The mainstream media finally are beginning to cover the indisputable good news in Iraq, but most often the real story still comes through the blogs from inside Iraq. The best, Iraq the Model, is now appearing again after a long lapse (two of the principals have been in the United States studying), offering uniquely insightful perspective from Iraqis themselves.

And here is an intriguing blog by Michael Totten, an American who has immersed himself in the country. I suppose someone could try to minimize the significance of these stories and quotations, but the pictures seem undeniably persuasive. The decent humanity of the people
--and the journalist--shines through.

I don't begrudge war opponents their views. Actually, it's hard not to sympathize. But I'd like to see a bit more reciprocity, especially in light of the reality that the Iraqi democrats and their Coalition allies are winning.

If you want to be a doctor, a lawyer or a tycoon, conventional wisdom says that getting into one of America's top schools -- Stanford, Columbia, Harvard, Yale -- will put you on the right path. But if you have aspirations for the kind of leadership that puts you on the front lines of the Global War on Terror, you're reminded again this week that there's no room at the inn.

The one good thing about presidential elections -- even the 2008 epoch -- is that between the rhetoric, insipid spins and restrictive debates, issues that matter always seem to find their way to the surface.

Yesterday, presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), told crowds in Pensacola, Fla., and Annapolis, Md., that ROTC programs should be given space on all U.S. campuses. "That they are frequently denied that privilege is disgraceful," he said.

Hooah. Say it again, Senator.

The ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) is the principle provider of America's commissioned officer corps. That is, the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps lieutenants, and Navy ensigns that lead and train our soldiers, airmen, Marines and sailors. A sizeable amount of our military leadership in the last century has come from the ROTC ranks.

As anyone who has received one of the select scholarships to train intensely for the four years of their undergraduate education (as I did before an injury turned a military career into a writing one), it's no easy task receiving or keeping the highly competitive scholarship. Top student? Check. Top young leader? Check. Top athlete? Check. Mature, tough minded, calm, cool? Check. These are impressive, selfless people. In my case, I have yet to be surrounded again by a more honorable group of men and women.

For Americans who value the service our young military leaders provide and the commitment to sacrifice they make at such a young age, seeing some of the so-called "top" schools inadvertently exclude students who they would otherwise accept simply because that student wants to serve the country in a leadership position is troubling. It's a stomach tightening troubling.

It's an exclusion borne of the draft card-burning Vietnam War era. And as those aging protestors have become middle-aged professors and administrators of the Academy, the idea of having books blend with stars, bars, and troop movement tactics is just too much to take. It doesn't blend well with their view of intelligentsia.

Under the Solomon Act, a statue governing federal aid to universities, denying the existence of ROTC on campus can disqualify institutions from certain direct federal monies. But some of the "Ivies" get away with it, of course, because they can. Remember, they have a lot of successful doctors, lawyers and tycoons contributing to healthy endowments.

We're at the most dangerous time in America's history. A time that requires (and will continue to require) intelligent, tested, cross-trained leaders to confront challenges in the field -- both foreign and domestic. And somehow, because it offends the sensibilities of enough of America's Brahmin class, our best future leaders have to choose service over membership in the so-called elite school alumni club. For our promising young leaders, it isn't a choice. It's politicized exclusion courtesy of America's navel-gazing, self-selected elite.

One hidden price we are paying for political polarization in this seemingly endless presidential campaign is the failure of Republicans and Democrats to cooperate on opportunities that lie outside partisanship and ideology.

Energy is a good example. Regardless of what you believe about global warming, everyone should want the United States to use less imported oil and to reduce air pollution. Plug-in hybrid cars are one case of a technology on which the parties should be able to compete in a friendly way. But, it almost seems that the lack of controversy on this topic has led to lassitude about moving ahead on it. If I were in the Bush Administration I'd be pushing this idea hard. If I were a Democratic candidate, I'd be demanding to know why the Administration is not pushing hard enough.

Meanwhile, here is an example of another way that technology can help the environment and reduce our dependence on foreign oil: algae harvesting for fuel. It does not suffer any of the off-setting damage that other biofuels provide. It has exciting potential and deserves much more attention. However, i worry that its very reasonableness means it will be ignored by the combative, but unimaginative politicos of our time.

With evident personal satisfaction, David Berlinski sashayed (or did he
"chasse"?) around Washington this week in promotion of The Devil's Delusion, heralded by an article in Harper's ("The Evidence of Things Not Seen") and another in Commentary ("God of the Gaps"). C-Span covered his Discovery Institute talk at our DC offices and will air it Saturday night (11:00 Eastern, 8:00 PDT) and again Sunday.

He's good, this man. If there were "best supporting role" awards for documentary films, Berlinski would win for Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

He will be in Los Angeles this weekend, Seattle for a week, then Dallas,
Minnesota, San Francisco, back to DC, and, I don't know where else. New York, I think. There are some excellent reviews pending, I am told--it is not considered LC (literarily correct) to say what you know on this topic.

The Darwinian Establishment that Berlinski eviserates so surgically surely
will try to slice him back. Maybe they can get the NYT to assign the review to Dawkins, as happened to Mike Behe's latest. There's nothing like a studious, objective reader.

WHO cares? The Devil's Delusion is climbing at Amazon and will surely
eclipse the other attacks on the "Atheists' scientific pretensions" that gained attention in recent months. For anyone who is really objective, The Devil's Delusion will eclipse the atheists themselves.

The country is now in a "depression" according to the Independent in England, and that is probably because unemployment has now "rocketed" to 5.1 percent.

Never mind that the unemployment rate is twice that high--chronically--in some European nations and was about four times that high in the real Depression. Read Donald Luskin for a dose of realism.

Luskin may be turn out to be wrong, technically. But he unquestionably is right about the extent of suffering and the real long term health of the economy.

Today's editorial page of the Sunday Seattle Post-Intelligencer carries an op-ed by Ilan Goldenberg, policy director of a group called the National Security Network. It offers a new "Responsible Plan" for Iraq. Clearly this is a campaign document for aspiring Democratic candidates for the U. S. House of Representatives and I suppose it is being offered to a number of papers around the country where such aspirants are found.

Nothing wrong with that.

It is just that this "plan" is almost banal, a bottle of bromides. Read it for yourself if you're having trouble getting to sleep tonight.

The "Plan" thus illustrates the increasing hollowness of real debate over Iraq. Most informed people have come to understand that we cannot and should not leave Iraq at this point, and I suspect that many realize that a free Iraqi government may actually prevail. Some expect the U.S. and our Coalition allies to win, some just expect to muddle through.

An aide to Sen. Obama is suggesting that U.S. troops will need to stay in Iraq until 2010. Obama himself seems to envisage a drawdown that is so slow--a division a month--that our troops will be there for several years, at least. So how is this at substantial variance--other than in the rhetoric--with the Bush Administration's aims or those of Sen. McCain, let alone of Sen. Clinton?

We seem reduced to feelings pure and simple now. The Republicans want to stabilize Iraq and then get out as soon as possible after that, starting next year, they hope. The Democrats REALLY want to get out as soon as possible, starting next year, they hope. Get it? They "really, really" want to. Cross their heart!

One guesses that the far left--the folks who want to remove the troops in the minimum time required to vacate the premises (about four months)-- is now so invested in the presidential race that they don't realize that they have been seduced and abandoned.

The media and politicos are ready to move right past the vital issue of U.S. relations with Colombia now that the internal U.S. political issue is resolved. That shows a sad sense of national priorities.

Mark Penn, top advisor to Sen. Clinton, as we know, was thrown overboard--the latest sacrifice of many in the major campaigns this year--because of this high crime: He met with Colombian officials who are supporting a free trade agreement with the United States.

Sen. Clinton supposedly opposes such an agreement, so Penn had to go.

Actually, we all suspect that Sen. Clinton, given her past positions, would like to support the agreement. Colombia is one of our strongest and most exposed allies in Latin America and a bulwark against the far left wing Hugo Chavez in next-door Venezuela. If we want to defeat narco-fascism, South America style, we need to be close friends with Colombia. They have suffered greatly to be our friends. Abuse friends like that and we won't have many others. Mrs. Clinton knows that. Barack Obama knows that.

But union leaders key to the nominating process don't care about it. Their self-interest is regrettable, but understandable. What is more regrettable, and not acceptable, is the reckless position of the two contending Democrats who are putting intra-party posturing ahead of national security. Also not very edifying is the supine media reaction so far. Is politics all that matters now? Is all the news just shadow-boxing?

The story should not be the impropriety of Penn (whatever his own business interests) in meeting with the Colombians, but why Senator Clinton and Senator Obama do NOT back this totally reasonable treaty that is very much in the security interests of the United States. Other than politics, what's their excuse?

Schools are in recess this time of year, so busloads of girls using "like" as a verbal crutch and wise cracking, baggy pants boys are wending their way through the cherry blossoms of America's capital. In these security-conscious times, when it is harder than ever to get a tour of the White House or Capitol, parents and chaperones are quick to steer the young to the Mall.

A traditional favorite is the National Museum of Natural History, where for several years now Darwinian fairytales have been presented in an exhibit on mammals. Young human offspring at the museum are encouraged to have a family reunion with their "relatives", including chimps, dogs, and mice. Here are strange just-so stories proposed as fact, telling the gullible, for example, how the giraffe evolved its neck. Presto-change-o. At the core of the exhibit is a tiny rodent whom the naïve teens are supposed to venerate as their direct ancestor. It cost a lot of money to bamboozle the folks this way. And you taxpayers paid for it.

Yes, this is the same Natural History museum where an affiliated scientist
bragged in one of the emails the House of Representatives found a couple of years ago that her own son uses "under dog" instead of "under God" when saying the
Pledge of Allegiance.

For the more discerning visitors, a trip to Mt. Vernon is recommended. Thank goodness for old-fashioned philanthropy and a non-ironic perspective. George Washington's home boasts a lavish new visitors' center and education program that puts government museums to shame. The heroic history of the Revolution is evoked in a stirring orientation film written by Lionel Chetwynd.

Mt. Vernon is not hesitant to hail our true ancestor-in-patriotism as the hero he was, the flesh-and-blood Father of his Country. It's a lot easier for a kid to look up to George than down to a rodent.

Embryonic stem cells hold little promise.

Other, less controversial stem cells do. But getting funding transferred from the progressively correct form to the benign and promising kind whose exploitation is entirely acceptable to us bourgeois moralists will take time. It appears that to some people stem cells lose their appeal if they do NOT entail controversy.

Despite what is expected to be an unseasonably sunny few days, at least one hundred Seattleites will have lousy weekends. By Monday, 131 soon-to-be former employees of the Seattle Times Company, the owner of Washington State's largest daily, will have to decide whether they want to be bought out or laid off.

In a decision made public on Monday, the Times said it'll "slice its flagship newspaper's staff by nearly 200 and make other cuts aimed at saving $15 million." That casualty list will include circulation, advertising and newsroom personnel, a spokesperson for the company said.

Vice President Alayne Fardella said in an e-mail to employees that up to 45 circulation workers, 30 newsroom employees and 24 advertising staff could be laid off. The exact number will depend on how many employees choose to accept buyouts and leave voluntarily, she said.

On the other coast, if The New York Times and Variety are to be believed (a suspension of disbelief chasm too wide for many to fjord, I know), then The Seattle Times' journalistic brethren at CBS News should prepare for a similar agonizing future weekend of weighing the buy-out versus laid-off option. If rumors and a news report in the Old Grey Lady prove true, then CBS brass is giving serious consideration to subcontracting its "newsgathering operations to CNN." (Read: The reporting, off-air producing, etc., that fills the 30 minute news hole between America's affiliate coverage and the network's weekly evening sitcoms.) Although Variety reports that the sharp-penned MBAs at CNN and CBS are discounting the rumor, another unnamed insider said they "would eventually resume the discussion about a merger or alliance."

Huh. Two examples. Two different media. One week. It's a tough time to be in or supporting "the business," as journalists like to refer to the profession. And regardless of one's view of the amorphous yet seemingly omniscient mainstream media, the reasons for and consequences of a slow but steady death of the Fourth Estate in America -- at least what has become the conventional understanding of the mainstream press -- is worth at least a few seconds of thought.

Fuel Shortage. At one point, owning a newspaper was basically a license to print money. Not anymore. As readership and circulation numbers have declined at a precipitous rate, the advertisers (the self-proclaimed fuel of a free press) have gone elsewhere. (See: Online.) You don't need a complex market segmentation analysis to understand that it just doesn't make as much sense to allocate money to space in newsprint when fewer and fewer people are going to see it. Without the advertising dollars, newspapers can't hit the margins needed to keep employees (front office, back office, circulation, reporters, editors and the copy desk) on the payroll. That's sad and short-sighted. And it's in part what's happening to the 131 soon-to-be unemployed Seattle Times' staffers.

Mis-Modeled. In the age of the Internet, citizen journalism and online aggregators, many people's concept of the "news" just ain't what it once was. A story from one of the wires isn't worth as much over morning coffee if you read it the night before on your laptop while sipping your nightcap. There have always been two great differentiators with the news -- speed and veracity. But in a world where the speed of the Internet makes the procedure of the "daily miracle" appear glacial, and when the veil of journalistic objectivity and accuracy have had more than their share of pummeling by high-profile cases, anything other than "traditional" or "mainstream" media is the new black. The old stuff? A vague, faded, grayish hue. Again, sad and unfortunate.

This Matters. I never like to hear about someone losing a job. And I really don't like to see good journalists and support staff being asked to walk because of corporate cutbacks. But, regrettably, none of this is surprising; the business end of journalism -- the accountants, executive editors and management -- haven't figured out how to balance the market with their accounting ledgers. Journalism suffers. And what ultimately matters, and what Americans should care about, is how the business will recalibrate and what effect that might have on the flow of information. Blogs are great. Citizen journalism has its purity. But, even for those who cry "bias" with regard to the mainstream media (and I'm among that crowd at times), newspapers and the mainstream media serve a function critical to democracy: Ideally leveraging reporting and writing talent to cover events, stories, people and places in a timely, reliable fashion with the goal (paraphrasing one of my professors at Missouri's journalism school) of reaching the closest verifiable approximation of the truth under deadline. Yes, reporters sometimes miss the mark. But it's much better than having no mark at all.

It's said that no medium ever fully replaces another. And although the hit business self-help book, "Who Moved My Cheese," keeps coming to mind, some sort of symbiotic coexistence instead of replacement will probably be the eventual case with the Fourth Estate. The mainstream media won't be replaced entirely by blogs, camera phone reports from citizens, and online news sources not connected to a "mainstream" source. And I'd say that's a very good thing for the Republic. It's nice to have an adult in the room.

Good journalists aren't made overnight and the more who are forced out (or never enter the business in the first place) will make it that much harder for the information pendulum to swing back to equilibrium. So let's hope that someone, somewhere is figuring this out. Who knows, maybe the new black will meet the faded, grayish hue halfway. Then we might end up with something useful and maybe even better -- something that hits the mark of TRVTH that the mainstream media says serves as its touchstone, and the market demand to support it.

Richard Dawkins and the evolution lobby do not see eye to eye on strategy. But it seems that the National Center for Science Education and "Expelled Exposed", the NCSE's website assailing the film Expelled, don't want you to know that. The situation is evident in the film that opens Friday, for all to see. The interviews with Dawkins are dispositive.

First we meet Eugenie Scott of NCSE, sounding so invincibly cheery that one suspects she must moonlight for the Oakland, CA Chamber of Commerce. She relishes telling about all the nice religious people she has lined up around the country to support Darwinian theory.

But then, here comes Dawkins, backed by a parade of voluble atheist scientists who far outrank Scott. They are the famous experts, she is a lobbyist with a political approach that is too-smart-by-half. They don't want any more confusion raised in people's minds about whether religion is compatible with an accurate understanding of evolution.

It is not a question of who is more of an atheist. The NCSE is stuffed with atheists. The difference is over whether to lead with atheism, or hide it while you charge that the other side--the ID supporters--are the ones with a religious agenda. Indeed, Eugenie Scott makes this religious case against ID "creationism" in one speech after another, including, without irony, speeches to one atheist conclave after another.

But the evangelizing atheism that Dawkins and other top Darwinian scientists present to the Expelled audience--even including personal witness accounts of how they variously came to faithlessness upon hearing the Gospel of Darwin--is a political embarrassment for the NCSE. It probably is not a topic in the film the NCSE would like to discuss. It also is not a subject its close allies in the media and higher education want aired.

In turn, the NCSE's coy reticence about the end-game plainly annoys the world's most famous Darwinist. Dr. Dawkins rejects the pretense that real Darwinism is neutral on religion. Oh, you can believe that if you want, just as you can believe in "fairies at the bottom of the garden." But, believing that Darwin and religion are compatible doesn't make them compatible. Interviewed for Expelled, Dawkins makes clear that neo-Darwinism, properly understood, virtually compels atheism and leaves no room for religion, and, further, that this truth is being fudged by people in the "science lobby, evolution lobby" (the NCSE).

"There's a kind of science defense lobby or an evolution defense lobby, in particular," he tells the camera. "They are mostly atheists, but they are wanting to --desperately wanting -- to be friendly to mainstream, sensible religious people. And the way you do that is to tell them that there's no incompatibility between science and religion."

This plainly rankles.

"If they called me as a witness, and a lawyer said, 'Dr. Dawkins, has your belief in evolution, has your study of evolution turned you toward (atheism)?' I would have to say yes. And that is the worst possible thing I could say for winning you that court case. So people like me are bad news for...the science lobby, the evolution lobby."

He adds, "By the way, I'm being a helluva lot more frank and honest in this interview than many people in this field would be."

Dawkins wants an end put to pussy footing. The NCSE, however, wants to pussy foot as long as possible. That way they can enlist nominally religious people and people who wrongly think they can be both Darwinists (holding that there there is no guidance in nature) and theists (holding that there is guidance in nature, however disguised). If there are ministers and scientists who want to "believe" in Darwinism and also in a God who actually plays some active role in the world, or in the Easter Bunny, for that matter, the NCSE wants them on board. In fact, they must be pushed forward so they can gull the public and, one might add, the media and the courts.

Trouble is, here is Richard Dawkins in Expelled--exposing the NCSE.

Apparently, relations are strained between Oxford and Oakland and have been for some time. Now that story is real, unlike the straw men the NCSE's website is trying to construct.

It has not been exactly a perfect storm, but certain policies and trends did come together to hamper economic growth in recent years.

I don't know who is to blame for easy credit in housing, and it doesn't appear that I am alone in this deficiency. It would be helpful if the topic could be discussed outside the partisanship of this election year.

When it comes to greatly elevated energy costs, another drag on the economy, I mainly blame the Left, but also the Right to a modest degree. For years the Left has prevented almost any new drilling for oil in the United States and also opposed the building of new refineries or even the clean burning of coal. This was a feel-good position to show that one is ecologically pure at heart. The thought seemed to be that if America didn't produce the oil, or burn coal (or develop nuclear power) we wouldn't use the same amount of oil imported from somewhere else and would flock to buses and (non-existent) trains. That expectation was wrong, wasn't it?

Meanwhile, the Right, including the Bush Administration (until lately), failed to recognize the usefulness of the new plug-in hybrid technology that could greatly reduce our use of oil in the transportation sector. PHEVS are a win-win strategy for saving oil, lowering costs and preventing pollution. Promoting them--and lowering oil use--would have helped the conservative case for drilling for domestic oil.

PHEVS are not a new idea; Discovery Institute has been promoting this technology for several years. But the first reaction from the Administration was a yawn. Of course, the Democrats were no more eager for PHEVS until recently than were the Republicans, but they also were not in charge. (To their great credit, new leaders in the Department of Transportation and Department of Energy seem willing to get moving on these priorities.)

So, looking back, the right answer was to drill for oil (build refineries, clean coal burning power stations and nuclear power plants) and simultaneously allow the country to greatly reduce dependence on all oil by deploying plug-in hybrids (PHEVS).

A related energy/transportation issue where public policy has neglected the economy's long-term interest is passenger rail. For at least twelve years Discovery Institute has been promoting a revived national passenger rail system. The Bush Administration was slow at first to see the need for reform and redirection of Amtrak. In reality, we would be better off today if the federal government had given this serious attention ten years ago. It would have reduced traffic congestion, saved oil and provided a badly needed national security alternative to our crowded airports. Eventually, the Bush Administration did "get on board"-- weakly--but its modest reform program met a really reckless opposition from Democrats who were beholden to the Amtrak rail unions. (The latter don't seem to realize that a new system would be a bigger system, with more jobs.)

The Democrats don't even want to build a serious, European style system, let alone a system that provides incentives by the private sector (as we proposed). And the Republicans, while not opposed, are also not much interested. It is a poor political bet by both parties. Have the two parties forgotten how many people live close to major rail routes that already exist? They are ignoring that huge constituency, for a start.

So, on balance, Democrats get most of the blame for the transportation and energy problems that have helped run up the cost of oil and contributed to inflation. But Republicans don't get any kudos, either.

Next comes foreign trade, an increasing share of America's economic future. Bob Samuelson writes about it today. Here, the Republicans have been generally positive and the Democrats--at least as a party in Congress, including the two lead presidential candidates--have been derelict and irresponsible. Again, the unions have undue influence and serious Democrats (such as the former leaders who spoke out yesterday) know it.

Finally, there is the other big hope for our economic future, the high technology sector. Once again, the Democrats have been AWOL on a key issue, FISA, chiefly because, one suspects, they consider the telephone companies that are threatened with major lawsuits for helping the government spy on potential terrorists to be political allies of the Republicans. That's bad enough. But there also has been a general ho-hum attitude toward deregulation in the tech field and little appetite for standing up for American companies as they battle, for example, mercantilist regulators from the European Union. Of course, the Republicans haven't exactly challenged the Democrats by making deregulation a high priority, either.

Eventually, these failures of economic and infrastructure policy catch up with you, even if you are the United States of America.

But, I admit, I don't know whom to blame, or blame most, for the credit collapse. Do you?

Mohammed Fadhil reports in unique fashion (Iraq the Model is my favorite Middle Eastern blog for this reason) on what is really happening in Iraq. And that is, the majority of Shia, the Sunni and the Kurds are standing up to Muqtada al Sadr and his militia. The government is showing mettle, dismissing the troops that deserted under fire recently and thereby providing a splendid didactic moment for everyone else. This is not being adequately reported in the US (so what else is new?).

Al Qaeda and the Baathist insurgency are mostly spent. Overcome al Sadr and the Iranian imports, and Iraq is ready for consolidation of gains and the promise of real peace.

This is the footnoted version of the article that ran in Thursday's Seattle Times.

The amazing thing is how awareness of Left Wing censorship at the supposedly open and fair-minded Wikipedia is growing. I was delighted that the author of the National Post article recognized it. Tell your friends: except for non-ideological arcana, Wikipedia cannot be trusted for anything like accuracy or objectivity.

Time is running out for Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean to drain the electoral swamp his organization helped create in Florida.

The solution, as I wrote last January, was to adopt the GOP plan and give Florida half its delegates. The state was "punished" by the Republican National Committee for having a primary before the National Committee had authorized one, but the millions of voters in Florida still will be represented at the GOP national convention. That approach could be still be adopted by the Democrats if they would just be willing to compromise with one another.

The other possibility for the DNC this spring was to help fund a Florida re-vote. That actually had some merit, but the powers-that-be dawdled and soon the option disappeared.

All in all, the situation in the Democratic nomination process--no votes for Michigan and Florida--shows why the nominating calendar should be "reformed" (literally re-formed) again. This time, give a tax break for citizens who donate up to, say, $2000 (with an inflationary adjustment built in for the future), for the presidential candidate of their choice. But make that tax break available only as of the first of the year of the general election itself. That will slow all the primary campaigns down because small and medium sized donors won't want to fund them until the election season officially begins and their donations can be used for tax deductions.

Then provide a federal subsidy to the states to help finance primaries, but again, it only would be available if the primary takes place after March 1. In olden days, March was the time of the New Hampshire primary, so that is a fit time to begin the season.

And then, bite the bullet and set up regional primaries, with different regions getting the first primaries. The present front loading is simply unfair to candidates, and, more importantly, to the vast majority of the nation's voters.

Meanwhile, Floridians and Michiganders stew. Nobody at all seems to be upset that the Republicans are denying Michigan and Florida half their delegates, but they are really sore at the Democrats for denying those states all of their delegates. This from the party that made such a fuss in 2000 about the need (in Florida!) to "count every vote."

A haiku dedicated to Yoko:

Yoko Ono mad
"Imagines" bad infringement
Stein movie Expelled?

Editorial comment: How can Left-wing Darwinists be so dense as to think that the way to deal with a film about their efforts to shut down dissenting scientists is to try to shut down the film, too? They are just proving the film's point! (See this release from the Expelled producers, received today.)

David Berlinski's The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions (reviewed brilliantly by George Gilder in the new National Review) is just arriving in book stores, while in Paris an entirely different, and also invaluable, book, Origines (Origins), has been published this week in French by Saint-Simon.

Those who know Berlinski's exquisite scientific inquiries into the origins of life, mind and matter will recognize the themes. As the dust jacket states (translated here into English):

Here are three great mysteries: the existence of the human mind; the existence of living creatures; and the existence of matter.
Why are they there?
Many scientists claim that while we cannot answer these questions in detail, we can answer them in a general way.
Can we indeed?
In this profoundly provocative book, David Berlinski, the best-selling author of La vie revee des maths and Une breve histoire des mathematiques (A Brief History of Mathematics), examines these questions, and argues that it is far from certain that we have answered them at all.
Origins will appeal to readers who believe that these great questions have been settled, and to readers who believe that they have not.

(And just to test your French:

Voici trois grands mystères: l'existence de l'esprit humain, l'existence de
les créatures vivantes, et l'existence de la matière.
Pourquoi sont-ils?
Nombreux sont les scientifiques qui prétendent que, si nous ne pouvons pas répondre à ces questions en détail, nous
vous pouvez y répondre d'une manière générale.
Peut-on en effet?
Dans ce livre provocateur profondément, David Berlinski, l'auteur de
La vie revee des maths et Une brève histoire des mathematiques, examine ces
questions et fait valoir qu'il est loin d'être certain que nous avons répondu à tous.
Origines fera appel aux lecteurs qui croient que ces grandes questions ont été
réglé, et aux lecteurs qui croient qu'ils n'ont pas.)

David is back in Paris after his U.S. tour and the opening of the Ben Stein film, Expelled, in which his role is prominent. He will return to these shores in a few weeks, speaking, among other places, at the annual Gilder/Forbes Telecosm conference, held this year at Lake George, New York from May 27 to 29.

When Sen. McCain was last in Iraq he seemed to slip up when he mentioned that al Qaeda was getting help from Iran. Surely he meant al Sadr? After all, didn't he know that Iran was Shiite and al Qaeda Sunni?

The trouble was (and is), Iran helps almost anyone who is an enemy of the United States or Israel, witness Lebanon.

Now, my favorite Iraq blog, Iraq the Model, poses the very real possibility of a tactical alliance between al Sadr and al Qaeda, brokered by....yes....Iran.

It seems that terrorism and the arcade game, Whac-a-Mole, have at least one thing in common: Bludgeon one and another pops up to take its place. At least that could be the conclusion after reading the U.S. State Department's annual Country Reports on Terrorism, released today.

According to the congressionally mandated annual report, attacks are down in Iraq. But as al-Qaida and its affiliates have reorganized in the last year in remote tribal areas in the Afghani and Pakistani countryside, there has also been a corresponding increase in terrorist activity in Afghanistan.

To misread Foggy Bottom's annual report would be to say, "Yes! I told you so: Putting troops and treasure toward the Global War on Terror is wasteful." But you'd be wrong. A more equitable rant would be that the U.S. decision to fight terrorists is indeed a long slog, one that may best be defined by three steps forward, two steps back.

And to say that the U.S. focus on al-Qaida is all consuming would also be inaccurate. As the report points out, El Comandante's island south of Miami is among the countries still included as a state sponsor of terrorism. Why? Can you say balmy, beachfront terrorist get away?

Cuba, which I admit conjures up more of a smirk than a shiver vis-à-vis danger at the doorstep, continues to offer haven to groups such as the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).

For its part, the FARC most recently found its way back into the news cycle with the reported kidnapping of Cuban-American businessman, Juan Padron earlier this month. As ABC News reported, although the FARC and kidnapping have never been mutually exclusive words (some reports have their total current hostage count at 700), the most recent episode brought a new twist to their operations. It happened on Panamanian soil. Padron joins three U.S. government contractors who have been held since 2003.

If you have the time to read the State Department's report, it's worth the investment. If you have less time, spend 55 minutes watching the presentation of the report this morning from Foggy Bottom. (Dell Dailey, State's Counterterrorism Coordinator, navigates the highlights.)

Say what you will about the politically isolated Bush administration, but State's annual report is widely seen as a thoughtful, clinical assessment of the threats facing America and its allies. And between the lines, it reminds that fighting terrorism isn't just about subduing and removing the Hydra that al-Qaida has spawned. It's about making impotent terrorist groups worldwide (al-Qaida affiliated or not) that represent real threats -- strategic and economic -- to those of us who value peace, security and something called rule of law.