On the other hand, so what? They're still "damned smelly monkeys."

This seems to be the "gosh-wow" science factoid of the hour. New Scientist reports that chimpanzees and humans have about 4.5% more genetic similarity than previously thought, which makes the genetic variance between Pongidae and Homo about .6 %. Here's the feed:

The new study found that 99.4 percent of the most critical DNA sites are identical in the corresponding human and chimp genes. With that close a relationship, the two living chimp species belong in the genus Homo, says Morris Goodman of Wayne State University in Detroit.
The closeness of relationship between chimps and humans has become an important issue outside taxonomy, becoming part of the debate over the use of chimps in laboratory experiments and over their conservation in the wild.
Traditionally chimps are classified with the other great apes, gorillas and orangutans, in the family Pongidae, separated from the human family Hominidae. Within Hominidae, most paleoanthropologists now class virtually all hominid fossils in three genera, Homo, Australopithecus, or Ardipithecus.
On the basis of the new study, Goodman would not only put modern humans and all fossils back to the human-chimp divergence into Homo, but would also include the common chimp (Pan troglodytes) and the bonobo (Pan paniscus).

The suggestion is that chimpanzees should be reclassified into the Homo genus:

Goodman's proposal would establish three species under Homo. One would be Homo (Homo) sapiens, or humans; the second would be Homo (Pan) troglodytes, or common chimpanzees, and the third would be Homo (Pan) paniscus, or bonobo chimpanzees.

I guess another way of looking at the data is that very little genetic material makes a significant difference.

FYI - Useful Site.

Don't get caught monkeyfishing. Truth or Fiction vets the veracity of e-mailed urban legends.

When will those yokels at PETA ever learn? Adolf Hitler was the vegetarian, not the other guy.

PETA has a new ad campaign which makes another historical error.

Blogcritics has all your Matrix-related essays. Me, I'm gonna bone up on my Schopenhauer and try to figure out the ding an sich.

Rotary Thursday and the Bush "Aircraft Carrier Landing Stunt.".

It was a great Rotary meeting today. My club was honored to have as its speakers the Commandant for the Lemoore Naval Air Station and a squadron commander who had just returned from a tour of duty on the Abraham Lincoln in the Persian Gulf.

During Q and A, someone asked about the Bush visit and whether the sailors resented it, did it delay their shore leave and was it a waste of money. The squadron commander - who shook the President's hand and then led approximately thirty planes back to Lemoore that afternoon - told us that it was a singularly memorable day for him and that he wished all cruises could end that way. He rejected the idea that Bush's visit to the Lincoln was a political stunt. He felt that the President was honestly trying to give something back to the people who had carried out his orders and was sharing his valuable time. Athough re-enlistment rates are now at an all time high, there is some concern about the effect that ten month deployments may have on re-enlistment. Consequently, he felt that the President's visit could give about 5,000 sailors something to think about when it came time to re-enlist. So, how do you figure that moral benefit in critiques based on cost and benefit? The sailors and aviators generally appreciated the fact that the President was commending them for a job well done. As for the charges that money was wasted, his point was that the pilot would have been flying some other mission and so the notion of squandering money was simply "idiotic." [The speaker - being a military officer and, therefore, officially apolitical - didn't use that term to describe critics, but he didn't agree with the description in Q and A either.]

By the way, this is an opportune moment to share some incredibly trivial, but, I think, interesting military history trivia. My father was on the aircraft carrier Valley Forge when it went on an around the world cruise in 1946. According to the cruise book, the visit by the Valley Forge to the Persian Gulf was the first time an American capital ship had been in the Persian Gulf since Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet in 1908. Since I suspect that there were no carriers in operation at that time, I reckon that my father was on the first American carrier to ever enter the Persian Gulf.

Ah, High School Memories.

Via The OmbudsGod comes high school blogger, The Lone Dissenter solitary campaign against the anti-American group-think at a Bay Area High School. Of course, this is nothing new. I remember several episodes from my late seventies Fresno experience that are not too dissimilar. In one, our AP History teacher pointedly told some Avalon Hill war gaming wonk that the idea of our challenging the Soviet's grip on Eastern Europe in 1945 was impossible and that "you kids have to learn that the United States just can't do everything it wants." The next day the wonk showed up with impressive documentation of the order of battle of the US and Soviet forces, which showed tended to show that the teacher was lacked any factual basis on which to make his claim.

Now, I don't know if the student was right, but certainly he had a better factual grip on the subject than the teacher and the teacher's insight was simply a post-Vietnam a priori belief, not a fact. In other words, we weren't being taught facts, we were supposed to adopt a value-system.

On another occasion, a Government teacher felt that it was necessary to defend the Soviet Union's abysmal record on economics and civil rights with the argument that "I'd like to see how the United States would be faring if another country had invaded up to the Mississippi and destroyed it's infrastructure." It didn't take long for someone to point out that the US had had exactly that experience - we called it the "Civil War" - and, yet, the US seemed to have gotten back on its feet in something less than thirty years.

The amazing thing about both exchanges was how phenomenally ignorant the teachers were. There attitudes and positions may have been correct, but it sure looked like ideology was being substituted for analysis.

This experience would seem to go back even further than the 1970s.. In Robert Heinlein's 1963 book, Glory Road, the story's hero, Oscar Gordon, relates that after being conditioned against patriotism in school, he was not overjoyed when he received his draft notice. [For what is obviously a stint in the Vietnam war.] So, if we accept this oblique references, patriotic high school students were dealing with their wise and cynical teachers as far back as the 1950s.

This makes sense. This column at The Ottawa Citizen issues a warning concerning the Iraq blog "Where is Raed?". The precis of the column is that the mysterious blogger, Salam Pax, is probably the scion of the Baathist class and that a corresponding skepticism concerning the blog's output is appropriate.

Here's an interesting insight from the column:

Salam Pax" is the crème de la crème. He drops brilliantly casual asides. For instance, one of his insightful tips to the Western journalists was that "ordinary" Iraqis despise all these exiles who have parachuted in with the U.S. military, and who have "appropriated" such private property as the old Mansour Social Club, and Iraqi Hunting Club -- which were Baathist social preserves (clubs in which Salam would likely have had memberships). He falsely suggests that these properties were obtained through "looting." (They were assigned to the exiles by the U.S. military.)

Now, Salam would never have known any "ordinary" Iraqis, unless he was interrogating one privately. He does know that Ahmed Chalabi and Kanan Makiya, the politicians coming down from free Kurdish territory, and the other exiles returning to Iraq, are the class that are trying to replace his class. They were the people who were fighting the good fight against Mr. Saddam abroad, and committed their lives irretrievably to a democratic future for the country -- when people such as Salam were making their profitable accommodations with the regime.

One has to keep in mind the nature of totalitarian regimes to corrupt everyone. Totalitarian dictators exploit complicity. One of Saddam's first acts as dictator was to have the survivors of his purge execute the victims. No one gets out untainted.

Purgatory will be a near eternity of "Chick-flicks."

As you can see, I took a few days off from the blogosphere this weekend. Let's get back into action with something that's a little bit religious and a little bit pop culture.

I am fairly convinced that my stay in Purgatory will be rather short as such things are measured in eternity.
Catechism of the Catholic Church para. 1473 notes:

The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the "old man" and to put on the "new man."

Me, as the father of three daughters, I'm serving my penance here on Earth. A case in point is the two hours I invested recently in The Lizzie McGuire Movie with my daughters. For those who aren't knowledgeable of the intricacies of the Disney Channel ouvre, the TV show chronicles the trials and tribulations that the show's namesake faces in negotiating the Darwinian struggle for survival which is Jr. High School Lizzie is an obviously attractive, personable blonde who, for reasons which are entirely unclear, is depicted as a social outcast, perhaps to reassure the self image of the 98% of adolescent girls who are social outcasts, that they are as attractive, fashion conscious and misunderstood as Lizzie. The movie starts with Lizzie's graduation from Jr. High school, which she fouls up in such an epic manner as to be worthy of CNN coverage. Lizzie then goes on a class trip to Rome, where she meets up with the fabulous Paulo, a seventeen year old pop singer who sweeps Lizzie off her feet with his attentions.

In all, as the father of pre-adolescent girls, and therefore as a man who is now coaching the other side, I have to say that the movie promotes positive social values. Paulo turns out to be a creep who gets his come-uppance, thereby teaching the eternal truth, which I want to brand on my oldest daughter's soul before puberty, that men are manipulative and can not be trusted. Again, I say as a father of daughters, the only plot device that could have made me happier was having Paulo and Lizzie struck blind by an avenging angel after they shared an innocent kiss. Further, Lizzie does share a kiss with Gordo - a plot development that I did not approve of - who is kind of a nerdy loyal friend of Lizzie's. So, perhaps the implicit message is that girls should look for friendship with the nerds, which is probably a good father-of-daughter's default position since, and again I speak as a father of daughters, nerds can be easily intimidated. In sum, there were good positive messages in the move all around.

Anti-male cracks notwithstanding, Instapundit had a link to a good post on the socially acceptable practice of male-bashing. With very little reflection it should be easy to establish that male-bashing is a real phenomenon and that the message it communicates about male violence and irresponsibility has real effects. I know as a man who fought for the custody of a two and a three year old daughters how the planted assumptions in those stereotypes can have pernicious consequences. I also know that many men have given up their custody rights for a host of reasons, which may stem from some belief in their own incapacity to act as parents. The article's suggestion that male-bashing be fought at the grassroots is one that I second.

I thought this was interesting. Bill Cork has a link to an article wherein an academic stumbles on to the fact that books by the great Catholic intellectuals are apparently not being read by students at a Catholic university. I wonder if this isn't simply part of the "closing of the American mind" phenomenon that has been noticed in other contexts. Is this is a bad thing? After all what is the relevance of a "dead white male" to the issues facing a modern college student? Every generation has to come up with its own answer.

For future reference, HobbsOnline A.M. puts paid to the urban legend that Bush was AWOL during his National Guard duty. This is useful since I had "kinda, sorta" believed the veiled insinuations.

I am posting this link to Country Store simply because I like the sarky tone of the posts over there.

Communio Circle Discussion - Genesis 22 and the Immorality of God

At last week's Communio Circle, the discussion turned from whether the practice of reading great literature was intrinsically valuable or whether that practice was a snobbish tic and no more worthwhile than going to tractor pulls. Somehow the conversation turned to the old chestnut of whether something is deemed morally “good” because there is an absolute and transcendent “good” or simply because God deems the thing good. [The turn in the conversation may have been caused in some small way by the fact that I am listening to the Leaning Company’s Philosophy of Religion series by Professor James Hall (which, by the way, I am enjoying.)] Since I was arguing for the non-relativistic value of literature, I decided that consistency required that I advocate for a transcendental essence of goodness.

This pitch was immediately, and I mean immediately, eviscerated by Mike, who pointed out that God had commanded that a father (Abraham) murder his own son (Isaac.) (See e.g., Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22.) Certainly, argued Mike, if that didn’t show that goodness was goodness only relative to God’s commands, then nothing did. Mike’s point was completely apposite. Proving the universal value of literature, Norman Podhoretz’s new book, The Prophets, explicitly observes that with respect to Socrates question about whether something was good because it was good in itself or because it was deemed good by the gods, the Jews come down on the side of the second position, citing the Abraham and Isaac story.

To me, this story and the conclusion to which it leads are unsettling. The conventional definition of God is that He is all powerful, all knowing and all loving. According to Prof. Hall’s definition of ethical monotheism, God is the only One deserving of worship because of his infinite capacity for those three attributes. Commanding the death of a child in order to “test” the faith of the father seems more akin to Saddam than to God, as so defined.

According to Dori, the Abraham/Isaac story plays a pivotal role in the recent movie The Believer, where a “clever Yeshiva student” repudiates Judaism and becomes a neo-Nazi skinhead because of the ethical conundrum in God’s order that Abraham kill his son.

Genesis 22 and Predestination.

Jeff, though, made what I thought was an interesting observation. What does it mean to have God “test” Abraham. Presumably God knows what Abraham will do. What kind of a test is it where God already knows the answer? Dori’s response was that all teachers know the answers to the tests they give. But, as I pointed out, teachers do not know the answer to the question of what the student knows, which is why they give the test. If a teacher knew what grade to give to a student in the first place, why would they give the test? So, I sided with Jeff on this point.

The problem is that this leads to predestination, a conclusions that apparently is even less appealing than child sacrifice. Both Dori and Mike argued for the position that Abraham had the free will to obey or not obey. The analogy here is with Mary whose choice - “I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "may it be to me as you have said." - is a substantial basis on which she is so esteemed. Mike and Dori’s argument may have been that God did not know the outcome of Abraham’s choice before it was made, although squaring that with the idea of God’s omniscience is something for further development.

Mike’s further development of his observation about the “non-test” in Genesis 22 was that there was a “test” and it was a “test” for Abraham. Now, interestingly, that is Norman Podhoretz’s view also. Podhoretz believes that the mission of the Prophets was to end idolatry and that the “test” in Genesis 22 proved to Abraham that he must trust the true God and not the false, nonexistent gods of idolatry.

Did God premeditate the death of Isaac?

The moral difficulty suggested in Genesis 22 is based on the idea that Isaac’s life was threatened by God. The story takes the reader detail by detail through the sacrificial ritual - wood is gathered, Isaac is bound, the knife is raised - and then Isaac is miraculously saved. In the nick of time, it would seem. These details, however, are nothing more than a cheesy - but effective - literary device like the annoying background music which is played in horror movies designed to heighten anxiety, because Isaac was never in any danger.

If we accept the proposition of Abraham’s free will, then there were only two outcomes and under either outcome, Isaac would live. Either Abraham would obey God and God would stay Abraham’s hand or Abraham would disobey God and Isaac would live. In either case, God is not complicit in the murder of Isaac and, in fact, clearly intended that Isaac would not die. [I will leave it to others to discuss the moral implications of causing Abraham to premeditate the murder of Isaac, which I understand under both Jewish and Christian tradition is tantamount to murder.]

Which leaves us where we started: is there an absolute good such that child sacrifice is wrong or is it the case that things are good only in relation to God’s commands?

[A last, telling point was made by Mike. In essence, who are we to talk to God about the morality of a son being sacrificed by a father? The core of Christianity, after all, is premised upon a Son who is a sacrifice in accordance with the will of His Father.]

Further Reflections: If you're interested, and who wouldn't be?, here's the relevant passage from Norman Podhoretz's The Prophets: Who They Were, What They Are:

But among the differences here is that what the idolators do voluntarily in pursuing a goal of benefit to them or theirs, Abraham is ordered by God to do, and for no such purpose or reward. Indeed, none is specified. The point is to put him through the most extreme of all imaginable tests of his readiness to obey. In passing this test, Abraham demonstrates an understanding that acceptance of the one true God who has been revealed to him first and foremost entails submission to His will. (One might say that, to the unresolved conundrum posed by Socrates in Athens many centuries later - "Is that which is holy loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?" - the Hebrew Bible has an unequivocal answer: it is holy because it is loved, or commanded, by God.)

But at the same time, Abraham has discovered that what God wills is radically at odds with what many gods of all the pagan religions are believed to demand. Unlike the pagan gods, He will have nothing to do with child sacrifice, the most horrendous in the Hebrew Bible's eyes of all the many "abominations" closesly associeated with and flowing from idolatry.

Generations after generations of believers have been tormented by this story, asking why it was necessary for God to devise so cruel a test. My own theory is that only by undergoing the experience himself - in is own person, and on his own flesh - can Abraham come to fully realize that idolatrous practices are an ever-present danger even to God's chosen people, and that they can exert their insidious power even through the voice of God Himself.

(Id. at p. 24 -25.)

From this perspective, Genesis 22 seems to offer an implicit theodicy. The evil that Abraham experienced - his pain and suffering in being forced to make this cruel choice - is not really evil. It is a good because of the pedagogic benefits that flow from Abraham's experience of the test. Is this explanation sufficient to explain all instances of suffering, or is all suffering a test? I doubt it, and as Podhoretz notes, this easy approach to Genesis 22 is probably not entirely satisfying since the story has "tormented" believers for generations. As I observed above, I have been told that the recent movie, < ‘Believer,’ plays on this torment as the device which kicks off the movie's plot.

I appreciate any comments you have. I intend to take the comments back to my Communio Circle for discussion and reflection.

Further Update: David Heddle has been kind enough to respond to my request to provide the Reformed perspective on Genesis 22, the issue of predestination and an answer to Socrates' question. Check it out. I also find interesting the theodicy implied in the post. I think I understand some portion of that theodicy to go as follows: It seems that the problem of evil is explained by man's fallen state. Man is a sinner and deserves whatever ill falls his way. Because of his natural state, whatever man suffers is better than he deserves or can expect, absent God's grace. Although my initial reaction to the perspective is negative, one has to be honest and acknowledge that my orthodox faith is willing to consign non-believers to eternal damnation, which is altogether more severe than the trials and tribulations of the natural world.

Comments, points of clarifications?

The Christian Conscience points out that one problem in child-rearing is rebellious and radical personalities of the younger generation.

Quark Soup has pictures of the collapse of the "Old Man of the Mountain." Scratch one symbol of flint-like independence. I'd better get up to Yosemite, I understand there are few cracks appearing on Half Dome.

Re: "There's only one standard of morality in this country - If a conservative does it, he's gone."

I recall one of my college history professors noting that with respect to various Marxist "liberation" movements, that the only remaining Puritans to be found in the Twentieth Century were to be found on the Left. The Bennett flap seems to be a case in point. The hatchet job on Bennett is premised on the notion that gambling is a, gasp, sin and Bennett as a religious, "moralizing" person shouldn't be committing sins.

Well, get over it. Bennett is a Catholic and the Catholic tradition is surprisingly tolerant of vices. Catholics may in good conscience drink, dance, gamble and have rambunctious sex within a sacramental marriage. Mark Shea nails the moral dimension:

C.S. Lewis once remarked that he didn't offer advice to people about sins to which he himself was not tempted. I try to do the same thing. I've never felt the urge to gamble and I therefore don't know what constitutes too much vs. just enough gambling. It seems to be somehow to be a bigger deal to Puritans than to Catholics and America, being a nation of apostate puritans, has its undies in a bunch over it, especially Democrats, who are the most apostate puritans of all. Me: I don't much care as long as it was his own money and he didn't bankrupt his fambly. Next story, please.

I'll concur, with this qualification: I don't get gambling at all. How many times do you have to prove the laws of probability and that house rules favor the house. Bennett's claim, as reported in this article that he has mostly broken even, is nonsense. Based on everyone who who tells me that they "broke even" when they get back from Vegas, I'd have to believe that Las Vegas is about to turn out the lights, if they were being truthful. Now, I can accept the argument that gamblers are purchasing entertainment, but they shouldn't delude themselves that they are doing anything other than pumping money into the casino coffers.

I, therefore, believe that Bennett has a problem. Further, even if his conduct is not per se sinful because he manages to gamble only his excess "entertainment" money, I have to believe that he is not following the course of moderation which is the beating heart of the Aristotelian ethos that is at the core of Christianity. Bennett's moral obligation is not only to avoid sin, but the "near occasion of sin" as well, and I think he probably is pretty shaky on that point. But notice that that critique is a far cry from the asserted absolutistist straw man that the libertine element wants to hold up as the image of orthodox morality.

As for the more cogent political point, I think Jonah Goldberg nails the political point. Like it or not, Bennett's personal behavior is personal until he runs for office. After that, go after him with a righteous fury. As for the implicit Clinton comparison, as an attorney who has made substantial sums off the laws that Bill Clinton's wing of the Democrat Party promoted after the Thomas Hearings, let me point out that sex with subordinates is not a private affair. However consensual the activity may have been, or appeared, at the time, I have seen numerous companies taken to the cleaners when the subordinate - usually female - was cast off and only then realized that she had been coerced into sex. Putting your company at risk of that kind of liability is a firing offense.

Update: Forget the above. Mark Cameron offers a salient reason for publicly vilifying Bennett.

Midwest Conservative Journalhas a surprisingly spirited take on the reaction to the Pope's recent encyclical on the Eucharist.

Woohoo!

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Ninomania has some thoughts on the Cross-burning decision and the speech/acts distinction.

KEN LAYNE has a post indicating that the substantial looting from Baghdad's National Museum was maybe 25 pieces. When I first heard the story, I was alarmed and, quite naturally, felt that America might have some responsibility. On further reflection, I tentatively suggested that the evidence wasn't in and that it could well have been the case that it was an inside job by Baathists or Museum employees. It looks like that tentative suggestion might have merit.

But, really, why was it that we all jump to the conclusion of American culpability? It really was a ridiculous proposition. Bombs were being dropped, for Heaven's sake. Was it really unreasonable to believe that the curators would have, or should have, moved their treasures to a secure location? Didn't the fact that it appeared that they had taken no security measures, according to their account, sound suspicious? I know that when a restaurant burns down in Fresno, I start wondering about whether the restaurant was losing money and if it had insurance.

But we all initially accepted the looting story without exercising our critical facilities. Why is that? Well, to extend extend an observation made by Robert Heinlein in Glory Road, at least four decades of the media, academia and certain prominent Americans beating the drum that America's motives or interests or illegitimate or immoral are bound to have some effect.

Dumbfounded. I am just dumbfounded by this post at Indymedia [via The OmbudsGod] which argues that 9/11 was a hoax. And, yet, I just know that within a year bits and pieces of this is going to be conventional wisdom.

Free Speech Anyone, Part II.

Hollywood Idiots has a post about how Boycott Hollywood was shut down. Because Boycott Hollywood was annoying gauchista SAG members, attorneys for the William Morris Agency wrote a "cease and desist" letter to Boycott Hollywood's website administrator and others. Boycott's domain registrar apparently seized upon the fact that Boycott's proprietors in an attempt to protect their privacy gave bogus contact information to shut Boycott Hollywood down. I would be surprised if such a practice was not entirely common in the paranoid and anonymous world of the internet.

A couple of points. I am not a First Amendment absolutist. Never have been, never will be, because of this kind of hypocrisy. The Left talks a good game about absolute First Amendment protections against both legal and social pressures and then goes silent when the ox that is gored is not a dues paying gauchista.

Second, I would think that the William Morris Agency better watch its own six o'clock. In California there is this tort called "interference with contract." Although the registrar may have had the legal right to terminate Boycott's contract, under California law, although a contract may be terminable at the will of one of the parties to the contract, that is simply not a defense to interference with Boycott's contractual rights. If the contract was interfered with through some "wrongful means," such fraud or defamation, then Boycott may have a viable claim against the William Morris Agency. By the way, threatening criminal prosecution in order to obtain an advantage in a civil action is a per se wrongful act. You can ask any attorney or look it up in Rule of Professional Conduct 5 - 100.

Third, what was it that caused the William Morris Agency to claim that there were potential civil and criminal penalties? It was allegations that certain celebrities opposed the war. So what? Hollywood celebrities are public figures by definition. They have the ability to correct the public record through the marketplace of ideas. Too bad for their sensitivities.

I have never read a more concise description of Penner's coffee.

James Lileks has an aptitude for metaphor unseen since Chandler. Check this out:

And I do. I’m an all-day coffee man. I have my last cup around eight at night. I grind it so fine it’s weaponized. But I’ll never nuke that last half-inch in the pot; that’s wrong. You might as well just swab a knitting needle with speed and jab it in your soft palate.

By the way, two of the great works of religious science fiction are discussed on different blogs. Claude Muncie posts on James Blish's A Case of Conscience, which he notes is a s good upon rereading in 2003 as it was when he first read it in 1976. Kevin Holtsberry posts on A Canticle for Leibowtiz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Kevin doesn't find "A Canticle" penetrable and asks for clarification. "Canticle may be dated because of both its pre-Vatican model of Catholicism and, oddly, its post-nuclear apocolyptic setting. I don't know, but I thought it was great. I would also nominate John Boyd's The Last Starship from Earth as one of the great SF religious alternate history novels - in Haldane IV's world, because Christ died during the final assault on Rome, people make the Sign of the Crossbow - and Anthony Boucher's The Quest for Saint Aquin as one of the great SF religious novellas.

Bottom line - I would have understood people getting upset with Sen. Santorum if he had compared homosexuality with necrophilia.

It must be the social climate, but public discussion of polygamy homosexuality and incest seem mundane. Even objections to "goat-love" seem to be a vestige of a Victorian heritage. But mention necrophilia and the hairs on the back of your neck start to stand up. And, yet, let's assume that the decedent signs a pre-mortem waiver and the, er, consensual activity happens in the privacy of the bedroom, would the "do your own thing because the government should not be in the bedroom" crowd maintain a consistent line on their principle. Maybe so, but it is creepy. I would suspect that is one area where the libertine cum libertarian crowd might turn a blind eye to state intervention. I mean, for heaven's sake, isn't there a slippery slope problem if we recognize post-mortem consensual friskiness? Certainly, there ought to be a law against that - dare I call it - perversion.

Strangely, that is the one activity which is not made illegal, at least in California, as I learned while simultaneously reading the Daily Journal and defending a deposition several weeks ago. [Apparently after forbidding sodomy, seduction, bestiality, orgies and various other menages, the Legislature decided to drop the subject.] Here is an article on a truly unsettling case. [Seriously, do not read the article if you have small children.] As the article notes:

"[The defendants] face a maximum of three years in prison if convicted. The alleged crime falls under the state's Health and Safety Code, which mostly addresses drug crimes. There is no state law against using a corpse for sexual purposes."

Which I found absolutely surprising.

Back now to the same sex activity issue and let's test my assertion that I don't think that the Constitution forbids anti-sodomy laws. Do I really support a legal principle which says that a state legislature can prohibit virtually any activity which is not explicitly protected by the Constitution? Does such a principle really make sense? Let's assume that a state legislature enacts a law that imposes the death penalty for intentional activity consisting of a person scratching his left elbow with his right hand. Would I believe that such a law was beyond Constitutional review?

Let's stipulate that such a law certainly seems to be irrational. But it is entirely possible for a legislatures to act irrationally in its legislative functions. Examples of such legislative irrationality are legion. Does the law violate some Constitutional right? I'd be hard put to think of a Constitutional right to scratch one's elbow. The activity seems innocuous, but doesn't seem to have the same weight that one associates with reproduction or, I'll agree, sex or employment or religious activity or art or speech or so on.

The best argument against such a law would probably be either a due process violation or a cruel and unusual punishment violation. I would think that due process requires that the legislature act rationally or have a rational basis for deciding to inflict punishment for the indicated activity. While the rational basis standard is not very burdensome, it does require some reason. I can't think of one for the elbow scratching law. I suspect, though, that an imaginative judge might be able to come up with some after the fact justification.

The Eighth Amendment prohibition against "cruel and unusual" punishment might have some traction here. Executing people for innocuous behavior would seem to be either cruel or unusual, or both.

Does this have some application to the sodomy case? Maybe it does. The SCOTUS could reach a conclusion that punishing a homosexual couple for behavior that doesn't harm others, particularly if it was truly private, is either excessive or irrational.

Oddly, I might support a decision framed on that basis.

And Speaking of Irrational Legislative Behavior: Never argue with Megan's Twelfth Rule of Internet Discourse - "You don't have to make up strawmen because the endlessly diligent internet will quickly provide real examples of the boundless genius of human stupidity." [OK, that's a paraphrase.] On which point TalkLeft has a post on the Alabama legislature vitiating its obscenity law. Apparently, in order to be constitutional under some Federal decision, the provisions about sex toys had to be removed. One Alabama legislator offered curative legislation which would have explicitly removed sex toys. Needless to say, no self-respecting, self-preserving legislator was going to be caught dead in the next election cycle in a situation where his opponent could run ads ads reading "Sen. Smith supports the Acme orgasmatron." Hence, the curative legislation went down in flames, to the sound of proponent shouting "you're making obscenity legal."

Sure, it's funny, but that particular Catch-22 is what led to Griswold v. Connecticut, which overturned what Justice Stewart's dissent referred to as "an uncommonly silly law." Connecticut legislators simply could not bring themselves to vote in favor of prophylactics.

Likewise, for you Con-law geeks, the same dynamic led to the truly dangerous situation corrected by Baker v. Carr. In Baker, political deadlock had prevented redistricting of legislative districts for a substantial period of time. The situation was leading to the formation of gross inequities between the voting strengths of different regions, which could have recreated the Rotten Boroughs of Nineteenth Century England. Baker reversed field on the prior "political questions" doctrine which had precluded judicial review and established the "one man, one vote" formula.

These political logjams are very real. In general, I think that the interests of self-government should lead the Court to adopt a hands-off position. Sometimes the Court simply must intervene, because it's the only institution that can. Such interventions, however, should only be for weighty reasons, such as came together in Baker, which in fact dealt with the ability of voters to express their sovereignity through the political process.

Something of a Classic in the Michael Moore Hate-mail Category

IMAO: Hating Michael Moore

Constructing Fire-breaks

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today has an interesting post dedicated to the proposition that (a) homosexual marriages would not necessarily lead to polygamous marriages and (b) polygamous marriages are conceptually distinguishable from same sex marriages because of the empirically observable untoward effects of polygamy.

Well, that goes some distance to answering my question about why polygamy and homosexuality should not be compared. On the other hand, the whole argument seems to be an attempt to construct a last ditch firebreak once the fire leaps the fire lines. For instance, the social costs that the WSJ points to wouldn't be considered costs in a society that considers polygamy normal. The dysfunctions that the WSJ adumbrates would be considered the normal attributes of that healthy, functioning community by members of that community.

Don't get me wrong. I agree with the WSJ's point. I also part company with the libertarians in my belief that society may legitimately structure its institutions within certain limits to promote the development of healthy, responsible citizens who enjoy the maximum amount of individual freedom consistent with the maintenance of that society over time. I believe that the institution of companionate monogamous marriage did more to increase the value of women in society than any other institution. But I don't think that the dysfunctions of polygamous societies answers the argument about why polygamy - or incest - wouldn't be entitled to equal protection once the principle that consensual adult activities are entitled to "privacy" is coupled to the idea that the self-fulfillment of individual desires is the sine qua non of constitutional rights.

I mean, who cares if polygamy developes a class of frustrated males and dependent women so long as we get there through a series of free choices by people who individually are maximizing their own happiness? Likewise, who cares if we foster a subclass of society that is prone to suicide and intra-group violence, so long as members of that group feel they are maximizing their individual utlity at the time?

Ooh, be scared. The mighty Europeans are going to challenge Nato.

I guess they can all cut back on their vacations to finance a military. Yeah, like that's ever going to happen.

Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen has this post:

The Sunday London Times has a piece, by their Paris correspondent Charles Bremner on European politics which begins thus:
EUROPE'S self-inflicted wounds over Iraq will be on display tomorrow, when the leaders of France and Germany - dubbed the "Axis of Weasels" in America - start to try to lay the groundwork for a European Union military alliance that would compete with NATO.
Pardon me? An alliance which would compete with NATO? The only reason NATO exists is to protect France an Germany against an attack by the Soviet Union. Who are the Germans and the French going to protect themselves against? An attack by Luxembourg (which IS a member of NATO)?

The answer seems surprisingly obvious. I'm amazed that Galen didn't see it right off. The European Alliance would support those who would invade Europe. That way the Europeans can make money selling arms to the invaders and get the benefits of NATO bases subsidizing their local economies. The last time something like this happened was when Milo Minderbinder accepted a subcontract from the Germans to attack a bridge as to which he had a subcontract from the Allies to defend.

Who is ³×À̹ö ÅëÇÕ°Ë»ö :: '', and what are they saying about me in Korean?

Things Armenian

The Corner reminds us that this is the 88th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. FrontPage magazine provides the best description of the circumstances of the Genocide that I have seen. Of course, growing up in Fresno, I am not unfamiliar with the Genocide, but I had always attributed it to the dying spasms of the Ottoman Empire. The Front Page article makes it clear that the Young Turks were firmly involved, which makes the Jihadist tone of the Genocide somewhat odd.

The reference to the Armenian Genocide, and something else, put in me in a reflective state of mind, so I googled my old High School debate partner who was moving into the radical world of ethnic politics last time I saw him. Apparently, he is still there. He appears to be the author of a book entitled, Amazon.com: Books: "Gha-Ra-Bagh": The Emergence of the National Democratic Movement in Armenia, which is described in one of the Amazon reviews as "a dangerous book" and "full of hatred and false information." Way to go, Mark. [To be fair, other reviews describe the book as fair and objective.]

On the same note, this weekend I saw a review of Bloodvine by Aris Janigian. Aris was one year behind me in High School. I probably will get Aris's book which I am sure captures the unique colors of the Valley Armenian culture. I will probably never get Mark's book, which probably is a thoroughly partisan project of interest only to those with a desire to know the "inside game" of historical grievances. The funny thing is that when we Juniors in High School, Mark was supposed to be the lawyer and I was supposed to be the bitter ethnic partisan.

unbillable hours has a terrific reflection on his unsettled relationship with Lent and Easter.

As part of my never ending quest to position this site as a place of scholarship and reflection, please allow me to direct you to 300 reasons why we love The Simpsons.

I'm just getting around to annotating the citations that I have collected over the last few days. Here is an essay by Stanley Kurtz at National Review Online. The gist of Kurtz's argument is that Santorum has been unfairly accused of equating homosexuality with polygamy and incest. Kurtz believes, though, that Santorum has alluded fairly to a "slippery slope" argument.

I substantially agree with Kurtz' argument, but I would certainly not describe the extension of any principle announced in the future Texas sodomy decision as being the results of a "slippery slope." Slippery slope arguments, to me, seem to suggest a situation where a small, initial compromise is exploited to create a larger effect because there is no principled point to cut-off the application of the principle. "Slippery slope" arguments contemplate a series of progressively more substantive steps. The extension of employment protections to sexual orientation is a has led to a classic "slippery slope" situation. Gays were provided protection from termination of employment because of their sexual orientation. That concession has in turn led to the exploitation of the "gays as insular minority" point of view - care of Footnote 4 of the Carolene Products decision - which in turn has led to a situation where, through a series of moves, the Boy Scouts' essential beliefs have been subjected to an attempt to limit the Scouts' rights of association and belief. However one feels about the Boy Scouts or their code or homosexuality, you have to agree that this result was not foreseen by anyone as the necessary outgrowth of the enactment of fair employment legislation. In fact, the spectre of homosexual scout leaders would have been dismissed as mere irrational scare mongering.

The privacy interest that may be established in the Texas sodomy case is not a slippery slope situation; it is simply the extension of "law" to analogous situations. The situation is more consistent with the repeal of Jim Crow. Plessy v. Fergusson, of course, allowed Southern States to establish the segregated legal and social regime. Plessy itself, however, dealt with segregation of railroads. The case we all remember as holding that Jim Crow was unconstitutional - Brown v. Board of Education - dealt with segregation in primary schools. Strictly speaking, then, Brown did not overrule Plessy. When was Plessy overruled?

The answer is that it was truly overruled in Brown. Brown held that racial segregation was not consistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Badges and Indicia clause of the Thirteenth. After Brown, there was a cavalcade of cases that systematically eliminated Jim Crow in the multiple venues that Jim Crow was lodged. One of those unsung cases involved segregation in railroads. But Plessy was in fact overruled long before that case because there was not a razor edge of material difference between segregation in education and segregation in transportation.

Brown, therefore, was not a "slippery slope" situation. It established a principle on its face which transformed Southern society. I would argue that extending the definition of "privacy" to other than the narrow ground that it has previously rested doesn't threaten a slippery slope in which we will find ourselves suprised in some future. Rather, it involves the establishment of a neutral principle, the working out of which is altogether obvious. As Roger Ho notes it was this concern that made Bowers a 5 to 4 decision in the first place. According to Ho, this was stated in Bowers as:

"It would be difficult, except by fiat, to limit the claimed right to homosexual conduct while leaving exposed to prosecution adultery, incest, and other sexual crimes even though they are committed in the home. We are unwilling to start down that road." -- U.S. Supreme Court Majority Opinion, Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986)

[Note, the swing vote - I think it was Powell - felt that the sodomy laws in Bowers should have been struck down on the basis of the Eighth Amendment. Namely, that the punishment of such private conduct was excessive. Bowers, however, did not involve any actual prosecution, so that issue was academic.] Now, there is something really interesting going on with respect to the attacks on Santorum. One sees consistently the argument that homosexual acts cannot be delinked from the person performing the acts. Former Fresno Bee movie guy, John Scalzi, for example, offers this:

"Rick Santorum, the Senate's third-ranked Republican who is under fire from gay-rights groups and Democrats, says he has 'no problem with homosexuality - I have a problem with homosexual acts.'" -- Associated Press
In logical terms, you could write this as "I have no problem with X, I have a problem with X' " in which X is any particular human condition, and X' is the action by which the condition of X is ascertained; indeed, without X', X exists in an unverifiable state if it exists at all, since it is the performance of X' that establishes X definitively. Thereby, in purely practical terms, if you have a problem with X', you must necessarily have a problem with X.

One interesting thing is that this argument could easily be made against, for example, pedophilia or incest or murder, but Scalzi, and others, absolutely, positively refuse to see that. The premise of the argument is that homosexuality is a "human condition" in a way that pedophilia is not. The other interesting thing is the vehemence in which the argument is stressed that homosexuality should not be equated with polygamy. I personally don't see it. Perhaps that inability is due to my voracious reading of history and science fiction. I could well imagine - thanks chiefly to the endless inventiveness of science fiction writers - societies where homosexuality was the norm - witness the Poul Anderson story collected in Dangerous Visions - or societies where incest was normal - consider the Ptolemaic dynasty - or societies where crime was institutionalized - see Kornbluth's The Syndic. I suspect that anyone in those societies would consider the norms of those societies as, well, normal.

It is odd that the failure of imagination is on the side of the critics of Santorum. For them, homosexuality is a fixed, invariant characteristic n a way that other sexual preferences are not. The effort to obtain Carolene Products status, however, has resulted in a worldview that puts homosexuality in a different conceptual category than, say, incest or polygamy. In short there is a "paradigm" in operation which defines how some people think about homosexuality. There is nothing irrational or illogical about the paradigm since the paradigms defines the rules of the argument. [What makes a paradigm illogical is either its own internal incoherence or its lack of consistency with the empirical world.]

Finally, perhaps the paradigm shift is pragmatically useful. Perhaps the belief that homosexuals have a higher moral status than polygamists will serve the function of institutionalizing and domesticating homosexuality by creating the web of duties and demands that any effective social construct must have. The best argument in favor of homosexual marrigage in my mind is that it may tend to make homosexuals more bourgeoise. Other than children, nothing makes a person more middle-class - more likely to be faithful, more likely to go to work in the morning, more likely to weed the crabgrass from the lawn - than the prospect of alimony payments and the hourly rates of divorced lawyers.

Which is why one gay friend of mine is so absolutely opposed to gay marriage. "It's just not needed" says this guy, who has already gone through one expensive heterosexual divorce.

Maybe it's about time, but we are all learning about Islam. The Raven has a post showing a photograph of the Shi'ites celebration of a feast of Mohammed's grandson Ali's death. The photograph shows people who are really quite bloody in their commemoration of the death of Ali. This Shia practice isn't easy to understand for everyone, apparently even the Sunni look with some concern at the practice according to alt.muslim - your muslim news community:

The Shia holiday of Ashura, celebrated this past weekend, is perhaps the biggest lightning rod for conflict between Shia Muslims and the majority Sunni Muslims. The traditional public displays of self-flagellation and bloodletting - meant to emulate the pain that Imam Hussain felt during his martyrdom - is difficult for Sunni Muslims to understand and is often responded to with jeering or even murder. However, this practice is banned in Iran and frowned upon in Lebanon. Many Shia clerics are calling for participants to donate blood instead of spilling it on the streets, although this call is resisted by those who feel that suffering is an integral part of the commemoration.

Apparently, questions about the practice aren't limited to Xians.

Actually, this article prompted some questions about Islam, as to which I felt there was no better time to ask than ... Easter. My parents invited their neighbors ... actually neighbors who moved in next door to the family home around the time that I left for law school...to Easter brunch. They are Persian - don't call them Arab - and they told me that the Persians are historically Shi'ite because of the tie between nationalism and religion. Like the Polish or the Irish, the Persians embraced Islam in order to avoid the homogenizing tendency of the dominant culture. Interestingly, for the first time in twenty years, I learned that Mrs. E. was ethnically Georgian. Apparently, after the Communist Revolution, her grandfather moved to Persia and Islamicized. If you have read any history of the Byzantium Empire circa 700 to 1100 A.D., you will recognize that pattern as the norm of the Caucasian nobility, which regularly moved between the Great Powers of Persia and Rome, or Byzantium, or whomever, throughout history.

Fascinating.

Mullings has a nice essay today.

Free Speech, Anyone?

Kevin Holtsberry has a post on some Blogville reaction to Senator Santorum's statements on homosexuality. Apparently, certain groups are trying to "Trent Lott" Santorum for his statement. Here is the precis of the statement:

In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press two weeks ago, Santorum, R-Pa., said he believes homosexual acts are a threat to the American family. He drew criticism from gays and Democrats after parts of the interview - during which he compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery - were published Monday.

''I have no problem with homosexuality - I have a problem with homosexual acts, as I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships,'' Santorum said during an interview taped April 7 in his Senate office.

''And that includes a variety of different acts, not just homosexual,'' he said. ''I have nothing, absolutely nothing against anyone who's homosexual. If that's their orientation, then I accept that. And I have no problem with someone who has other orientations. The question is, do you act upon those orientations? So it's not the person, it's the person's actions. And you have to separate the person from their actions.''

Given a chance to clarify his comments before the story was published, Santorum said: ''I can't deny that I said it, and I can't deny that's how I feel.''

In other words, Santorum is being criticized for being a practicing Catholic. Santorum makes the same distinction between homosexuality as an orientation or condition and homosexuality as a practice or act that the Catholic Catechism makes. So, it appears that, once again, some groups are attempting to develop a de facto concensus that Catholics may not be elected to public office.

But, incidentally, why is Santorum wrong? What is the principle that allows us to divide homosexual acts from, say, incest? Does the argument that the constitutional right of privacy includes consensual sexual relations in the bedroom where the government should be barred not apply with equal force to consensual private activities between brother and sister (after the age of consent)? If the right of privacy means that members of the same sex should be allowed to marry because the state or society has no right to impose its value judgment on gays, why should the state or society be allowed to impose a value judgment on those who are genetically disposed to love more than one person at a time?

What precisely is the principle? Emotional disgust? But thirty years ago, homosexuality evinced the same reaction that pedophilia causes today. How can we be sure that our emotional reaction against pedophilia won't look naive thirty years from now?

Is the principle simply that the distinction between incest and homosexuality is obvious? But how common is incest? Is there really a need for laws against incest? Why do we care what brothers and sisters do after the age of consent? Do we really think that brothers and sisters will start pairing off when they get old enough to vote. That hasn't been my observation about the relationship between siblings. [Don't even attempt to argue that the offspring of incestuous union are prone to health risks and imbecility. That view is superstitious and unscientific, particularly in the short run. In the long run, inbreeding and cross-breeding are ways of establishing "hybrid vigor." So, if you want to stake your prejudice against incest on science, realize that you are relying on a week reed.]

Finally, if you read Griswold, which held that the nebulous right to privacy included the right to purchase contraceptives, you will see that the actual constitutional right - the actual right to privacy - is the right to privacy in the individual's decision to have children. There is a solid argument to made that the State should not have the practical ability to either breed its citizens, or to mandate that its citizens breed, or that they selectively not breed. These were real concerns at the time. The eugenic policies of the Third Reich were not that far in the past at the time of Griswold. Likewise, the Supreme Court had made its own unfortunate foray into eugenic policy in Buck v. Bell where Justice Holmes had declared that "three generations of imbeciles are enough." In that historical light, Griswold made some kind of sense.

Roe, therefore, follows in the same line by protecting the "privacy" in making decision about reproduction. I may have been the only person not surprised by the prior sodomy decision, but I wasn't. Sodomy - homosexual practices - have nothing to do with reproduction and therefore don't fall into the Griswold line.

[By the way, I'm not making up any of this constitutional exegesis. It's all in the cases. Go read them.]

"Privacy" is an unfortunate term. "Privacy" would seem to implicate what one does in the bedroom. But that wasn't what the Supreme Court has meant by "privacy" in the past. Like I said, under prior case law, "privacy" meant "autonomy in decision-making," not "the right to do anything with your genitals that want to do so long as you do it in your own bedroom."

My prediction is that the Supreme Court has taken up the Texas case to knock-down sodomy laws. All things remaining the same - in a straight line projection of normal legal development - I think that decision will result in decision in the next twenty years constitutionalizing polygamy and striking down incest laws will follow. I suspect that there is a sufficient distinction concerning pedophilia to keep those laws intact, until someone start nicking at the age of consent, probably with scientific studies showing that children are really more mature than was previously believed. Does that sound incredible? Well, consider this, wouldn't it have seemed incredible twenty years ago that the Boy Scouts would be denied public accommodations because they refuse to allow homosexual scoutmasters? And we - members of the elite policy-making "new class" - think that development is unexceptional.

Check back in a decade and I wil say I told you so.

Update: That was faster than I thought. Here is an excerpt from The Volokh Conspiracy which theoretically justifies the decriminalization of bestiality:

Nonetheless, this is a distinctly secondary concern. Bans on bestiality are not, I think, justified, but neither are they tremendously oppressive. Bans on a form of behavior that is vitally important to many people's most important relationships -- that is as important to them, in fact, as heterosexual behavior is important to the human relationships in which we heterosexuals engage -- are indeed tremendously oppressive. Even someone who tolerates modest burdens on liberty should reject burdens that are as grave as this.

There is nothing wrong with this line of thought as a theoretical construct. There may, in fact, be nothing wrong with the application of this theoretical construct to human action. Is there a real risk that rampant "goat-love" willl break out? Probably not. And if the focus of constitutional jurisprudence is a utilitarian analysis of the individual's self-fulfillment, then the conclusion may be mandatory.

There are, I submit, several problems here. First, recent jurisprudence to the contrary notwithstanding, just as the Constitution does not enshrine "Mr. Spencer's social statics," it doesn't enshrine Benthamite utilitarianism or Millsian utilo-romanticism (romantic utilitarianism?) Nowhere does the Constitution say that legislative branch must enact legislative programs from the standpoint of whether a particular individual's happiness is concrete or that his neighbor's discomfort is mere comstockery. Pretty much, outside of narrowly defined constitutional interests, the legislative branch has broad discretion to make such value decisions.

Second, individual preferences can result in substantial social dysfunction because individuals can be quite irrational. As much as I want to believe in the beneficence of the "individual hand" as a libertarian fellow-traveler, it is not the case that the sum of felicitious individual decisions is felicitious social utility. An interesting book on this subject is Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony by Robert B. Edgerton which describes how various social perceptions would result in tribes starving because they could not fish in a specific lake because of taboos. [Edgerton's book is a nice counterpoint to Marvin Harris' anthropological works that find the rationality behind various irrational taboos and, for that matter, Posner's book on law and economic which does the same thing for the common law.] Imagine, if you will, a society composed of individually satisfied bestialists. Would we believe that the maximizaiton of their separate individual utilities offset the broader social dysfunction in their society? [By which I mean, there would be happy contented man-goat relationships, but no children.]

Finally, what is the cost of constitutionalizing the value judgment that individual sexual self-fulfillment is the sine qua non of the legal order. We may think that today, but what if we're wrong? As Justice Scalia noted, however misguided our ignorant ancestors were, at least they bequeathed the opportunity to correct their mistakes. How certain are we that our descendants will share our value judgments?

If history offers any perspective, I submit that we should be extremely skeptical that they will.

This is timely. My partner - not the sensible Canadian, the other one - was just giving me the horse laugh about "organizing a scavenger hunt" to look for "weapons of mass destruction" because Rumsfield had admitted that "we weren't going to find any." I said that that didn't make any sense what with an Iraqi scientist pointing out sites which had housed WMD. Man Without Qualities explains that my partner's urban legend is coming out of Rumsfield statement that he didn't expect US troops to find WMDs, he expected that the the Iraqis would point out the sites.

Personal note. Blogging was light because I was in Los Angeles for depostions last week. I had kind of an epiphany. You see, I hate LA. I hate the traffic. I hate the traffic jams. I hate not knowing whether I will get where I expect to be when I expect to be there or whether I will be stuck in traffic for an interminable length of time for no apparent reason. I hate the "muscle memory" of the freeways.

Coming into LA on Wednesday night is a case in point. I arrived south of Castaic at about 9:30 p.m., when the flow of traffic went from 70 mph to a craw. After threading my way for an hour and about 5 miles, I went past a couple of flares and was up to 70 mph in a matter of seconds. Obviously, there had been an accident there several hours before and the traffic was still reacting to the obstruction like a python trying to clear an orange from its digestive track.

So, then I was talking to the LA attorney who we are working with. He had to go from from downtown to Simi Valley, which is a distance of about 15 to 20 miles. I asked him how long the trip would take at 4:30 p.m. He said, "not bad...about an hour." An hour to go 20 miles. Heck, I expect to be north of Merced in an hour. Then I realized that the problem was my expection. An hours to go 20 miles is not bad if that's what you're used to. I guess I just need to rethink my attitude about LA. I need to lower my expectations. LA's not that bad; it just takes three times as long to get anywhere.

In my humble estimation, this deserves circulation. Penner brought my attention to this Cold Fury post on Hillary Clinton's fabrication of telephone records, which her staff provided to Stephen Brill in what appears to be a petty attempt to pad her resume relative to New York's Senior Senator. As is the case with most such fabrications, a cursory investigation proved it to be fraudulent. [Also, note from the article how reports of Chelsea's location on 9/11 moved progressively closer to the World Trade Center with every report that Schumer's child was actually within five blocks of ground zero.]

It is endlessly amazing to me that people never change. I see it in my job all the time. I have noticed that con-men never change their con. The con stays the same; it just gets bigger and more complicated. It seems that personalities get formed early and they get formed permanently. You can easily imagine a sixteen year old Hillary padding her resume with imaginary accomplishments in her college applications. Probably her entire career has had similar recurrences of petty fabrication and evasions. It's really pathetic.

Catholic and Enjoying It! is back in business. Which is fortuitously timed since my Lenten deprivation was reading CAEI. [Also, William Sulik should be back in operation after his Lenten break.]

Instapundit hooks into an article on Burt Rutan's bid for the "X Prize." Here is Rand Simberg's links on the same subject.

When I was representing Scaled Composites and the Rutan Brothers - Home Town alert: they are both originally from Fresno - I visited the Scaled Composite place of business in Mojave a couple of times. I remember thinking that Burt and his crew had every twelve year old boys dream - they got to build model airplanes and fly them. They are actually a pretty goofy crew. I remember when my firm was representing them they were working on a low altitude, low speed, ground troop support aircraft for the Marines. I guess it didn't make it into production, but it was a fairly small plane - I think it was canard style - with a cannon mounted on one side of the fuselage. They loved telling stories of buzzing Mojave businesses with this really neat plane and just wanted some ammo for the cannon.

I hope Burt wins the prize. Actually, I hope anyone does.

The Command Post has been a redesigned.