Last weekend, The New York Times online ran "No Rich Child Left Behind" -- an opinion piece by a Stanford professor of education and sociology. In it, Sean Reardon bemoans the fact that over the last few decades, "differences in educational success between high- and lower-income students have grown substantially."

Reardon declares the widening academic gap is because "rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than middle-class students."  He argues that, in turn, is because the rich are spending more resources on their children's "educational success." He goes on to make the predictable lefty argument that the government should "invest much more heavily as a society in our children’s educational opportunities from the day they are born."  In other words, society should be trying to replicate the educational experiences of affluent children.

But according to some experts, all is not necessarily rosy on the side of the socio-economic spectrum Reardon implicitly points to as a model. Psychologist Madeline Levine has argued that the "ends" of today's affluent parenting -- good grades, high test scores, top college admissions -- are creating a generation of unhappy, stressed out, uncreative, entitled, "empty" children who are not well-positioned to be creative thinkers or positive contributors to society.  Some of the pathologies created by high-pressure education and parenting are also documented in the popular film "Race to Nowhere."

What seems to underlie both Reardon's prescriptions and the affluent "high stakes" education/parenting regime he hopes to replicate is a presumption that children are essentially like cakes. Mix the right "ingredients" -- enough money, a certain kind of preschool program, a certain type of parental involvement, certain opportunities -- and voila!  The result? "Smart" children performing at a high academic level, which in turn yields "success," defined as a high income and prestige.

Every child should have the opportunity to fulfill his or her own unique destiny (the "right to rise" is at the heart of the American dream, and it's one reason I believe in school choice). But this "right ingredients/right result" approach to child rearing -- whether directed to the rich or the poor -- seems to miss a lot, too. Certainly, Reardon overlooks some obvious alternatives to his theory about the reasons for disparate performance, including genetic inheritance and assortive marriage.  

Likewise, on the affluent side, it seems that too many parents think we can control the outcome for our children if we just do the right things: Expose them to every possible activity, help them find their "passion," push them to become "fabulous" at something.  That's the way they'll become a "success."  

Certainly, since the beginning of time, involved and caring parents have always wanted the best for their children. But the intense parental monitoring and involvement, along with the insane pressures on children documented by Levine and others, are something new.

It's almost as though we think we're gods. We flatter ourselves that we can control our children's destinies (regardless of their IQ's, particular forms of intelligence, interests, strengths & weaknesses, even chance) as long as we (parents or government in loco parentis) "do" everything right: Combine the right ingredients in the right order to get a perfect "child cake." All of a sudden, we seem to be clinging to a false but comforting illusion that child-rearing can be reduced to a formula -- it's a science, not an art.

Is this a symptom of a culture in which God has been pushed to the margins? In other words, with fewer of us actively aware that He ultimately is in control, are we engaged in a futile attempt to establish ourselves as the arbiters of our children's destinies?

This morning, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty announced that Masha Gessen gave her resignation. The press release notes:

Gessen, author of the political biography of Vladimir Putin, "The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin," (Riverhead Press, 2012) is a 2013 winner of the 4th annual Media for Liberty award for "The Wrath of Putin," published in Vanity Fair magazine last year.
 
Ms. Gessen also lectures on human rights, and is a regular contributor to The New York Times’ “Latitude” blog.

She also has gained some notoriety for comments on same-sex marriage law that went viral this week, even though they were said at a conference in Australia last year. They are instructive.

There are people on both sides of the marriage debate who haven't thought a lot about marriage law. It's understandable to not think too much about the ramifications, particularly in an environment where such thinking is criticized. So you have the people who just trust tradition as a guide and the people who are conforming to the spirit of the age. As a skeptic on whether government redefinition of marriage is a good idea, I find the people who have thought quite a bit about it -- on either side -- far and away the most interesting. They alone seem to talk about things beyond the cliches.

Anyway, you can listen to Gessen's comments here, but here's a sample:

It’s a no-brainer that we should have the right to marry. But I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist.

(applause)

That causes my brain some trouble. And part of why it causes me trouble is because fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we're going to do with marriage when we get there. Because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change. And that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change and it should change and, again, I don't think it should exist.

I don't like taking part in creating fictions about my life. That's sort of not what I had in mind when I came out 30 years ago. I have 3 kids who have five parents, more or less, (laughter) and I don't see why they shouldn't have five parents legally. I don't see why we should choose two of those parents and make them into a sanctioned couple.

She explains that she had a previous relationship -- a same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, in fact -- with a woman during which time they adopted a son and she gave birth to a daughter using sperm from a man in Russia. Both of those children view that man as their father.

They broke up and she partnered with a new woman who gave birth to another child using Masha's brother's sperm. There's more laughter and then she says:

And really I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality. I don't think that's compatible with the institution of marriage.

I was corresponding with a gay friend who said he thought the comments were "absurd" and not helpful to the cause.

But why in the world would we say these comments absurd? Philosophically consistent same-sex marriage activists make difficult arguments such as these all the time. I was just chatting with Ryan Anderson, who has written in support of marriage law based on sexual complementarity, about a series of debates he had on college campuses. He said that the opposition basically fell into two camps: those who acknowledged that redefining marriage to include same-sex couples would lead to multi-partner families and those who said it wouldn't, but couldn't explain why.

It doesn’t matter.  

You can be this, that, or the other thing and it doesn’t matter if you are gay.  

Yet when someone announces his sexual proclivity, those who seek to be in league with the gay person act as if it does. I wonder if we will ever realize the day where the folks who yell the loudest that sexual orientation doesn’t matter will act like it. If it doesn’t matter, it’s not news. 

America has to reach a certain balance of understanding from two sides of this issue for it really not to matter. We need a facultative symbiosis – organisms living together with no dependency or obligations imposed upon one another. 

Unfortunately, the gay activist side (not individual gays, mind you) is so closed-minded that having sexuality be private and personal instead of socially determinative remains elusive. 

When a gay person announces their identity (a habit that needs to decrease to the frequency of straight people announcing their sexual desires – which is never), the expectation of gay activists are totally unrealistic.

The reaction they should expect from others is absolutely nothing. If being gay doesn’t matter to your work, hobby and other social interactions, then an announcement that one is gay should be coupled with an expectation of no reaction to the announcement at all. It doesn’t matter. If it truly doesn’t matter, then the gay person should reassess the need for an announcement in the first place.

Gay activists are not looking for others to say, “I see you.”  They are looking for others to say, “I accept your homosexuality as good.” Therein is the fascistic, imposing, and anti-religious flaw of the typical gay activist and those who support him.

This bigotry, intolerance, and refusal of gay activists to accept others is exceedingly un-American.

When a gay person announces they are gay, the activist seeks applause. He seeks an acknowledgement ranging from “It’s OK” to “It’s truly great and good.”

Yet when a religious person announces his view that he will not assent to a positive assessment of homosexuality, the gay activist turns completely closed-minded and refuses to live in a diverse society. The gay activist resorts to hurling reckless misnomers at religions that they are bigoted, intolerant, and un-American. The gay activist refuses to acknowledge that asking a person to "accept" homosexuality as opposed to "acknowledge its existence" is asking a person to reject his own religion. 

All anyone should ever ask from another is polite indifference. Forced acceptance is as harmful to free will as forced rejection. Leave your neighbor alone. 

Jason Collins is the NBA player who announced his sexual desire yesterday. What are we supposed to do with this irrelevant data?

Some would have us applaud, and those so inclined should be free to do so. Yet those inclined to verbally reject should be free to do so as well. To impose a value system flirts with the establishment of a state religion. The American political left has raised the word “diversity” to sacramental proportions, yet they cringe the hardest when 'diverse' opinions include those opposite their own.

Some will argue that to get to the point of sexuality being completely private and socially irrelevant, there have to be “firsts.” Someone has to be the first in every highly publicized endeavor (like professional sports) for the American noosphere to see gays, move them beyond being a curious anomaly, and then allow sexual orientation to slip into a category of irrelevancy like hair or eye color. Fair enough, I suppose, but one can still maintain that we can get there without an announcement reported on the six o’clock news.

Since some insist on a highly public “first” it’s fair to assess the qualification of the “first gay” to grab that moniker. Jason Collins may actually be a better “first” than Jackie Robinson.

Robinson was the most celebrated “first” in American pop culture,  becoming the first black professional player. Note, though, a major difference between Jackie Robinson and Jason Collins:  Jackie was a talented hall of fame athlete. Jason Collins is averaging 1.1 points per game this season.

Does that matter? Yes! Does anyone think we celebrate Jackie Robinson because he is black? America is far better than that. Jackie was great. Sure his being the first black player in the game has much to do with baseball’s and America’s constant celebration of him. Make no mistake though -- the number 42 would not be retired and there would be no celebrations if Jackie hit .150 and couldn’t run, catch and throw.

To prove that point, I ask you to name the first black NFL player. You can’t. There were actually two in the same season, but neither had dramatic statistics. It’s conceded that Robinson’s first was more anticipated because baseball was “the” game at the time, but his greatness as a player has made his “first” continue to be important. Also, baseball seems to be in a perpetual state of apology for rejecting blacks for half its existence, so the constant celebration of Robinson has much to do with Major League Baseball’s feeling of guilt. Enough already - you’re forgiven.

The problem with the perpetual celebration of Robinson is that we never get to move on. We never get to leave history to history. As a result, new generations of American blacks and whites become so overwhelmed with images of historical racism that they make the mistake of thinking it is still happening to them now.

No one will retire Jason Collins’ number or celebrate him years from now as the first gay basketball player. If it had been Lebron or Kobe, the desire to celebrate his greatness as a player would coattail his being the first announced gay player, and -- as with Robinson and racism -- we’d never seem to get past it.

 That’s what makes Jason Collins a better “first” for gays.  Eventually none of it will matter.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore.

In a non-C-of-C-compliant Twitter brawl a few days ago, the Black Swan author took on several prominent economists and finance writers, including Financial Times writer Joe Cotterill; Lorcan Roche Kelly, Chief Europe Strategist at Trend Macrolytics; and Karl Whelan, an economist who has worked at the Federal Reserve and at the Central Bank of Ireland. A sample:

As he explained later on Facebook, Taleb is making good on this promise by writing an extensive expose of scientifically flawed economic modeling, to be entitled Fat Tails & (Anti)Fragility. "When I mean flawed," he posted, "it is on the basis that the math used impresses nonmathematicians but does not support the stated policy conclusions."

I'm all for exposing economic hokum. I'm just not sure I can forgive "fragilizing".

Does something seem... oh, I don't know...off to you about these ads?

Set aside the political flavor of some of these suggestions/commandments. "Believing in something bigger" is a great idea -- in the abstract, at least. (You know who else believed in something bigger?) But when you read the fine print -- and realize this is actually the State of California's ad-agency-concocted campaign to get you to gamble on its new Powerball lottery -- you might get a strange kind of vertigo.

For the religious, there's an obvious idol-worshipping aspect of the ad campaign to get worked up about. But (as I suggest at Forbes) the abuse of human nature and human aspiration on display here goes far beyond any one denomination or creed. It doesn't take any particular kind of supernatural faith, for instance, to imagine that

life is more than large enough already; that optimism is irrelevant when you are present to the possibility of grace and the fullness of life; and that, conceptually, lottery-ism asks us to project our image-creating nature onto a surface where it can never gain purchase[.]

The kind of person we'd most want to win California's 'transformational' lottery is the kind of person who'd be least inclined to pin his or her hopes on playing.

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You've probably heard about the profane letter that a Delta Gamma sorority girl from the University of Maryland wrote to her chapter, chastising her fellow sisters for not meeting her social expectations of them (to put the matter mildly). The letter, by sister Rebecca Martinson, has now gone viral thanks to a hilarious reading by actor Michael Shannon (which you can watch here) and the original Gawker post where the letter first appeared. Here is an excerpt of the letter:

If you just opened this like I told you to, tie yourself down to whatever chair you're sitting in, because this email is going to be a rough [expletive] ride. For those of you that have your heads stuck under rocks, which apparently is the majority of this chapter, we have been [expletive] UP in terms of night time events and general social interactions with Sigma Nu. I've been getting texts on texts about people LITERALLY being so [expletive] AWKWARD and so [expletive] BORING. If you're reading this right now and saying to yourself "But oh em gee Julia, I've been having so much fun with my sisters this week!", then punch yourself in the face right now so that I don't have to [expletive] find you on campus to do it myself.

To an outsider, sorority life probably seems intolerably catty. But it doesn't have to be that way. I was in a sorority in college and it was a great experience. This might come as a shock to people who think that sorority life is epitomized by the likes of Martinson. When I tell non-Greek friends about my involvement in a sorority, they often assume that sorority life is some sort of awful mashup between Animal House and Mean Girls.

Granted, my sorority experience at Tri-Delt may have been the exception. If it was, I'm all the more grateful for it. The Tri-Delt chapter at Dartmouth was a place where women could really bond with each other in a supportive environment. Our weekly activities included hosting talks led by professors, doing philanthropy and fundraising for St. Jude's hospital, and having weekly meetings. At those meetings, we had a weekly ritual called "Recs" where we'd recognize the good that our sisters' were doing in the community. Sisters would call each other out for their accomplishments and the ones who got called out would get chocolate or cookies. To this day, some of my closest friends are from my sorority.

This isn't to say that all sorority life is good--or that even the good sororities are good all the time--but just to give a shout out to the nice sorority sisters out there, especially the ones that I got to know in college. They weren't at all like Rebecca Martinson.

Or, at least, they think we are. From the NYPost:

[New York City]  is looking to hire — for up to $73,000 a year — someone to encourage breast-feeding in Brooklyn.

A “Breast-Feeding Empowerment Zone” will target specific areas in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville to “encourage and support” suckling, The Post has learned.

The initiative will offer a range of measures to bolster breast-feeding — including a media campaign, home visits, consultations, and community mobilization, according to the Health Department, which also aims to focus on “male involvement in breast-feeding.”

This, of course, is classic lefty socialism. We need to hire someone, we need an initiative, we need a grant and a media campaign and community mobilization to explain how breastfeeding works. Because it's a new thing, this breastfeeding. Brand new. No one's really ever done it before.   

Liberalism means tearing down all of the values and traditions and the unbroken chain of human experiences, treating us all like helpless and victimized children, and then re-installing -- by government initiative and social-welfare busybodies -- what we never really lost in the first place.  

I have been working my way this year through Robert Caro’s epic biographical series on Lyndon Johnson. After several months of slow, steady progress, I am approaching the end of the fourth volume (the most recently published),The Passage of Power, which documents the years of LBJ’s vice-presidency, the Kennedy assassination, and Johnson’s bid for election in 1964.

There is much to feast on here, including a deep-dive into the curious mechanics of the American political arts, of which, as Caro makes clear, Johnson was a pure-breed master. These books are simply great. They are required reading for anyone with more than a basic interest in history, politics, and the exercise of power—which is to say, the Ricochet community.

Of particular note is the snapshot Caro provides of the metamorphic forces at work in the Democratic Party at mid-century. It is a party at odds with itself, struggling to sort out its identity—for or against civil rights, for or against a strong nuclear deterrent, for or against a balanced budget. On this last point, consider LBJ’s first State of the Union address, delivered in January 1964, just two months after Kennedy’s murder.

In the speech, Johnson calls for a reduction in the number of federal employees and a budget half a billion dollars lower than the previous year’s. That’s right—a Democratic budget reduction. But it is what comes next that is truly boggling to the modern partisan mind. Johnson calls for a tax cut:

“That tax bill has been thoroughly discussed for a year,” he said. “Now we need action. The new budget clearly allows it. Our taxpayers surely deserve it. Our economy strongly demands it….And the most damaging and devastating thing you can do to any businessman in America is to keep him in doubt and to keep him guessing on what our tax policy is.”

(These last sentiments are echoed, incidentally, by Vanguard CEO Bill McNabb in this morning’s Wall Street Journal.)

There is very little in Caro’s portrait of LBJ's Democrats that bears resemblance to the predilections of the modern party save for the emphasis on an anti-poverty strategy that, as Caro so deftly notes, is born primarily by Johnson’s desire to outflank his liberal rivals  for the 1964 Democratic presidential nomination, Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey. Yes, LBJ was partially inspired by his background in the dirt poor Texas Hill Country, but when it comes to Johnson's motivations, the political always trumped the personal.

It is impossible to read Caro’s series and come away with any conclusion other than that LBJ was completely devoid of a moral conscience. Nothing is ever decided—at least on his rise to power—by what’s right, but rather by what’s most expedient. The War on Poverty, announced by Johnson in 1964 and the policy predecessor to the Great Society welfare state, was mostly—if not solely—a political maneuver to ensure Johnson’s election and solidify his legitimacy at a time when he was viewed by some as a corn-pone usurper of Camelot’s fallen prince.

We’ve been living with the consequences of this cynical strategy ever since. What’s curious is how the modern Democratic Party cloaks itself in the mantle of compassion when the original motivations of the architect of its identity were purely mercenary. 

Two tweets this morning caught my eye. The first, from actress Patricia Heaton:

#Gosnell is just the less sanitary version of what goes on every day...the cheapening of human life. Lord have mercy.youtube.com/watch?feature=…

— Patricia Heaton (@PatriciaHeaton) April 28, 2013

The video, a piece of undercover journalism by pro-life activists, is horrifying. The euphemisms the abortion workers use to dehumanize the life being ended. The revelations that late-term abortions are done every day at one clinic. The information that one worker began her employment at the clinic as a young teenager -- just like one of Gosnell's employees.

LiveAction has actually been doing such undercover journalism for years. Sometimes, particularly during hot election seasons, their videos are Gosnelled (that is the neologism for downplaying politically inconvenient news). But at this moment, perhaps because of all the embarrassment over the media's lack of coverage over Gosnell, these stories are getting some coverage. Here's the Washington Post:

An antiabortion group that mounted a six-month undercover investigation has released videos this week that raise questions about what might happen to a baby as a result of an unsuccessful abortion.

One video features a D.C. doctor, Cesare Santangelo, who said that in the unlikely event that an abortion resulted in a live birth, “we would not help it.” Santangelo was answering repeated questions from an undercover operative about what would happen, hypothetically, if she gave birth after an unsuccessful abortion.

“I mean, technically, you know, legally, we would be obligated to help it, you know, to survive, but . . . it probably wouldn’t,” Santangelo is shown telling the woman, who was 24 weeks pregnant. “It’s all in how vigorously you do things to help a fetus survive at this point.”

So you know who the real villain is in this story, right? As Will Saletan, Slate's prominent abortion rights journalist, puts it:

What's more disgusting than late-term abortion? This scheme to exploit it by hiring actors & secretly taping doctors. http://wapo.st/11wBHIW

More disgusting than, for instance, tearing a viable baby limb from limb? Why, showing that doctors do it all the time in our country. Makes sense, right?

Well, maybe not quite yet. But soon, inshallah.

The investigative journalist Michael Totten, who knows better than most how little reason there usually is for optimism in this part of the world, is feeling a jolt of vestigial American hope for a post-Hezbollah Lebanon. He has a long, fascinating piece up at World Affairs Journal in which he examines Hezbollah's prospects, and I encourage you to read the whole thing.

Totten quotes popular political talk show host Nadim Koteich, a Lebanese Shia. "The problem for an organization like Hezbollah is that when it reaches the height of its power, it has no future," Koteich says. "It’s all downhill from the top":

In the late 1990s, Hezbollah actually said they were worried about what would happen if the Israelis left Lebanon. Because then what would they do?

...Winning is losing. Hezbollah belongs to the past. They insist their future is based on their past, which is their resistance and weapons. They need to reinvent themselves. They aren’t fighting Israel anymore, so instead they’re going head to head with this Salafist Sheikh Assir in Sidon over two or three apartments. It’s ridiculous.

(Totten explains that Sheikh Assir is a "championship lunatic" in the Osama bin Laden mold who has a "microscopic" constituency of Lebanese Sunnis.) 

“Hezbollah can’t imagine a role for the Shia aside from being the ‘resistance’ of Lebanon,” Koteich said, “but it’s over. There’s nothing left to resist. They’re like communist parties in the former Soviet Union. They have their prisons, they have their bread, they have their hospitals, and that’s it...Their invasion of Beirut in May of 2008 cost them so much. They lost credibility. They’re not fighting Israel anymore. They’re just a militia that shoves the country around like bullies in high school.”

Hezbollah is terrified of the day after Assad's fall. Sunni extremists constitute a small minority in Lebanon, but Sheik Nasrallah fears that in the absence of Assad's inhibiting presence, Sunni extremists in Syria, in the form of al Nusra (the Syrian branch of al Qaeda), will swarm across the border, crush Hezbollah, and take over Lebanon.

Now, as Totten points out, it is entirely conceivable that al Nusra will win Syria. The other parties fighting Assad in Syria (the secular rebels, the Christians, the Druze, the Kurds) will challenge al Nusra for domination, but they could well lose. "The most ruthless often prevail after regime-change," Totten writes. "The Muslim Brotherhood took over Egypt, and it did so there with the consent of the governed."

Totten does not believe al Nusra will be able to conquer Lebanon, however, where 90 percent of the Sunni population backs Saad Hariri’s liberal, capitalist Future Movement party. But Sheik Nasrallah doesn't consult Michael Totten, and he's scared.

Totten goes on to interview Hanin Ghaddar, managing editor of online magazine NOW Lebanon, who claims that Hezbollah's object is not an Islamic theocracy in south Lebanon but rather an indefinite continuation of the "total surveillance security state" they have cobbled together with Iranian (and Syrian) backing. Totten clarifies that Hezbollah and its Iranian patron would no doubt prefer an Islamic theocracy in south Lebanon and throughout the country, but such a thing is totally impracticable in Lebanon due to its demographics -- everybody is a minority -- and its geography. The route from East Beirut up to southern Tripoli takes you through "an enormous skyscrapering Christian entity that looks a little like Hong Kong at night. Then drive up into the mountains. That area is also almost entirely Christian, and thanks to the terrain it's all but unconquerable. It has been this way for two thousand years. Everybody is armed, and everybody will fight to the death to preserve their freedom to live as they please...Forcing those people to live in a Shia theocracy would be as difficult, if not more difficult, than pulling the same job in Texas."

Totten also talks to liberal Shia activist Lokman Slim, who recommends that Washington directly engage the Shia. "You can either neglect us, which promotes the most radical among us, or you can take us seriously. And you have to realize that within the Arab world, whether you like it or not, the agents of change are Shias." Totten notes that Washington has long treated the Middle East as "a monolithic bloc of conservative Sunni Arabs," but it's a fatal mistake to cast the Eastern Med and the North African parts of that world in the same mold as the Gulf. "The Levant -- the Eastern Mediterranean -- is mind-bogglingly diverse. It is much more culturally modern. And it's a lot more fractious and prone to armed conflict."

Totten asks Slim just which Shia Washington should be talking to, since Hezbollah won't talk to the Americans and it's against the law for the Americans to talk to Hezbollah:

"Forget Hezbollah," Slim answers. "It is just a component of Iran's imperial system. Hezbollah can go to hell."

"So who in Lebanon's Shia community are we supposed to talk to?" I said. 

“Washington knows everybody,” he said, “but there is no policy. When there is a decision to call a carrot a carrot, Washington will get everything it needs from our community.”

“That could take a while,” I said.

“That’s okay,” he said and comfortably leaned back in his chair. “We will still be sitting here drinking our arak and will be ready when they are.”

Slim recognizes that parts of the Arab world are in thrall to radical Islam, but sees it as a phase in a longer history. “We need to live through this difficult period,” Slim said, “and we need you to help us get through it as quickly as possible. The camel passes, but the desert remains. Help Islam fade. Help Islam become just an identity. Help Islam rest in peace calmly.”

Anyone who claims—as Paul Krugman does—that the Bush administration “lied us into war” in Iraq ought to read Jamie Kirchick’s demolition of this absurd claim:

In 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously approved a report acknowledging that it “did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments.” The following year, the bipartisan Robb-Silberman report similarly found “no indication that the intelligence community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.”

Contrast those conclusions with the Senate Intelligence Committee report issued June 5, the production of which excluded Republican staffers and which only two GOP senators endorsed. In a news release announcing the report, committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV got in this familiar shot: “Sadly, the Bush administration led the nation into war under false pretenses.”

Yet Rockefeller’s highly partisan report does not substantiate its most explosive claims. Rockefeller, for instance, charges that “top administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and Al Qaeda as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11.” Yet what did his report actually find? That Iraq-Al Qaeda links were “substantiated by intelligence information.” The same goes for claims about Hussein’s possession of biological and chemical weapons, as well as his alleged operation of a nuclear weapons program.

Four years on from the first Senate Intelligence Committee report, war critics, old and newfangled, still don’t get that a lie is an act of deliberate, not unwitting, deception. If Democrats wish to contend they were “misled” into war, they should vent their spleen at the CIA.

In 2003, top Senate Democrats — not just Rockefeller but also Carl Levin, Clinton, Kerry and others — sounded just as alarmist. Conveniently, this month’s report, titled “Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq by U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated by Intelligence Information,” includes only statements by the executive branch. Had it scrutinized public statements of Democrats on the Intelligence, Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees — who have access to the same intelligence information as the president and his chief advisors — many senators would be unable to distinguish their own words from what they today characterize as warmongering.

The list of people who should read Kirchick include New York Times editors who are allowing their paper and their brand to be hijacked in the service of lies by people like Paul Krugman. And since there is no way to say the following nicely, I won’t try: Either the Times hierarchy will force Krugman to adopt some ethical journalistic standards, or they are complicit in his rank dishonesty and deserve to fade away from the world of journalism so that more honest news sources can take the place of the New York Times.

Or at least I would if I were an insane Iranian cleric.  From the Guardian:

A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Women in the Islamic Republic are required by law to cover from head to toe, but many, especially the young, ignore some of the more strict codes and wear tight coats and scarves pulled back that show much of the hair. "What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?" Sedighi asked during a prayer sermon last week. "There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes." 

It's worth noting, I think, as many times as necessary, that Iranian clerics are -- to a man -- insane.  That all of their co-religionists around the world should repudiate them and their ilk.   We need to rely on other Muslims to point out how insane and dangerous some Muslims are, because of course our own media won't do it.

"If they are going to kill him, I don't care. My oldest son is killed, so I don't care. I don't care if my youngest son is going to be killed today. I want the world to hear this. And, I don't care if I'm going to get killed too. And I will say Allahu Akbar!" 

Now, how's that for assimilation?  If that doesn't give you an All-American warm fuzzy feeling, then you haven't been eating at the right diners. "Allahu Akbar," in case you were wondering, is the Official Greeting of fanatics and savages everywhere who take it upon themselves to evangelize on behalf of the Religion of Peace. It's sort of a Middle-Eastern "How-d'ya-do!" that you might hear just before, say, an Islamist Army major evangelizes by shooting and killing 13 people, or right before another aficionado spreads the good news by sawing a person's head off, or yet another disciple flies a civilian airplane into a building.  And to think we used to worry about guys on bicycles handing out leaflets.  

So it was only natural that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, one-time resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, sent us all a big ol' "How-d'ya-do," after her sons set off bombs in the middle of the Boston Marathon, for which trouble one died and the other landed in the hospital. "I thought America was going to protect us, our kids," she cried. "It's going to be safe for any reason.  But it happened the opposite."  Well, Ms. Akbar, things do tend to happen the opposite when you counsel your children in the ways of radicalism, no?  Evidently, in 2011, Russian authorities intercepted a phone conversation between Tamerlan Tsarnaeva and his mother in which they discussed jihad in rather nebulous terms. There have even been reports that she tried to talk her blossoming young bomber into enlisting in the Palestinian cause. Alas, he instead opted for the Bill Ayers tenure track, which was derailed when his younger brother ran him over with the car during the ensuing skirmish with the police (earning him the nickname "Speed Bump"). 

"The mother in my judgement has a role in his radicalization process in terms of her influence over him and fundamental views of Islam," said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul. But there she is on television, wailing and lashing out that, "America took my kids away from me." But she is a grieving mother, and so a few unhinged moments are to be expected. And she gets extra leeway for being nuts to start with, so certain incongruities are to be expected. But what are we to make of the incongruity of having taxpayers pick up the tab for feeding this lovable little family of terrorists via the food stamp program? In fact, how much of the travel, training and material used by the bombers was financed by lawful and productive citizens at the point of the IRS's gun? And while we're at it: 

How is it that Tamerlan Tsarnaeva was placed on the main US terrorism watch list at the request of the CIA, and yet our government had to publicize his photograph and ask our help in identifying him?  Does this inspire confidence?  

Speaking of incongruities, did you know that your tax dollars are going to the production and distribution of Spanish language flyers from the USDA in Mexico promoting our food stamp program and advertising that, "You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children." Now, the fact that our government is working with Mexican authorities to advertise our compulsive support of illegal aliens through the food stamp program is not an incongruity. It's an outrage. The incongruity lies with politicians who advise us to trust that the latest behemoth of immigration legislation will, A) work, and, B) be enforced by an administration that famously picks and chooses which laws to enforce, which to ignore, and which to rewrite.  

Incidentally, did you hear the one about the immigration agents who are suing the Obama administration? Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees, who were specifically not invited to help fashion the new immigration legislation, have taken the administration to court over its "Deferred Action" initiative, which has essentially hamstrung the agency's ability to do it's job. Well, US District Judge Reed O'Connor has surmised that the suit is likely to succeed, and so has asked both sides in the case to file additional arguments by May 6. "The court finds that DHS does not have discretion to refuse to initiate removal proceedings," Judge O'Connor wrote, insuring his own vilification for failing to secure the votes of what Jay Leno called, "undocumented Democrats." Maybe the USDA can help with that incongruity too.  

Or how about the incongruity of lawmakers who jammed an unpopular health care law down the throat of an unreceptive citizenry, maneuvering behind the scenes to exempt themselves and their staffs from the exchanges they themselves mandated? As premiums continue to rise and the nightmare of throwing these colossal chains on the populace unfolds, it's understandable that they would want to be exempt. Who the hell wouldn't? But it takes a special kind of hubris for the authors of this insult to liberty to try and squirm out from under its crushing weight. There's a word for people who trample on the freedom of their citizens while exempting themselves.  

And speaking of little tyrants, Mayor Bloomberg, who would limit your drinks, trans-fats, and the pain meds doctors may prescribe at the hospital, took another expedition into transcendental demoralization recently.  We live in a complex world," said New York City's billionaire babysitter, "where you're going to have to have a level of security greater … our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change."  It's tough to explain to progressives that the law of the land is no more a living document, subject to the whims of temporary politicians than, say, your mortgage or car loan. It is a contract. Perhaps it would be best to ask Hizzoner to explain what incongruity there would be in New Yorkers adopting his approach and exercising their own right to "change" their "interpretation" of his edicts and rules? Somehow, I think he would be less than receptive.  

Perhaps the ultimate incongruity occurred when Barack Obama became the first "sitting" President (if only he'd just sit still for awhile and stop screwing things up) to address Planned Parenthood. When the man who only weeks ago said in the wake of the Boston bombing, "In the face of those who would visit death upon innocents, we will choose to save and to comfort and to heal," praises an organization that cannot bring itself to repudiate infanticide, we have an incongruity the size of which would allow me to parallel-park a semi. But we have a further insult when that same organization hears the words, "God bless you," from a United States President.  

The incongruities of life in what Mark Levin appropriately calls a "post-constitutional" America are startling. From Ms. Akbar and her food stamp bombers, to a government that places them on a terror list and then shows us photos asking who the hell they are; from a government that advertises freebies to illegals while forcing us to pay the bill, to lawmakers who try and excuse themselves from the miseries they impose on the rest of us; and from elected servants who treat the Constitution as if it were written on Silly Putty while expecting their own rules to be etched in stone, to a President who invokes the Almighty's blessings on an organization that has made peace with infanticide, the warning of Thomas Jefferson becomes terrifyingly prescient: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever."  

That’s what middle school girls were told to ask one another during an anti-bullying lesson at Linden Avenue Middle School in Red Hook, NY.

The boys and girls were separated, and the girls were told to ask one another for a lesbian kiss while the boys were instructed on how to use a condom and how to tell whether a woman is a slut. They were also advised to always keep a condom in their wallet (something predicted by Rush Limbaugh in one of his parodies about sex education years ago!).

Parents were angry when their daughters were told that it was “perfectly normal for 14-year-old girls to have sex, and there was nothing their parents could do to intervene.”

“I am furious,” said Mandy Coon, whose daughter was in the class. “I am her parent. Where does anyone get the right to tell her that it’s okay for her to have sex?”

Coon told Fox News that her daughter was upset by the classroom lecture and was confused about why she had to ask another girl for a kiss. 

“She told me, ‘Mom, we all get teased and picked on enough – now I’m going to be called a lesbian because I had to ask another girl if I could kiss her,’” Coon said.

She said the school told her that the purpose of the lesson was to “teach girls boundaries and how to say no.”

“They also picked two girls to stand in front of the class and pretend they were lesbians on a date,” Coons said.

The superintendent, Paul Finch, said that the workshop focused on “improving culture, relationships, communication, and self-perception.” He also said that these were issues the school was required to teach under the state’s Dignity for All Students Act, which “requires schools to create a safe and supportive environment free from discrimination, intimidation, taunting, harassment and bullying.”

It seems words from the prophetic pen of Aldous Huxley are appropriate here:

In a little grassy bay between tall clumps of Mediterranean heather, two children, a little boy of about seven and a little girl who might have been a year older, were playing, very gravely and with all the focussed attention of scientists intent on a labour of discovery, a rudimentary sexual game.

“Charming, charming!” the D.H.C. repeated sentimentally.

“From a neighbouring shrubbery emerged a nurse, leading by the hand a small boy, who howled as he went. An anxious-looking little girl trotted at her heels.

“What’s the matter?” asked the Director.

The nurse shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing much,” she answered. “It’s just that this little boy seems rather reluctant to join in the ordinary erotic play. I’d noticed it once or twice before. And now again to-day. He started yelling just now …”

“Honestly,” put in the anxious-looking little girl, “I didn’t mean to hurt him or anything. Honestly.”

“Of course you didn’t, dear,” said the nurse reassuringly. “And so,” she went on, turning back to the Director, “I’m taking him in to see the Assistant Superintendent of Psychology. Just to see if anything’s at all abnormal.”

“Quite right,” said the Director. “Take him in. You stay here, little girl,” he added, as the nurse moved away with her still howling charge. “What’s your name?”

“Polly Trotsky.”

“And a very good name too,” said the Director. “Run away now and see if you can find some other little boy to play with.”

The child scampered off into the bushes and was lost to sight.

“Exquisite little creature!” said the Director, looking after her. Then, turning to his students, “What I’m going to tell you now,” he said, “may sound incredible. But then, when you’re not accustomed to history, most facts about the past do sound incredible.”

He let out the amazing truth. For a very long period before the time of Our Ford, and even for some generations afterwards, erotic play between children had been regarded as abnormal (there was a roar of laughter); and not only abnormal, actually immoral (no!): and had therefore been rigorously suppressed.

A look of astonished incredulity appeared on the faces of his listeners. Poor little kids not allowed to amuse themselves? They could not believe it.

“Even adolescents,” the D.H.C. was saying, “even adolescents like yourselves …”

“Not possible!”

“Barring a little surreptitious auto-erotism and homosexuality—absolutely nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“In most cases, till they were over twenty years old.”

“Twenty years old?” echoed the students in a chorus of loud disbelief.

“Twenty,” the Director repeated. “I told you that you’d find it incredible.”

From Huxley’s Foreword:

As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. And the dictator (unless he needs cannon fodder and families with which to colonize empty or conquered territories) will do well to encourage that freedom. In conjunction with the freedom to daydream under the influence of dope and movies and the radio, it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate.

Welcome to our Brave New World.

The more I think about bitcoins, the more my head hurts.

Bitcoins (BTC) are digital currency units that are created ("mined") on servers via an open source protocol, using public key cryptography. There is no central authority issuing coins, processing transactions, or housing funds. Bitcoins are regulated by no one, and they are not recognized as a currency by SIX Interbank Clearing. These off-the-grid qualities give the bitcoin a certain cachet among libertarians, drug dealers, and libertarian drug dealers.

Despite the lack of any official imprimatur, bitcoins are the most widely used alternative currency in the world, with a current total market cap of over US$1.5 billion. They are wildly volatile, swinging from about about five bucks a year ago to $266 a couple of weeks ago to about $130 as of this morning. 

Okay, fine. So why is my head hurting?

Well, bitcoin is a currency, except that it isn't. It's a virtual currency that cuts out the middleman. One way to think of it, according to The Week's Jerry Brito, is as a currency version of Skype.

Bitcoin-based deals are public -- all transactions are instantly broadcast to the whole network -- but they are also private, since it's almost impossible to connect an identity to a bitcoin address. 

Bitcoins are not securities or investments, but according to Coffee and Markets' Francis Cianfrocca, Wall Street whizzes are busy constructing bitcoin derivatives as we speak.

Bitcoins are analogous to dollars, in that they are essentially a fiat currency (bitcoins have no intrinsic value and are not backed up by any commodity or entity; they are legal tender simply by virtue of the value the market assigns to them via peer-to-peer transactions). But bitcoins are analogous to gold, too, since they are mined and finite. (The intention of Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious brain behind the operation, is that bitcoins will be issued in limited, scheduled releases until 21 million BTC worth of coins are extant, which should take place by 2140.)

Because they neuter the government completely, bitcoins are catnip to people so far on the left that they fall off the cliff into anarchism. This highlights a certain ideological kinship they share with hard-core right-wing goldbugs. As Felix Salmon put it at Medium, "[b]itcoins hold exactly the same gleaming promise for techno-utopians as gold does for Glenn Beck...Bitcoins and gold are the perfect assets for rugged individualists, who trust their guns or their ultra-secure passwords more than they do their country. And in times of global turmoil, as we’re seeing today, such assets can perform very well."

Jerry Brito, writing this time at Technology Liberation, says the bitcoin's real revolutionary feature is the way it has solved the problem of online double-spending, a bug that has apparently plagued other virtual currencies. This breakthrough, he writes, "gives us license to realistically imagine a world without regulable financial intermediaries online." Maybe. Slate's Eric Posner views the whole bitcoin phenomenon as little more than a Ponzi scheme, and he wonders who's behind it:

The strangest feature of the bitcoin saga is that people who are so suspicious of government put their trust in Satoshi Nakamoto, who could be anyone, or anyones—eccentric academic researchers, mischievous Fed economists, DARPA, U.N. globalizers in black helicopters, a criminal syndicate, a bored 11-year-old Ukrainian genius. If Nakamoto is as amoral as he is ingenious, then he pocketed the early bitcoins and laughed himself to the bank.

After spending the day at a company recruiting event, showing the Ride of Pride to prospective drivers and their families, and talking with them about life on the road, I'm happy to enjoy a quiet evening in the sleeper.  Actually, I'm more than happy.  I'm ecstatic because right now, New Orleans' own Bryan Lee is laying down some hard-drivin, sloppy-greasy, sauced-up and gettin-down electrified blues, recorded live at the Old Absinthe House in the French Quarter and currently about to blow up the truck speakers.  Lawd have mercy.  If there's a better version of "Rock Me Baby" on this planet, I haven't heard it.  I'm even typing in rhythm, ba da-da-da bum like that! 

Ah, but all is not well in Trucker Land tonight!  No sir-ee, there's discord in this star spangled paradise due to a debate that is raging on Facebook right now between my son, my daughter, my mom, and me, -- and I'm losing.  I purchased an iron for the truck, see?   I did that because it is virtually impossible to keep clothing wrinkle-free in the limited storage space allotted in this man-cave on 18 wheels.  

There's a little desk in here, a place for a television, a space to store clothing under the bottom bunk, a night stand, a little pantry, and even some closet space.  But the portion of the closet containing a clothes rack is so small that the bottom two thirds of my shirts get wadded up like a congressional request for information on Operation Fast and Furious.  

The idea behind the iron was to look, on special occasions at least, like I had not slept in the same set of clothes all week.  I even got a little portable ironing board so  as not to melt my ever-so-plush and thick memory foam mattress pad. After setting up the ironing board, I plugged the iron into the A/C converter (which plugs into a 12 volt D/C outlet, enabling me to use standard household electrical plugs).  The light came on, but the iron didn't heat up.  I ran the setting up as hot as the thing would go and it stayed just as cold as a penguin's butt on an ice slide.  

Reasoning that it must be a problem with the iron, I returned it today and purchased one from a different manufacturer.  The result was the same, though the new iron made some anemic little clicking sounds, like something was inside of it flicking a cigarette lighter.  I've concluded that the truck's electrical system just won't generate enough juice for an iron to work properly, hence my musings on Facebook on the general appeal of getting my $17 worth of satisfaction from this product in other ways.  

In matters of mechanics, assembly, general repair, and lots of other things, if at first I don't succeed, I fancy demolition as an acceptable alternative.  Running the truck over that wretched gadget was a warm and fuzzy thought.  But where's the challenge in that?  Then I remembered that I had to buy a new hammer recently (I broke the old one), and reasoned that I could put this new and heavier hammer through its paces.  This would, after all, combine aerobic exercise and resistance training with general catharsis and would be a win/win in my book (which I hope to finish writing one day).  Then I thought about simply throwing it away while making disparaging comments of a geneological nature, but I've never met the iron's mother, and besides, where's the adventure in that?  

My deliberations on Facebook prompted my son to suggest that I go ahead and return the thing, take the refund and get a decent meal.  Uh huh.  But an insult has been dealt here!!  To endure another interminable wait in the return line, meekly standing there as the customer service reps engage each other in conversation while occasionally deigning to actually wait on a customer, sounded positively un-American!  It sounded feeble, weakly, and watered down, rather than resolute and definitive. It was passivity versus action. It sounded patient and obedient, reasoned and sober, boring and spiritless.  It sounded French.  It also made perfect sense, which is why my son suggested it.  And why, after I countered with the positive effects of cathartic exercise, my mom joined in, counseling, "I think Ben's idea is best.  Patience dear."  Aww hell.  They were in cahoots. 

If that wasn't enough, my daughter got in on the act too, opining that, "Personally I like the idea of having the money to do something else with.  And considering good meals are few and far between for you most of the time… I'd use it for that!"  Notice the upbeat tone?  This was insufferable.  As a side note, I instructed my young'uns long ago that, should they have to pick out a hospital or something for me, I DO NOT want to go to a place that has the word "Memorial," as part of its name.  The purpose of a medical facility, after all, is to forestall our memorialization, and it seems to me that a place so named is at cross purposes with itself.  Let the facility work it out at someone else's expense and please take me someplace else.  One day, my daughter and I were driving by Lake Charles Memorial Hospital, and I pointed out to her that I didn't want to go there.  Whereupon she asked me to slow the vehicle down.  "Why?" I asked.  "I'm writing down the address," came the reply.

So as I say, the common sense and joint sobriety of the advice, from three people I love more dearly than life, was an affront to my enthusiasm and thoroughly harshed my eager fieriness.  And just now, Ricochet Member Matt Gilley has felt compelled to chime in with: 

Listen to your mother, Dave.  Return the iron.  Use the money to buy two bottles of wrinkle releaser.  That should leave enough money to buy a Black and Decker sticker and a piñata.  Affix said sticker to said piñata, and do your worst.

Just damn.  Now HE's making sense too.  But his alternative at least allows the option of happy destruction.  Alright already!  I'll return this ineffective and unusable appliance and use the proceeds as Matt suggests.  But I'm documenting here, for friends and family to see, that if my offspring stick me in a Memorial anything, I'm busting out of that joint faster than Bill Clinton escaping the draft board.

In February, the New York Times explained why, despite a significant increase in tax burdens, rich people would not flee California.

Four weeks ago, Paul Krugman declared that California had made a comeback.  He noted that the state budget was projected to run a surplus partly because of the “desperately needed” tax increases passed in November.

In a moment I’ll discuss those budget numbers.  For now, let me note that the anecdotes I hear tend not to support the claims of Krugman and the Times.  For instance, a friend of a friend recently moved to a red state precisely because of its low taxes.  He is an owner of a successful startup that is scheduled to be bought by a bigger company.  Although he might return to California, he wants to reside in a low tax state when he receives his windfall payment from the bigger company.

Another instance involves a liberal friend who is moving to a different red state.  He admitted that part of his motivation is the lower tax rate. 

A third instance involves the family of a girl who skates at the same ice rink as my daughter.  Several weeks ago, the family moved to North Carolina.  Meanwhile, I am aware of no skater at the rink who has recently moved from a low-tax state to California. 

These anecdotes, I should admit, are inconsistent with recent, more systematic, data.   For instance, Southern California home prices rose 23.4% between March 2102 and March 2013. 

Also, Krugman is correct about the budget numbers.  

Each month, the Controller of California releases data about the tax revenue that the state receives.  Last Fall, those numbers were dismal.  The revenue received between July 1, 2012 (the beginning the state’s fiscal year) and November 30, 2012 was $802.4 million less than the estimate from the state’s budget act.   While that number was bad, it became even worse at the end of December, dropping to $1,699 million less than the budget-act estimate. 

 But then, in January, revenue surged.  By the end of the month, it rose to $4,286.2 above the budget-act estimate.  Note that the number increased by about $6 billion--- from approximately negative $1.7 billion to positive $4.3 billion. 

Since then, the relevant number has remained high, but its trajectory has flattened.  Specifically, two months later, by the end of March, revenue was $4,679.9 above estimate. In the language of calculus, the level remains high, but its first derivative is low.  In contrast, if the tax rate increases that voters passed last November really were the cause of the good news, then the revenue number should have continued to grow more and more above the budget-act estimate.

Another way to think about California is to imagine yourself on a hill, where your vision is limited to only a few feet in front of you.  You have been walking up the hill, and the slope has been steep.  But then suddenly the slope becomes flat.  A California-optimist would theorize that you’ve reached a ridge and the slope will soon become uphill again.  But a California-pessimist would theorize that you’ve reached the top of the hill, and soon the slope will become downhill.

In about ten days, the California Controller will release new revenue numbers.  They should help distinguish between the two theories.  I will be watching closely.

Recently, the Supreme Court refused to review a decision of the Sixth Circuit that sustained the power of the Food and Drug Administration to require tobacco companies to place ghoulish warnings and images on tobacco packages. The challenge was based on the ground that the forced inclusion of warnings adverse to the interest of tobacco companies was a kind of forced speech that the First Amendment forbade.The argument on the opposite side was that the Congress has extensive powers that allow it to require the FDA to develop warnings and pictures that, in the most forceful way possible, bring the horrors of smoking home to the potential individuals who engage in it.

I approach this issue with mixed emotions. My first awareness of the dangers of tobacco came when I was nine years old and my family took extensive steps to persuade my late physician father to quit smoking, which he did for the rest of his life. I myself have never had the slightest interest in smoking cigarettes and have mounted many a campaign to persuade others to quit the habit.

Perhaps for just this reason, in the 1980s I worked as a legal consultant with Philip Morris in the effort to resist the ultimately successful efforts of the plaintiff’s bar to persuade the federal courts to allow tort actions to be brought against the tobacco companies on the ground that these companies had either understated or concealed the dangers associated with smoking.
The reason was pretty clear. I thought then and now that the basic dangers of cigarettes were so clearly etched into the consciousness of every sentient being that it was pointless to allow individual claims to go forward on the grounds that some individual smokers were so naive that they had no knowledge of what everyone else knew.

In taking this position, I did not think that it was necessarily irrational for all people to smoke, even if they were fully cognizant of the risk. The individual choice depends on two key factors.

The first is the extent of the smoking risk, not just its existence. That risk is in fact lower than many people think when due regard is given these two considerations: the probability of contracting cancer or other dangerous conditions, and the delay between the time of smoking and the onset of illness. The first of these factors is less than one, and can be reduced by some material extent by stopping smoking as one gets older, and the risks of tobacco become greater. The second factor requires some stiff discounting to get the correct costs. In combination they reduce the magnitude of the risk.

On the second side of the equation sits the pleasures of smoking, which hold no charm for me.  But others have different needs and desires, and it makes perfectly good sense that some people will think that those benefits outweigh the associated costs, especially if they choose to moderate their consumption by switching to low tar/nicotine brands, and reducing the number of cigarettes smoked.

Over time, as the information about smoking has become more salient, the number of smokers has declined, and the mix of brands sold has shifted as well as filter cigarettes have become more common. I do not see any real evidence of a breakdown in information markets that requires the warnings that the government puts on its packages. Indeed, I think that -- far from giving true and accurate information about smoking -- the blunderbuss nature of these warnings contributes to the overall misinformation about the risks associated with the use of tobacco, and does so in a deliberate and self-conscious fashion.

I have no doubt that the government can implement regulations requiring correct information to be put out by the tobacco companies. But that modest office is not the objective of the current campaign, and there is nothing about the state power to regulate tobacco in the name of health and safety that allows it force tobacco companies to make false (i.e. exaggerated) statements about their own product. Public disinformation is not a legitimate end of government. Indeed, I would go further. I do not think that the government should spend public moneys to promote this same message, even if it does not require tobacco companies to participate in its own advertising campaign.

The bottom line is this: There is no legitimate government interest in deliberately making false statements by products no matter how noble the motive. For folks like me, the warnings are superfluous because nothing could get me to smoke in the first place. To others, they are just abusive -- they will continue to smoke nonetheless. And for all of us, it is a sorry spectacle for a paternalist government to resort to deliberate overstatements, no matter how lofty the intent.  When this issue does reach the Supreme Court, the laws should be struck down as an abuse of government power under the First Amendment.

After reading yesterday's accounts in the Wall Street Journal, we see the consequences of the Left's counter-war on the war on terror coming to fruition in the inept  mishandling of the interrogation of the younger Tsarnaev.

First, the Obama administration, buying the idea that terrorism is really a problem for law enforcement, decided not to designate the surviving Tsarnaev brother as an enemy combatant and to conduct his interrogation under the rules reserved for garden-variety criminals. The Obama Administration limited its ability to ask questions of Tsarnaev without Miranda warnings or a defense lawyer present only to a narrow "public safety" exception, which runs only to questions about imminent dangers and crimes.

Now the news comes that the person who actually read the Miranda warning to Tsarnaev wasn't even an FBI agent, but a U.S. magistrate judge (magistrate judges are sort of like junior federal judges -- they are appointed by the courts to assist them, but they are not real judges, and are subject to revision by real federal judges). 

This is an outright violation of the separation of powers. It is not for federal judges, or worse yet their assistants, to rove around looking for criminal cases in which to act as law enforcement agents. The decision whether to read Miranda lies up to the executive branch.  The right of the courts to affect the warnings and conditions of interrogation stems only from their control over the criminal trial of the suspect. Miranda itself is only a declaration by the courts that they will exclude from evidence any confessions received without a warning. Under the Constitution, the President is responsible for the enforcement of the laws, not the courts -- the courts' constitutional job is to decide cases and controversies that arise under those laws.

But the Obama Administration apparently did not protest very hard against this violation of the separation of powers. And we can see why.

When the war on terror began, the Left's immediate reaction was to domesticate it by subjecting it to the same rules that apply to domestic crime. They have waged long struggles in the courts to invite judges to intervene in military and national security decisions that have never fallen within the review of the courts in any previous war. They succeeded in having the federal courts, for the first time in any American war, exercise habeas review over a military prison camp, at Guantanamo Bay. 

If you live in that world, why not have judges intervene in the decision to read Miranda warnings to terrorists, even before the executive branch has decided the question and even before any case has come to the court? Just as Obama is trapped by ideology on the Miranda question, he is equally trapped by his anti-war roots in allowing judges to intervene where they have no right to tread. Our national security will only suffer as a result.

Yesterday I returned home from the office to find an enormous packet, wrapped in plastic, on the front porch--a set of catalogs from Restoration Hardware so big that, as the postman had apparently discovered, it wouldn't fit inside our mailbox.

This made me angry. I didn't ask for these catalogs. Far from it. The last time anyone in our family set foot in Restoration Hardware must have been six or seven years ago when I bought some towel hangers for the kids' bathroom--and resolved, after paying what struck me as a staggering sum for some metal hoops finished in chrome, never to return. But this packet of catalogs arrived all the same.  

It contained not one or two but five catalogs I did not and do not want:  RH Outdoor & Garden, RH Interiors, RH Tableware, RH Small Spaces, and--no, I'm not making this up--RH Objects of Curiosity. I was so angry that I carried the packet inside, then climbed on the bathroom scale with it and once again without it and then calculated the difference: six pounds. Six pounds!

If a teenager had dropped six pounds of garbage on my front yard, he would have committed an act of vandalism and I could have called the police. But as long as they do so through an agent of the federal government--namely, our postman, who, come to think of it, had to be even unhappier to tote that six-pound packet than I was to receive it-- the marketing department at Restoration Hardware may dump six pounds of garbage in front of my house entirely legally.  

Note further that FedEx and UPS only deliver items to my house that I have ordered or that have come from people I know--not once have I ever found myself heaving an item from a private delivery service into the recycling bin. But the United States Postal Service? Amid the odd item that I truly want, mounds of junk mail, six days a week.

Does this make sense?

It can't--it just can't.

The solution? Well, I'm not sure--to tell you the truth, I have yet to calm down enough to think it through. But if caller ID enables me to pick up the telephone only when someone calls to whom I truly wish to speak, and spam filters enable me to receive only emails I really want, then why should it lie beyond the wit of man to develop some sort of filtering system for mail?

For that matter, if in this age of FedEx, UPS and Internet we abolished the U.S. Postal Service altogether, what would we really be losing? I'm not saying we should abolish the postal service--as I say, I haven't thought this through just yet. But I repeat:  What would we really lose if we did so?

And now you'll excuse me. I have to take six pounds of garbage out to the recycling bin.

Specific words conferring the right to a jury of one’s "peers” are not to be found in the Sixth Amendment, but in the Magna Carta. Nevertheless they have had a profound impact--common law and all that--on the way in which that amendment has been interpreted. Here's a  proposed change that stretches that principle beyond breaking point:

 The California State Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to remove the requirement in state law that jurors be U.S. citizens. The bill, AB 1401, passed the state assembly with 45 votes in favor and 25 votes in opposition and now goes to the state senate. The legislation allows the jury pool to be extended to "lawfully present immigrants."

If approved, this would dilute the idea of American citizenship yet more.  And no, that’s not a good thing.

While on the topic, this detail from the same report surprised me:

 "You are not required to be a citizen to … be a judge," said Democratic Assemblyman Luis Alejo, one of seven authors of the bill, the Sacramento Bee reports.

 Really? And no, that’s not so great either.

Following the recent “confession” (it will have surprised nobody) by UKIP leader Nigel Farage, Brother Delingpole turns his attention to one of the crucial issues of the day: Is it OK for politicians to visit strip clubs? The answer, of course, is yes. 

James thinks so too, and discusses some of the issues in his post and in a related piece for the Daily Telegraph.

He also adds:

I believe that one of the reasons we have the terrible politicians we currently have is precisely because they are too scared to tell the truth, too removed from the lives of real people…

That’s well said, but Farage’s admission was reassuring for another reason. It sends a clear signal  that he is a politician who understands that politicians have no business in trying to regulate  what consenting adults might get up to between themselves.  As the saying goes, big government belongs in neither the bedroom nor the boardroom. And if more politicians were to demonstrate that they understood this to the voters, perhaps the voters in return might be able to persuade themselves that (assuming no laws or peculiarly outrageous double standards have been broken) politicians’ sex lives are none of their business. I sometimes wonder how many able people don’t stand for elective office simply because they fear that some peccadillo from their past--or , for that matter, all too predictable future-- might end their political careers.

It’s worth remembering that rule-by-saint rarely works out well. Who we should want in charge are the most competent (and suitably small government) politicians we can find. Whether they, say,  stray from the marriage bed should be a matter of almost total indifference.  

Similar  principles ought to hold generally true, incidentally, for the military.  Their romantic conquests ought to be none of our concern.