Sciavo reaction

BuzzMachine's got a nice roundup of blog reaction to the death of Terry Sciavo. Some of it's kind of creepy.

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Baseball musings

Here's a great blog dedicated to baseball. Very heavy on thoughtful, stat-backed commentary. I find myself checking it out daily.

Here's a neat post on the Big Cat. And one of the Red Sox' lineup. And here's a post that uses the phrase regression to the mean.

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Diversity on campus

Great article from the New York Sun on a recent appearance by Ward Churchill at Berkeley. He spoke at a forum on "academic freedom" with four other panelists. According to the article, none of the panelists disagreed with anything Churchill had to say. The lone dissent came from a 20-year-old college student.

The forum would have been better served had at least one faculty member offered a differing point of view. Maybe Berkeley couldn't find one.

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Where does the road lead?

For a country that loves to chide itself for past transgressions, I'm amazed we don't hear more often about the eugenics movement. Here's an exhaustive Web site dedicated to this forgotten bit of history that left over 64,000 Americans forcibly sterilized.

The idea behind eugenics was simple: Certain people weren't as "well-born" as others and their maladies should be removed from the gene pool. Some of the era's most-renowned scientists propagated the benefits of eugenics -- which many saw as a natural progression from Darwin's theory of evolution. Hitler took eugenics to its logical conclusion.

A 17-year-old girl named Carrie Buck was the first person forcibly sterilized in the U.S. Here's what happened:

Sociologist Arthur Estabrook, of the Eugenics Record Office, traveled to Virginia to testify against Carrie. He and a Red Cross nurse examined Carrie’s baby Vivian and concluded that she was "below average" and "not quite normal." Relying on these comments, the judge concluded that Carrie should be sterilized to prevent the birth of other "defective" children.

The forced sterilization was challenged all the way to the Supreme Court. The court ruled in favor of the state's right to take away a human being's ability to reproduce. Because they thought the children would be stupid. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

Of course, this seems totally abhorrent today. But why not back in the 1920s? The answer seems clear to me: Because men in white lab coats and black robes told us that it was the right thing to do. Indeed, the moral thing to do. They were intellectual and enlightened. The misgivings of the public could be dismissed as ignorant rabble from the masses.

Sound familiar? In my heart of hearts, I know that it's wrong to kill a human being by depriving her of food and water. I don't care what some doctor, scientist or judge tells me.

Perhaps future generations will look back and wonder what we were all thinking.

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Wikipedia

Here's an interview with the founder of Wikipedia. If you're not aware of what it is, here's the Wikipedia entry for Wikipedia:

Wikipedia is a Web-based free content encyclopedia that is openly edited and freely readable. It has 187 independent language editions sponsored by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Entries on traditional encyclopedic topics exist alongside those on almanac, gazetteer and current events topics. Its goal is to create "a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge." Wikipedia is one of the most popular reference sites on the Web, receiving around 50 million hits per day.

Amazingly, no one is paid to edit this online encyclopedia which already weighs in as twice as big (in number of words) as the Encyclopedia Britannica. All the entries are written and fact-checked by the readers. Seems like it'd be the worse source of information on the planet; because it's open-source, it's not. Anyone can challenge and correct any entry, so the finished results tend to be extremely factual and areas of disagreement are well-marked.

Here's what Jimmy Whales said about accuracy:

... the average quality of entries is high, but any given page could be broken at any moment. IBM did some research on Wikipedia, and it found that for certain types of vandalism, the median time to correction is under five minutes. That's for the typical type of change, when someone blanks out a page or puts in a curse word.

Wikipedia is another one of those awesome things that couldn't have existed before the Internet. See also: eBay, Linux and the Long Tail.

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Slow Ride

Some kid in San Diego talked his principal into playing the classic riff from Foghat's "Slow Ride" instead the bell to signal the end of lunch period. He said he used the tactics of civil disobedience practiced by Gandhi. Perhaps youth isn't really wasted on the young.

I'm not sure this is legal, but here's a Web page with the song on it.

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An immodest proposal

Some Republicans are really becoming angry with the Republicans. I agree with about half of these 11 treatises. I'm not sure this spells doom for the GOP or whether it's a sign that the party is healthy and inclusive. Most of the complaints deal with the GOP's newfound love of big government. I'm not sure a vote for the Democrats would help on that front.

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Testing, testing

This inspires great confidence:

NEW YORK - City officials recalled preparation material for math tests that had been sent to teachers after discovering they were filled with math and spelling mistakes.

Here's an interesting post about testing.

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Iranian protests

Blog reports of protests breaking out in Iran. Interesting to see where this goes.

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Nader, baby. Nader.

Wow. Ralph Nader and I agree on something.

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Photos of a Revolution

Incredible. Check out this photoblog from a participant in the Kyrgystzstan revolution.

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Schiavo 'Push Poll?'

Fantastic post on media polling in the Terry Schiavo case. He basically defends the way the polls have been conducted and debunks any notion that they are biased toward euthanasia. The author is the best authority on polling that I've read.

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Today's Papers

Here's a good summation from Slate's Today's Papers:

USA Today goes Page One with a poll showing President Bush's rating at a record-low 45 percent, seven points below what the paper had last week. USAT notes (with a straight face) that the "poll also found an increased number of Democrats," from 32 percent last week to 37 percent this week. TP is no pollster, but which is more likely: 1) an enormous political realignment over
the past seven days, or 2) a crappy poll?

Great point.

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Star Trek II

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is one my favorite films of all time. Ricardo Montalban delivers a fantastic performance as the villain, Kahn. He delivers this line in chilling fashion:

I've done far worse than kill you, Admiral. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her: marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet, buried alive. Buried alive.

Of course, Kirk responds with the famous yell: "Khaaaann." Some would argue that William Shatner overacts, but I say he's right on target. He's just acting like Captain Kirk.

By the way, the film is one big literary allusion. Kahn possessed everything he could possibly need (freedom, a spaceship, a doomsday device), but he risked it all just so he could kill Captain Kirk. Sound familiar?

Khan's last lines were taken directly from the 19th-century novel:

To the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!

Click here for the source.

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Urban myths

Don't click on this page unless you got time to kill. It's dedicated to determining the veracity of urban legends, especially those that make the rounds via email.

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The Long Tail

Great post on the vast power of the Internet. Here's an incredible notion:

The average Barnes & Noble carries 130,000 titles. Yet more than half of Amazon's book sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles. Consider the implication: If the Amazon statistics are any guide, the market for books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is larger than the market for those that are...

This is just one piece that makes up the larger paradigm shift. Combine the Internet's ability to market to this incredibly vast niche, the rise of community journalists (blogs), and the ability to produce open-source software like Linux and you've got a revolution.

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Congressional authority

This post from Power Line makes a good point about the Terry Schiavo case:

I strongly disagree with the decision to remove the tubes that were keeping Terri Schiavo alive, based on the potentially self-serving testimony of a husband with serious conflicts of interest. However, I don't believe it was proper for Congress to pass an ex post facto law to render ineffective the outcome of state court proceedings.

As a small-government conservative, the bipartisan actions of Congress are pretty hard to bear. But, I understand their actions and can't necessarily condemn them.

At times, the federal government gets involved -- not because they really have jurisdiction, but because it's the right thing to do. The federal government stepped in with civil rights indictments after the Rodney King police officers were acquitted. That certainly seemed to be a case of double jeopardy, but nobody really argued about it, because justice was so clearly unserved.

I'm going to have to give Congress and the president a pass on this one. It was the right thing to do.

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Napoleon Dynamite

Finally saw this independent film. Refreshingly different. Here's the best line:

You know, there's like a butt-load of gangs at this school. This one gang kept wanting me to join because I'm pretty good with a bo staff.

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Striving for Excellence

The new Project for Excellence in Journalism report on the state of journalism is out. Here's some interesting stuff:

There was even some good news in the numbers for traditional news media. The percentage of people who thought "news organizations had too much influence on the outcome of the presidential election" dropped by 10 percentage points from four years earlier. People also tended to report relying on news organizations for election news more than four years earlier.

Odd that Pew inferred that as good news. I'd say the 10 percent drop reflects the rise in alternative media outlets. I'm probably among the 10 percent who no longer believe that the New York Times carries the same influence that it did 20 years ago.

What appears to be rising now is the charge of bias, largely a case of both sides of the political spectrum seeing the press as unfair to their views. After the election, the percentage of Americans who thought the press was fair to John Kerry, for instance, dropped by six points from the number who thought the press was fair to the Democrat Al Gore in 2000. The percentage who thought the press unfair to the Democrat rose by seven points -- a 13-point shift. On the other side, the percentage who thought Bush got a fair shake dropped nine points from four years earlier, and the percentage who thought the press unfair to him rose 10 points - a 19-point shift.3

... What's more, for the last two decades Americans' confidence in the press has lagged precipitously behind that of other institutions.6 It may be that the expectations of the press have sunk enough that they will not sink much further. People are not dismayed by disappointments in the press. They expect them. That is hardly a base on which to build, particularly as the traditional press, now referred to in the blogosphere by the acronym MSM (for mainstream media), begins to have to contend not only with Republicans who deride it as liberal, but with liberals who deride it as cowed by Republicans, and bloggers who deride it as out of touch.

The silver lining: The public's disdain for the press can sink no further.

The rest of the report is interesting, particularly the content analysis section which supports empirically the contention that press coverage of Bush was overwhelmingly more negative than Kerry's. But, I grow weary arguing that point.

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The Vegas Trip

No exagerration, it was the best vacation of my life. Six days in Las Vegas was still not enough, but certainly got closer than ever before. Really had two trips. The first four days were spent camped out in the Sports Book of The Mirage betting on conference tournament games. The last two days spent on a search for cheap craps and games with better odds.

The latter subject was the only downside of our trip. (For those of you who don't gamble, the following probably won't prove too interesting.) My wife, Ann, and I noticed that Las Vegas has crept decidedly toward worse and worse odds for gamblers. Of course, casinos have always had the advantage, but recently they've been changing the games slightly to increase their house edge.

For instance, one could once easily find a video poker machine on which the payouts are 9 times your bet for a full house and 6 times for a flush. A smart gambler who finds one of these machines and plays a good strategy will find that the house advantage in the game is less than one percent. A couple of years back, the "9-6" machines became harder to find. Now, the once-common machines can no longer be found anywhere in Vegas.

The casinos have similarly changed the odds on blackjack. On a normal table with the right strategy, the casino's edge is about 1.5 percent. A few years ago, a couple of casinos started changing the rules very slightly. The dealers would hit on a "soft 17" -- an ace and a six. The change gives the casino a chance to beat players who have either tied or won with their 17 thru 21. Seems slight, but it dramatically improves the house edge. On our latest trip, Ann and I could find no casino in Vegas that didn't require the dealer to hit on "soft 17."

Craps is another game where the odds got worse. Casinos used to battle against each other over who offered the most "odds" on craps. Binion's Horseshoe famously advertised a craps game offering 100 times odds on a $1 bet. Without getting too technical, the more odds the casino pays you, the more the game tilts in your favor (or at least away from the casino's favor). As recently as two years ago, many casinos offered $3 tables with 10 times odds. On this last trip, most craps tables started at $10 with only double odds offered. We searched all day to find a craps table in downtown Vegas that offered $3 craps with five times odds. Binion's, just bought out by a company that owns racetracks in West Virginia, no longer offers anything close to 100 times odds.

A couple of cab drivers confirmed our suspicions. They explained that Vegas was finding no shortage of people gladly willing to lose their money. With the increase in publicly owned firms buying casinos, an emphasis on quarterly earnings has followed. These casinos see no reason to offer the very best odds if gamblers aren't going to notice when they don't get them.

But, the search for better odds was part of the fun. We visisted 20 casinos in about two days. (I'm trying to publish photos, but having no luck.) We also caught a great show at the Alladin and enjoyed an incredible dinner at Bobby Flay's restuarant inside Caesar's. The pool at the Mirage was incredible and I actually went swimming -- once.

Yes, we came back with a sizable chunk of cash, but all of it was the cash we took with us to gamble. So, we broke even. Given we were in Vegas for 6 days, I'd say that's a pretty impressive return.

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I'm back, briefly

Got back from Vegas yesterday. Had an awesome time and even brought back a sizable chunk of cash. Took a lot of pictures and plan to post them early next week. Now I'm off to N.C. to pick up the kids from the grandparents.

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Viva Las Vegas

Going to shut the blog down till next Thursday as I leave for my quarterly trip to Vegas. I went to Sin City back in December and promised the readers a full report. Unfortunately, that trip proved so disappointing that I kept the details to myself. I'm hoping to stand at a craps table for longer than 8 minutes this go around.

Reminds me of a funny gambling story.

A friend used a dangerous system at the blackjack table. He'd double any bet he lost, thereby ensuring he'd always get his money back. The system requires a big bankroll and nerves of steel. After 8 bad hands, he pushed out $640, all the money he had left. The dealer handed him loss No. 9.

As he left the table he said he wasn't that upset. He insisted that he'd "sleep like a baby that night."

Really?

"Yes," he replied. "I'm going to wake up every 2 hours and cry."

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Journalists and objectivity

Jeff Jarvis speaks the truth:

Journalists are in the business of uncovering truths, not covering them; journalists demand to know what everyone else in the world thinks, yet they hide their own thoughts. Isn't that a disservice to the public? For it does not allow the public to judge the messenger, as is their right.

Now, of course, this leads to many sticky questions: Do you take someone who hates Bush and have her cover Bush? Do you take someone who admires Bush and have him cover Bush? Well, but doesn't that happen already? It's not that we're putting the opinionless on these beats; we're merely hiding their opinions.

This is my predominant argument. Why do we all pretend like journalists don't have opinions? Admit that we all do have opinions and ensure that we try to get a diverse set of opinions on the job. We strive for diversity in every other area ... why not ideology?

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They Live

I've always loved the movie "They Live." It's one of John Carpenter's lesser-known works. Now, that's a bold statement.

It stars Rowdy Roddy Piper (yes, the wrestler) as a regular Joe who finds out that aliens have taken over the planet. He finds some special sunglasses that allow him to see the aliens for who they really are. All of our commericial advertising is really messages like "obey" and "work and multiply." Great concept.

I first saw it as a younger man and only recently realized it was leftist tripe, but who cares? Any movie with this line is a classic:

I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum.

You should check it out. Another spooky John Carpenter film you've never heard of is "Prince of Darkness." It was the last known siting of Jameson Parker, a.k.a A.J. Simon. And don't even get me started on the "The Fog." That's a classic back from when Adrienne Barbeau was America's idea of a sex symbol. How did Carpenter talk John Houseman into doing the opening monologue?

(Here's a site with link to the audio file of that line. Man, I love the Internet.)

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Newspapers in decline

Interesting post on the decline of newspapers.

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The beating

8zero8 shares the story of his altercation with a Duke Football player. Seriously funny. Best line:

I don't really know how long he used me as a punching bag, I just remember that sirens saved me like a bell saves a palooka.

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More on Wal-Mart

Here's a good piece on Wal-Mart. A love the title: "Like Robin Hood, with parking." It's true. Most of the people who bellyache about Wal-Mart are wealthy enough to not benefit greatly from its pricing.

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Democratic revolution

Nice roundup on democracy protests worldwide. Kuwait, Egypt, Bolivia, Nepal. Things still look bad in China.

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4-D Ultrasound

Incredible article from National Geographic on new ultrasounds:

"We see the earliest movements at 8 weeks," Campbell said. "By 12 weeks or so they are seen yawning and performing individual finger movements that are often more complex than you'll see in a newborn," he said. "It may be due to the effects of gravity after birth."

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Bill Richardson's comments

Wow. This is an assessment of the Bush Doctrine from the Democratic Governor of New Mexico:

Well, it is working. Whether by design, or by accident, it is working. The fact that the President has spoken out, where in the past the US policy has winked at Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, because of their massive security, and we have energy interests there, we have military bases, we kind of said, "OK, it's alright not to be democratic."

The President, in talking about freedom and democracy, is sparking a wave of very positive democratic sentiment that might help us override both Islamic fundamentalism that has formed in that region, and also some of the hatred for our policies of invading Iraq.

So, this is not only bringing a good result in the Middle East, potential democracy and full elections, but also it is helping our security, perhaps making us safer, by having less Islamic fundamentalism...

I'm still looking for an official transcript from Today. A little hard to believe.

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Fringe benefit

Instapundit notes that many newsweeklies have managed to find some attractive Lebanese women celebrating democracy.

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A lot of funny stuff

Over at 8zero8's blog. This made me laugh out loud.

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On the Italian journalist

Here's a ridiculous story:

Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena has suggested US troops deliberately tried to kill her moments after she was released by her kidnappers in Baghdad.

Ms Sgrena, writing in her left-wing newspaper Il Manifesto, described how her car came "under a rain of fire".

At that moment, she said she recalled her captors' words that some Americans "don't want you to go back."

This is why Eason Jordan got squeezed out of CNN. The idea that the United States military targeted this journalist speaks to an unbelievably elevated sense of self-importance.

Let's explore for a moment the implications if this conspiracy theory were true. Imagine how many soldiers would have to be given a direct order for this to be carried out. Every soldier in the country would have to be told by their superiour officer to kill journalists. (In Sgrena's case, apparently the soldiers were handed photos of her and told to kill her.) That's roughly 150,000 sodiers. The difference between most people and the wingnuts like Sgrena and Jordan is that we don't believe that 150,000 soldiers could all agree with conspire to kill unarmed journalists. It's just ridiculous.

This conspiracy theory is as loony as the we-didn't-really-land-men-on-the-moon one. What does it say about the journalistic profession that so many of them are willing to buy into it?

UPDATE: No, in response to a comment, I don't think it's an unfair generalization. Many journalists seem preoccupied with this idea that the US military is somehow targeting them. Here's a report from Amnesty International:

The circumstances surrounding these deaths have highlighted worrying trends in US policy towards journalists ... Journalists who reject the option of "embedding", preferring to try and do their job freely, have said that they are increasingly afraid that they are being deliberately targeted by the coalition forces as well as armed groups. A lack of proper investigation of incidents by the US forces has done nothing to dispel this view, despite denials by US spokespeople.

For whom is Amnesty International speaking? Did this concern come out of a vacuum? I think it's clear a large number of international journalists believe that U.S. soldiers have been ordered to kill journalists. So much so, that they've talked Amnesty International into issuing this concern in a report.

Remember when U.S. troops accidentally hit the Palestine Hotel? That story dominated a news cycle. Yet the fundamental assertion was that U.S. troops were told specifically to kill unarmed journalists. It was a ridiculous waste of time to cover the "controversy" and speaks to journalists' inflated sense of self-importance. They got killed because they were in a war zone doing their jobs. Many U.S. soldiers get killed doing their jobs in a war zone too. Yet, when one of those soldiers die in friendly fire, the press doesn't dedicate a news cycle to it.

As for the Italian journalist story being downplayed in the papers, I'm not sure. It's the lead story on Yahoo right now. It's also being played up in European circles; it's the second story on le Monde's web site.

I think Eason Jordan said what he said because it's a common theory in international journalistic circles. He didn't realize that so many would disagree with him when he spoke outside of his skewed groupthink.

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On Stevens

This guy sums up my view. Look, I just want to be able to watch the Superbowl with my 5-year-old without seeing simulated sex on the television. I don't want to regulate what other people pay to see. It's a free country, after all.

Here are some choice quotes:

I wasn't personally offended by Janet Jackson's baring of a fetish-gear adorned nipple on the Supebowl telecast. Nevertheless, I wholeheartedly supported the position of the traditionalists and religious in our society who said: "That crosses a line."

I agreed with them-- that they had a right to watch broadcast TV, during the dinner hour, and be free of seeing dirty images, especially without serious warnings that the program would contain such images...

... And I agree with much of the religious right's brief against the hypersexualization of our culture -- I don't think kids should have to walk to school with adult book stores displaying dildoes in the window, for example.

I agree with the religious right to the extent they want to keep out the profane, obscene, pornographic, or just plain dirty out of their view, out the public square, off the public airwaves.
But when they begin to agitate to regulate private behavior and purely private displays and private sales, that's where I, and millions more, split from them.

Big-time.

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Democrats and democracy

Read this transcript of an interview conducted by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show last night. It details the essential problem the Democrats face as they watch Democracy unfold in the Middle East.

Very enlightening.

I find it hard to believe that these words were uttered:

Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's hope for the rest of us.

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Warming down below

The British Antarctic Survey released an interesting tidbit late last month:

The retreat of Antarctic ice shelves is not new according to research published this week (24 Feb) in the journal Geology by scientists from Universities of Durham, Edinburgh and British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

A study of George VI Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula is the first to show that this currently healthy ice shelf experienced an extensive retreat about 9500 years ago, more than anything seen in recent years. The retreat coincided with a shift in ocean currents that occurred after a long period of warmth. Whilst rising air temperatures are believed to be the primary cause of recent dramatic disintegration of ice shelves like Larsen B, the new study suggests that the ocean may play a more significant role in destroying them than previously thought.

The Larsen B ice shelf gained attention back in March 2002. The New York Times carried before-and-after pictures of the melting on its front page. The third paragraph of the accompanying article (on Page 3) stated:

While it is too soon to say whether the changes there are related to a buildup of the "greenhouse" gas emissions that scientists believe are warming the planet, many experts said it was getting harder to find any other explanation.

Now, I don't consider myself an expert on global warming. But I do know that some in the scientific community disagree on whether humans have contributed to the effect. The latest information from the British Antartic Survey, a 60-year-old scientific organization that receives its funding ultimately from the British government, certainly adds to that debate. If the ice shelves melted 9,500 years ago, then why must we assume that human-caused pollutants are to blame for any current melting. Seems like a legitimate question for an objective reporter to ask.

But this new information has appeared nowhere in the New York Times.

Of course, it could be worse. This London-based Associated Press writer chose to write the story as another win for global warming proponents.

The current retreat of ice shelves in the Antarctic due to global warming is nothing new but this time the problem is manmade and therefore potentially more serious, according to research released Wednesday.

The reporter found a scientist (within the BAS) who argued that point, although this dire conclusion is nowhere on the official release from the organization. The lede isn't accurate; the research didn't generate that conclusion, one scientist did.

Furthermore, nowhere in the AP article does the author attempt to answer the seemingly obvious question: Who was to blame for the melt that happened 9,500 year ago?

Perhaps someone should write a book examining this issue...

HAT TIP: Tim Blair.

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Dan Rather

Here's an impressive collection of Dan Rather quotes throughout the years.

As I read them, I wonder why I debate with anyone about media bias. Certainly, the debate on Dan Rather should be put to rest. It's clear that this objective reporter has consistently allowed his political beliefs to permeate his news coverage.

And you know what, that's fine. But we (journalists and those who teach journalism) should quit pretending that he was ever "objective." That's all I ask.

Don't forget that the most openly biased of the three network anchors was also the the least watched. Viewers aren't stupid.

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Whatchoo talkin' bout, Mr. Stephens?

This truly frightens me:

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens said on Tuesday he would push for applying broadcast decency standards to cable television and subscription satellite TV and radio.

I've always been quite comfortable with the line between public vs. private airwaves. Uphold certain standards on the airwaves but leave alone anything that people pay to receive.

Stephens appears ready to broadjump over this line.

I doubt this will gain much traction. Mainline Republicans will act quickly to distance themselves from this type of idiocy.

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Andrew Sullivan nails it

I was looking for a pundit who said it exactly right. Here it is, from a man who endorsed John Kerry for president:

THE BUSH REVOLUTION: I think even the fiercest critics of president Bush's handling of the post-liberation phase in Iraq will still be thrilled at what appears to me to be glacial but important shifts in the right direction in the region. The Iraq elections may not be the end of the Middle East Berlin Wall, but they certainly demonstrate its crumbling.

The uprising against Syria's occupation of Lebanon is extremely encouraging; Syria's attempt to buy off some good will by coughing up Saddam's half-brother is also a good sign; ditto Mubarak's attempt to make his own dictatorship look more democratic. Add all of that to the emergence of Abbas and a subtle shift in the Arab media and you are beginning to see the start of a real and fundamental change.

Almost all of this was accomplished by the liberation of Iraq.

Nothing else would have persuaded the thugs and mafia bosses who run so many Arab nations that the West is serious about democracy. The hard thing for liberals - and I don't mean that term in a pejorative sense - will be to acknowledge this president's critical role in moving this region toward democracy. In my view, 9/11 demanded nothing less.

We are tackling the problem at the surface - by wiping out the institutional core of al Qaeda - and in the depths - by tackling the autocracy that makes Islamo-fascism more attractive to the younger generation. This is what we owed to the victims of 9/11. And we are keeping that trust.

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Mideast climate change

Wow! Even the NY Times is admitting that signs of democracy in the Middle East look promising. They even offer a begrudging tip of the hat to President Bush:

The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance. And for all the negative consequences that flowed from the American invasion of Iraq, there could have been no democratic elections there this January if Saddam Hussein had still been in power.

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Tip for happier living

I always keep a few cans of evaporated milk in the house just in case I run out of refrigerated coffee creamer. Sometimes I intentionally run out of the creamer just to enjoy the sweet nectar of evaporated milk in my coffee.

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Campus speech

Free speech resolution at the University of Alabama sponsored by the students. As Volokh puts it:

It really is extraordinary that we live in an age where students have to educate faculty on the importance and educational value of free speech.

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