Christmas Eve

It's snowing tonight in the Blue Ridge
There's a hush on the Chesapeake Bay
The chimneys are smoking in Georgetown,
And tomorrow is Christmas Day.

The Tidal Basin lies quiet
The tourists have found their way home
Mr. Jefferson's standing the mid-watch
And there's a star on the Capitol Dome.

It's Christmas Eve in Washington,
America's hometown
It's here that freedom lives,
And peace can stand her ground,

It's Christmas Eve in Washington
Our joyous wish to you
Is for peace, love & laughter,
To last the whole year through.

Snowmen peeking through the windows
It's warm with love inside
'Round the tree the children gather
Awaiting Santa's midnight ride.

Mom and Dad are counting their blessings,
Reflecting on all they've done
So thankful for another
Christmas Eve in Washington.

It's Christmas Eve in Washington,
America's hometown
For it's here that freedom lives,
And peace can stand her ground.

It's Christmas Eve in Washington
Our joyous wish to you
Is for peace love & laughter,
To last the whole year through.
Oh, it's Christmas Eve in Washington
Our joyous wish to you
Is for peace love & laughter,
To last the whole year through.

by Maura Sullivan

Christmas in Boston

Christmas came none too early for the Red Sox, who sign their captain and leader back. Jason Varitek will be a Red Sox for four more years! He wanted to play for the Sox so badly that the sticking point was whether he would get a no-trade clause (he didn't). This is the biggest news in the Soxmos since October 27th, and it makes the Sox not only better but more fan-worthy.

Santa Need Not Apply

And they wonder why students have so little creativity these days.

BlogCrawl

It's a quiet day in the vastnesses of Big Government...so I'm going to step outside of my cubicle into the wide world of blogging, going link by link, blog to blog.

Watchblog is the first stop. I'm a contributor to this multi-author political blog, but I don't know any of the others' blogs, so it's a good way to jump into the unknown. I'll start with a liberal...

American Pundit blogs on how much of Asia views the United States: as a rogue nation.

Pimme is on the deacon's board of an Amsterdam church, and gripes about the fact that they switched to verbal voting on congregational decisions, essentially killing dissent. What he misses is that democracy is a bad way to run a church to begin with.

Casablanca is a middle-aged Texan who thinks that having to pay child support after a divorce is reason enough not to marry. Of course, if he waits a few more years and marries someone his own age, he won't have to worry about children at all.

Male Matters is way cool - I might even permanently blogroll it. However, he hasn't updated in almost a month (too much college football?), so I'll see. Like me, Male Matters is miffed by Verizon's "stupid dad" commercial. Why are men always portrayed as the dunces of every family?

The League of Anti is run by a female, but calls itself anti-feminist. She's got some very amusing news bits, including Rep. Don Nickles warning against feminist terrorist cells and a fictitious feminist organization declaring the First Law of Thermodynamics hate speech.

Gizmodo, the popular - popular as in 140,000 hits per day - blog dedicated to gadgetry. In response to the same study that InstantReplay mentioned, someone has allegedly developed a "Chill Pak" to keep men fertile while they use laptops. So far, very little for women in this crawl.

Nick Denton is Gizmodo's publisher and (of course) keeps his own blog. He insightfully calls the 2004 election "an American electoral version of the Battle of Verdun. A gigantic expenditure of noise and fury, leaving the frontlines in US politics exactly where they were before." Just without all the dead Europeans.

Jason Calacanis is tongue-in-cheekily pioneering the field of 'blog ethics'. With the growth of blogs as a way of introducing consumer products, Jason and others have become concerned with "word of mouth" marketing groups, who blog for cash. When someone recommends a product, you want to know if they're being paid to do so. His blog is putting its money where its mouth is, holding a contest for a schnazzy clock-radio sent to them as a bribe gift from Google. The winner? Whoever has the best answer to the question, "What would you do if you were in charge of Google?" Give it a try!

Inside BzzAgent is the blog for one of the marketing word-of-mouth concerns. It features a nifty map whowing dots where all of its agents are around the country. A very good estimate of where and how thick the online community is in the U.S. Unfortunately, it's also a dead end. One thing you'll find online is that links go up, on average, and small "ma-and-pa" blogs tend to have fewer outgoing links and far fewer incoming links. But once you get out of the blogosphere and into the MSM (mainstream media) or business world, linkage stops. The last few sites had me ascending the staircase from blog to business, with fewer and fewer links along the way. A good crawl, to be sure.

They Will Know We Are Christians

Kudos to Nick Kristof for crossing the Red/Blue divide to priase Senator Sam Brownback. And kudos to Senator Brownback for being a leader in compassion as well as conservativism. Christians should be known for pursuing policies of human rights and reconciliation, and politically Brownback is disarming many of the criticisms of Republicans by taking a holistic approach to policy.

Seventy-Two

So Osama Bin Laden dies and goes to meet his maker. Allah greets him at the gates and motions him inside. George Washington walks up from his right and slaps him across the face. From his left comes Thomas Jefferson, who cuffs him roundly. James Madison spits on him, James Monroe punches him, John Tyler curses him, Woodrow Wilson shoves him, Zach Taylor hurls him to the ground. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson pick him up and throw him against a solid gold wall.

As Patrick Henry and John Pershing step towards him rubbing their fists, Osama cries "Allah! What's going on here?? Who are all these guys? And where are my seventy-two virgins?"

Allah looks exasperated, and replies slowly, "I said Virginians, Osama, seventy-two Virginians."

Yellow Journalism

Today's Post story about an attack in Mosul begins with a humorous example of the creeping problem of journalistic cowardice that has been appearing more and more lately. Journalists are supposed to hunt down the truth with tenacity and without consideration for who may be hurt or helped by it. Truth is its own end. However, more and more journalists are writing with the sensitivity and obfuscative language of lawyers and politicians. The Post story begins:

At least 22 people were killed and more than 60 wounded at a U.S. military base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul today when the installation came under attack by suspected insurgents

Suspected insurgents?

In my book, you can pretty much drop the "suspected" when 22 body bags are being shipped home. If they were referring to a specific person arrested, then 'suspected' would be correct.

Is this just an example of piss-poor English? Perhaps. But I think journalists are becoming far too comfortable with softening language. Remember those teenagers you knew who put the word "like" in front of evertthing? It's, pardon the expression, like that.

The most egregious recent example has been the Ukraine debacle. The Western media reported the story heavily, and tried to remain balanced. Balance, however, is important regarding opinions, not facts. Only one story of the many I saw actually reported the election results, and it shocked me. I had seen TV stories, news articles, opinion pieces, and none of them had mentioned that the vote came out 97% to 3%, or something like that. It was absurd; Saddamesque; Soviet-style. A joke. AP reporters should have written, "The election in Ukraine was marked by sweeping corruption, as results show that despite a closely contested campaign the election commission is reporting a 97% to 3% victory for Yanukovych." Instead they merely mentioned that international observers had called the elections illegitimate.

Balance should be sought in reporting opinions, truth in reporting facts. Today's yellow journalists are not only panic-mongers, they are cowards.

The Machiavelli Devotional: Love and Fear

"From this springs a dispute: whether it is better to be loved than feared or the reverse. It is answered that one would want to be both: but, because it is difficult to force them together whenever one has to do without either of the two, it is much more secure to be feared than loved. Because this can generally be said about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, dissimulators, apt to flee peril, covetous of gain; and while you do them good, they are all yours, they offer you their blood, their things, their life, their children, as I said above, when need is far off; but when it draws near to you, they revolt. And that prince who bases himself entirely on their words, finding himself naked of other preparations, falls to ruin."
- Niccolo Machiavelli in Il Principe XVII: De crudelitate et pietate, et an sit melius amari quam timeri, vel e contra

Note: the Machiavelli Devotional is a column that may become regular. It will highlight the values, virtues, and reasoning of this world, which are so sharply at odds with the New Testament Law of Love. Here, the worldly author correctly understands the weakness of human commitments, but counsels action toward the ends of security and power, not valuing love or Biblical virtue for its own sake.

Natalists Gone Wild

Every movement has its violent radicals. Within two weeks of columnist David Brooks declaring "natalism" a new movement, one of its members allegedly committed murder in her wild-eyed passion to become a mother, ripping a younger woman open to steal her unborn baby.

Presumably she will be charged with taking a minor across state lines without the parents' permission. And murder.

Frozen

I don't know how cold it is where you are, but it's 13 degrees in Virginia - and that's saying something. Our upstairs pipes froze last night, and the wind is making a mockery of our walls and doors, drafting in wherever it pleases. Brrrr!

We Have Never Suppressed the UNDP Report, and We Will Stop Doing So In the Future

The State Department's spokesman, Richard Boucher, denies everything.

This is why Thomas Friedman is my hero: he's so dependable and so often correct that when he speaks, Washington listens. If Maureen Dowd or Bob Herbert had written the same article, it might have led to a resounding silence. Of course, the upshot is that Friedman may have been wrong. In any case, InstantReplay looks forward to the release of the UNDP's third Arab Human Development Report. We're gratified that the Bush administration is (publically, at least) lauding it. Hopefully American support for the report won't dilute its poignancy in the Arab debate surrounding reform.

For your further research, the first two volumes of the project can be found online: 2002 volume, 2003 volume. A million copies of the first one alone have been downloaded.

"That's the shiznit, son"

So what do all you InstantReaders think of the new look? Does it work on your machines? I experimented with a few things, and:

(a) got rid of the red border, which makes the page feel more free and accessible.
(b) justified the body text to suit my anal-retentive needs.
(c) added a marquee illustration, courtesy of Sports Illustrated, and a caption.
(d) got rid of "The Undisclosed Location" as a subtitle. It was funny, but not meaningful enough. It also took up too much initial-view space. I don't like when you can only see one post when the page opens.
(e) made the title text match the referee theme.
(f) aligned the menu to the left, creating more space between links and posts, and bringing out the blue of the link bar.
(g) added a postscript note at the bottom explaining the title. Useful to new readers and those who think I'm just another Glenn Reynolds wannabee.

Just remember although the packaging may have changed, you'll still get the same incisive news and analysis that you've become accustomed to at InstantReplay.

Free Arab Speech!

My hero, Thomas Friedman, has yet another incisive column on the Arab world. In this one he informs us that the third volume of the blockbuster Arab Human Development Report is being held up by a regime that refuses to allow intellectual criticism of its policies: the United States. We're allying ourselves with the oppressive autocrats of the Arab world, against the scholars and democrats, and if we kill this project, we will have hurt Arab reform more than ever we have helped it.

[NYTimes] So there you have it: a group of serious Arab intellectuals - who are neither sellouts nor bomb throwers - has produced a powerful analysis, in Arabic, of the lagging state of governance in the Arab world. It is just the sort of independent report that could fuel the emerging debate on Arab reform. But Bush officials, along with Arab autocrats, are holding it up until it is modified to their liking - even if that means it won't appear at all.

Women Drivers or Women Hard Drives?

[Washington Post] "When BMW introduced their navigation system in Germany, they used a female voice, and they had to have a product recall because German drivers would not take directions from a woman."

Again, War Drums

The hard-right opinion writers for the Wall Street Journal are talking about Syria. And about invading. I've always said I considered Syria ten times more likely as an invasion target than Iran. Now the neocon writers are trying to get their chicken-hawk officials psyched up for another war.

Apparently, we'll continue to attack Arab countries until they agree that we're doing it for their own good and because we love freedom.

Peaking

My roommate Ben was at Target the other day, and went to use the men's room. As he was finishing up his business, a man arrived at the next urinal. Ben followed men's room etiquette, staring straight ahead at the wall. The other man did not. He turned his head to look over... then down. Ben quickly buttoned his pants and stepped away.

As he was washing his hands, he saw another man arrive to take his place at the urinal. He was horrified when he saw the first fellow again look over... then down.

A few minutes later he was reading a magazine in the checkout line. He looked up and saw someone go into the men's room. The first man saw it too. He walked quickly to the water fountain, took a drink, and headed purposely for the men's room.

Proto-Post-Neocolonialism

There was colonialism. Then came neocolonialism. Now... post-neocolonialism? An Australian think tank embarrassed its government by releasing a report warning of state failure in Papua New Guinea while the Aussie foreign minister was visiting the nearby island nation.

PNG is one of the most undeveloped nations on earth. Many of its citizens have never heard of their country (or any other country); the interior has changed only a little in the past few thousand years. The new report (intro here) warns that criminals will effectively take over and the economy, such as it is, will collapse. Their recommendations are not the classic prescriptions of neocolonialism, but rather something new (or perhaps very old).

[BBC] The Australian Strategic Policy Institute called for a radical increase in aid for PNG and said Canberra should take over some aspects of government.

PNG's Foreign Minister Sir Rabbie Namliu told local media the report was "sensationalist" and inaccurate..."There is not even the slightest amount of evidence available to support the ASPI's claim that the economy could collapse and politics and the economy could be dominated by criminals."

Australia has already begun a more hands-on approach, placing 210 police and 64 bureaucrats in governmental positions in PNG. They serve, of course, at the pleasure of PNG's government, but the latter's freedom of self-determination is effectively curtailed by its utteral dependence on Aussie aid.

The term "post-neocolonialism" has been coined before, to denominate the tendancy of new regional powers to project power on their neighbors and even as the dominance of Western cultural motifs. Neither of these is at all new, however. Strong countries have always dominated weak ones; in-vogue cultures always send ripples around the world. What is new (at least on this scale) is the handover of basic government functions to another government. Post-neocolonialism goes beyond out-sourcing security, which is just a form of mercenaryism, to an unprecedented relinquishment of decision-making to foreign governments (not just foreign experts).

While the Australian intrusion into PNG is, I believe, a prototype of much more to come, it is certainly not the only current example of post-neocolonialism. Obvious examples include U.S. security and reconstruction elements in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our troops in Japan and South Korea and the use of the dollar as a de facto currency in much of Latin America signal the globalization of post-neocolonialism. Russia projects as much influence as it is allowed on the internal workings of its former possessions; alleged KGB intrigues in Ukraine must be seen in the context of a tacit welcome from Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. Elsewhere, many small countries cling to colonialism: Mayotte Island wants desparately to be French rather than Comoran, Puerto Rico can't make up its mind to leave the largess of American control, and Djibouti remains a colony in all but name. Independence movements in colonies are virtually non-existant. Westerners are just too good at running things.

Individually, most interventions are difficult to argue against. Should PNG be abandoned to pirates? Should Comoros be allowed to annex Mayotte when it cannot govern the three islands it currently consists of? Is it justifiable for Western aid workers to give policymaking positions to less-qualified nationals? These are very difficult questions, and I don't believe any overarching answer can be found.

More poignant, perhaps, are the questions we Westerners should ask ourselves. Are we comfortable setting monetary policy for the whole world without taking their needs into account? Where do we draw the line in the tradeoff between giving charity and teaching responsibility (most often through the School of Hard Knocks)? Can we secure ourselves if the whole world is not secure? Can we afford to secure the whole world? Can non-democratic political solutions be optimal?

These questions will have to be answered by the policymakers of the 21st century. Increasingly, supporting human rights will mean trespassing on self-determination and the heretofore consistent worldview of our founding fathers may be rendered irreparably asunder.

Indiana Cracks Down on Roughhousing

This just in: Seymour, IN, is moving to close the town's only remaining roughhouse. Whence the childhood of yore?

The Possibilities Are Bottomless

New Dutch research finds that sand can swallow a man alive even when it is dry, provided it has been air-puffed. Watch for this to pop up in gadget movies. How cool would it be, say, to have a moat of dry sand?! Or a maze where contestants must stay on solid trails or find themselves swallowed up by the desert?

On a more practical tone, the researchers note that "The U.S. Army is very interested in this, because these days, the U.S. Army tends to go to desert states." [NYTimes]

Optimists Club

The Journal has a laundry list of positive accomplishments in Afghanistan. My fear? We may be rebuilding a country just in time for the drug dealers to take it over.

Blog Power

The mainstream media is truly being brought to heel by blog power. We've got a mainstream paper reporting on a mainstream paper reporting on blogs. Boo-ya.

In the insane South Dakota Senate race ($80-plus dollars per voter spent), blogs were used by the G.O.P. to circumvent the Democrats at the state's biggest paper. Clearly in favor of a vigorous public debate, the paper responded in kind.

Randell Beck, executive editor of the Argus Leader, called some of the bloggers' work "crap" and said they represented an organized effort by conservatives to discredit his paper. In July, he explained to readers that "true believers of one stripe or another, no longer content to merely bore spouses and neighbors with their nutty opinions, can now spew forth on their own blogs, thereby playing a pivotal role in creating the polarized climate that dominates debate on nearly every national issue. If Hitler were alive today, he'd have his own blog."

Opinion Journal further reports:

The blogs and other alternative media outlets became the tail wagging the media dog. "Argus Leader reporters said the pressure from the blogs increased until a 'siege mentality' took over at the paper, according to one source. Complaints flooded the paper's office," National Journal's John Stanton reported.

The Counter-Revolution

We may be in the midst of the peak of the conservative counter-revolution, or we may be just at the beginning of it. The NYTimes reports on conservative state-level measures that have gained momentum from the national conservative victories in November. These include a South Dakota bill that would directly challenge Roe v. Wade. The hope of its authors is that a liberal or swing justice will retire (read: die) before the bill reaches the high court.

As stated before, this could be the peak - the rifts in the Republican Party could deepen with success and cause any sense of a unified agenda fall apart. On the other hand, this movement could snowball in much the same way as the Progressive movement of the early 1900's and the Civil Rights movement, which gained the momentum to pull in millions of fence-sitters. We'll have to wait and see.

You Might Be A Nerd If...

You think sightings of Bob Novak and John Warner are really cool. Hat tip to Schtaple.

Men In Blue (States)

NYTimes covered a funeral for an Iraq War casualty today. Despite attendance by HRC, there were no quotes about the evil of the war or the meaninglessness of his death. Instead, the Times admitted that there's more to their city than, well, themselves.

Sergeant Engeldrum's funeral was a snapshot of New York, an old New York, which the pundits and the pollsters never seem to talk about. The American Legion was handing out American flags. Old men from the neighborhood lined up to take them. The fire hydrants were painted red, white and blue.

Respect for heroism is not a geographical thing; it's a class thing.

More Teens Keep It In Their Pants

New data from 2002 show a remarkable decrease in sexual activity among teens since 1995. The AP story today highlights a number of statistics, showing a major dropoff in sexual activity, especially among 15-17 year olds. The number of boys aged 15 to 17 who had intercourse dropped most precipitously, from 43% to 31%. The same figure for girls was 38% to 30%. Contrary to popular belief some 70% of juniors in high school are virgins.

Meanwhile, there has been a brouhaha in the media (it combines titillation with politics; what could be better?) about federal funding for abstinence-only textbooks that contain fallacies. Congressman Harry Waxman of California (who looks uncannily like a sex-ed teacher) issued the report that sparked this whole debate. All the liberal pundits quoted are using the opportunity to say what they've said all along: abstinence-only education doesn't work. The new data, however, would suggest otherwise. The cultural shift has occurred among teens versed more and more in abstinence-only education, which burst onto the scene in a real way in 1996 [history here], and has been growing since. The second liberal argument, that abstinence-taught kids won't know how to use a condom, is also gainsaid by the data, which shows a rise in contraception use.

Can this all be credited to abstinence-only education? By no means. But I would argue that this seismic shift arises because today's teens are growing up in a different atmosphere. Not only is abstinence being taught in the classroom, but society is embracing that formula more and more in general.

So don't bash abstinence education unless you are willing to come out and tell the truth: you, like most anti-abstinence-ed folks, really think that adolescent sex is a good thing, and you don't want anybody discouraging it. In that case, all I can say is, "Keep your morals off my children!"

Sound familiar?

The Moderate

Hillary Clinton is gearing up for war, warns Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal. Hillary is positioning herself as a moderate, and is in a good position to run away with the Democratic nomination, she says. The Republicans, meanwhile, will have a broad and interesting field of contenders to choose from.

Can Hillary win? I doubt it. If there are two or more terrorist attacks on American soil or if we still have large numbers in Iraq (or if Iraq is an unfriendly dictatorship), then the Dems have an edge. However, we've seen two Establishment Democrats lose in trench-warfare elections, and I think the Democratic field will fill up with Midwestern outsiders who will try to win the "winability" contest, which is probably more important than anything else.

Horses and High-Speed Internet

I love cities. The bigger the better. My heart beats faster just driving by Manhattan on the interstate. The more diverse and heterogenous the better - I love Chinatowns and Little Italy's. I love neighborhoods that have some of everybody. I love streets that are alive with kids, merchants, buskers.

I love cities. I love the gritty populism of mass transit. I love the landmarks, the sophistication, the public art, the climbing architecture. I love the way cities get taller and taller as you approach their heart. And I love when parks and rivers and beaches emerge right at the heart of the city. My favorite computer game? SimCity4. I still remember my father taking me on the elevated Orange line to Dudley Station and back just before it was torn down. Did I mention that I love cities?

Every so often I encounter someone who doesn't like cities. They're afraid of the crime, they're repulsed by the smell, they're intimidated by the transportation complexity, and they're nonplussed by the sights. Often, they've lived their entire life within an hour's drive of a major city but enter it only for 4th of July fireworks and museum field trips.

Among the urban educated elite (yeah, that's me), a historical myth has arisen in the last few years, and I recently realized how fallacious it is. In our passion for New Urbanism and environmental responsibility, we have revised history to support us. The cities are old, we think, and the suburbs are new, upstart, and dangerous. We have a tangible disdain for the poor benighted white collar wageslaves who live in the endless Levittowns and cookie-cutter developments. They have 2.5 kids and bachelors degrees. They all comb their hair the same way and buy the same cheesy Christmas decorations. They go to all-white churches. Frankly, we don't think they'd much notice if we translated them to Huxley's consumerist Brave New World.

We think that cities were once the home of all, and are now being deserted. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Urbanity is not declining, it is increasing, and has been. In 1940, 43.5% of Americans lived rurally. In 1900, it was 60.4%. At the time of independence, it was 94.9%. Remember that "urban" includes what are now fairly small towns, of 2500 residents or more. [Census Bureau]

This is not to say that cities are a new innovation. Not only have they been around for all of recorded history, they have been the seat of government, culture, learning, and business. Cities are a human nexus in a way that no rural - or suburban - area can be. But the populations of cities have been small and specialized, while the majority lived in poorer but more comforting rurality.

So we arrive now at the suburbs. These remain a modern innovation and the flashpoint of conflict between multiple worlds. Much was made of the "exurbs" as a new Red stronghold last month, but much more than politics is at work. In Maryland, the suburbs seem only to be limited by the ocean (they have even leapt the Chesapeake Bay!), and Charles County saw an awful incident of arson this week that has brought the questions of unfettered growth to the forefront. The old-time residents of Charles County were small-town folks who worked manufacturing and agricultural jobs. With new developments springing up like wildfire, dominating the landscape and raising prices, residents have sympathy for those whose homes-to-be were torched but can also sympathize with whomever it was who was moved to crime by the insatiable bulldozers and builders. It's not just a question of economics, it's a question of community life. In something of a role reversal, wealthy blacks are encroaching on a working-class white community and bringing with them urban mores and pace.

So how should we as a society approach growth? Debunking the "urban myth" can give city-dwellers better respect for sub- and exurbanites, but the problems associated with growth remain. Environmental problems (both in an ecological and a sociological sense) are prominent, as are economic concerns such as the strain on the transportation and education infrastructure.

The best answer for the U.S. is not to follow the Netherlands, where central control is necessary because of the overpopulation and unique environmental fragility. Nor should it be third-world style, where anyone with the means can build any kind of dwelling anywhere he wants. Growth, like public safety, is an issue that demands local answers. Each town or county should listen closely to the demands and desires of its population, and write ordinances that allow for personal freedom but respect the nature of the community. In the Charles County community, a regulation on the size and height of houses would have been in order. Lot size is another important control, and another could mandate planting trees. Zoning should be used to keep agricultural lands safe from development as long as land unusable for agriculture remains undeveloped. Developers should be made to pay for the one-time impositions they are creating on the town's physical infrastructure, a cost they will pass on to homebuyers that compensates for some of the externalities of the move.

Affluent people today have demands that neither the city nor the country can currently meet (the desire, for instance, to have horses and high-speed internet). New Urbanism is one answer to this problem; others should be explored. We have to respect humanity's rural roots, and at the same time respect old-time residents of would-be exurbs.

Diversity?

Harvard Law got front page coverage in the Globe today for a controversy over hiring a (gasp!) conservative. The Law School deans pursued Jack Goldsmith, a "highly respected scholar" in international law, and hired him last spring. Now, however, some of his colleagues are complaining that new evidence shows he was involved in the White House's infamous "torture memos" and that he should not, therefore, have been hired. But the record gainsays their position: they opposed Goldsmith from the start; the new revelations are just ammunition for their ongoing smear campaign.

Fortunately, there is at least one person in the department who gets it right:

[Boston Globe] William P. Alford, a vice dean who heads Harvard's program in international legal studies and led the subcommittee that identified Goldsmith for the job, said many top scholars in the field recommended him. "I so much like the idea of somebody who thinks differently than I do, who is smart and open-minded," Alford said of Goldsmith. "You can have debates about ideas, and that's what this place is supposed to be about."

Supposed to be. In an ideal world, you might say, we'd have intellectuals of differing worldviews interfacing and debating in the various fields. But all the evidence shows that Republicans are essentially stonewalled from participating in academics, and this fits right into that pattern.

Hopefully I'll be able to beat the odds with my Ph.D. applications this winter.

Pubic Service Announcement

Women can stop reading this right now and move on to other material. Didn't work? Well then here's a link to somewhere you can SHOP!

OK, men, now that we're alone I can proceed. British research has shown that using a laptop can hurt fertility in men because of raised gonadular temperature and possibly radiation as well. It's not the computers that are bad, it's the placement. Presumably a desktop placed on your lap would have the same effect.

So spread your knees out, men: it's the right thing to do.

Hat tip to Drudge.

Mission up the Wazoo

NYTimes columnist is on a worldwide "mission" to mock our allies find more soldiers for the Iraq war. He's in Estonia, where he was shocked to learn that people consider their government's token commitment to the war more of a gentlemen's agreement than a moral stand.

[NYTimes] Many others I interviewed offered a more troubling answer. A student named Sven Kukenelk put it like this: "It's like an investment for us." By this logic, Estonia invests troops in Iraq, and then the United States will be morally bound to rescue Estonia if it gets in trouble with Russia... "It is in our interest to be friendly to the U.S.," [a woman] said, "because we are hoping that the U.S. and NATO will protect us if Russia attacks." So, on the basis of those 55 soldiers in Iraq, the U.S is now committed to using its full economic and military force to back Estonia? "Yes," she said. "That's exactly what we think."

I guess nobody told Nick that's how collective security works. It's called an alliance, my friend: you help us, we help you. His point that most of the world opposes the war is well-taken. It does not, however, follow that our allies are acting immorally or outside of their own interest. Estonia and her southern sisters have cast their lot in with the West, and they need America, England, and France to guarantee their independence. Is Kristof suggesting that the U.S. should not protect her weaker allies? That sounds like the height of unilateralism to me. Likewise, a war fought only by those who believe in it is a...coalition of the willing. Collective security denotes a willingness to fight on your ally's behalf even when it isn't in your direct interest.

This post is dedicated to the brave men of Estonia's force in Iraq...all fifty-five of them.

Back on the Wagon

All the experts, politicians, and peaceniks have jumped on the Window of Opportunity Bandwagon regarding peace between Israel and Palestine. InstantReplay was a bit more skeptical, despite the newfound pragmatism on Sharon's part and Arafat's peaceful death. A new poll among Palestinians, however, has convinced us to get on the bandwagon, because it shows that a lot of Palestinians have gotten on:

[Haaretz] A poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center indicates a dramatic decline in Palestinian support for acts of violence targeting Israelis. For the first time since the outbreak of the intifada in September 2000, a majority of Palestinians, some 52%, oppose violence against Israel...

Some 59% of the Palestinians polled expressed optimism regarding the future, while 40% expressed pessimism. Some 47% are skeptical regarding the chances for a successful outcome to the peace process, and believe that it is currently in a "difficult state, and that its future is unclear." Only 26% of the respondents said that the peace process is alive and that there is a possibility of resuming negotiations; 25% said that "the peace process is dead, and there is no possibility of renewing negotiations."

Palestinians are willing to compromise. Hamas and Sharon are showing their soft sides. Arafat is out of the way. Bush is getting reinvolved. Egypt and Israel have patched things up. Syria is even taking another look at peace. This could be good, folks, this could be good.

Pearl Harbor Day

In memory of those who died in Pearl Harbor - and all of World War II - read Franklin Roosevelt's speech, posted at PowerLine. Then go vote for PowerLine in the 2004 Bloggie Awards.

Natalism?

David Brooks of NYTimes jumps ahead of the curve with his discussion of "natalists", which he says is a new movement. Some of the statistics are compelling:

As Steve Sailer pointed out in The American Conservative, George Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility rates, and 25 of the top 26. John Kerry won the 16 states with the lowest rates.

Is natalism a cause or an effect? If it is merely an effect of other socioeconomic factors, then Brooks is wrong to call it a movement. However, he makes an effective argument that the serious life decisions of parents with 4+ children are based on their desire to be parents.

Are natalists merely holdovers from history? Most baby boomers have embraced the giant "I", and their childbearing choices are dictated by their chosen lifestyle, rather than vice versa. I would answer my own question in the affirmative: looking at history, only those wealthy enough to banish their children to nannies and boarding schools lived fashionable lives. Birth control and widespread wealth has made dandies of us all, and only those who for religious, cultural, atavistic, or accidental reasons have many children remain in the cultural paradigm of history. More evidence that America is a nation of unnatural and unhealthy wealth.

The Email Virus

i thot u mite like THIS :-) !!!!

Unsuitable Material for Minors

According to German research, if you are a student trying to develop a strong intellect, you should not be using this computer.

I'll bet their findings would have been different if they studied people who read InstantReplay multiple times a week.

Phony Optimism

Rather than comment on American Pundit's recent column at WatchBlog, I wrote the following post, syndicated on WatchBlog as well.

American Pundit writes that "mildly optimistic economic forecasts" show that Social Security is not facing a crisis. His "mildly optimistic" forecasters, however, are the liberal Century Foundation, and throw away their intellectual credibility by writing in the cited report, "Social Security is stronger today than it has been at any time in its history."

Moving beyond mildly wildly optimistic forecasts, what really is the future of Social Security?

The Social Security Administration itself writes:

The annual cost of Social Security benefits represents 4.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) today and is projected to rise to 6.6 percent of GDP in 2078. The projected 75-year actuarial deficit in the combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds is 1.89 percent of taxable payroll, down slightly from 1.92 percent in last year's report. The program continues to fail our long-range test of close actuarial balance by a wide margin. Projected OASDI tax income will begin to fall short of outlays in 2018 and will be sufficient to finance only 73 percent of scheduled annual benefits by 2042, when the combined OASDI trust fund is projected to be exhausted.

Social Security could be brought into actuarial balance over the next 75 years in various ways, including an immediate increase in payroll taxes of 15 percent or an immediate reduction in benefits of 13 percent (or some combination of the two). To the extent that changes are delayed or phased in gradually, greater adjustments in scheduled benefits and revenues would be required. Ensuring the sustainability of the system beyond 2078 would require even larger changes.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office wrote on the subject this year:

Under the laws that currently govern Social Security, spending for the program will increase from about 4.4 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) now to more than 6 percent of GDP in 2030, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects. In later years, outlays will continue to grow steadily as a share of GDP, though more slowly. Over the long term, paying the Social Security benefits scheduled under current law will require economic resources totaling between 5 percent and 8 percent of GDP, CBO projects.

At the same time, the federal revenues dedicated to Social Security will remain close to their current level--about 5 percent of GDP--in the absence of changes to the program. Thus, annual outlays for Social Security are projected to exceed revenues beginning in 2019. Even if spending ends up being lower than expected and revenues higher than expected, a gap between the two is likely to remain for the indefinite future.

Any changes to Social Security will have to be made in the context of the pressures on the total federal budget. CBO projects that spending for government health programs will grow even faster than spending for Social Security because of rising health care costs. In particular, increasing outlays for Medicare and Medicaid are projected to cause long-term shortfalls in the rest of the budget that will be even greater than Social Security's. Unless taxation reaches levels that are unprecedented in the United States, current spending policies are likely to result in an ever-growing burden of federal debt held by the public, which will have a corrosive and potentially contractionary effect on the economy.

And in another document, a year old, CBO writes:

The cost of the Social Security program will rise significantly in coming decades--a change that has long been foreseen. Average benefits typically grow when the economy does (because the earnings on which those benefits are based increase). However, in the future, the total amount of Social Security benefits paid will grow faster than the economy because of changes in demographic structure. As the baby-boom generation reaches retirement age and as decreasing mortality leads to longer lives and longer retirements, a larger share of the population will draw Social Security benefits. Moreover, the number of people age 65 or older will double during the next 30 years, while the number of adults under age 65 will grow by less than 15 percent--meaning that in three decades, the older population will be more than one-third the size of the younger group, compared with one-fifth today. Consequently, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that unless changes are made to Social Security, spending for the program will rise to 4.9 percent of GDP in 2020, 5.9 percent in 2030, and 6.2 percent in 2050.

Are these warnings just the product of a Republican cabal that seeks to rob old people of their hard-earned money? Is the data cooked? Not according to congressional Democrats, whose data closely matches that of the SSA and CBO. All the way back in 1999, President Clinton talked of the need to save Social Security, using the budget surpluses he thought would last 25 years or more.

The difference is not in the data, it's in the politics. The congressional Democrats recommend... nothing. No change. They agree with the SSA's data, but don't want (or won't admit to wanting) a tax hike to address the shortfall. The one thing they are sure of is that President Bush's proposal is a bad idea.

Returning to American Pundit's wild optimists, they point out, rightly, that there is a great deal of uncertainty. We do not know what the economy will do in two years, let alone twenty. Nor do we know what populations and immigration trends will be. They also point out (again correctly) that the Social Security Trust Fund of $1,600,000,000,000 is denominated in U.S. Treasury Bills. This introduces another element of uncertainty: the dollar. While the current plunge of the dollar has only impacted foreign currency markets, analysts are becoming increasingly afraid that if China, Japan, and a few others bail out of the market that the dollar could plummet and send interest rates - and inflation - soaring at home. That would proportionally gut the SocSec Trust Fund of value, and could bring the crisis' moment of truth - when the Fund disappears - much closer than the base-case economic predictions.

The magnitude of the projected shortfalls (and hence of the attendant uncertainty) is staggering. Numbers like 1.6% of GDP sound small, until you realize that means $175,000,000,000. That means that if the expected shortfall appears and is not mitigated, we can expect to burn through the Trust Fund in a decade.

Economics (in which I have a degree) is a notoriously unpredictable sport. Optimists point to strong growth in the last fifteen years; pessimists point to weak growth in the last thirty years; optimists point to strong growth in the past fifty years, and so on. The government should do what it can to mitigate recessions and promote growth, but it should also have the humility to realize that it cannot control macroeconomic trends. Moreover, policymakers should display the wisdom to prepare for a less-than-rosy future. If the next two decades work out like the period 1973-1993, then we could be in big trouble. If they look more like 1994-2004, on the other hand, we have nothing to worry about.

President Bush's plan may not be the best way to address the Social Security dilemma. However, after years of lamenting politicians who cannot see more than 2, 4, or 6 years down the road (oh, those long-sighted senators!) I am glad to have a president who is thinking about my retirement as well as his own. As the CBO (and a basic understanding of mathematics) points out, the sooner we address the crisis, the less drastic our measures will have to be. If we wait until a few years before the shortfall breaks on us like a tidal wave, as American Pundit suggests we ought, we will experience either debt or new taxation equal to 27% of total Social Security outlays. Whatever the benefits of high taxation, sudden high taxation is a surefire way to sink the economy (c.f. Herbert Hoover).

So far I have simply argued that something needs to be done to address the Social Security crisis. Democrats may (when it becomes more obvious and impending) decide to raise taxes to pay for the new costs. This would at least be better than sitting on their hands, but as a conservative, I fundamentally differ with the congressional Democrats' inference that government income redistribution is value-neutral. I much prefer to live in George Bush's 'Society of Stakeholders'.

Any financial advisor will tell you that saving for retirement should begin as early as possible - usually forty or more years before retiring. Social Security is part of the same industry, and the same principles of saving, risk management, and decreasing final returns apply. We should act now, and our public debate on the issue should address the economic concerns - "What will work?" - and the political concerns - "What do we want our society to look like?". I want to live in a society where elder poverty remains rare and where people own themselves and their means of production and consumption.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Extrapolate!

To complete the set of posts in the "Excommunicate!" thread, I will lay out what I believe are the basic principles for Christian involvement in public life.

1. Christians are citizens of both heaven and earth. We have obligations from each kingdom, and must not completely exclude either.
2. God has the foremost claim on our lives. When the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man are in conflict, God's claim comes first.
3. All justifiable actions are not created equal. We should seek to edify and not offend people, whether Christians or not. The cross is a stumbling block of its own; we need not make Christianity more difficult to accept.
4. We should enforce standards of public morality on our own members, but not on those who do not profess Christ. Jesus befriended corrupt bureaucrats and call girls, and sided with the poor and weak over the rich and powerful.
5. As citizens of the United States (or other representative governments), we have a civic duty to vote and advocate in favor of policies that we believe promote the type of society we want. There is no Biblical mandate to change the government; rather, we are to accept unfair taxation and oppression with humility. It is the United States, not God, which grants us temporal freedoms and gives us the duty to change our government.
6. When Christians are in positions of temporal authority, they are to use their authority to do good, stop oppression, and promote peace. (References: most of the prophets).
7. The Church, in all its forms, is God's voice on earth. It should never dilute his message with man-made additions. Throughout history the church has failed in its mission whenever it has added its own agenda - moralistic, political, nationalistic - to God's agenda. In Latin America, observers thought the Catholic Church would make itself relevant again by embracing liberation theology. God, however, has blessed protestant churches that remained apolitical with massive growth since then.

This list is by no means exhaustive. However, I think it highlights some of the key differences between our identity as Christians and our identity as U.S. citizens. The Bible was written to Roman citizens and subjugated peoples, but they were never counseled to rebel, and there is no record of the early church demanding freedoms from the government. However, Paul exercised his rights as a Roman citizen, and we should likewise exercise our rights (and responsibilities) as American citizens as long as they do not contradict the laws of God.

Christian leaders in the Alabama case violated principles numbered 2, 3, and 7 above. On 2: They put their political agenda first. They could have avoided this by considering that in a trade-off between showing love and protecting federalism, showing love must win out. On 3: They tied political conservatism to Christianity, creating a stumbling block for blacks and liberals. On 7: They diluted the message of Christ with a political message.

There is no Biblical category for non-church organizations made up of Christians. Any group of Christians, whether they worship together or not, are part of the body of Christ. There is no way, even in a republic, for us to speak as Christians collectively without speaking as the Church. The attempt to do this is one reason for the Alabama debacle. We are the only ones who see the distinction - God doesn't and non-Christians don't.

Is there any place at all for the Church to speak out publically? Yes, but we should be very cautious. Here's another list, the points of which must be addressed before the Church can righteously and profitably speak on a public issue:

1. Is the issue clearly Bible-based or vital to the practice of Christianity? Abortion, human rights, civil rights, freedom of religion: yes. Tax breaks for charitable giving, war, government spending: no.
2. Is the means of 'speaking' justifiable? Civil disobedience needs to pass a high test, but is appropriate where obedience would break God's law. In public speech, care should be taken to be no more firm or uncompromising than necessary.
3. Are we removing a splinter from society's eye when there is a log in our own? The church has no right to speak against gay marriage until it has addressed bias against or hatred towards homosexuals in its own midst. Obviously, this has to be a matter of degrees, but it should be evident to the world that we love - in deed as well as word - those whose behavior we seek to curtail. This also applies to human rights abuses internationally: when we condemn abuses, are we truly objective, or are we just complaining because it's "our people" getting the short end of the stick?
4. Does speaking out fit into the context of the "little-c" church? Different churches are equipped to speak in different ways. A missionsary-led church, for instance, is not likely to have the same reputation or moral authority to speak on a local issue that an indigenous church has. A church dealing with severe internal sin is ill-equiped to confront sin in the world. A church that cannot keep its own members from divorcing looks foolish defending marriage.
5. Are the underlying motives godly or worldly? We must be honest with ourselves: just because something is justifiable in general does not mean it is justified for you, even as a follower.

The Church is the body of Christ. We can never separate what we do or how we present ourselves from the Head. We must live our public lives mindful that we are the visible manifestation of heaven on earth. Scared? You should be.

A Step

Hamas leader Hassan Youssef (not the top leader, but regional chief for the West Bank), surprised everyone and made headlines by declaring a change in Hamas' policy:

"Hamas has announced that it accepts a Palestinian independent state within the 1967 borders with a long-term truce," Sheikh Hassan Yousef, the top Hamas leader in the West Bank, told The Associated Press, referring to lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

Yousef said the Hamas position was new and called it a "stage." In the past, Hamas has said it would accept a state in the 1967 borders as a first step to taking over Israel. Yousef did not spell out the conditions for the renewable cease-fire nor did he say how long it would last.

"For us a truce means that two warring parties live side by side in peace and security for a certain period and this period is eligible for renewal," Yousef said. "That means Hamas accepts that the other party will live in security and peace."

This does not reflect a major change in policy or ideology, but it does reflect a positive change in tactics. Hamas will not become Israel's partner in the peace process, but if they stick to this new position it means they will not be obstructionist either.

Why the change? Haaretz attributes it later in the article to the targeted killings of many Hamas leaders. This is probably a factor, but the timing - less than a month after Arafat's death - is telling as well. With Arafat alive, there was no doubt who would be the leader of a Palestinian state, big or small. Now, the Fatah leadership is divided and made up of much less inspiring figures. Hamas rightly calculates that they will have a much better chance of taking over a new Palestinian state, democratically or otherwise, and either being satisfied with that or using it as a springboard for attacking Israel.

All you Sharonites will of course argue that this is all the more reason to deny the Palestinians a state. I disagree. If Israel denies Palestine statehood, it guarantees terrorism, and forces Palestinian youths into a situation where they have nothing to lose by joining Hamas. Given a state, especially a secular one (which the U.S., Egypt, and Jordan will guarantee), Palestinians will be able to make a rational choice to eschew confrontation with Israel. Even if Hamas gains power, they will have to decide whether to put their newfound power on the line by making a suicidal attack on Israel. The fact is that terrorists are more of a threat to Israel than soldiers, and subjugated Palestinians are more of a threat than free Palestinians next door.

No Regrets

The U.S. and others were criticized during the 1990's for quickly embracing the Baltic States and the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe. Now, with VVladimir Putin showing heavy-handedness in dealing with a remaining satellite state, the West can breathe a sigh of relief. The window of good relations with Moscow may close up as Putin enforces his dictatorship, but the collapse of the Soviet Union allowed democratization and economic growth in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, East Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, and possibly Romania and Moldova. Ukraine, Belarus and the Caucusus are still in Russia's orbit, except perhaps Azerbaijan. Central Asia and Mongolia are iffy. If Russia becomes an enemy in the future, it will be weaker and smaller, and will be faced with the unpleasant reminder of its own backwardness every time it looks at the prosperity and freedom of its former clients.

The Federal Republic of East Africa

How has this slipped under the radar? Three of Africa's healthier economies are joining forces on an eight-year timetable to create a federal "superstate" comprised of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Labor market disruptions could follow the first changes, due next month, which will eliminate immigration limitations, inter alia. It is important, however, to do this early, since it will promote on-the-ground integration ahead of political federation in 2010 and elections in 2013.

Rwanda and Burundi want in as well, and the Big Three are bringing them along as observers, but are wisely unwilling to marry into that belligerent (Rwanda) and internally conflicted (Burundi) family. Ultimately, it would be a very good thing for the Small Two to join: being part of a federation would dilute the control of either ethnic group over the other because all would be part of a wider pan-East-African control structure.

The new federation would include 95 millions, even without the 14 million Rwandese and Burundians, making it the second-largest African entity. This may pose difficulties both political and economic, for a host of reasons, but the long-term gains should outweigh short-term problems. Free trade, economies of scale, and greater international bargaining power will help the nascent federation economically. Likewise, the democratic political structure will be reinforced by integration. It is much more difficult to stage a coup in a large, multilevel government than a tightly controlled one.

One interesting facet of the new political structure is outlined in The Nation (Nairobi's daily):

Seats in the federal Parliament will be shared out on the basis of representation in the home countries and will therefore echo the power of each party in the individual states.

This arrangement, vaguely reminiscent of the old U.S. Senate, will force parties to integrate across each state, though we could see the emergence of something like Canada's Quebecois Party, which would be an detrimental development.

But for now, good luck to the three partners in this marriage - here's to peace, prosperity, and progress for East Africa!

Keep Abortion Safe and Painful

Hat tip to the NYTimes for mentioning the proposed Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. Sponsor Sam Brownback sums up the arguments for the bill:

Unborn children can experience pain. This is why unborn children are often administered anesthesia during in utero surgeries.

Think about the pain that unborn children can experience, and then think about the more gruesome abortion procedures. Of course, we have heard about Partial Birth Abortion, but also consider the D&E abortion. During this procedure, commonly performed after 20-weeks--when there is medical evidence that the child can experience severe pain--the child is torn apart limb from limb. Think about how that must feel to a young human.

We would never allow a dog to be treated this way. Yet, the creature we are talking about is a young, unborn child.

I would love to see this bill passed, as a regulation of what has remained one of the least-regulated areas of medicine (if abortion can be called medicine). If pro-lifers make a real public-relations bid out of this, they'll be able to score some serious points, not only in discouraging abortions but also in showing what the pro-choice folks are really 'pro'.

The effective way for the pro-choice people to combat this, incidentally, would be to write a competing law simply requiring fetus anasthesia for all abortions past a certain point. This would incur a small cost on the doctors, but would leave the pro-life politicians in the uncomfortable position of not 'protecting' every fetus from pain (though protecting more from death). If the pro-choicers don't do this, they have the potential to lose and lose badly.

Extricate!

Ali Baba doesn't know this yet, but I'm reprinting his comment on the "Excommunicate!" series of posts because I think it sums up - theologically - a vital argument that I skimmed over. In this series I have been trying to hammer home the difference between a politician and a Christian. Plenty of things can be justified, even the controversial vote, as Gandhi's comment suggests. But Ali shows ably that Christians must seek the most godly course, not a politically-motivated-but-religiously-justifiable one.

The most important thing for me to remember about racism is that as a white man in the US I have never experienced [it] and never will. Especially in this case, I must defer to how African Americans feel about the clause in question. If African Americans claim it makes them feel inferior, unwanted, oppressed, or any other negative adjective they choose to use, my first response as a Christian shouldn't be, "Get over it. It's not a big deal." It most certainly shouldn’t be, "But then I’ll have to fund public education."

The fact of the matter is African-Americans see the wording of the Alabama Constitution as a reminder of the racism they encountered in the past and, to a lesser degree, the more subtle forms of racism they encounter in the present. Naturally, they want to change it. If I take the commands to "love my neighbor as much as I love myself" and "treat others in the same way I want to be treated" to heart, my love would be manifested in supporting their efforts.

My love to them is expressed by supporting the amendment, not questioning their motives. And even if their motives are shaky (as Parker suggests), it doesn't relieve me of my duty to love them just because I'm going to end up paying more in taxes. Moreover I'd take the command of Jesus to "do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you" to mean that despite the motives of a few I'm better off joining with the vast majority who see this as a simple measure of acknowledging and repudiating a racist past.

I show Christ's love and represent Him on earth by voting to ease my neighbor's painful memories of a racist past [rather] than [by] whining about what it might cost me to do that.

Thanks Ali!

InstantReplay is Famous!

I just found from a referral link that a high school class used InstantReplay in a class project. So this post is dedicated to Mrs. Trumbull and the good kids of Dryden High School in New York.

As part of a project on student's responses to the Vietnam, Gulf, and Iraq wars, Trumbull's put together a page of links, last but not least of which is:

Instant Replay Invades the Iraqi Question: Web log featuring a student's views on the war in Iraq. This site showcases how students are utilizing technology to express their views with communication systems that were unavailable during the Vietnam or Gulf Wars.

The post they link to is one of my better pieces of writing, if I say so myself, making a strong political argument agains the wisdom of war and predicting much of what has occurred since.

UN Reform

File this with jumbo shrimp, military intelligence, Microsoft Works, liquid gas, and virtual reality.

"The United Nations," I like to say, "Does not exist." This generally elicits incredulous looks, both from the conservatives who are convinced that the UN is running America and from liberals who believe that the UN will soon solve all the world's problems. Sorry kids, the UN doesn't exist.

When I was a kid, I was constantly creating clubs with my friends (it was fun, don't laugh). We would have codewords, meaningless secrets, and hated enemies. We might even stake out part of the park or the backyard for the club. The UN is the same thing - a club of states. It meets on borrowed ground, is both funded and run by the members, and the natural relations between member states are basically identical as the same states' relations outside the UN. The U.S. is just as powerful and wealthy, and just as loved and hated within the UN as without. The UN is the world; the world is the UN. Withdrawing from the UN would be meaningless, because we can never withdraw from the world. Likewise, the UN will never solve the world's problems; the world must solve its own problems.

So why does the UN exist? So we can all have a place to meet, and a few global efforts can be funded and run jointly. It's really that simple. There is no nefarious group of UN toadies waiting to install Kofi Annan as world dictator. There is no independent funding structure that the UN draws secret strength from. Nor does the UN have an ideological agenda; what it expresses is merely the world's agenda, expressed as a sort of weighted averaged. The 'weights' in the UN are just as complex as the real world, based on size, wealth, military power, moral authority, popularity, history, and other factors.

Can the UN really be reformed? No. Only if the world truly changes, in which case the UN will inevitably reflect those changes. The blue-ribbon commission reported its recommendation today. And, like the world, it was split. The main issue is the security council, where countries like India and continents like Africa feel that decision-making is enormously unfair. Newsflash, people: life is not fair. Nor is the world. Nor will the UN be, no matter what cosmetic changes are made to its organizational structure.

Imagine Brazil with a Security Council veto. That would make the Brazilians feel great, but the Argentinians would be jealous. And if any important votes came up, they could be threatened easily: "Vote with us," says the U.S., "Or we put a quota on coffee and oranges."

Veto power is a reality veto, not just an organizational prop. The five permanent members have the real power - economically, politically, and militarily - to block any serious threat to their interests. They are independent and have equal enough relations with the other four that they can withstand pressure and blackmail.

So should the UN be reformed? Sure, why not. Why not change the color of the carpet and the length of speeches while you're at it? The impact on real-world outcomes would be about the same.