Who Am I?

THOUSANDS OF TROOPS have died fighting a war he chose to fight--a war that increasingly appears to be a microcosm of something much larger than what the American people had bargained for. He seems to be stretching presidential power beyond what his predecessors ever imagined. His approval ratings hover around the freezing point. It's no coincidence that his party is beginning to stray from him, and the press is writing him off as a failure.
...
"It isn't polls or public opinion of the moment that counts," he said. "It is right and wrong and leadership."

Bush?

No.

Truman.

Alan Dowd at Weekly Standard has a very good piece.

Friday Goodies

1. Venezuelan firm programs Smartmatic voting machines used in US elections. The same folks who helped Chavez steal his election. Where is the outrage?? HT: LGF.

2. Stephen Harper's government has cut Hamas off the teat.

3. The execrable Cynthia McKinney, Representative from Georgia (D) has always been a piece of work. Earlier this week she slapped a Capitol Hill police officer who attempted to stop her from walking past a metal detector. Members of Congress typically wear lapel pins but McKinney generally refuses to wear hers. Looks like there will be an arrest warrant. Good.

4. Bernard Siegan, R.I.P. OpinionJournal has a profile on Reaganite Bernie Siegan who was Borked just before Bork. Siegan was an outspoken defender of property rights and argued that property rights were not inferior other rights.

5. Victor Davis Hanson has a good mind vitamin on Iraq and al-Qaeda today.

6. Praying doesn't help cardiac patients. Best comment for this result:

"There are no scientific grounds to expect a result and there are no real theological grounds to expect a result either," he said. "There is no god in either the Christian, Jewish or Moslem scriptures that can be constrained to the point that they can be predicted."

Wednesday Goodies

1. The Middle East is hoping to wait Bush out. Amir Taheri thinks they might be wrong.

2. Emmanuele Ottolenghi laments that Israel with its low turnout has squandered a real opportunity in the election yesterday. Frankly, a parliamentary system in the case of Israel is just damned silly.

3. Charles Krauthammer catches Francis Fukuyama with his knickers around his ankles after a tawdry little lie. [from yesterday]

4. Peter Schweizer on Cap Weinberger. Much more eloquent than me.

The people he admired the most in politics, he told me, were Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Winston Churchill. He liked that they were uncompromising when it came to taking on the enemies of liberty...The KGB considered him "unflinching," according to their files. Read through the Soviet and East German archives and notice how the military build-up Weinberger orchestrated threw them into an absolute panic. Cap Weinberger was a major architect in winning the Cold War.
...
He was a member of "The Greatest Generation," but he would speak movingly about the heroic acts of our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. When I asked him to compare today's heroism with that of his generation, he made an interesting point. "Members of 'the greatest generation' were drafted," he told me in a broken voice. "These soldiers all volunteered."

5. Abimael Guzman, the head of Peru's Maoist Shining Path genocidal maniacs, is getting a re-trial. He got life a decade ago for killing 40,000. Jay Nordlinger has an excellent review of Guzman's career. (subscriber only) This is why genocidal maniacs should get a fair trial AND the death penalty.

The difference between Guzmán and Saddam Hussein — and the Nazis and Milosevic and the Rwandan butchers and many others — is that Guzmán never gained power. But in his country, Peru, he managed to kill at least 40,000 people, depending on how you do the accounting.

Btw, Ramsey Clark and Noam Chomsky defended this bugger too.

6. Oh look. Jon Corzine is raising taxes in New Jersey after promising not to during the campaign last fall.

Caspar Weinberger, R.I.P.

It's been a tough day for the Good Guys.

Caspar Weinberger, principal Secretary of Defense for Ronald Reagan, died today at 88. Weinberger was the courtly, eloquent and implacable enemy of the Soviet threat.

From NRO's Jay Nordlinger:

It was when Reagan called again — this time after being elected president-that Weinberger had his real rendezvous with destiny: serving as secretary of defense at a time when the military desperately needed rebuilding; only six years after the helicopters had lifted off from the embassy roof in Saigon; when the Soviet Union was enjoying unprecedented advantage. Weinberger may be seen as the very embodiment of Peace Through Strength, a meaningful slogan for once. He saw things with rare moral clarity, and talked that way, and acted that way. He and Reagan were intent on rollback — musty notion — not detente.

Before his long service to Reagan, Weinberger attended Harvard where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa. After Harvard Law School he enlisted in the Army and eventually served on General Douglas MacArthur's intelligence staff. Weinberger served in the California Assembly, as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, head of the Office of Management & Budget (earning him the sobriquet Cap the Knife) and Secretary of Health Education and Welfare.

In Chicago in 1981 Weinberger said, (courtesy NYTimes)

"If we value our freedom, we must be able to defend ourselves in wars of any size and shape and in any region where we have vital interests."

Damn straight.

Lyn Nofziger, R.I.P.

Franklyn "Lyn" Nofziger, Ronald Reagan's press secretary and advisor, passed away yesterday.

A conservative iconoclast who drank whiskey and milk and always wore a tie with Mickey Mouse on it, Nofziger was a fierce Reagan loyalist.

"He was a great big garrulous guy who was very serious about his politics and very serious about Ronald Reagan," Michael Deaver, who was President Reagan's deputy chief of staff, said Monday. "He was sort of the keeper of the flame."

"He was fun to be around," Deaver said. "Reagan would light up when he came into the room."
...
In 1988, after he'd left the Reagan administration to capitalize on his ties to Washington's ruling elite, Nofziger was convicted of illegally lobbying for two defense contractors and a labor union.

But Nofziger compared the offense to "running a stop sign" and remained unrepentant. He told the judge, "I cannot show remorse because I do not believe I am guilty."

A year later a federal appeals court threw out the conviction, saying prosecutors had failed to show Nofziger had knowingly committed a crime.

In his own words:

In many of his speeches and elsewhere Reagan made that point—that our rights are God-given. That, he insisted, is one of the great differences between the United States and other nations. In most other nations, he noted, rights are granted by government and therefore are at the mercy of government. In the United States rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom to keep and bear arms and many others enunciated in the first ten amendments cannot be taken away by government or repealed legislatively or arbitrarily because they are not granted by government; they are the individual’s as a matter of God-given right.

I would venture to say that most Americans give little thought to this significant difference; they take their rights for granted. something they could not do if they lived in any other country.

Interesting, isn’t it, that the rights of atheists, America-haters and rabble rousers are all protected because the Founding Fathers turned to God for guidance as they sought to give themselves and those who would follow after them a more perfect union.

The last eighteen months of Nofziger's musings can be found here.

Quote of the Day - General Sir Charles Napier

Mark Steyn, on Abdul Rahman, the Christian convert in Afghanistan who is facing the death penalty for his faith.

At some point we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies. Abdul Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to, not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet.

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" - the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Gen. Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

India doesn't have suttee any more.

HT: NRO

Monday Goodies

I am borrowing Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds' posting method today and may do so a bit more in the coming weeks. I'll provide the links and a comment or two but unless time permits will be excluding the longer quotes and commentary. It's a time-related issue and Monk and I hope to be able to revert to full service soon.

1. Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute has THE PLAN to get rid of the welfare state. Instead of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid all adults not incarcerated get a $10,000 grant annually, $3,000 of which must be used for health care. Fascinating.

2. Mark Steyn:

The Palestinian people are the acme of internationalism — that’s to say, they’re the only people on the face of the earth with their own U.N. agency, and, after six decades in their care, they are now the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth.

[subscriber only but the snippet about says it all]

3. "Marriage is for white people." Depressing.

4. Send Moussaoui to the chair. He testifies that he and Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth plane and crash it into the White House of September 11th.

5. This makes sense. Why bother with art, science or foreign language if the kids are awful in Reading and Math?

6. John Fund pounds Yale some more on the Taliban student.

7. The mob has ruled in France for 200 years. And it still does.

It's the street that rules. Today's mobs, like their predecessors, are notable for their poor grasp of economic principles and their hostility to the free market. Only wardrobe distinguishes these demonstrations from those that led to the invasion of the national convention in 1795, when first the mob protested that commodity prices were too high; when the government responded with price controls, it protested with equal vigor that goods had disappeared and black market prices had risen.

Programming note

The Monk is going to trial and will be out of the loop until sometime in Idonotknowwhen. The trial is expected to last from 6-8 weeks. Depending on arrangements I may be in the office some of the time, and most of the Fridays b/c hizzoner is only holding trial from Monday thru Thursday (and only from 9-5 -- add 90 minutes for lunch and 2 15-minute breaks daily and we have unionization!).

Wongdoer will hold down the fort and I will post occasionally. The loss to you (the four of you who actually read this) is lack of baseball and NCAA Tourney insight as the latter ends and the former begins. Then again, if my baseball insight is as good as my NCAA Tourney insight this year, I could win millions betting against myself.

Blame Canada . . . and Russia and Norway and . . .

Could you hurt this little creature? Could you beat it, only 12 days to 12 months old, with a wooden club or an ice-pick shaped club until it is dead? If so, you must be a Canadian.

Sick buggers.

The Seal Hunt started yesterday in the home of our cultured, nuanced, peaceful and loving neighbors to the north -- Canada. Every year Canadian fishermen murder baby harp seals for their pelts (adults do not have usable pelts, nearly all other seal varieties grow into their seal-skin with its tight waterproof fur, within a few weeks of birth and before weaning), which are stripped and used for coats in northern countries of Europe, most notably Russia. The demand for seal products has decreased in the past decade or so, even though Canada INCREASED the total allowable kill in 1995 and again in 1997. As the US Humane Society noted:

[T]he Canadian government promotes the hunt. And although the government received scientific evidence that the quota is unsustainable, it has kept the quota at 275,000—a number that, when combined with estimates of animals mortally wounded but not recovered, has been exceeded annually with the exception of 2000.

Recent observers, invited at the invitation of the Canadian government, found that 40% of the seals are skinned while alive and at least partially conscious.

Remember this the next time you hear about the superiority of ANYTHING Canadian.

No 1 anymore

For the first time since 1980, which was the second-ever NCAA Tournament with seeding so the process was not too refined, there is no #1 seed in the Final Four. The last one fell when Villanova stank up the gym with a sub-25% FG shooting performance against Florida.

So how does The Monk look now after honking all of his Final Four picks? Probably not too much worse than a lot of folks. After all, few people picked Florida after its last five years of stinkbombs; Gonzaga was the fashion pick in the West, with Memphis as the second favorite; and LSU is probably the most frequently chosen Final Four pick by bracket players of the four who made it. After all, who other than GMU loyalists and maybe the coach's wife thought GMU would be there?

Funnily enough, GMU had probably the most impressive run through the Tourney: beating two Final Four teams from last season, winning four games against higher seeded teams, and knocking off everyone's pre-season #1, which was one of the two best teams in college hoops all year.

So what can you take from this season's tournament? Yeah, I know my predictions stank, but few people did anything approximating a good job on this. This Tourney therefore goes in the group mulligan bin with the 2000 Tournament that featured two #8 seeds in the Final Four.

More observations: (1) LSU is the sixth straight team to beat Duke in the Sweet 16 and advance to the Final Four (Indiana '87; Florida '00; Indiana '02; Kansas '03; Michigan State '05), and the fourth one in the last seven tourneys to do so as a lower seed. (2) Remember that information I gave you from www.kenpom.com that noted that seven of the last eight Final Four teams had been in top 10 in offensive efficiency that season? Throw it out. This year only Florida qualifies. Three of the four teams are in the top 10 in defensive efficiency, and GMU is #15. (3) She's not, but Jeanne Tripplehorn looks like she could be Joachim Noah's momma -- just look at the eye separation on their faces.

The worst great team in the NCAA?

It's over. Of all upsets, George Mason, a #11 seed, beat UConn. And GMU did it in OVERTIME -- in other words, it had to play what should have been the best team in college hoops for FIVE EXTRA MINUTES and still won. The score -- eerily identical to the result UConn suffered in the Big East Tournament: an 86-84 loss in OT; a 74-74 tie after regulation.

UConn led by 9 at halftime. But GMU rallied, took the lead and controlled the game down the stretch. If Tony Skinn had nailed his free throws with 5 seconds left, GMU would have won in regulation. UConn had to rally with two baskets in the last 7 seconds of regulation to force George Mason, a #11 seed without future NBA players like Rashad Anderson, Rudy Gay and Marcus Williams, to overtime.

GMU is now the second #11 to reach the Final Four, the third team seeded higher than a #8 to reach the Final Four, and matched LSU's feat of becoming the lowest-seeded team to knock off a #1 seed. Unlike the Kentucky team that LSU nicked in '86, which was perhaps the third-best team of the four #1 seeds (the country's two best during the course of the season had been Duke and Kansas), UConn was one of the co-favorites to win the whole thing.

So kudos to the Colonials, the first team from a non-major conference to reach the Final Four since Indiana State -- yes, THAT Indiana State, the one with Larry Bird. They're a testimony to grit, solid skill and great motivation.

And a black mark for UConn, which had shown weak defense (opposing FG% near 50% -- a level GMU topped today), weak will and a lack of a killer instinct in barely beating two teams, Kentucky and Washington, that it should have blown off the court. Having the best player on the court for UConn (Rudy Gay) has meant very little in this Tournament. And for the embattled #1 seed to go out like this is pretty poor form.

Can anyone here play this game?

So here's what five of the eight teams, who in turn are among the best 16 in the country, failed to do last night: score 60 points in regulation. Think about that on NBA terms -- that's an inability to score 72 points. Even the Knicks are capable of that.

Consider: BC and Villanova totaled all of 102 points combined in regulation; Wichita State had to work hard for 55, Georgetown and Florida totaled 110. Villanova shot 35% and won because BC had 21 turnovers; Georgetown shot sub-40%, Florida scored all of 19 baskets.

Yuck.

This year has provided some of the best evidence of how the quality of play in college hoops has degraded. Shooting is bad, ball-handling is weak and ineptitude around the hoop is horrible. Most telling comment: Len Elmore on how UCLA kept getting good shot opportunities in the first half of its win against Gonzaga -- the Bruins hit 7 of 27.

Back in the day, my editor griped at me when I complained Virginia basketball was boring. "How can you say that? Every game is close, 58-55, 54-53; that's exciting!" I demurred: that type of basketball is exciting at the end, but it requires 35 minutes or more of ugly play to reach the thrilling finish. Who needs that? I'll take West Virginia's shootouts, Washington and UConn's run-and-gun and that fantastic Syracuse-Texas semifinal in 2003 over any 60-59 overtime "thriller" decided on a goaltending call.

Basketball, especially high quality college basketball, is America's beautiful game: athleticism, artistry, with highly coordinated interaction on offense and defense. Just watch Duke and UNC -- those games are tough and hard-fought but well-played and fairly high-scoring. When the game turns into dull defensive wars characterized by ineptitude (see Texas' 9-29 in the first half today) and excessive physical play, it becomes just another sport without the fun qualities that set it apart.

UPDATE: The games got even worse after I finished posting this. Consider: through the end of regulation in today's Final Eight games (LSU-Texas went to OT), the four teams vying for spots in the Final Four today scored a combined total of 199 points! That is awful. The UCLA-Memphis fiasco, 50-45, is just ineptsketball. Memphis shot under 32%, UCLA shot 35% and 20 of 39 from the line. Ugh. That's just as awful as the heinous Michigan State-Wisconsin Final Four game in 2000, which the Spartans won 53-41 and led by 19-17 at the half. Three years later, Syracuse led Kansas 53-42 in the national title game . . . at HALFTIME.

More on the uglyball that UCLA and Memphis played, courtesy ESPN: (1) the combined 95 points is the lowest total in a regional final in the shot clock era (1987-present for NCAA Tourney games); (2) the 50 points by UCLA was its lowest total in winning an NCAA Tourney game; (3) Memphis' 45 was the lowest total ever for a #1 seed (Oklahoma's inept 47 against Syracuse in '03 may be next lowest). Yeesh.

Give me the days of the Sherman Douglas Syracuse teams anytime -- high-flying offense, but you don't beat teams who wind up with more than 25 wins by 102-78 and 90-66 without playing some D.

Heck, everyone praises Duke's defense to the heavens, and their best teams had more than their fair share of shootouts (1990: 97-83 over Arkansas; 1992: 81-78 over Indiana, the 104-103 OT win over Kentucky that went to OT tied at 92). Bring back the offense to basketball!

Don't blink or you'll miss it -- the WaPo's conservative blogging

The Washington Post hired a blogger earlier this week to balance out the WaPo's own Dan Froomkin's left-of-center leanings. It hired Ben Domenech, a founder of RedState.org and a former editor at Regnery Publishing (the publishing equivalent of the Death Star to liberals).

Liberal bloggers then began digging up whatever they could on Domenech. Amidst the usual puerile ramblings and accusations of racism, sexism, fascism, etc., the lefties did find something bad.

And something inexcusable: Domenech is a plagiarist.

Nor was this a one-off situation. Domenech plagiarized while writing for the college paper when he was at William & Mary (the WaPo should've hired a Virginia man) and in at least one piece he wrote on National Review Online. NRO in turn found the alleged source of Domenech's writing, compared the two and apologized to Cox News Service's writer -- in other words, he did it.

The liberals, who sought to take him down merely because Domenech is a conservative, celebrated. Meanwhile, conservative bloggers called for his head. And they got it. Less than a week after his hiring, Domenech resigned.

Good. Plagiarism is to writing what Pete Rose's gambling is to baseball -- the line that must not be crossed. It's good to see the WaPo, lefties and right-wing bloggers all getting this one right. Too bad other serial plagiarists are still enjoying exalted status as intellectuals and writers (three words: Doris Kearns Goodwin).

More Saddamite Iraq ties to al-Qaeda

Discussions ranging as far back as 1995.

What was Clinton doing?

It's a Civil War and that's good

Count on Charles Krauthammer to make a perspicacious contrarian point. Today he rips the media for whining about a "civil war" in Iraq -- instead, they should be lauding it:

This whole debate about civil war is surreal. What is the insurgency if not a war supported by one (minority) part of Iraqi society fighting to prevent the birth of the new Iraqi state supported by another (majority) part of Iraqi society?

By definition that is civil war, and there's nothing new about it. As I noted here in November 2004: ``People keep warning about the danger of civil war. This is absurd. There already is a civil war. It is raging before our eyes. Problem is, only one side'' -- the Sunni insurgency -- ``is fighting it.''

Indeed, until very recently that has been the case: ex-Baathist insurgents (aided by the foreign jihadists) fighting on one side, with the United States fighting back in defense of a new Iraq dominated by Shiites and Kurds.

Now all of a sudden everyone is shocked, shocked to find Iraqis going after Iraqis. But is it not our entire counterinsurgency strategy to get Iraqis who believe in the new Iraq to fight Iraqis who want to restore Baathism or impose Taliban-like rule? Does not everyone who wishes us well support the strategy of standing up the Iraqis so we can stand down? And does that not mean getting the Iraqis to fight the civil war themselves?

Real March Madness

Kudos to UCLA. The Bruins reached the Elite Eight for the first time since 1997 after the most thrilling game in the tournament so far -- coming back from as much as 17 points down (at 37-20, 39-22 and 42-25) and from nine points down with just over three minutes left to nick Gonzaga 73-71. Even more impressive, the Bruins overcame a horrid ref decision with just 90 seconds left that wiped out a UCLA basket -- usually those plays are momentum killers.

The difference between this UCLA team and the immediate pre-Howland years: defensive ability and team intensity. The Bruins do not play "West Coast Basketball" and that's a good thing.

Gonzaga does, but its failure was on offense more than on defense last night, which reverses its two underperformances in the past two NCAA tourneys. So the 'Zags did fine, and will wonder what might have been.

The Monk is on record as being a Gonzaga disdainer. The reasons are simple: excess hype, overrating the team, the faux mystical little guy factor and a bit of inverted racism -- rooting for a team from the whitebread area of the Pacific Northwest that tends to have more white kids, and fewer black kids (with plenty of international players to substitute for the usual inner-city blacks who comprise most of the major teams), than most major college schools. Right now the 'Zags are the only team in the WCC and have a national profile. Much of that came from Dan Monson's work with a team with sub-standard talent. Mark Few has enhanced recruiting and upgraded the athlete quality to reach major college status -- a tribute to him but The Monk doubts his ability as a game coach (see 2004, 2005 NCAA Tourney losses). The 'Zags are not a small school anymore.

So the 'Zags go down again, this time by getting outscored 11-0 to finish the game. Adam Morrison's theatrical sobbing at halfcourt gets no sympathy here -- UCLA won as a team and did a fine job of alerting the nation that the premier program of 30-40 years ago is close to full resurrection.

Duke bites the dust

Kudos to Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated who picked this from the day NCAA Tourney pairings were announced: LSU shocked Duke tonight, knocking the Blue Devils out of the NCAA Tourney 62-54. Here's what's REALLY shocking about the win: (1) LSU holding Duke to 54; (2) LSU holding JJ Redick to 11 on 3-18 shooting; (3) LSU committing 18 turnovers and prevailing; (4) Big Baby Davis hitting an underwhelming 3-11 from the floor.

More shock: radio play-by-play dingus Brad Sham asking the LSU point guard if Duke was the best defensive team LSU had played this year. Hey Brad! LSU just shut down the player of the year in college hoops and limited his team, which had not scored less than 70 since the first game of the year, to a paltry 54 -- stop talking up Duke and start kissing some Bayou Bengal behind!

The problem for Duke was the same as it's been all year: lack of quality depth. Shelden Williams went nuts for most of the game (23 points, 12 rebounds) but when he went quiet Duke had no answer thanks to Redick's struggles. And this Duke team had the same problem every Duke team since 2001 has had: lack of interior toughness. Duke actually had a rebounding advantage early in the second half . . . and ended up with 36 to LSU's 46.

For four of the past five years, Duke has honked in the Sweet 16. In three of those four years, Duke was the #1 seed and lost to a lower seed ('02 = 5-seed Indiana; '05= 5-seed Michigan State). LSU had a combination of Michigan State and Indiana -- athletic shot blockers (IU '02) AND powerful interior players (MSU '05).

For LSU, this augurs well. Since 2000, the last four teams to beat Duke in the Sweet 16 have gone to the Final Four ('00 Florida; '02 Indiana; '03 Kansas; '05 MSU).

Now how ridiculous does Andy Katz's argument all but equating Coach K's nine-year Sweet 16 run with Coach Wooden's seven-straight titles look? From The Monk's perspective, very.


[N.B. -- Redick scored 11, not nine as I originally wrote. The post has since been corrected].

Dealing with the devil

Bob Huggins, fired after entirely too long a run at Cincinnati where his teams were characterized by questionable recruiting and a long list of academic failings, is now going to be the new coach of Kansas State.

KSU is desperate for basketball credibility, something it has not had since Mitch Richmond took the Wildcats to the Elite Eight in 1988, where KSU lost to cross-state rival Kansas during the Danny Manning-led run to KU's last title. The Wildcats lost 31 straight games to the Jayhawks before clipping them earlier this year.

This is a dangerous situation. Huggins will make the team better and more competitive. He will not make the players into NBA stars or, more prosaically, KSU grads. And despite whatever else it has failed to achieve, KSU is generally a pretty clean program. They're playing with fire in Manhattan.

Moral equivalence is suicide

The case of Abdul Rahman, an Afghani Muslim who converted to Christianity fifteen years ago and who now potentially faces the death penalty if he does not convert back, is a perfect example of why moral and cultural 'equivalence' is indefensible.

There are those who would argue that this is a prime example of why the Middle East cannot be democratized, the same, coincidentally, who would argue that each culture's practices are just as 'good' as any other, Rahman's case is not a necessarily evidence of the former but definitely an argument against the latter.

If we believe in liberty, especially individual liberty, facing the death penalty for choosing one religion over another is beyond any reasonable defense.

I don't think Rahman will be executed. I have every confidence that if all else fails that Karzai will not sign the death warrant. The hope is that somewhere in the judiciary system a sane decision will be made, perhaps with the knowledge that the world is watching, and judging.

Save the Mice!

That the far left has deeply infiltrated the environmentalist movement shouldn't be a surprise. How deeply it has esconced itself is evident in the mouse brouhaha brewing in Colorado. From OpinionJournal:

DENVER--Here in Colorado, the hottest political issue of the day may not be the war in Iraq or the out-of-control federal budget, but rather the plight of a tiny mouse. Back in 1998, a frisky eight-inch rodent known as the Preble's meadow jumping mouse gained protective status under the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA). What has Coloradans hot under the collar is that some 31,000 acres of local government and privately owned land in the state and stretching into Wyoming--an area larger than the District of Columbia--was essentially quarantined from all development so as not to disrupt the mouse's natural habitat. Even the Fish and Wildlife Service concedes that the cost to these land owners could reach $183 million.

What we have here is arguably the most contentious dispute over the economic impact of the ESA since the famous early-'90s clash between the timber industry and the environmentalist lobby over the "endangered" listing of the spotted owl in the Northwest. That dispute eventually forced the closure of nearly 200 mills and the loss of thousands of jobs. Last week the war over the fate of the Preble's mouse escalated when a coalition of enraged homeowners, developers and farmers petitioned the Department of the Interior to have the mouse immediately delisted as "endangered" because of reliance on faulty data.

The property-rights coalition would seem to have a fairly persuasive case based on the latest research on the mouse. It turns out that not only is the mouse not endangered, but it isn't even a unique species.

The man who is almost singlehandedly responsible for exposing the truth about the Preble's mouse is Rob Roy Ramey, a biologist and lifelong conservationist, who used to serve as a curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Mr. Ramey's research--published last year in the peer-reviewed journal Animal Conservation--concluded that the Preble's mouse "is not a valid subspecies based on physical features and genetics." The scientist who conducted the original research classifying Preble's as unique now agrees with Mr. Ramey's assessment. Even scientists who defend extending the mouse's "endangered" status admit that it is 99.5% genetically similar to other strains of mice.

Nor is the mouse on the road to extinction. "The more people look for these mice, the more they find. Every time scientists do a new count, we find more of the Preble's mouse," Mr. Ramey says. It's now been found inhabiting twice as many distinct areas as once thought. These are mice, after all, and the one thing rodents are proficient at is breeding. The full species of the meadow jumping mouse, far from being rare, can be found over half the land area of North America.

Ramey's bona fides as a conservationist and scientist do nothing to spare him the "rage" of the environmentalists:

Not surprisingly, Mr. Ramey has been accused of being "dishonest," a "whore for industry" and a "shill for the Bush administration." Under intense political pressure from environmental activists, he was removed from his curator's job at the museum. "I've been nearly stampeded by a herd of agitated elephants in Africa and suspended from some of the highest cliffs in North America, but nothing prepared me for the viciousness of the attacks from the environmentalist lobby," he tells me.

Once again, the Left cannot react rationally when one of their sacred cows is even under perceived attack.

Suck up to Coach K of the week

This is just ridiculous: Andy Katz writing a column (and soliciting support from college coaches) that lauds Coach K's nine straight trips to the Sweet 16 as a modern day equivalent of UCLA's seven-straight NATIONAL TITLES. Some concepts are just too stupid for words.

What about UNC's 13-straight Sweet 16s from 1981-1993? Oh yeah, four of those came when UNC only had to win one game to get to the Regional Semis. Well, UNC still had nine-straight Sweet 16s where it had to win two games from 1985-93 and only twice (1991, 1993) had a #1 seed. In Duke's run of nine-straight Sweet 16s, Duke has had a #1 seed EIGHT times, and considering that no #16 has knocked off a #1 seed, Duke has basically needed to win just one real game to reach the Sweet 16 in eight of those nine seasons.

Of all teams that should make the Sweet 16, #1 seeds are the top of the list. In 21 years of the 64(+) team Tournament, only 12 #1 seeds have whiffed before the Sweet 16. In other words, Duke did not defy the odds. Much more impressive was Duke's run of five-straight Final Fours from 1988-92, especially considering that it received a #1 seed just ONCE in that span, had to knock off the #1 seed in its region three years in a row (1988-90), and nearly half of the Final Four entrants since 1985 have been #1 seeds (37 of 84). Indeed, Duke alone accounts for five of the 18 occasions that a #2 seed has reached the Final Four since 1985.

So let's not overrate the achievement. The #1 seeds should reach the Sweet 16, period. The success ratio for #1 seeds in that regard (76-12 since 1985 = 86.4% reach Sweet 16) far eclipses any other seeding, even #2s (55-29 since 1985 in second round games = 65.5%). The real success is Krzyzewski's teams' continued success during the regular season that enables them to pull down #1 seeds. Winning two games against what should be outmanned opponents doesn't come close to the Olympian heights Coach Wooden achieved.

Moral choice -- the war in Iraq

Jeff Jacoby outlines the moral case for overthrowing Saddam Hussein -- the argument that Monkette2B appreciates. Here's why:

The writer is Pamela Bone, a noted Australian journalist and self-described ''left-leaning, feminist, agnostic, environmentalist internationalist." She is writing about a group of female Iraqi emigrees whom she met in November 2000.

''They told me that in Iraq, the country they had fled, women were beheaded with swords and their heads nailed to the front doors of their houses, as a lesson to other women. The executed women had been dishonoring their country with their sexual crimes, and this behavior could not be tolerated, the then-Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, had said on national television. More than 200 women had been executed in this manner in the previous three weeks. . . . Because the claims seemed so extreme, I checked Amnesty International's country report. . . . Some of the women's 'sexual crimes' were having been raped by one of Saddam's sons. One of the women executed was a doctor who had complained of corruption in the government health department."

* * *
But condemning Saddam's brutality, let alone doing something to end it, was not a priority for most of the left. I remember asking Ted Kennedy during the run-up to the war why he and others in the antiwar camp seemed to have so little sympathy for the countless victims of Ba'athist tyranny. Even if they thought an invasion was unwise, couldn't they at least voice some solidarity with the innocent human beings writhing in Saddam's Iraqi hell? Kennedy replied vehemently that he took a back seat to no one in his concern for those who suffer under all the world's evil regimes, and demanded to know whether supporters of war in Iraq also wanted to invade North Korea, Burma, and other human-rights violators.

It was a specious answer. The United States may not be able to stop every homicidal fascist on the planet, but that is hardly an argument for stopping none of them. . .

Wongdoer catches up

Today is Wongdoer's 36th birthday, so he's now caught up to me (3-3-70) and his wife (2-3-70).

Twenty-four years ago today, Wongdoer received a letter from the admissions department at our magnet high school informing him that he had passed the admissions test and could matriculate in the Fall of '82. Imagine: a 12-year old child who hadn't even learned English until six years before had passed the most difficult test in the City -- the admissions test for our high school, a one-time opportunity for sixth-graders to gain admission to the most exclusive magnet high school, which ONLY allowed matriculation into the seventh grade, no transfers in at any other time. It was just what his parents had worked for: toiling at various jobs in the Chinese community of NYC to ensure that their lone son would have great educational opportunities. They succeeded: he did.

More importantly, he took advantage of it: best high school in NYC, ridiculously high grades, SAT scores that qualified him for MENSA, Harvard grad, then legal money-launderer (currency trader) for various major banking institutions. And a good son: he takes care of his ma and pa, and they take care of his kids during the day -- a level of access to grandkids that makes other retirees (or general oldies) weep in jealousy.

So here's to Wongdoer, whom I've known for nearly 24 years, on his 36th birthday. Happy Birthday.

The real anti-war movement

Check out these pictures on Right Wing News from a blogger called "Zombie". The undead one wandered into the antiwar rally held in San Francisco this weekend to protest the Iraq war, which started March 18, 2003. Zombie took pictures -- ones you probably won't find in your neighborhood newspaper. Seems the antiwar left has more in common with our enemies than our country.

Thanks, David Duke

One needs to suppress the desire to rinse one's mouth out with Listerine after saying that but in this case the odious David Duke actually has done some good.

James Taranto reports via the New York Sun that the academic dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Stephen M. Walt, and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago have co-authored a working paper entitled "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy"

The 83-page "working paper" claims a network of journalists, think tanks, lobbyists, and largely Jewish officials have seized the foreign policy debate and manipulated America to invade Iraq...

Walt and Mearsheimer argue that "neither strategic nor moral arguments can account for America's support for Israel," and therefore the only possible explanation is "the unmatched power of the Israel Lobby."

I haven't read the paper but according to Taranto's detailed description of its main points, it's a lot of recycled tripe like the political-ideological anti-Semitism that we wrote about here.

The Palestinians are happily distributing copies but David Duke does the good guys a favor here by bestowing his blessing.

Duke, a former Louisiana state legislator and one-time Ku Klux Klan leader, called the paper "a great step forward," but he said he was "surprised" that the Kennedy School would publish the report.

Quattrone conviction overturned

A three judge panel in the Second Circuit unanimously overturned the conviction of former CSFB technology banker Frank Quattrone's conviction for obstruction of justice. Quattrone was convicted in 2004 after his first trial ended in a hung jury.

The ruling, a rare reversal of a jury verdict, is considered a big setback for the Justice Department, which had sought to portray Mr. Quattrone as a symbol of Wall Street excesses during the boom years.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan unanimously found that the judge's instructions to the jurors had failed to adequately require that they establish that Mr. Quattrone intended to thwart a government investigation.

"We cannot confidently say that if a rational jury was properly instructed," it would have found Mr. Quattrone guilty, the panel wrote.

The panel also ordered a new judge for a third trial if the government decides to bring one. It didn't fault the performance of the judge who presided over the first two trials but indicated that some comments by the judge could be considered more than simply 'impatience or annoyance'.

The case against Quattrone has always been a bit light, it centered on one one-line email message that Quattrone sent echoing the mail of a subordinate which followed CSFB internal rules at the time. The government has won a number of high profile cases not on criminal acts themselves but on 'obstruction of justice', e.g., Martha Stewart. It's a powerful tool but it has been used inappropriately.

Spirit of the Orange Revolution

In Belarus, protesters have flooded October Square in the capital city of Minsk to demonstrate against the "re-election" of despot Aleksandr Lukashenko -- the last European dictator west of Moscow. The US has called for a re-vote and the EU has blasted the election as a farce.

Here's hoping the spirit of Georgia and Ukraine travels north to Belarus and the Belarussian people finally get a president they want.

Sarandon and Sheehan

Hollywood left-specialist Susan Sarandon will be playing Cindy "Mother" Sheehan in a biopic.

Can't wait.

HT: Drudge

More to KO the myth that Saddam's Iraq was not a terrorist state

All you need to do to keep up with the Iraqi connections to terrorism under Saddam is read whatever Stephen Hayes writes, period. He has done an excellent job tracing the Middle Eastern terror network's connections to Saddam Hussein, just like Claudia Rosett has done a great job tracing the UN corruption straight to Kofi Annan.

Unnatural Alliance?

The NYTimes reports that a number of highly successful hedge fund managers, not just George Soros, donates money to the Democrats. Aside from Soros who spent millions trying to unseat George Bush in 2004, big donors to the Dems include:

- James Simons (Renaissance)
- Paul Tudor Jones (Tudor Investment)
- Ken Griffin (Citadel) donated to both parties
- Israel Englander (Millenium)

These are some of the smartest moneymakers around - seems their political intelligence may not be as strong as their financial perspicacity...

NCAA Tourney: of all the words of mice and men . . .

The Monk's picks honked -- that's what you get when The Monk was so deep into work he didn't realize until late last night that he picked four Big Tenplusone teams for the Sweet 16 -- what a fool! The Monk has an anti-Big Ten bias because that conference plays basketball like the early '90s Big East -- bang, push, clang. It's rugby with a hoop. But because the Big Tenplusone landed three Final Eight teams last year, The Monk thought he may have underrated the conference as a whole.

Here's the problem: I didn't do a conference by conference check of the Sweet 16 I put forth, therefore I didn't catch the brain flatulence inherent in picking four Big Tenplusone teams to survive the weekend. There's no way, if I had done a quantitative analysis, that I'd have had four Big Tenplusone teams in the Sweet 16.

And indeed, in the written bracket I set up for my office pool I had Iowa and OSU both out by now, WVU and G'Town both in the Sweet 16, and only Indiana and Illinois surviving the weekend from the thugsketball league (even though that didn't happen, I don't regret those picks). So much for proofreading my own s--t.

Here's what else I honked: (1) Kansas -- the first Final Four pick in about 10+ years that I've made that's whiffed in the first round; (2) UNC in the Final Eight (but so did most everyone else -- you didn't pick GMU for the Sweet 16, and if you say otherwise, you're lying); (3) Syracuse and Seton Hall (what a whiff by the Pirates). Kansas', Syracuse's and Iowa's failures led me to create a new Monkrule of tournament forecasting: do NOT pick conference tourney champions of major conferences for a deep NCAA Tourney run if those teams get less than a 2-seed. See 1992 Syracuse, 1993 Georgia Tech, 2004 Maryland. Exception to the rule: 1996 Mississippi State.

Here's what I got right: (1) Tennessee failing to survive the weekend -- I just picked the wrong vanquisher; (2) Florida actually winning through to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2000; (3) UWM beating Oklahoma.

Some highs and lows of the first weekend. First the lows:

Worst performance by a #2 seed = tie between Tennessee and OSU. Tennessee barely survived Winthrop before getting ousted; OSU lost by 18 in Ohio to Georgetown after an unimpressive win over Davidson.

Worst performance by a #1 seed = UConn, which had to rally to beat Albany and then couldn't put away Kentucky in a game played at UConn's pace.

Worst first-round choke = Kansas and Iowa, tie. Iowa was a touch overseeded but should not honk to a stiff like NW State; Kansas whiffed in the first round for the second-straight year.

Worst second round honk = UNC. The 'Heels ran out to a 16-2 lead by the 15-minute mark of the first half. With 15 minutes left in the GAME, UNC trailed 32-30 -- that's 14 points in 20 minutes against the #11 seed. Honorable mention to Pitt (a #5), which lost to Bradley (a #13).

Worst first-round performance, overall: Seton Hall. So much for Louis Orr's resume, that team trailed by 16 at the half and sucked for the full 40 minutes.

As for the highlights:

Best buzzer-beater: NW State to knock off Iowa.

Best performance by a #1 seed: Memphis, which dispatched Oral Roberts and Bucknell with the ease that should be expected of a #1 seed.

Best performance by a #2 seed: Texas' second-round win over NC State. UT won a trap game (NCSU beat second-seeded UConn in the second round last year) and did so by 21 after struggling with Penn. Honorable mention: UCLA's whipping of Belmont in the first round -- the largest win by a top-2 seed in the tournament. UCLA has allowed all of 103 points in two games -- that's defense, a concept formerly foreign to the West Coast but central to Ben Howland (who came from rough-and-tumble Pitt).

Easiest waltz to the Sweet 16: West Virginia. After thwacking So. Illinois, the Mountaineers only had to face NW State. It's not often that a sixth seed faces an 11 and a 14 on its trip to the regional semis.

Best job of taking care of business: BC, which won its two games easily.

Best performance by a team outside the #1-#4 seeds: Georgetown and George Mason. The Hoyas thumped OSU in Ohio, a pseudo-road game; the Colonials beat Michigan State by 10 and shut down UNC.

As for the Sweet 16, here are the best games: (1) Villanova-BC, renewing the Big East rivalry in a battle of speed ('Nova) vs. power (BC and its big front line); (2) UCLA-Gonzaga, the battle of the West with offense ('Zags) vs. defense (UCLA, yes you read that right) -- note that UCLA coach Ben Howland ALWAYS has been good at breaking a zone with interior passing, not just outside shooting, and the 'Zags play much zone; (3) UConn-UW, a battle of the Huskies and the question of whether Washington can keep pace with UConn. Also interesting, whether LSU can batter Duke physically, and whether Florida can keep going against a difficult GTown team.

Happy Birthday PaMonk

On behalf of the Monk who is away from a computer today.

Seventy six years ago today, MonkGramps and MonkGran welcomed their second baby boy into the world. Unlike his older brother, this baby thrived and prospered. He served his country in the USAF defending the UK during the Korean War. He returned to the US, had three kids, got a plum job as a teacher in the second-best public high school in NYC and found the woman of his life on the second try -- MaMonk, 43 years ago this June. In 1970, he had his fourth and final progeny -- The Monk.

PaMonk is not just my Dad, but what a Dad should be: a figure of respect and to be emulated (for the most part); knowledgeable and sharp -- we don't go to bars, we go to ballgames; we never talked smack about women -- that was for me and my friends (before Monkette2B domesticated me). He's a history and politics reference today, just as he was when I was in my developmental stages. Supportive, smart, demanding, disciplined. In all cases, he was my Dad first and foremost and that's what a son needs.

So here's to the PaMonk -- 76 and still hoping to match his age on the golf course (that may take another two decades). Happy Birthday Pop, I love you.

South Korea bails out US

The South Koreans remained unbeaten in World Baseball Classic play holding off Japan 2-1 last night and gave the US a chance to advance by beating Mexico today.

Roger Clemens will be starting for the USA in possibly the final game of his storied career.

Quote of the day from teammate Chipper Jones:

"With it possibly being his last start, it's something to tell the grandkids, especially if you do something to help him get a win and get to the next round," Jones said.

Then Jones thought of other possible involvements with Clemens: "Being able to throw the ball back to him after an out, having him look at me and say 'Let's go.' When Roger tells you, 'Let's get it on,' everybody kicks it up a notch."

Asked what he thought of Clemens after being with him on this team, Jones said: "He's more like Jesus than I thought. Guys would be huddled around talking smack in the clubhouse and Roger walks in. It's like the parting of the Red Sea."

The Monk's Guide to the NCAA Tournament

You've been counting down the hours since the selection show, penciling in your brackets and now . . . it's time.

Yes, it's what you have all been waiting for, The Monk's guide to this year's NCAA Tournament. You can check the archives from last March to see how my picks went last year. I ended up tying for victory with one of Wongdoer's colleagues in Wongdoer's large bracket pool. I pulled in third in '04. Each time the key to the high finish: picking three of the Final Four. In other words, don't fret much now about the 8/9 games because those are worth the least -- get the big ones right and you'll be in the hunt for the cash. And here we go, bracket by bracket:

Unfortunately Duke got a candy-a** regional for the second time in three years -- the "Atlanta" (f/k/a Southeast) Regional. The #2 seed lost to Duke by 31 during the regular season; the #3 seed is a plodding Big Ten team, the type that Duke eats for lunch; the #4 seed is a tourney underachiever from last year; the #5 seed was headed for the NIT a week ago; and the #6 seed -- a trendy Final Eight pick after its run last year -- has stunk down the stretch. Duke doesn't miss the Sweet 16 often -- just twice (1993, 1997) when ranked with a #1-#4 seeding under Krzyzewski. Duke doesn't lose in Regional Finals (10-1 under Coach K -- and Kentucky needed a huge rally in '98 to beat a young Duke team). If Duke fails, it fails in the Regional semis to an athletic team with good guards and inside beef (see '05 Michigan State, '03 Kansas) -- LSU fits that bill, but not well. Expect the dang Dookies to be playing in April.

Regional Semis picks: Duke, Syracuse (an admitted homer pick -- LSU is probably better), Iowa, Texas; Regional Final: Duke-Iowa.

Upset Special: NC State over Cal.

Location tips: (1) remember both So. Illinois and Iowa would play West Virginia in Big Ten territory in Michigan; (2) SU travels well and has sold out its allotment in Jacksonville; (3) Duke is in Greensboro, NC for the first two rounds.

Meanwhile in the Oakland (West) Regional, the Tournament Selection Committee has once again reinforced its predecessors' tradition of making the West the weakest Regional. Whereas the Atlanta region is easy for Duke, the Oakland region is easy for everyone. That means good upset potential. The Monk's pick: Kansas. Why? Because Memphis is a major conference Gonzaga, UCLA is unproven, Gonzaga is a non-major conference Gonzaga, Pitt will again find ways to honk (see: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005) and so on. Here's the key: Kansas has played good basketball against a solid conference for the past two months; Memphis has played a bunch of stiffs in the defenestrated C-USA; UCLA is solid but probably a year away and Gonzaga just doesn't play defense.

Regional Semifinalists: Memphis, KU, Indiana, UCLA; Regional Final = KU-UCLA.

Upset Special: I have Indiana over Gonzaga, but an IU loss in the first round, a Kent State win over Pitt; an Arkansas win over Memphis, or even a Xavier win over Gonzaga would not surprise me.

Location tips: (1) UCLA won't have to leave California to reach the Final Four; (2) Arkansas got a break -- there are loads of Arkies here in Big D and the Hogs get their first and second round games in Dallas.

In the Washington DC (East) Region, the pick is easy -- UConn. This is the situation that disgusts me. If UConn had done what everyone expected and won the Big East Tournament, the NCAA Tourney would simply be the Huskies Invitational. But those dogs didn't hunt in NYC and they're now seeking to become the first team to lose in its conference quarterfinals and win the NCAA. Personally, I can see UConn losing to Illinois or UNC or even Michigan State if the Spartans get their collective stuff together. But picking the Tournament is also a question of playing the odds -- and UConn has more talent and ability than ANY other team.

Regional Semifinals: UConn, Illinois, UNC, Seton Hall -- Tennessee just stinks right now; Regional Final: UConn-UNC.

Upset Special: Seton Hall over Tennessee and Utah St. over Washington -- two higher seeds that play poor defense. The Hall has enough seniors to make a mini-run like it did in 2000.

Location tips: (1) Illinois plays Air Force in the nation's largest military town, San Diego; (2) Michigan State got a break because it would play UNC in neighboring Ohio; (3) small break for Tennessee playing the Hall or Wichita State in neighboring North Carolina (Greensboro is about a 5+ hour drive from Knoxville) but the Vols will be playing a road game in the first round against the #15 seed -- Winthrop (N.C.).

The question coming out of Minneapolis (Midwest) is whether Allen Ray's eye will be fully functional. If so, Villanova is the best team in this lot -- a regional with a perennial underperformer at #3 and an overachiever at #2. Never trust overachievers -- those teams "overachieve" precisely because they lack talent but have good records (two words: Temple 1988). OSU is actually undersized for a Big Tenplusone team, and its 25-5 record far surpassed expectations. Third-seeded Florida has not made it past the second round since 2000, and has lost to a lower-seeded team in EACH of the past five years! And some of those losses are simply dreadful: 75-54 as a #3 to #11 Temple in 2001 (round 2); 68-46 to #7 Michigan State as a #2 seed in 2003 (round 2); 75-60 in a 5-12 game in 2004. The ONLY reason to pick Florida to get past the first weekend is that it's playing in Jacksonville -- the closest city in Florida to Gainsville.

Regional Semifinals: Villanova-BC, Florida-Ohio State; Regional Finals: Villanova-OSU.

Upset Special: UW-Milwaukee over Oklahoma (once again offensively challenged), if the UWM-Florida game was outside the Sunshine State, I'd have picked UWM for the Sweet 16; look out for BC to fail as well -- the Eagles are grumpy about their seed (never a good sign) and are the lone eastern team in its quarter of the bracket (Nevada, Montana, Pacific), which plays in Salt Lake City.

Location issues: (1) Ohio State plays in Dayton in the first two rounds -- that's why I have the Buckeyes getting past Georgetown; (2) Villanova plays in Philly in the first two rounds -- for those of you not familiar with religiously affiliated Northeastern schools, Villanova University is in Philadelphia.

There you have it: Duke, Kansas, Villanova and UConn, with UConn over Duke in the Final.

Confidence level -- much lower than last year when I picked Duke (oops), Louisville, UNC and Illinois with UNC over Illinois in the Final. Too many weaknesses on the big teams: Duke's stamina and lack of a No.3 scorer; KU's youth; 'Nova's injury situation and lack of size; UConn's headcase issue.

And now, we'll see.

Impeach Bush?

The editors at NRO are chortling over Wisconsin Democratic Senator Russ Feingold's call to censure Bush for the 'illegal' NSA wiretapping. Their view is Feingold's antics gave the President a reprieve after the ports disaster.

The Democrats had just concluded a successful two-week bout of eroding the president's national-security credentials with baseless attacks on the Dubai ports deal. Now, the party's Left apparently believes it's time to switch back to type and bolster Bush's national-security credentials by demonstrating the Democrats' own lack of seriousness in the War on Terror.

Tactically its a bad move and forces Democratic senators to quietly demur. However, the editors at OpinionJournal see something much more sinister.

But as a political matter, the Wisconsin Senator knows exactly what he's doing. He knows that anti-Bush pathology runs so deep among many Democrats that they really do think they're living in some new dictatorship. Liberal journals solemnly debate impeachment, and political-action groups have formed to promote it. One of our leading left-wing newspapers recently compared Mr. Bush to J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon, as if there were even a speck of evidence that this White House is wiretapping its political enemies.

When the fever gets this hot in supposedly mainstream forums, Mr. Feingold is right to conclude that the facts behind any censure or impeachment motion won't really matter. All that will count is the politics, which means it will come down to a question of votes in Congress. And several leading Democrats have already raised the "impeachment" card.

If the Democrats re-take the House, which is currently unlikely but possible, you can expect a serious move to impeach the President.

Gay agenda trumps child welfare

Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe has an infuriating piece on the why the Catholic Charities of Boston is shuttering its adoption services which has been active for over a century and placed 720 children over the last twenty years.

On March 10, Catholic Charities of Boston had announced that it was being forced to shut down its highly regarded adoption services, since it could not in good conscience comply with the government's demand that it place children for adoption with homosexual couples. Caught between the rock of Catholic teaching, which regards such adoptions as ''gravely immoral," and Massachusetts regulations, which bar adoption agencies from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, the Boston Archdiocese had hoped to obtain a waiver on religious-freedom grounds. But when legislative leaders refused to consider the request, the archdiocese was left with no option but to end a ministry it had been performing for a century.

Whereupon the Human Rights Campaign issued its news release. It was headlined ''Boston Catholic Charities Puts Ugly Political Agenda Before Child Welfare,"...

For the political agenda driving this affair is the one favored by the Human Rights Campaign and its many allies in the media and state government: the normalization of homosexual adoption. So important is that agenda to its supporters that they will allow nothing to stand in its way -- not even the well-being of children in dire need of safe and loving families. Catholic Charities excels at arranging adoptions for children in foster care, particularly those who are older or handicapped, or who bear the scars of abuse or addiction. Yet the Human Rights Campaign and its friends would rather see this invaluable work come to an end than allow Catholic Charities to decline gay adoptions.

Jacoby makes clear that the Catholic Charities were not working to discourage adoptions by gay parents, it just did not want to be part of it. I have no intrinsic objection to gay parents, the fact that they are undertaking a difficult process and would remain under ongoing scrutiny thereafter means they are for the most part going to be good parents. The problem is the proponents of the gay ideology are more than willing to sacrifice the well-being of young children to advance their agenda. Take away the Catholic Charities and fewer children get placed into good homes. A lousy trade.

"As much as one may wish to live and let live," Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon wrote in 2004, during the same-sex marriage debate in Massachusetts, ''the experience in other countries reveals that once these arrangements become law, there will be no live-and-let-live policy for those who differ. Gay-marriage proponents use the language of openness, tolerance, and diversity, yet one foreseeable effect of their success will be to usher in an era of intolerance and discrimination . . . Every person and every religion that disagrees will be labeled as bigoted and openly discriminated against. The ax will fall most heavily on religious persons and groups that don't go along. Religious institutions will be hit with lawsuits if they refuse to compromise their principles."

Prince Philip's Finest

Apparently, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and consort to Queen Elizabeth II has a colorful history of verbal gaffes. I was WEEPING with laughter at some of his comments which were thoughtfully collected here:

"If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it." (At a 1986 World Wildlife Fund meeting)

I'm Cantonese. That's hilarious.

"Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease". (When asked if he would like to stroke a koala bear).

"Do you still throw spears at each other?" (To an Aborigine leader)

whilst in Australia.

"If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?" (Amid calls to ban firearms after the Dunblane shooting)

The man has a point though timing was probably a bit off.

Hate the Jews - MUST READ

Bernard Lewis, emeritus professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton, has just written an excellent article on anti-Semitism through history for the Winter 2006 issue of the American Scholar.

It's brilliant, clearly and cogently written and worth your time.

Some insights:

Anti-Semitism is something quite different. It is marked by two special features. One of them is that Jews are judged by a standard different from that applied to others.
...
The other special feature of anti-Semitism, which is much more important than differing standards of judgment, is the accusation against Jews of cosmic evil. Complaints against people of other groups rarely include it. This accusation of cosmic, satanic evil attributed to Jews, in various parts of the world and in various forms, is what has come to be known in modern times as anti-Semitism.

Lewis goes through in anti-Semitism in history and divides it into three phases, the religious, the racial and the form most prevalent today, political-ideological. Lewis argues that while the first two forms cannot be invoked in polite company the last has taken its place as an acceptable way to "hate" Jews.

The other advantage for Jews was that they were not seen as dangerous. Christianity was recognized as a rival world religion and a competitor in the cosmic struggle to bring enlightenment (and with it, inevitably, domination) to all humanity.
...
The main negative quality attributed to Jews in Turkish and Arab folklore was that they were cowardly and unmilitary—very contemptible qualities in a martial society.

The shocking events of 1948 re-galvanized in the Middle East the hatred of the Jews.

Azzam Pasha, who was then the secretary-general of the Arab League, is quoted as having said: “This will be like the Mongol invasions. We will utterly destroy them. We will sweep them into the sea.” The expectation was that it would be quick and easy. There would be no problem at all dealing with half a million Jews. It was then an appalling shock when five Arab armies were defeated by half a million Jews with very limited weaponry. It remains shameful, humiliating. This was mentioned at the time and has been ever since. One writer said: “It was bad enough to be conquered and occupied by the mighty empires of the West, the British Empire, the French Empire, but to suffer this fate at the hands of a few hundred thousand Jews was intolerable.”

Lewis argues, though, that this hatred was already there, 'imported' from Christian missionaries in the 15-17th centuries and later, 'stoked' by the Arab affinity to the Third Reich after the latter started to de-stabilize the Middle East in the run-up to WWII.

The Nazi propaganda impact was immense. We see it in Arabic memoirs of the period, and of course in the foundation of the Ba’ath party.

Lewis accuses the United Nations of essential complicity in 'signing off' on anti-Semitism by obviously and on a continuing basis treating Israelis and Palestinians differently:

The United Nations’s handling of the 1948 war and the resulting problems shows some curious disparities—for example, on the question of refugees...A significant number of Arabs remained in the territories under Jewish rule. It was taken then as axiomatic, and has never been challenged since, that no Jews could remain in the areas of Palestine under Arab rule...not just settlers, but old, established groups, notably the ancient Jewish community in East Jerusalem, which was totally evicted and its monuments desecrated or destroyed. The United Nations seemed to have no problem with this; nor did international public opinion. When Jews were driven out, no provision was made for them, no help offered, no protest made. This surely sent a very clear message to the Arab world, a less clear message to the Jews.

In summary, as the horrors of the Holocaust fade, anti-Semitism in its political-ideological form, becomes fashionable again:

But inevitably, the memory of those days is fading, and now Israel and its problems afford an opportunity to relinquish the unfamiliar and uncomfortable posture of guilt and contrition and to resume the more familiar and more comfortable position of stern reproof from an attitude of moral superiority. It is not surprising that this opportunity is widely welcomed and utilized.

HT: NRO

Do the math, doubt the hype -- NCAA version

For all the chatter about "parity" and "dark horses" you'll hear this year, the NCAA Tourney will be won by . . . someone you expect. In all likelihood, that's true. Why? Because in the last 16 years only TWO teams seeded lower than a #2 have won the Tournament: 1997 Arizona (#4) and 2003 Syracuse (#3). And in SU's case, it had a better claim to a #2 seed than the second seed in its region, Wake Forest.

So predict as many upsets as you like, the fact is that the winner will likely be a top two seed. Consider: since 1990, 11 of the 16 champions were #1 seeds, three others were #2 seeds; only two of 13 lower seeded finalists (Arizona and Syracuse) beat a higher seeded team in the title game; only one finalist that had been seeded #1 in its region lost in the national title game to a non-#1 seed (Kentucky 1997), the other eight #1 seeds playing a lower seed in the national title game won; and only two teams even won Final Four games against opponents seeded at least three slots higher (Indiana [#5] in '02 over Oklahoma [#2]; Arizona in '97 over UNC [#1]). These distinctions for Zona show just how remarkable a run it had in '97.

In other words, don't bet on LSU, UNC, Florida (puh-leeze), BC, KU or any other favored dark horse to win the whole thing.

Good News from Iraq* rebuttal

Here is a rebuttal piece by Cornerite John Derbyshire to Richard Nadler's piece we linked yesterday.

I'd very much like to see NR send Derbyshire to Iraq for a few weeks to give an honest, skeptic conservative hawk's view of the current situation.

Korea tops US in WBC

The US team did a credible imitation of the 2004 Yankees as they dropped a 7-3 decision to undefeated Korea at Anaheim last night. Dontrelle Willis was hit hard again for the second start in a row and Dan Wheeler gave up a killer three run shot that got around Anaheim's version of the Pesky Pole. Meanwhile Team USA stranded eleven runners.

The top two teams in the pool (Korea, USA, Japan and Mexico) will advance to the semifinals. If multiple teams end up with the same record the aggregate runs allowed will determine who advances. So by losing to Korea and giving up 7 runs to boot the US is nearly back in the same position it was in Round 1 where their destiny could be out of their hands. And this time without South Africa to beat on.

Odiferous.

Murray Chass at the NYT relates that the South Korean government will grant a waiver from the mandatory 26 month military service for all team members if they reach the semifinals. Good incentive I am sure but also outrageous. That's the act, frankly, of a banana republic.

More notes on the NCAA Tourney

Some quick thoughts about the seeding and the snubs -- the big-namers, not the mid-majors. Given the length to which the Tournament selection committee went to add mid-majors at the expense of seemingly deserving major conference teams, no non-major conference team has a legitimate gripe. All RPIs taken from here.

First, the snubs. It is ridiculous for Michigan or Florida State to whine about getting dropped to the NIT. Michigan (RPI 47) had a colossal choke job losing seven of its last nine, while conference rival Indiana surged from the depths of stinkdom to reach the Tournament. How anyone can complain that the Big Tenplusone received a lack of respect with six teams in the NCAA (54.5% of its membership, compared to 50% for the Big East) is puzzling at the least. Maryland's claims also founder on: 5-8 finish, honking the first round of the ACC, and an RPI of 49 -- too close to some other schools that finished stronger but were ranked just lower (Air Force, NCSU).

Florida State's exclusion is a message to big conference schools: SCHEDULE COMPETITIVE GAMES -- that means a preseason schedule against Big Ten basketcase Purdue, Big 12 bottomfeeder Nebraska, Stetson, Jacksonville, Louisiana-Monroe, et al. does not count. Only its pre-ACC matchup with Florida involved FSU in a game against a top 50 RPI team; the 'Noles lost. Worse yet, FSU (RPI 63) went 9-7 in the ACC but did NOT have to play NCSU, UNC or BC twice. That also hurts the schedule strength. Losing in the ACC tourney quarters to Wake Forest, which ended its abysmal ACC campaign 3-13, is another knock on the 'Noles.

Cincinnati had the best case: road wins over Marquette and Syracuse, home wins over LSU and West Virginia and the team had overcome no small amount of adversity to ring up an 8-8 Big East record. Cincy's RPI (40) is higher than eight of the at-large entrants in the NCAA field. The resume is not bad and those road wins should have had the Committee take more notice.

As for the seeds: Pitt (24-7) got shafted. With 24 wins, including W. Va. and Villanove in the Big East Tourney, Pitt deserved better (just as it did in 2004) -- this is a #3 seed ranked #11 in the RPI, not a five. I think BC deserved a 3-seed, but its RPI is in the 20s.

Tennessee is the most obviously overranked. Sorry, but no team deserves a #2 seed with a 21-7 record and four losses in its last six games. The Vols are #6 in the RPI, which is curious in and of itself because Tennessee's non-conference schedule consisted of Memphis (loss), Texas (big win) and a bunch of stiffs that FSU would normally play. Considering how the committee deviated at least two seedings from the RPI in other situations (#6 for RPI-38 WVU; #6 for RPI-34 Indiana; #7 for RPI-36 Georgetown; #6 for RPI-16 Oklahoma), the refusal to drop Tennessee is indefensible. There should be penalties for losing to non-Tourney teams in the quarters of your conference tournament.

And, as usual, a Syracuse-centric note: SU's RPI is 17 now, thanks to four wins over RPI top 50 teams on a neutral floor. The way the RPI is determined is that road wins are given a 40% bonus within the formula (the rating for the win is multiplied by 1.4); home wins are given a 40% deduction (the rating is multiplied by 0.6); and neutral court wins are tallied without adjustment. Thus, SU's four wins in NYC counted far more than a similar run at the Carrier Dome would have. The home/road/neutral factoring is another reason why FSU's win over Duke did NOT clinch the 'Noles an NCAA berth.

"Retard!"

I always though "Retard!" was a particularly nasty schoolyard taunt, even more so than the 'f'-related ones.

Well it appears that Alexis Suvorov, the assistant director of giving at Yale Law School, sent an anonymous email to two Yalies who strongly criticized the institution and asked alumni to withold contributions pending at least an explanation why Yale admitted Sayeed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the former official of the Taliban regime. Suvorov's email:

"What is wrong with you? Are you retarded? This is the most disgraceful alumni article that I have ever read in my life. You failed to mention that you've never contributed to the Yale Alumni Fund in your life. But to suggest that others follow your negative example is disgusting."

Wow. Not only is the accusation gratuitously nasty, Suvorov looked through the giving records of two alumni and then sent a venomous, anonymous email.

For Yale's sake, Suvorov should become an ex-employee, fast.

Good News From Iraq*

*Yup, this is a hat-tip to Aussie Arthur Chrenkoff whose regular column the "Good News from Iraq" ran in the WSJ. Richard Nadler at NRO recounts the testimony and experiences of several recent returnees [Lt. Lawrence Indyk, Marine Corporal Richard Gibson, and Marine Sergeant J. D. Johannes] from Iraq. And it is good news indeed.

Lt. Indyk...contrasted the dinar's stabilization under the Coalition with the savings-wrecking inflations under the Baathist regime [and] the increase in electrical supply, and the doubling of oil revenues in the post-Saddam era.
...
Indyk discussed advances in services as well: the 60 percent decline of infant mortality in post-Saddam Iraq, and the improved access to schooling and medical care...
...
Indyk then proceeded to describe the findings of the most extensive and scientific polls of Iraq opinion, performed by Arabic speakers for Oxford Research International near the beginning of 2004, then at the end of 2005. These polls covered all of Iraq's major regions and demographic groups.

Asked to compare their current lives with their lives under Saddam, Iraqis reported an improvement in availability of necessities, and an improvement in overall economic wellbeing. They reported superior access to clean water, health care, and education. Iraqi respondents believed that their local governments had improved. Asked what form of government they hoped to live under going forward, democracy won handily: four-to-one over the rule of one-man, and ten-to-one over totalitarianism.

Iraqis list security as their most pressing problem. But a plurality of Iraqis feel safer now than under Saddam, and a majority feel safer from ordinary crime. Moreover, better than 60 percent feel personally safe in their neighborhoods.
***
Coalition casualties declined by 27 percent in 2005. They have declined by 62 percent in 2006, measured against the comparable period of 2005.

The insurgent strategy of targeting Iraqi police and army units peaked in July of 2005. Since then, casualties among those units have declined by 33 percent.

Attacks on other soft targets are also down. For instance, there were 146 strikes against the oil infrastructure in 2004, compared to 101 in 2005.

The tipping point, Gibson contends, occurred last March, when the number Iraqi boots on the ground — police and army units — surpassed those of Coalition forces. From that point on, the new Iraqi government has proved increasingly able to hold and garrison areas that have been cleared on insurgents.
...
From March of 2005 to September of 2005, the number of civilian tips informing on insurgents increased from 483 to 4,700, as numerous Sunni tribes declared outright war on al Qaeda. "The insurgency in Iraq," said Gibson, "is being dismantled by the equivalent of a Tips hotline."

Gibson cited polling of Iraqi opinion to support his thesis. Fifty-eight percent of Iraqis feel threatened by terrorists, compared with 10 percent who feel threatened by Coalition troops. And by 71 percent to 9 percent, Iraqis believe that their own security forces — Iraqi security forces — are winning the fight against terror.
***
Former Marine Sergeant J. D. Johannes was a soldier during the first Iraq war. He returned to his old unit as combat reporter in the second. He offers this assessment:

Everyone knows that the history of war is written by the victors. But the war in Iraq has shattered that truism. In Iraq, history is being written by the losers. Baathist kidnappers and jihadist bombers are planning their operations not to win the war in Iraq, but to win it in America. To that end, they are assessing what American news organizations are willing to cover, and what American reporters are willing to risk. As an immediate result, many of the feeds on the nightly news are coming from Arabic sources that are either non-professional in their journalistic standards or hostile to American policy aims. As a long-term result, the American public is broadly misinformed on a war that Coalition arms and Iraqi democrats are, in fact, winning.

Sad to say, the bad news campaign is working where not a few conservatives, Bill Buckley and Francis Fukuyama among them, have either abandoned or started to openly question the undertaking.

NCAA Tourney advantage

If you want an advantage that your colleagues won't have in their NCAA pools, try Ken Pomeroy's offensive efficiency ratings in the site linked above. Pomeroy has run these offensive efficiency tables for the past two seasons, and of the last eight Final Four teams, seven (all four last year, all but Georgia Tech in '04) were in the top ten in all of Division I in offensive efficiency in the respective seasons. A minute sample, admittedly, but an interesting one.

Basketball, at its core, is an offensive game. No matter what you try as a defense, you won't pitch a shutout and you will always be subject to a great play on offense that will create points, or a great player who can create something from nothing (two words and a number: Carmelo Anthony 2003). Coaches know this, that's why Rick Pitino preaches deflections to stall offensive flow, why Pat Riley preaches getting in the face of the shooters, why Dean Smith charted points per possession, why Boeheim charts "open" jumpers that opponents have, etc.

Pomeroy's offensive efficiency ratings are more accurate than points per game because they quantify the number of points a team scores per possession (rendered as points per 100 possessions), thereby taking tempo out of the equation such that slow tempo teams (Princeton, NC State, Air Force) are not comparatively shortchanged by their pace and fast tempo teams (Duke, UConn) are not overrated by the swiftness of their play. His top ten offensive efficiency teams heading into the 2006 Tourney, adjusted for strength of schedule, are: Duke, Texas, Villanova, Notre Dame, BC, UConn, UNC, Gonzaga, Tennessee, Washington.

Don't discount defense too much, however. Of the last eight teams to make the Final Four, none had an adjusted defensive efficiency rank worse than #25 (Michigan State, 2005). That factor points against BC (#100), Gonzaga (#162), Tennessee (#85) and Washington (#37), but favors Duke (#19), Texas (#8), Villanova (#18), UNC (#14) and UConn (#5). It also favors The Monk's sleeper pick for the Final Four -- Kansas (#1).

The Gulf Bubble

A fascinating piece in OpinionJournal today covering what the trillion petrodollars earned by the Gulf economies since 1998 hath wrought. A bubble to make the NASDAQ run look like a schoolboy's pimple. The $64,000 question is what happens when that bubble bursts?

The oil exporters of the Persian Gulf are flush with cash...In fact, unlike during the last oil boom of the late 1970s, relatively little of the current Arab oil surplus has been directly invested in U.S. assets or even deposited in the international banking system. This time much of the oil money has remained at home, where a classic speculative mania is now being played out.
...
...OPEC members have earned around $1.3 trillion in petrodollars since 1998, according to the Bank for International Settlements. The extra liquidity injected into the gulf economies by the oil price hike since 2002 is estimated at around $300 billion by HSBC...a great deal [of which] has stayed in the gulf region.
...
...The gulf economies are growing rapidly, along with corporate profits. Returns on equity in the region are approaching 20%, calculates Credit Suisse...A new era of permanently high oil prices and perpetual prosperity has been hailed.

...Dubai is attempting to transform itself into a leading financial center and tourist resort. Saudi Arabia intends to become a world leader in fertilizer production. A bridge costing $3 billion is proposed to span the Red Sea. A new economy is coming into being. The current oil boom, unlike former ones, won't be followed by a bust, say the believers. This time it's different.

...Since January 2002, the Egyptian, Dubai and Saudi stock markets are up respectively by over 1,100%, 630% and 600%. Only four years ago, gulf companies were priced at around twice book value. Today they trade on an average of 44 times historic earnings and at over eight times book value. gulf banks are valued at over nine times book value, according to Credit Suisse.

Sabic, a Saudi conglomerate, is currently ranked among the world's 10 largest companies by market capitalization. The Saudi stock exchange has a market cap of around $750 billion. That's roughly three times the country's GDP. By comparison, the U.S. stock market reached a peak of 183% of GDP in March 2000. In fact, the relative overvaluation of the Saudi stock market is even greater than these figures suggest. Nomura analyst Tarek Fadlallah points out that as the oil industry remains in state hands, a far smaller fraction of Saudi economic activity is captured by the stock market than in the U.S.

...Reports suggest that the majority of new Dubai properties are being acquired for speculative purposes, with only small deposits put down. They are being flipped in the contemporary Miami manner.

[Market] inefficiency: Financial information in the gulf is totally inadequate. The Saudi megacap conglomerate Sabic attracts no domestic financial analysis...Companies report their results in a rudimentary fashion. It is against the law to sell short overpriced stocks in the Saudi market. And foreigners' financial sophistication is absent since only gulf nationals can purchase Saudi stocks. Instead, speculators operate in an information vacuum in markets reportedly dominated by insider trading and practiced manipulation.

...the madness of crowds: Up to two million of the 16 million Saudi population are said to be playing the market. Interest-free loans are commonly available. Saudi...The education minister has warned teachers to stop day-trading at schools. People are quitting their jobs to trade.

This is, pardon the term, a partial-birth abortion in the making. So, why do we care?

The political consequences could be more serious. Arab rulers have deliberately encouraged the boom in the hope that rising asset prices and a strong economy would distract their youthful populations from religious fundamentalism. This strategy could backfire. History teaches that when speculative bubbles burst and the public loses large sums, there is normally a political backlash. This was true of the U.S. in the 1930s, and to a lesser extent in the early 2000s, and of Japan in the 1990s. It's not hard to imagine Islamists capitalizing on a future bust with denunciations of stock-market gambling. Some of today's young Arab day-traders could well turn into tomorrow's al Qaeda recruits.

What will happen is that the bubbles will start to deflate and the deep-pocketed Gulf rulers who desire stability above all will prop them up, probably with adding massive amounts of liquidity and taking over non-performing loans. That, in turn, will come to roost when, for one reason or another, the oil pipeline experiences a protracted interruption.

The idiocy of the double standard argument

In light of the US new nuclear deal with India, which the dopes in Congress should applaud instead of condemn, there has been a revival of the "double standard" argument about how we treat different countries with regard to their nuclear programs. Richard Cohen put paid to this argument last week:

It is true, of course, that Bush has upended 30 years of American nuclear policy -- and there will be consequences. Maybe, as some of the critics say, he has made it easier for India to increase its nuclear arsenal. But India will make all the weapons it feels it needs -- no matter what the United States does. America is a superpower, but not even a superpower is all-powerful.

The Israeli bomb threatens nobody. An Iranian bomb does. India has transferred its nuclear technology to no one. Pakistan has. No one worries about India or Israel making the technology available to terrorists. Everyone worries about Iran doing that. These are distinctions with great differences. They are, as critics charge, double standards, but to apply a single standard to both friend and enemy, while it might be fair, would be singularly stupid.

Robert Kagan rejects the double standard issue out of hand:

. . . The [ ]question likely to consume endless hours of hearings on Capitol Hill in coming weeks is what effect the deal will have on the problem of Iran. Some will argue that the Indian nuclear deal harms efforts to halt Iran's nuclear weapons program because it erects a double standard: We are willing to let India do what we are not willing to let Iran do.

The question is interesting in theory. In the real world, it's not that interesting. The notion that the Indian deal will set back prospects for a diplomatic deal with Iran assumes that such prospects exist. All available evidence suggests otherwise. The Iranian government appears committed to building nuclear weapons and will not be deterred by threats -- except possibly the threat of removal by military means -- or won over by blandishments. It has risked international isolation and economic sanctions and even the remote threat of U.S. air and missile strikes to keep its program going. Are we supposed to believe that the main obstacle standing in the way of a happy resolution to the Iranian nuclear crisis is now the Indian deal?

Pres. Bush made a deal with India to encourage it, formerly a prominent member of the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War, to join the fold of the Anglosphere. A fine move redolent with foresight.

2006 Tourney preview, part II

The Monk promised more, and there's still more to come, but here's a quick follow-up to my initial post, some factoids from last year's preview column, updated based on last year's results.

Curious factoids: (i) only three NCAA Tournaments since 1985 have not had an ACC team in the Final Four, each time Syracuse won its regional (1987, 1996, 2003); (ii) Duke has not failed to reach the Sweet 16 since 1997 -- that's now nine-straight years that the Dookies have survived the first weekend, if Duke survives the first weekend, remember that it has lost six times in the Sweet 16 under Coach K but only once in the Regional Finals; (iii) three #1 seeds have reached the Final Four only three times since the seeding system started in 1979 (1993, 1997, 1999), by contrast three non-#1 seeds have reached the Final Four in three of the past six years (2000, 2003, 2004) and six times since the first 3-#1 Final Four in 1993 (1994, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2004), by far the most common occurrence is a pair of #1 seeds making the Final Four, like last year; (iv) only four No. 15 seeds have ever beaten a #2, no #1 seed has ever lost a first round game and only Arizona and South Carolina have lost first round games as a #2 and #3 seed in consecutive years; (v) the last Ivy League team to win a first-round game was Princeton in 1998 but it was a #5 seed, the last lower-seeded Ivy to win a first-round game was Princeton in 1996 -- it then lost badly in the second round; this year's Ivy winner is 15th-seeded Penn; (vi) no team has ever lost in the quarterfinals of its conference tournament and won the NCAA -- Texas was a rarity by reaching the Final Four in 2003; the most notable choker in its conference quarters this year is everyone's favorite, UConn.

Initial NCAA Tourney thoughts

Keep it here for more Monkology on the NCAA Tournament. But some initial thoughts upon checking on the brackets, although I've not written out a bracket yet.

First, Duke got a plum seeding. Yes, that is what happens when you do what you're supposed to and win the ACC Tournament. But this is ridiculous: TEXAS as the #2 -- the same team Duke beat on a semi-neutral court by 31? And with only LSU (from the notsogreat SEC) and Syracuse (just qualified this week), there is no team that should beat Duke before the regional final. Duke is 10-1 in regional finals under Coach Krzyzewski. That's a weak 2-3-4-5 set Duke has in its region and if the Dookies do not win, something is just wrong with that team. I don't feel that comfortable that Texas will get through the first weekend. W. Va. got a bad seed. Upset special = of course I worry about SU going down again, but Iona is no easy one for LSU.

On an orange-flavored note, Syracuse got a slightly better matchup this year than it did last year! Then again, never take a 5-12 game for granted, as I'll show in a later post. Syracuse went from 2-9 against RPI top 50 teams and on the bubble to 6-9 and Big East Champs accomplishing a passel of milestones: first team to win four games in four days to win the conference tournament, lowest seed to win the tournament (SU holds the top/bottom three spots in that list -- #9 seed in '06, #6 seed in '81 and #5 seed in '92), lowest total margin of victory. I especially liked the team giving Gerry McNamara a T-shirt with "Overrated?!!!" on it after he won the Big East Tournament MVP award.

Second, the Oakland region looks like a Memphis invitational. Gonzaga and UCLA are weak 2-3 teams and I wonder if Indiana has the mental state to make a run. If so, IU is a sleeper for the Regional Final. The real talent is in the top half of the bracket -- Memphis plus underseeded KU and underseeded Pitt. Memphis may have a tougher second game against archrival Arkansas or glass slipper wearing Bucknell than it could in the regional final. That KU-Pitt game could be a war. Upset special = if there is one in this bracket, Xavier over Gonzaga.

Third, UConn has the toughest region. Tennessee isn't daunting as a #2 seed, but that doesn't matter because UNC will be a better bet to make the regional finals. With talented underperformer Michigan State at #6, dangerous teams at #5 (Washington) and #4 (Illinois) and that strong UNC team in the bottom of the draw, UConn will have some difficulty. I disagree with the commentators -- this is not a cinch for UConn. Upset special = Seton Hall over Wichita State.

Fourth, Villanova has a tough draw. BC got screwed again in the seeding with a #4 and lurks as a very difficult Sweet 16 team for 'Nova. Both are veteran teams, which means BC knows 'Nova very well because the Eagles were in the Big East last year. Then again, with 'Zona as a #8, 'Nova received no favors in round 2. On the bottom half of the bracket, the regional finalist should be a loser in the regional final -- OSU is the typical overrated Big Ten team and Florida hasn't made it past the first weekend since 2000, losing to lower seeds each of the last five years (including a 22-point loss as a #2 to a #7 in '03). Upset special = UWM to knock off Oklahoma.

First blush Final Four = Duke (argh), Kansas, UConn, BC. That's still in pencil.

World Baseball Foolery

I like the World Baseball Classic, it will further internationalize a great game and could be yet another instrument of American cultural imperialism of which I heartily approve. The tournament format is required given the number of teams involved and the time commitment required of many Major League baseball players.

However, the dependence on tie-breaks to which the US team became exposed due to an improbable loss to Canada is silly and antithetical to a key fundamental of baseball. One of the great features of baseball is that there is no clock. No time-limit that helps a team who has a lead. You HAVE to get 27 outs. Another is there isn't arbitrary rules like goal differential. You HAVE to win 3 of 5 or 4 of 7.

The US would have been eliminated despite its 2-1 record if Mexico had failed to score more than 2 runs in its win yesterday against Canada due to a calculation of runs allowed. A better solution, though it might lengthen the tournament, would be a 'playoff' game between the US and Canada if those two were vying for the last spot.

Just sayin'.

Soccer, politics and British Arabs

Arsenal football club, the third of England's big three football (read: soccer) teams has historically been the team of England's Jews and ex-pat Israelis. Arsenal currently plays its matches at the small (sub-40,000) and outdated stadium Highbury. A new Highbury, aka Emirates Stadium, will open this summer. Naming rights went to Air Emirates, the official airline of the United Arab Emirates (which formerly was the jersey-front advertiser for Arsenal's crosstown rival, Chelsea).

The Arsenal supporters filling Highbury (and Emirates Stadium) will include many Jews and Jewish-Israeli expats. They are the target audience for Arsenal's in-stadium ads, which will include promoting Israel as a tourist destination:

In a deal worth $600,000, Israel will be promoted on electronic billboards, on banner advertisements on the Arsenal website, and in the club magazine. The Jewish state will be hailed as Arsenal's "official and exclusive travel destination."

Or maybe not. The UAE owns Emirates, and didn't like the deal. Read Carol Gould's article (linked above) for more.

The fire inside the Orange

Fifteen years ago I wrote a column just like the one linked to this post -- a column comparing Virginia's small forward Bryant Stith to other small forwards throughout the country. Stith was beloved -- a freshman hero of the 1988-89 team that went from conference cellar in '87-88 to the Final Eight during his first year, the leading scorer in both the '89-90 and '90-91 campaigns, a straight-up person, a fine student and the former valedictorian of his high school.

The point of the column: Stith had been overrated by the Virginia community but had also been misused by the Virginia staff as an outside-first player, instead of in the slasher-from-the-wing and offensive-rebounder roles that made him so effective in his freshman season. I noted that Stith was not a good passer by any means, had only so-so rebound numbers as a junior, had a lower FG% than usual, etc. Nonetheless, I argued that he was the best that Virginia had and therefore the team should have been using him to the best of his abilities on the baseline, not as primarily a third guard. The column's main flaw -- more argument about the comparisons with similar small forwards and not enough stress on the misuse of Stith.

Reaction was swift. First came the phone-call from the irate Virginia Sports Information Department and a 45-minute attempted scolding from one of the Assistant directors (he actually diffused his anger a bit when I conceded that the primary purpose of the column was to criticize how the team had used Stith, not Stith personally).

Then came the calls from irate fans.

Then came a call from the AP and an article on the column that appeared the day before the ACC Tournament, which quoted me.

And during the ACC Tourney, Dick Vitale blasted me on the air (not by name, just for writing the column).

So I know what Ethan Ramsey has gone through. He's the student who wrote the Gerry McNamara is Overrated column in a point-counterpoint for Syracuse's Daily Orange, which is one of the better student papers in the country (just like The Cavalier Daily). That column came out in February. And given G-Mac's struggles this year, his point is easy to sympathize with. Now Ramsey has been blasted in letters to the editor, email, and become a national story after Coach Boeheim's diatribe on Wednesday (which was really in response to an assistant coaches' poll calling G-Mac overrated but Boeheim blurred the line between the poll and the column). The poll results, which appeared in Tuesday's Syracuse Post-Standard, and the earlier column have been used to fire up the Orange during their Big East Tourney run. Meanwhile Ramsey has been criticized on ESPN and by Boeheim.

Personally, I don't fully agree with Ramsey: I've watched G-Mac for four years and there's no doubt that he's a cross-breed point guard and shooting guard who struggles with smaller quicker guards. But Mac's struggles this year do not come from an inability to create his own shot (he's not just a stand-still shooter, just watch the tapes of the SU-KU Final from 2003). Instead, they come from lack of trust of his teammates, who've been erratic at best (two words: Demetris Nichols -- Ramsey's claim that G-Mac may only be the third-best player on the team is far-fetched), and fatigue. G-Mac plays 38+ minutes per game and, because there's no other must-stop player on the Orange, he gets the primary attention from the opponents. He's been playing with a groin injury for at least five weeks, but that does not excuse G-Mac's early season struggles as he had to adjust to being THE MAN.

Nonetheless, I certainly sympathize with Ramsey. It's not easy to criticize the icon and walk away unscathed. But reasoned opinion in dissent (and his column is by no means unreasonable) is part of being a good column writer. Unfortunately, so is taking the flak.

Orange Regeneration?

SU pulled a minor miracle by beating UConn today, 86-84, in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament. This is the rare time that a #8 or #9 beats a #1 seed in the Big East (it's happened about four times now) and it's a huge win for SU because it gives the Orange not just "a" marquis win but "the" marquis win of all the games they've played to date: beating the #1 team in the country in the conference tournament. And this win came after two losses in the regular season to UConn that indicated SU didn't belong on the same floor as the Huskies.

So the Cardiac 'Cuse won their second-straight thriller -- a 3-pointer from senior point guard Gerry McNamara with 0.5 seconds left beat Cincinnati Wednesday; a 3-pointer from G-Mac tied today's game at 74-74 and sent it into overtime. I think beating a superior team in OT is especially impressive because it means the opponent had MORE time to take control and beat your a--, but could not.

Beating UConn, after beating Cincy (which is around #31 in the RPI), should cement a spot in the NCAA Tournament for Syracuse. A win tomorrow would remove all doubt. Ultimately, however, these two games have been about more than just SU's tourney hopes.

First, they've been swansongs for G-Mac as he's overcome shooting problems (combined 9-31) to show his value as a distributor (22 assists) and the clutch play (game-tying and game-winning 3-pointers) that have characterized his play since his freshman year -- from the game-winner against Notre Dame, to the 4 second-half triples despite injury against Oklahoma State in the NCAA, to the six first-half bombs against KU in the national title game. There's a good-sized list on the G-Mac hit parade (don't forget the 43 against BYU in the 2004 NCAA, game-winning fling against G'Town last year), so it's especially nice that after his worst-shooting season he's had these two great high points.

Second, the big men for SU finally awakened -- Darryl Watkins and Terrence Roberts have scored 29 and 32 points, combined and the whole starting five has hit double-figure point totals in both games. This is what SU expected and how it played in early January. In addition, it's especially nice that SU pulled these wins because the last two times it needed to perform in the Big East Tourney to get to the NCAA (1997, 2002) it honked.

Third, other bubble teams have failed where SU succeeded: Seton Hall, Cincy (although the Bearcats are probably in), Florida State and Michigan all honked in opening round action at their tournaments while SU has advanced to the Big East semis.

Fourth, from the you-heard-it-here-first files -- UConn won't win the NCAA. First round (i.e., quarterfinal) losers in their conference tourneys just don't (UNC = ACC semis 2005, UConn = Big East champs 2004, SU = Big East semis 2003, Maryland = ACC semis 2002, Duke = ACC champs 2001, Mich. State = Big Ten champs 2000, UConn = Big East champs 1999, Kentucky = SEC Champs 1998; etc.).

The South Dakota abortion ban

National Review had a very good editorial on the South Dakota abortion ban signed into law last week. While they cheered the sentiment and conviction behind the law, they question its strategic wisdom on three points.

1) It won't save any lives. (Will certainly be challenged via referendum or in court)

2) It doesn't repeal Roe v. Wade (In fact, given the current makeup of the court, Roe will almost certainly be used to put it down)

3) It makes repealing Roe v. Wade harder (It galvanizes the NARAL folks and would make the successful nomination of another conservative justice that much harder)

The preferred way is to dismantle Roe first and then let the states determine whether unrestricted aborition should be legal. Whether you agree or disagree, I think NRO is strategically correct. A frontal assault is a brave gesture but a futile and costly one.

For those of you who are interested, I think abortion should be safe, legal and rare. Having two beautiful young children I might add certainly helps to clarify thinking.

Oscar, Hollywood and Relevance

Peggy Noonan is at her most perceptive and eloquent today (and that's saying a bit for Ronald Reagan's former speechwriter) in her weekly OpinionJournal piece on the Oscars and Hollywood.

Noonan thinks that viewership of the Oscars is declining (off 9%) this year because it has become, like the Olympics, too common.

In the same way, the Oscars used to be the big awards show. Then another came by, and another: Golden Globes, People's Choice, Independent Spirit, Foreign Press.
...
It's like what happened a few years ago, when network programmers found that "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" was an overnight sensation. So they put it on four nights a week. And it stopped being a sensation.

Hollywood should stop diminishing its own mystique. It should discourage the proliferation of awards shows.

The Swiss understand this very well. Take Rolex, for example, their blue face Submariner is an extremely popular watch and they could sell many more than they manufacture today. But they don't. The reason is it keeps the brand elite. [Another interesting fact: all the reputable merchants in Switzerland have the exact same price for the same watch - they do not undercut on the basis of price.]

Why does Hollywood make and celebrate a movie like Brokeback Mountain - which is about gay, adulterous cowboys?

...You don't have to be a genius to figure out that viewership of the Oscars is down because movie attendance itself is down, and that movie attendance is down because Hollywood isn't making the kind of movies that compel people to leave their homes and go to the multiplex.

There are those who think Hollywood hates America, and they have reason to think it. Hollywood does, as host Jon Stewart suggested, seem detached from the country it seeks to entertain. It is politically and culturally to the left of America, and it often seems disdainful of or oblivious to its assumptions and traditions.

I don't think it is true that studio executives and producers hate America. They are too confused, ambivalent and personally anxious to sit around hating their audience. I think they wish they understood America...

I also think that it's not true that they're motivated only by money. Would that they were! They'd be more market-oriented if they cared only about money. What they care about a great deal is status, and in their community status is bestowed by the cultural left. This is an old story. But it seems only to get worse, not better.

There's the money quote of the piece, its status and who bestows it. Because as a celebrity, being on the A-list is everything.

Noonan's dish on Clooney is potent and deadly.

But Mr. Clooney's remarks were also part of the tinniness of the age, and of modern Hollywood. I don't think he was being disingenuous in suggesting he was himself somewhat heroic. He doesn't even know he's not heroic. He thinks making a movie in 2005 that said McCarthyism was bad is heroic.
...
The Clooney generation in Hollywood is not writing and directing movies about life as if they've experienced it, with all its mysteries and complexity and variety. In an odd way they haven't experienced life; they've experienced media. Their films seem more an elaboration and meditation on media than an elaboration and meditation on life.

Earmarks gone crazy

In last season's series 24, the great FOX show, anyone who knows a stitch about geography guffawed when the bad guys hid their stolen nuke bomb somewhere in the mountains of Iowa.

Iowa is a flat prairie -- one of the largest compartments in the US breadbasket.

But Senator Grassley -- a REPUBLICAN -- earmarked money for a rainforest project in his home state. Then the problems started for one small town . . .

BALCO Barry and the Steroid Era

Excerpts from Game of Shadows, the extensively researched forthcoming book from two San Francisco reporters who write about Barry Bonds' extensive steroid use, are available at the link in the title. The Monk read the excerpts over lunch and they are bad -- from the descriptions of how Bonds' body changed to his active and knowing complicity in the doping. Worse is the documentation: BALCO kept detailed files of the steroid regimens for its clients.

The sickest part of this situation: Bonds was a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee, period, if his career had ended before he ever starting taking the 'roids. From the start of his career through the end of the 1998 season, he had more than 400 homers, five 30-30 seasons (and a 40-40, but none since he started doping), three MVP awards (should've been four -- he was shafted in '91) and five top 10 finishes, eight Gold Gloves (none since he started doping), seven Silver Sluggers, and had been the best player in baseball for the past decade.

So why did he become a steroidal musclehead? Jealousy toward the fawning over Mark McGwire in 1998, ego, fear of the fast career slide that his father had (in 1999, Bonds turned 34; when Bobby Bonds turned 34, his career tanked) . . . and on it goes.

This is far worse than Mark McGwire's dodging the question in the Senate, and worse than Palmeiro's "I never took steroids" charge. McGwire may have taken something, but there are two mitigation factors: (1) he OPENLY ADMITTED taking Androstenedione -- an over the counter testosterone supplement that aided workout recovery; (2) he is a big bugger, a weightlifter, a big muscle man and always has been (heck, his little brother is 6-foot-8 and a former football player).

Yes, if I had a Hall of Fame vote, I'd vote for McGwire. He's been caught with nothing, he's openly admitted taking a semi-steroidal (legal) substance and he was the same player for most of his career: a huge power hitter with the tightest AB/HR ratios since Babe Ruth. His numbers did NOT wander into the stratosphere -- he'd banged 52 and 58 homers in the two years before he whacked 70 and 65 and had more injuries in the former. I'd also vote for Sosa even though I think he probably juiced (unlike McGwire, but like Bonds, Sosa's body visibly enlarged from his early career to his peak HR years).

Raffy flat lied to Congress, or did exactly what he had previously denied shortly after making that denial. His legacy is now worth less than what's in The Monk's catbox.

Bonds gained 15 pounds of muscle in 3+ months at age 33 and continued a regimen of steroids that changed him from a speed-and-power superstar to the era's king of the bangers. And all at the cost of his Cooperstown plaque.

The real problem with media bias

Back in my earliest of early days at The Cavalier Daily, I complained to the folks in the News section that their stories seemed stilted and mechanical. Every paragraph was either a quote or a factual assertion that included "____ said" or "according to documents" or something similar. But I was young and naive and didn't realize what should have been obvious -- those stories needed to attribute the statements or assertions because otherwise they would merely be the reporter's own opinion, a true no-no for a news story. And those quotes or paraphrased quotes had to be accurate.

So basically, I learned lessons one and two of news reporting early on -- keep your opinions out of it and be accurate. The problem is that the mainstream media, from the WaPo and NY Times to Newsweek and Time and numerous small papers in between, do neither. The most obvious recent failure of objectivity is the pre-skewed story -- such as the Knight-Ridder reporters' inaccurate and context-free reviews of Alito decisions during his tenure on the Third Circuit. The most common failure is the Iraq as quagmire motif in the press, when it's anything but. Just take this most recent example of how the press spins a story about the lowest desertion rate in the armed forces in five years.

So this is a frustrating situation -- I don't trust the mainstream media and I read between the lines like a 1977 Russian scanning the pages of Izvestia. The Opinionated Bastard (actual parentage situation not known by Monk) had this:

I want to be able to read the New York Times or watch CNN, or listen to NPR and be able to trust what they're telling me. Since I can't do that, since the media is no longer fulfilling their basic function, I have to blog, and I have to read blogs. It pisses me off, because I had better things to do this decade than be my own news service. I don't like having to read transcripts of press conferences because I can't trust the media to even write down what was said correctly. I don't like having to spend hours finding real experts on the web to analyze how this or that media expert has distorted the facts. I don't like having to pore through the blogs of journalists, soldiers and Iraqi citizens so I can get some inkling of how things are really going, without the hype. Even though I do it, I don't even like having to download the Brookings report once/month in order to see what the numbers say about how the war is going.

MonkAunt Rocks

A late kudos and thanks to my fave MonkAunt (she knows who she is, after all she calls herself my favorite aunt). She raided my Amazon wishlist and, nose held tight, bought me two books that dovetail perfectly with The Monk's own political outlook and run roughly opposite to hers: Peter Schweizer's Victory -- the story of how Pres. Reagan won the Cold War by hastening the fall of the USSR; and The World Was Going Our Way -- Sergei Mitrokhin's memoir of KGB activities during the decline of the USSR. In addition, she bought me The Ghost Brigades, the follow-up to John Scalzi's fine debut space opera, Old Man's War.

Thanks MonkAunt.

March Madness teaser

As you know, The Monk is predictor of all, accurate on occasion, logical to the extreme, and known for doing a bit better than Seth Davis.

Next week we'll be in full March Madness mode: evaluating the field of 64+1, gauging the overrateds and underrateds and picking the bracket.

Credentials? Those of you who read this site have a decent basis to review whether I know what I'm talking about. Last year, The Monk finally hit it big by winning a share of a 40+ person pool (we actually tied on the tiebreaker with the co-champ) after finishing 3rd the previous year. FYI, Wongdoer was 4th last year and 2nd the year before in the same pool and he'll attest that he listens to me, not vice versa.

Anyway, enough Monkbrag. After all, my picks last year didn't stink, but I really did well by picking three of the Final Four, not by accurately forecasting the opening weekend.

Something to look forward to for next week.

"Don't let anyone tell you we're failing in Iraq."

Ralph Peters of the NY Post, a retired US Army colonel has been in Iraq for the past few weeks and has been sending dispatches. Today was his longest (I think) and final piece from Baghdad. He has had a valuable view and may have had more access than most due to his military credentials. The entire piece is a must-read. Snippets:

AMONG the many positive stories you aren't being told about Iraq, the media ignored another big one last week: In the wake of the terrorist bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, it was the Iraqi army that kept the peace in the streets.
...
The Iraqi army deployed over 100,000 soldiers to maintain public order. U.S. Forces remained available as a backup, but Iraqi soldiers controlled the streets.
...
Iraqi forces behaved with discipline and restraint - as the local sectarian outbreaks fizzled, not one civilian had been killed by an Iraqi soldier.
...
On Saturday, The Post conducted an exclusive interview with the commander of Iraq's ground forces...[Lt.-Gen Abdul Qadir is]..an armor officer with extensive battlefield experience, Qadir stood up to Saddam, stating that his adventure in Kuwait was destined to fail. The reward for his integrity - the patriotism of the honest soldier - was seven years in prison. Only his history of combat valor saved him from death.

"Not one unit had sectarian difficulties," he stressed. "Not one. And when we canceled all leaves after the mosque bombing - we expected trouble, of course - our soldiers returned promptly to their units. Now it is as you see for yourself: Iraqis are proud of their own soldiers."
***
[Peters:] Serious problems remain. No question about it. We'll hear more bad news (some of it may even be true). But from my heart I believe that the odds are improving that, decades from now, we'll look back and see that our sacrifices were worth it. I found Baghdad a city of hope, its citizens determined not to be ruled by terrorists, fanatics, militias or thieves.
...
This is a gigantic struggle for indescribably high stakes. We're trying to help a failing civilization rescue itself, to lift a vast region out of the grip of terror and fanaticism, and to make this troubled world safer for our own citizens. Don't let anyone tell you we're failing in Iraq.

The future remains undecided, but the last few weeks may have been a decisive turning point - against our enemies. Iraqis, military and civilian, stood up for their own country, for reason, for peace.

Dana Reeve, RIP

Dana Reeve, 44, passed away last night from lung cancer.

Reeve courageously stood by her husband, Christopher Reeve, for 9 years after he was paralyzed until his death in 2004.

An actress and singer who had appeared in shows like "Law and Order" and "All My Children," as well as in regional theater and on and off Broadway, Ms. Reeve became far better known after her husband's paralysis in a horse riding accident in 1996. Together, they created the Christopher Reeve Foundation, which drew on his fame as the actor in the "Superman" movies and the inspiration many took from his struggle to raise and distribute over $55 million in research grants, much of it aimed at speeding the development of stem-cell treatments.

Twilight of the Continent

"The EU does not know why it should ever sacrifice its sons in military conflict. What sacred values are worth defending at such a high cost?"

None, apparently.

Dutch novelist Leon de Winter has a pithy piece in the OpinionJournal today on the welfare state in Europe and the paralyzing and potentially fatal philosophy that accompanies it.

De Winter lays the blame of an imminently nuclear Iran squarely at the feet of the 'troika' of Britain, France and Germany who recalcitrantly insisted on negotiation and reliance on 'soft power' while the United States was otherwise occupied in Iraq.

Europe could have suppressed the Iranian threat if it had convinced the mullahs two years ago that it was willing to contemplate military options. Only Europe lacks core values that it holds sacrosanct and that it's willing to defend at the highest cost. It will continue to operate on the diplomatic field and cling to soft power even though this is the path of certain defeat when confronted with power players burning with geopolitical and religious ambitions.

Why the fetishization of 'soft power'?

After the horrors of World War II, Western Europe turned to new ideals of radical pacifism and post-nationalism. The Continent had been devastated by war twice in three decades. In the 1950s, the desire to avoid more war led it to a new ideology, permeating society and politics, that viewed national interests and cultural traditions as relative.
...
Little has changed in recent decades. Europe became wealthier and more convinced of its idea that world peace can be achieved by talk alone.
...
In the European welfare state, the system ensures that each individual can rely on maximum social security. Without doubt, the welfare state is the ultimate achievement of European civilization. But it did not come without a philosophy: the welfare state gave birth to a postmodern cultural relativism that underpins the tolerant, liberal, pacifistic and secular European societies of today.

...The welfare state, based on its provision of social services and the participation of reasonably acting civilians, is unable to respond to globalization or mass immigration. Its structures work as long as the system is closed. But because of vast changes in demographics and economics, the welfare state has become too expensive. All over Europe its fundaments are cracking.

Why do we care? Here's the rub - by ceding the Iranian 'problem' to the feckless troika, our options have become quite limited, according to de Winter,

Thanks to European illusions about soft power, the free world has two options left on Iran: disaster or catastrophe. America and Israel will bleed for Europe's lack of conviction.

The Europe of the Northeast

Vermont is losing young people in droves because no one who grows up there wants to stay -- lack of opportunity, lack of jobs, lack of remuneration. Why? Vermont is America's own little socialist paradise -- heavy on the socialist, very light on "paradise."

Kirby Puckett, RIP

Yesterday former Minnesota Twins CF Kirby Puckett died following a massive stroke. At 45, Puckett was the second-youngest enshrined Hall of Famer at the time of his death; only Lou Gehrig was younger (37).

Puckett led the Twins to a renaissance three years after his arrival in the AL in 1984. He started as a defensive star who could hit for average (0 HR in > 550 AB in his rookie year, only 4 HR in 680+ AB in his sophomore year), developed a power stroke and became the leader of the '87 and '91 World Series winners. His best-known performance is Game 6 of the '91 Series in which he robbed Ron Gant with a leaping catch at the wall and homered off Charlie Leibrandt to send the series to Game 7.

A roly-poly outfielder known for his infectious grin, Weeble-shaped body and community involvement, Puckett's life and behavior worsened as his retirement wore on him. Puckett retired when he was still productive (23 HR, 99 RBI in 137 games in '95) because he developed glaucoma in his right eye, which eventually blinded it. Puck's perpetual grin turned rictus in the early '00s when his ex-wife detailed extensive claims of violence and infidelity; he was arrested for assaulting another woman but cleared in '03. He gained significant weight and ultimately went through a divorce and incurred health problems that culminated with the stroke that killed him.

Puckett was the 9th of 9 children, grew up in a Chicago housing project, became a baseball star whose career and life spiralled to a tragic end.

RIP.

Next Year's Oscars...or NOT

George Clooney is a very good actor and probably a decent director as well. In his acceptance of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar last night he made very clear that he should probably stick to acting and leave politics alone. He declared that he was glad Hollywood was "out of touch" and compared Hollywood to the civil rights movement:

“People in Hollywood do seem to be getting more comfortable with making these sorts of movies now. People are becoming braver."

Mark Goldblatt at NRO suggests some themes for Hollywood pictures next year.

Progress - Sunni group declares war on al-Qaeda

As we wrote here, al-Qaeda's attack on the shrine in Samarra, was an act of desperation.

Not only are the Shia now generally anti al-Qaeda even the Sunnis have had enough of Zarqawi and his murderers:

HAWIJA, Iraq - Faced with attacks against their sheikhs and clan members, a number of Sunni tribes from Hawija – an insurgent bastion in northern Iraq - have declared war on Al-Qaeda's frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
...
The call to arms by the tribes was welcomed by General Anwar Hama Rahma, head of the Iraqi military in Kirkuk who offered his full support to their fight against Al-Qaeda insurgents.

The new stand by Sunnis around Hawija mirrors that to the south in Samarra, where the killing of a key tribal sheikh last October had strained ties between Qaeda fighters and locals, although the sides have since reportedly brokered a truce.

The US military has also reported clashes between nationalist insurgents and Al-Qaeda in Al-Anbar province, considered a bastion of rebel violence.

The Solomon Amendment - SCOTUS gets one right

By a unanimous 8-0 decision, the Supreme Court held that the Solomon Amendment does not infringe upon the First Amendment rights of universities. The Solomon Amendment, which passed the House 276-121, passed the Senate and became law under Pres. Clinton, conditions receipt of federal funding upon allowing military recruiters on campus -- any university that refuses to allow military recruiters can be barred from receiving federal funds.

This is not a First Amendment issue. As Chief Justice Roberts noted, "A military recruiter's mere presence on campus does not violate a law school's right to associate, regardless of how repugnant the law school considers the recruiter's message." That's because military recruiters are "by definition, outsiders who come onto campus for the limited purpose of trying to hire students - not to become members of the school's expressive association."

The law schools and universities who sued the DoD over this issue merely masked their anti-military bias with a weak First Amendment argument. It's actually good that the Third Circuit blew this one when it ruled 2-1 in favor of the law schools, thereby enabling the Supreme Court to set this issue aright.

Crashing the Oscar party

The Monk watched NONE of the Oscars yesterday because there was not one movie nominated for Best Picture that he had any real interest in. Indeed, the only Best Picture nominee The Monk saw was Crash -- a well-acted if somewhat unoriginal (everyone is a racist in LA) movie. Interesting to see Sandy Bullock as a b-tch, to see Terence Howard before Hustle & Flow made him a semi-household name and to see Mr. Reese Witherspoon doing some work. And it had Don Cheadle, who is always good.

Here's the one thing The Monk is missing -- why does Brokeback Mountain get so many kudos when all it is about is how two family men wrecked their lives and the lives of their wives and families by their cheating? In the minds of the cognoscenti, the gay love aspect overrides any notion that what these men did was fundamentally wrong because they violated the Seventh Commandment (Sixth for those of you Christians who cannot count properly) -- thou shalt not commit adultery.

Aussie Gipper, take II

The WSJ published its Wednesday editorial on John Howard on the free Opinion Journal website yesterday. Enjoy.

Orange Pulped

In a sad end to a horrible season, Syracuse lost to Villanova 92-82 yesterday in Gerry McNamara's final regular season game in the Carrier Dome. He'll now have at least one more chance to play at the Dome because SU is NIT bound.

This season started decently well as SU won 15 of its first 17, the juniors seemed to be ok and the team had been able to overcome McNamara's shooting woes. But the danger signs were evident: a choke job at home to Bucknell, a desperate comeback that rescued the team from a home loss to Manhattan, inconsistent play from Terrence Roberts, etc. That all came crashing to a head when UConn went to the Dome and wiped the Orange off the court. SU lost 9 of its last 13 Big East games, pulled a sub-.500 record in the conference for the first time in 25 years and wasn't even competitive in eight of the nine losses: a misleading 8-point loss to UConn, by 15 to 'Nova, by 13 to Pitt, by 23 to UConn, by 17 at home to Cincy, by 15 to G'Town, by 39 to bottom-feeding DePaul in the worst loss of the Boeheim era, and by 10 to 'Nova.

Problems: no defense, inconsistent offense, team chemistry out of whack and ultimately a poor job by the coaching staff. Ultimately, the first post-Carmelo recruiting class (Roberts, McCroskey, Nichols, Watkins) has been exposed as a flop. And next year will be a struggle: the Orange has two top wingmen coming in, but no point guard -- thus the team will rely on inconsistent Josh Wright or out-of-position Eric Devendorf.

Boeheim has a history of righting the ship after a disappointment: in 1983, the team went back to the NCAAs after two straight NIT seasons and had a successful campaign; in 1998, SU went to the Sweet 16 with a bunch of sophs who took the Big East regular season crown as seniors and notched another Sweet 16 in 2000 (when SU might have been a Final Four team but for drawing Michigan State in Detroit); and in 2003, with Carmelo ascendant, SU made an NCAA Tourney run for the ages. But most of those teams were young, not saddled with the baggage of previous disappointments, unlike next year's team.

Monk not sanguine about SU's immediate future.

In other news, UVa's outdated and rather heinous University Hall closed its doors (barring an NIT home game) yesterday. Next year the Cavs will play at a nice new arena named after either a Revolutionary War naval hero, Led Zeppelin's bassist, or a rich alum with the same name. Hopefully between the nice arena, the new coach with a winning attitude and brand of basketball and UVa's biggest selling point, the Grounds themselves (that's "campus" to the rest of you), UVa can rise up to reach consistent NCAA Tourney appearance quality.

And at least Duk honked Saturday . . .

"There is no civil war in Iraq"

Ralph Peters, who is a retired Army colonel and now columnist for the NY Post, has been traveling in Iraq. Here is his report from earlier this week:

March 1, 2006 -- THE reporting out of Baghdad continues to be hysterical and dishonest. There is no civil war in the streets. None. Period.

Terrorism, yes. Civil war, no. Clear enough?

Yesterday, I crisscrossed Baghdad, visiting communities on both banks of the Tigris and logging at least 25 miles on the streets. With the weekend curfew lifted, I saw traffic jams, booming business — and everyday life in abundance.

Yes, there were bombings yesterday...They'll keep on bombing. But Baghdad isn't London during the Blitz, and certainly not New York on 9/11.

It's more like a city suffering a minor, but deadly epidemic. As in an epidemic, no one knows who will be stricken. Rich or poor, soldier or civilian, Iraqi or foreigner. But life goes on. No one's fleeing the Black Death — or the plague of terror.
...
Most Iraqis want better government, better lives — and democracy. It is contagious, after all. Come on over. Talk to them. Watch them risk their lives every day to work with us or with their government to build their own future.

Oh, the attacks will continue. They're even predictable, if not always preventable. Driving through Baghdad's Kerada Peninsula District, my humvee passed long gas lines as people waited to fill their tanks in the wake of the curfew. I commented to the officer giving me a lift that the dense lines of cars and packed gas stations offered great targets to the terrorists. An hour later, one was hit with a car bomb.

The bombing made headlines (and a news photographer just happened to be on the scene). Here in Baghdad, it just made the average Iraqis hate the terrorists even more.

"Howard Dean - Genius"

OpinionJournal reports that DNC Chairman Howard Dean gave a speech this week to the Annual Conference of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. A paragraph of his speech:

"The Democrats have a better idea. First we will conclude the negotiations with the Chinese and the North Koreans to disarm North Korea. Secondly, under no circumstances will a Democratic Administration ever allow Iran to become a nuclear power. Three, we will kill or capture Osama bin Laden and four, the authority and the control of the ports of the United States must be retained by American companies."

Wow. Never thought of that.

Katrina duplicity

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were oh-so-quick to criticize the President yesterday for having been warned about the potential for levess breaching a day earlier than previously assumed.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said it ''confirms what we have suspected all along,'' charging that Bush administration officials have ''systematically misled the American people.''

Reid and Pelosi have been conspicuously quiet today after another tape revealed that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco Babineaux, a Democrat, was misinforming FEMA and the federal government about the levee failure:

''We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees,'' Gov. Kathleen Blanco said shortly after noon on Aug. 29 -- the day the storm hit the Gulf coast.

''We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee,'' she said on a video of the day's disaster briefing that was obtained Thursday night by The Associated Press. ''I think we have not breached the levee at this time.''

Ginsburg and MSM asleep

A Supreme Court Justice falling asleep during oral arguments of a key case [Texas re-districting] isn't news, or at least isn't news if the justice is MSM approved, i.e., liberal.

Fox News was the only major news provider to note that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg appeared to have fallen asleep during arguments two days ago.

But can you imagine the uproar if Thomas, Alito, Roberts or Scalia were to do the same?

HT: Powerline

Duke basketball = hate it or hate it

Considering Wongdoer roots for Duke because he has no allegiance to any other adoptive school (like Georgetown, which he rooted for in the 80s; and to our Aussie readers, "root" means cheer on, not what you lot use it to mean), he may not wish to read about how Duke hatred is so justifiable. Alston Ramsay explains in his essay on the eve of Carolina-Duke II for the 2005-06 season.

My favorite Duke game was when UVa played at Duke in the '94-95 season and I went to a bar near law school to watch with a couple of friends (Dookies). I sat quietly and self-deprecatingly through the first half while Duke rolled up a 40-19 halftime lead -- after all, Duke had a decent team and although it was 0-3 in the ACC at that point, no one expected things to remain that way . . .

In the second half, Virginia still trailed by nearly 20 with 11 minutes left . . . then started clawing back. Slowly but surely the Cavs cut the deficit and I continued making comments to the Dookie crowd of "don't worry, your team never loses after getting a big lead at home; every team makes a second-half charge and with that big of a deficit will fall short, etc."

Three minutes later, Junior Burrough ended a baseline drive with a slam; I jumped out of my seat and yelled "BOOM" as the Cavs took their first lead. Four more minutes of game time, and 2 OTs thereafter and Virginia had pulled off a 91-88 win in that oversized high school gym the Dookies inflate to a "Stadium".

Beating Duke. Always a good.

On my 36th Birthday . . .

The MaMonk turns 36+__.

Yeah, that's right. The MaMonk had a little baby Monk on her ___th birthday, as I noted this time last year when I posted this:

Thirty-five years ago today, MaMonk's day started much the same as it had for the previous couple of months: she woke up, prepared for the day by donning her maternity clothes and wondered exactly when the little booger would arrive. Then she started having random contractions and went to the doctor, expecting assurances that this was just a false alarm and the baby would debut sometime in the next week or two.

Instead, the doc told her that the baby was coming and she was in full-blown labor.

"But doctor," MaMonk said, "the baby can't come today, it's my birthday!"

Said the doc: "It seems like it's going to be someone else's birthday too."

And so it was that MaMonk held a little baby Monk in her arms shortly after his debut was complete at 3:17 p.m. eastern standard time. And on MaMonk's XXth birthday, she became a mother. My mother. I was her birthday present.

Considering the quality of Mom I have, I'm happy to share a birthday with her.

Happy Birthday MaMonk, I love you.

NYC preschool frenzy

This is really just entertainment for our readers who don't live in the reality-based community that is Manhattan.

As the city has grown wealthier in the last decade, well-heeled Manhattanites with young children have found that competition for admittance into the 'elite' preschools has grown spectacularly fierce. This approached the absurd when, during the height of the internet boom, Citigroup tech analyst Jack Grubman traded (or thought he traded) positive research on an important client for chairman Sandy Weill's help in getting his child into the 92nd Street Y Pre-School program.

From personal experience I have friends who have enlisted the help of friends to carefully coordinate making many calls at a specific time on a specific date - the exact time that APPLICATIONS were first available for the following nursery school year. The number of applications was limited and a number of schools coordinated to make them all available at the same time.

The NYTimes reports today that due to demographic changes the competition is worse than ever:

His assignment? To profile his two toddlers. Of his 18-month-old son Humza he eventually wrote, "He knows that birds like to sit on rooftops when they are not on the ground, that cats and dogs like to be petted, and that the blue racquetballs in the can belong in the racquetball court upstairs."

About Humza's twin, Raza, he wrote, "He is happy to point out all his body parts when asked."
...
The preschool essays are just part of the problem... Time-consuming interviews, observed play sessions, rising tuition costs and application fees, preferences shown to siblings and families who have connections to the school, and the increasing difficulty of gaining admission for twins and triplets, parents say, are making the process more stressful for the entire family.

Apparently there are consultants for this:

Consultants are reaping benefit from the competition. Victoria Goldman, a consultant and an author of guides to Manhattan private schools, said, "This year, I've gotten more calls for nursery school than kindergarten."

In writing the essay, parents can turn to the seminars that focus on "idea starters for application essays." Some good words to use in describing your child? Enthusiastic, creative, inquisitive, sensitive, consultants say.

Ms. Uhry, the consultant, said it was almost impossible to overstate the importance of the essay.

The truly absurd:

Humza and Raza got into their parents' first choice of preschool two weeks ago. They were notified before most other parents because they applied through an early decision program.

Happy Birthday Monk and MaMonk

Wishing you both health, wealth and joy!

[Actress Jessica Biel shares Monk's birthday and to give our readers some perspective of how long I've known him, the lovely Jessica was born the year we met.]

Clintons & Ports

This just reeks of hypocrisy.

From the Financial Times:

Bill Clinton, former US president, advised top officials from Dubai two weeks ago on how to address growing US concerns over the acquisition of five US container terminals by DP World.

It came even as his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton, was leading efforts to derail the deal.

Mr Clinton, who this week called the United Arab Emirates a “good ally to America”, advised Dubai’s leaders to propose a 45-day delay to allow for an intensive investigation of the acquisition, according to his spokesman.

On Sunday, DP World agreed with the White House to undertake the lengthy review, a move which has assuaged some of the opposition from the US Congress.

However, Mrs Clinton remains a leading voice against the deal, and this week proposed legislation to block it, arguing that the US could not afford to “surrender our port operations to foreign governments”.

Senator Clinton, of course, is angling for the Presidency and sees an opportunity to get to the right of President Bush and burnish her national security credentials. Meanwhile, Bill is only consulting.

So:

- Where is the MSM accusing the Clintons of hypocrisy?
- Michael Moore accusing Bill of being chummy with autocrats?
- Do the Clintons really believe in ANYTHING, truly?

HT: LGF

Scalia'ed

Here is an example why we here at TKM love Justice Antonin Scalia. Stephen Spruiell reports that Texas Democrats are unlikely to find relief from SCOTUS on Texa re-districting.

There was a tense moment during the oral arguments when Justice Scalia, who disagrees with the idea that courts should get involved in these partisan redistricting cases, challenged Perales on this double-standard. Near the end of her allotted time, Perales said that upholding the Texas redistricting plan would give states "free rein to use race to manipulate outcomes."

"Of course you want to use race to manipulate outcomes," Scalia replied. "Just sometimes."

Priceless.

Brezhnev - Visionary - UPDATE

The Associated Press reports that:

ROME (AP) -- An Italian parliamentary commission concluded ''beyond any reasonable doubt'' that the Soviet Union was behind the 1981 attempt to kill Pope John Paul II -- a theory long alleged but never proved, according to a draft report made available Thursday.

Wonder when the Kremlin will admit THAT.

We wrote here that old Brezhnev should be 'credited' for his foresight and decision to get rid of the troublesome Polish priest, who in divine(?) concert with Reagan and Thatcher helped to usher the USSR into oblivion.

Medal of Dishonor for UW

The Student Senate at the University of Washington disgraced itself last week when it voted narrowly NOT to honor Colonel Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, a Marine ace who shot down 28 enemy aircraft in the Pacific in World War II and received the nation's highest military award, the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Most of my generation might remember Robert Conrad's portrayal of him in Baa Baa Black Sheep. Boyington was shot down in January 1944 and spent 20 months at the notorious Camp Ofuna in Japan.

James Thayer writes an excellent summary of Boyington's career and the UWash disgrace at the Weekly Standard.

It seems that one primary objection of effete student senators was Boyington "killed" people.

Boyington sure did--in a monumental war against one of the great evils of the 20th century. Did any of these students remember Pearl Harbor, Bataan, or Nanking?

One senator, Ashley Miller, didn't want to honor 'another rich white man.'

Boyington, who battled alcoholism and was never wealthy, was part Sioux.

Another senator, Jill Edwards, "didn't believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce." That's lovely, Jill. I'm glad she's not defending us.

Boyington might not have been an all-American Boy Scout but by God, he was the type of man we want defending home and hearth.

About time

Russian President Putin took "moral responsibility" for crushing the "Prague Spring" with 165,000 troops and 4,600 tanks in 1968.

That must have hurt (Putin, that is).

Debate: Can Islam reform?

A pretty good discussion here between Andrew McCarthy and Mansoor Ijaz. McCarthy takes the negative proposition here as he argues that Islam cannot reform because the Koran, unlike the Bible, is considered to be the word of God as told to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel. In contrast, the Bible was 'inspired' by people and events.

The key difference is that to question the Koran can be considered blasphemy while different interpretations of the Bible is not heresy. McCarthy, a former Assistant US Attorney, is a strict constitutionalist who argues that 'reform' cannot succeed because the bin Ladens have the Koran to fall back on but moderate Islam does not. Period.

Ijaz, an American of Pakistani origin who has mediated conflict in Sudan and Kashmir,
could not counter McCarthy's primary point but essentially tries to argue the affirmative by asserting that moderate Muslims can be taught to believe in a living, breathing Koran rather than the original text.

A bit long but worth the effort.

Euro tolerance alert

Samuel Eto'o almost walked off the pitch Saturday after a steady stream of monkey chants from the tolerant and non-racist fans at Zaragosa. Eto'o, a Cameroon national who is one of the best strikers in the world, is the reigning African Footballer of the Year and plays for pay at Barcelona. Zaragosa's fine of 9,000 Euros (about $10,700) is about the equivalent of 200-300 tickets to the game. Docking the team a full game's gate would get its attention, especially in light of the Zaragosa fans as repeat offenders.

I wonder how Zaragosa's black striker -- the one who received thunderous cheers when he notched two goals in a 6-1 rout of Real Madrid in El Copa Del Rey just a few weeks ago -- feels. It would be nice for the black players on the teams whose fans make the racist chants to speak out in solidarity with their opponents.

The Howard Decade

The WSJ hails the decade of John Howard's tenure as Australian PM, which started on March 2, 1996. The praise is highly deserved for this principled leader of the nation that has become our best ally. Some quick excerpts because the link is subscriber only:

Like the Gipper in the U.S., Mr. Howard has fundamentally reshaped Australian society through economic reform. When elected in March 1996, he pledged lower taxes, privatization initiatives and labor market change. His government wouldn't "be a pale imitation" of the Labor leadership it replaced, the plain-talking Aussie vowed. What an understatement. To date, he's followed through on every one of those promises.

As a result, the Lucky Country is, well, luckier today than it's ever been in its history. Over Mr. Howard's tenure, Australia experienced an enormously stable and robust economic boom. The Sydney stock market's capitalization has swung skywards. The central bank was granted independence and promptly brought average inflation down to around 2.5% over the last 10 years. Employment picked up mightily. Australians now feel a renewed confidence in their nation that strongly echoes that of America's vibes under Mr. Reagan.

All of this wealth creation has come from common sense observations: if you give businesses the freedom to make decisions about wages, prices and employment, they'll respond rationally. If you encourage healthy competition among firms, only the best will prosper. If you make your citizens shareholders, they'll have a personal stake in companies' success, and productivity will soar. Consider: More Australians today own stock than are members of labor unions, thanks to Mr. Howard's reforms. That's what we'd call an ownership society . . .

* * *
Like Mr. Reagan, the Prime Minister has also forged a solid, realist internationalist foreign policy, built on the country's long-time alliance with free nations like the U.K. and the U.S. He's also -- importantly -- forged new friendships in Asia, as evidenced by free trade agreements his administration has inked, and Australia's participation in regional political and economic forums.

That's not a significant change from prior Australian administrations, all of whom proved solid allies of free nations. But what Australia has witnessed under Mr. Howard is an escape from its Vietnam-era hang-ups. . .

Happy 10th Anniversary to the Aussie Gipper.