Captain's Quarters -

** Scroll down for updates -- script for blogroll in Update V! **

Our friends on the port side of the blogosphere have had quite a time tossing around funny little nicknames for those of us who support the war on terror and use our blogs to express our convictions about it. We've seen the names here at CQ in the comments section -- the term "chickenhawk" has appeared more than once, and others in the blogosphere have assigned us to a unit called the 101st Fighting Keyboardists.

I've thought about that for a while, wondering what exactly about both epithets appear so fascinating to left-wing bloggers. As a middle-aged grandfather supporting a chronically ill wife, I have few options for doing my part in the war on terror. After 9/11, I spent weeks looking into different options for service while trying to balance my family obligations. Our family found out just three weeks after the attack that the Little Admiral would soon join us, and the implications of terrorism and war weighed heavily on my mind. I resolved to use the skills I had -- writing -- to make the case for fighting a forward strategy against terrorists. Eventually that led me to this blog, but in the interim I argued for a continued muscular offensive against the Islamofascists that had murdered thousands of our fellow Americans.

Is that the same as military service? Of course not. The men and women of the military do the real fighting, and we salute them and support them by supporting their mission. Milbloggers give us the best of both worlds by not only defending our nation and fighting (and beating) terrorists around the globe, but also by reporting on the fight first hand. There is honor in engaging in public debate for policies which we believe are in our nation's best interest as well. For many of us, we know that without presenting our arguments in the national forum, many in the media and the public will quickly overpower the debate and threaten the policies we feel give us the best long-term opportunity to defeat terrorism and the states that fund and shelter them.

Many on the left disagree, however, and often they provide challenging arguments and valuable perspectives on policy and the manner in which it gets implemented. However, many more do little but make ad hominem attacks on those with whom they disagree. They spend a great deal of effort labeling people rather than providing rational arguments on policy, and even the labels they select don't provide much more than amusement.

That's why Frank J of IMAO, Derek Brigham of Freedom Dogs, and I have decided to create -- for real -- the 101st Fighting Keyboardists and adopt the chicken hawk as our mascot. First of all, the term "fighting keyboardist" describes our efforts pretty well, and we think the pseudo-military terminology is pretty danged amusing. Derek himself designed the logo.

And why the chicken hawk? When we looked into it, it turns out that the chicken hawk is a pretty impressive predator. It's the largest of its family. This species vigorously defends its territory, getting even more aggressive when the conditions get harshest. It adapts to all climates. Most impressively, it feeds on chickens, mice, and rats.

Make of that what you will.

Frank, Derek, and I invite you to join the 101st Fighting Keyboardists (motto: We Eat Chickens For Lunch). I'm starting a blogroll and will post the code for other members to display on their blogs. We welcome all of those who feel they qualify for the unit, but especially those who have a sense of humor as well as a sense of purpose. This way, the next time someone refers to you as a chicken hawk for your blogging, you can remind them that as a member of the 101, your talons are your best weapon and that feeding time is near!

UPDATE: Added the blogroll on the sidebar and have added a few new recruits. The first volunteer was a milblogger -- Baldilocks. I'll work on getting the code out to those who want to display the blogroll on their sites ...

UPDATE II: King Banaian has formed a subunit of vegetarian keyboardists.

UPDATE III: Bumped to the top for more recruitment. I hope we don't get pushed off campus at UC Santa Cruz ...

UPDATE IV: Wow, no sooner do we form this new unit than we get attacked! Hosting Matters came under a Denial Of Service attack from Saudi Arabia, which affected not just the 101st but a . They've resolved it now, but we'll keep an eye out. Also, the blogroll only displays the last 25 members who have updated their blogs -- I'll fix it so it displays the entire list later tonight.

UPDATE V: I'm getting swamped with recruits for the Fighting Keebees! We're up to 66 members already, and I'm behind on adding more. (If you've already sent me an e-mail, be patient -- I'm trying to catch up.) I've posted the blogroll code below. Replace the bracket characters with the sideways-carat characters when you plug this into your website:

[script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://rpc.blogrolling.com/display.php?r=e8becc33a3c05f8353dee2213a9a4639">

Also, plenty of non-blogging commenters have asked whether they can join. I can't put you on a blogroll, but rest assured, you're full-fledged members. Others have asked about T-shirts and caps, and I believe Frank is going to look into that. Feel free to download the large and small logos from our sites, but if you use them for your blogs, please host them at your own site first!

UPDATE VI: Read through some of the comments to find those on the left who completely lack any sense of humor on this topic. You can also find others of the same temperament on a Technorati search, too. One of the few of the left who posts thoughtfully on this subject is the Middle Earth Journal, which isn't crazy about our project but doesn't like the whole "chickenhawk meme" either.

UPDATE VII: Frank J has the definitive Chickenhawk FAQ on his site -- and it perfectly captures the tone of this entire effort. Have a few laughs and check it out. I am WAY behind on updating the blogroll, but I hope to get it updated over the next couple of days. I have dozens of requests I still need to sort out. Feel free to copy the script and add the blogroll to your site in the meantime; some blog systems may requires a [/script tag] at the end (replace the brackets with the less than/greater than symbols). Derek, in the meantime, will start looking into hats, shirts, and so on.

Today's planned boycott and walkout on behalf of illegal immigrants garnered plenty of press in the past week, but some question just how many will actually risk exposure and the loss of their jobs. The Washington Post notes the divisions within the ranks of immigration activists and their trepidation at the bedfellows that have hitched a ride on this issue:

Some local activists predicted that thousands of Washington area immigrants would participate in a national economic boycott today, but immigrant groups who have spoken out against the boycott said they fear that the immigration reform movement is being commandeered to promote political causes beyond immigration.

The public tug of war, which continued in the Washington area yesterday on Spanish-language radio, could result in more limited participation in the region than is expected in Dallas and Los Angeles, where the organizers of last month's massive protests have been more unified in support of today's boycott, which asks immigrants to refrain from buying goods and to stay home from work and school. ...

The discord, Contreras said, is not over whether boycotting is a valid tactic. But with Congress just back from a recess after a contentious debate on the subject -- and with a recent CNN poll showing that 77 percent of Americans favor allowing some illegal immigrants to apply for citizenship -- he said most local activists feel it is best to wait to see how Congress reacts.

Some local Latino leaders said they worry about being associated with a Los Angeles-based group, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), that has been active in promotion of the boycott. They said they fear that the group's broad-based opposition to Bush administration policies could hinder attempts to win allies for immigration reform on Capitol Hill.

The unabashed Stalinsts at ANSWER create a huge problem for the immigration-reform activists. The impression given by ANSWER's inclusion is that the issue has become a Trojan horse for eliminating national sovereignty and the promotion of communism, much as their anti-war protests became. The last thing that the more reputable immigration groups need is another march on national TV with thousands of Che Guevara T-shirts in the fore.

The scheduling of the boycott also plays into this. It probably would have made more sense to protest on Friday, which is already a big cultural holiday in the American Southwest and a national holiday in Mexico: Cinco de Mayo. In fact, many of those protesting probably already made arrangements for celebrations and time off from work. Conducting a walkout would have not only been easier, but it would not have required the additional work break that this boycott now demands of them. However, May 1 hold special significance as a socialist holiday, which is why ANSWER selected it for this walkout.

The groups that had sponsored earlier demonstrations have their reservations about associating with the Socialists. As the Post notes, a number of the people involved have bad experiences with communists in Central America and came to the US to avoid them. Others do not want their cause confused with the radical-left agenda that ANSWER promotes. As a result, only one of the 47 organizations that backed earlier immigration demonstrations has officially endorsed the May Day Boycott. Not surprisingly, Mexicans Without Borders supports many of the same leftist agenda items as ANSWER -- anti-war, opposed to national sovereignty, and anti-globalization.

Speaking of which, has anyone ever asked these dolts how they can oppose national sovereignty in the same breath as globalization?

This internal conflict will probably result in smaller turnouts than predicted, although the walkout will probably get some traction in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, and other major cities of the Southwest. The demonstrations will probably consist of those who could not work today anyway. Most of the rest will probably remain on the job, afraid of losing their economic lifeline and of getting discovered as illegals by their employers or the INS. Expect the media to magnify the crowd numbers, however.

If the walkout gets as big as ANSWER wants, they should be prepared for the backlash in Congress. This is one demonstration that has a large capacity for unintended consquences.

An editorial by a Saudi economics professor in today's Arab News points out the growing ties between the oil-rich Middle Eastern nation and the growing economic behemoth of the East, mainland China. Dr. Mohamed Ramady argues that while enetrgy will provide the Saudi entree to Beijing, the potential for Sino-Saudi relations goes much farther (via Newsbeat1):

Between the pomp and ceremony of state visits and senior level meetings of Saudi and Chinese officials, there is indeed much to be pleased about concerning the blossoming relations between the world’s major oil producer, Saudi Arabia, and the emerging manufacturing superpower, China. It is no coincidence that President Hu Jintao of China came to Saudi Arabia straight after his state visit to the US in late April. The earlier state visit to China by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah had already set the stage for an emerging economic bond between the two nations.

Oil and energy issues have moved to the top of China’s agenda as it seeks to assert its role as a full great economic power, and assure itself of reliable energy partners to feed its unmatched economic growth.

But it is not on the energy front alone that Saudi-Sino relations are being built. During President Hu’s visit, a number of accords were signed in security, defense, health, trade and youth matters. There were discussions about establishing a Chinese strategic oil reserve in southeast China with Saudi supplies, which again makes eminent sense given the possibility of a breakdown of Iranian oil supplies to China. In other major developments, Saudi Aramco and Sinopec, China’s top refiner and petrochemical producer, signed memorandums of understanding to increase trade cooperation as well as reviewing Sinopec’s gas exploration activities in the Saudi Al-Rub Al-Khali (Empty Quarter). At the same time, Saudi Basic Industries Cop. (SABIC) discussed with their Chinese counterparts plans to establish a $9.3 billion refinery and petrochemical project in northeastern China. It is now obvious to the major petrochemical players of the world that, with both Saudi Arabia and China having acceded to the WTO, the only viable competitive route open to multinational companies is to enter Saudi Arabia as a major petrochemical producer. In this way they can ensure competitive supplies to their domestic markets, as well as feed China’s growing petrochemical needs from their Saudi Arabia operations.

However, it is the increasing economic and investment ties at the private sector level that is gathering pace between the two countries. The private sectors of Saudi Arabia and China have come of age. The Chinese, while operating under a benign centralized economy, to all intents and purposes are working on a free market basis. In mid-April, the Chinese government has started the legal process of establishing the conditions for private oil companies to engage in oil exploration, which until now has been monopolized by the three giant state owned companies — PetroChina Co. Ltd., the offshore oil producer CNOOC Ltd. and Sinopec. The Saudi private sector has now matured well enough to be able to source strategic investment partners of choice away from more traditional trading partners in the Western world. The opening up of such strategic sectors of the Chinese economy should provide opportunities for Saudi private sector companies to establish advanced technology, primarily offshore, oil exploration joint venture companies.

Ideally, this would work to the benefit of both nations and to the promotion of free enterprise. The cash-rich Saudis can invest some of their money away from their own oil fields and into Chinese operations. The Chinese can move farther down the path of free enterprise and away from central planning and control, allowing more of their citizens to create wealth and put pressure on Beijing for more economic and property rights. That could move China towards greater freedom, although it would take decades for that kind of evolutionary change to occur. The Saudi investments could help China find more of its own oil, putting less pressure on world markets -- and perhaps make China's reliance on Iran less of a problem.

The Saudi business contacts will not restrict themselves to oil, according to Ramady. He states that Saudi Arabia has untapped wealth in mining, an economic potential probably overlooked due to their focus on pumping oil. The Saudis hope to eventually garner Chinese interest in their mineral production. This would give the Saudis a fallback position if the West succeeds in either developing practical alternative energy production or start drilling their own oil, especially the US.

The Eastern turn of Saudi Arabia warrants cautious oversight, however. Saudi Arabia is still a nation built on radical Islam, and although its ruling class has been until now pro-Western, that appears to be changing. The Saudis may prefer to do business with the non-judgmental (to put it mildly) Chinese, who appear to have no problem funding genocidists in Southwest Asia and Africa. We need to ensure that these new economic ties do not encourage the Saudis to fling off the West and adopt the querolous tones of the Iranian mullahcracy.

UPDATE: Not everyone likes the "emerging Asian dragon":

Militants in Nigeria's volatile oil-producing region detonated a car bomb late Saturday and issued a warning that investors and officials from China would be "treated as thieves" and targeted in future attacks.

The threat came as Chinese President Hu Jintao returned home from a week-long tour of Africa in which he reached a series of deals securing access to oil and other resources to meet the needs of China's booming economy. On Wednesday, Hu and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo signed several major business deals, including one that offers China four oil exploration licenses, the Associated Press reported. ...

In a second e-mail, the spokesman, who uses the pseudonym Jomo Gbomo, specifically criticized the Chinese, who last year took a $2.2 billion stake in an oil field in the Niger Delta. Nigeria is a major oil exporter and the fifth-largest supplier of oil to the United States.

Welcome to the free market. Lunatics, unfortunately, come with the territory.

We can now file the $100 gasoline rebate idea into the political remainder bin, as no one appears to want to buy this pandering as policy. While the Democrats have been careful not to directly oppose it -- they claim that it could form part of an overall response to high energy prices -- the GOP's base has busied itself ridiculing it, and rightly so:

The Senate Republican plan to mail $100 checks to voters to ease the burden of high gasoline prices is eliciting more scorn than gratitude from the very people it was intended to help.

Aides for several Republican senators reported a surge of calls and e-mail messages from constituents ridiculing the rebate as a paltry and transparent effort to pander to voters before the midterm elections in November.

"The conservatives think it is socialist bunk, and the liberals think it is conservative trickery," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, pointing out that the criticism was coming from across the ideological spectrum.

Angry constituents have asked, "Do you think we are prostitutes? Do you think you can buy us?" said another Republican senator's aide, who was granted anonymity to openly discuss the feedback because the senator had supported the plan.

Heavens, no -- if they thought we were prostitutes, they'd give us a lot more than $100, and at least the screwing would be honest. Just ask Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

This mess should never have made it off the desk of the political consultants who dreamed it up. The government does not indemnify consumers from normal variations in a commodities market, even when its own policies help to make the situation worse. Giving away $100 rebates only papers over the problem.

Even the structure of it made no sense. The government planned on basing its formula from income tax records, but consumers don't pay for their gas through federal taxes, although we buy a lot of hot air that way. The rebates would not have applied for the lowest-income people, who have been hardest hit by high energy prices. While tax cuts rightly benefit those who pay income tax in the first place, everyone pays gasoline taxes, and everyone therefore should have been eligible for this rebate.

Brit Hume called this proposal "silly". Rush Limbaugh demanded that lawmakers solve the problem instead of buying voters on the cheap. Trent Lott and Lisa Murkowski both appeared yesterday on television, denigrating the proposed rebate.

So who supports it? Bill Frist. And joining Frist is Senator Debbie Stabenow, who wants to up the payment to $500 while opposing one of the solutions to the problem: ANWR drilling.

This is one of the rare moments when the electorate shows maturity and insight. This rebate notion needs to get buried in committee, never to see the light of day. If Congress wants an equitable way to return cash to the pockets of consumers, suspend the federal tax on gasoline for a few weeks. That way it goes directly to the people who consume the product across all economic strata. They can use that time to create a rational process for increased production of domestic energy, including more drilling and more refineries, as well as expedited research into alternative energy production. Instead of buying us off, they can earn their pay.

One point I missed in my review of United 93 yesterday is one of the lesser-known complications of our actions in grounding air traffic on 9/11. In the movie as in real life, FAA operations manager makes the decision to ground all aircraft immediately, ordering every plane in American airspace to land at the nearest airport. Despite the fact that it will cost the airline industry billions (and later created a large federal bailout package), Sliney knows it's the right action to take, and every plane in America was on the ground by 12:06 PM on 9/11.

One of the consequences of closing American airspace was the denial of landing rights to all inbound international flights. Sliney's decision made it necessary for those flights to return home, or if that could not be safely done, then to find somewhere else to land besides the US. Sliney had no idea if terrorists had more attacks coming from foreign airliners, and his decision was undoubtedly correct, despite the potential risk for the inbound flights.

Guess where a number of those flights went? Canada granted permission for these inbound flights to land despite watching the terrorist attack on the United States. It's not a widely-discussed part of the 9/11 story, but Canada took the risk of bringing those flights into their country without knowing whether the terrorists might strike at their nation as well. No one knew what other operations the terrorists had planned for that day; some could have decided to strike airports when planes taxied to their gates.

The Canadian action took courage and selflessness and it probably saved lives. It's just another reason to be grateful for our northern neighbors despite our occasional political differences.

One more thought: After Sliney gave the order, all of the flights complied with the grounding. It's not hard to imagine what would have happened to a flight that refused to do so. The movie doesn't address it, but one has to suspect that the Air Force would have shot down any plane that tried to stay up.

It appears that the nationwide strike by illegal immigrants and their supporters caused some headaches but little immediate economic impact, as outside of Denver, Chicago, and Los Angeles most demonstrations attracted significantly fewer numbers than earlier rallies. Despite numbering in the tens of millions, the demonstrations only mustered a few hundred thousand opponents to the get-tough approach taken by the House, forcing local employers to shut down but hardly causing a blip in the routine for most Americans:

Police estimated 400,000 people marched through Chicago's business district and tens of thousands more rallied in New York and Los Angeles, where police stopped giving estimates at 60,000 as the crowd kept growing.

An estimated 75,000 rallied in Denver, more than 15,000 in Houston and 30,000 more across Florida. Smaller rallies in cities from Pennsylvania and Connecticut to Arizona and South Dakota attracted hundreds not thousands.

In Los Angeles, protesters wearing white and waving U.S. flags sang the national anthem in English as traditional Mexican dancers wove through the crowd. In Chicago, illegal immigrants from Ireland and Poland marched alongside Hispanics as office workers on lunch breaks clapped. In Phoenix, protesters formed a human chain in front of Wal-Mart and Home Depot stores. A protest in Tijuana, Mexico blocked vehicle traffic heading to San Diego at the world's busiest border crossing.

So far it appears that Chicago outdrew Los Angeles, where the protests closed down about a third of the small businesses in the area, according to the AP. However, in a story that will likely have immigration hardliners talking for days, the AP reports that twenty-five percent of the children in the Los Angeles School District failed to attend classes today. After all, LAUSD's annual budget for its 746,000 students is over $13 billion, or about $17,000 per student. If the walkout caused 25% of the students to strike, that puts the annual educational cost for illegal immigrants at around $3.25 billion -- just for Los Angeles.

You can bet that a lot of people will do precisely these kinds of calculations nationwide. How many students walked out in Chicago? In Houston? In Denver? One of the reasons why illegal immigrants existed in the shadows was to avoid this kind of exposure, but that's no longer operative. Now that they have decided to make this kind of statement, the true costs of their residency will start coming into focus, as well as their production.

Not that the sacrifice will mean anything to the cause. One-day boycotts and walkouts rarely have any real economic impact, for one good reason: people will still return to shop tomorrow. The restaurants that closed yesterday may have the hardest time with a one-day strike as so much of their business depends on whim, but the groceries, clothing stores, and gas stations will recover with little ill effect. People will buy clothes, food, and gasoline when needed, and skipping a day will do almost nothing to overall production.

The political damage, however, may be quite extensive. The administration has attempted to quietly push a liberal reform package through Congress that delivers most of what the demonstrators demand. However, the spectacle of illegal immigrants demanding that Americans capitulate to their agenda only strengthens the opponents to the administration's approach. Time Magazine explains:

Congressional strategists in both parties say the boycotts and work stoppages across the country Monday are likely to hurt chances of persuading conservative lawmakers to go along with an immigration bill this year. Key aides still hold out hope for sending one to President Bush's desk before midterm elections, but were shaking their heads as they watched television coverage of small businesses that had to shut down and suburban work sites that were empty because of a national demonstration that proponents call a "Day Without Immigrants."

The size of the pro-immigrant marches that swept the country earlier this spring — fueled primarily by Spanish-language radio stations, Catholic organizers and liberal activists — stunned lawmakers and caused several Senators who had been on the sidelines to begin working for some compromise that would both tighten borders and give some hope for illegal workers who are already in the United States. But a quick survey of Capitol Hill Monday showed that the new round of events, coordinated by unions and civil-rights groups on behalf of illegal immigrants, may be counterproductive.

The demonstrations actually created a rare point of agreement among legislators from both parties: the boycott made it harder to argue against tougher enforcement of immigration laws. Americans don't particularly care for uninvited guests to dictate how the nation should define its borders, as Rassmussen notes; a majority of respondents disapprove of immigration protestors and over two-thirds oppose full amnesty, one of the key demands. When the public notes that the sun still set in the West after the boycott and rises in the east tomorrow, they will find these demonstrations even less persuasive.

Hot Air has ongoing field reports here.

UPDATE: For those disputing the notion that 25% of the students could be illegals, it's worth noting that Hispanics comprise 72% of the district's students. Also, the entire idea of the walkout was to demonstrate the impact and extent of illegal immigrants in our midst -- and you can be sure that the boycott's organizers will be heralding that number as proof of that impact. According to LAUSD guidelines, any absenteeism over 10% in a single day represents a mass absence that requires a special report to the Pupil Statistics Office. In 2004, the LAUSD found absenteeism such an issue that it required a special initiative to correct. The average absenteeism for that year was as follows:

Elementary Schools 95.33% attendance; 4.67% absent
Middle School 93.50% attendance; 6.5% absent
High School 89.93% attendance; 10.07% absent

That averages somewhere around 7% absenteeism, making today's figures more than three times that total. Even if the 7% normal figure would have no children of illegals, that makes 18% of the district illegals -- and those were just the ones who walked out. Eighteen percent of $13.4 billion still amounts to $2.4 billion, every year, and just in the LAUSD.

I will be appearing on The World Tonight with Rob Breckenridge at Calgary's CHQR at 8:30 CT. Be sure to tune in -- we'll be discussing illegal immigration.

Joseph Shahda has translated yet another of the captured Iraqi government documents, and this one shows that Saddam Hussein's government produced banned nerve gas detectors in 2000. Shahda's discovery shows that Saddam never intended on stopping his WMD programs nor planned on complying with UN resolutions that supposedly "contained" Saddam (via Power Line):

Beginning of Translation of page 5 of document CMPC-2003-016083

In the Name of God the Most Merciful The Most Compassionate

TOP SECRET

The Republic of Iraq

The Presidency of the Republic

The Military Industrialization Commission

Number 2/4/44

Date 13/1/2001

To: THE PRESIDENTIAL SECRETARIAT

Subject: Detection Equipment

Your top Secret letter number AA’/128 on 10/12/2000, we would like to show the following:

1. On 10/12/2000 a laboratory test was done on the new equipment and the results of the test was similar to the required quality compared with the Russian equipments

2. On the light of the above (1) a second equipment was received from the Ministry of Industry and Minerals and the total tests were done on it on 24/12/2000 using laboratory equipment to Chemical Detection Device (GSU-12) and with the presence of the Chemical Class representatives and the manufacturing party and its success was proven from the perspective of detection and reaction to NERVE AGENTS.

Please review… with regards

Signature

Abd AlTwab Abdallah AL Mulah Huwaish

The Minister of Military Industrialization

13/1/2001

End of translation of page 5.

Now on page 71 of the document there is a section that mentions that the production of “Nerve Gas Detectors” is PROHIBITED

Beginning of Partial Translation of page 71

Based on what is in the letter of the respected Presidential Secretariat (Top Secret) aa’/4 on 22/1/2001 followed by the Top Secret letter of (M.I.C) 2/4/44 on 13/1/2001 and after review of the technical report the commission recommend the following:

1. Consider it a work that reach level of Invention Works because it replace the need that occur to the Russian equipment that has an expired efficiency and that exist in the storages of the Chemical Class, and it is a PROHIBITED EQUIPMENT where the price of the effective material in it can reach 51,000 Dollars.

Nerve gas detectors normally have a defensive use, as Shahda notes in his introduction. However, the reason the UN banned Iraq from possessing this equipment is for its offensive uses. Units that deploy nerve gas have to ensure that it doesn't blow back at their own troops. Any army that manufactured, stored, or transported such material would have to deploy these detectors in order to ensure that their own soldiers did not get exposed to the poison. Banning them from Iraq should have kept them from protecting themselves from their own WMD -- and his clandestine desire to acquire them is a practical demonstration of his ambitions.

One has to wonder again why the American intelligence agencies that had these documents in their possession for so long never made the effort to investigate them. Perhaps the revelations coming from the work of Joseph Shahda will finally convince them to put more resources to the task.

The Vatican has undertaken a review of its teachings on condom use, as the conservative Pope Benedict reconciles the church's mission to protect life within the age of AIDS. The Pope requested a report from theologians about the doctrinal implications of condom usage within marriage when one partner carries HIV or has developed full-blown AIDS:

Even at the Vatican, not all sacred beliefs are absolute: Thou shalt not kill, but war can be just. Now, behind the quiet walls, a clash is shaping up involving two poles of near certainty: the church's long-held ban on condoms and its advocacy of human life.

The issue is AIDS. Church officials recently confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI had requested a report on whether it might be acceptable for Catholics to use condoms in one narrow circumstance: to protect life inside a marriage when one partner is infected with H.I.V. or is sick with AIDS.

Whatever the pope decides, church officials and other experts broadly agree that it is remarkable that so delicate an issue is being taken up. But they also agree that such an inquiry is logical, and particularly significant from this pope, who was Pope John Paul II's strict enforcer of church doctrine.

"In some ways, maybe he has got the greatest capacity to do it because there is no doubt about his orthodoxy," said the Rev. Jon Fuller, a Jesuit physician who runs an AIDS clinic at the Boston Medical Center.

Put another way, for those of us who follow politics, only Nixon can wear a rubber. An activist Pope would never have the standing in the Church to make this adjustment; a new teaching would, of course, be followed -- but it would likely get reversed during a succeeding papacy. If a Pope such as Benedict, with his lifelong adherence to strict doctrine, makes this change, the new teaching will have much more impact.

In order to understand why this would be an issue at all -- and why it isn't really that much of a change -- one has to know why the Church bans condoms at all. The Church has taught that the act of sexual intercourse has a natural purpose of procreation, the purpose for which God intended it. Therefore, when a married couple engages in sex, the pair must be open to procreation. Condoms and birth control in general frustrate this purpose, and turns the act into nothing more than an expression of lust with no sacramental quality at all. Therefore the Church bans their use.

Many certainly disagree with the Church, and for many reasons. Catholics have more or less decided to use this teaching as more of a guide than a rule since it was most prominently taught in 1968, with Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae. For some, conception could have severe complications for the woman, such as those with diabetes or some other life-threatening illness. Priests often (but not always) counseled such couples to pray about the decision to use birth control in marriage and follow their own consciences.

The spread of AIDS, especially in Africa where heterosexual transmission has caused the disease to race out of control, presents a clearer and more pressing example of the same dynamic. Regardless of whether one partner or the other has engaged in extramarital sex, the uninfected partner is a potential victim, and one which Humanae Vitae fails to protect. The implications for this policy are staggering. Teaching Africans that condom use is a sin creates conditions that kill people, and not just theoretically, and not just a few.

Given that the entire basis for the Church's position on condoms is the protection of life, this is obviously a policy that requires immediate rethinking. Pope Benedict should restate the church teaching on condom use to acknowledge that the married couple themselves deserve protection from sexual transmission of deadly diseases and from the consequences of pregnancy when it puts the mother's life in physical jeopardy. The fact that this Pope has agreed to review the policy shows a great deal of promise that a rational position may be at hand.

Addendum: Of course, this has no bearing on the use of condoms outside of marriage, but one has to put that Church doctrine in its proper context. Years ago, when I belonged to a young-adult group, our sponsoring priest held a wide-ranging Q&A with us, and one topic was premarital sex and birth control use. Father Walt told us that committing the sin of sex outside of marriage was by far the more damaging act. Refusing to wear a condom because of its supposedly sinful implications would be, at that point, rather laughable.

A New York Times report shows that even a law-enforcement model for conducting the fight against terrorism will not satisfy some people. William Rashbaum reports on the testimony of a paid informer who reported conversations and activities at a Brooklyn mosque to New York detectives, which led to the unraveling of a plot to bomb the Herald Square subway station:

The paid police informer who is the central witness at the trial of a Pakistani immigrant charged with plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station testified yesterday that he collected a wide range of information on his visits to two city mosques, from the tenor of the sermons to how many people attended the services.

The informer, Osama Eldawoody, 50, secretly recorded roughly two dozen conversations about the plot with the immigrant, Shahawar Matin Siraj, in the summer of 2004 — many of them incriminating. He was questioned by Mr. Siraj's lawyer about the information he provided to the police on his frequent visits to mosques in Brooklyn and Staten Island. The visits occurred over roughly 13 months in 2003 and 2004, both before and after the informer met Mr. Siraj.

Regardless of the outcome of the trial for Mr. Siraj, 23, who faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted, Mr. Eldawoody's testimony is shedding light on what seem to be new police tactics to uncover terrorist plots before they come to fruition. While a federal judge gave the police expanded powers in 2003, critics have nonetheless raised objections to the use of informers in places of worship, political events and other gatherings.

The use of informants for law-enforcement interception of conspiracies has a long and productive record. Informants infiltrate closed societies in order to alert police to violent activities. The FBI (finally) helped break the Klan through this method, and continue to do so with violent white-supremacist organizations, even those who form "churches" to spread their hate. No one seems to mind that application of law enforcement -- and rightly so -- but for some reason they find it objectionable when it gets applied to terrorism.

Like it or not, fair or not, the Islamofascists recruit and organize within mosques, and in order to use a law-enforcement model, the police and FBI have to penetrate them to find out whether any terror planning or support is occurring. They cannot plant bugs without a court order, and that requires some sort of probable cause, which once again requires some inside information. The only way to discover that is to have informers or undercover police at the mosques, talking to people and connecting into the social network.

In this case, it appears to have worked. Siraj wanted to bomb the subway station, or at least take part in the operation. Eldawoody caught him on tape discussing the plan to use backpack bombs to cause economic damage to New York, although Siraj demurred at killing people. This could not have been discovered any other way, leaving only the option of investigation after the attack occurred.

Rashbaum notes that critics oppose these kinds of tactics as an affront to religious freedom, although he doesn't name the specific critics or explicitly give their arguments. This argument shows why even the law-enforcement approach will not get support among those who seem to want America to stop defending itself. The problem isn't that the US wants to curtail religious freedom -- it's that our terrorist enemies use mosques as a cover for their plots. If the mosques want to avoid becoming the target of investigations, they should expel members who espouse violent jihad and report them to the authorities. When terrorists use mosques as their shield, the mosques become fair game for counterterrorism efforts.

When the Bush administration started off its second term by focusing its domestic agenda on entitlement reform, primarily on Social Security, it warned that the fiscal stability of these entitlements was eroding at a faster rate than predicted and pointed out the need for reform now, rather than waiting for the coming collapse. Democrats pounded the administration for its "scare tactics" and insisted that the programs had plenty of stability. Now the administration has released new numbers indicating that the erosion has picked up a little speed:

The financial condition of Medicare and Social Security deteriorated in the last year, the Bush administration reported Monday, and it warned again that the programs were unsustainable in their current form.

Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund, a widely watched gauge of the program's solvency, will run out of money in 2018, two years earlier than projected in last year's report, the trustees said.

And the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted in 2040, one year earlier than projected last year, the trustees said. At that point, in 2040, Social Security tax collections would be adequate to pay only 74 percent of scheduled benefits.

Lawmakers said they would never allow the trust funds to run dry. But the insolvency dates are a vivid way of showing that the programs are unsustainable. To keep them solvent, Congress would need to trim benefits, raise taxes or take some combination of such steps.

The reaction from the Democrats followed the same principle as in 2005: refusing to acknowledge the problem. Harry Reid proclaimed the reports as proof of entitlement stability, saying that "despite White House scare tactics, Social Security remains sound for decades to come." Max Baucus blamed the Bush administration for raising costs through the use of managed-care plans. And as before, none came forward to propose a reform that would address the looming fiscal disaster.

We can keep saying "I told you so" all the way until the system collapses under its own weight, following Europe to economic disaster, or we can continue to press for entitlement reform. The President took a courageous stand last year in demanding a national effort to address the Social Security problem. Some chastised him for taking that issue ahead of the much larger problem of Medicare, but it turned out that the Democrats were not prepared to work on even the lesser issue in any rational manner. Their party leadership still insists that no problem exists at all within either program. Porkbusting is a great idea, but at some point we have to address the far more destructive demographic time bomb in our federal budget.

We need leaders with courage and foresight in order to ensure that these government services do not trap us in massive financial burdens within the next generation. So far, those qualities do not appear abundant, especially among the Democrats.

After John McCain made a statement last week on the Don Imus Show that he would trade the First Amendment for "clean government", one would have expected the industry enabled by that portion of the Bill of Rights to speak out against such talk. Oddly, not one major newspaper addressed the issue until today, when the Washington Examiner takes the Senator to task for his minimization of free political speech:

James Madison, the prime mover behind the U.S. Constitution, and his colleagues among the Founders rightly feared arrogant men like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., so they limited the central government to a few, well-defined powers. As further protection, Madison and the first Congress approved the First Amendment to the Constitution to protect forever the right of every American to freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition. ...

McCain incited a blogstorm Friday with this comment, which epitomizes political arrogance:

“I know that money corrupts … I would rather have a clean government than one where, quote, First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I’d rather have the clean government.” ...

Who decides when government is “clean” enough? How “clean” must government be before politicians like McCain will let the rest of us regain our First Amendment rights? Why does McCain think he knows what’s best for Americans better than we Americans do? History teaches the lesson our founders knew so well — those who put their private political vision above everybody else’s essential freedoms cannot be trusted with the reins of power.

The national media has absented themselves from this discussion, and one has to wonder why. It's not the first abstention on free speech issues, either; the media maintained a strange sense of detachment when the FEC got forced into promulgating restrictions on Internet speech, which threatened political blogs of all stripes. For an industry that gets almost hysterical in its self-defense on First Amendment grounds, it appears to have little use for anyone else's free speech rights.

One explanation is that John McCain provided them with an exemption to the worst abridgement of political speech rights in a century. The BCRA specifically exempted newspapers and other media from restrictions on corporate commentary about candidates and referenda within the sixty days of an election. The media seems to want to protect McCain from his own statements by not reporting them or commenting on them, perhaps to keep its two-month monopoly on election commentary intact. After all, if this statement got enough press, people would realize exactly what McCain tried to do with the BCRA -- and it might finally get repealed, allowing everyone to speak out on elections and campaigns regardless of the calendar.

Regardless of the reason, the media's silence on McCain's statement should shame them all. Only the Examiner -- whose editorial pages are run by Mark Tapscott, a blogger -- had the courage to expose McCain.

Mitch Berg wrote a provocative post yesterday on the enduring popularity of immaturity:

It's a good thing I have Cap'n Ed and King on the air with me on the NARN show. They are both very diligent in reminding me that when I slag on leftyblogs that there are exceptions to the rule; when I refer to leftybloggers who've been comedically outmaneuvered as "shrieking like a cagefull of poo-flinging monkeys", both were very conscientious about reminding me that there are exceptions. Josh Marshall, Matt Yglesias, Jeralynn Meritt, Flash - they tend to be able to separate the fever from the swamp. ...

Sponge seems to assume that anyone involved in the "101st" thinks the joke is in any way analogous to miltiary service. ("Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a midwest call center manager/blogger is comparing a hastily put-together jpeg and internet list with actual military recruitment.") Sponge? Is that really what Ed was doing? Because either Ed is stupid for saying such a thing, or you're taking target practice at little straw Charlies. I've met Ed, and he's no dummy, so I guess you should be sure to wear ear protection - to go along with the "logic" protection you must have worn while writing your little screed. I urge Mr. Sponge to take that up with Baldilocks, the Jarhead, the Sailor, and the other milbloggers and veterans who are laughing along with Ed; they might set him straight.

Of course, we have seen a lot of vitriol flung our way by the same people who usually do nothing but fling vitriol anyway. Yesterday we saw some goalpost-moving as the lefty bloggers attempted to equate "chickenhawk" with child molestation -- which again questions why they used it for anything else prior to the formation of the 101st FKs. It's a tactic born of desperation, as they see their favorite namecalling device defenestrated.

And namecalling is all these sites have. Writers like Glenn Greenwald, John Aravosis, Peter Beinart have actual argument on their side; they don't need to resort to name-calling to make themselves feel better. We may not agree with them, but we respect them and feel challenged by their arguments -- and they make us better at what we do with that challenge.

Others, however, simply make up slurs and silliness and pass it off as wit. One such example that I have seen recently is a perfect example of this. Some sites have now taken to referring to me as Special Ed. This supposedly sets them apart as intellectuals. I hate to burst their bubble, but anyone with the name Edward has heard this particular taunt about 1,000,000 times before he gets to middle school. (Guess what? I can also sing the entire theme song for "Mr. Ed", too. Just thought I'd save someone a little time.) Original, it's not ... and as an intellectual exercise, it puts you right up there with Nelson on "The Simpsons."

That's all they've got, these vapid and emotionally stunted people with computers and free time, on both sides of the political spectrum. They can't win with argument, so they use invective and silly schoolyard taunts instead. They fill their posts with obscenities and dance around with delight every time they come up with another taunt. It's the perfect example of why we formed the 101st Fighting Keyboardists and adopted the chicken hawk as our mascot. It reveals the intellectual bankruptcy of these very bloggers ... and provokes them into revealing it themselves.

Yours truly,

Mr. Special Captain Ed

Sneakeasy's Joint joined the 101st Fighting Keyboarders and posted about his decision to join up -- which prompted a surprising e-mail from US Central Command:

Hi, Kiril:

I caught your post about the 101st Fighting Keyboardists. Good luck with the project! I’m not sure if you have been to the US Central Command website but we regularly post news, photos, audio and video from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. You (and your fellow bloggers) are welcome to use any materials you find on our site. If you’d like to receive the weekly electronic newsletter and monthly Coalition Bulletin, just ask.

If you could add a link to CENTCOM, it’d be appreciated (I’m trying to spread the word about our site!). I’ve attached the CENTCOM logo, should you want to use it with the link. Thanks!

SPC C. Flowers

CENTCOM Public Affairs

I have had some correspondence with SPC Flowers in the past, who handles relations with bloggers and other media. They have an RSS feed available at Centcom and regularly update it.

It's very gratifying to get this kind of validation for our effort, but I know from our correspondence that Centcom appreciates the support they receive from many people across the blogosphere. I wonder how many will refer to Centcom as chickenhawks?

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! I'm still way behind on the blogroll, but I'm working on it, I promise. For those who argue that Centcom didn't endorse this in an official way ... well, no kidding. It's hardly a form letter, either. Did anyone notice where SPC Flowers wrote, "I caught your post about the 101st Fighting Keyboardists. Good luck with the project"? That sounds to me like SPC Flowers appreciates this blogospheric effort to support the mission and the troops. He's certainly encouraging us to continue it.

In a rather stunning political development, the Conservative Party has pulled ahead of Bloc Quebecois, according to a poll taken by La Presse. The reversal of years of decline in Tory fortunes comes as a shock to the separatists, who had almost reached majority support just a few months ago (via Newsbeat1):

The Conservatives are rapidly gaining support in Quebec and are now more popular than the province's separatist party, according to a new poll published on Tuesday.

The CROP poll for La Presse put the Conservatives at 34 percent in Quebec, up from the 25 percent the party won during the January 23 election. The separatist Bloc Quebecois, which a few months ago was flirting with 50 percent backing, dropped to 31 percent from 42 percent on January 23.

The Conservatives, led by Stephen Harper, unexpectedly took 10 of Quebec's 75 seats in the election, helping them win a fragile minority federal government and thereby ending 12 years of Liberal rule.

Four months ago, the Tories won a narrower mandate than initially predicted, and some analysts thought that Stephen Harper had taken the Conservatives to the limit of its support. The Liberals beat predictions of a meltdown in January and thought that a leadership change would invigorate the disgraced party and put a quick end to the Tory test drive.

Instead, Harper has surprised even his own supporters by building broad-based support for the Conservatives. He has expanded the party's reach into the urban power base of the Grits, making inroads with younger voters and minorities with his moderate approach to governing. Now in Quebec, Harper may have achieved his greatest achievement yet, displacing both BQ and the Liberals, roaring from a distant third in the restive province a year ago to the top of the polls. Once the dominant party in Quebec, the Liberals only poll a paltry 15%, less than half of the Tories or BQ.

These results almost guarantee a quick election in the near future. Canadians have discovered that the Liberal line on Harper and his supposedly "secret agenda" turned out to be nothing but an empty scare tactic by Paul Martin and others trying desperately to cling to power. They now reap the harvest of their dishonesty in this and many other issues, and if Harper gets his election, the Canadians may well turn their Tory test drive into a majority Conservative government.

The May Day protests by activists for illegal immigrants have resulted in an utterly predictable backlash, according to the Washington Post. Voters have sent bricks to their Congressional representatives as donations for a border barrier, and even those who considered themselves liberals want the government to start rounding up illegals and send them packing:

While a series of marches focused much of the nation's attention on the plight of illegal immigrants, scores of other Americans quietly seethed. Now, with the same full-throated cry expressed by those in the country illegally, they are shouting back.

Congressional leaders in Washington have gotten bricks in the mail from a group that advocates building a border fence, states in the West and South have drawn up tough anti-immigrant laws, and ordinary citizens, such as Janis McDonald of Pennsylvania, who considers herself a liberal, are not mincing words in expressing their displeasure.

"Send them back," McDonald said. "Build a damn wall and be done with it."

The anger invoked a word that immigrant organizers who opposed Monday's boycott feared: backlash. McDonald and other Americans were particularly disturbed by Monday's boycott and civil action, attended in large part by people who entered the country illegally and are now demanding rights enjoyed by U.S.-born citizens and immigrants who entered the country legally.

"How dare they," said McDonald, a research specialist for the University of Pittsburgh who said she voted for Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in the 2004 presidential election. "If they are so active, why aren't they in Mexico City, why aren't they forcing their leaders there to deal with the quality of life? If you don't like it here, go home."

Why aren't they in Mexico City? Because the American government has turned a blind eye to its southern border, appeasing both the business community that wants to exploit cheap labor and the Mexican government that is only too happy to see young men go north rather than become political activists. The arrangement has emptied Mexico of its most ambitious workers, leaving behind an economic and political gap that enables corruption and stagnation. If the long-term solution to the immigration problem is the improvement of the Mexican economy, that solution will never come while its workers leave the nation by the hundreds of thousands.

Instead, they come here and get economically exploited by the business community, and then get exploited political activists with other axes to grind. International ANSWER, the prime mover behind yesterday's boycott, doesn't care for the illegals as much as they want shock troops for the revolution. Unfortunately for ANSWER, that agenda did not subtly work itself into the protests but instead erupted in Che Guevara t-shirts and demands for "one hemisphere". ANSWER tried to pass out enough American flags to cover its tracks, but the effort fell short -- and now Americans, both native-born and legally admitted, have become fed up with protests by its uninvited guests.

The real irony of this situation is that prior to the series of protests, with their demands and rejection of American sovereignty, the immigration hardliners did not have the momentum to get their program passed. President Bush had enough juice left to get a moderate reform program passed, one which granted earned citizenship and only superficially addressed border security. Now that the protestors have rammed their strident demands down the throats of Americans, the hardliners have won new support from a broadening group of voters. When they remained "in the shadows", they had a cachet of victimhood that lent sympathy to their plight. With them teaming up with the last and largest group of communist apologists and demanding that America stop enforcing its borders altogether, they no longer have the patina of waifs but as ungrateful and separatist activists.

In truth, the only solution to this problem has to blend approaches from both sides. Border security has to come first, if for no other reason than any reform program has to rely on enforcement to attract people to register rather than opt out. After the border gets secured, then we can negotiate the status of those still left.

We cannot possibly forcibly deport 12 million people, and they won't leave the US voluntarily unless we make America a worse place in which to live even without a job than Mexico ... and who among us would want to turn our country into that kind of misery? People aren't going to self-deport; even starving in the US beats starving in Mexico. Guest worker programs promise only to create a French solution where a permanent underclass exists with no hope of assimilation or equality. The only real option is normalization for those who have conducted themselves lawfully except for their entry, and a long path to citizenship marked by the payment of back taxes, fluency in English, and a fine for crossing our borders illegally.

Unfortunately, these demonstrations have made that almost impossible to achieve. We will get the border security of the House legislation, but will have to wait for passions to cool and immigration-activist leadership to get smarter before we can rationally discuss the remainder.

The effort to put an end to earmarks -- the technical term for pork-barrel projects in the federal budget -- hit a snag yesterday when the US Senate voted to keep such unrelated projects out of emergency spending legislation on hurricane relief and the Iraq war effort. In a related development, Robert Byrd vehemently opposed a modified versions of the line-item veto that he supported during the Clinton administration:

The Senate voted Tuesday to protect home-state projects added by some of its most senior members to an Iraq war and hurricane relief funding bill as the tide turned against efforts by spending hawks to strip them out. ...

The price tag of the bill, therefore, has grown to more than $108 billion, despite Bush's promise to veto any measure that exceeds his request of $92.2 billion for the war and hurricane relief and another $2.3 billion to combat avian flu. ...

Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia led the Democratic assault on Bush's line-item veto idea, saying it would shift too much of Congress' cherished constitutional power of the purse to the executive branch and give the president a new club with which to threaten lawmakers. ...

"He could use this new leverage to squeeze members," Byrd said. "It is a weapon that the president could use to threaten and reward, and with the threat of that Damocles sword hanging over each member's head, he could expect to have his way on many issues."

Despite his vehemence Tuesday, Byrd supported the core idea when it was offered as a Democratic alternative to the tougher line-item veto law more than a decade ago.

The projects that got past Senate pork hawks like Tom Coburn were a $200 million bailout of Northrup Grumman for indemnifyng the defense contractor against losses that its insurers refuse to cover. Coburn faced stiff opposition from Trent Lott, the man who apparently wants to make a career out of defying voters on earmarks, and Thad Cochran. Both Republicans insisted that the government needed to replace the loss, even though Northrup made a 7.1% operating margin in 2005, up from 6.7% in 2004 and 5.6% in 2003. That represent $2.4 billion in profit, an increase from $2.3B in 2004 and $1.9B in 2003.

Why does a corporation that made $2.4 billion in profit need another $200 million from American taxpayers to cover a loss they've absorbed in that same year?

Rather than focus resources on the truly needy and on real emergencies, Lott and Cochran have manipulated the relief bill to stick money into Northrup's pockets. Perhaps folks from Lott's home state of Mississippi should ask themselves why Lott seems more concerned about the travails of a corporation that had its best year ever than those who had their entire lives wiped out by Katrina. No wonder Lott proclaimed himself "damned tired" of constituents who question his pork-barrel activities -- who'd want to keep explaining this?

The Pork Master also weighed in to protect his personal sinecures yesterday. Robert Byrd, who might be working on renaming his state Byrdsylvania to match the vast number of facilities named after him in West Virginia, warned against a line-item veto system that he supported under President Clinton. This system would not be a veto per se, but a requirement for any line item to which the executive objects to receive an individual up-or-down vote. It's weaker in that a simple majority can still pass the expenditure, but the potential exists for Congress to face thousands of such votes, given their proclivity for pork spending.

Byrd will have none of that. He needs to put his name on a few more bridges and museums before West Viriginians retire him, an event that could come quickly given his recent antics. He warned that presidents could use this power to hijack the projects of his political opponents -- a concern that somehow escaped Byrd when he supported this during a Democratic administration. It's just another hypocrisy from a man who had made a lifetime pursuit of it.

Until we get control of the spending process in Congress, politicians from both sides will exploit the power of taxation to ensure their re-election. Lott, Cochran, and Byrd all share the same addiction, and the American electorate continues to provide the fix through demands for increased federal power. Limiting government power is the only long-term solution to petty corruption and pork-barrel nonsense.

ADDENDUM: Congress has a rather narrow view of profit in a free-market society. When ExxonMobil makes 10.7% profit, they decry the "windfall profit" of a corporation. When Northrup Grumman makes 7.1%, they qualify for a bailout.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a man who became a billionaire through the free-market trading of private property, has decided that he likes having the ability to confiscate it from other people now that he's in office. He escalated his campaign to stop Congress and the New York legislature from imposing stricter limits on the use of eminent doman after the dreadful Kelo decision last year:

Mayor Bloomberg is stepping up his campaign to prevent lawmakers in Albany and Washington from restricting the city's power to seize private property for redevelopment.

In recent weeks, Mr. Bloomberg has traveled to Washington to meet with members of Congress on the issue. He also convened a group of 100 Manhattan-based political donors for a lunch at which he handed out a wallet card of priorities, including "Eminent Domain - Oppose legislation that would cripple affordable housing and responsible re-development (like Times Square)."

Yesterday, he brought the campaign to an event in the Times Square neighborhood, which he argues couldn't have been cleaned up without eminent domain power - a portrayal challenged by some critics.

It's interesting that Bloomberg used the Times Square example. No one doubts the effect that the makeover had on the storied area, and on Mahattan as a whole. However, take a look at who now resides in that spot: corporations like Disney, Virgin, and so on. Why should government inject themselves into a transfer of property from one private owner to another -- and why should they be allowed to determine when the sale would take place?

If cities want to expedite the kind of transformation that Bloomberg desires, they have other means with which to achieve it. Cities can use tax incentives to revitalize an area and to convince both buyers and sellers to conclude deals in everyone's interests. Bloomberg can also use zoning regulations to prod less flexible owners into action. If the businesses in the area create crime and stagnation, as was the case for Times Square, get the city's elected officials to pass tighter legislation on how those businesses operate in order to either clean up the problem or convince the businesses to relocate.

The confiscatory power of government should only be used for truly public projects, not to turn over prime real estate to private parties who cannot convince the current owners to sell. If the government has the power to turn people out of their businesses and homes (remember, Kelo involved houses that had been around for over a hundred years) simply because the government deems the property to be insufficiently profitable under current ownership, then no one's home or business is safe from government seizure. Congress and the New York legislature have worked to ensure that rational limits exist to eminent domain, in response to the justifiable outrage over Kelo. It's unfortunate that Mayor Bloomberg has signed up as a confiscator rather than a defender of private property -- and given the nature of his fortune, it's not just unfortunate, it's hypocritical.

An integral part of democracy and free elections is the responsibility one assumes for the government that results. If an electorate lifts idiots to power, then they need to experience the consequences of that choice, or otherwise they will keep electing idiots without regard to the results. Unfortunately, former Quartet envoy James Wolfensohn doesn't agree and insists that the West must bail out the Palestinians from the consequences of electing a terrorist group to govern them:

JAMES WOLFENSOHN, the international envoy to the Middle East, has resigned and issued a warning of the dangers ahead if the West cuts everything but humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.

Mr Wolfensohn, a former head of the World Bank, also cautioned that the UN, charities and humanitarian organisations will not be able to fill the gap if the Palestinian Authority collapses under financial pressure. Speaking in Washington after he ended his posting as envoy to the Quartet on the Middle East — the UN, the US, the EU and Russia — Mr Wolfensohn said: “It would surprise me if one could win by getting all the kids out of school or starving the Palestinians. And I don’t think anyone in the Quartet believes that to be the policy. I think that’s a losing gambit.”

Mr Wolfensohn stepped down on Sunday because of restrictions in dealing with the Islamic militant group Hamas, which dominates the Palestinian Government. He said that recent promises of aid from Arab states would provide only temporary relief to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, which has been unable to raise the $130 million (£71 million) a month it needs to pay 160,000 civil servants and keep services going.

He cautioned that if Israel continued to withhold authority tax revenues and maintain its restrictions on the movement of Palestinian trade and workers, by 2008 74 per cent of Palestinians would be living in poverty and 47 per cent would be unemployed. He echoed earlier warnings that fortifying NGOs could not replace the apparatus of the Palestinian Authority if it collapsed.

One has to question why Wolfensohn regards the PA as a structure worth keeping in the first place. Since its inception after the Oslo accords, it has primarily acted as a diplomatic cover for Yasser Arafat and a means in which to steal vast sums of foreign aid from the Palestinians. In one way, the election of Hamas had a rational basis -- Fatah had stolen so much that the Palestinians demanded someone else's hand on the cash. Unfortunately, since Hamas actively engaged in and supported terrorist attacks, no one in the West wants to give them money, and for good reason.

The tax revenues are a good example of this. Israel started paying these tax revenues as part of the Oslo accords, to which Fatah only paid lip service through two intifadas and numerous other breaches of the agreement. Israel only stopped paying this protection money when the duly elected Hamas government announced that it would no longer even pay lip service to Oslo. It refused to recognize Israel, a key provision, and refused to renounce violence, another key provision. It also applauded the recent suicide bombing n Tel Aviv which killed a number of people and injured scores more. The Palestinians made Oslo a dead letter -- so why should Israel continue the payments required under that agreement?

It's thinking like Wolfensohn's that extends the problem rather than solves it. He wants Israel and the West to continue to fund Palestinians despite their rejection of all agreements reached over the past fifteen years. If they can reject all agreements and treaties and not pay any price, why would they ever bother to honor one at all?

The Palestinians elected these people, and before that enthusiastically supported Arafat and his own band of somewhat more secular thugs. They support the abrogation of existing agreements and the use of terrorist tactics against civilian targets in Israel. Polls consistently show strong support for suicide bombing, and the elections proved that they would rather be led by terrorists than statesmen. Perhaps they felt free to make these choices, assuming that they would pay no price for them, thanks to well-intentioned but hopelessly paternalistic people like James Wolfensohn.

These are not children; they made their choice, one they have affirmed for years. It's time to allow the Palestinians to experience the true consequences of those choices. They have impoverished themselves, and the West has no obligation to rescue them from their self-made misery.

UPDATE: Fixed a typo. Also, I agree with David in the comments -- Wolfensohn has led a life of sacrifice and service and does not deserve to be demonized. He is, however, specatcularly wrong and a good example of where the liberal impulse goes off the rails in dealing with issues such as these.

A jury declined to give Zacarias Moussaoui the death penalty for his refusal to tip federal officials about the 9/11 terrorist plot, even after they found him legally responsible for at least one death in connection to the attack. The jury unanimously chose the lesser sentence of life without the possibility of release in the only criminal trial resulting from the worst attack on American soil:

A federal jury decided today that Sept. 11, 2001, conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui should be sentenced to life in prison, rejecting government arguments that he should be executed for his role in the deadliest terrorist strike on American soil.

"America, you lost. I won!" Moussaoui yelled as he was escorted from the U.S. District courtroom in Alexandria after the verdict was read. He clapped his hands as he left. ...

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema is scheduled to formally sentence Moussaoui at 10 a.m. Thursday and cannot deviate from the sentence recommended by the jury.

The readers of this blog know that I oppose the death penalty, but this case came close to being an exception for me. First, Moussaoui has never pretended that he had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, our enemy at war, and his presence in the US on a mission of sabotage qualifies him in my mind for a military tribunal for espionage and a firing squad if convicted. We chose to try him in criminal court instead, and we convicted him of everything that he wanted to acknowledge publicly anyway. In that sense, the trial only acted as confirmation and almost became irrelevant in comparison to the sentencing.

Moussaoui's outburst aside, he lost in this process. He never counted on capture and trial as part of his work for AQ; he either wanted to die as a martyr in an attack on America, or get away with an attack with his life and freedom intact. He did neither. His partners in AQ won a battle on 9/11, and to the extent that he didn't inform on them, he can claim a piece of that. Otherwise, his career as a terrorist gives a picture of nothing but failure and humiliation. Only Moussaoui managed to act stupidly enough to draw attention to his flight training, and only Moussaoui managed to get caught, out of twenty conspirators.

After being caught, Moussaoui did his best Richard Ramirez impersonation to get his martyr's death. He openly proclaimed his hatred of the US, tried to fire the lawyers who worked tirelessly to save his life, and practically dared the jury to give him a death sentence. Had he received it, he would have been transformed into a global cause celebre, the new poster boy for American cruelty for our use of capital punishment. His appeals would have garnered headlines for years, and human rights groups would have lit candles and held vigils for him. In a few years, the US would have put him to death, accompanied by worldwide protests and endless publicity -- all focused on this one sociopathic misfit who would have achieved his greatest victory through this mastery of manipulation.

Now, however, he faces a very long time in prison and the gradual oblivion he deserves. Forty years from now, Moussaoui will die in this supermax facility of old age, and newspapers will have to explain to half of their readership exactly who this man was. Human rights groups will have no interest in him, and while a few lunatic terrorists will salute him in the near term, they will quickly move th