John Hawkins posts an informative entry, Answering 13 Frequently Asked Questions About Illegal Immigration, on his blog RightWingNews. Hawkins debunks liberal myths on illegal immigration and crime, health-care costs, and amnesty proposals. Is border security impossible? No, "we only have 11,000 border patrol agents working on both the US and Canadian border combined.... New York City alone has 39,110 officers. How can anyone expect us to secure both our Northern and Southern borders with 1/3 of the personnel used to handle a single city?"

Fifteen years ago, politicians wouldn't touch this issue. There were exceptions, notably Pat Buchanan and Alan Simpson, but they were dismissed as cranks even by members of their own party. Increasingly, avoiding immigration comes at greater peril than addressing it. Today, there is no issue that motivates the Republican base more than immigration, illegal or otherwise. Many independents, such as Lou Dobbs, and even Democrats are incensed by illegal immigration.

President Bush is one politician who didn't avoid the immigration issue. He just chose the wrong side. In dissecting why President Bush went from respectable poll numbers to eeking above the political Mendoza line, his laxity on border security and immigration laws stands behind only Iraq in understanding the drop. Politicians, particularly Republicans, will increasingly face such backlashes. No longer do proponents of enforcing immigration laws snipe from the outskirts of the Republican Party. They are the party. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist understands this. President Bush found out the hardway. He won't be the last politician to suffer the wrath of an outraged public on this issue.

Smoking cigarettes is bad for you, but not nearly as unhealty as reading Cigarettes....Cigarettes the Clown, that is. He may not give you cancer, but if you hang around Cigarettes the Clown long enough he will give you a disease. Everyday, 1,200 people die from reading Cigarettes the Clown. And it's not just intravenous drug users and homosexuals anymore. Studies have shown that even second-hand Cigarettes is toxic. Don't believe me? This is your brain. This is your brain on Cigarettes. Want to live your life right? Think of what Cigarettes the Clown would do, and then do the opposite. Don't give in to peer pressure: stay away from Cigarettes the Clown. Say No! Go! And Tell! But if you do decide to read Cigarettes the Clown, make sure you're wearing a condom. The life you save may be your own. And that's one to grow on.

I blog from the Library of Congress. I'm spending the day on Capitol Hill (which helps explain the lack of blogging), where I got lost in the Capitol. It took me a good fifteen minutes to escape from the labyrinth. The whole idea of an internal Capitol Hill subway, and a special elevator bell that says "For Senators Only" (which I mistakenly pressed), rubs me--or at least my inner-populist--the wrong way. On my journey, I caught glimpses of a Senators John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Orrin Hatch, Tom Colburn, John McCain, and Pat Roberts. They were dressed for success and moving as if they had places to go and people to see. And though I saw legions of Capitol Hill police, I eluded--thank God--the loose-fisted Cynthia McKinney.

Before Cynthia McKinney allegedly punched a Capitol police officer, the policeman failed to recognize her as a member of congress. Can you blame him? When she inferred that the Bush administration had advance knowledge of 9/11 or defended Robert Mugabe's land expropriation in Zimbabwe, I had trouble beliving that she was a member of congress too.

"Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom."
--Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 1960

I will be speaking tomorrow at Accuracy in Academia's Capitol Hill conference, The Ivory Tower's War on the Military. My remarks take place at 11 a.m. on the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol in SC-4. Although I served as an enlisted Marine in the Reserves, I have been involved in the battle to gain access to the campuses for the Reserve Officer Training Corps for more than a decade. I'll discuss that battle, as well as the history of academia's hostility to ROTC and students who serve, in my talk. DC-area FlynnFilers, contact AIA for details and to RSVP.

When a Republican president eavesdrops on America's enemies, liberals shout "civil liberties." When a Democratic congressman eavesdrops on political enemies, liberals shout "civil liberties"--civil liberties for the spy and not the spied on.

Francis Fukuyama increasingly sounds more like his teacher Samuel Huntington and less like himself. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites, Fukuyama famously (and incorrectly) proclaimed the end of history: the triumph of free-markets and democracy. The world, inevitably, moves in that direction--at least Fukuyama thought so until the Iraq debacle. Since Iraq went sour, Fukuyama has announced voting against George W. Bush, has quarreled with neoconservatives he formerly elicited praise from, has criticized an Iraq war he had called for, and has seemingly abandoned (or at least put on hold) his once-vogue idea of a reverse Trotskyism: history travelling teleologically toward democratic capitalism.

"What the administration sees as one problem ought to be seen as two," Fukuyama writes with Adam Garfinkle in the Wall Street Journal. "Radical Islamism needs to be dealt with separately from democracy promotion." The piece presents evidence rebutting a central tenet of the Bush Doctrine: the notion that America's freedom depends on establishing democracy beyond America's borders.

Exhibit A: "Muslims in democratic Europe are as much a part of this problem [terrorism] as those in the Middle East. This is not a trivial point; it is a central one that directly challenges a key tenet of the administration's view."

Exhibit B: "But recent elections in Iran, Egypt, Palestine, and Iraq have either brought to power or increased the prestige of profoundly illiberal groups like Hamas and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood; even our putative friends in the Shiite alliance that did well in last December's Iraqi elections have been busy institutionalizing an intolerant Islamist order in the parts of Iraq they control."

Exhibit C: "In many Arab countries this means that premature democratic elections will most definitely and predictably bring the mosque into the public square while driving out all other forms of expression. The tolerant are making democratic way for the intolerant, who in turn are very likely to block the possibility of any reverse flow of authority. How such dynamics promote liberal democracy in the longer run is hard to see. More likely, U.S. policies that foster pro-Islamist outcomes will delay political liberalization, help the wrong parties in the great debates ongoing in Muslim societies and, quite possibly therefore, make our terrorist problem worse."

Exhibit D: "Just as it proved possible to stigmatize and eventually eliminate slavery from mainstream global norms without having first to wait for the mass advent of liberal democracy, it should be possible to effectively stigmatize jihadi terrorism without having first to midwife democracies from Morocco to Bangladesh."

The world hasn't embraced free markets and free votes despite Francis Fukuyama once saying that it would. Reality tends to have that affect upon untested theories. Not all theorists are realistic enough to alter the theory when events move in unexpected directions. It is to Fukuyama's credit that he has done so. It is to the discredit of others that they have not.

Hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets of Los Angeles this weekend. Denver, Phoenix, and other cities hosted, on a smaller scale, similar events. What do they want? Open borders. When do they want it? Now.

Nine out of ten Americans view illegal immigration as a problem, but nine out of ten politicians won't do anything to solve it. Why? Illegal immigration benefits two groups: illegal immigrants and the businessmen who employ them. The former constitute an interest group within the Democratic Party; the latter are a substantial portion of the donor base for the Republican Party. Both parties have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of porous borders and lawless hiring practices.

A second reason helps explain why the popular will has been thwarted: voters who feel most passionately about illegal immigration, legal immigrants and the businessmen who employ them, generally support lax enforcement of immigration laws. Huge majorities support restricting immigration (both legal and illegal), but those huge majorities aren't so affected by the issue as to vote solely on it. The hundreds of thousands of protestors who showed up in Los Angeles, on the other hand, are personally affected by immigration laws and do--to the extent that they can vote--cast ballots solely on the immigration issue.

The military rescued three "peacemakers" kidnapped in Iraq. But the response by Christian Peacemaker Teams, the group the three captives belonged to, curiously mentions their "release" but not their rescue. They claim the peace activists' "only protection was in the power of the love of God and of their Iraqi and international co-workers." In reality, their protection came from the U.S. military. Though the group notes "the gracious outpouring of support from Muslim brothers and sisters," they don't bother to thank the soldiers who liberated them.

South Park's response to Scientologist Isaac Hayes's abrupt departure from the show, which aired last night, is an instant classic. Using the "Super Adventure Club" to mock Scientology, and Chef to mock Hayes, proved far more effective, hilarious, and subtle than the program's controversial episode on Scientology--recently pulled by Comedy Central--which relied on the dumb, "get out of the closet" cheap-shot on Tom Cruise. What made last night's show stand out?

1. The cut-and-paste job from stock audio done on Chef's lines, which addressed audience concerns of how South Park would produce an episode focused on Chef without Isaac Hayes participating, was brilliant. South Park's explanation of Chef's choppy, monosyllabic statements--that he had been brainwashed--was an excellent way to explain Chef's strange behavior within the show (as the viewers already understood, and no doubt appreciated, why the deliberately amateurish spliced audio was used).

2. The show was shockingly dirty, both in the lines delivered by the brainwashed Chef, the cop (way too interested in his job of catching molestors), and the leader of the Super Adventure Club.

3. Chef's eulogy (and the whole episode for that matter) did an excellent job detailing Matt Stone and Trey Parker's beef with Hayes. The fact that the entire town sent him off, and were seemingly unanimous in their verdict of his last days, was cool too. Chef's actions of the past week--his predatory behavior around children--were the result of being brainwashed by the club he joined. This was clever, and, at least compared to the "get out of the closet" episode, subtle. Stone and Parker remember Chef (read: Isaac Hayes) fondly; it's the Super-Adventure Club (read: Scientology) that they blame for Chef's (read: Hayes's) strange behavior.

4. Killing Chef off, in a most brutal way (Did the bear and mountain lion represent Matt and Trey?), made a statement: we fight back. Scientology has attempted to intimidate critics. Matt and Trey are not intimidated. They are the human personification of that old adage: Never wrestle with a pig. You'll both get dirty and the pig likes it.

"I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd--seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom he destroys."
--George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant," 1936

Amazon.com has altered its search engine at the behest of a liberal complainer. Searches for "abortion" resulted in a computer-generated response: "Did you mean adoption?" That choice, apparently, didn't sit well with the pro-choice quibbler. An Amazon spokesman detailed why searching "abortion" prompted the "adoption" query. It had nothing to do with the search engine's political bias, Amazon's Patty Smith explained, it is just that "Adoption and abortion are the same except for two keystrokes." Really, are abortion and adoption the same except for two keystrokes?

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals seeks to ban something called "bear wrestling," which is apparently legal in Ohio, on the grounds that it's animal abuse. People for the Ethical Treatment of People by Animals--the group I started as an offshoot to another one-member group I started last June, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals by People in People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (or PETAPPETA for short)--opposes bear wrestling for reasons altogether different: a 140-pound high-school senior is no match for a 650-pound black bear. Bear abuse? Try human abuse.

Abdul Rahman professes himself a "Christian." He exclaims: "I believe in Jesus Christ." For this offense, the convert faces trial and a possible death sentence in Afghanistan, the country the United States recently liberated. The United States military overthrew the Taliban. They didn't overthrow Islamic fundamentalism. America can replace a bad government with a better one. Replacing a bad culture with a better one is a much more difficult problem to solve. To believe that the same government, which can't effectively run a rail service or balance a budget, can topple fourteen centuries of history is to put faith in the state beyond that of even the most visionary liberal.

Dave Chappelle, after abruptly walking out on his hit television program, is back with a new movie. Axl Rose, after splitting with his Guns n Roses bandmates and hibernating for over a decade, is back in the public eye and said to be on the brink of releasing his anticipated Chinese Democracy album (albums?). Which reclusive weirdo genius's return are you most excited about?

FlynnFiles readers are invited to attend my speech this Thursday at Boston College. The talk, covering the themes addressed in Why the Left Hates America, will take place on March 23 at 7:00 p.m. in Merkert Hall, Room 127. Young America's Foundation and the BC College Republicans are the sponsors of the event. Following the lecture, I'll have some books to sign. Introduce yourself if you are a FlynnFiles reader.

Today begins year four of the Iraq War. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse came before year five of the Civil War. Armistice Day came during year two of America's involvement in World War I. VE Day and VJ Day came during America's fourth year in World War II. The United States fought these past wars with a steady, concrete objective: defeat the enemy. Victory was in our power. America fights this war with a shifting, currently abstract objective: establish democracy. Victory, if based on the nation-building principle, is out of our hands. This is why it is not hard to envision a year five, six, and seven of the Iraq War. This is also why there never should have been a year one.

So enamored with George W. Bush was Peggy Noonan a year and a half ago that she quit her work as a commentator to volunteer on President Bush's reelection campaign. Now, as barely a third of the electorate approves of the president's job performance, Noonan suggests that George W. Bush fooled her. She didn't know then he was a big-government liberal, really she didn't. But now, now that his poll numbers have dipped so low, now it's all clear.

On the Wall Street Journal's opposite-editorial page, Noonan rejects the notion that "compassionate conservatism" was all along a euphemism for social spending. "That's not what I understood [Bush] to mean," Noonan maintains. "If I'd thought he was a big-spending Rockefeller Republican--that is, if I'd thought he was a man who could not imagine and had never absorbed the damage big spending does--I wouldn't have voted for him." Sure.

Noonan's article, which ran last week, is self-serving. It absolves herself, and other conservative enablers of the president, of five years of Bush sycophancy. In Noonan's reconstruction of the last five years, she and other Bush camp followers didn't go along to get along. They were tricked. The article's timing, just when the president's poll numbers have hit their nadir, is convenient too. Strange how these epiphanies always seem to occur when political fortunes have gone south?

George W. Bush didn't betray conservatism. Conservatives betrayed conservatism by lying to themselves that Bush was one of them, no matter how many times he told them he wasn't. Claiming the president as one of your movement's own has the upside of associating your movement with power. Claiming the president as one of your movement's own has the downside of associating your movement with someone who doesn't believe in your movement. Thus, when the president pursues policies antagonistic to what your movement stands for, your movement becomes associated with policies antagonistic to it. The next thing you know, the movement you joined is no longer the movement you're in.

Talk of a "Bush betrayal" might fit for the president's reversal on nation building--a practice few conservatives now seem bothered by. Talk of a "Bush betrayal" most certainly does not fit for increased government spending. Candidate Bush promised a prescription drug plan for seniors. He announced, over and over again, that education would be his number one priority as president. Rather than accept Governor Bush at his word, conservatives chose to project their own fantasies upon their favored candidate. The bows to liberal shibboleths such as subsidized health care and a more nationalized school system, conservatives assured themselves, were mere campaign promises. Once George Bush became president and did what he promised, the conservative rationalizations of principles betrayed for the election became conservative rationalizations of principles betrayed for the reelection. The spectacle of conservatives apologizing for the president for No Child Left Behind repeated itself a hundred times over. "We're at war" became the robotic response to any question raised about spending increases, even increases, such as the Farm Bill and Transportation Bill, that had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism.

Let the history rewrite begin! Peggy Noonan and countless promoters of limited government weren't apologists for the president, but his critics! That is, unless his poll numbers shoot up. Then they will be supporters again.

Noonan's service to the conservative cause perhaps compels us to award her a mulligan for her prolonged disconnect with reality regarding George W. Bush. But other Bush lackeys masquerading as conservative commentators, who aren't so sweet, articulate, and intelligent, should no longer be listened to as conservatives when they attempt to speak in our name. Perhaps the real "Bush betrayal" has been perpetrated not by Bush, but by Bush's conservative supporters. If they didn't consciously betray their principles, then they exhibited a massive lapse in judgment. Either way, it's unwise to place trust in people unworthy of it through perfidy or imprudence. A conservative who stayed silent, nay, who cheered on during the greatest swell of state power since Lyndon Johnson forfeits his credibility to speak as a conservative. Perhaps PBS, or the New York Times, or CNN will find advantage in elevating such voices. Real conservatives should seek out other voices to listen to.

Even if President Bush had betrayed conservatives, which seems a difficult case to make given that he never embraced conservative principles, he is beyond accountability. He has run his last campaign. His courtiers, unfortunately, won't be returning to Crawford with him. Failing to hold Bush's enablers into account only enables them to repeat this fraud all over again in 2008. Rudy Giuliani? John McCain? Condoleeza Rice? Some party conservative will attempt to convince all movement conservatives that his favored candidate is the second coming of Reagan. If they offered the same praise for the second coming of Bush, don't believe them.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, if you have the cash. If not, don't feel so glum. The more times the bartender swindles you, the less you will care about the $6 Guinness, the $5 door charge, and the obligatory tip with each round.

Bars are a ripoff.

I purchased a 30-pack of Busch at the package store earlier this week for $13.07. That's an outstanding deal at 44 cents a can. Go to a bar, and you will likely pay eight times that amount--that is, if they dare serve an affordable, uncouth beer such as Busch. It has not always been so. Fifteen years ago, one would normally pay around $2 for a 16-ounce Budweiser from the tap. Today, one generally pays double that. And way back when, bars would always have some low-end beer deal at $1 or $1.50 per beer. Times have changed, and not for the better. Other than real estate, gasoline, concert tickets, and tobacco products, I can't think of anything that has increased so much in price in so little time as beer has. I speak, of course, of bar-bought and not store-bought beer.

Out of curiosity, and in anticipation of a Friday St. Patrick's Day (a holiday I generally avoid celebrating when it falls on a week day), I phoned ten, DC-area Irish bars to inquire about the cost of Harp, which is a common beer served at such establishments. The average price is $5.11 a pint. The best deals are $4.50 for a 16-ounce glass at Bethesda's Ri Ra and $5 for a 20-ounce glass at Irish Times across from Union Station. The worst deal is $5.50 for 16-ounce pours at Fado, B.D. Mulligan's, and Flanagan's Harp and Fiddle. One establishment, The Dubliner, informed me that they don't serve Harp because it's really brewed in Canada. Alas, their replacement beer, which they assured me is straight from Ireland, eclipsed the $5 mark too.

Last week I purchased a case of Harp for $20. To buy that same amount (288 ounces) of beer in a bar--from a tap no less--one would pay $92 (plus tip).

At what point does cost become prohibitive? For me, the price of beer at bars is prohibitive. In other words, I make a point of staying out of bars because they are too expensive. By raising prices, bars--at least in their relationship with me--have lost a customer. Can I be the only one scared away by inflated prices?

In times past, poor people in cramped houses used the pub as an extra room, a spacious extension of their home. But now that one could buy a more spacious home with the bar bill, the bar culture's best customers have been excluded. And, perhaps, that was the initial thrust of extravagent beer charges: to price out the riff-raff, to attract a wealthier clientele. The $5 beer is like the rope line, only more subtle and effective. But how much beer can the wealthy drink? And how can one stay wealthy by habitually dropping $50 at every visit to the pub?

Today, while in Gettysburg, I saw a hopeful sign. It read: "Hour of Power: Fifty-Cent Pitchers, 9-10 p.m." Alas, in small print, the name "Keystone" appeared. I guess my "Keystone" gag reflex makes me a beer snob too. Is an affordable, non-low-end beer really that lofty an expectation?

When I was a young man, I might have counselled a beerhall putsch against the beerhalls: smuggle your own beers in, refill your glass when the barkeep is not looking, complain loudly of bleach from the tap contaminating your beer until the bar gives up a new glass. Alas, my outer bourgeoisie muffles the advice of my inner proletarian. Now that I am older and allegedly respectable, I suggest a more moderate approach: stay home. When enough people heed my advice, the bars will respect my wishes on pricing. That's just how the market works. People vote on price with their pocketbook. I vote "no" on expensive beer. Who's with me?

When President Bush's approval ratings were above the fifty percent mark, my criticism of President Bush was a lonely hobby--at least among conservatives. Now that Bush's approval ratings have sunk well below forty percent, conservative critics of Bush find the bandwagon crowded. When former Bush sycophant Andrew Sullivan comes out as a critic of the president, it's a sign for me to come to the president's defense.

On a few key issues, President Bush has performed in the "very good" to "excellent" grade:

Taxes
Bush cut them. He didn't raise them. He didn't fall for the Washington trick that deficit reduction can only come by way of tax hikes. Even though taxes were lower under Bush I than Bush II, Bush II has moved tax rates in the right (downward) direction. W has proved more Reagan than Bush on taxes.

Terrorism
Bush reacted swiftly, if deliberatively, to 9/11 by overthrowing the anti-American Taliban regime and installing a government friendly to our interests in its place. He has treated terrorists as terrorists, which has won the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union but the gratitude of the Americans worried about their civil liberties. Since 9/11, there hasn't been a major act of terrorism on U.S. soil. This is not because the terrorists lost interest.

Sovereignty
For President Bush, "unilateralism" isn't a dirty word. He asserted after 9/11 that America didn't need permission to defend itself. He sought allies on Afghanistan and Iraq, but failing to sign them up would not have prevented either action. He balked at the World Court, the Kyoto Protocols, and the Durbin Conference on Racism. He appointed John Bolton, a critic of the UN, to represent America at the UN. Bush understands that America is not in Europe.

Judges
So far so good on Supreme Court Justices Alito and Roberts. Important but overlooked are Bush's conservative nominees to the lower courts, who will populate the federal judiciary for long after George W. Bush returns home for good to Crawford. It's too soon to assess Bush's legacy on judges, but it is quite possible that President Bush will leave a more conservative imprint on the federal bench than President Reagan did.

On government spending, federalism, immigration, Iraq, and scores of other issues, George W. Bush has been a disaster for conservatives. But let's not pretend there's nothing to cheer about.

We haven't Westernized the Islamic world. But the Islamic world is making progress (however glacial) de-Westernizing us. The Illini Media Company fired Daily Illini editor Acton Gorton for publishing the allegedly controversial European cartoons featuring depictions of Muhammad. The board that unanimously voted to fire the University of Illinois student editor hides behind a vague claim that Gorton didn't adequately discuss his decision to run the cartoons with others at the paper, but its suspension of the paper's opinions-page editor, for the same ostensible reason it fired Gorton, belies that claim. Gorton obviously discussed running the cartoons with others at the paper; he just didn't reach the conclusion the Illini Media Company's board wanted him to. The real reason they fired Gorton is that he provided information on the world's top news story of early February. Isn't that what newspaper editors are supposed to do?

"I prefer to be with Cato in prison rather than here with you."
--Marcus Petreius, 59 BC, answering Caesar (who had ordered Cato's arrest) about a Senate walkout

Tonight, a giant space creature invisible to the naked eye will begin to swallow the Moon at 6:18 East Coast time. Not finding cheese pleasing to his palate, the space monster will spit the Moon out later in the evening. "Scientists" call this a lunar eclipse. FlynnFiles readers know better than to buy into that fancy, book-learnin' mumbo-jumbo. Give me...my...computer!!! Ahhh, that's better. An absolute lunatic broke into my apartment and posted that. Just to correct the record, tonight's eclipse will be a penumbral eclipse. The good news is tonight's eclipse is rare. Penumbral eclipses occur five times this century, with the next one occuring in 2053 (mark your calendar!). The bad news is that penumbral eclipses aren't as cool as regular eclipses because the Moon passes through the Earth's outer shadow, making the Moon darker but still quite visible. You'll still be able to see the Moon, which I suppose is better than seeing nothing. Wait, no it's not. Seeing nothing, or almost nothing, is the whole point of lunar eclipses. I demand a refund.

Would South Park co-creator Matt Stone work on a show that ridiculed atheist libertarians? Not likely. So why does he have a problem with Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef, quitting his show because it mocked Scientology? In a statement that tossed about such words as "bigotry," "intolerance," and "civil rights," Hayes said he is outraged by South Park's disrespect toward religion. "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology," Stone informs. "He has no problem--and he's cashed plenty of checks--with our show making fun of Christians." True enough, but--Hayes's moral posing notwithstanding--what, exactly, is the problem with this? Hayes doesn't believe in Mormonism, Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, or any other faith mocked by the show. Why should he have been offended in the past?

Hayes does believe in Scientology. South Park, in one of its least imaginative episodes, ridiculed Scientology, and Scientologist Tom Cruise (in a rather mean-spirited way), last year. I found it boring. Hayes found it offensive. And as a result, he has decided to take his voice and go home.

"He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin," Stone complains. But doesn't everyone want a different standard for religions other than their own? If you believe something is true, you hold it more sacred than something that you believe is false. Presumably, this is why Stone and South Park co-creator Trey Parker avoid deriding what they believe in on their own show. Hayes should have known that his beliefs were due for the South Park treatment. But he has as much right to leave the show (if his contract permits) as Stone has in putting the show out. Stone's self-righteousness ("to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin") is almost as galling as Hayes's. Neither Stone nor Hayes is intolerant or a bigot. To loosely paraphrase Dave Mason: "There ain't no good guy. There ain't no bad guy. There's only the voice of Chef and the voice of Butters and they just disagree."

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake," Napoleon Bonaparte once said. No one bothered to tell this to Senator Russ Feingold. George W. Bush has had one of the worst years of any president in recent memory. The continuing Iraq debacle, failure on Social Security reform, the political hurricane following Katrina, the Dubai-Ports controversy, outrage over ineptness (or disinterest) in enforcing immigration laws, scandals involving Claude Allen and Scooter Libby, and the vice president shooting a man are among the explanations for plummeting poll numbers. But right when George W. Bush looks primed for lame duck status, along come his enemies to the rescue.

Senator Feingold's censure resolution (PDF) is as sure to please the Michael Moore-wing of the Democratic Party as it is to alienate the normal-person wing of both parties. Feingold calls to "censure" President Bush and "condemn" the president's failure to get judges to approve post-9/11 domestic spying by the government. A censure resolution would have had a chance had President Bush lackadaisically pursued domestic surveillance after 9/11, but one condemning him for aggressively keeping tabs on terrorist suspects and their contacts is a political loser. Unfortunately for Republicans, most Democrats--at least most Democrats not running in a multi-candidate presidential primary--understand this. As a result, Senator Feingold's party colleagues have fled from his grandstanding resolution. Nice try Russ, but this is pretty transparent. You are running for president, after all.

Former Bush domestic policy advisor Claude Allen is alleged to have scammed DC-area stores out of thousands of dollars by way of an unimaginative scam that involved exchanging items that he never purchased for a refund. His boss, President Bush, has used other people's money to fund an imaginary mission to Mars, to pay off the Gulf Region in hopes they forget his post-Katrina aloofness, and to award prescription drugs for old people who vote. From whom did Claude Allen learn that taking goodies without paying for them is permissible? To quote the government, "From you, dad. I learned it from watching you." Okay, okay. So George W. Bush isn't Claude Allen's dad. But there are too many similarities between common, department-store scams and common, government scams whereby officials standing for election spend borrowed or taxed money on self-enriching items that they are proscribed by the Constitution from spending borrowed or taxed money upon.

Sopranos Season Five ruled, and after one episode, Sopranos Season Six rules...minor characters make the show, as "Members Only" demonstrated with the focus on the obscure Eugene Pontecorvo...the episode highlighted how evil Tony Soprano and his crew really are, which is often lost on the audience (and perhaps the writers too)...Meadow is hot...The small things make The Sopranos great, like the scene of college freshman AJ taking a ridiculous, ridiculous cell-phone picture of himself while in class. In a few short seconds, the director conveyed just how much of a loser AJ is...Sopranos can never go wrong in dousing an episode with violence; the fact that Sunday night's program also had a compelling storyline didn't hurt (or do I have the importance of violence versus storyline reversed?)...did I mention that Meadow is hot?...more Phil Leotardo, please...Et tu, Junior?

Victor Davis Hanson and John Derbyshire write for National Review Online and disagree about Iraq. Hanson advances the argument that a lack of democratic idealism for the Middle East on behalf of America "helped bring us to the crisis of 9/11." Derbyshire says that the "national fondness for high-flown rhetoric about liberty, rights, and the brotherhood of Man...has worked on us like a spell, enchanting us into folly" in Iraq. Derbyshire writes that there is nothing "wrong with changing your mind when new facts appear," while Hanson castigates those who "demanded that President Clinton or Bush remove Saddam Hussein, but now consider such a move an abject blunder of the first order." Hanson believes we are "close to victory abroad" as we are "closer to concession at home." Derbyshire "believes the democratization of Iraq to be a hopeless enterprise, and a waste of America's attention and resources." Same magazine, different perspective.

Had Tom Fox been an Arab instead of an American, a terrorist instead of a peacemaker, a Muslim instead of a Christian, and tortured in Abu Ghraib instead of some clandestine kidnappers' den, his murder might be the lead story on ABCNBCCBSCNN and the only story on Al Jazeera.

Might the Bush Administration be a victim of its own rhetoric? After four-plus years of inundating the American public with orange alerts, duct-tape recommendations, mushroom-cloud scenarios, and Operation TIPS, did our government really believe that the American people would stand for Muslim Arabs running our most important ports? The United Arab Emirates company hoping to run the ports of New York, Baltimore, New Orleans, and three other American cities has withdrawn its designs. The shady government-to-government deal prevented the public from getting a clear look at the issue. Without light, the public turned up the heat. The result? Congress listened to its constituents. The president championed an unpopular cause and lost. And Muslim Arabs now know that the feeling is mutual. Whether the result of the controversy is just is almost beside the point. Americans don't feel secure having a company, run by people of the same religion and ethnicity as those who attacked on 9/11, administer six of the nation's most important ports. Would Americans have thought differently without several years of state-induced paranoia? Probably not. Reality has been frightening enough. No need to put the blame on fear-mongering.

Forbes magazine counts 791 billionaires in the world. What are the conditions conducive to wealth creation? Freedom. By my count, about 85 percent of the 486 billionaires listed by Forbes reside in free countries, with the remaining 15 percent or so residing in Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Kuwait, and other countries I don't regard as free (Who wants to create wealth if some strongman might take it away?). Where are the conditions most conducive to wealth creation? The United States of America. Forbes contends that almost half (371 to be exact) of the world's billionaires are Americans. Message to the rest of the world? Don't player hate. Imitate.

The wait is over (almost). Sopranos, season six, launches this Sunday night on the Home Box Office. Digital cable awards me 400+ channels, but Sopranos is the lone dramatic series that I watch. From what I understand, many others--perhaps some readers--watch The Sopranos too. In anticipation of the big premiere, I've compiled my "Sopranos" awards:

Favorite Episode: Pine Barrens/Long Term Parking (Tie)
Favorite Character, Deceased: Richie Aprile
Favorite Character, Alive: Phil Leotardo
Favorite Line: "Speak!"--Johnny Sacks' preferred method of answering his cell phone
Hottest Mobette: Charmaine Bucco
Favorite Mob-do, Male: Paulie Walnuts
Favorite Mob-do, Female: "Jersey" Danielle (Adriana's FBI friend)
Favorite Season: Season Five

Got a favorite character? A favorite episode? Hate the show? Share with the readership in the comments section.

This information is not classified, but it should be. The following ten totally terrific trivia truths are astounding enough to explode the cerebra of the feeble-minded. Proceed with caution.

10. The last three presidential assassins were all heavily involved in communist movements. Charles Guiteau, James Garfield's mentally disturbed assassin, lived for about six years in John Humphrey Noyes's Bible Communism cult in upstate New York. Leon Czolgosz, William McKinley's assassin, was an anarchist follower of Emma Goldman and a frequenter of socialist meetings. Lee Harvey Oswald, John Kennedy's assassin, lived in the Soviet Union for about three years and volunteered for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee upon his return to the United States.

9. The Canadian Football League's all-time leading passer is Damon Allen, brother of NFL Hall of Fame running back Marcus Allen. The CFL's all-time receptions leader is Darren Flutie, brother of Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Doug Flutie.

8. The Honeymooners lasted one season as a television series. The Sex Pistols released a single album of original material. Leon Spinks won the heavyweight title in his eighth fight, thirteen months after turning professional.

7. Peter Wolf, one of the coolest dudes around, co-wrote and co-produced Starship's We Built This City, which Blender magazine famously dubbed the worst song ever.

6. From Azerbaijan to Pakistan, there are nine contiguous countries that end in "an." Coincidence, or just evidence of regional unoriginality?

5. Ryan Adams released three albums in 2005. One of them, Cold Roses, is a double album. By way of comparison with other "active" music outfits, Pink Floyd hasn't released an album since 1994 and Guns n Roses's last original release was in 1991.

4. The Moon rocks! Only it's not a real moon. Contrary to popular belief, the "moon" doesn't revolve, at least primarily, around the Earth--despite what geocentric Earthlings believe. It revolves around the Sun alongside the Earth. The Sun exerts a greater gravitational pull on the Moon than the Earth does. The Moon is about one-fourth the diameter of Earth, but one-eightieth of its mass. The relative proximity in mass makes it so the Moon does not exactly revolve around the Earth, but both bodies (in addition to revolving about the Sun) revolve around a point, the barycenter, closer to the Earth's surface than to its core. Sadly, every year the Moon moves an inch and a half away from Earth. Someday, it will be gone. But while it's here, enjoy the eclipse on March 14.

3. Napoleon Dynamite cost just $400,000 to produce, with the lead actor earning $1,000 to play the title character.

2. The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" never charted. Neither did David Bowie's "Heroes," nor Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," nor The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now." But Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting," Ace of Base's "The Sign," and The Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight" all hit #1.

1. Fifty-five million years ago, alligators lived on Ellesmere Island. Ellesmere Island is completely within the Arctic Circle.

"We live in a time when reality is in conflict with platitude, when a fact is in conflict with an a priori interpretation of it, when common sense is in conflict with a distorted rationality. It is a time of conflict between theory that plays fast and loose with practice, and theory that learns from practice; a conflict between two gnoseologies: the one that, from an a priori interpretation of the world, deduces how that reality should be seen, and the one that, from how reality is seen, deduces how that reality must be interpreted. In my opinion, how quickly our society evolves will depend on how quickly we can replace the first gnoseology--the metaphysical one--with the second, the dialectical one."
--Vaclav Havel, "On Evasive Thinking," 1965

Five Vermont towns have called for the impeachment of George W. Bush, a task reserved for the House of Representatives under the Constitution. But can you blame the Vermonters for misunderstanding the Constitution? Federal officials routinely involve themselves in local matters such as schools, fire departments, and minimum-age requirements for alcohol consumption and purchase. Isn't it about time that local officials attempted to usurp such powers reserved to the national government as defense, coining money, and presidential impeachment? It's only fair that such colossal misunderstandings of the Constitution run both ways.

Excerpts from a new book depict Barry Bonds as a violent, tax-dodging, racist, spoiled-rich-kid, adulterer who cheated his way to baseball's home run crown. Other than that, he's apparently a nice guy. I didn't need a whole book to clue me in that Barry Bonds's physical changes involved more than just standard weight training. Looking at two baseball cards convinced me. Apart from the obvious changes to Bonds's physique, there are some facial changes, particularly to his jaw line, that seem consistent with facial changes in users of human growth hormone. Did you really think mere mortals could acquire the superhero chin without the aid of pharmaceuticals?

Based on the revelations in Game of Shadows, ESPN.com's Gene Wojciechowski says: "the only way he gets into Cooperstown is if he spends the $14.50 for a Hall of Fame admission ticket." But even if Bonds had retired before the 1999 season, when it is alleged that he started using steroids, he would have been a lock for the Hall of Fame. He had already won eight Gold Gloves, stolen 445 bases, and hit 410 home runs. And if baseball refused to even suspend steroid users when Bonds allegedly used, how can baseball lock Barry Bonds out of its Hall of Fame?

Simply put: Barry Bonds is not just a Hall of Famer, but one of the greatest baseball players ever to lace up a pair of spikes. Without steroids, he is the best baseball player of the past thirty years. With them, he may be the best ever. Unless your name is Babe Ruth or Willie Mays, Barry Bonds is a better baseball player than you. Don't feel bad, though. A new book says that he is a worse person.

Who is better equipped to govern South Dakota and Mississippi? Nine, unelected judges from states other than South Dakota and Mississippi, or the elected representatives of the people of South Dakota and Mississippi?

The legislators of South Dakota have passed a bill prohibiting abortion save in cases to save the mother's life. The state's governor, Mike Rounds, signed the bill into law on Monday. Mississippi will likely follow suit within the next few weeks. What these states are boldly attempting is called self-government, something that Americans took for granted for so long that they no longer have it regarding abortion and several other hot-button issues.

There is no right to an abortion in the Constitution (In fact, all states inhibited abortions in ways contrary to Roe v. Wade prior to that decision.). Even if the Constitution contained such a right, it couldn't come from thin air. It would have to be instituted through the democratic process. The amendments to the Constitution, as well as the Constitution itself, were codified through the democratic process. So even when the First Amendment, for instance, protects minority rights, it still does so by majority will. That is because a long, long time ago, supermajorities agreed in the wisdom of the First Amendment. So, all of our rights--even the ones that predate government and are God given--must be confirmed by the will of the people if they are to be recognized by our government.

Apart from the common sense of the rights bequeathed to us is the genius of federalism. In a country as massive as ours, one-size-fits all solutions commit a violence against self-government. What's popular in New York may not be popular in Utah, which is why states retain, under the Constution, a great degree of sovereignty. State sovereignty prevents unpopular laws from being forced on a state. States are a block on government monopoly. They ensure self-rule on a level where such a thing is more feasible. Thus, they ensure diversity of governments. If you don't care for the law demanding motorcycle helmets in Massachusetts, move to New Hampshire where you can let your hair blow in the breeze. If you don't care for the sales tax in Maryland, move to Delaware (Dela)where they don't have one. If you don't care for Oregon's law banning self-serve gasoline sales, move to Idaho or California but not to New Jersey. Federalism gives Americans the power to flee, just as our republican form of government gives Americans the power to alter, institute, and abolish laws. There is no escape from centralism.

Prior to Roe v. Wade, this was the situation with abortion: fifty different laws suiting fifty different states. If you didn't like the law, you could work to overturn it, or you could move. Now, if you don't like the law, you can't overturn it, and since Roe v. Wade is uniform you can't flee it--at least within the United States. Short of a Constitutional amendment, only a Supreme Court decision can alter the status quo.

And a Supreme Court fight, it seems, is what the folks in South Dakota and Mississippi are looking for. That fight is only in part about abortion. Broader issues--self-government and federalism--are also at stake, which is why honest supporters of abortion rights hold Roe v. Wade in contempt too.

Overturning Roe v. Wade is not tantamount to outlawing abortion. Instead, overturning Roe v. Wade simply means letting the democratic process play itself out on an issue that the Constitution is silent on at best, and outlaws in the Fourteenth Amendment at worst. And when the Supreme Court corrects its 1973 mistake, whether it happens this year, the next, or the year after that, South Dakota will have its abortion law and New York will have a very different one. That's federalism. That's self-government. That's life without Roe v. Wade.

Barbra Streisand was a straight-A student at Erasmus High School in Brooklyn, New York, which, in her world at least, allows her to contemptuously refer to George W. Bush, a man with degrees from both Yale and Harvard, as "this C student." Leaving aside the question of whether "A" students or "C" students are generally the arrogant ones, it's always a good idea when calling someone stupid not to mispell four words in one sentence amid the verbal indictment. If George W. Bush could have hand-picked his enemies, he could not have made better selections than the enemies that have been assigned him.

"I think the military knows better than to pick that fight [with Harvard]," a spokesman for the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, a litigant in a legal dispute with the Pentagon over access to campuses by military recruiters, boasted months before the Supreme Court handed down its ruling today. The U.S. military, afraid of Harvard? Taking on Nazis is one thing, but for sheer ability to inflict fear and intimidation upon the enemy nothing beats a battallion of egghead professors clad in tweed jackets, speaking with phony English accents, and threatening the enemy with theories and postulates. Harvard profs roam Dunster, JFK, Brattle, and Bow Streets, protected only by the thin armor of their Saabs and Volvos, spoiling for fights. No, the U.S. military cowers at such an enemy!

Fantasy scenario aside, the U.S. military took on Harvard, and dozens of other schools that played follow the leader, and defeated them in the courtroom (There's no telling if Harvard would be able to even the score on the battlefield.).

Colleges and universities regularly dole out thousands of dollars for such disreputable characters as Angela Davis, Rodney Coronado, and Laura Whitehorn, and Susan Rosenberg to speak. Even though the military pays hundreds of millions of dollars to colleges and universities through research grants and contracts, schools regularly prevent military representatives from speaking to even a few students on their campuses. No more. The Supreme Court today unanimously ruled as constitutional a law forbidding institutions of higher learning that accept federal money from banning military recruiters. Now schools can either kick off the recruiters and the federal money, or welcome the recruiters and the federal money. College administrators like money, even more than genuflecting to fashionable causes, so it's not probable that the law schools at Harvard, Yale, UConn, and points beyond will continue to ban recruiters.

Brokeback Mountain lost? I demand a recount.... Crash is commercially the least successful Best Picture since 1987's The Last Emperor.... James Dean and Harrison Ford never won an Oscar, but the Three 6 Mafia have.... After hearing George Clooney's speech congratulating Hollywood on its cutting-edge civil-rights record, one wonders if he has ever heard of a movie called Birth of a Nation.... Reese Witherspoon seemed the only normal person to win a major award. She is sweet. Were the Best Actress winner's constant references to being a "real woman" a subconscious jab at her competitor, Transamerica's Felicity Huffman?

Did you know that capitalism is "at odds with humanity," "caring and compassion," and "human rights"? Did you know that the United States is not a real democracy, but merely a "quote-unquote" democracy? Did you know President Bush's words are reminiscent of "a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say"? Did you know that the United States is "the single most violent nation on planet Earth"? What? You didn't know that? Well, you would if you had taken Jay Bennish's World Geography class when you were in 10th grade.

"I aimed at the public's heart," Upton Sinclair famously claimed of The Jungle, "and by accident I hit it in the stomach." By trying to have his cake and eat it too--by writing a novel that he styled as a factual expose--Sinclair never even attempted to aim for the public's head.

This year marks the centennial of The Jungle's publication in book form. The Chronicle of Higher Education celebrates by including two pieces on The Jungle in its issue dated tomorrow. The main piece ("How Should We Teach 'The Jungle'), by Ohio State-Mansfield historian Christopher Phelps, notes that the book, which Sinclair styled as America's first "proletarian novel," is "among the top five supplementary texts assigned in the U.S. undergraduate history survey." Why? The Jungle is political screed dressed as novel. It is based on a man's imagination, and not on actual events. It recasts the American dream as the American nightmare. It sees events through the socialist lens of its socialist author. It depicts the typical meatpacking company as unconcerned with selling unhealthy meat at the same it depicts the typical meatpacking company as obsessed with profits (as though selling bad meat is good for business).

The Jungle certainly played a role in shaping history by aiding the passage of 1906's Pure Food and Drugs Act. But the book itself is not history. It is a story about a hardluck immigrant working in a disgusting Chicago meatpacking plant that a left-wing writer dreamed up. Suggesting otherwise to impressionable undergraduates is to obscure rather than to enlighten.

Fiction doesn't work as history. But for historians immersed in the present and unconcerned about the past, fiction will do just fine. Professor Phelps reveals himself as one such historian, and at the same time gives us a big hint as to why The Jungle remains popular on classroom reading lists. "President Ronald Reagan and succeeding Republican presidents gutted the interventionist state by deregulating the meat industry," Phelps writes in The Chronicle. "The result is a reversion to the conditions of The Jungle." I am afraid this is too self-evidently stupid to rate a rebuttal.

Phelps gushes that "The Jungle exemplifies the crusading spirit of the Progressive Era." Kevin Mattson, in the Chronicle's second piece ("The Smoking Gun That Wasn't") on Sinclair, gives insight into why the "crusading spirit" doesn't mesh with the historian's purpose: truth. Mattson refers to the recent find of one of Sinclair's letters in which Sinclair claims knowledge of Sacco and Vanzetti's guilt--in part by way of a defense lawyer for the anarchist pair telling Sinclair so--in the 1920 double-murder/robbery that gained them international celebrity and trips to the electric chair. But, Sinclair concludes in the letter that a proposed novel on the case would prove "much better copy as a naive defense of Sacco and Vanzetti because this is what all my foreign readers expect, and they are 90 percent of my public." Sinclair's critics, of whom Mattson is not one (at least on this matter), conclude that "a naive defense of Sacco and Vanzetti" is precisely what Sinclair went on to write in his book Boston.

In other words, Sinclair subordinated truth to a political cause. But, Boston, like The Jungle, is a novel. Novelists have license to use their imaginations to the fullest. U.S. history class, on the other hand, is supposed to be based on fact. What business do historians (merchants of fact) have in assigning novelists (merchants of fiction)?

Real history is more interesting than made-up history. It is also not so ideologically simplistic as an Upton Sinclair novel, which is why so many historians prefer fiction to fact.

"It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. All the power it has is what society gives it, plus what it confiscates from time to time on one pretext or another; there is no other source from which State power can be drawn. Therefore every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure, leaves society with so much less power; there is never, nor can be, any strengthening of State power without a corresponding and roughly equivalent depletion of social power."
--Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, the State

I'm a practicing Catholic who needs more practice. To that end, I've given up cigars for Lent. The cold months result in an involuntary cessation of my disgusting but delicious habit. I'm not such a brute as to smoke cigars inside my house (at least I haven't been such a brute since my wedding day), and since the cold keeps me indoors more, wintertime is not cigartime. So, forgoing cigars as spring approaches will be quite a sacrifice. I like to read outdoors, and things just won't be the same without Swisher Sweets or some pricier, but not much better, brand.

But this is probably for the best. Twelve years ago, I gave up alcohol as a New Year's resolution for January. Then January became February, and based on February-is-the-shortest-month reasoning I continued my teetotaling ways. Lent that year arrived in February, and I decided to extend my personal prohibition era until Easter. By the time Easter rolled around, I had decided to join the Marines. You can't drink in boot camp, so what started out as a 31-day pledge turned into eight, alcohol-free months. It was an extremely productive time in my life. I set goals and achieved them. I made major decisions that changed the course of my life. I expunged a lot of foolishness from my life.

I highly recommend such life-altering sacrifices, but not on a permanent basis. Life is more "end" than "means," and constantly denying oneself life defeats a major purpose of life: living. For more than a decade, cigars have been part of living for me. Before they become part of dying, I would be best served to part company with them forever. Might Ash Wednesday of 2006 mark the day I serve cigars with divorce papers? I don't know.

Unlike alcohol, I find that cigars help instead of hurt focus. When Ayn Rand pointed to the fire at the end of a cigarette and said it symbolized the fire blazing in the smoker's mind, I can't say that what I read outraged me. Smoking is on the whole terrible for your health, but in my experience smoking--cigars at least--is good for concentration, contemplation, and relaxation. Thus, I can't say that 2006's lenten sacrifice will be as beneficial to my productivity as 1994's lenten sacrifice.

As I wrote Intellectual Morons, I sometimes unknowingly went through five cigars in a day. I haven't smoked a cigar since I was in Krakow in late January, and my productivity has not suffered in the absence of tobacco. This is probably an aberration. I worry about the impact my lenten decision will have on the deadline of my next book. I welcome the impact my lenten decision will have on the cells inside my mouth.

But perhaps I miss the reason for the season. Sacrifice may incidentally improve physical or mental health. But that is not the purpose, at least for sacrifices offered up to God. Two thousand years ago, a man sacrificed something more than cigars and beer. To remember his sacrifice, if one believes that sacrifice was made to redeem us all, one sacrifices--even if the gesture is as paltry as tobacco or beer.