"If you get the consumer in the mindset of saying, 'Oh, I'm supposed to put 12-packs of Coke in my refrigerator instead of in my pantry,' that's very exciting."

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Since the streets west of Broadway reopened a couple of months ago, I’ve been seeing that big hole in the sky over Ground Zero once or twice a day. There’s not much to see of Ground Zero itself—it is, after all, a hole in the ground now, mostly invisible behind construction fencing. But over the past few weeks, it was the sheer absence of the two buildings that began to weigh upon me. I would pause once or twice a week, gazing up into the sky where 50,000 people should have been working and going about their ordinary office lives. Sometimes I could almost see them there, floating hundreds of feet above me…phantoms hovering near copy machines, computers and water coolers.

Read More...

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And Now

The first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence translated into Chinese and then back into English:

"When in the person event travelling schedule, it changes essential is one person dissolves with in addition connects their politics belt, and the supposition inside the strength Earth, the natural law and natural God they separates for the power with the equal station, the honest respect requests them to the humanity viewpoint to be supposed to declare impels them to the cause which separates."

And into Japanese and then back again:

"It comes being human and cause should be declared in order the time to suppose between power, those were connected with another ones of the thing between thing, it becomes necessary, for 1 people to disassemble the political band, the earth, law of God of place character and the character which are equal to difference gives qualification to those, the suitable point to opinion of the mankind urges those to the separation which is required."

And finally, from English into German, from German into French, and from French back into English:

"If during human cases, it necessarily for people, it will dissolve political volumes with others to have attached, and under energies of the mass, the different station and to even accept, which the natural laws allow them and the god of nature, an acceptable respect requires them in the opinions of humanity that they should explain the causes, to separation impel."

Clearly, I have way too much time on my hands today.

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For someone who's supposed to be so smart, George Will can be awfully sloppy with the facts when he wants to make some clever point. He writes:

"If you have an average-size dinner table, four feet by six feet, put a dime on the edge of it. Think of the surface of the table as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The dime is larger than the piece of the coastal plain that would have been opened to drilling for oil and natural gas."

That's a nice image, George. Except that the oil's not all in one place. It's spread throughout the 1.5-million acres of the refuge in roughly 30 small deposits. The roads, pipelines, gravel mines, and other various and sundry infrastructure-type items required to connect those 30 deposits are exempted from the 2,000 acre "dime" George imagines for us. So, instead of a small swatch of industrialized land, there could be dozens oil fields of various sizes, docks, and seawater treatment plants scattered throughout the refuge, all linked by roads cut through virgin forest. This doesn't even take into account the exploration trails and water-withdrawal sites that would be required by the operation. For more info, and a speculative oil-development plan that meets with the defeated law's criteria, go here.

I'm not particularly a "Bushwatch.net" fan, but I have respect for footnotes and research.

C'mon, George...can't you spring for a research assistant? No, wait--I get it! Facts would get in the way, wouldn't they? Why spend money for a research assistant when you wouldn't use what they found anyway? We must therefore commend George for his frugality.

Way to go!

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Ha! The illusions of modern psychobiology are punctured anew in this Washington Post article:

"The new research may shed light on findings such as those from a trial last month that compared the herbal remedy St. John's wort against Zoloft. St. John's wort fully cured 24 percent of the depressed people who received it, and Zoloft cured 25 percent -- but the placebo fully cured 32 percent."

And, furthermore:

"Once the trial was over and the patients who had been given placebos were told as much, they quickly deteriorated. People's belief in the power of antidepressants may explain why they do well on placebos."

Now, will someone please tell me the difference between visiting a psychiatrist, who gives you a pill and tells you that it will improve your personality, and visiting a priest, who gives you a wafer and tells you that it will save your soul?

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In a similar vein, this NYT article examines the debate on religious belief's effect on health:

"Dr. Koenig said the research suggested doctors should pay attention to patients' spirituality. 'Doctors shouldn't prescribe religion,' he said. "But they should take a religious or spiritual history on all patients with significant medical illness."

If patients indicate that they are not religious, the doctor should let the subject drop, Dr. Koenig said. If a patient does find strength in religion, he said, 'the doctor might consider supporting the religious beliefs that the patient finds helpful.'"

Such as, say, the belief that a little pill will cure the patient's depression?

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I wonder if the French will hold the Jews responsible for this?

Of course, we know who to blame for this.

But for some reason, we still don't know who's responsible for this.

Fortunately, you can still get an excellent steak in Argentina.

This has been "Irrelevancy Minute." Brought to you by:

Allen's House of Figs
and
Texaco

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The Management would like to apologize for the poor quality of recent posts.

Currently, the operating machinery is being overhauled. This overhaul, generously funded by donations from several organizations which have asked to remain anonymous, will result in:

o A three-fold increase in quality of thought
o Greater output
o Higher funny-per-week

In the unlikely event that the machinery overhaul is unsuccessful, this site will be replaced by a series of advertisements for Burma-Shave.

Thank you.

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There have been a slew of recent articles about the blogging 'phenomenon,' like this one in Salon and this one in Newsweek.

After a few months flitting back and forth between various journalist-style blogs, I can honestly say that I’m glad I don’t do that sort of thing. It may look like I do, but I don’t. Newsweek’s Levy writes that the success of the big big blogs seems to be due to the authors’ “working hard, filling a niche, winning a reputation for accuracy, developing sources and writing felicitously.” I’ll indulge myself enough to lay claim to that last one, but I certainly don’t work very hard, I have no reputation that I know of, and no sources whatsoever. Do I fill a niche? Perhaps. But so does a site that sells inflatable sheep.

At any rate, what I have discovered, after a few months of cranking out various screeds, comments, and semi-considered opinions, is that there’s only so much I can say about an event, only so much attention I can pay to a given political situation, only so many rants that I can expel on a subject before it all starts to blur together. It happens everywhere online, I think. If I have to read one more Horowitzian shriek about the evils of reparations, the lunacy of Noam Chomsky, or the leftward bias of American universities, I’ll just nip off and shoot myself. I get it, David. Now you’re boring.

Similarly, you can pretty much guess where Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds, or Stephen Green is going to come down on a given issue. Someone like James Lileks is a treasure because he’s got the big funny head and is able to amuse. But by and large, the “blogosphere” seems to be roughly akin to the Mutual Admiration Societies we all knew and loved in high school. The practice of mutual linking effectively raises the Google rankings of various sites, an excellent example of viral cross-marketing.

Me? I am the anti-blogger. In a fit of manic paranoia, I killed Astonished Head last weekend by deleting the index page, just as the Google spiders were trying to index the site. Ha! Take that, you creepy-crawly blog-rolling purveyors of self-aggrandizing punditry! I spit on your haircuts.

At any rate: this is going to get weirder before it gets better, so if you’re into that sort of thing, dear reader, continue visiting.

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"I feel great. I was in line at 4 o'clock so that I could choose a leader who can govern Sierra Leone to a better future for our children. It's a really joyous day, a big day for the people of Sierra Leone, especially for those of us without feet or arms."

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The crawl across the bottom of Fox 5 News this AM tells me that Mayor Bloomberg is going to announce the end date of the Ground Zero cleanup efforts as June 11. Nine months of cutting, hauling, digging, recovering, and bagging. I spent a few moments at the window, looking out at the southern section of the site. The hole is flat-bottomed now; they've exposed the gray concrete floor of the basement. Traffic moves busily along the fresh blacktop of the West Side highway. The pedestrian bridge that runs North/South from the Financial Center tower has been repaired - they've chosen some sort of dark red material to clad it. The top of the East-West bridge that crossed over the West Side highway, and was just across the street from the South Tower of the trade center, is still a mass of plywood boards.

Last week I walked along the street next to the small park between Broadway and Church Street, which had been full of trailer-offices and construction equipment. All that's left are a few small trailers. Peering through the green fabric that covers the chain link fence, I could see the neat squares of dirt, where forty-eight trees used to be, shading the broad, fat steps that ringed the park and served as seats for the lunchtime crowd. The concrete of the steps is shattered and scarred from being bashed into by trucks and other equipment. The bronze statue of the man with his briefcase that spent the past few months perched against a trailer wearing a gas mask is gone now, along with the black marble bench that he sat on before that. I hope they'll replant the trees, and I hope they don't skimp and plant little saplings, but bigger, more mature trees. Saplings would be too sad.

I don't really have anything to offer, other than those descriptions. Life goes on, I suppose. Forces of history converge. People die.

And deaths are avenged.

Read more from the September 11 Archive
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I just received a brief second-hand note that, essentially, said the following: "See! Bush is an idiot! He had all these warnings and was so stupid he didn't do anything!"

This is, of course, in response to today's splashy headlines ("BUSH KNEW", "Justice Clarifies Ashcroft Threat," etc., so on and so forth.)

To which, I say the following:

Nonsense. Bush inherited a crippled, de-funded intelligence community from Bill "I Was Getting My Cock Sucked While American Embassies Were Being Bombed" Clinton.

Clinton was in charge when Marines were killed and dragged through the streets of Somalia in 1993. He did nothing. Clinton was in charge when al-Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. He did nothing. Clinton was in charge when the Khobar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia were bombed in 1996. He did nothing. Clinton was in charge when the President of Sudan offered to arrest and extradite Osama bin Laden to the U.S. that same year and to provide us with intelligence information about Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah, whose members included two of the 9/11 hijackers. He did nothing. Clinton was in charge when al-Qaeda blew up two American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He did nothing--oh, excuse me, that's incorrect. He fired off some cruise missiles, and blew up some tents and a pharmaceutical factory. Now, to conclude the litany: Clinton was in charge when the USS Cole was bombed in 2000. He did nothing.

The Democrats controlled the House Intelligence Committee for a decade, and legislated intelligence budget reductions for every year of that time except 2000. Between 1990 and 1992 alone the intelligence budgets were reduced by nearly 20%. During the Clinton years, not a single Iran-desk chief could speak or read Persian. Not a single Near East Division chief knew Arabic, Persian or Turkish.

Clinton had all the information piling up on his desk for nearly his entire term. America was attacked five times during his presidency. What was he doing when terrorists blew up American Embassies in Africa, killing 245 and wounding 5,000? Getting sucked off in the Oval Office. What was he doing *after* that? Lying to the American people about getting sucked off in the Oval Office, and paralyzing the presidency by putting the entire country through an impeachment trial when he should have been figuring out how to defend us against the coming onslaught.

Clinton and his administration had eight years to react, and did nothing. Worse than nothing: he presided over the dismantling of the American intelligence infrastructure and put his own personal failings ahead of the welfare of the entire nation.

Bush had nine months. Since that time, he has destroyed the al-Qaeda infrastructure and deposed the Islamist regime that gave the terrorists succor. More will follow.

So, I say again: nonsense.

For a more complete (and far more ideologically rabid) indictment of the Clinton intelligence legacy, go here. (Although, be warned: like most Horowitzian screeds, this one is frustratingly short on sources. As in, he don't give none. But if you hunt you will find them. Have fun.)

Read more from the Political Effluvia Archive
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Other, far wiser heads than I weigh in on the "Bush Knew" nonstory. See Sullivan today, John Ellis yesterday (reference lifted from Sullivan). And, oh--Donald Rumsfeld. He's usually got some insight into this sort of thing:

"There's always been concerns about hijacking. That's been true for months and years as a possibility. Apparently the intelligence community, our intelligence community, the country's, did not have sufficient granularity to issue any specific warning. But I should say that through the spring and summer there was a great deal of threat reporting indicating on a variety of different things all over the world, but without any specificity as to what might happen."

'Nuff said. As far as it being "Clinton's fault," (see yesterday), Sullivan made roughly the same point as I did (with more finesse and less profanity): the man has an eight-year record of failing to properly assess the gravity of the al-Qaeda threat. Bush ordered a review of that situation and of our security posture, which was nearing completion on 9/11. That's more than Clinton did during his terms which (as mentioned) included eight years' worth of situation reports, five outright assaults on American military, civilian, and diplomatic targets, and an offer to extradite the man responsible for some of those attacks and, eventually, the 9/11 attacks.

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Peter Jennings tells me that the last day of work at Ground Zero will be on May 30, not June 11 as reported by the Fox 5 News crawl. Good old reliable Canuck Peter!

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Another squeal heard, a little less loudly, is "Ashcroft Knew!" However, by paying some slight attention to the content of the newspaper articles about Ashcroft's flight arrangements, it will be discovered by all but the most obdurate that the FBI's threat assessment was related to personal threats against his safety. This can be found by actually reading the CBS news piece from July 26, 2001, as well as yesterday's statement by the Justice Department.

Given the fact that Ashcroft is, if anything, more hated than Bush, and that no other Cabinet members were advised to travel by private jet, the conflation of this nonstory with the '9/11 warning' nonstory can safely be ascribed to prejudicial thinking.

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The most interesting thing to me about this NYT article is not that Bush had an options plan for eliminating Osama bin Laden on his desk September 10, but this line:

"House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., posed a variation on the famous Watergate-era question: What did the president know and when did he know it?"

So, the esteemed Representative Gephardt wishes to draw a parallel between Watergate and September 11.

Ugh. I can’t write anymore about this; the barrel is full of dead fish and they’re starting to stink.

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The 9/11 warning 'nonstory' has apparently persisted long enough for Andrew Sullivan to be forced into more commentary this morning. He, along with William Safire and Democratic Representative Timothy Roemer, is right to call for an investigation into the 'nonfeasance' (Safire's term) of both the Clinton and Bush administrations. What I strongly disagree with is the assertion (as discussed with readers in private) that it is somehow only the Bush administration's 'incompetence' that needs to be investigated. The idea that it is solely the dropping of the intelligence ball by the current administration that must bear the blame for September 11 is demonstrably false and unsupported by the record.

Read More...

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A reader calls my attention to this LA Times report on today's suicide bombing in Netanya, and to this bit in particular:

"Israeli security forces received a warning shortly before 4 p.m. that a suicide bomber had left the West Bank town of Tulkarm, heading for Israel's heavily populated coastal plain on what is the first day of the workweek for Israelis. A massive manhunt was launched in several cities, including Netanya.

But it was too late."

My correspondent wants to know:

Even with that type of specific intelligence, the Israelis couldn't prevent the attack. How can anyone possibly argue that with the non-specific type of intelligence "chatter" the Bush administration recieved prior to Sept. 11, there is any way those attacks could have been prevented either?

A good, practical point. Once all the political hay has been made, we are still left with that question.

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And now this cheery bit of news, which is only official confirmation of something that those of us who think about such things already knew.

As a sometime-subway rider, I know that there is no way to defend against a bomb-belted lunatic walking onto, say, the middle car of the N train at the height of the rush hour (which is packed solid) and taking out fifty or more commuters. The attack would shut down the entire New York City subway system. The psychological impact would be enormous. Which makes such an operation fat and tasty for those who are interested in making Americans sweat.

That is why (in addition to the fact that I'm getting fat again) I'll resume riding my bicycle to work within the week. At least on the streets of Manhattan all I have to worry about is a coffee-dosed lunatic opening his parked car door into my path, or some taxi driver running me onto the sidewalk.

Not to mention that on September 11, I rode my bike to work, and it made it that much easier to get out of downtown.

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Finally, in the Who Gives A Rat's Ass category: George Lucas kicks CNN off of Skywalker Ranch after Connie Chung has the effrontery to mention that The Phantom Menace blew big, hairy Bantha balls.

What's the matter, George? Are you worried that bad press from CNN will cost you ticket sales? Was that the money you were planning to spend on getting that freaky fat sac sucked out of your neck?

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More happy news, this time from Our Man Rumsfeld. Again, nothing that we didn't already know. This was followed up twenty minutes ago by more finger-pointing in Iran's direction.

Now, I've invested quite a bit of effort on these pages in defense of Bush's pre-9/11 administrative record with regard to national security. It should be remembered, however, that a record on paper is just that. It is the action that counts, and lately I've been wondering, "Where's my war?" In pre-television WWII days, there were posters everywhere, brochures about how to recognize Jap subs off of American coastlines, newsreels From The Front with every feature, radio broadcasts by our trusted media voices. I myself have a book-mark sized alert from the National Forestry Servive warning that "Forest Fires Help The Enemy" by producing smoke that could be used as cover by said Jap subs. Probably nonsense, but such ephemera kept the public on its toes and reminded them about what was going on far overseas.

What've we got today? A poorly-publicized color-coded national alert system and a political leadership that's scrambling to make a scandal out of a memo. Where are the posters in our cities' subways? HOW TO RECOGNIZE A SUICIDE BOMBER: Look for the bulky jacket...the nervous jitters...the sweats...muttering of prayers...visible wires at the wrists or on the hands... WATCH YOUR SURROUNDINGS. Goddamn but this PC civil-rights crap is crippling us. Where are the posters telling people who to call if they're suddenly living next to three young Middle-Eastern students who rent a one bedroom apartment month-to-month and have no furniture? Are we going to let the right of people to behave suspiciously negate proper intelligence gathering?

Where are the daily briefings on the evening news about what our government is doing? Even if all it's doing is maintaining readiness, for God's sake don't leave it to the media to decide what the public needs to hear. President Bush should be on the television every Sunday for fifteen minutes in prime time telling us exactly what's what.

This week, all we've heard is the FBI telling us to prepare for suicide bombs, the Secretary of Defense telling us to prepare for the use of weapons of mass destruction, and Senators telling us that extremists are smuggling themsleves into the country in ill-secured container ships. Where the hell are the people telling us what they're doing to stop it, how the citizenry can help, and whether or not we need to enlist? We're at war here, people, and the enemy is within our borders. I don't give a shit that Attack of the Clones hasn't beat Spider-Man's gross yet. I really, really don't. Yet that's what seems to be at the forefront of the American media consciousness.

I'm spoiling for a fight. Kicking out the Taliban was great and all, but I want blood and guts and gore and veins in my teeth, man! I want every would-be terrorist to know without a doubt that Allah will not save the population of his town, his city, his nation, if he raises a hand against us on our own soil. I want pictures of vast plains of burnt desert littered with the husked remains of enemy soldiers and the smoking wreckage of a thousand tanks. I want the State Ass of every terrorist sponsor to be so utterly and thoroughly kicked that an entire generation will instantly lose the false hope presented by religious extremism.

Where's my war?

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More noodle-brained horseshit from Europe. Bush is apparently going to use an address at the Reichstag in Germany to push for war against Sadaam Hussein (I may get my burnt deserts yet!). Listen to this mealy-mouthed idiocy:

"'That is not the way we do politics,' said Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, who will greet Mr Bush at the Reichstag, but whose Green Party will take part in the anti-US demonstrations."

Ya, ya--the vay vee do politiks ist mit stormtroopers, blitzkriegs und ovens.

I do believe that when we have to supply the bulk of the military assets for a future NATO-style alliance against, say, Chinese attacks from the moon, we'll just leave Germany to fend for itself.

And:

"According to a poll published by Der Spiegel magazine yesterday, 65 per cent of Germans believe that the United States is pursuing its own national interests by taking part in or planning wars around the world."

Look out, Helmut! America is pursuing its own national interests! Maybe that's because somebody tried to blow up the Pentagon and knocked down a couple of buildings in New York. Remind me to protest the next time Germany does something in its own national interest.

Read more from the Political Effluvia Archive
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And hey! Ask and ye shall receive. Here's news that landlords have been warned to be on the lookout for (essentially) young Middle-Eastern students who rent a one bedroom apartment month-to-month and have no furniture.

More! More! More!

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From the the Islamic Republic Wire services, we have this fine item about how Iran and Germany are recognizing each others' important role in the development of their respective corners of the world. Among the items being discussed in the Iran-Germany forums are technology transfers.

Great! So the small nuclear device that Iran delivers to its terrorist buddies will be made with precision German components, ensuring its efficient operation and timely detonation.

Also from the same wires, news that "hundreds of thousands" will gather to protest America's genocidal war policy.

Aw, shucks. High praise indeed, coming from a society whose holiest book calls for the extermination of the Jews. We must be doing something right!

Read more from the Middle East Archive
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It's great that they closed the Brooklyn Bridge for an hour. I want more instances of visible security.

But I have to say, Mayor Mike Bloomberg sounds utterly clueless. When asked about how New York could prepare for terrorist attacks, on a daily basis or during large public events, he said the following:

"The world is a dangerous place, unfortunately. I see no reason why people shouldn't go out and enjoy Fleet Week and get around. The more people that are out, the safer the city will be. There are always threats, unfortunately. Fortunately, most of them are hoaxes."

Would someone like to explain to me how larger public gatherings make the city safer? Does a suicide bomber say, "Oh! There are far too many people outside. I'd better wait until the crowds diminish."?

They want big crowds, Mayor Dolt! Perhaps knowing that you have a helicopter waiting to convey you to your private jet and can be out of the city in fifteen minutes flat makes you less concerned about incipient destruction.

Maybe I'll feel better about this once I get out of the city, a plan that is in the works. My perspective is doubtless heavily informed by a) my proximity to very large buildings falling down, b) my continued proximity to where those very large buildings fell down, and c) living in a city that is second only to Washington D.C. as a candidate for the euphemistic 'nuclear event' that will happen sooner or later. Perhaps the rest of the country, having digested the televised Bruckheimer media spectacular that was shown repeatedly on 9/11, has moved on and is wondering what all the continued fuss is about, really. I don't know; I'm not in the rest of the country and won't be for some time.

Until then, I will continue to indulge in my wake up! harrangue, thank you very much. Tom Friedman can kiss my unreasonable ass.

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As was inevitable, the footage of Daniel Pearl's murder has surfaced on the Internet, as an .ASF version of the propaganda videotape produced by his murderers. I've seen it, but won't link to it...if you want to find it, do your own searches.

After footage of Daniel mouthing scripted propagandistic comments (subtitled in Arabic) interspersed with footage of (among other things) Palestinian casualties and Sharon shaking hands with Bush, he is shown being decapitated, and his severed head is held aloft as the "National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty" slowly scrolls through its demands in English. They are:

The immediate release of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
Return of Pakistani Prisoners to Pakistan
The immediate end of the US presence in Pakistan
The delivery of F-16 planes that Pakistan had paid for but never received

They warn that if these demands are not met, this scene will be repeated "again and again."

It's that last demand that gets me. These people are so fundamentally incapable of thinking normal human thoughts that it makes sense to them to slit the throat of an American, display his severed head...and then demand American military hardware.

There is only one way to deal with such barbarically stupid animals: find them, and kill them.

Any person who believes that the proper foundation of a sovereign state consists of the kidnap and murder of newspaper reporters, who cannot see the stupidly insane illogic of demanding military equipment from the government of a country whose citizens he (or she, for that matter) has sworn to kill, no longer deserves any of the basic consideration afforded to human beings. They have surrendered their human capacity for rationality in favor of the rapacious animalistic indulgence of militant religious fervor. They are to be put down like dogs, before their bloodied barking infects others.

Words cannot adequately describe the contempt with which I view these "people."

Read more from the Middle East Archive
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch: FBI agent Kenneth Williams marked his now-infamous "Phoenix memo" as "Routine," which insured that it would be at least 60 days before any decisions were made about it. Folks living in Washington D.C. feel more threatened by terror than the residents of other cities, while folks in New York are displaying that plucky New York Sensibility. Cheney says the "noise in the system" has increased, leading to this week’s threat warnings, and Rummy says that captured al-Qaeda operatives are feeding false information into that system to see how we'll react. Overseas, Bush says he's got no war plans for Iraq on his desk, which might mean they’re on that bookshelf over there, near the coffee table.

After indulging in the Big Big Panic for a few days, I find myself tired and sick to my stomach. The need for action, left unmet, eventually results in resignation and the realization that by and large the world is unmoved by one’s own wants and needs. Generally, that's a lesson learned somewhere around age two or three, but it's easily forgotten, and the older one gets the more psychologically disturbing the consequences of such forgetfulness become.

So I hunker down, and wait.

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And in the midst of my hunkering down, I contemplate my bloodlust in the dark. There was a time, when I used to hang out with these folks, that I would have found such a call for death and devastation abhorrent, and a reflection of the worst tribal instincts of humanity. "There is no way to peace, peace is the way." It sounds so nice, doesn't it? Somebody else said something like that once…what was his name…he wore sandals…that nice boy from Nazareth? Got nailed to a tree? Oh yeah—Jesus!

Along with what Jesus said in the book of Mathew (5:39) and Paul's insistence that vengeance belonged to the Lord (Romans 12:19) there are similar passages in the texts of everything from Confucianism to Islam. An interesting take on Jesus' injunction to turn the other cheek is that he referred to a Judaic law, established by God and enforced by the judiciary of Israel, which precluded personal vengeance. Furthermore, governments are enjoined to "execute wrath on those who practice evil."

I suppose that's what I want, here: to see some wrath executed. The Peaceweavers and others like them would have me believe that, had Bush said "As a peaceful nation we send out a call to the people of the world to join us in having war no more," an "overwhelming change of consciousness" would have resulted. The trouble is that such faith is only that, faith. I doubt very much that the masses who cheered as our towers fell would join us as we "change old violent ways and together raise our consciousness, act compassionately, and have the moral courage to do what is right and noble for all living beings." As nice as such sentiments are, they have as much real impact as attempting to levitate the Pentagon to stop the war in Vietnam. Such mysticism will not serve us well when our enemies are attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. Pursuing unconditional peace in the face of indiscriminately murderous hatred results in being indiscriminately murdered. It may elevate one personally and even spiritually to think the good thoughts and hum that cosmic Om, but it is not our personal and spiritual elevation that is at stake here, it is our nation and our civilization.

Of course, such thinking isn’t really in evidence anywhere within the real political spectrum at the moment, which is just as well. And I am indeed satisfied with our activities to date, which amply demonstrated that we will bring down governments in response to attacks upon us. But there is an extension to that, and it must be admitted: when our enemies finally execute the Big Nasty, there will be no quarter given. No sympathy for innocent civilians. No opportunity for negotiation. No debate about anything except the target. For that reason alone, the State sponsors of terrorism had better hope that we have the best intelligence on the planet. Because if an American city falls, an entire nation will be turned into ash with forty-eight hours, and we will choose that nation based on what we know about our attackers.

I wish we lived in a world where we had the luxury of precise moral action and delicate consideration. But we don't. That is a terrible truth. Brutal action against us will be met with a hammer blow of incredible magnitude. I’m good with that. If that renders me "unenlightened," so be it.

Hopefully, that hammer won't have to fall.

Probably, at some point, it will.

Read more from the Middle East Archive
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Read President Bush's speech to the Bundestag, given yesterday, here. The sweet spot:

The evil that has formed against us has been termed the "new totalitarian threat." The authors of terror are seeking nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Regimes that sponsor terror are developing these weapons and the missiles to deliver them. If these regimes and their terrorist allies were to perfect these capabilities, no inner voice of reason, no hint of conscience would prevent their use.

Wishful thinking might bring comfort, but not security. Call this a strategic challenge; call it, as I do, axis of evil; call it by any name you choose, but let us speak the truth.

Peggy Noonan calls that bit "deft" in her take on the speech. I think she's right. Don't like the words "axis of evil"? Call it what you like. But don't ignore the reality of the threat by poking your head into semantic sand.

The Guardian (U.K.), with typically blinkered prose, reports mainly on the "protests" and "jeers" which supposedly greeted Bush inside and outside of the Reichstag. While making sure to report that at one point during the speech "MPs from the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor movement to the East German communist party, unfurled a banner with the words: "Mr Bush and Mr Schröder, stop your wars," they neglect to mention that "There were shouts of disapproval from other members as the banner was wrestled from them," as reported by the Telegraph (also U.K.). The Telegraph declared the speech "forceful and accomodating" and "a defining speech that won a standing ovation from the Bundestag." On the 21st, the Times of London reminded Europe both of its decline and of the repeated military largesse bestowed upon it by the United States. In the context of declaring the death of NATO, Charles Krauthammer explains the European forgetfulness in today's Washington Post:

"For a continent that for 500 years ruled the world, this impotence is difficult to accept. It helps explain Europe's petulant complaints about American 'arrogance' and 'unilateralism.'"

So true. And, reflecting a point I've made elsewhere on these pages:

"Toward the end of the Cold War, they made the conscious, near-continental decision to radically reduce their military forces and turn inward in order to build 'Europe.' They slashed defense spending and essentially demobilized. It was a perfectly reasonable response to the end of the Soviet threat. [...] should we be hectoring them to reverse that, to divert money from their cherished welfare states to their militaries?"

The truth is, militarily we don't need Europe to fight this war. But their reluctance to voice support for it, and the strong current of anti-American sentiment that repeatedly finds expression through their media and their politicians, is worse that petulant: it's downright ungrateful. Where would Europe be without the intervention of the United States 50 years ago? Certainly not debating about how best to insure universal health care for its citizens, or experimenting with the mono-government of the European Union. France needs to recall that it was only timely work by their intelligence services that prevented an Algerian terrorist group from flying an airliner into the Eiffel Tower in 1994, and stopped a plan to bomb Strasborg cathedral in 2000. Their luck won't hold forever. Germany should remember that a terrorist cell operating out of their country provided personnel and assistance to the September 11 operation. When they crack down on the cells that have heretofore found relatively safe haven within their borders, they, too, will become targets.

As President Bush recited:

"Those who despise human freedom will attack it on every continent. Those who seek missiles and terrible weapons are also familiar with the map of Europe. Like the threats of another era, this threat cannot be appeased and cannot be ignored."

Hopefully, it will not take a European version of September 11 to remind the Continent of its debt to America and its responsibility to its citizenry and the world.

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Of course, Europe isn't all bad. They're a hell of a lot better than we are at recognizing and banning persistent organic pollutants. Here in the U.S. we don't seem to care enough about skyrocketing autism and cancer rates to properly examine the idea that maybe--just maybe--our saturation of the environment and our bodies with chemicals that were unknown to the Earth's 4.5 billion year old ecosystem until we created them during the past 100 years is a very bad thing. Not to mention the sudden appearance of hermaphroditic frogs with six legs and the disappearance of entire species' worth of normal frogs. And on and on. We sure do what we can to protect the chemical industry's bottom line though, don't we?

If the human race manages to survive this molecular onslaught, and doesn't mutate into tumor-laden idiocy, future generations will look back with outraged amazement at our innovation and our ignorance during this Chemical Age.

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Way back on February 27 I commented on Hillel Halkin's "The Return of Anti-Semitism." In this month's First Things, John Neuhaus weighs in on Halkin with far more nuance that I managed to muster:

"Hillel Halkin is certainly right in saying that, after September 11, the perceived risks in U.S. support for Israel are greatly increased. There needs to be a civil conversation about why we should be prepared to accept those risks. It is distinctly unhelpful to poison public discourse with the suggestion that those who disagree or have doubts are, in fact, simply anti–Semites."

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For the record, I like my crow well-done, with maybe some roasted potatoes and a good Chardonnay. Technically, crow wants a red, but I prefer white. Red wine makes me sneeze.

During all of my recent defenses of Bush’s security record, and my trashing of Clinton’s, I forgot one important thing: I don't know what I'm talking about. The complexities of the issues involved in intelligence gathering and the execution of actions based on that intelligence were brought home to me when I came across the following articles during further research:

The Washington Post: "Broad Effort Launched After '98 Attacks." This article outlines Clinton’s efforts to kill bin Laden after the '98 embassy bombings. Although the strategy of focusing so much effort on going after bin Laden personally may be questionable, it is not true that Clinton "did nothing" as I so brashly asserted last week. There were submarines! And remote-controlled hunter-killer drones!

The Washington Post: "A Strategy's Cautious Evolution." Outlines the changes in security policy after Bush took office. It doesn't reflect very well on the new administration's priorities or its ability to appreciate just how cool a hunter-killer drone really is.

The American Prospect: "Softer on Terrorism?" Makes short work of the "Clinton had eight years to solve this problem" argument.

All of these articles far surpass in research and quality of argument anything that I have produced, or could hope to produce, on the subject.

In short, it was presumptuous of me to speak out with such seeming authority on these issues. My reach clearly exceeded my grasp. While it will be of historical import to argue about which administration was the party to greater nonfeasance, the fact is that neither one reacted in time to prevent the attacks of September 11. The security and safety of the country are now the responsibility of the Bush Administration.

For what it’s worth: they’d better get their act together.

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And, in the same spirit: perhaps I shouldn't mistake European editorializing for actual European sentiment.

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''Your probability of dying of cancer in your lifetime is already about 20 percent. This would increase it to 20.1 percent. Would you abandon a city for that? I doubt it.''

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"The blast and searing heat would gut buildings for a block in every direction, incinerating pedestrians and crushing people at their desks. Let's say 20,000 dead in a matter of seconds. Beyond this, to a distance of more than a quarter mile, anyone directly exposed to the fireball would die a gruesome death from radiation sickness within a day -- anyone, that is, who survived the third-degree burns. This larger circle would be populated by about a quarter million people on a workday. Half a mile from the explosion, up at Rockefeller Center and down at Macy's, unshielded onlookers would expect a slower death from radiation. A mushroom cloud of irradiated debris would blossom more than two miles into the air, and then, 40 minutes later, highly lethal fallout would begin drifting back to earth, showering injured survivors and dooming rescue workers. The poison would ride for 5 or 10 miles on the prevailing winds, deep into the Bronx or Queens or New Jersey."

Those are the results of a one-kiloton nuclear explosion in Times Square. That's one fifteenth the size of the Hiroshima bomb. Bill Keller, who wrote this article on the true severity of the nuclear threat for yesterday's New York Times magazine, asked a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council to run a computer model.

The short assessment: the risk of terrorists actually acquiring a nuclear device isn't as great as we fear. But it is a possibility, and it only takes one. The article is both reassuring and frightening.

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Tired. Very, very, very tired. And sick. But I am in the office today. From a window, I can see folks gathering along the South and West sides of the Ground Zero site. They're there to watch the stately removal of the last beam from the South Tower of the World Trade Center, and the empty stretcher which represents the 1,800 or so people who have yet to be identified. Fortunately, we've still got 20,000 body parts to test.

20,000. That means, roughly, that the 1,800 unidentified were each blown into eleven pieces. Except for the ones who were burned to ash and then crushed into powder.

Anyway. The ceremonial bit starts in about an hour and a half. And with that, our cleaning up of the "Great Victory" of "Allah's Glorious Martyrs" will be complete.

Except for the part where we hitch up our collective rucksacks, head East and smite our enemies.

We are going to smite our enemies, George, aren't we?

Good.

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Well, that's it. From 39 stories up and three blocks away, the last remaining bit of 110 stories' worth of skyscraper is a little longer than the first joint of my pinky. The hundreds of fire and police officers--readily identifiable by their dark blue and pale blue formal attire--are even smaller. The empty stretcher was so small I missed it being loaded into the ambulance.

I guess that means that it's time to start building, now.

I'd like to say there was some closure. But there wasn't. Not really. There probably won't be, for as long as that hole in the ground and the chunk of missing skyline remains.

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Let it be known: Smucker's peanut butter is awful.

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Correction, or rather, clarification: the 3/4 ounce blot of peanut butter that the J.M. Smucker Company of Orrville, Ohio packages for dispersal along with catered corporate bagels and suchlike is awful.

The company does produce a "natural" peanut butter--the kind with the oil that rises to the top and must be forced into better relations with the peanut solids it thinks are beneath it--that is quite fine.

All this peanut butter talk is a subtle announcement that, henceforth, there will not be such weighty matters as life and death and politics to be found here on these pages. Such heaviness, like truckloads of wreckage, weighs down on the brain, stifles the heart, and is generally no fun, particularly when it encourages the speaking-without-knowing, which feeds the neurotic tendencies and leads to lower back pain, depression, and paranoia. Peanut butter, as a foodstuff and a subject matter, is much better, which is not to say that foodstuffs in general or peanut butter in particular will be the focus of upcoming bits.

Although I have been noticing the appalling state of the breakfast cereal product grouping lately.

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Well. What a stale half-eaten cheeseburger in a ditch by the side of the road sort of week. Been half-sick and dragged out, fagged and fashed as it were, for all of it. My brain is mush. My adrenals are tapped out from Living In Fear. Content has suffered. Readership is down and sponsors are pulling out. Celebrity endorsement deals are falling through.

Eh. I'm going away this weekend. I'm going to fly kites. And that's all there is to it.

Perhaps on Monday I will have something entertaining to say.

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