articles 6/22

Making the U.N. Useful Again
by Newt Gingrich & George Mitchell

Helping Hillary Now Will Hurt Republicans Later
by Dick Morris

NY Times
Regulators Start Inquiry in Data Loss
Regulators are investigating CardSystems Solutions, the payment processor where a security breach has put millions of American cardholders at risk for fraud.

W. Post
Bad Practices Drive Data Theft
Boom in data collection has created marketplace of valuable information stored in thousands of places

Debunking another Gitmo myth
by Michelle Malkin
Newsweek. Amnesty International. Jimmy Carter. Dick Durbin. The Guantanamo Bay-bashing continues.

The wage gap, give me a break
by John Stossel
Feminists keep demanding new laws to protect women from the so-called wage gap. Many studies have found that women make about 75 cents for every dollar a man earns.

Nazis Uber alles
by Jonah Goldberg
As you've no doubt heard, in a speech on the Senate floor (which was no doubt better in the original French), the senior senator from Illinois compared American behavior at Guantanamo Bay to the killing fields of Pol Pot, the Nazi concentration camps, and the Soviet Gulag.

Howard Dean gallops on
by Paul Greenberg
Is this just the usual Christophobia coming out in our elite, or can Dr. Dean not have noticed that the opposition's big tent is getting ever bigger? It's not just the WASPs' party anymore.

So Many Missed Opportunities
by Veronique De Rugy
The time has now come for fiscal conservatives to publicly admit the truth.

The Hyperbolic Opposition
by Ryan Sager
It's sad and dangerous not to have a loyal opposition to help keep the administration honest.

New Minds in Old Bottles
by Glenn Harlan Reynolds
As we move from the information age to the conceptual age, the more things stay the same.

The PETA Principle
Will the group's efforts to curb animal testing run afoul of Bay Area sensibilities?
by Bill Whalen

Wired
The Fire Rebels
They're defying the firefighting establishment with a precision method of dousing flames. The hot new way to stamp out blazes: bursts of delicate fog.
By Joshua Davis

Time
New Research on Miscarriages
White blood cells may play a role

Time.com
50 Coolest Websites 2005
Our annual survey of top sites to inform, amuse and delight

Drawing Their Fish in the Sand

articles 6/21

Seattle Weekly
Blue City Conservatives
Meet Seattle's biggest closet cases: the Republicans next door.

Personal attacks will only embolden her
by Dick Morris

NY Times
Black Market in Stolen Credit Card Data Thrives on Internet

Conspiracy Theories
If you liked The Da Vinci Code, you'll love the Downing Street Memo.
By Christopher Hitchens

W. Post
Church can never accept abortion - Pope's book

That old black government magic
by Bill Murchison
You'll want to look hard beneath headlines like 'Bush Approval Falls in Nationwide Polls' to notice what's missing.

Why Worry?
The economic news isn't the best for President Bush.
by Irwin M. Stelzer

California's Union Blues
The Golden State's unions fight to keep their members from controlling their own money.
by Bryan O'Keefe

The Housing Bears Are Wrong Again
This tax-advantaged sector is writing how-to guide on wealth creation.
by Larry Kudlow

NY Times
Dial-Up Internet Going the Way of Rotary Phones

Cardinal Sin is dead, 76
The "house of Sin" has fallen silent. Retired Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, an outspoken advocate of democracy who played a key role in the revolts that ousted two presidents, died Tuesday.

articles 6/20

National Review
The Truth About Hillary
An author tells his story.
Q&A by Kathryn Jean Lopez

The Bolton Charade
by Robert Novak

Saving the Surplus
Three senators embrace the "personal lockbox" to reform Social Security.
by John Fund

Terms of Internment
How to win friends and influence enemy combatants.
by Alan Bromley

A tale of divorce
by Betsy Hart

A less perfect union
by Michael Barone
The recent rejection of the European Union constitutional treaty by the voters of France and the Netherlands has led to the opposite of the 'ever closer union' that has been the goal of the fathers of the EU since it was established in 1957.

A Better Idea Than Censure?
Shouldn't Democrats be asked to remove Dick Durbin from their Senate leadership?
by William Kristol

Breaking the Durbin Code
What Dick Durbin said, what he really meant, and why the Senate should vote to censure him.
by Hugh Hewitt

AP
Biden Intends to Seek Presidency in 2008

AP
Brain Areas Shut Off During Female Orgasm
New research indicates that parts of the brain that govern fear and anxiety are switched off when a woman is having an orgasm.

Grace-When Work Doesn't Work
by Randy Pope

articles 6/19

NY Times Magazine
What's Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage? (It's the Gay Part)
Maryland's anti-gay-marriage crusaders share this with organizers nationwide: They say they are fighting a disease.

The Sorry Bunch
Listen and learn from our enemies.
by Victor Davis Hanson

NY Times
Gay or Straight? Hard to Tell

NY Times
F.B.I. Counterterror Officials Lack Experience, Lawyer Says
A lawyer who interviewed a number of top current and former counterterrorism officials at the F.B.I. said that the officials lacked a detailed understanding of terrorism.

Whether This War Was Worth It
In Analyzing Iraq, Consider the Effects of Having Done Nothing
By Robert Kagan

The Anti-Semitic Disease
by Paul Johnson

A Korean Solution?
Arthur Waldron

Time
Three big shots, eight very big shows. Bob Geldof, Bono and Richard Curtis talk to Josh Tyrangiel about what on earth they're doing with LIVE 8
"America doesn't have a lack of empathy; they just don't know the issues as well. Actually, today I had to defend the Bush Administration in France again. They refuse to accept, because of their political ideology, that he has actually done more than any American President for Africa." -- Bob Geldof

NY Times Magazine
What Today's Dads Don't Do
The modern father, at home and unmoored.

War and Weakness
by Richard A Clarke
The Iraq conflict is sapping our military strength. Can an all-volunteer force sustain a long counterinsurgency?

The Housing Bears Are Wrong Again
by Larry Kudlow

Inside Report: Dean vs. Dean
by Robert Novak

Weekly Standard
A Decade of Reed
One Republican's long, lucrative march through the institutions.

WSJ
Popularity Isn't Everything
Perspective on the president's waning poll numbers.

Canada's medical gulag
by Paul Jacob
Canada is not a communist country. Really, it's not — except when it comes to medical care.

AP
Cell Phones Now Playing Role of Wallet

All Headline News
Apple Welcomes its Newest Customer: The Queen of England





What Fathers Do Best
Hint: Not the same things as mothers.
by Steven E. Rhoads

FATHER'S DAY NO LONGER ARRIVES without the national media highlighting Mr. Moms. The year before last, for example, Lisa Belkin of the New York Times described the life of one Michael Zorek, whose only job was taking care of his 14-month-old son Jeremy. Zorek, whose wife brought home a good salary as a corporate lawyer, felt he had become "remarkably good" at shopping, at cooking, and at entertaining his energetic toddler. He was angry at a parents' magazine whose essay contest was open only to mothers. "I'm the one who does the shopping, and I'm the one who does the cooking," he reasoned. "Why is it only sexist when women are excluded?"
This year the homemaking fathers even got to horn in on Mother's Day. On May 8, the Washington Post's Sunday Outlook section featured William McGee, a single dad who "couldn't help feeling excluded" by all the ads for products that "moms and kids" would both love. He mentioned, for example, the classic peanut butter ad, "Choosy Moms Choose Jif." McGee wanted advertisers to know that he is "one of many caring dads" who are choosy, too.
Brace yourselves for an onslaught of such features this week, even though, in the real world, there are still 58 moms staying home with minor children for every dad who does so. This is not just an accidental social arrangement, to be overcome once the media have sufficiently raised our consciousness about the joys of stay-at-home fatherhood. Mothers are loaded with estrogen and oxytocin, which draw them to young children and help induce them to tend to infants. And the babies themselves make it clear that they prefer their mothers. Even in families where fathers have taken a four-month-long paid parental leave to tend to their newborns, the fathers report that the babies prefer to be comforted by their mothers.
The problem with honoring fathers who do what mothers usually do--what used to be called "mothering"--is this: It suggests that fathers who do what most fathers do aren't contributing to their children's well-being. Yet we know this can't be true. Children who grow up in fatherless families are poorer, less healthy, less educated. They die much earlier, commit more crimes, and give birth to more babies out of wedlock.
What do most real-world dads do? When the kids get old enough, they teach them how to build and fix things and how to play sports. They are better than moms at teaching children how to deal with novelty and frustration, perhaps because they are more likely than mothers to encourage children to work out problems and address challenges themselves--from putting on their shoes to operating a new toy.
When the kids become older still, Dad is usually better than Mom at controlling unruly boys. Jennifer Roback Morse notes that all the surveys of who does what around the house never mention one of her husband's most important functions--he is responsible for glaring. When their son acts up, his glares just seem to have more effect than hers do.
Similarly, a fascinating study in the journal Criminology finds that female social ties in a neighborhood--borrowing food, helping with problems, having lunch together--are associated with much lower crime rates. Male social ties in the neighborhood have no effect on crime rates. But the beneficial effect of female ties almost completely disappears in communities dominated by fatherless families! You need husbands and fathers--what the authors call "family rooted men"--if the crime-fighting female ties are really to be effective. Perhaps mothers still say, "Just you wait until your father gets home," or its 21st-century equivalent.
Sometimes moms worry that their roughhousing husbands are making their boys more aggressive. But, in fact, fathers are teaching their sons how to play fight--don't bite, don't kick, stay away from the eyes--a form of play enjoyed by most boys around the world. On the playground, boys without fathers in the home are unpopular because they respond in a truly aggressive manner when other boys try to initiate rough-and-tumble play. A committee brought together by the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Research Council has concluded that "fathers, in effect, give children practice in regulating their own emotions and recognizing others' emotional cues."
Of course, dads do a lot for their daughters as well. For example, by providing a model of love for and fidelity to their wives, dads give teenage girls confidence that they can expect men to be interested in them for reasons beyond sex.
We could begin to do dads justice if we realized that their nature makes it unlikely that they will like intensive nurturing in the way that most mothers do. Testosterone inhibits nurturing. In both men and women high levels of testosterone are associated with less interest in babies. Low levels of testosterone are associated with a stronger than average interest in nurturing. If you inject a monkey mother with testosterone, she becomes less interested in her baby. And men have much more testosterone than women. Thus, in those two-career families where husband and wife are determined to share domestic and paid work equally, a common argument ensues because dads typically suggest that they get more paid child-care help; moms typically want less paid help and more time with their children.
If dads were as tormented as moms by prolonged absence from their children, we'd have more unhappiness and more fights over who gets to spend time with the children. By faithfully working at often boring jobs to provide for their families, dads make possible moms who can do less paid work and thereby produce less stressed and happier households. Dads deserve a lot of credit for simply making moms' nurturing of children possible. On Father's Day we should more often notice, and then honor, typical fatherly virtues and declare vive la difference.
Steven E. Rhoads is a professor of politics at the University of Virginia and author of Taking Sex Differences Seriously, newly available in paperback.

articles 6/14

NY Times
Next Generation of Conservatives (By the Dormful)

Fox News
Vice President Dick Cheney Talks With Sean Hannity

Boston Globe
The downloaders strike back

Newsweek
Military: The Family Business
They are proud to see their children follow them into service—and worried that their decisions could get their kids killed. Inside the military's special father-son bond.

NY Times
Playing God With Birth Defects in the Nursery
The issues that two doctors debated in a case from the 1970's remain highly relevant in modern neonatal intensive-care units.

Step by Step
A roundup of the past three weeks' good news from Iraq.
by Arthur Chrenkoff

Hunting Bubba
Can political consultants Dave "Mudcat" Saunders and Steve Jarding win rural voters back to the Democratic party?
by Matt Labash

Western Dems not sold on Hillary
by Robert Novak

Newsweek
Life in Solitary
Catholic hermits are reinventing an ancient tradition, living ever farther from society and ever closer to God.

Dear Sir: Your Data Was Stolen
Millions of tales of potential identity theft are circulating in the digital city. Mine is just one of them.
by Dan Goodin

Wired
Microsoft Censors Chinese Blogs
The company works with the communist country to scrub dirty words -- like "democracy" and "human rights" -- from its new MSN China portal.

Rolling Stone
The Gunslinger
Sen. Harry Reid is leading the charge against the GOP

U2: Did They Come to Play Jesus

U2: Did They Come to Play Jesus
June 7, 2005
by Steve Stockman
47:05 (5.38MB)

articles 6/11

After a long absence, the Duke of Data blog will return to regular publishing soon. Thanks for your patience.

Denver Post
Transactions paid in the blink of an eye

Fox News Channel
JPMorgan Hopes 'Blink' Equals Bling

CBS46
Chase Bank introduces microchip credit card
Atlanta is the first city in the U.S. to get blink cards.

Weekly Standard
Winning Ugly
Republicans are doing better than you think.

Commentary Magazine
Annihilating Terri Schiavo
Paul McHugh

Weekly Standard
Kerry: The New Al Gore
John Kerry spins further out into irrelevance.
by Daniel McKivergan

A Tale of Two Chairmen
Why the media loves the disastrous Howard Dean and doesn't understand the greatness of Ken Mehlman.
by Hugh Hewitt

The Global Shift
The world will soon better appreciate the United States
by Victor Davis Hanson

NY Daily News
Nerds make better lovers
Ready for a real relationship? Ditch thepretty boys and grab yourself a geek

AFP
Bono hails Group of Eight on debt relief

AP
Bono Doubles As Lobbyist for World's Poor

President Welcomes British Prime Minister Blair
...Second question, do I believe in my gut we can eradicate poverty? I do believe we can eradicate poverty.
By the way, Bono has come to see me. I admire him. He is a man of depth and a great heart, who cares deeply about the impoverished folks on the continent of Africa. And I admire his leadership on the issue. And so I do believe. I don't view - I can't remember how you characterized the rock stars, but I don't characterize them that way, having met the man.

Bono on CCM & Worship

White House.gov
President Visits National Counterterrorism Center
"...And today I'm pleased to announce the fact that upon John Negroponte's recommendation, that we will nominate Vice Admiral John Redd to be the Director of the NCTC. He's a man of enormous experience. He has served our country with distinction. He'll be a good boss. He'll be a person that will be able to carry on the tradition of John Brennan."
Personnel Announcement

Bloomberg
Admiral is antiterror nominee

Bono: 'We Need to Talk'

U2's frontman sits down with Greg Kot to 'clear the air' about negative reviews, the band's direction and the role of rock 'n' roll

Saddam's Business Partners

How the Oil-for-Food scandal happened and why it matters.
by Stephen F. Hayes
05/30/2005, Volume 010, Issue 35

WHEN UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL Kofi Annan quipped several years ago that he could "do business" with Saddam Hussein, he meant it figuratively. In light of the substantive charges coming out of the ever-expanding Oil-for-Food scandal, the throwaway line seems revealing or at least ironic. "I think we have to take him literally," says Republican senator Norm Coleman, who is leading one of eight investigations into the corruption and mismanagement of the U.N.'s largest-ever humanitarian relief effort. The basic outline of the scandal is simple: Saddam Hussein used the Oil-for-Food program to circumvent U.N. sanctions imposed after the Gulf war and to enrich himself and his allies. He did this by bribing leading journalists and diplomats and demanding kickbacks from those who profited from selling Iraqi oil. That he was able to do so indicates at least that the U.N. badly mismanaged the program it set up in December 1996. None of this is particularly astonishing. No one is surprised to learn that Saddam Hussein cheats, that politicians take bribes, and that the competence level of the U.N. bureaucracy is, well, suboptimal. Nevertheless, the details of the Oil-for-Food scandal--who participated, and what they apparently did--are jaw-dropping. Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, appears to have accepted millions of dollars in oil-soaked bribes from Saddam Hussein. The same appears to be true of the former interior minister of France, Charles Pasqua, a close friend of President Jacques Chirac. And the same appears to be true of three high-ranking U.N. executives including Benon Sevan, handpicked by Kofi Annan to administer the Oil-for-Food program. Oil-for-Food money even went to terrorist organizations supported by the Iraqi regime and, according to U.S. investigators, might be funding the insurgency today. Through seven years' worth of deals that should never have been made, compromises that should never have been struck, and concessions that should never have been granted, Oil-for-Food strengthened Saddam Hussein. What we know about all of this now is a fraction of what will eventually be uncovered. But even this limited understanding should mean an end to Kofi Annan's term as secretary general. The sad history of U.N. incompetence on Iraq generally and in the Oil-for-Food program specifically is enough to make you wonder why George W. Bush settled for John Bolton rather than, say, John Rocker to push for reform at the world body. AMONG THE MANY BIZARRE ASPECTS of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program is its premise: If we, the international community, allow Saddam Hussein to take in more money by selling oil, we can end the suffering of the Iraqi people even while maintaining U.N. sanctions. Saddam Hussein argued that Iraqis were dying because the sanctions deprived him of the money to save them. And while there is little doubt that the sanctions left Iraqis much poorer than they were before the Gulf war--annual incomes dropped nearly to a third of what they had been in 1990--it was less clear that Saddam Hussein was similarly destitute. "Saddam's family profits from covert sales of Iraqi oil and dominance of the black market, where many of the donated medicines and food end up," said then-CIA director John Deutch in public testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on September 25, 1996. "Iraqi government funds are used to maintain lavish lifestyles. Baghdad, for example, has begun working on 48 new palaces and VIP residences during the past five years, increasing the total number of estates available to Saddam Hussein to at least 78." Iraqis were dying because Saddam Hussein was killing them. He was actively killing them, Deutch said, by executing his political opponents and by draining the marshes of central Iraq that provided sustenance to hundreds of thousands of Shiites. And he was passively killing them by refusing to cooperate with U.N. inspectors and stealing food and medicine intended to ease their suffering. None of this mattered to France and Russia, Hussein's chief backers on the Security Council. From virtually the beginning, they wanted the sanctions to end so that they could resume their robust, pre-Gulf war business with the Iraqi government. But Hussein made their argument difficult. For the first five years after the 1991 cease-fire, he had continually violated its terms. He had failed to account for his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. He had not cooperated fully with U.N. weapons inspectors. He had smuggled oil out of his country for sale on the black market. He had harbored a fugitive from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had attempted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush. He had amassed troops on the Kuwaiti border, threatening a new attack. And he had dispatched 40,000 Iraqi soldiers to attack the Kurds in northern Iraq. The United States and Britain, Hussein's chief opponents on the Security Council, wanted to maintain the sanctions. But by the mid-1990s it had become clear that Hussein was winning the public relations battle. Much of the world blamed the Americans and the British for the suffering of the Iraqi people. The Clinton administration wanted a compromise. In April 1995, as U.N. inspectors traversed Iraq looking for proscribed weapons that Saddam was to have destroyed, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a proposal that would allow Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months. The deal would be renewed after rigorous inspections by the Security Council to ensure that Hussein wasn't cheating. The money would go into an escrow account operated under U.N. scrutiny. Some of it would be used to compensate Kuwaiti victims of the Gulf war. Some of it would cover the cost of the U.N. weapons inspections. The bulk of the money, however, would go to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people under the U.N. sanctions. Of the $2 billion Iraq would earn from oil sales, approximately $1.3 billion would be spent on food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods. The money would be distributed from the escrow account to vendors across the globe, again with significant input from Saddam Hussein. Iraq rejected the proposal as a violation of its sovereignty, as it had once before. The real reason was less high-minded: Hussein needed Iraqis to keep dying. He rightly interpreted as weakness the eagerness of the United States and others on the Security Council to ease the sanctions on his regime. Hussein "understood that if he exercised the option of exporting oil under the condition that only humanitarian aid could be delivered, then it would relieve the pressure on the [Security] Council to lift sanctions in their entirety," Charles Duelfer, a CIA special adviser on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, told a Senate panel last fall. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was the U.N. secretary general at the time, shrugged off Iraq's lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors and promised Hussein that the new proposal would be a "first step toward the total lifting of the sanctions against Iraq." When Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected to Jordan on August 8, 1995, he effectively ended any hope for the total lifting of sanctions. Kamel, the nephew of Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali," was a senior regime official with responsibility for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. He revealed the elaborate schemes Hussein had put in place to hide his programs from U.N. inspectors. The Iraqi regime, not knowing what Kamel had disclosed to U.N. officials, was forced to admit a far greater level of WMD production and sophistication than had been known. The French and Russians, who had offered praise for the regime's alleged cooperation, were silenced. The drive to end sanctions was finished, or rather stalled. Five months later, in December 1995, a U.N. agency known as the Food and Agriculture Organization produced a study that estimated 567,000 children had died as a result of the sanctions. The authors noted the seeming contradiction between the determination of U.N. humanitarian agencies to alleviate suffering and the efforts of the U.N. Security Council to enforce sanctions. The embargo, they concluded, threatened to undermine "the moral, financial, and political standing of the international community." Another study by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that some 4,500 Iraqi children were dying each month from disease and starvation, and a third U.N. study, this one by the U.N. World Food Program, determined that approximately 180,000 Iraqi children under five were suffering from malnutrition. The pressure had returned. The details of a U.N.-supervised program allowing Hussein to sell more oil in order to better provide for his people were debated for another year, with U.N. negotiators, encouraged by France and Russia, acceding to Hussein's many demands. One concession, little noticed at the time, was a provision that would allow Hussein to choose who bought and sold his oil, pending approval by the U.N. On December 10, 1996, the deal was struck. "This is a victory for the poorest of the poor of Iraq, for the women, the children, the sick, and the disabled," said a very pleased Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The U.N. chief was not the only one who was happy. A triumphant Saddam Hussein traveled to oil-rich Kirkuk for a photo-op, where he smiled broadly as he opened a ceremonial spigot. Iraq held a nationwide celebration to mark the occasion. Asked by a reporter about the likelihood that Hussein could circumvent or manipulate the restrictions, deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Edward Gnehm was dubious. "We designed our resolution for a cheater," he explained. "We know him. We know him well." Looking at that formulation now--"we designed our resolution for a cheater"--Gnehm seems positively prophetic. Whatever the intentions of its planners, the Oil-for-Food program actually worked like this: Iraq designated certain individuals or entities as potential purchasers of Iraqi oil. It gave them oil "allocations" or "vouchers" (not foreseen in the program as designed by the U.N.), which they could either use to purchase oil themselves or sell to third parties. Because the regime severely limited the number of recipients of these allocations, the recipients were able to resell the oil after attaching a surcharge--usually between 3 and 30 cents a barrel. Sales were usually a minimum of 1 million barrels, so the profits from the surcharges were significant. Beginning in 1998, Hussein began to shift his allocations from oil companies to politicians, journalists, and terrorist groups. Mark Greenblatt, a lead investigator for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, described it this way. "His plan was simple. Rather than giving allocations to traditional oil purchasers, he gave allocations to foreign officials, journalists, even hostile terrorist entities, who then flipped their oil allocations to traditional oil companies in return for a sizable commission. In doing so, Saddam could give a foreign official or a journalist hundreds of thousands of dollars without ever paying a dime." Officials at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime--including Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, and Oil Minister Amir Muhammad Rashid--chose the recipients. The U.N. did not see any of this until the traditional oil companies contracted with Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, known as SOMO. (One notable exception to this U.N. ignorance appears to have been Benon Sevan, the administrator of Oil-for-Food, who knew about the illegal allocations because he personally was receiving some. More on that later.) The Iraqis, however, kept scrupulous records of each step in their bribery scheme. On September 1, 2000, at the direction of Saddam Hussein, SOMO began demanding a "surcharge" from each purchaser of Iraqi oil. According to the Coleman-Levin investigation, these surcharges ranged from 10 to 30 cents per barrel and were paid directly to the Iraqi regime, often through another party who, of course, took a cut. The scheme worked for two years until the United States and Britain insisted that it end. By that time, however, Hussein had made profits of nearly $230 million outside of the U.N. process, in one of several illegal mechanisms he devised to enrich himself. Over roughly the same period, according to the Duelfer report, the Iraqi regime increased exponentially its spending on the country's Military Industrial Commission--from $7.8 million in 1998 to $500 million in 2003. It is true that much of Iraq's illicit funding during the period of the Oil-for-Food program came from ordinary oil smuggling unrelated to the U.N. But the improvements to the oil production processes that allowed Iraq to produce and distribute oil legally also helped the illegal oil trade. The Duelfer Report estimates that Iraq's oil-smuggling profits from 1996-2003 were nearly triple those of the previous five years. AT A SENATE HEARING LAST TUESDAY, the Coleman-Levin investigators highlighted the bribes the Iraqi regime paid to foreign officials from Britain, Russia, and France. The dramatic testimony of British member of parliament George Galloway, who unconvincingly denied knowledge of any Iraqi oil transactions, garnered most of the headlines. But Galloway is a well-known apologist for Saddam Hussein, and as a propagandist for the regime he was rather ineffective. Two other men under investigation by the Coleman-Levin committee, however, were close advisers to the two chief opponents of the Iraq war--Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin. One Coleman-Levin report concerns former French interior minister Charles Pasqua, who is described as a "long-time friend and political ally" of Chirac. The report says Pasqua "was a vocal supporter of restoring economic ties with the Hussein regime" as interior minister and charges him with receiving allocations for 11 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Pasqua has denied any involvement. A second report focuses on oil allocations to the Russian Presidential Council. "Russia topped the list of nations from whom the Hussein regime wanted support at the Security Council. As a result, the Hussein regime granted allocations to Russian individuals, political parties, and others due to their good relationship with Iraq and their support for the lifting of sanctions. . . . The scale of the oil allocations given to Russian individuals and political parties was substantial, totaling approximately 30 percent of all the oil allocated during the course of the program." Many of these allocations went to the Unity party, a predecessor of the Unified Russia party, which currently holds 37 percent of the seats in the Russian Duma. The report describes it as "a pro-Kremlin party associated with Russian president Vladimir Putin." In a prison interview last month with Senate investigators, Tariq Aziz said the Unity party was chosen for the allocations "because Russia was taking positions at the Security Council that were favorable to Iraq." Alexander Voloshin was the head of the Russian Presidential Council and, until his resignation in 2003, the top adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin. He has been called the Russian Karl Rove for his close relationship to Putin, and, according to the Coleman-Levin report, "there is little debate over the magnitude of Mr. Voloshin's influence in Russian government during the Oil-for-Food Program." In all, the Russian Presidential Council is alleged to have received allocations for 90 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Another well-known but less influential Russian politician, the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, also received oil allocations under Oil-for-Food, good for more than 70 million barrels. The Coleman-Levin reports base their conclusions on a wide variety of evidence including documents from the Iraqi Oil Ministry and the State Oil Marketing Organization that record the transactions in detail. Investigators also conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iraqi officials, including Aziz and Ramadan, who supported and in many cases expanded upon the documentation. In early June, the Coleman-Levin committee will make available a similar report on the Iraqi regime's funding of terrorist entities. They will lay out a case study of the allocations provided to the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), a terrorist group Hussein funded to conduct operations against Iran. Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit and author of Imperial Hubris, described some of the work the MEK did for Hussein in his 2002 book, Through Our Enemies' Eyes. Osama bin Laden "may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam's anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK)," Scheuer writes. "The first group of bin Laden's fighters is reported to have been sent to MEK camps in June 1998; MEK cadre were also then providing technical and military training for Taliban forces and running the Taliban's anti-Iran propaganda." THAT THE U.N. WAS APPARENTLY CLUELESS as this scheme unfolded is bad enough. What's worse, though, is that several high-ranking U.N. officials appear to have been involved in the illegality. Court documents related to the prosecution of Samir Vincent, the first American to be charged in the Oil-for-Food scandal, refer to Vincent's meetings with U.N. officials. Vincent was acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq when he "and other individuals, including United Nations officials, met in Manhattan in an effort to secure terms favorable to the Government of Iraq in connection with the adoption and implementation of Resolution 986"--the resolution that created the Oil-for-Food program. Vincent is now cooperating with prosecutors. And last month, a criminal complaint against South Korean Tongsun Park, who also acted on Hussein's behalf, mentions "U.N. Official #1" and "U.N. Official #2" as recipients of bribes from the former Iraqi regime. The two officials remain unnamed. Many news articles have pointed out that Park is a longtime friend of former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and a business associate of Maurice Strong, an adviser to Kofi Annan who currently serves as the U.N. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea. Both men have denied any wrongdoing. So has Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son. The younger Annan was consulting for the Swiss firm Cotecna while the firm was bidding to win a contract to monitor the Oil-for-Food program. Cotecna won the contract on December 31, 1998, the same day Kojo Annan's consultancy ended. Cotecna continued to pay Kojo some $2,500 per month as part of a "non-compete" clause. The payments continued until February 2004. Both Annans and Cotecna contend that Kojo's work had nothing to do with Oil-for-Food. The same cannot be said for Benon Sevan, since he is the man Kofi Annan handpicked to run the Oil-for-Food program. According to an interim report from the Oil-for-Food investigation commissioned by the U.N. itself, Sevan "repeatedly solicited" oil allocations worth about $1 million for a company called African Middle East Petroleum. Paul Volcker, chairman of the U.N.-backed investigation, said, "The Iraqi government, in providing such allocations, certainly thought they were buying influence." Volcker added: "Mr. Sevan placed himself in a grave and continuing conflict-of-interest situation that violated explicit U.N. rules and violated the standards of integrity essential to a high-level international civil servant." I visited Norm Coleman in his Senate office last Wednesday. He spoke in measured terms until I asked him about Benon Sevan. "The first Volcker report concludes with a summary that this is a conflict of interest. It wasn't a conflict of interest. Sevan lied to investigators. Sevan lies. He lied to us about money that he has publicly declared. He lied to investigators. He lied about his relationship with a person who ultimately got the contract for the oil. We then get documentation that in fact Sevan lobbied for this guy to get Iraqi oil for his company. That's probable cause that he has committed a crime. And yet it was characterized as a conflict of interest?" Coleman races through his list of grievances until that last sentence, at which point he pauses between each word. Conflict . . . of . . . interest? He shakes his head in disbelief, and then he's off again. "That's not a conflict of interest. Sevan should be available--he shouldn't have immunity. I'm kind of on a rant here, but Sevan--up until we raised the issue, the U.N. was paying his legal fees. With Oil-for-Food money! Here's a guy who has lied to investigators--probable cause to believe he has committed a crime--and Kofi was going to pay his legal fees until we raised the issue!" In recent weeks, the Volcker committee itself has come under scrutiny after two of its top investigators, former FBI agent Robert Parton and his deputy, Miranda Duncan, quit the probe. The Volcker committee originally explained their departures by claiming simply that the pair had finished their work. Shortly thereafter, the committee cited "personal reasons." Eventually, the truth emerged. Both Parton and Duncan believed that the Volcker committee's report on Kofi and Kojo Annan was too forgiving of the U.N. secretary general. In the days since, Parton has accused the Volcker committee of violating the confidentiality agreement it had with a witness, and that witness himself has accused the Annans of witness tampering. Is it any wonder that Coleman wants to investigate whether Kofi Annan was--quite literally--doing business with Saddam Hussein? Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.

Georgia Credit-Card Holders to Be the First in the Nation to Use 'Blink'

by Soraya Nadi McDonald
Associated Press

ATLANTA - About 400,000 credit-card holders in Georgia will be the first in the country to use a new technology that allows them to pay for items by waving their card near a terminal instead of swiping it through a machine.

Residents of Atlanta and 160 other cities in the state will test drive the new "blink" cards, which JPMorgan Chase & Co. will begin mailing to its customers June 1.

The company selected Atlanta as the first test city because "what we see in Atlanta is very much on the leading edge of being trendsetting," said Tom O'Donnell, senior vice president of JPMorgan's card division. "It's a dynamic place where people are on the go."

JPMorgan estimates that the new technology will help shorten lines at businesses and help merchants reach more customers by speeding up credit-card purchases. For example, the company predicts it would cut up to 20 seconds from a typical transaction at a fast-food restaurant's drive-through window.

In Atlanta, the cards will be accepted at hundreds of businesses starting next month, mostly at pharmacies, convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and movie theaters.

Everything about the "blink" card is the same as a traditional credit card except that the new cards don't have to be swiped through a machine, so it shaves a few seconds off of a transaction. It looks like a normal credit card, but there is a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip embedded inside it. Barely visible, the flat microchip is smaller than a kernel of corn.

When a customer brings his credit card within a couple of inches of the terminal, it lights up and beeps, and the transaction is instantly captured.

"A big part of convenience is speedy transaction," said Margaret Chabris, a spokeswoman with 7-Eleven convenience stores. "It's quicker because they're not fumbling around with cash."

Consumers can start "blinking" at 170 7-Eleven stores next month, and Chabris said that the company hopes to have all its 5,300 stores outfitted with the terminals by the end of the year.

"What we're looking for is adding a feature that gives them more speed and more convenience in terms of how they use their credit card. They now have an easier way to pay," O'Donnell said.

----
On The Net
JPMorgan Chase & Co's Blink Cards: http://www.chaseblink.com/

When a Story Goes Terribly Wrong

Chase rolls out credit cards with "blink"

Chase To Roll Out Next Generation Payment Product This Summer

Chase Cards With "blink" Redefine Payment Experience for Cardmembers By Providing Increased Speed, Added Convenience, Enhanced Rewards Platform; Merchants Enjoy Faster Transactions, Increased Customer Loyalty

WILMINGTON, DE - May 19, 2005 - Chase Bank U.S.A., N.A., a division of JPMorgan Chase & Co. [NYSE: JPM], announced today that it will become the first bank to increase the speed and convenience of a credit card by broadly rolling out consumer cards with contactless functionality, called blink. Chase will begin a market-by-market rollout of the "Chase credit cards with blink" this summer, after working closely with merchants in each market to ensure the broadest possible acceptance at launch.

Working in conjunction with Visa U.S.A. and MasterCard International Incorporated, Chase has identified merchants where speed and convenience are important to consumers, and has been actively building a roster of merchants in each market. Initially, Chase cardmembers will be able to blink at well-known movie theaters, convenience and specialty retailers such as 7-Eleven, quick service restaurants and drug stores. Chase will announce additional lists of specific merchants when they issue cards with blink in each market. Sheetz, Inc. - one of America's fastest-growing, family owned and operated convenience store chains - will be Chase's first partner to launch their co-branded credit card with blink functionality, allowing customers the ability to use Chase cards that blink at all of their locations.

To use Chase cards with blink, cardmembers simply hold their card near a point-of-sale terminal at checkout, instead of swiping their card or handing it to a store employee. As cardmembers hold their Chase card with blink near the point-of-sale terminal, the terminal will quickly emit a signal or tone to acknowledge payment confirmation.

"We believe these innovative cards with blink will provide merchants and cardmembers with the increased speed and convenience they want at the point-of-sale," said Carter Franke, chief marketing officer of Chase Card Services, the company's credit card division. "In the future, Chase cards with blink will also allow us to reward cardmembers at the point-of-sale and provide merchants and our cobrand partners with an opportunity to build even stronger customer loyalty programs."

In each market, Chase plans to offer its cardmembers hundreds of merchant locations accepting Chase cards with blink, providing them with numerous opportunities to make everyday purchases quickly in places where they might normally use cash. Consumers can use cards with blink everywhere they currently use credit cards - anywhere Visa and MasterCard are accepted - plus, use the new blink functionality wherever contactless payments are accepted. By the end of 2005, Chase plans to have thousands of merchant locations accepting Chase cards with blink across the country.

7-Eleven, Inc. will be an early adopter of the Chase cards with blink, testing the card in 170 of its stores. "Because 7-Eleven is synonymous with convenience, anything we can do to improve a consumer's shopping experience at a 7-Eleven store is always under review," said Rick Updyke, vice president of business development for 7-Eleven, Inc. "The new Chase cards with blink provide customers with a faster, easier transaction. Contactless payment fits well with 7-Eleven's strategy of providing consumers convenient, quick service. As such, we expect to roll out acceptance of these cards to our 5,300 U.S. 7-Eleven stores."

Chase cards with blink offer all of the same security and privacy protections consumers and merchants have come to expect from a leader in the payments industry, including cardmembers having zero liability for unauthorized purchases. Chase cards with blink include a technology that is embedded in the card and read by a point-of-sale terminal. To enable quick and convenient payments, Chase cards with blink hold the same data and security features that enable traditional credit card transactions. Cardmembers may also use Chase cards with blink just as they would a traditional credit card with a magnetic stripe. More information is available about Chase credit cards with blink at www.chaseblink.com/national.

Integrated Marketing and Advertising Campaign

Beginning with the first market, Chase will launch a fully integrated marketing and advertising campaign to help educate and excite local consumers and cardmembers about Chase cards with blink. The local campaigns will encourage cardmembers to "blink lunch," "blink a drink" or "blink a movie" by bringing to life how the card works at many local area merchants. The campaign will leverage television, radio, newspaper and billboard advertising to reach consumers, and will be complemented by several cardmember communications about the new card functionality.

Benefits for Cardmembers and Merchants

After taking part in a pilot program in Orlando in 2003 and evaluating the results of trials from around the world, Chase understands the value and benefits that Chase credit cards with blink provide to both cardmembers and merchants. Trial results confirmed that consumers find the contactless technology to be simple, fast and convenient, and that consumers enjoyed the added security from retaining possession of their cards while paying. The most significant timesavings can be realized in the drive-thru environment, where transaction time was reduced by as much as 20 seconds as compared to cash. Consumers also liked the convenience of not carrying cash for everyday purchases, meaning they no longer needed to fumble around for change and small bills, or be confined by the cash in their purses or wallets. In fact, 60 percent of respondents to a recent MasterCard survey said they use cash less often today than they did five years ago. For merchants, blink transactions speed checkout times and allow consumers to spend less time waiting in lines. Research has shown that customers who use blink cards often spend more per transaction and are happier with their store experience. Chase cards with blink also provide a reliable, trusted payment method that works well in environments where speed is important.

Making More Time for Americans

In support of the new Chase credit cards with blink and their ability to offer cardmembers more time and convenience, Chase recently commissioned a telephone survey conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation. The Chase "Just in a blink of time" Index polled 1,000 adult Americans hoping to discover what really irks them about waiting in line to do everyday routine activities. The survey was conducted April 15 - 17, 2005 with the results representative of and projectable to the U.S. population. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percent. The survey also revealed how Americans make the most of waiting in line and how they look for timesaving alternatives.

Americans most dread waiting in lines at the doctor's office (27%) and the Department of Motor Vehicles (26%), followed by the grocery store (18%) and the airport (14%).

Americans dislike waiting in lines, but the following behaviors make it worse - slow/inefficient cashiers (23%), someone changing their mind about an item that has been rung up (19%) and someone who leaves the line to run back for an item (19%).

One-third of Americans (32%) get frustrated after waiting in line for 10 minutes or less.

Half of Americans (52%) take the stairs instead of waiting for an elevator.

One-third of Americans will drive fast (35%), bring other things to do while waiting in line (33%) or buy fewer items to use the express lane (30%).

Also, one-quarter of Americans use a fast pass on the highway (24%).

A History of Innovation

Chase will be the first credit card issuer to widely roll out a contactless payment product, which is consistent with the company's longstanding reputation of innovation in the industry. In the past 18 months, Chase has successfully created a number of innovative payment products with many of their premier partners, including: the Starbucks Card Duetto Visa, a first-of-its-kind payment card blending Visa credit card functionality with the reloadable Starbucks Card; the Disney Rewards Card, a stored-value card jointly developed with The Walt Disney Company as part of Disney's Visa Credit Card program; and the AARP Visa Card which combines cardmembers' credit/membership card into a first-of-its-kind card that provides automatic discounts at the point-of-sale.

About 7-Eleven, Inc.
7-Eleven, Inc. is the premier name and largest chain in the convenience retailing industry. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, 7-Eleven, Inc. operates or franchises approximately 5,800 7-Eleven® stores in the United States and Canada and licenses more than 22,300 7-Eleven stores in 17 other countries and U.S. territories. During 2004, 7-Eleven stores worldwide generated total sales of approximately $41 billion. Find out more online at www.7-Eleven.com.

About Sheetz
Established by Bob Sheetz as a single store in 1952, Altoona, Pa.-based Sheetz, Inc. is one of America's fastest-growing, family owned and operated convenience store chains, with fiscal year 2004 revenue exceeding $2.8 billion. The company operates more than 300 convenience locations throughout Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio and North Carolina, and is ranked 87th on the Forbes list of largest private companies. Sheetz provides an award-winning menu of Made?To?Order subz, sandwiches, saladz and specialty coffeez, which are ordered through unique touch-screen order point terminals. All Sheetz convenience stores are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For more information, visit Sheetz on the Web at www.sheetz.com or call (800) 487-5444.

About JPMorgan Chase & Co.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is a leading global financial services firm with assets of $1.2 trillion and operations in more than 50 countries. The company has approximately 94 million credit cards issued. Under the JPMorgan, Chase and Bank One brands, the firm serves millions of consumers in the United States and many of the world's most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients. Information about the firm is available at www.jpmorganchase.com

Business Week cover story on evangelicals

Earthly Empires
How evangelical churches are borrowing from the business playbook

They Backed Bush -- And Expect Him To Deliver

Culture Wars Hit Corporate America
Increasingly, business must weigh in on hot social issues -- and suffer interest groups' slings and arrows

"A One-Stop Christian Destination"
Kirbyjon Caldwell, a Wharton MBA turned pastor, discusses how his vision to build a prayer center turned into something much bigger

Supersizing Salvation
No cross, no hymnals, and a strong appeal to the "unchurched" -- that approach has helped Bill Hybels build one of the country's megacongregations

Meet the Prosperity Preacher
God wants you to be successful in business, says Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church. It's a message that has made him the leading TV evangelist

Evangelism Gone Entrepreneurial
Rick Warren believes evangelism means devotion to both social issues and God. The Internet is one tool he uses to spread the word

Church of the Mighty Dollar
How do Rolls-Royces fit into God's plan? The founder of the World Changers Church International explains all

Getting Your Religious Terms Right
Can't tell the difference between the evangelicals and the seekers? Confused by the prosperity gospel? Here's a glossary to help you

The Fashion of the Christ
Corporations like Sony and Time Warner are grabbing pieces of the religious music, movie, and book markets. The losers: Small specialty stores

Willow Creek: Spreading The Gospel Of Expansion Slide Show

articles 5/15

Sign up for David Warren's column to be delivered via email.

Telegraph
Revealed: how an abortion puts the next baby at risk

Remembering World War II
Revisionists get it wrong.
by Victor Davis Hanson

US News
Against the odds
Gambling has become America's hottest pastime. But today's casinos truly have the upper hand.

Defending the Indefensible
Vladimir Putin and a short history of the Stalin-Hitler Pact.
by Stephen Schwartz

Uday's Oil-for-News Program
Was Al Jazeera on the take?
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Eric Stakelbeck

Bolton to the Rescue
The way for the administration and the Republican Congress to deal with disarray is by winning a quick and decisive victory in the fight for John Bolton.
by William Kristol

W. Post
Foreign Insurgents in Iraq Are Mostly Saudis
Arabs reportedly lured by rapidly proliferating jihadist Web sites hailing martyrdom as the inspiration for a new generation of terrorists.

Military makeover
With a painful plan to close military bases, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld launches a new phase of reform.

Newsweek
History: Rethinking Washington
A powerful new book brings America's most remote founder back to vivid life.

Time
Out Of The XBox
Gates has bet billions of dollars on the Xbox and hasn't seen one thin dime of profit

Fly-away pensions
by George Will
Last week a judge said that United Airlines, now in its third year of bankruptcy protection, can, as a step toward leaving bankruptcy, default on four pension programs covering about 120,000 current and former employees.

Hillary vs. Allen
by Robert Novak
The Clinton-vs.-Allen forecast by the leading House members duplicates the National Journal's poll of insiders from both parties.

Modern Reformation
Good News for Bad Dads
How does knowing God as Father drastically change a father’s understanding of fatherhood? The author shows us the difference that the gospel makes for imperfect dads.
by Michael Horton

NY Post
Pride of Dublin

U2 setlist from Philadelphia, 5/14
Tour stats

40
I waited patiently for the Lord.
He inclined and heard my cry.
He brought me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay.
I will sing, sing a new song.
I will sing, sing a new song.
How long to sing this song?
How long to sing this song?
How long, how long, how long
How long to sing this song?
You set my feet upon a rock
And made my footsteps firm.
Many will see, many will see and hear.
I will sing, sing a new song.
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song.
I will sing, sing a new song
How long to sing this song?
How long to sing this song?
How long to sing this song?
How long to sing this song?

articles 5/8 - Mother's Day

Time
Wedding Etiquette for the Runaway Bride
The 13 questions Emily Post never thought of answering

US News
Presidential escapes
When Washington gets to be too much, presidents need to get away. Take a look at their private worlds.

Newsweek
Politics: Edwards Looks Back—And Ahead to 2008

NY Times
Briefers and Leakers and the Newspapers Who Enable Them

The Father's Crusade
Divorced men are banding together to change custody law — lobbying legislators, pushing ballot initiatives and even staging public protests in the name of fathers' rights. Is what's best for Dad really best for the child? And what about what's fair?

Calling Democrats' Bluff
by David Brooks

George Allen: The Pseudo-Frontrunner For 2008
by Chris Suellentrop

Turning away from government
by George Will
Pat Moynihan was puzzled. He was speaking in March 1994, on an almost deserted Senate floor, about Social Security but some unlikely people were listening.

Michael Jackson: Hollywood's man in the mirror
by Jonah Goldberg
A lot of eat-your-spinach media critics think it is unseemly for the press to pay attention to the Jackson trial.

Worse Than 1984
North Korea, slave state.
by Christopher Hitchens

Ovarian Cells Yield Human Eggs
Scientists in Tennessee grow human eggs from cells scraped from the surface of women's ovaries. The work could significantly postpone female infertility.

Your Identity, Open to All
ZabaSearch is a new search engine for finding the unlisted numbers of celebrities, as well as their addresses and satellite pictures of their homes. Trouble is, you're in there too. Is ZabaSearch an invasion of privacy? Xeni Jardin quizzes the site's founders.

Why the World Is Flat
The playing field is being leveled, says globalization guru Thomas Friedman - from Shanghai to Silicon Valley, from al Qaeda to Wal-Mart.
By Daniel H. Pink

ESPN.com
Santana deserving of 17-game salute
by Jayson Stark

The World is Flat NYT Book Review

Articles 5/1

W. Post
Reports of Terror Threats Against U.S. Are Falling
Daily threat assessment currently lists 25 percent to 50 percent fewer threats against domestic targets than it typically did during past two years.

W. Post
Laura Bush a Showstopper
First lady steals the show at the annual White House Correspondents' dinner.

Health care and the American automobile
by George Will
In 1962 half the cars sold in America were made by GM. Now its market share is roughly 25 percent.

A culture awash in porn
by Rebecca Hagelin
The speaker, an 18-year-old concession-stand worker named Ben Meredith, was explaining to a Los Angeles Times reporter why virtually no young people were trying to get in to see 'Inside Deep Throat' at an Orange County, Calif., theater.

Newsweek
Does the Future Belong to China?
A new power is emerging in the East. How America should handle unprecedented new challenges, threats—and opportunities.

Time
Dark Side Rising
The first three Star Wars were epic. The next two, not really. Now George Lucas has pulled out all the stops and finished the cycle with Revenge of the Sith...
Q&A: George Lucas on the new film
Photo Essay: Scenes from Revenge of the Sith
Graphic: Star Wars Family Tree

NY Times
Episode VII: Revenge of the Writers

W. Times
Faithless: God Under Fire in the Public Square
Part I: Religion under a secular assault
Part II: Why Bush threatens secularism
Part III: Believers aim to 'reclaim' America

NY Times Magazine
Let the Fur Fly
Enough Hermès collars and spalike kennels. A pet is no person.

NY Times Magazine
A Lobbyist in Full
Jack Abramoff is at the center of a Congressional controversy involving Indian casinos, influence peddling and Republican ties to K Street. But as he sees it, he is simply very, very good at doing Washington's work.

LA Times
At 50, Disneyland Boots Up Its Quest for the Fountain of Youth
The theme park seeks entertainment that is relevant to children of the Internet generation

NY Times Magazine
PlayStations of the Cross
Is there a place amid the witches, warlocks and diabolical monsters for Christian video games? A handful of gamers and entrepreneurs have faith that there is.

Crippled by Their Culture
by Thomas Sowell

Heedful Hip Hop
Attacks on rap now come from within.
by Martha Bayles

Rasta Republican
Meet Los Angeles's Ted Hayes. He's black, dreadlocked--and belongs to the GOP.
by Jill Stewart

Beltway Bullfight
John Bolton is blunt where others would be self-protective. This is bad?
by Peggy Noonan

FDR's Card Trick
The cynical idealism behind Social Security.
by William Voegeli

Abu Ghraib Accountability
An overhyped story, not a whitewash.

Sex
by Armstrong Williams
In place of the emotionally fruitful kind of relationship that once led to marriage, daddy’s little girl is engaging in a series of emotionally detached physical encounters.

CBS Needs a Fresh Eye
Prized young viewers are bored stiff by network newscasts.
by Paul Friedman

Sen. Strangelove Or: How Democrats stopped winning and learned to love the filibuster.
by Pete DuPont

Wired
Life After Darth
George Lucas was born to make underground films. Then a little movie called Star Wars lured him to the dark side. Can the father of the blockbuster really rediscover his avant-garde soul?
George Lucas on Star Wars, history lessons, and Fahrenheit 9/11
How Star Wars Changed the World
An interactive map of the people, companies, and technologies spawned by the Force.

Gentlemen, Start Your Droids
Droid hobbyists may spend big bucks striving to match the on-screen looks of R2-D2, but in Indianapolis, speed rules. Jacob Ogles reports from the Star Wars Celebration III convention in Indianapolis.

When in Seattle, Bono Bunks with Bill Gates
When U2's lead singer came to Seattle over the weekend for a concert, there was only one logical place to stay -- the home of Bill Gates, who shares Bono's passion for Third World development and relief efforts.
Bono's book is a conversation Much of the volume centers on the singer's support of big ideas.
Digging Deeper: @U2 talks with Michka Assayas
Book Review: Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas

Chicago Sun-Times
Jim DeRogatis talks with U2's Larry Mullen Jr.

articles 4/25

Does Abortion Drive Down Crime?
by Steve Sailer

LA Times
Just the Facts of Life Now
Pornography is so common in the Digital Age that teens see it as 'part of the culture.' If it's corrupting them, the data don't yet show it.

Culture-Whipped
All too often, our children are exposed to the loud, frenzied, garish spectacle of adult sexuality.
By Gil Reavill
An excerpt from Smut: A Sex-Industry Insider (and Concerned Father) Says Enough is Enough, released today.

Drudge At 10: Now He's Fun
by Howard Kurtz

The Ambassador Nobody Knows
Meet Rudy Boschwitz, America's new representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
by Scott Johnson

The Secretaries Revolt
Hillary Clinton wants an obscure federal agency to regulate elections. It's a bad idea.
by John Fund

'The Air of Freedom'
A roundup of the past two weeks' good news from Iraq.
by Arthur Chrenkoff

The Anti-Doomsday Machine
Government scientists are developing ways to stop the next terror attack.
by Melanie Kirkpatrick

The Last European Pope?
The mission of Benedict XVI.by Joseph Bottum

How Hillary Broke Campaign Finance Laws
by Dick Morris

A Social Security Quagmire?
by Fred Barnes

Faith in Our Future?
by Michael Barone

Why I'm for Tony Blair
by Christopher Hitchens

LA Times
Experts Call Spy Agency Practice an Eye-Opener

Washington Examiner
The world according to Bono
U2 frontman tells it like it is in new book

Rolling Stone
Still Pretty
Two decades after "Rio," Duran Duran are playing arenas and making housewives quiver

articles 4/24

Unread and Unsubscribing
By George F. Will

What’s Holding Black Kids Back?
Bill Cosby is right: the problem is the parents.
by Kay S. Hymowitz

Heralds of a Brighter Black Future
More and more, African-American iconoclasts reject victimology and embrace American possibility.
by Heather MacDonald

Whoppers and the End of an Epidemic
By John Luik

WSJ
The Hotel Industry Begins to Wake Up To a Bedbug Problem
With Pesticides Out of Favor, Critters Show Up More; A 1920s Cure: Gasoline

Did Benedict XVI Take a Page Out of MacIntyre's Book?
By Nathan Smith

Human Events
Q & A with Brian Anderson, Author of South Park Conservatives

Why Jon Stewart Is All the Rage
by Harry Stein

Why the Liberals Can't Keep Air America From Spiraling In
By Brian C. Anderson

Should Felons Vote?
The push to let convicts vote is wrong on fact and on principle.
by Edward Feser

Can We Make Boys and Girls Alike?
Even if the differences are cultural, rather than biological, they are ineradicable.
by Stanley Kurtz

Hillary skipping Iowa?
by Robert Novak

Let Cookie Monster be Cookie Monster
by Jonah Goldberg
The producers of 'Sesame Street' have decided that Cookie Monster is gay.

The Bolton Dirtfest
by Rich Lowry
Whatever else you think of him, John Bolton is a serious person.

The new pope: A rottweiler or a good German shepherd?
by Ross Mackenzie
Comes now the disharmonious chorus to sing of the elevation of German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy as Benedict XVI.

'Good sex for teens': The war against abstinence
by Robert Rector
According to a Zogby poll, more than 90 percent of them say that society should teach kids to abstain from sex until they have, at least, finished high school.

How to Win the Social Security Debate
by Ed Crane

Time
An Inside Look at How Ratzinger Became Benedict XVI

The Borking of Bolton
by William Kristol

A Social Security Quagmire?
Here's an exit strategy for Bush.
by Fred Barnes

Father's Day Comes Early
The National Fatherhood Initiative is working to get the word out about the benefits of dads.
by Rachel DiCarlo

Blogs Will Change Your Business
Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up...or catch you later

NY Times Magazine
Absolutely, Power Corrupts
When the Oakland A's drafted Mark Teahen and Steve Stanley, the team was looking for guys who were great at getting on base. So why, after two years in the minors doing just that, with five home runs between them, were Teahen and Stanley (all 5 feet 7 inches, 155 pounds of him) trying to make it as sluggers?

W. Post Magazine
Girls' Night Logged Online
Ditto, anyone? Women over 40 are the biggest players of games on the Internet.

Do as We Say, Not as We Dow
Why is Peter Kann still running Dow Jones?
By Daniel Gross

NY Sun
Next Crisis at U.N. May Involve Ties Of Volcker, Strong

In China's streets
Jubilate Deo
by David Warren

Books vs. Goons
Powerful writing stumps ayatollahs and sets free vibrating broomsticks
By Salman Rushdie

Bono baptism: New book creates convert, fosters respect
“Celebrity is ridiculous.” Bono says. “It’s silly, but it’s a kind of currency, and you have to spend it wisely.”
by Sam McManis

What's the big idea, Bono?
By Larry Aydlette

Disarming album title aside, U2's a force to be reckoned with
By Gene Stout

Table set, but Griffey falters
The situation was hauntingly familiar: Ken Griffey Jr. at the plate with a chance to turn around the game with one swing.

Losing their zip on reality
by Peter Gammons

LA Times
Dykstra faces allegations of steroid use, baseball gambling

What Can Protestants Expect From The New Pope?
by Michael Horeton

For my good friend

I thought you might want to know some of the best places to find your buddy Andy.

Andy tribute
An Everlasting Starlight
Words & Music
Andy photos

The softer side of Joe

articles 4/17

Time
Ms. Right
She is quite possibly the most divisive figure in the public eye. But love her or hate her, you don't know the real Ann Coulter

Maîtres chez nous
Connexions
Gomery Canada
by David Warren

Public Hedonism and Private Restraint
by David Brooks

Metrosexual or Medieval?
by Doug Giles
According to a recent Washington Times report, American women are pig sick of the oversold and dandy metrosexual male imago.

Was the Pope Polish? Yes, Thank God
by Lech Walesa

Why Europe's Great Churches Are Empty
by Brian Carney

Friend or Foe?
The International Committee of the Red Cross should stop championing terrorists or lose U.S. funding.
by David Rivkin & Lee A. Casey

Soldiers Do Us the Honor
by David Gelernter

Party of 'Joyous Vulgarity'
Why the Democrats are losing the culture wars.
by Dan Gerstein

John Bolton vs. the Moral Cowards
The Senate confirmation process needs to be reformed.
by Otto Reich

The Cardinal
A story about selecting the new pope.
by Peggy Noonan

When Numbers Solve a Mystery
Meet the economist who figured out that legal abortion was behind dropping crime rates.
by Steven Landsburg

Iraqi Freedom 2.0
Those who flinched in the hard times, and those who didn't.


US News & World Report
The CSI Effect
On TV, it's all slam-dunk evidence and quick convictions. Now juries expect the same thing--and that's a big problem

Newsweek
Family Matters
We don't get sick or stay well by ourselves. The people closest to us affect every aspect of our health—and our own well-being affects theirs.

Agent Provocateur
Melissa Boyle Mahle, the former C.I.A. operative, talks about recruiting in the Mideast, why Bill Gates should replace Porter Goss and why the White House might not say if we get bin Laden.

The Unregulated Offensive
Imagine that the interpretation of the Constitution was frozen in 1937. Imagine a country in which Social Security, job-safety laws and environmental protections were unconstitutional. Imagine judges longing for that. Imagine one of them as the next Supreme Court nominee.

NY Times
Arms Equipment Plundered in 2003 Is Surfacing in Iraq
Intact factory, machine and vehicle parts are beginning to surface in open markets in Iraq's major cities and at border crossings.

How One Pill Escaped a Place on List of Controlled Steroids
The story of how DHEA came to enjoy special legal protections granted by Congress is a study in political maneuvering.

W. Post
Question Celebrity
I was in Los Angeles for a while in February, left for a couple of weeks, and then returned for a few days in March, and in my absence one major thing changed: The omnipresent (and enormous) billboards and skyscraper banners for "Be Cool" (the caper starring John Travolta and Uma Thurman) were gone and had been replaced by equally oversize plugs for "Guess Who," starring Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac in an inverse-remake of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?"

LA Times
Boy George Meets Material Girl
The 1980s are no passing fad, it seems. The Second Annual Totally '80s Convention last month at the Music Box @ Fonda theater in Hollywood celebrated the music and fashion of the 10-year period that started with Americans being held hostage in Iran and ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Brace yourselves—this crowd wasn't nostalgic 40-plus-year-olds reminiscing about the good old days. When Michael Jackson won a best record of the year Grammy in 1983 for "Beat It," most attendees were still in diapers. Host Richard Blade played flashback music videos in between tribute bands that channeled Oingo Boingo, the Ramones, Billy Idol, the Cure, Depeche Mode and New Order to our decade-challenged friends.

Rocky Mountain News
U are there
Twenty-two years after U2's historic Red Rocks show, those who made it happen recall what it took
Songs from gig elusive
Only 2 tunes on live EP are from Red Rocks performance
'Rattle and Hum' also shot at Denver concerts
Edge says band thought 'lightning might strike twice'

articles 4/10

NY Times Magazine
Our Ratings, Ourselves
The Mismeasure of TV
In Houston, a couple of thousand paid volunteers will soon start wearing Portable People Meters. Along with other advances in measuring what we watch and listen to, they may (in addition to transforming what we watch and listen to) finally answer the question: Does advertising really work?

W. Post Magazine
Hard Labor
Susan Ali was determined to give birth to a severely handicapped baby. Her husband was determined to stop her

The 65 percent solution
by George Will
Nationally, 61.5 percent of education operational budgets reach the classrooms. Why make a fuss about 3.5 percent? Because it amounts to $13 billion.

Death by Bureaucracy
Misguided "reform" threatens to destroy nonprofits.
by Heather Higgins

ChoicePoint Top Big Brother Pick
The nominees for the annual Big Brother Awards are in. Leading the pack is ChoicePoint, which sold private data to identity thieves. But Google, the U.S. government and a small California school are also in the running.

AP
Kerry: Trickery Kept Voters From Polls
Many voters in last year's presidential election were denied access to the polls through trickery and intimidation, former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry told a voters' group Sunday.

AP
Indiana Man Wins 'Village Idiot' Award
The competition was fierce and foolish, but a man who accidentally sawed through a live wire and topped that by wrecking his truck hours after buying it more than earned the honorary title "Village Idiot."

Justice for Life?
The case for Supreme Court term limits.
by Steven Calabresi & James Lindgren

NY Times
'Spamalot' Discovers the Straight White Way

W. Post
Judging Affairs
For only a very few couples, the best way to end an affair is at the altar.

Los Angeles Times
Bono has mission in music and life