Lower Than Low

For a guy who's on vacation, heading for a cruise, Hugh Hewitt sure manages to blog! He's got a link to a Drudge report on the New York Times. If Drudge's story proves true, The Times is launching an investigation into the adoption records of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' two children.

There aren't words that are strong enough to convey how completely vile this is. Professor Bainbridge comes close, though:

Slimy Slimeballs

I find the NY Times' reported effort to dig into the adoption records of SCOTUS nominee John Roberts' children totally despicable. It's just another example of how the MSM's overweening belief that they are the untouchable masters of the universe blinds them to the privacy-invading low-life scum that they in fact are. Putting yourself forward as a prospective public servant should not mean abandoning all privacy rights, especially when it comes to your children. Some things simply ought to be off-limits.

I knew the NY Times was partisan. It's hard not to know. But now they've revealed themselves as a rabid attack dog. If no story shows up in the NY Times, it will be because there isn't even a hint of a possibility of a story that could be used against Roberts, and through him against Bush.

Sick, disgusting, despicable slimeballs.

John Roberts Answers Questions

Powerline has a link to this article in the New York Times about John Roberts' nomination progress. He has answered some of the questions asked of him by Senators.

Here are the links to the text of Roberts' answers (pdf format): Part I, Part II.

For the most part, the article looks like straight reporting, with little overt bias. One statement can be seen as slanted: "In [his response], the nominee seeks to cast himself as a proponent of judicial restraint, a quality prized by senators at a time when conservative critics of the judiciary are bemoaning activist judges."

Powerline takes issue with this NY Times mention of judicial restraint coupled with their neglect of "the second, longer part of Roberts' answer where he defended judicial action that "check[s] the Legislature or Executive" against the "judicial activism" charge."

Another interesting point about the NY Times coverage of the Roberts response is that the article points out--twice--what Roberts' financial status is, going into detail about his stock and mutual fund holdings, as well as his home's mortgage and property value. It seems to scream, "This guy is rich, and his stocks make him an evil tool of corporate America!"

Get a grip, NY Times. It didn't bother you that John Kerry and John Edwards were rich. If his wealth and support of judicial restraint are all you can find against Roberts, then there's really no problem, is there?

New Clipping Service for Supreme Court Nominees

Hugh Hewitt today has the following succint post:

Patrick Ruffini launches SCOTUS wire.

Here's how Ruffini describes the website:

SCOTUS Wire is an automated clipping service for the first blogged Supreme Court nomination in history. It aims to gather every news story and blog post on Judge John Roberts and lets you decide what's important.

If you're following the John Roberts nomination (and presumably any future nominations), this is the place to go. He lists and links all new blog posts and MSM articles that touch on the nomination, and specifies whether the source is a Blog or the MSM.

If you scroll down the list, it's no surprise to see the MSM slant to the left on some of the links. Here are a few:

A judicial think tank - or a plot? - Christian Science Monitor

Lame Duck Bush Has Swagger, Not Waddle - News Channel 6 New Orleans

Roberts too extreme - Westminster Community Times

Meanwhile, the blogs are all over the place. A few of those:

Is John Roberts a Republican Party Socialist? - To The People

The Myth of Neutrality:Part 2 - Imago Dei

Privacy Schmivacy - The Grizz Gazette

Keep an eye on SCOTUS Wire for all the latest. It's going to be fun!

Catching Up on Culture

Cohabitation and Divorce

I've been saving some articles for a while, and it's time to get to them. The first one is hard to tell when it was originally published, because when I went to the article in the The Olympian Online, it put today's date all over it, and I've been saving the url for at least a couple weeks. Oh well.

The headline says, "More cohabitation lowers divorce rate," with a subhead of, "Marriage rate also declines." Here's the link.

My problem with this is that the headline makes it sound as though the higher rate of cohabitation leads to more stable marriages, thus reducing the divorce rate. But that's not what the study found. The blame for this extremely misleading headline lies with The Olympian, a news organization in Olympia, Washington, one of the liberal regions of the country.

In fact, the study found that "couples who get married are more committed to each other than those who live together without marriage." The headline's reference to declining divorce rates is due to divorces dropping from a peak of 22 per 1,000 in 1980 to 18 per 1,000 in 2004. This has no relation to cohabitation, as seen in this explanation:

Report authors David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead said they are glad the divorce rate is on the decline, but they worry about the children of couples who are living together without marrying.

"The breakup rate of cohabiting couples is considerably higher" than that of married couples, Popenoe said. "As more and more cohabiting couples have children, that becomes more of a problem."

For the sake of our children, let's hope the divorce rate keeps declining and that cohabitation starts doing the same.

Cloning Research

The researchers who brought us Dolly the Sheep are in a quandry, and they'd like your help. According to an article in The Guardian:

Professor Ian Wilmut, creator of Dolly the sheep, is to seek permission from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to ask women to donate eggs for cloning experiments designed to shed light on the debilitating condition motor neurone disease.

Until now, cloning experts in Britain have justified their work by using only spare eggs left over from couples undergoing treatment at fertility clinics. The eggs are typically rejects of the IVF process and are routinely discarded if not used in experiments.

Kinda reminds me of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's latest pronouncement on embryonic stem cell research, that it's OK since the embryos will be discarded anyway.

The problem comes when they run out of to-be-discarded embryos, or when those embryos aren't the high quality needed for the research, which is the case for Dolly's creator, Prof. Ian Wilmut.

In an interview with the Guardian, Prof Wilmut, who was awarded a cloning licence in February, said: "I have never doubted that women would donate if they thought we were helping people to have treatment. Our hope and belief is that women who have seen the devastating effect of this disease will be prepared to make such a donation."

I saw this coming when California passed the bond measure approving $3 billion for embryonic stem cell research. The creation of embryos--whether that's for stem cell research or for research in fighting a particular disease--requires eggs. And the only current source for human eggs is human women of childbearing age.

Who will donate eggs? Possibly my friend who never ever wants to have kids. Most likely, the donors will be women who need the money that would need to be paid in order to get donated eggs. And this will become an exploitation of poor women.

The other source of eggs is still in the speculation stage. At the website for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, there is a discussion of the possible use of aborted female fetuses as a supply of eggs for reproductive treatment for women without ovary function. But this source could also be used for research.

Some researchers have suggested that fetuses eventually might be used as a source for oocytes in oocyte donation programs (1,2). One variant is to remove oocytes from the ovaries of aborted fetuses, mature them in vitro, and use them as donor oocytes for couples who need eggs as part of their IVF effort. A second variant is to remove ovaries from aborted fetuses and transplant them in women who lack ovarian function so the transplanted tissue eventually will contribute to the woman's normal reproductive cycle. Although at present the use of fetal oocytes for conception is hypothetical and speculative, its endorsement by some researchers and its critique by government-sponsored commissions make timely a discussion of its ethical dimensions (3,4).

This raises the ethical question of turning abortion into a "manufacturer" of research materials, which increases the financial incentive for abortion providers to promote abortions, even when it's not in the best interest of the pregnant woman.

No matter how you look at it, the call for more eggs and embryos is an open invitation to start (or continue) the exploitation of vulnerable young women. This is not the direction Western civilization should be going.

Britain Goes PC on Terror

Just when it looks like Britain has everything on the ball (arresting terror suspects, talking a hard line), they go and drop it.

WorldNetDaily reports on the new guidelines that Bedfordshire police are to follow when entering Muslim households. A Bedfordshire Police spokesman said, "We would like to reassure all communities that any current or perceived tensions, which might be heightened as a result of recent events, will not affect how police deal with Muslims or anyone else."

Some of the guidelines:

• Rapid entry needs to be the last resort and raids into Muslim houses are discouraged for a number of religious dignity reasons.
• Police should seek to avoid looking at unclad Muslim women and allow them an opportunity to dress and cover their heads.
• For reasons of dignity officers should seek to avoid entering occupied bedrooms and bathrooms even before dawn.
• Use of police dogs will be considered serious desecration of the premises and may necessitate extensive cleaning of the house and disposal of household items.
• Muslim prisoners should be allowed to take additional clothing to the station.
• If people are praying at home officers should stand aside and not disrupt the prayer. They should be allowed the opportunity to finish.
• Officers should not take shoes into the houses, especially in areas that might be kept pure for prayer purposes.
  

Of course, there are more guidelines than just these.

Over at LittleGreenFootballs, where they've covered the story as well, one of the comments (by Spiny Norman) says, "We don't want to piss off the terrorism suspects. If we do, they might, umm, commit acts of terrorism! "

That says it all.

Progress Toward Cancer Cure

BBC News reports (HT: StonesCryOut) that a new technique using microscopic carbon tubules has shown itself to be effective against cancer cells. The encouraging part of this research is that the carbon tubules are able to be injected into cancer cells, avoiding normal cells.

When the rods are exposed to near-infra red light from a laser they heat up, killing the cell, while cells without rods are left unscathed.

Here are details of the procedure:

The carbon nanotubules used by the Stanford team are only half the width of a DNA molecule, and thousands can easily fit inside a typical cell.

Under normal circumstances near-infra red light passes through the body harmlessly.

But the Stanford team found that if they placed a solution of carbon nanotubules under a near-infra red laser beam, the solution heated up to about 70C in two minutes.

They then placed the tubules inside cells, and found they were quickly destroyed by the heat generated by the laser beam.

Dr Dai said: "It's actually quite simple and amazing. We're using an intrinsic property of nanotubes to develop a weapon that kills cancer."

The next step was to find a way to introduce the nantubules into cancer cells, but not healthy cells.

The researchers did this by taking advantage of the fact that, unlike normal cells, the surface of cancer cells is covered with receptors for a vitamin known as folate.

They coated the nanotubules with folate molecules, making it easy for them to pass into cancer cells, but unable to bind with their healthy cousins.

Exposure to the laser duly killed off the diseased cells, but left the healthy ones untouched.

Great news full of promise for the future.

Mark Steyn on Blair and the Terrorists

Thanks to Hugh Hewitt for the link to Mark Steyn's column today in the Daily Telegraph. Mark Steyn is my favorite columnist, but I have trouble keeping up with all of his prolific writing.

Although today's column is targeted to the British readers of the Telegraph, his lessons shouldn't be lost on us over here across the Pond.

It's not black (the bomber) and white (the rest of us); there's a lot of murky shades of grey in between: the terrorist bent on devastation and destruction prowls the streets, while around him are a significant number of people urging him on, and around them a larger group of cocksure young men gleefully celebrating mass murder, and around them a much larger group of people who stand silent at the acts committed in their name, and around them a mesh of religious and community leaders openly inciting mayhem, and around them a savvy network of professional identity-group grievance-mongers adamant that they're the real victims, and around them a vast mass of progressive elites too squeamish about ethno-cultural matters to confront reality, and around them a political establishment desperate to pretend this is just a managerial problem that can be finessed away with a new bureaucracy and a bit of community outreach.

Devastating. But he doesn't stop there.

And at the end of this chain of shades of grey is you. And, be honest, were you surprised at any of the developments of the past four weeks? Was it really shocking to you that young men born and bred in the United Kingdom are willing to take bombs on to the Tube and buses? Were you stunned that cells of Islamic terrorists from countries with which Britain has very few traditional or historical ties are living at taxpayers' expense in London council flats? Were you knocked for six to discover that bookstores in Leeds sell video games where Muslim men can play at slaughtering infidels? Were you flabbergasted to hear Birmingham's senior and famously "moderate" Islamic cleric, invited along by the West Midlands Police to their press conference, argue that the men named as responsible for the attacks were merely innocent commuters?

Or were you utterly unsurprised by any of this? Was it, indeed, all too predictable?

We're not at all different from Great Britain in this. Substitute "the subway" for "the Tube," "New York" for "London," "Chicago" for "Birmingham" and it all still fits.

We need to get radical, because that's what our enemy is. Even France--France, for Pete's sake--has learned that it needs to get radical too, and they're throwing out the worst of their Islamist imams (story here).

What are we doing? We're still living in "murky shades of grey."

New Smoking Study

I got my Bachelor's degree in Psychology just a few years ago, and between the Research & Statistics and the Psychological Testing courses, it was drummed into me what a correlational study can and cannot reveal. My Psychological Testing professor has a special passion for research and its correct interpretation that she passed on to a lot of us in the class.

Here's an example: A study finds a direct correlation between sunburn and ice cream consumption. When ice cream eating goes up, so does sunburn. When sunburn goes down, so does ice cream eating. This doesn't mean that eating ice cream causes sunburn. Just that they go up and down together. The cause of both could be (and is in this case) something completely outside the two factors being studied: Sunny weather.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw this article on the correlation between smoking and "metabolic syndrome." Metabolic syndrome is the name given to the excess belly fat that leads to heart disease.

The article opens with a statement that is impossible to determine with a correlational study: "Exposure to cigarette smoke raises the risk among teens of metabolic syndrome." This makes it sound as though the cigarette exposure is actually causing the metabolic syndrome.

Unfortunately, this study may be looking at an ice-cream/sunburn relationship, when in fact the cause of both may be a completely overlooked factor.

One of the essential parts of interpreting a study is to ask, "What other factors could be affecting the results?" From reading the article, this question doesn't seem to have been asked. Instead, the article states, "Weitzman said it is not clear what it is about smoking that appears to make teenagers more susceptible to metabolic syndrome." The assumption is: Smoking is bad. Metabolic syndrome is higher around smoke. Therefore smoking causes metabolic syndrome. We just don't know how yet.

So, what other factors could there be?

I read a study a long time ago (before I got my Psych. degree) that said that smoking was much higher in people with an apple shape (they carry their fat at or above the waist--like the metabolic syndrome people) than in people with a pear shape (they carry their fat below the waist).

So, body shape correlates to smoking, which can mean that heredity may play a role in the tendency to smoke.

Environment may also play a part in both smoking and body fat. If family members smoke and are overweight, they may pass on to their children, through their behavior and family dynamics, the behavioral tendency to smoke and overeat.

"Addictive personality" is recognized in psychological circles, and may also be the common thread in the families where teenagers show higher rates of obesity and smoking. Whether the addictive personality is from heredity or environment or both is not clear.

This article has important (though not groundbreaking by any means) information showing the correlation between smoking and unhealthy belly fat in teens. The real message is not simply, "Beware of smoke in your environment!" It is to recognize whatever risk factors you may have, whether that's smoking or belly fat or something else, and do what you can to minimize or eliminate them.

During the 2004 Presidential election cycle, Hugh Hewitt played a sound clip most of the times he talked about John Kerry. It was from Die Hard III: "I don't like you, because you're going to get me killed!"

That quote applies again, this time about France. According to News 24 (South Africa), France has paid millions in ransom to the terrorists to get French journalists released (HT: Betsy's Page).

Roger Auque told the August-September issue of Afrique Magazine that - despite official denials - the French government had paid $6m to free Liberation newspaper correspondent Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi interpreter in June.

Two other French journalists who had been released last December, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, were handed over in exchange for $2m, Auque said, relying on what he described as "a reliable source" for his information.

Rule number 1 about punishment and reward is that whatever behavior you reward, that behavior will increase in frequency. France has now guaranteed that its journalists will be targeted in the future. While the ransomed French journalists are probably ecstatic about this policy, I'm sure all the others are reconsidering the idea of reporting from Iraq.

But that's not bad enough. France has also given the terrorists a lot more money that can be spent on weapons to be used against the coalition forces as well as against Iraqis--both their military and their civilians.

As much as I love France as a tourist destination (and I do--no sarcasm here), the French government is a completely different story. Their policies up to this point seemed designed to get Americans and Iraqis killed. But from now on, France's policies will get their own people killed as well.

Merci, M. Chirac!

Bumper Sticker

There was a wreck way up ahead on the freeway, which put me in heavy traffic behind a smallish SUV sporting a bumper sticker I haven't seen before:

I'm too well-informed
to vote Republican

Somehow, "ouch!" was not my response, though I do tend to vote Republican.

It's a knee-jerk response to say the driver must be a Democrat. But that would be uninformed.

Chances are, if this is a thinking person, then the driver's voting record would probably be the Constitution Party or the Libertarian Party.

Unless, of course, the bumper sticker was too small to fit all the words it needed for the Democrat-voting driver:

I'm too well-informed by Michael Moore
to vote Republican

Rabbi Dearest

I was all set to post on something else, but I took a little time to read some stuff while I ate my sandwich (typing is tough with a fist full of lunch), and I came across this column by Janet Tassel on WorldNetDaily's commentary page. It's an open letter to her Rabbi, and it's beautifully written. She captures so much of what's in my heart about what's happening in our society, except that her concern is for where Judaism is going and mine is for Christianity.

Dearest Rabbi,

Do you remember when Alice fell down the rabbit-hole? She was mystified, scared, disoriented – she had no fixed pole of geographical or lexical or moral reference. Well, dear friend, I'm afraid that is how I feel.

I seem to be in a place where words don't mean what they are supposed to mean. Like Alice, I feel "dreadfully puzzled," for the English language is beginning to feel as if it has "no sort of meaning in it." And that does make one feel quite the outsider. I would turn to you, both because, unmoored as I seem to be, I need the fixed moral compass that I would have hoped Judaism would provide, and because you are such a mensch, so sympathetic and good-humored. But alas, old friend, there you are on the other side of the table at the mad tea-party, your loving arms around all the screwballs, with nary a care for me.

I won't post the whole column, even though it deserves to be read in its entirety. Just a couple more excerpts.

So what's a Jew to do? Where do I go to get Truth? Words that mean what they say? I mean, beyond Leviticus, beyond the Sifra – Reform Judaism has effectively discarded those useless dregs anyway. Do I have to go to Chabad to find a rabbi – or anyone – willing to talk about virtue and discipline, about innocence, modesty and chastity; to say here is where the nonsense and obfuscation stop; to say that, whatever the law of the state may be for now, we consider it alien to Judaism, and the culture that nourishes it pagan and life-denying; who will say to our brother or sister homosexual: Here in this synagogue, we love you as a person, whatever you may be doing privately (and please, please keep it private) but you are asking too much when you insist we "celebrate" your "self-affirming" lifestyle, and we absolutely refuse to grant you license to indoctrinate our children.

For "Here in this synagogue," I could just as easily substitute, "Here in this church."

Faith needs to mean something, or it means nothing at all.

As I write this, the United Church of Christ is holding its biennial synod in Atlanta. There, at this moment, they are affirming gay marriage, of course. But more to the point, they are discussing (no, not North Korea, Rwanda, or Sudan) how to divest – in a nice, respecting-differences kind of way – from companies "involved with Israel's occupation, security fence construction, and settlements." This comes barely three weeks after the Massachusetts Conference of the United Methodist Church (another of your interfaith partners) voted to divest, and one week after our friends the Anglicans did the same, a year after the Precursor, the Presbyterian Church..

This at the very moment our beloved Israel is tearing itself into bloody shreds, trying to please and placate all the well-meaning Christians in the world, and the less well-meaning Muslims, of course – as well as the many Jews who are far from depressed at the spectacle, or even at the catastrophe to follow, God forbid. Do I have to remind you who, apart from the survivors and the deeply observant, will be the only ones wearing sackcloth and ashes? Why, those rubes in the dreaded religious right.

Yes, this rube in the dreaded religious right will be wearing sackcloth and ashes if Israel tears itself into bloody shreds, God forbid. Read the whole column (link here). It's a must-read.

Disciples of Christ Oppose Israel's Fence

I was raised Disciples of Christ. I didn't know much about what set the denomination apart from others, except that we didn't have to go to catechism like the poor, unfortunate Catholic kids. My dad's mom was Disciples of Christ, and her maternal grandfather (who brought his family out West from Kansas in 1888 in a covered wagon) founded First Christian Church of Tacoma, Washington. Or so says family legend.

Nutshell on Disciples of Christ: Founded as part of the Restoration Movement of the mid-1800s (pre-Civil War), which was non-denominational. Turned into a denomination under its own momentum. Split officially in 1906 into the smaller Churches of Christ and the larger Disciples of Christ, which then split in 1927 into Disciples of Christ and Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ (more detail here), with Disciples of Christ heading into liberal territory and the Independent churches heading into conservative territory. I've been attending an Independent Christian Church for 18 years.

Today's Jerusalem Post reports (here) that the Disciples of Christ general assembly has called for Israel to dismantle the West Bank security barrier. I find the decison both disturbing and comforting. Disturbing for the same reason Rabbi Cooper gives:

"The resolution is an abomination," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center. "It is shocking and depressing that a vanguard of social activism like the Disciples of Christ would be so blind and deaf to Jewish suffering," he told The Jerusalem Post.

The general assembly even refused the opportunity to have a survivor of the 2003 bombing at Jerusalem's Cafe Hillel speak to them. This refusal showcases the closed minds on the general assembly, an unfortunate condition to find in a Christian church.

I find it comforting on a personal level, because I attend a church whose independent status (there is no national organization/denomination) prevents a general assembly or other governing body from dictating distasteful policy. My church is full of people who recognize the importance of Israel on both a global and a spiritual level.

"I have no doubt that had theses delegates seen the human face of the victims of Palestinian terrorism, the outcome could have been much different," Cooper said.

I'm not so sure. The Disciples' general assembly is apparently so close-minded that, even if the human face of the victims were before the assembly, that group would just shut their eyes and proceed with their condemnation of Israel's self-defense.

Iraq Now

I got an email from my astrophysics friend, who is pro-choice, but conservative on all the rest. AP has a Left-wing friend (LF) who enjoys goading AP (and me, when we're in the same room) on politics. In the past, AP has calmly explained to LF that when it comes to politics, she defers to my judgment, since studying astrophysics doesn't leave her any time to keep current on the political/world situation (just as she defers to her M.D. sister on medical things and to her history-buff dad on historical subjects). LF still tries to get AP to comment on his Lefty stuff.

OK. That's the background. Today AP forwarded me the email that LF sent her about how horrible things are in Iraq, since the US went to war there. Here are some excerpts from the email, which looks like it's a big quote of an article by David Cortright in The Nation.

Living conditions for the people of Iraq, already poor before the war, have deteriorated significantly since the US invasion. This is confirmed in a new report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Iraqi Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation. Based on a survey of 21,000 households conducted in 2004, the study shows that the Iraqi people are suffering widespread death and war-related injury, high rates of infant and child mortality, chronic malnutrition and illness among children, low rates of life expectancy and significant setbacks with regard to the role of women in society.

Malnutrition among small children in Iraq is widespread. Nearly one-quarter of Iraqi children now suffer chronic malnutrition, and 8 percent suffer acute malnutrition. Illness levels among Iraqi children are also high, which is partly the result of unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation. According to the report, "compared to other countries in the region and to the earlier data from Iraq...the supply of safe and stable water...has deteriorated." There has also been "a steep deterioration in the sanitary situation." Forty percent of urban households report sewage in the streets of their neighborhoods.

The UNDP study found that infant and child mortality rates remain high, although there is much uncertainty about the exact numbers. The evidence "indicates a progressive worsening of the situation for children." High infant mortality rates in Iraq contrast with declining infant mortality rates in neighboring countries. In most of the world, including the surrounding countries, mortality rates for children have steadily fallen over the decades. In Iraq, however, child mortality rates have climbed. This translates into thousands of "excess" infant deaths every year. These are the quiet, unseen victims of the continuing tragedy in Iraq.

The new report sheds light on the total number of Iraqi deaths directly attributable to the war. As of mid-2004, according to the survey, the war had caused approximately 24,000 Iraqi deaths. The death toll in Iraq has continued to climb, so these numbers are larger now than when the survey was conducted. At the time of the UNDP survey, the Iraqi Body Count website estimated total deaths at 14,000-16,000. In May of this year the Body Count website estimate stood at 21,000-24,000. This would suggest that the comparable figure for war-related deaths using the UNDP methodology is more than 30,000. Many of the victims in the current war are women and children. The number of children injured since the US invasion is higher than the number of military-age men. The report said that in the ongoing war, it is members of "the civilian population that are most affected."

Well, that gives you the basics of the email. The rest is along the same lines. AP asked me for my input, so she could reply to LF. Here's my reply to AP that she passed along to LF (I haven't heard back yet about any response from LF):

Tell him to do a little fact-checking. I did a simple google search on "United Nations Development Programme Iraq" (without the quotes) and got the official website for that organization (http://www.iq.undp.org/), which links to an Iraq-specific program (http://www.uniraq.org/). They talk about their success in cleaning up after the mess that SADDAM left behind. LF can read the Development Update reports (http://www.uniraq.org/library/rd.asp). There's one for April 2005 and another for May 2005 that discuss different areas of redevelopment efforts by the UN. None of the stuff I see there makes any slams on the US, other than mentioning the heavy bombing of Baghdad at the beginning of the war.

I found a news item that isn't the one LF quoted but looks very similar (http://ipsnews.net/new_notan.asp?idnews=28665). Here's a quote that LF (or his source) neglected to include:

''After a 10-year period during which the living conditions of the Iraqi individuals and families could not be statistically monitored, the Iraqi government and its U.N. partner has finally taken a large survey of living conditions in Iraq,'' he said. ''Despite the difficult security situation in the country, COSIT was determined to implement the survey.''

A UNDP spokesman said it was stunning that the report was even completed.

''The most noteworthy thing about the survey is that it was done,'' said the spokesman, Dan Shepard. ''Iraq has not been listed in UNDP reports in some 15 years because there is no reliable data. That they were even able to do this with the security situation, it's quite an undertaking.''

We've been in Iraq for just over 2 years. There have not been ANY reports of living conditions in Iraq for 10 - 15 years, so there's NO BASELINE for determining whether Iraq's current conditions are the result of US policy, or whether they're actually an improvement over conditions under Saddam. If you read down in the April 2005 report I mentioned above, they talk about connecting a new water network in southern Iraq. That's in the marshlands, where the Marshland Arabs live. Saddam drained the marshlands as an attempted genocide. Once we took Iraq in 2003, we got to work getting the marshlands back to their former state, so the Marshland Arabs could survive.

Tell LF to do his homework and stop blindly accepting the Left's talking points as gospel. We're not the bad guys.

I made sure to only reference UN websites and that ipsnews.net site, which looked like a human rights or environmental kind of news source. Nothing right-wing that LF could dismiss out of hand for being in the pocket of the Bush Administration.

That was enough to get me stirred up. Then I randomly came across this post (here) by Michael Yon while I was following other posts reviewing the new "Over There" show on FX (the milbloggers weren't impressed with the show).

Michael Yon is a strong writer, and his post is excellent and well worth reading the whole thing (it's long). Here are some excerpts:

The enemy in Iraq does not appear to be weakening; if anything, they are becoming smarter, more complicated and deadlier. But this does not mean they are winning; to imply that getting smarter and deadlier equates to winning, is fallacious. Most accounts of the situation in Iraq focus on enemy "successes" (if success is re-defined as annihiliation of civility), while redacting the increasing viability and strength of the Iraqi government, which clearly is outpacing the insurgency.

The Mosul police are now strong enough to launch successful undercover operations, and have been fanning out across Mosul and surrounding villages, snooping and listening for snippets. On July 15th, police working undercover in a village Northwest of Mosul heard a group of villagers talking about a weapons cache, but the location was not mentioned. Iraqi forces locked down the village, searched and found a weapons depot from Syria into Mosul. Iraqi police also found and rescued the 28 year-old woman I mentioned briefly in the last dispatch. She was the wife of a Mosul journalist, and had been kidnapped and held for ransom by members of a beheading cell. After the village search, police hauled four men to a Mosul station for interrogation, and alerted the Americans.

Many of the "fighters" here emerged and filled the vacuum following the fall of Saddam. In Tombstone, they'd be guns for hire; in Bogota, they'd be kidnappers without a cause. Here, they do not equate so much to organized resistance as to organized crime.

They get lumped in with the "resistance," but this is not entirely accurate. They do business with it, and they exploit it for personal gains like money, possessions and power. Today, the terrorists and their more populous criminal cousins in Iraq have a great deal in common, including the goal of forcing the new government to fail in its mission to secure the borders and restore and maintain order.

The terrorists have been trying to--with good success--cripple the macro-economy by destroying pipelines and infrastructure, and these attacks help the criminals. Attacks on gas stations, for instance, disaffect the citizenry from the government, while giving black-marketers transient fuel monopolies.

Read the whole thing. It doesn't paint the situation in Iraq with a whitewash, rather it gives the feel of realism that that conveys a deserved hope.

Iraq has not become a clone of American infrastructure and prosperity. The job there isn't done, not by a long shot. But Iraq is making progress in significant ways that UN surveys and reports can't convey, and that Lefties like LF seem incapable of seeing.

What Do The Terrorists Want? II

What do they want? A couple weeks ago, I posted (here) on this question, based on a column by Larry Elder (here). His main point was that the terrorists want us to either (1) convert to their brand of Islam, (2) accept second-class status, which also requires the payment of a special tax, or (3) die. Those are the choices.

Yesterday, Daniel Pipes, of Middle East Forum, wrote a column (here) on the same question. His article takes a broader view of the same terrorist goal. While Larry Elder looked at what the terrorists want from each individual in the whole world, Daniel Pipes also looks at the world the terrorists are envisioning.

He explains that when the Islamofascist terrorist started, during the 1970s, they made their goals clear: Release these criminals from prison; cancel the showing of this movie that insults Islam. Now, though, the terrorists don't bother to say why individually. They don't need to.

In nearly all cases, the jihadi terrorists have a patently self-evident ambition: to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and Islamic law, the Shari'a. Or, again to cite the Daily Telegraph, their "real project is the extension of the Islamic territory across the globe, and the establishment of a worldwide ‘caliphate' founded on Shari'a law."

Terrorists openly declare this goal. The Islamists who assassinated Anwar el-Sadat in 1981 decorated their holding cages with banners proclaiming the "caliphate or death." A biography of one of the most influential Islamist thinkers of recent times and an influence on Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam declares that his life "revolved around a single goal, namely the establishment of Allah's Rule on earth" and restoring the caliphate.

Pipes offers this conclusion: What the terrorists want is abundantly clear. It requires monumental denial not to acknowledge it, but we Westerners have risen to the challenge.

And he's right. In today's news is this item (link here) from the Daily Telegraph of London. The article begins, The "war on terror", the resonant catchphrase of the Bush administration for the past four years, is to be discreetly phased out in favour of more nuanced language, officials signalled yesterday.

Is it? And what do they prefer?

Officials are instead starting to favour the rather less snappy phrase "struggle against violent extremism" as the administration puts increased stress on longer term initiatives - diplomatic, economic and educational - to defeat terrorism.

From the GWOT to the SAVE? It stinks. And the wording is suspect, because "nuanced" is the favorite word of the Left, along with "complex." Normally, I don't see the Telegraph as a Left-wing mouthpiece--that's usually The Guardian's bailiwick. But I'm having trouble believing that this could be right.

Given that the terrorists have a stated goal of turning the entire world into an Extreme-Islam-controlled caliphate with all non-Muslims either under the Islamist thumb or dead, it can hardly be productive to downgrade our fight from a War to a mere struggle. Why doesn't the White House go all the way and call it a "nuisance" á la John Kerry?

I had thought the Bush Administration understood the stakes, but if they're headed for "struggle," then we're headed for trouble.

Maybe I should start saving up my money to pay for that special tax and a burkha...

Update:

Excellent post at Froggy Ruminations (here) on this topic. He takes apart a column (here) by Permanently Clueless Bill Johnson, who actually thinks Osama bin Laden cares what happens to our rights and liberties. One of Froggy's responses to Johnson: "Seeing as [OBL's] goal is to install a worldwide Islamic caliphate and to impose sharia law on the entire planet, I’d say he feels like there is still some work to be done."

Captain's Quarters has good analysis (here) of a paradigm shift happening in Egypt since the most recent terror attack there--one with encouraging results: "Osama and Ayman al-Zawahiri have miscalculated, at least in Egypt; their efforts have created Muslim moderates, not radicals."

Jacques Tati

So I'm standing there in the break room at work, and another woman is there too. Actually, she's the one I posted about a long time ago (link here) whose restroom behavior is so odd.

We're both working around each other. I'm making a cup of tea, and she's making an instant soup or beverage of some sort from a package that has Chinese writing on it. And we're standing there, each doing our own thing. I hear the stir-stick in her cup going, swish, swish, swish.... Then I smack the pink fake-sugar packet against my thumb a few times, and it goes, flappy, flappy, rip.

Her swish, swish keeps going, then I rustle the stir sticks and start my own swish, swish, and it hits me as I'm standing there that we've been transported into a Jacques Tati movie.

His movies, especially Playtime, are light on dialogue (non-existent on plot) and heavily focused on sound. You hear the tapping of shoes coming down marble floors, the ringing of elevator bells as they arrive, the honking of cars, the snap of a newspaper opening. Nothing really happens in the movie. You just watch people do everyday things and listen to the sound of the mundane. It's pointless.

And there I am in the break room, making my fourth cup of tea as a reward for finishing a task in my endless supply of tasks that I do at work. It's mundane. And it's pointless. My worklife is a Jacques Tati movie of sound without dialogue. The tapping of the keyboard. The slapping of file folders onto my desk. The thook sound that Microsoft Outlook makes when I get email. The ripping sound of the admin opening a new box of supplies she ordered.

I know what it is: My office-mate is on vacation. She's on an inner tube, floating on a lake with her extended family, and I'm here in an office that I didn't know got this quiet.

Hugh comes on soon, and he'll be talking. I sure hope that helps.

Thinking People's Reactions to John Roberts

Hugh Hewitt, in his Weekly Standard column of 07/21/2005, points out an otherwise-neglected fact about John Roberts. He brings to the Supreme Court an understanding of Article II constitutional law that none of the other justices has.

Almost every Supreme Court justice arrives at SCOTUS well versed in his or her Article III duties and rights, and most have a great deal of experience with the Article I powers of the Congress, since most cases and controversies that come before federal judges connect at some point with Congressional enactments.

But only lawyers with vast executive branch experience really appreciate Article II and the role of the executive, and few are as well versed in the powers of the presidency--and its limits--as veterans of the West Wing lawyers' club.

For four tumultuous years of the Reagan presidency, Judge Roberts was close at hand as Ronald Reagan navigated the course of the country's recovery from economic crisis and the Vietnam Syndrome. This was the era of the deployment of the cruise missiles and Pershing IIs in Europe, of Grenada and the massacre of Marines in Lebanon, of the "Evil Empire" speech. Roberts observed and participated in one of the critical passages of American history, a period in which "energy in the executive," to use Hamilton's phrase from Federalist 70 helped the nation recover from the disastrous decade of the '70s.

This experience, and of course Roberts's years as deputy solicitor general, will equip the new justice more than most of his predecessors with an ear for arguments about the need for presidential power in areas where that power is crucial, as in the GWOT.

Excellent point, and one that bears serious consideration by the senators who speak about wanting "balance" on the Supreme Court.

Then there's David Cohen's post at Brothers Judd blog, in which he answers Sen. Schumer's list of questions for John Roberts. A bit of background before reading the post: During John Roberts' judicial hearings in 2003 for his current position on the DC Circuit Court, Sen. Orrin Hatch categorized Sen. Schumer's questions as "dumba**" (link here). David Cohen's abbreviations, "daq" or "sdaq" refer to Schumer's dumba** questions.

Cohen obviously put a lot of thought into the answers he'd like to see Roberts give, such as these samples:

Q: When can Government regulate public speech by individuals?

A: The federal government can't, except arguably public speech by Senators and Members of the House. The states may, consistent with their own constitutions.

Q: Must the Government avoid involvement with religion as a whole, or is the prohibition just on Government involvement with any specific religion?

A: There is no prohibition on government "involvement" with religion, or any specific religion. However, the federal government is not a government of general powers that may act unless it is prohibited. It is a government of limited powers that may not act unless it is permitted. [NB: Even if I drop the pretense that I don't know what he's talking about, I don't know what he's talking about here. This is a spectacular example of, in Orrin Hatch's phrase, Schumer's "dumb ass" questions.]

Q: What is your view of the Supreme Court's opinion in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000), which held that prayer in public schools is prohibited even where it is student-organized, non-denominational, and at a football game?

A: What part of "Congress" is hard to understand?

Whole Wheat and Penguins

I baked rolls again this weekend (link to last post on bread-baking here), since I ran out of them Friday. It was hot in my house (no air-conditioning) and humid for Southern California (though the hardy souls on the East Coast no doubt think we're Humidity Wussies the way we complain about what feels positively DRY to them). But my budget needs me to have a steady supply of rolls for making sandwiches to take to work for lunch, so I had to bake in the heat.

Before last month, I bought lunch at one of the sandwich/cafe places near work, but that was costing me $5 - $6+ a day at best, which adds up fast. Now, when I spend the time in the morning to throw together a lunch, I feel great joy thinking of the money I save and the way the rolls are South Beach Diet "approved." Normally, I hate taking a minute more to get ready for work than I have to (I'd rather be sleeping), but this is worth it.

Sunday, the Girls (old enough to have grown children) went out for our mostly regular lunch and movie. This week it was "March of the Penguins." We decided that since it looked like a Discovery Channel program, it might not stay in the theaters very long, so we'd better see it right away and save "The Island" for next week.

The Penguin movie was a National Geographic production and indeed had the feel of a show that, in the olden days, would have been a PBS special but now is on the Discovery Channel. If you like that kind of show, then I wholeheartedly recommend it. The baby penguins are SO CUTE!!! And Morgan Freeman's narration has that comforting quality that not all voices can achieve. The photography was spectacular, showing the sweep of Antarctica's icy landscape as well as closeups of penguins and their interactions that are hard to believe were possible to get with wild animals. An added treat was staying to watch the credits, because they showed some of the photographers and how they were able to get the unbelievable shots.

If you'd rather be drawn and quartered than watch some stupid lame-o nature show, then by all means avoid this movie like the plague. Go see The Devil's Rejects or The Island or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (OK, you probably wouldn't see Charlie, either).

More Reactions to the Roberts Nomination

It's getting fun watching the various reactions to the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. As I mentioned yesterday (here), the AP published reaction quotes (here) to President Bush's choice for O'Connor's seat on the Court.

Here's what some of the Democrat Senators said:

"I look forward to the Committee's findings so that I can make an informed decision about whether Judge Roberts is truly a guardian of the rule of law who puts fairness and justice before ideology." — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

Oh, of course Hillary wouldn't want a Supreme Court Justice to focus on ideology. Not if it's a different ideology than hers.

"The burden is on a nominee to the Supreme Court to prove that he is worthy, not on the Senate to prove he is unworthy." — Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Kind of like the way the accused has to prove he's innocent in court.

"Without prejudging the nominee, I do believe Judge Roberts' record raises questions about his commitment to the right to privacy, protection of the environment and other important issues." — Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

"The president had an opportunity to unite the country with his Supreme Court nomination, to nominate an individual in the image of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Instead, by putting forward John Roberts' name, President Bush has chosen a more controversial nominee and guaranteed a more controversial confirmation process." — Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

You can't unite the country when there are senators like Boxer and Durbin who can't wait to divide it.

And from Republican Senators:

"He's the kind of judge that all of us want — someone committed to applying the law impartially rather than legislating from the bench." — Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

"I can't help but think that he will continue to impress as a person of fairness, thoughtfulness and just the kind of judge who will bring a nonpolitical approach to judging. ... I think he's going to be well received." — Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

"I'm hopeful that in the coming weeks we can avoid vicious character assassinations and attacks in this confirmation process." — Sen. George Allen, R-Va.

Fat chance. It's already started.

Finally, Nihilist In Golf Pants has this post on the top 11 reasons John Roberts is outside the mainstream (HT: Chad the Elder at FratersLibertas). A must-read.

London Mayor Livingstone Blames the West

After such a great statement following the July 7 terrorist attacks in London, London's mayor Ken Livingstone has reverted to his normal socialist condition. In an interview with the BBC (link here), Livingstone placed the blame for the terrorists squarely on the shoulders of the West.

He replied: "I think you've just had 80 years of western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of the western need for oil.

"We've propped up unsavoury governments, we've overthrown ones we didn't consider sympathetic.

"And I think the particular problem we have at the moment is that in the 1980s... the Americans recruited and trained Osama Bin Laden, taught him how to kill, to make bombs, and set him off to kill the Russians and drive them out of Afghanistan.

"They didn't give any thought to the fact that once he'd done that he might turn on his creators."

I'm speechless. Almost. What lunacy!

When my grandfather joined the army, they taught him to kill and sent him off to kill Germans during World War I. The US didn't give any thought to the fact that once he'd done that he might turn on his creators.

Lucky for my grandmother and all their neighbors, he didn't turn on them or his country. Neither did the rest of the WWI generation of soldiers. Or the WWII generation, or the Korean War generation, or the Vietnam or the Gulf War or any of the other War/Conflict generations we've had.

It's not training that makes a terrorist. It's the evil desires of the heart, combined with resources and opportunity. With Osama, the assessment of opportunity included a perception of exploitable weakness in the West. Osama bin Laden and his supporters are to blame for the al-Qaeda terrorism. His victims are not.

Using Livingstone's logic, Britain and the US are to be blamed for Stalin's mass-murder of millions in the Soviet Union. After all, we allied ourselves with him to fight the bigger menace of Nazism. And, having once allied with Stalin, then aren't we also culpable of all the evil that Stalin did after our alliance?

Obviously, Livingstone's 07/07 statement was one of those freaks of nature that can't be explained by any rational means. He should rest on his laurels from that one speech and just keep his mouth shut from now on.

Global War on What?

When I got in my car this morning, the news was on the radio. The local news guy was in the middle of reporting on today's "incidents" in London, when he had a slip of the tongue and said "... in the Global War on Terrier."

Naturally, I paid attention, because my little dog, Abby, is a Yorkie!!!

This explains so much. Evidently, Abby developed a heart condition as her war strategy. This necessitated my buying medication for her that she uses as a weapon against me. Oh, the insidiousness of her scheming that she would have me purchase the very weapons that I would suffer from.

The medication that her ally, the veterinarian, foisted upon me is a diuretic, which employs Abby's most effective ammunition.

She performs hit-and-run attacks when she pees on the carpet, leaving me or my daughter to be caught by surprise. At other times, she employs suicide attacks--usually while feigning sleep--by peeing on herself while she's lying on the floor. These attacks require that I stop what I'm doing and give her a bath. Most of the suicide attacks are during the night, so they affect my livelihood by making me late for work.

Let the terrier owner beware: There's a war on. And it ain't pretty.