DON’T MISS THIS DAVE BARRY COLUMN on Flight 93. Excerpt:

We know that the plane went down before it reached its target – that the hijackers failed to strike a national symbol, a populated area. They failed.

And we know that the people on the plane fought back. On a random day, on a random flight, they found themselves – unwarned, unprepared, unarmed – on the front lines of a vicious new kind of war. And somehow, in the few confusing and terrifying minutes they had, they transformed themselves from people on a plane into soldiers, and they fought back. And that made them heroes, immediately and forever, to a wounded, angry nation, a nation that desperately wanted to fight back.

This excerpt doesn’t even begin to do justice to a long and sensitive column. Read it all.

UPDATE: According to the BBC, Al Qaeda sources say that Flight 93 was headed for the Capitol building.

JEFF JARVIS SAYS THAT CALIFORNIA JUST DOESN’T GET IT. I’m not so sure about that — Welch and Layne are Californians, after all.

NO MORE MR. NICE GUY? Not exactly, but. . . . UPI columnist Martin Walker writes that the United States response to the 9/11 attacks hasn’t been what the Arab world expected:

This paradox may be seen in the jeering response to America’s first black secretary of state at last week’s global summit in Johannesburg. It was on display in last week’s meeting at the Arab League of foreign ministers whose regimes often rely on American support, and can constantly be encountered in the opinion pages of liberal European newspapers that should know better. And all of them seem to assume that America will continue to sit back and take it, like the good global citizen that America has tried to be in the last 60 years of defeating Fascism, Nazism, Communism and helping spread more wealth and more freedom to more people in more places than ever in human history.

They are wrong. The real effect of Sept. 11 is that American patience and tolerance for its global critics, most of whom do rather well out of America’s benign hegemony, seems just about exhausted. And however it was that Osama bin Laden expected what he has called “the American Empire” to react to his murderous assault, if indeed he thought that far ahead, he seems not to have calculated that America might react by tearing up the old rule book of international affairs. . . .

“When the Europeans demand some sort of veto over American actions, or want us to subordinate our national interest to a UN mandate, they forget that we do not think their track record is too good,” a senior U.S. diplomat said recently in private. “The Europeans told us they could win the Balkans wars all on their own. Wrong. They told us that the Russians would never accept National Missile Defense. Wrong. They said the Russians would never swallow NATO enlargement. Wrong. They told us 20 years ago that détente was the way to deal with what we foolishly called the Evil Empire. Wrong again. They complain about our Farm Bill when they are the world’s biggest subsidizers of their agriculture. The Europeans are not just wrong; they are also hypocrites. They are wrong on Kyoto, wrong on Arafat, wrong on Iraq — so why should we take seriously a single word they say?”

If the Europeans are in for a rude awakening as America takes its own decisions over the War on Terrorism and dealing with President Bush’s “axis of evil,” then the Arab world is in for an even deeper shock.

Read the whole thing. (Via JunkYard Blog).

THE INDEPUNDIT HAS POSTED the final installment of his series on Saddam. Don’t miss it.

THE BRITISH STILL HAVE US BEAT ON STYLE. An aircraft carrier with its own Jaguar for port calls?

I GOT A LOT OF MAIL on Sweden this weekend, but it was nothing to compare in vitriol with the reaction to my linkage of an interview with Nick Cook in The Atlantic Monthly, in which he talks about antigravity, reactionless propulsion, and allegedly secret government programs. I thought I expressed my skepticism pretty clearly (i.e., when I said “I’m skeptical”) but I got scads of nasty letters from outraged scientists, several of whom urged that I retract the link. Uh, yeah. Retract the link. You know that article that’s over there? It’s not. Well, it is, but. . . . Anyway, that’s just stupid. But I make a point of linking to people who point out errors, etc., and in that spirit, here’s a link to a piece by Robert Park saying that Cook is all wrong.

From this mail and various other complaints I’ve gotten from time to time, it seems to me that people read way too much into a link. If (as I did) I link to Richard Marius’s novel and say it’s great, then that means, yeah, I’ve read it and I think it’s great. But if I link to something and say: “this is interesting,” or “I’m skeptical,” or even “this seems right to me,” it conveys precisely that, and no more. I haven’t spent hours fact-checking the item. I don’t knowingly link to stuff that seems wrong to me without expressing my skepticism (like by saying, you know, that I’m skeptical), and in the case of a not-obviously-authentic link that says something bad about someone (like the mirrored article on Scott Ritter below) I’ll try to double check it to be sure it’s authentic, but I don’t spend hours fact-checking everything I link to. If I did, I’d link one thing a day, or just give up blogging and go back to having a life. Links are directions. They don’t come with warranties. And you’re supposed to be smart enough to decide for yourself about things: if you’re taking my link to an interview about antigravity as a command to believe whatever the interviewee says, well, then you really shouldn’t be reading things on the Web at all. Or off it.

I also notice that a lot of people who complain about links don’t say that the thing I linked to is false, exactly, but essentially say that if I agreed with them about some other underlying issue I’d view it differently. Uh, okay, but that doesn’t constitute negligence or dishonesty on my part — just a different set of preconceptions. It’s a blog — my blog, actually — and you get to see things through my viewpoint. If you don’t like this particular brand of free ice cream, there are plenty of others out there, and some of them at any given moment are moaning loudly that no one pays attention to them. But that’s a topic for another post.

UPDATE: I should have linked to this statement by Ginger Stampley, which states my views pretty well. Excerpts:

Purpose: . . . The blog is primarily a forum for my opinions. I do not guarantee that anything you read here will be pleasing to any reader or in agreement with anyone else’s views, including my husband’s or my mother’s. Or yours.

Posts: I edit myself for grammar, spelling, and clarity at my sole discretion without notice. I try to update and acknowledge factual corrections, but am under no obligation to do so. . . .

If I didn’t enjoy having readers and comments and mail, I wouldn’t have comments or an email address. On the other hand, I don’t feel obliged to supply a forum to rude, annoying twits simply because I have a weblog and a web site.

Read the whole thing.

TONY ADRAGNA is observing Scott Ritter closely, and he doesn’t like what he sees.

JUAN GATO looks at what’s hot or not in the “International Community.”

BIG FAT SWEDISH WRAP-UP: That sounds like something that would be on special at IHOP, perhaps with some lingonberry butter on top for “authentic” ethnic flavor. But I’m going to try to hit the high points of a discussion that has generated a lot more interest than I had expected, though mine — and no doubt that of most readers — is beginning to flag.. (You can also enter “Sweden” in the search window on the left if you like and follow all the links. Warning: there are a lot.).

It started with my response to Eric Alterman, who held out Sweden as a “beacon of light” that we should emulate. I noted Sweden’s behavior during and after World War II, which doesn’t live up to the moralistic standard it pretends to set, and to studies (which I had previously linked to) saying that Sweden has more crime than America and is less wealthy than Mississippi. (The wealth study was from a Swedish business group, the crime from the International Crime Victimization Survey, a U.N.-sponsored study described as “the most far-reaching programme of fully standardised sample surveys looking at householders’ experience of crime in different countries.” You can criticize such studies, though the flaws in such comparisons work both ways, and I didn’t notice people raising these issues in the past when they criticized U.S. crime rates in comparison with those of Europe. It’s not as if I conducted the ICVS just to embarrass Sweden, as you might almost think from reading a few of the responses.)

Naturally, defenders of Sweden emerged from the left side of the blogosphere, criticizing the studies. These criticisms were summarized in Eric Alterman’s Friday blog, which I linked and responded to here. Alterman proposed the Netherlands as an alternative “beacon of light,” which suits me fine in light of the Dutch support for invading Iraq, which coupled with legalized drugs and prostitution makes them look pretty good to me. All they need is shall-issue carry laws and I’m there. The beer’s even good, and they like techno. (Stephen Green thinks I’m “too gracious” on this point.)

The Cranky Hermit writes that rising Swedish disability rates, which he reports as one out of six working-age Swedes, suggest that either Sweden’s economy or its health-care system is not performing as advertised. We also noted that Sweden’s birth rate is sufficiently low that its population is below natural replacement, with deaths exceeding births, alarming the government to the point that one legislator is suggesting porn broadcasts on the weekends to encourage people to have sex, which apparently they’re not doing enough, thus exploding one of my most cherished illusions about life in Sweden. Several readers also wrote about Sweden’s eugenics program, which led to the sterilization of tens of thousands of women deemed defective, as late as the mid-1970s.

Though some lefty bloggers (e.g., Max Sawicky) seem somehow to think that I demonstrated bad faith by even raising these issues, Swedish readers pointed out that with the upcoming Swedish elections, they are hot topics in Swedish newspapers. Nussdorf provided a nice summary of a recent newspaper debate on the issue, in which various Swedes raised the same points.

At any rate, here’s how I read the “beacon of light” score: (1) collaboration with the Nazis, basically unchallenged — Sawicky makes a weak tu quoque argument tiredly invoking Somoza, et al., but that’s about it; (2) crime worse than U.S. — studies challenged, but only on picayune technical grounds; (3) poorer than Mississippi — some credible arguments that Sweden is richer than Mississippi, but no credible claim that it’s economically better than the United States, and a strong case that it’s poorer than Alabama, anyway. Extra points off for the disability, sex-shortage, and mass sterilization issues.

“Beacon of light?” Not in my book. But it all depends on what you mean by “light,” I suppose. If you’re willing to sacrifice a lot of national income in the name of reducing poverty rates by half, then Sweden is the way to go. I don’t hear the reduced-income angle played up much by those who see Sweden as a beacon, though.

UPDATE: Megan McArdle has updated her post on the Swedish economy.

DANIEL TAYLOR has some reflections on blogging and convalescence.

SAMIZDATA HAS A PHOTOGRAPH illustrating the root causes of American anger.

NICK DENTON writes that the problem with the U.S. press isn’t bias, but lack of competition resulting in “hidebound gerontocracies.”

DON’T FORGET TO READ PUNDITWATCH!

JENNIE TALIAFERRO says they love Texas in Britain, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

DON’T MISS Mike Hendrix on New York, and be sure to follow the photo links.

TONY ADRAGNA WONDERS what the hell is wrong with Scott Ritter? I’ve gotten a lot of email from people telling me Ritter was paid off by the Iraqis, but nobody seems to have a solid source on it, and I couldn’t find one when I looked.

UPDATE: Balaji Srinivasan sends this link with more information on Ritter. Excerpt:

Ritter doesn’t entirely disagree. Though he claims the film is an attempt to be “objective” about the situation in Iraq, he predicted before its completion, “the U.S. will definitely not like this film.”

He acknowledges, as well, that the U.S. government doesn’t like how the film was financed. Shakir al-Khafaji, an Iraqi-American real estate developer living in Michigan, kicked in $400,000. By Ritter’s own admission, al-Khafaji is “openly sympathetic with the regime in Baghdad.” Al-Khafaji, who accompanied Ritter as he filmed the documentary and facilitated many of the meetings, travels to and from Iraq regularly in his capacity as chairman of “Iraqi expatriate conferences.” Those conferences, held in Baghdad every two years, are sponsored and subsidized by Saddam Hussein.

The conferences are little more than propaganda shows, designed to bash the United States and demonstrate to the world that Hussein has support even among Iraq’s expatriate community. The official conference website posts several articles condemning U.S. “terrorism and genocide” against Iraq.

Ritter says al-Khafaji had no editorial input on the film project but that without his help, the movie would not have been made. “I tried to get independent sources to fund the movie,” he says. “People can talk about the funding all they want. If I’d been able to be bought–from ’95 to ’98 the CIA paid me. Did I do their bidding?”

Hmm. What did Ritter’s positions on Iraq look like from 1995-98? Reader Steven White sends this link to a mirror of a Washington Post story that also says Ritter got $400,000 from Iraqi-born American Shakir Alkafajii to make a documentary. I’m not sure I’d call that being paid off by the Iraqis, exactly, though the Standard’s description makes it look worse. I checked the story via Westlaw and it’s genuine. I also found this NPR transcript involving Colum Lynch, the author:

Mr. LYNCH: Well, let’s talk about the Iraqi businessman. That’s sort of an interesting point. This is a fellow that he met at a congressional hearing that was put on a few months back by Representative John Conyers. And Scott Ritter will, you know, admit to you that this gentleman, Shokeroff Alka Fauki(ph), has interest in developing good relationships with the Iraqi government. I mean, he already has relationships, he already has contacts, but he wants to be

able to profit off of business with Iraq once the sanctions are lifted. He has sort of an economic interest in changing US policy.

And Scott Ritter’s position is, ‘That’s fine. That’s his position. He can do whatever he wants, but I’m my own man. As far as I’m concerned, I have total independence on the positions taken in this documentary. We needed money and this is the only place it came from.’

In terms of inadvertently supporting the Iraqi government’s sort of conflict with the United States, he seems to take the position that, ‘Listen, I’m the truth teller. I’m going to go in there and I’m going to lay this dispute out in very clear terms and I’m going to leave it to the outside world to decide what to do.’

So there you are. I’m very surprised I didn’t find the Post story when I tried to look for this a few weeks ago, because it has the search terms I plugged into Google, and it certainly didn’t show up. I should have tried Westlaw then, but I don’t like to search things I can’t link to. See this Jay Caruso post, too. Oh, and Charles Johnson has a lot of interesting reader comments.

MORE ON THE SWEDISH ECONOMY: I’m going to try to do a sum-up post later, but Megan McArdle says that Swedes are worse off than they’re pretending.

UPDATE: More from a Swedish reader:

Hi again, Glenn,

I mistakenly excluded missed one sentence in the translation of the article, which is why McArtle might have misunderstood. It goes as follows, and should
explain the “gem” that she included in her article:

“Average US income, not median this time around, in 1997 and distributed along income groups (adjusted to 1998-dollars) :

The 1% in the top: $869 000, The following 59%: $64 000, The remaining 40% $13 700.”

Then comes the conclusion (the “gem”) that I translated:

“Conclusion: 40% of the population earns just 1% of what the remaining 60% is earning! No wonder the median income is high. This is why, the author argues,
it’s not correct to say that the poorest segments in Sweden have lost out compared to their American counterparts.”

Sorry for that mishap.

Best regards

ZACH BARBERA has found something interesting on a website operated by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Basically, it’s a call for removing Saddam, circa 1998.

OH, THIS really gives me confidence on Homeland Security efforts:

W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 6 — The government mistakenly gave alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui classified documents related to al Qaeda, ABCNEWS has learned.

The material — both on disk and as hard copy documents — was sent to Moussaoui as part of discovery for his legal defense, said several legal sources, including one at the Justice Department. . . . It is not clear if all the classified material has been retrieved.

And yet, no one will be fired. Will they?

AIRBRUSH AWARD: Check out Eugene Volokh’s report on how VH1 turned post 9/11 boos aimed at Hillary Clinton into cheers. Volokh asks: “I suppose one shouldn’t expect great history from VH1, but isn’t there still some expectation of accuracy when someone distributes what purports to be a DVD of an actual concert? Or has the whole music business become Milli-Vanilli-ified?” Pretty much, I think.

UPDATE: Andrew Stuttaford notes, “This is something to remember the next time you hear about the ‘suppression of dissent’ post-9/11.”

STUART BUCK ANSWERS A QUESTION asked by the editors of the New York Times. I don’t think it’s the answer they wanted.

THE BRITISH BLOGGER BASH last night featured gorgeous women and lots of booze. But, naturally, they were talking about InstaPundit and the Swedish economy. Ben Sheriff sends these observations gleaned from conversation:

Glenn, one of the outcomes from the British Blogger’s Bash was this thought on relative poverty measures. If you still care about Sweden, then the EU defining most of their population as being poor is probably a cause for concern.

“One of the factoids that has been raised is that the US median income is $40,000, relative to $27,000 in Sweden. Some of his antagonists have been trying to shift the debate from income levels to poverty rates. So, let’s take them at their word.

The EU apparently; defines poverty in relative terms as “50% of the median income. (The median comes half-way up the income distribution).” So, the US poverty line, on this definition, is $20,000. Or, 187,300 Swedish Kroner (per the Universal Currency Converter).

The most recent (maybe), and easy to find (says google), graphing of the Swedish income distribution is the first graph on this PDF document

As you can see, plenty of Swedes earn over 187,300. Admittedly, these numbers are from 1998, but out of date stats are a perennial irritant in this kind of thing. Let’s just wave that away. Because the interesting thing is that there are huge numbers of Swedes who, if they lived in the US, would be defined by the EU as living in poverty.

Looking at the graphs, I’d say that 60-70% of Swedish women are poor Americans, and that about 40-50% of Swedish men are. The graph doesn’t carry the information cleanly enough for a straight comparison, but I think Sweden should be concerned…

Of course, this mostly shows up the flaws in relative measures of poverty. The counter-example I thought up last night at the Blogger Bash was that of Bill Gates – what happens to a countries poverty level if Bill Gates moves there?

If you use median incomes, not much. But if you use some measure based around a mean, quite odd things happen. According the Bill Gates Net Worth Page, Bill has “earnt” $1.79 billion per year since 1986.

Lichtenstein has a population of 32,000 and a GDP (in purchasing power parity) of $713m. If Bill moves to Lichtenstein, GDP per capita goes from $22,281 to $78,219. In other words, the vast majority of the Lichtenstein population will now be poor on a measure such as “a third mean income” or some such.

Of course, this is a small country. But anywhere with a population of one million and a GDP per head of $1,789 or less will get you the same results (in those countries, GDP per head will more than double). The lesson? Get Bill Gates to leave your country before he does any more harm. What advantages could there be to having him there?”

Chortle. I’m just amazed that he could concentrate on this kind of stuff in the presence of the lovely Claire Berlinski, especially as she appears to have been wearing a see-through blouse.

UPDATE: Ms. Berlinski emails: “The garment in question was neither a blouse nor transparent. Tight, I will concede.”

MORE ON DUTCH SUPPORT FOR THE WAR: Here’s a link to an article confirming what I posted last week. Reader Michiel Remers provides this summary:

Article suggests that new minister wrote a letter to parliament outlining his position, (parliament subsequently supported his position following a debate called by the left). Position is that route through UN would be preferred, but not a strict necessity, as would support US and UK on action vs Iraq.

The Netherlands: A beacon of light to the world.

MARY ROBINSON IS LEAVING, but she’s managed to say a few more typically dumb things. Misha has a response.

UPDATE: Charles Martel won’t miss her either.

LITTLE CHANGE IN A SYSTEM THAT FAILED: That’s the New York Times’ assessment of the FBI, CIA and other counterterror bureaucracies over the past year. It seems right to me.

I’ve said it before, but I don’t understand why the Democrats haven’t made an issue of this, since by attacking this issue they’d (1) be providing a needed critique; and (2) be saying something that everyone knows is true. I can only conclude that attacking bureaucracies is just too alien to their nature, or too offensive to key constituencies.

As Ken Layne points out:

An interesting hobby is watching where the intelligent dissent is coming from, because it’s mostly coming from the right side of the spectrum. While the far left stays on the steady path it marked on … oh, about Sept. 12, the neo-conservatives and moderates and even old-school GOP mouthpieces have carried on detailed inquiry into the stuff we’re all worried about. Are planes any safer? What the hell was that “TIPS” nonsense? We’re still handing out visas through Saudi travel agencies? That goddamned Saudi prince is lounging at the president’s house and we’re supposed to buy this “axis of evil” gibberish? Can you people get your story straight about Atta’s trip to Prague?

This seems mostly right. But it’s also kind of odd.

UPDATE: Here are my thoughts on the issue from a Homeland Security perspective.

MATT WELCH, writing in the National Post, surveys the crushing of dissent in America post 9/11.

STILL MORE ON SWEDEN: A Swedish reader informs me that the position of Sweden vis a vis the United States has occupied not only the Blogosphere, but the Swedish press. He sends a precis of the debate:

Congratulations to your interesting weblog community.

Today, with four days to go until the Swedish parliamentary elections on September 15, I’d like to contribute to the recent debate about the Swedish Economy versus the American one. I will do this, not by stating my own layman opinion, but rather referring you to three Swedish articles written about this in the biggest Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

The 1st article, which initiated this debate, and was written by two critical researchers at a Swedish Trade Research Institute, is called “Swedes are Poorer than Blacks in the US”. A 2nd article wished to debunk the first one with a couple of counter-arguments: “Impossible Comparison Sweden-USA” and the third one takes a position between the two: “When Differences Become Apparent”.

Arguments, methods and conclusions of the study in the 1st article:

- It is the gross median income (money income before taxes), excluding capital income in the two countries that have been compared in order to avoid comparison of differences in government and welfare services. It does however include gross welfare payments from the government.

- Median income US: approx $40,000; Sw: $27,000. GDP/capita US: $31,000; Sw: $22,000

- Private consumption US: $20,000; Sw:$11,000 (explained by the fact that school/medicare payed privately in the US)

- Average Retail Sales is twice as big in the US than in Sweden, meaning an American can buy two pair of pants when a Swede can buy one pair.

- A low economic growth rate has caused Sweden to lose wealth when compared to the US

- The median (not average) American household, has a yearly income before taxes which is 50% higher than the Swedish one. The median Black household in the US is better off than the median Swedish one

- If Sweden had been an American state, we would have been the poorest one, together with Hispanics and Blacks, and there would have been a debate about the “Swedish Problem”

- In the US, the biggest income is earned by ‘Asians’ and second by ‘Whites and non-Hispanics’. The poorest are the ‘Blacks’. The Swedish median income is lower than that of all those groups.

- Between 1993-1999, income increased for all US groups by 15%, but mostly for Blacks (25%). In Sweden, the median income has remained almost unchanged during that period.

- While the income of the richest 20% segment of the US population have risen the most (30%) and widened the income differences between rich and poor, the most humble segment of Americans has seen its income increased as well. The poorest households in Sweden increased their income by merely 6% during those years, which is 12 percentage points less than for the poorest in the US. Swedish middle and high income households had an increase of between 12 and 20%.

- Low growth rate has a devastating effect on all segments of the population. If Swedish income had developed at the same rate as American income, Swedes would have an additional $1,500 gross income on a yearly basis.

- Politicians need to focus on growth stimulation, which would in turn authorize a positive income development for the Swedish population from all income segments.

The second article tries to debunk these findings using American studies and statistics:

- Yes, the median income in the US is bigger than the Swedish one, but so is the cost of life in America, as well as the differences of income between large segments of the population

- Median income says nothing about working conditions, living conditions or the quality of the Medicare system, and nothing about the economic development of the country.

- The “differences in government and welfare services” are precisely the factors which the above studies failed to take into account. If you live in a country earning $100,000, but paying $99,000 in rent and health insurance, are you really better off than in Sweden?

Cost of life in America is way higher than in Sweden. The smallest apartment costs $500-600/month.

- In order to live decently in the US for a family of one adult and two children, an income of $30,000/year is needed, to be able to pay for medicare and health insurance. Most Americans work in service or restauration industries, where salaries are $22,900 on average. 47 million households in America earn less than $35,000. Percentage of poor: 26,1% of Blacks, 25,6% of Hispanics and 10,5% of Whites.

- Median income fails to explain the quality of the living conditions. 5,4 million Americans live in squalor conditions. Government subsidized apartments are scarce (36 available for every 100 needed). Average working time was 40 hours/week, 52 week/year! (In Sweden, you are intitled to 5 weeks of vacation).

Minimum wages in the US are $1,000/month and many poor need two jobs to survive.

- 31 million Americans, including 12 million children don’t have access to sufficient or healthy food. 8 out of 1000 children die preliminary deaths excluding the child birth death rate). Among Blacks, the percentage is 15.8 out of a 1000. In Sweden, only 1 child out of 1000 die under those circumstances.

- 40% of American families say they would only be able to sustain for 3 days in case they suddenly lost their job or got sick for a long (and expensive) time, before their money runs out.

- In 1999, a sixth of the population (43 million) did not have health insurance, which is up from 32 million ten years earlier.

- Net Capital Wealth (money on bank + stock + retirement pension + apartment / house minus debts) compensated for inflation decreased in the US from $54,600 in 1989 to $49,900 in 1997.

- Net Capital Wealth per Race in 1998 in the US: Whites $81,700, Blacks $10,000, Hispanics $3,000. If you exclude capital in real estate house/apartment) you get: Whites $37,600; Blacks $1,200; Hispanics $0.

- Conclusion: 40% of the population earns just 1% of what the remaining 60% is earning! No wonder the median income is high. This is why, the author argues, it’s not correct to say that the poorest segments in Sweden have lost out compared to their American counterparts.

- It is true to say that the American income has increased, but a huge portion of the population in the US is living under conditions which couldn’t possible serve as an ideal for most Swedes. And the Americans are paying for it with their health and spare time.

The third article (editorial) argues:

- A shortage of growth can be catastrophical to the Swedish economy.

- The normal Swedish family earns less than the normal American family in the traditionally ethnically Swedish parts of America, which should be food for thought

- Sweden is a rich country (GDP/capita higher than the UK or France), but Sweden should radically lower taxes, reform and liberalize the labour market and promote growth.

- Sweden doesn’t have to become like America but we should try to promote and emulate the kind of dynamic that exists there, which allows people to change “classes” rapidly, through hard work, and which allows regions to attract investment.

- There ARE reasons to why the American dream motivates people around the world alot more than does the Swedish or European models. It’s only our own myths and misconceptions that prevent us from taking impression of our neighbour across the pond.

I personally tend to agree with the third article. I hope these summaries could share some light to this debate of some interest to both Swedes and Americans, and if you like, you may post it on your excellent weblog. The links (in Swedish) are merely given as reference for any Swedish-speaking readers you might have.

Best regards,

“The Viking” /

Swedish national living elsewhere in Europe (but not because of any problems with the Swedish tax authorities…)

Thanks very much. Whether the Blogosphere will (or will even care to) go beyond the degree of debate that’s going on in Sweden is unclear. But this certainly makes clear that that, far from being mere anti-Swedish carping, the issues that have been raised about Sweden’s economy in the Blogosphere are genuine, since they’re obviously of vital interest to the Swedish electorate.

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Hurst writes:

I am sceptical of the notion that the cost-of-living is higher in US as a whole than Sweden. I rather think that it is the opposite. If I am reading the attached OECD figures correctly (it is late and I am in a hurry), they list the Swedish price level as HIGHER than US (by a ratio of 105 to 100). That fits what I would expect. Most of the arguments of the “pro-Sweden” article point back to the dubious fact that it costs more to live in US. Most of the rest of the points you list are either false or misleading. For instance, very few poor head-of-households earn the minimum wage. Even McDonalds gives people raises after you’ve been there for 6-months. Very few people in the US who work full-time are poor! Also, they significantly overestimate US outlays for rent and health insurance. I would like to know what figures they are using.

I don’t open attachments, so I wasn’t able to read Kevin’s figures. I’ll see if I can get a link. But from what I know about comparative cost-of-living in Sweden vs. the United States (back when I practiced law, my Swedish clients regarded D.C. as cheaper than Stockholm) I would expect to find Sweden somewhat more expensive than America.

UPDATE: Here’s the link. Thanks, Kevin.

JOURNALISTS WHO CAN’T USE A DICTIONARY: Pulp Commentary says that Roland Watson and Chris Caldwell prove that they don’t know what they’re doing by doubting the existence of “crawfishing” as a verb. And he’s got links. It’s a lexicographical Fisking.

MARK KLEIMAN thinks the U.S. / Swedish crime comparisons make Sweden look worse than it really is.

Well, you can argue about this stuff, and cross-border crime comparisons are always iffy, but I think the sources I linked to look pretty good — and they’re certainly not from sources with a vested interest in boosting the U.S.A.

In an email, Kleiman notes that his analysis doesn’t demonstrate that Sweden is a “light unto the gentiles.” I keep waiting for that demonstration, but what I keep getting are arguments that it’s not as bad, compared to Mississippi, as I said.

THE PATRIOT ACT ACTUALLY PROTECTS PRIVACY MORE than preexisting law, argues George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr. He’s got a law review article (which I haven’t yet read) but the link is to a story in the New York Times. I think it’s fair to describe this as a “contrarian” view.

TO MY SURPRISE, my local paper has been running these Mallard Fillmore cartoons on the editorial page next to Doonesbury.

HENRY HANKS says that TAPPED is spinning the NEA story itself.

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY has an interview with Nick Cook, author of a recent book on antigravity. Cook, who isn’t a nut, thinks that there’s real progress on antigravity and reactionless thrusters in the classified “black” research world. I’m skeptical, but I hope he’s right.

MORE EURO-DOUBLE-STANDARDIZATION:

We may even have to thank France for helping to ease the tensions. America’s oldest ally has come to the rescue — however inadvertently. Though it had kept it a secret, the French government had much the same objection to the court as the American government — that its peacekeepers could be hauled before the court.

As the European nations met last Friday to discuss their common position at the EU meeting — for the EU is supposed to have a common foreign and defense policy these days — it was revealed, much to the surprise of other EU members, that the French government had secretly negotiated a seven-year exemption for its own peacekeepers back in 1998.

“I was somewhat surprised that France, despite signing the ICC, had been granted this exemption,” noted Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh. Interestingly, demanding exceptions is exactly what Europeans have attacked the Americans for doing.

I guess I should be surprised, but I’m not.

MISHA IS JEALOUS of Michael Ledeen. Well, sure.

DAVID TELL has a sum-up of the Hatfill affair.

THIS ARTICLE IN EDITOR AND PUBLISHER asks “Why do they hate us?” — the press, that is:

The newest polls about the press are discouraging enough to make even H.L. Mencken weep. The public, which had admired us in the months after Sept. 11, has turned against us again. Nearly half those responding in the most recent Pew Research Center poll seem to think that we “don’t stand up for America,” and a majority believe we “don’t care about the people we report on.” Generally, polling numbers have gone back to pre-9/11 levels.

And why could this be? Here’s a clue:

The public loved us most in November, when flags rippled on the corners of TV screens and from on-camera lapels.

Then the story seems to drift into a discussion of how the public doesn’t like the press to ask “tough questions.” But I think that misses the point. The public doesn’t like the press asking dumb-but-slanted questions and pretending that they’re tough questions. Adversarialism for the sake of adversarialism, Reuters-style moral equivalence or bias, and petty kvetching give people the sense that the press sees itself as apart from, and somehow better than, the society that it is in fact a part of, and that readers and viewers are a part of. And people don’t like that. Go figure.

My advice to those who read this article and want to know how to improve the press’s image: read a lot of weblogs. Because webloggers don’t hate the press as such. Heck, if we did, we’d spend our time watching The Simpsons on DVD (I’ve got seasons 1 & 2!).

But you become a weblogger because, fundamentally, you think the press is important, and you love what it does enough to hate to see sloppy and biased work — which unfortunately, you see a lot of even in the elite media. And, yes, people besides webloggers and media watchdogs notice that . Everyone notices it. Maybe when I was a kid people were too unsophisticated to pick up on media bias — or maybe they just lacked the right vocabulary to talk about it — but everyone’s a media critic now. Yet, fundamentally, the big media are still playing double-A ball, in front of major league umpires.

Where the article is dead-on is in recognizing that press freedom is threatened when the public doesn’t respect the press. But here’s a message to journalists: the public doesn’t disrespect you because you’re “too tough” and raise troubling questions they don’t want to think about. The public disrespects you because you are, far too often, sloppy, superficial, and biased. You want more respect, do something about that.

UPDATE: Justin Katz has some similar observations, and notes that the press’s enthusiasm for “campaign finance reform” may account for some of this — he suggests that maybe people just aren’t enthusiastic about free speech for the press when the press has shown itself unenthusiastic about free speech for everyone else.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hey, maybe stuff like this explains why people don’t like the press.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Howard Owens says I’m wrong — bloggers care about news, not the press. Fair enough, though I think actually we care about both. His comments on the difference between the stories that bloggers think important and those that are beaten to death by Big Media are right on.

OKAY, ONE MORE: Laurence Simon responds, and has links to many other posts responding to this piece.

OKAY, I LIED: A.C. Douglas emails that I should have mentioned Susanna Cornett’s piece on this. I looked at it, and he’s right. And she mentions this post by Toren Smith as the definitive wrapup.

WIN FITZPATRICK REPORTS a poll showing that most Palestinians support nonviolent action. Problem is, they support violent action, too, in the same proportion. So if this is progress, it’s not because Palestinians are getting less enthusiastic about violence, but only because they’re willing to at least consider nonviolence to some degree.

Of course, if they’d run a Gandhian campaign they would have won decades ago. But how long would they have to forego bombing bar mitzvahs and seders before that kind of approach would have credibility now?

VIA RAM AHLUWALIA, I notice that the federal government has approved commercial development of the Moon. Ahluwalia’s comment: “[M]aybe there will be a round of ‘neo-colonization’ protestors lamenting ‘solar imperialism’ and the unfettered search for new markets.”

They’re already out there, believe it or not, dismissing space colonization as “white male ideology of conquest.”

THE SHROPSHIRE CHALLENGE IS, well, it’s funny, that’s what it is.

THIS SPINSANITY CRITIQUE OF MICHAEL MOORE might interest those who still follow his doings. Excerpt:

This pattern — the very sources Moore cites proving him wrong — continues throughout the book. . . .

Most baffling of Moore’s misstatements may come in a listing of categories that the U.S. tops, such as per capita energy use and births to teenagers. In a blatant misrepresentation, he states: “We’re number one in budget deficit (as a percentage of GDP).” When Moore wrote his book last year, the United States was running a budget surplus, as it had for the previous three years.

Enjoy.

AN INTERESTING BIT OF U.S. / EUROPE DIALOGUE.

SOMEHOW I MISSED THIS PIECE on the Iraqi / McVeigh connection yesterday. This stuff has been rattling around the blogosphere for a while; it’s good to see it getting more attention. I’d call this case not proven, but worthy of further investigation.

THESE SATELLITE IMAGES suggest that Saddam is working on nuclear weapons. Of course, these could be part of a new civilian nuclear program. And there are probably people who would believe that.

MORE INFORMATION ON SADDAM, from The Scotsman.

NORMAN MAILER is denouncing America. But then he has a history of siding with murderers.

THE DAILY CALIFORNIAN SEEMS TO SAY that U.C. Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl is misrepresenting the truth:

At a press conference last night, Chancellor Berdahl said he had informed ASUC President Jesse Gabriel that red, white and blue ribbons—not white—would be distributed.

He added the student leaders had initially chosen white ribbons because multicolored ribbons were too costly.

But student leaders said the decision was not based on financial concerns.

“It’s true that (white ribbons) are cheaper,” said Graduate Assembly President Jessica Quindel. “But I was at the meetings, and the decisions had nothing to do with the prices.”

Red-white-and-blue will be permitted, and the “Star Spangled Banner” may even be sung.

SHARIA HURTS: Contestants for Miss World are boycotting Nigeria to protest Sharia law and the harsh sentences imposed on women for adultery.

SWEDEN ON THE ROPES? One of that country’s biggest advantages has been its reputation for wild, freewheeling sex. But if that’s true, then why do they need to broadcast porn to combat a national nookie shortage?

A candidate in Sweden’s general election has called for pornography to be broadcast on television every Saturday to encourage people to have more sex.

Teres Kirpikli says she wants to help boost the Swedish economy by encouraging people to have more children.

Then there’s this observation: “Sweden has a negative natural growth rate, with more deaths than births now registered every year.”

UPDATE: Gee, could this eugenics program involving the sterilization of tens of thousands of women as recently as the 1970s, have anything to do with that?

MORE TERROR ARRESTS: This time it’s a Turkish man and his fiancee, in Germany, suspected of planning to bomb American military facilities on September 11. Meanwhile, here is a report of what may be an Arab-on-Arab suicide bombing in Yemen.

SADDAMA BIN LADEN: The Indepundit continues his link-rich series on the danger posed by Saddam, with this installment on Iraq/Al Qaeda connections.

SPINSANITY AGREES with Cathy Young and others that the NEA is getting a bum rap. I’m persuaded now, but I can’t help observing that the NEA hurt its case by acting guilty. As SpinSanity itself says:

After repeated attempts to contain the controversy, the NEA issued an indirectly worded statement on Aug. 27. Rather than directly refuting the charges, it vaguely asserts that critics “have taken the material out of context” and are “using this national tragedy to attempt to score political points,” giving little indication that the entire controversy has essentially been fabricated. It also at some point apparently removed links to Lippincott’s lesson.

Now that doesn’t make misrepresentations of its views any less misleading, but on the other hand, people watch an organization’s behavior for cues as to whether to take charges against it seriously. If NEA had said “this is a made-up controversy” and “we never said that” people would have been less inclined to believe the critics. So why didn’t it?

UPDATE: Porphyrogenitus says “I told you so.” And, indeed, as I noted here on August 19, he did. He also has some cautionary advice.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Robert Holmgren writes over in Romenesko’s letters section that Nyhan is spinning too:

Brendan Nyhan’s Spinsanity piece concerning a Washington Times story on NEA suggested lesson plans blames Ellen Sorokin for misleading readers into thinking that the NEA wished to avoid blaming Al-Qaeda for the attacks on 9/11. Since the Washington Times article never mentions Al-Qaeda we may want to consider the ways in which Nyhan is spinning this story as well. It suggests that what Nyhan preceives is equal to what is written.

The blogosphere (and yes, I think Romenesko is a blog) chugs on.

MICHAEL MOORE says his movie “Bowling for Columbine” is being censored:

It challenges the traditional kind of New York liberals in their attitudes towards guns and violence and terrorism. The exclusion of our film probably says more about what’s happened to the NYFF than it does about anything else.

Yeah, you know those New York liberals and their gun-loving ways. The response is a gem:

The gun lobby is not a major supporter of Lincoln Center, so I don’t know whose politics we’re supposed to be worried about.

Moore says it’s about Bush, not guns. I haven’t seen the movie, but, um, didn’t Columbine happen when, ahem, someone else was President?

GO READ LILEKS. Today’s. Now. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

HEY, MAYBE ALTERMAN’S ONTO SOMETHING with his suggestion of Holland as a role model:

The Dutch cabinet has backed a possible United States attack on Iraq, even without a mandate from the UN Security Council. Parliament convened in emergency session on Thursday night to discuss the matter.

Gotta love those Dutch.

UPDATE: Hmm. This story isn’t on that site anymore, and I can’t find it elsewhere. Given the lame nature of the Radio Netherlands site, which just features a few brief “news highlight” items, that may not mean anything, but it’s odd.

TALKLEFT has a lot of new information about efforts to protest Joe Biden’s dumb “RAVE Act,” including a call-your-Senator campaign that’s going on today.

ERIC ALTERMAN is unhappy with my Wednesday post in which I disagreed with his characterization of Sweden as a “beacon of light” after which the United States should model itself. I made three points: (1) Sweden collaborated with the Nazis in World War Two, and with various unsavory types afterward; (2) Sweden has more crime than America; and (3) Sweden is poorer than Mississippi.

There was no response to (1), which I’ll regard as a concession of the point, and rightly so. Similarly, point (2) is pretty much conceded as well (as one of Eric’s readers says: “Sweden has way more murders than I thought it would!”). So that leaves the Mississippi point. I had posted on this a while back, with a link to a Swedish study that said exactly that. The link doesn’t work any more, but Alterman points to this “debunking” in The American Prospect, which doesn’t actually say the study’s wrong, but says that its methodology is flawed because it should include the value of government services that Swedes get. Well, okay, but if you’re taking such extrinsic factors into account, you should probably also take into account that it’s a lot cheaper to live in Mississippi. However, Stephen Green, using different — and probably better — methodology says that Sweden is actually slightly richer than Mississippi, but still poorer than Alabama. And he notes that Mississippians are more likely to have jobs. (Note, too, that the gap between Sweden and the U.S. as a whole, as opposed to just a couple of its poorest states, is colossal. As for the comparision of poverty rates invoked by one of Alterman’s readers, that’s not a comparison of wealth, but of income distribution.)

But, okay: In a spirit of generosity I’ll concede the Mississippi point, though I do think I’m being generous to do so. That still leaves me with the high ground on two out of three, which seems to me to undercut the notion that Sweden is or should be a “beacon of light” to the world.

However, the intensity of Alterman’s response, and of some of his readers’ letters on the subject, suggests that Sweden does remain a beacon of light to the American left. But then, we knew that already.

As for Alterman’s invocation of Amsterdam, with its legalized prostitution and hash bars, all I can say is: I’ve got no problem with that. Why would I?

UPDATE: Here’s someone who wants Sweden to be more of a beacon.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Eric emails that he concedes on the Nazi issue, but that he’s going to have another go at the crime issue on Monday. Fine with me — I’m happy to keep this volley going — but remember: it’s not enough to quibble about numbers, the results have to support the original statement that Sweden is a “beacon of light.” And I’m not sure that any crime stats will help that. We’ve already done the “somewhat better than Mississippi” thing on money. If you’re just somewhat better than Mississippi on crime and money, but still have the Nazi thing hanging around your neck, well, the “beacon of light” award is going to elude you. In the meantime, Floyd McWilliams says the wealth question is still open.

STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: Hey, above I blame an Alterman reader for subsituting “poverty rate” for “wealth.” But actually Alterman pulled this switcheroo yesterday, which I hadn’t noticed. Poverty rates aren’t a measure of wealth, but of wealth distribution: the United States could be a lot poorer, and still have less poverty (in which case it would look like, well, Sweden). But it would be poorer, and per-capita income would be lower. I haven’t heard a lot of lefties saying that they want to make America 30% poorer in order to achieve a halving of poverty rates, but that’s what emulating Sweden would involve. And, heck, maybe that’s what they do want, but if so you don’t hear it advertised much. Thanks to reader Kevin Hurst, who pointed out the error and added a few observations:

For some reason Eric Alterman misquoted you as claiming that the poverty rate in Sweden is higher than in Mississippi when you claimed that Sweden as a whole is poorer than Mississippi. Sweden is clearly poorer than the United States by a very wide margin, as is every other country save maybe Luxembourg. Sweden may be ever so slightly more wealthy, as a whole, than Mississippi, but so what?

As for the flaw identified by TAP, the value of government spending is already included in GDP per capita, so I find their objection to the study unpersuasive. As a matter of fact, GDP, in my opinion tends to overstate the wealth of high tax, high government spending countries because I think GDP measures overstate the value of government services relative to the private sector. Sweden has been an economic basket case for two decades and it’s is a testament to the delusional nature of many on the left that they still cling to illusions of the “Third Way” so popular in the 1970′s and early ’80′s. Sweden will continue to fall farther behind the US in terms of material wealth in the future, but they have their righteousness to keep them warm. But one should never forget how “wealthy” the USSR was according to GDP statistics and I will never forget John Kenneth Galbraith praising the Soviet economic performance as late as 1984. Some will believe anything.

Interesting. Stay tuned.

THE VIOLENCE POLICY CENTER continues its ongoing effort to shred what little credibility it has left, with its “Alexander Hamilton essay contest,” in which students are invited to write essays explaining why the Second Amendment doesn’t actually give people any rights. But while there is — to me at least — something inherently suspect in an essay contest that’s explicitly anti-constitutional-rights, that’s not the credibility shredder. It’s the name: VPC says it named the contest after Alexander Hamilton because (by dying in a duel with Aaron Burr) he was a “victim of handgun violence.”

Eugene Volokh observes:

Wow, a victim of handgun violence. In some sense, I suppose, it’s true — he was killed in a violent act with a handgun. But surely if the NRA wanted to have a poster child for its “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” campaign, Hamilton would be top of the list! First, what Hamilton did was already illegal — dueling was and is attempted murder (or, in Burr’s case, actual murder). Can you imagine the scenario? “Mr. Burr, I would fight a duel with you, notwithstanding that dueling is a crime — but because handguns are illegal, I cannot.”

Second, surely dueling (especially in the early 1800s) was one situation where if people didn’t have guns, they’d use something else instead, and pretty much as effectively. I haven’t seen the statistics, but my sense is that a wound from a sword in 1804 would have been about as deadly as a wound from a pistol. (Pistols may be more lethal than bladed weapons, then as well as today, because it’s easier to run away from a bladed weapon — but that factor, which might be relevant to modern gun control debates, is surely completely irrelevant to a duel.)

Whatever one may say about Hamilton’s death, it most assuredly provides zero support for gun control proposals. Blaming the gun — as opposed to blaming Hamilton himself, blaming Burr, blaming social attitudes that tolerated or encouraged dueling, or whatever else — in this case is almost self-parody. If the NRA were trying to mock the anti-gun forces by putting ridiculous words in their mouths, it would be hard for them to beat “Hamilton was himself a victim of handgun violence.”

Yes, but the VPC’s descent into self-parody (there’s no “almost” about it) has become so steep that it has undoubtedly gone beyond anything the NRA could think up.

VIA EMAIL FROM U.C. BERKELEY CHANCELLOR ROBERT BERDAHL’S OFFICE:

Statement of Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl

Press Conference

September 5, 2002

I have called this press conference to set the record straight in response to the outrageous allegations published by The California Patriot, a student journal, and picked up by the wire services around the country. The central allegation of The California Patriot is that the University of California, Berkeley is unpatriotic in commemorating the events of September 11. This allegation is wrong. This allegation is an insult to everyone at this University. More importantly, this allegation is disrespectful to the thousands who lost their lives and disrespectful to the countless heroes who worked valiantly to save lives on that day. These American heroes inspired all of us and renewed our faith in the American spirit.

We planned next week’s memorial service to be consistent with the spirit and substance of the memorial service we organized last year on September 17. At that service 15,000 people joined in thoughtful reflection. No one suggested that that event was unpatriotic or un-American. In fact, quite the opposite was true.

The noon events planned for this September 11 are to be a memorial, also marked by contemplative music and prayerful thought to honor those murdered a year ago. We believe it would be a disservice to those who died to allow this memorial to become a political rally of any kind, for any purpose. This is where we differ with The California Patriot. The California Patriot, not the University, is trying to turn this into a political event.

I will not allow the quiet moments from noon until 12:30 PM — moments of prayer, grief, mourning, and reflection — I will not allow these sacred moments to be misused for political purposes. And I deeply resent the implication that by planning this service in this way, we are unpatriotic. There is nothing more patriotic and American than honoring those lost in this horror.

After the memorial service is completed, at 12:30 PM, the microphone on Sproul Plaza will be open to people who wish to express their thoughts. An open microphone will also be available on Sproul Plaza for two hours later that afternoon. There will be ample opportunity for all to express their grief, their mourning, or their political sentiments, as was the case on Sproul Plaza a year ago.

So, does this mean that flags and the national anthem are no longer considered “offensive?” He doesn’t say that, nor does he actually say that any facts in the earlier reports are wrong.

Is waving an American flag “political?” At Berkeley, it’s a statement.

UPDATE: Here is the Cal Patriot’s response, and here’s a link to Chancellor Berdahl’s statement on the Web. I responded to him to ask if (1) flags and the national anthem counted as “political,” and (2) what facts, exactly the Patriot got wrong, since none are mentioned in the statement. If I get a response, I’ll post it. (Here is the original Cal Patriot story). Oh, and here’s a story from today’s San Francisco Examiner.

DOUG BANDOW writes about arming pilots and, er, shoots down a number of lame objections. My favorite:

Another contention is that pilots need to concentrate on their job. John Magaw said pilots were to maintain “positive control of that aircraft … get it on the ground as quickly as you can, regardless of what’s happening back there.” But doing so might be tough if armed terrorists smash down the door, roust the pilots from their seats, and murder them.

Yeah. As I said earlier, I think Magaw was a scapegoat for a lot of air security issues, but comments like this are a reminder that he was a deserving scapegoat.

IF YOU’RE NOT CHECKING IN at Geitner Simmons’ weblog on a daily basis, well, you should be.

BRAD DE LONG has some delightful reflections on democracy inspired by the game Civilization II. The lessons it imparts are not accidental — in fact, I remember reading an essay by a wargame writer back in the 1970s (I think it may even have been one of the creators of Civilization) about the teaching role that wargames (and “peacegames”) could play. As Dave Kopel and I wrote last year, the teaching role of wargames is a fascinating example of non-academic, private-sector education, and of a way in which knowledge and cultural values scorned by the academy were preserved elsewhere. There’s a good book (or at least an article in the Atlantic Monthly) in this for somebody.

VIRGINIA POSTREL has more observations on GSWBs, small-town intellectuals, and more. I’m so glad that she’s back. Andrew Sullivan has more, including this comment on the ultimate guilty southern white boy, Jimmy Carter, and his views on the war: “The great thing about Carter is his consistency. He may well be an admirable man, but he’s also been consistently wrong about everything since the day he took office.”

AIMEE DEEP UNCOVERS Big Media’s plan for an assault on its customers.

Oh, yeah, that’s really smart.

If this stuff irritates you like it does me, go to MP3.Com, or IUMA, or Vitaminic or PeopleSound, browse around the different genres, listen to stuff you like, and download it or order the CDs. There’s a lot of great music out there by independent artists, and there’s no reason to go to big record companies to hear good music.

ADVICE ON RECEIVING A DIVINE VISITATION: I don’t care what he says, I’m asking for the lawn thing.

EUGENE VOLOKH says that Robert Wright is wrong about the value of popularity in preventing terrorism. In fact, he suggests, the harder you try to be popular, the worse things will become.

TIM BLAIR REPORTS ON AN anti-Muslim hate crime in California.

MORE EVIDENCE in support of the popular “the war has already started” theory.

WINNING “AMERICAN IDOL” ISN’T THE SAME as selling yourself into slavery. Slaves don’t have to sign this contract.

THE RIAA’S NIGHTMARE: Now people have figured out how to extract digital audio from vinyl, using a scanner.

SAVING ISLAM FROM BIN LADEN: Christopher Hitchens writes:

I repeat what I said at the beginning: the objective of al Qaeda is not the emancipation of the Palestinians but the establishment of tyranny in the Muslim world by means of indiscriminate violence in the non-Muslim world, and those who confuse the two issues are idiots who don’t always have the excuse of stupidity.

A LAW STUDENT READER ASKS:

My Corporations prof. informed us that she might show the class Moore’s “Roger and Me” as a springboard for our discussion on “social responsibilty of corporations.” Can you recommend any materials that dissect the movie or Moore generally.

I don’t have any especially good suggestions, not having seen the movie. Anybody else?

UPDATE: Here’s a Lileks Screed on Moore.

DAHLIA LITHWICK has an interesting, if somewhat depressing take on civil liberties and the terror war. Here’s the “money graf” as Welch and the other journos call it:

In a recent Gallup Poll, 60 percent of Americans said that the president is “about right” in restricting our civil liberties to fight terrorism, and 25 percent say he hasn’t gone far enough. Why is the public willing to accept this secrecy and arrogation of power? Well, because we’re terrified, for one thing, but also because we have come to believe that increased security usually requires sacrificing civil liberties. While this is true, the converse is not. Giving up civil liberties—any and all of them, indiscriminately—does not necessarily bring security. We will not be safer from terrorism if the government restricts our right to vote. And we are not necessarily safer because the state has done away with the right to judicial review.

This is absolutely right, as far as it goes, but it’s not clear that Lithwick is being hard enough on the authorities. Dumb press coverage on the “tradeoffs” between security and civil liberties has given the impression that somehow civil liberties are the coin with which you purchase security. But it doesn’t work that way. Some security measures may limit civil liberties. (Most effective ones — such as killing terrorists overseas — won’t.) But most sacrifices of civil liberties won’t produce security — they’ll just represent bureaucratic opportunism that does nothing to make us safer. I said this in a column on September 14 and subsequent events have proven it true.

GENOCIDE IN ZIMBABWE: This press release on Mugabe’s “selective starvation” policy seems not to have gotten much attention. I wonder why? Excerpt:

The ZANU-PF government of President Robert Mugabe is carrying out a policy of selective starvation against its political enemies. The denial of food to opposition strongholds has replaced overt violence as the government’s principal tool of repression in Zimbabwe. Mortality and morbidity rates will continue to accelerate if this policy is not reversed.

The most vulnerable sub-group is Zimbabwe’s black farm workers, who have been displaced by ZANU-PF land-grabs. The media, especially in the UK, has concentrated on the plight of hundreds of white farmers forced off the land, but more than 1.5 million black farm workers and family members are at risk of acute hunger. . . .

Deliberately creating food shortages in opposition areas not only punishes MDC supporters but also provides ruling party officials with further opportunities for profitable food re-sale rackets, said Prendergast. The system is controlled and corrupted from the top by key ZANU-PF and military officials straight down to the local retailers at the village level. When people die of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition, it is as a result of this political control and corruption.

But Mbeki will support him.

READER JOE HRUTKA EMAILS TO ASK “How come nobody’s trying to appease the United States?”

It’s because they know that we won’t do anything awful to them. If the United States were more like the old Soviet Union, we’d have plenty of supporters in Europe, hoping to buy us off. Just like the Soviets did.

Holly Watson, meanwhile, sends this V.S. Naipaul quote, which seems to go nicely with this topic:

…the people who substitute doctrine for knowledge and irritation for concern, the revolutionaries who visit centers of revolution with return air tickets, the hippies, the people who wish themselves on societies more fragile than their own, all those people who in the end do no more than celebrate their own security.

Indeed. It should have been printed on every nametag in Johannesburg.

MARK STEYN ON the triumph of American values:

Unlike those on the earlier flights, the hostages on 93 understood they were aboard a flying bomb intended to kill thousands of their fellow citizens. They knew there would be no happy ending. So they gave us the next best thing, a hopeful ending. Todd Beamer couldn’t get through to anyone except a telephone company operator, Lisa Jefferson. She told him about the planes that had smashed into the World Trade Center. Mr Beamer said they had a plan to jump the guys and asked her if she would pray with him, so they recited the 23rd Psalm: ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me….’

Then he and the others rushed the hijackers. At 9.58 a.m., the plane crashed, not into the White House, but in some pasture outside Pittsburgh. As UPI’s James Robbins wrote, ‘The Era of Osama lasted about an hour and half or so, from the time the first plane hit the tower to the moment the General Militia of Flight 93 reported for duty.’

Exactly. The most significant development of 11 September is that it marks the day America began to fight back: 9/11 is not just Pearl Harbor but also the Doolittle Raid, all wrapped up in 90 minutes. No one will ever again hijack an American airliner with boxcutters, or, I’ll bet, with anything else — not because of predictably idiotic new Federal regulations, but because of the example of Todd Beamer’s ad hoc platoon. Faced with a novel and unprecedented form of terror, American technology (cellphones) combined with the oldest American virtue (self-reliance) to stop it cold in little more than an hour.

Yep. And that still bothers a lot of people, who as Steyn points out have spent the last year trying to return to September 10.

CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON is unimpressed with British bishops who think “evil” is synonymous with “possibly in violation of the U.N. charter.”

I’ve never cared much what bishops have to say about, well, anything. This isn’t encouraging me to change my mind. Though I guess the whole covering-up-for-pederasty thing is still worse.

UPDATE: Hey, and my reaction’s mild compared to Fred Pruitt, who’s ready to convert: “If I were to become religious, I’d probably become a Zoroastrian. They believe in good and evil, light and dark. Christians — especially those of the Archbishops’ stripe — don’t believe in that anymore. Protestantism arose when Luther got cheezed at the Church for selling indulgences; these suckers give them away for free, without even being asked.”

Well, his page is called “Rantburg” for a reason. . . .

THE FALUN GONG are hacking Chinese satellites. I love it.

MY FOXNEWS COLUMN today is kind of hard on the Justice Department in light of the Hatfill case. But no harder than they deserve, as this report that Justice pressured LSU to fire Hatfill makes clear.

They need to put up, or shut up. And the more they engage in this sort of petty harassment, the less credible their case will be if he’s finally charged.

NOT-SO-GUILTY SOUTHERN WHITE GALS: Anne Creed sends this email in response to the post below:

A comment about the Guilty Southern White Boys discussion: I lived in West Philly (went to Wharton), straight out of a women’s college in the South. I remember walking down the streets of Philadelphia with my new Yankee friends and having them want to cross the street to avoid some perfectly normal looking black people on the sidewalk up ahead. I wouldn’t cross the street and we all lived to tell about it. (And I thought to myself: And they think I’m prejudiced because I’m from the South!)

I also remember that a Northern white friend of mine told me about the first time her sister had ever seen a black infant. It occurred on their family’s only ride on public transportation, taken while their car was in the shop. Her sister, who was obviously just a child, pointed at the infant and said, “Look, Mother. A baby maid!”

I stayed on in Philadelphia after graduation to work with Turner Construction in Center City, where I had lots of opportunities to get to know Northern blacks. It feels audacious to say this, but I found that I had a much better connection with them that your basic white Yankee. Not only did I not find them frightening, but a great many of the Northern blacks I worked with had South Carolina connections. We had a lot of fun talking about the hot weather and snakes “back home.” I even had a black guy on a bicycle pursue me through Philadelphia, which I will admit made me a little anxious. Turns out he saw the S.C. plates on my car and was homesick.

I’ve gotten a few emails like this one.

UPDATE: Ted Barlow suspects that this story is an urban legend. Well, it’s a reader email, so I can’t possibly say. Perhaps Ms. Creed will reply.

THE GUARDROOM IS A law-enforcement weblog, but non-LEO types are likely to find it interesting, too.

GOVERNMENT BY OP-ED: Michael Kinsley takes Colin Powell to task for disloyalty and indirection:

It must be hell to disagree with Colin Powell. Powell and Vice President Cheney apparently disagree about Iraq. Cheney thinks that Saddam Hussein must be toppled and any further diddling is pointless. Powell thinks … well, something else. Cheney made his opinion known by articulating and defending it in a speech. Powell’s view, if you read the papers literally, has spread by a mysterious process akin to osmosis. The secretary of state is “known to believe” or is pigeonholed by unnamed “associates” or (my favorite) has made his opinion known “quietly.”

Yes, he’s the champion of the passive voice. I think that Secretary Rice will do a better job.

AIRPORT SECURITY AND SPONTANEOUS ORDER: Sara Rimensnyder reports that passengers are taking matters in their own hands — and doing a better job than the bozos who draw a salary.

AIMEE MANN is making all the songs from her new CD available for free on the Web. Funny, the RIAA says that artists will lose money doing this. What can she be thinking? Maybe that the RIAA doesn’t know what it’s doing?

GASOLINE ENGINES CAN BE VIRTUALLY POLLUTION-FREE according to an engineering study done by the University of California, Riverside.

ANDREW SULLIVAN IS NOW WRITING FOR SALON. To no one’s surprise, Eric Alterman doesn’t approve. I think it’s a good idea for both, though.

Sullivan will bring Salon some intellectual diversity, some buzz, and — via his weblog — a nontrivial amount of additional traffic. It seems to me that it’s a logical step in Salon’s apparent plan to integrate itself with the Blogosphere.

DISGRACED HISTORIAN JOSEPH ELLIS is back teaching at Mt. Holyoke. Ellis’s sins — inflating his Vietnam War record in class (he served in the military, but not in Vietnam) — never went to his scholarship. Amusingly, in this story he’s being criticized by Emory historian David Garrow, who says the college should not be putting “someone with this track record back in front of its students.”

To be fair, I think that Garrow has been pretty critical of Michael Bellesiles, too.

BARBARA LERNER writes that Brent Scowcroft is parroting the Saudi line — and that he mistakes the Saudis for the whole of the Muslim world.

HOW MANY STRINGS DID KARL ROVE HAVE TO PULL to get Jimmy Carter to write this anti-war oped?

Because it’s a masterstroke. With Carter’s abject record of humiliating failure in dealing with middle-eastern rogue states, there’s only upside for Bush in having Carter on the other side. This op-ed will produce no new opposition to the war, as everyone capable of being convinced by Jimmy Carter on this issue is already against the war anyway. For everyone else, it’s a reminder of what the politics of appeasement look like, and where they lead.

UPDATE: And don’t miss Eliot Cohen’s flaying of the “chickenhawk” slur:

There is no evidence that generals as a class make wiser national security policymakers than civilians. George C. Marshall, our greatest soldier statesman after George Washington, opposed shipping arms to Britain in 1940. His boss, Franklin D. Roosevelt, with nary a day in uniform, thought otherwise. Whose judgment looks better? A few soldiers become great diplomats or great politicians; others are abject failures. Most avoid the field altogether. Military careers spent in hierarchical, rule-bound, tightly controlled organizations are not necessarily the best preparation for accurately judging the fluid world of politics at home and abroad.

There’s more, and it’s good. He even mentions Starship Troopers.

DAVE KOPEL looks at the University of Wisconsin’s fear of diversity.

MICKEY KAUS sums up, and weighs in on an interesting discussion of “Guilty Southern White Boys” in the media (Kaus has all the links). The notion (originally suggested by one of Andrew Sullivan’s readers) is that southerners — always the target of jibes and discrimination — try to out-left the left in order to be accepted in the media crowd. Postrel and Kaus disagree, and call it the lingering influence of the civil rights era when — in the South — the left really was on the side of the angels.

I think it’s a bit of both, and this discussion makes me realize what I didn’t like about Richard Marius’s generally excellent novel, An Affair of Honor, which I mentioned earlier. Marius appreciates many things about the South, but there’s something vaguely patronizing about his treatment, and it comes out in a gratuitous scene at the end of the novel, when the protagonist is sitting on an airplane next to a man in a “Georgia Bulldogs” shirt:

Charles took out a book and began to read. The Georgia Bulldog seemed miffed. “You going to read?” he said.

“Yes, I have to finish this book,” Charles said.

“Why?” the Georgia Bulldog asked.

“Because I’m dying to know how it comes out.”

“Is it a mystery?”

“No, not really.”

The Georgia Bulldog leaned cumbersomely over and stared at what Charles was reading.

“My God, it’s in a foreign language!” he said. “And I thought you was an American.”

Now overall this is a very good novel, but it’s telling, I think, that this scene — which rings horribly false and serves no purpose in the narrative — takes place in the present day, rather than in the racially-charged early 1950s where the rest of the book is set. (Interestingly, elsewhere in the book another character — a Columbia alumnus — is offended at being patronized by a Harvard professor who assumes he’s an ignoramus simply because he’s from the South. He fairly bristles at being lumped with those other Southerners).

I see this as a generational thing. Not every Southern white boy from that period suffered from this neurosis — my old law-school mentor Charles Black, though well-known for his racial liberalism (he and Thurgood Marshall wrote the brief in Brown together) never succumbed to the notion that the South was defined by Bull Connor. But he was in this way, as in many others, an exception. For too many others, it was always Birmingham in 1963. (One of my professors even had a huge blowup of the firehose photo from Life magazine on his office wall).

Those of us who are younger know that the myth of northern racial liberalism was mostly just that — a myth. (If I recall correctly, the professor with the firehose picture sent his kids to all-white private schools rather than to the New Haven public schools, and when I was a kid I spent time in Roxbury, where my dad was doing community work, and where things were not noticeably better than Birmingham). So while Howell Raines, Tom Wicker, and similar examples of GSWBs may still rule the roost, I think that the phenomenon is on the way out. Which is probably just as well.

UPDATE: Geitner Simmons has more on this (and scroll up for additional posts), along with the observation that Nicholas Kristof doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to the Great Plains.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader writes:

I grew up in suburban Philadelphia and almost everyone I came into contact with acted as though the South and Southern white people were some kind of throwbacks.

In the last five years, I’ve had occasion to work for short periods of time in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas — in rural areas as well as urban. Everyone in the South may hate each other. I don’t know what is in their hearts. But I do know what comes out of their mouths, and there is far more civility in the South than anywhere in the Northeast. People are superficially nicer and kinder to each other. Whites and blacks towards whites and blacks. In the broad scheme of things, it seems better to me that everyone act in a polite way no matter what they believe, than profess to be ideologically pure, like in the Northeast, and be rude to just about everyone in some way or other.

Also, Philadelphia and the metropolitan area are just as segregated if not more so than most cities in the South. Should anyone not believe me tell them to take the 42 bus the entire route — I know you don’t know the bus routes — it goes from the richest neighborhoods to the poorest and some middleclass ones in between. If your eyes are open, you will see the race and residency patterns.

Meanwhile Allison Alvarez knows who to blame:

I blame people’s misconceptions about the south on ‘Hee Haw’. Think about it; other than the southern lawyer dramas most shows about the south are still in love with that slow southern comfort, Gone With the Wind stereotype. Even ‘Designing Women’ was obsessed with southern charm. So, I can’t blame most people who live outside of the south for their cultural ignorance when all they see is Colonel Sanders and Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel.

I spent my entire life in Georgia before moving to Washington, DC and I’m completely astounded at the way people react when I say I’m from the south. I always get comments of my lack of southern accent or my fast way of speaking. Sometimes I’m tempted to give trolley tours in an affected southern accent just to please the tourists.

Blame “Hee Haw?” Why the hell not?

UPDATE: Rod Dreher weighs in and says it’s all about race. And Media Minded offers some views, too.

NE0-PTOLEMISM: Rand Simberg says the enviro-crowd is too earth-centered.

THE 1972 MUNICH MASSACRE will be the focus of a coordinated weblog effort. Read more at Yourish.Com.

HOMELAND SECURITY: After a year, mixed results. My FoxNews column is up. The watchword: maximizing inconvenience while minimizing actual security.

UPDATE: Reid Stott, a photographer who travels a lot, has a year-end review too.

AIRLINE SECURITY: Another small sign of progress. I think it’s all the fruit of Gary Leff’s Impeach Norm Mineta campaign.

HITLER’S ARTWORK is on display at Williams College. Here’s a link to the brochure. Here’s an earlier item from InstaPundit on the art/totalitarian connection.

BAD NEWS IN THE BAY AREA: Nick Denton reports high techie-unemployment rates. This is consistent with what I know, too.

WHENEVER I HAVE A COMPUTER PROBLEM, I receive a lot of email saying “get a Mac.” Well, read this.

ANDREA HARRIS has delivered herself of a memorable rant, and somehow had enough energy left for a small but well-appointed Fisking.

EUGENE VOLOKH, unmasked.