shipping jobs overseas."

I've been involved with global sourcing for most of the past decade. The arguments against outsourcing are constant; it is the countries involved, the skills involved, and the ways to ignore the obvious benefits which are variable.

If you want to know how the U.S. emerged from the Clinton recession so quickly, outsourcing played a key role, along with tax policy.

Moreover, it's a gift that keeps on giving. By companies freeing up cash and labor to work on higher-value areas of its business, we get increased productivity, better products, and cheaper products.

I recently made several purchases and was simply amazed at the quality I could get for so low a cost, in large part because the products were themselves globally sourced. Your average Wal-Mart today has better stuff than you could get at pricy boutiques and catalogues a few short years ago. It's part of the reason why Wal-Mart is exploding. And why the Left is exploding, too.

Free markets work. Labor is a commodity, not a fetish. If you're worried about the impact of outsourcing, you need only keep an eye on unemployment and household income figures. If the Left were right, unemployment would be skyrocketing and household income falling. Good luck torturing stats to tell that story.

Totalitarian Gerrymandering: The Legacy of Yalta

When the final word on 20th Century history is written, some decades hence, Yalta will loom large as a monstrous evil. Arthur Herman reminds us of the day when millions were enslaved amidst smiles and good cheer, the Allies' Wannsee Conference.

Isn't It Nice To Have A Real Secretary of State Again?

Rich Lowry basks in the glow of a Renaissance at State:

A contradiction President Bush's critics have never confronted is that they spent the past four years lamenting the Bush administration's poor diplomacy at the same time they celebrated its top diplomat. They only turned on Powell when he took the administration's case against Saddam Hussein to the world with his February 2003 speech to the United Nations — never mind this is the sort of thing written in a secretary of State's job description (it wasn't Powell's fault that the prewar intelligence was so grievously flawed).

Rice was helped in Europe by having a wind at her back from Bush's reelection and the Jan. 30 vote in Iraq, and there will surely be difficult days ahead for her (can you say Pyongyang?). But her tenure, following directly on the heel's Powell's, will probably offer a tale of two secretaries of State.

Rice gets things Powell never did. For instance, that leaking to Bob Woodward and other Washington Post reporters is not the secretary of State's chief responsibility. Powell was so obviously the primary source for so many journalistic accounts of intra-administration fights that he often deserved a co-byline. Or that being known as a dissenter from administration policy only undermines your standing and your credibility as a spokesman for the United States.

Powell was the least-traveled secretary of State in 30 years, for a couple of reasons. One was that he wanted to stay home to be better able to engage in the vicious intramural fighting necessary to undermine the president's policy. The other was that he considered travel an inconvenience. That is understandable, even if Powell didn't have to deal, like the rest of us, with security lines and metal-detector wandings. But shouldn't it have been a sign he was better suited to be secretary of the interior?

Rice, in contrast, supports the president's policy and is loyal to him, so she has no need to hang around in Washington to indulge in bureaucratic backstabbing. She is also young and vigorous, a workout obsessive who could beat most other foreign ministers in the world in a 5k race and is up to the rigors of foreign travel.

I've said it before, I'll say it again---Colin Powell is the most overrated man in America.

Another Traitor on the Left

Finally, some justice in this world for the anti-American leftists who prefer the embrace of treason to that of their countrymen in the armed forces:

Lynne F. Stewart, an outspoken New York lawyer known for aggressively defending unpopular clients, was found guilty today of aiding terrorism by smuggling messages out of jail from a convicted Islamic terrorist she represented.

Ms. Stewart faces up to 20 years in prison for her conviction on five federal charges that included conspiracy, giving material support to terrorists and lying to the government involving her work with the client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Two co-defendants, Ahmed Abdel Sattar and Mohamed Yousry, were also convicted of all the charges against them in federal court in Manhattan.

Ms. Stewart, 65, who remains free on bail but who may not leave the state until her sentencing on July 15, said that she would appeal. "I will fight on. I'm not giving up," she told reporters. "I know I committed no crime. I know what I did was right."

"I see myself as a symbol of what people rail against when they say that civil liberties are eroded," she said, her voice breaking with emotion. "We don't live in the same America we lived in even three or four years ago.

"We will all wake up one morning to hear someone say guilty and be placed in jail," she said. "I hope this verdict will be a wake-up call to all the citizens of this great country that you can't lock up the lawyers. You can't tell the lawyers how to do their jobs."

Ms. Stewart's indictment in April 2002 was announced with great fanfare at a press conference in Washington by the attorney general at the time, John Ashcroft, and the case was one of the most important terrorism prosecutions handled by the Justice Department since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Ms. Stewart was convicted on two counts of conspiring to provide material aid to terrorists, by making the views and instructions of Mr. Abdel Rahman available to his followers in the Islamic Group, a militant organization in Egypt with a history of terrorist violence. She was also convicted on three counts of perjury and defrauding the government for knowingly flouting federal prison rules that barred Mr. Abdel Rahman, a blind Islamic cleric from Egypt, from communicating with anyone outside his federal prison except for his lawyers and a wife.

Ms. Stewart's troubles arose from her work over a decade to defend Sheik Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in American prison for inspiring a thwarted 1993 plot to bomb the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and other New York landmarks.

After Mr. Abdel Rahman was sentenced to life in prison in 1996, his followers in the Islamic Group, a militant organization that had taken responsibility for bloody attacks in Egypt, issued a series of threats against the United States that included demands for his release. Federal prosecutors decided to impose severe rules, known as Special Administrative Measures, which barred the sheik, who was already held in solitary confinement, from speaking with anyone outside prison but his lawyers and one wife.

Ms. Stewart repeatedly signed documents in which she agreed to uphold the rules and said she would not "use my meetings" with the sheik to pass messages to anyone else, "including, but not limited to, the media."

Ms. Stewart brought a letter containing messages from Islamic Group members to meetings with the sheik in the federal prison in Rochester, Minn., on May 19 and 20, 2000. With Mr. Yousry translating, she received a statement from the sheik. On June 14, after much debate within the sheik's legal team, which included Ramsey Clark, a former United States attorney general, Ms. Stewart called a Reuters reporter in Cairo and read him Mr. Abdel Rahman's statement.

In his message, the sheik said he was withdrawing his support for - though not canceling - a cease-fire that the Islamic Group had observed for three years in Egypt. He called on his followers to reconsider the truce.

Let's be real clear in this: Lynne Stewart knowingly aided and abetted the operations of a terrorist organization. The man she "defended" wasn't cranking out pamphlets or making speeches. He plotted massive acts of terrorism targeting Ms. Stewart's fellow Americans.

Lynne Stewart is a traitor. Anyone seeking to defend her disgraceful actions ought to consider with whom they're associating, something Stewart seems most meticulously to have done in seeking out the most murderous, vile thugs on the planet for her own practice.

For these reasons, and more, the New York Post dubbed her "Terror's Handmaiden".


John Podhoretz has more background, including an interesting tie-in to a Democratic bigwig recently in the news:

And all this, by the way, despite the fact that Stewart had openly revealed herself to be an intellectual monster long before she decided to cross the line and become an active player in extremist terrorism.

She once defended a cop-killing client named Richard Williams — a radical who set bombs off all over the place in the 1980s in a self-proclaimed war on capitalism — from the charge of being a "terrorist" because that word was used by authorities to describe "anyone who is an anti-imperialist or believes in the common good."

She did not defend Williams or the Weathermen involved in the 1981 Brinks holdup or the Bronx cop-killer Larry Davis because she believed everybody is entitled to the best defense. She did so because she believed that their criminal acts were in fact acts of rebellion against an unjust and evil United States.

The people killed and injured in pursuit of revolutionary goals deserved it, she said. "I don't believe in anarchistic violence but in directed violence," she once said. "That would be violence directed at the institutions which perpetuate capitalism, racism and sexism, and at the people who are the appointed guardians of those institutions, and accompanied by popular support."

Stewart's conviction is a powerful reminder of an important strain on the far Left in this country and elsewhere — a set of beliefs that cast the United States as the Great Satan and lionizes anyone who declares himself America's enemy.

Guess who introduced Lynne Stewart to the client who would eventually become her terror master? None other than Ramsey Clark, the one-time attorney general of the United States who is now serving as a lawyer for Saddam Hussein.

I sure hope somebody's taping those jailhouse conversations.

Mark my words: the Democratic Party will NEVER return to national party status until it ends its affiliation with traitors like Lynne Stewart.

For homework, please seek out as many denunciations of Lynne Stewart's treason in the MSM and left-wing blogs you can find.

It shouldn't take too long---there won't be any.

European Statesmanship in Tatters

If there's anyone in punditry who is more insightful on a routine basis than Charles Krauthammer, I haven't read or heard them. His Time piece on the Iraqi election aftermath is a case in point:

Some U.S. allies have not lifted a finger to help bring about this new day in Iraq. They have justified their passivity by saying they opposed the war, and that opposition they in turn justify as grounded in concern for the sovereignty, safety and dignity of the Iraqi people.

Well, the sovereignty, safety and dignity of the Iraqi people are now at stake. So where are the allies? The inaction of the other Arab states—following their obstructionism in calling for a postponement of the elections—has exposed that concern about the welfare of Iraqis as fraudulent. Their concern turns out to be their own narrow, often dynastic interests. Those Arab states are ruled by monarchs and dictators who are practically all Sunni. Iraq is about 60% Shi'ite. A democratic Iraq would inevitably become the Arab world's first Shi'ite-dominated state—a prospect from which the Arab leaders recoil for reasons of bias or fear. They also recoil from any demonstration of the possibility—indeed, the popularity—of free elections. Aside from the occasional harmless municipal election, those Arab states have either no elections or ones with only the great man on the ballot.

Expect nothing from those Arab leaders. But what about the Europeans? They too were surprised by Iraqis' celebrating on election day. Their first instinct, like Kerry's, is to downplay. Hence the questioning of the legitimacy of the election on the grounds of inadequate Sunni participation. That concern for full participation in an Arab election is as touching as it is novel. Europeans have never had trouble recognizing the legitimacy of regimes in Cairo, Riyadh and Damascus, where there is no participation by anyone. Indeed, many Europeans championed the inviolability of Saddam Hussein's regime, under which election participation was routinely 100%—at the point of a gun.

Whither Europe?

The socialist bureaucracies of Old Europe are headed for the ashheap of history, their bogus economic models based on the twin pillars of laziness and fecklessness will continue to erode their standards of living and ability to compete in the marketplace. Moreover, they will soon need to pay for their own defense, as the hated Americans shift forces to Easter Europe, the Middle East, and Asia and out of Western Europe.

The European Union is a rotten husk of an institution. As soon as the French and Germans figure out that they will not be able to utterly dominate it through their Brussels Bureaucrat Brigade, it will collapse. The British won't join, and so long as the pound sterling remains an economic force for stability and sound policy in Europe, the Euro won't achieve cachet beyond its initial bubble value.

Economic policy? Most of Europe is a basket case.

Military policy? Aside from Britain, the Europeans have none.

Social policy? Milk the system for all its worth, and don't let too many brown people in to depress wages.

Europe is utterly irrelevant. The U.S. should go it alone in Iraq with regards to Western Europe, and forge stronger alliances with Eastern Europeans, Brits, Australians, Iraqis, Turks, Israelis, and the Japanese.

We should only consider the assistance of French and Germans when the catering is lacking.

Pay Your Dues And Still Lose

Unions are on the decline:

These figures show that only 12.5 percent of workers, including both the private sector and government, were enrolled in unions in 2004, down from 12.9 percent in 2003. For the private sector alone the number declined from 8.2 percent to 7.9 percent. This represents a dramatic drop from labor's peak in 1956, when 35 percent of private-sector workers belonged to unions.

This is good news, in my estimation.

The original purpose of labor unions was to provide skilled labor to the marketplace in return for more reasonable labor standards. That purpose has long since passed, with OSHA and other federal programs and state-based right-to-work programs firmly established to govern labor relations and a variety of competing mechanisms in place to provide vocational skills to the blue-collar work force.

What have unions done to compete in the modern workforce?

They've enforced compulsory dues, then spent that money (along with what they've raided in the pension plans for their members) buying politicians and hiring staff lawyers.

My father was a bricklayer for 42 years. Like most bricklayers, he belonged to a union. And, like most bricklayers, he augmented his union work with non-union work and side jobs, a necessity since the union jobs alone would not allow him to support a family of seven.

At the end of his long service, my father received a small pension (a bit less than Social Security, despite having faithfully paid in for more than four decades) and won in a raffle a bottle of wine (he hadn't drunk alcohol in twenty-five years).

I vividly remember those times when my father brought me along to visit the union hall. The place was beautiful---hard woods and glass everywhere. The people who worked there wore suits and had very shiny shoes. My father wore worn jeans and a flannel shirt. The union staff had soft, well-manicured hands, whereas my father's were gnarled, rough, and invariably gritty due to mortar drying in the cracks of his skin. His back was perpetually stooped, unlike the ramrod-straight backs of the union folks.

Impressions last a lifetime, and I will never forget the clean-cut parasites swimming happily in the sweat of my father's brow.

Unions represent nothing more than another regressive tax the elite place upon a man's labor. The leadership aggregates power and wealth for its own sake, while patronizingly telling the membership it's for theirs.

Let's say I'm wrong.

There are a couple of quick things unions could do to prove me so:

1. Make the books public and hire an outside accounting firm to audit them annually (most companies already do this).

2. End compulsory membership and dues---if union benefits are so obvious, workers will line up to invest in them.

3. End the practice of using union dues for political contributions. Replace this unfair practice with voluntary fundraising.

4. Require at least 20% of total payable hours of union leadership to come from physically working on the job. Further require union leaders from the shop steward level up to maintain any and all certifications in job competencies as verified by outside auditors.

The federal government should immediately require all of the above of government unions. When the workers strike, fire any who refuse to return to work (talk about reinventing government).

Unions are a major barrier to the increasing levels of worker productivity America needs to transition baby boomers out of the workplace.

Times change, why don't labor unions?

Portrait of a Warrior

To his liberal blogger critics, he is a dangerous, cold-blooded "psychopath" who derives pleasure from sterile acts of killing. As such, he should be fired or demoted and stripped of his command. To the conservative talk radio crowd, he is the reincarnation of the late, great Gen. George S. Patton Jr., a ruthless "fighting machine" determined to wreak havoc and destruction on that thorn in our side called Iraq. As such, the United States should put him in charge and finally end this war once and for all.

But both the left and the right are wrong about Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis. He is neither the Jack Nicholson caricature of a Marine depicted in the 1992 movie A Few Good Men nor the callous and mad eccentric depicted by George C. Scott in the 1970 movie Patton.

Instead, Gen. Mattis is a remarkably learned and thoughtful man who adheres to the old-fashioned Christian, chivalric warrior code. As such, he confounds modern-day screamers on both the left and the right for whom the warrior code is unintelligible. I know because I had the privilege of serving under Gen. Mattis as a Marine in Iraq.

John R. Guardiano has a fascinating profile of the man behind the controversy in The American Spectator Online (which if you're not checking out daily, you're missing out).

One fact which always struck me during the years of my military service were how few people in the media, in government, and in America's cities seemed to "get" the military. The dirty little secret of the armed forces today is how few families send their children off to serve their country---indeed, for most of the fine people I knew in the service, their families had a long tradition of soldiering.

Guardiano's piece will hopefully help those who see the military through the cloudy lenses of bias and mythology today to see more clearly tomorrow.