It is hard to think of a new Administration that has slipped up so fast. Instead of taking a realistic position on ethics, the Obama team continued the pious breast-beating of the campaign and established draconian standards for service in the Administration. The enacted vetting process was so cumbersome it apparently had to be slighted in practice, which meant that standards started eroding altogether, along with the new crowd's credibility. The problem arose first with the recruitment of former lobbyists to serve in the Administration--after pledging, unwisely, that there would be none. To get around an unsound policy the acceptance of lobbyists was achieved through case-by-case-waivers. Quickly it became clear that the standard doesn't really exist.

Now we have the really prickly issue of taxes. After their announcements, three Obama nominees have turned out to have tax liability problems. The most recent two, Nancy Killefer and Tom Daschle, have just dropped out of contention. (Tim Geithner was given a pass and confirmed. Killefer arguably did nothing wrong at all and should not have been asked to quit.) I tend to sympathize with busy people set upon in largely exaggerated scandals, except I can't get over the hypocrisy of Administration officials who claim special moral status and yet promote members who conspicuously fail their own tests.

Are they being cynical or just clumsy?

It is the theme of Ben Stein's 2008 motion picture documentary, Expelled, that the science establishment is fast racing past smugness to persecution. The central issue is the institutional mistreatment of scientists who question Darwinian theory and posit the scientific case for intelligent design. Once dissidents are uncovered at universities and the Smithsonian, Stein reported, they are hounded out of their academic positions like suspected Communists in the early 1950s.

Stein had the goods on the Darwinists and they didn't like it. Two plaintiffs went to court to try to stop distribution of Expelled. They failed, and they must have been especially upset when over a million theater-goers paid to see the documentary (now briskly selling in the DVD market).

It now turns out that a further course of academic authoritarianism is being attempted by the Darwinian Left. It seems you cannot even defend the scientists who question Darwin, as Stein did, without being given the jack-boot yourself. Today the University of Vermont, lap of luxurious free speech on any other subject, demonstrated the point by pressuring Ben Stein to withdraw as a commencement speaker. It is not to be tolerated that someone would accuse Darwinians of intolerance! (AP and Chronicles of Higher Education stories here.)

Author, economist, actor, raconteur, Stein speaks on many stages on many subjects, always with droll humor. He writes regularly for The American Spectator and occasionally (on economics) for The New York Times. He is one of the nation's leading exponents of our men and women in the military--the "real stars" of our time, as he rightly says. It doesn't matter. The Darwinian Inquisitors have him sighted in their search engines and when his commencement speech was announced they came after the University of Vermont by their hundreds.

The academic farm of Dairyland was easily cowed. Stein found the reaction of UVM "pathetic", which it was, but one hopes he also realizes that he has been vindicated. The collapse of liberal education standards at the University of Vermont demonstrates his point in Expelled completely.

The flighty Dr. Dan Fogel, UVM's president, for example, should feature in some future Stein satire on double-talk. After dumping on Stein, Fogel chirped, "This is not, to my mind, an issue about academic freedom or the openness of the campus to all points of view," a statement of bureaucratese that is best translated as, "This is an issue about academic freedom and it is an issue of openness of the campus to all points of view."

Meanwhile, though the AP picked up the Vermont story, it is usually the case that the major media ignore this kind of event, or refuse to see the issues and don't even report the facts accurately. Sometimes, however, conservative media rise to defend campus conscientious objectors on such questions as global warming, embryonic stem cell research and euthanasia. Let's hope they decide that this is one of those times.

Anyone who thinks that conservatives or Republicans in general are merely enjoying the present floundering of the Obama Administration underestimates the patriotism of the Right and Center Right. Yes, there is a certain amount of schadenfreude, an inevitable feeling of "I told you so.". But if one is at all sensitive to what is at stake for our country in this moment he wants the president to succeed because he wants the country as a whole to avoid a worse predicament than we already are in.

However, that does not dictate support for the folly of the House "stimulus bill" that Speaker Pelosi facilitated. On the contrary, rueful though they may be, Congressional Republicans of all stripes could be President Obama's best allies in this crisis. Moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, for example, came out of a White House meeting today saying that the president recognizes that the stimulus bill must be "scrubbed". One hopes this means that Sen. Snowe herself, a pivotal vote, recognizes that "stimuli" that chiefly debauch the currency and add to the the national debt--and expand the long term commitments of government--constitute bad medicine for the economy. This in truth is a testing time. If moderates are supposed to stand on principle for anything, it is "fiscal responsibility."

If President Obama--backed by advisors Volker, et al--also can accept that understanding, a new, if temporary, alliance could be formed to make the stimulus bill what it needs to be, a union of public works, broad tax relief for individuals and businesses, economic incentives and restraint on unproductive spending--and not a political shopping list.

Frankly, bi-partisanship is the only way to revive public support for this act. Ordinary Americans are discovering that the House bill is mainly a scheme to pad the wallets of interest groups. That realization is yielding to dismay that is sinking support for the new president as well as his economic plan. Obama should move fast to change this perception by changing the reality behind it.

Republicans would have to rally behind a fiscally sound program, assuring that the Democratic majorities in both Houses would have to go along, too. And, President Obama would benefit from such an alliance because good policy for the country in the end is good political strategy. Results are what matter.

So, Mr. President, ignore the sniping from the media and the Internet. Republicans in Congress--for their own reasons, granted--are offering you a lifeline. Take it. Work with them to craft a pro-growth agenda, and watch the mood of the country and the market lift and the economy begin to heal.

Everyone knows that it is possible to organize a Decennial Census in a way that benefits one party or another politically. One way to effectuate this otherwise unpalatable departure from the Census Bureau's two hundred year history of non-partisanship is to put the Bureau administratively under direction of the politicos in the White House. In reality that would be a sure invitation to cook the books on the highly consequential count of Americans.

Advocates argue that putting the 2010 Census under direct White House control somehow assures a higher priority to its mission. This is cynical. It puts a priority on manipulation of carefully derived Census criteria. The only reason the White House would want to be involved is in figuring out how to add more voting power to certain states and groups within states.

Simply put, there is no excuse for this idea. it is not true that the Census Bureau has ever been under the direct management of the White House, and for good reason. Even if angels were in charge of the Executive Mansion, if the nation's premier statistical agency were placed under White House direction the danger to public trust would be enormous. The Decennial count is one of the few federal functions specifically described in the Constitution itself and must be operate above suspicion of politics.

I was Director of the Census from 1981 to '83 in the Reagan Administration. I always was made to feel conscious of the sound public servants who had preceded me and, regardless of who appointed them, defended the decennial count. . I have known directors from the Kennedy era (the estimable Richard Scaammon) to the G. W. Bush Administration (the very professional Louis Kincannon). I don't know anyone who cares for the integrity of the Bureau and its products who would desire to see the Census Bureau report directly to the White House.

Power flows from an accurate Census Count. Everyone involved for years has seen the count therefore a sacred trust. It must not be polluted with even a semblance of Presidential meddling.

When an elected official publicly admits his bill may be wasteful, but wants it passed anyhow, you really know he is going to lose politically, whether right away or over time.

Either the present stimulus bill dies in the Senate or the Democrats provide their opponents an issue that won't go away for years. From board rooms to living rooms, Americans can see that the stimulus is an excuse for political backscratching--passing huge sums of money, without hearings, for proposals that mainly expand government.

Billions for higher education grants, for example? That will take months, if not years, to administer and do nothing to build the workforce in the meantime. It will be popular with university presidents, of course, because they can raise tuition accordingly. That will help shore up their budgets, and the effects eventually will trickle down....to somebody.

This is "Change"?

Why not back down gracefully, Mr. President, and develop a pro-growth package?

Now for some good news: The vultures are beginning to circle the Caracas palacio of Hugo "Little Castro" Chavez. The sitings are slow to be reported, but they do have a certain vividness to them.

If Chavez couldn't pay his bills last fall, how do you suppose he is holding things together now when oil is a half what it was in October?

The hopeful winds from Venezuela are not all that unique. The United States may be in bad shape economically, but that doesn't necessarily open up opportunities for our natural foes in the Hemisphere. This fine piece on "Latin America's Quiet Revolution" by Stephen Haber in The Wall Street Journal ran several days ago, but did not get enough attention.

For a while it seemed that the Obama Administration really didn't mean last week's suggestion that it would take conduct of the 2010 Census out of the Commerce Department and have the Census Bureau report directly to the West Wing.

Perhaps, one was about to concede, the White House merely aims to create the kind of independent agency--with all the protections for integrity that implies--envisaged in a bill being promoted by a number of leaders in the statistical community and introduced by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). Under that bill the statistical office at OMB would oversee the agency. Of course, also under that bill, the independent Census Bureau would not even become a reality until 2012--two years after the coming Decennial Census.

Unfortunately, it is now clear that a new agency is not what the White House officials have in mind and that, indeed, having the Census Director report to someone on the president's West Wing staff is exactly what that they have in mind. (Note what the White House press secretary says. For some reason, only Fox News seems to have picked it up.

If so, the Obama Administration is threatening a reckless politicization of the Census Bureau and that, in turn, threatens to pull into unnecessary dispute the fundamental data that sustain almost the entire statistical system of the United States. It has the image of a Chicago-style partisan power play.

Minority members of Congress have expressed concern that Sen. Judd Gregg (Republican, New Hampshire), incoming Commerce Secretary, has been hostile to the Census Bureau and has been skeptical of its processes in recent years. They note that he has not supported budget increases for the Bureau. More importantly, they worry that if the Bureau reports through the regular Commerce Department chain of command to Gregg the Census effort might not do enough to count minority citizens. (That supposedly is because Gregg is a Republican.) Therefore, they suggest that the Bureau should report to the White House senior staff. Let's see: Obama's pick for Commerce Secretary apparently cannot be trusted, but the Democratic politicos in the West Wing can be?

Mentioned only by inference in discussions so far is the plain hope that a Census Bureau under the thumb of White House staffers might be prevailed upon to adopt a policy to "adjust" the Census numbers in 20101, using sampling and computer modeling--with all the profound implications that would have for political reapportionment and redistricting that will follow the Census count.

Adjustment is a recurrent fantasy of Census critics on the Left who want population numbers more to their liking. It would turn the science of statistics into something where speculation and guesswork could introduce egregious and prejudicial errors.

The whole adjustment scheme is a mistake. Having the White House supervise it is even worse.

First of all, the White House and its Congressional allies are wrong in asserting that the Census in the past has reported directly to the president through his staff. Directors of the Bureau often brief presidents and their staffs, but, as a former director (under President Reagan), I don't know of any cases where the conduct of the Bureau was directly under White House supervision. That includes Clinton in 2000, Bush 41 in 1990 and Carter in 1980.

They also are dead wrong about the feasibility of using sampling and computer models to make adjustment a credible way to improve the accuracy of the population count for purposes of reapportionment and redistricting.

The adjustment idea has been discussed for many decades. It never has enjoyed a large following among statisticians. Following an exhaustive three year study concluded in 2003, an even stronger consensus has developed among professional statisticians that adjustment cannot provide as credible and accurate a Census result as a hard count assisted by such techniques as examinations of public records of various kinds (e.g., drivers' licenses).

In fact, for every decade since at least 1970 and especially starting in 1980 the Census Bureau has made ever-expanding outreach to minority communities, including undocumented foreign workers, trying to get as complete a count as is humanly possible. To suggest that there has been any resistance to getting such a complete count is invidious political grandstanding and an insult to the diverse and highly professional staff at the Census Bureau. When I was director I found the Census personnel to be among the most conscientious of any group I'd encountered in government service. Whatever their personal political views (i suspect that most voted for Obama), their allegiance is to the integrity of the positions of public trust they hold.

The question of a fair and full Census count is to be distinguished from questions about technical problems with new technologies that periodically plague the Bureau. In fact, the Bureau's eagerness to get an ever improved hard count of residents of the U.S. may have pushed it to costly inefficiencies--which, ironically, is one of the complaints from elected officials on the political right.

Instead, the real issue is who directs the Census, the pros or the pols. If it is the pols, you may well get an order to adjust the Census count with samples and modeling. That will take a presidential order to over-ride the scientific consensus of statisticians at the Bureau and elsewhere.

You would think that an Administration that is thumping its chest about respecting science and scientists on such matters as climate change and embryonic stem cell research would show a little respect for the scientists in the statistical field (a branch of the science of mathematics) and their careful work on this topic.

But even if the new politicos in the West Wing don't really care about the science involved, you'd think they would have a better sense of the political dangers--for themselves, if not for the country. The Census is one of our oldest, most treasured civic institutions and one of the few functions of government named in the Constitution. As in matters of officials' ethics (as we keep hearing), one not only needs to avoid the reality of impropriety, but also the appearance of impropriety. To be fair and accurate, the process has to be transparently fair and accurate .

With adjustment by sampling and modeling, however, you will get inaccuracies baked into the process. It might mean better macro-numbers, but once you start imputing abstract "missing people" into Census tracts, you not only introduce errors, but errors that are demonstrable. "Virtual persons" (as I call them) of varying demographic characteristics will be assigned right down to the block level where anyone could go door to door and find out that such people cannot be found.

When that happens, the Census ceases to conform to common sense. Its numbers begin to look fanciful. A hard count might have errors, but has always been defensible in court. An adjustment would have more errors and its process would be subject either to deceit or the appearance of deceit.

You can imagine the news stories as small town mayors show the palpable folly of specific adjusted Census figures. The late night comics would be inviting you to "meet your neighbor who doesn't exist." If you think there is paranoia in the political field now, just wait until you have an "adjusted Census"--"adjusted" at the direction of politicians in the White House!

Has President Obama thought this through? "Fixing" the Census in a way that politicizes it is not what the new president's image needs.

But beyond the issue of image, does he have time for this? Letting the White House assume responsibility for the management of the Census is like turning the management of the war in Afghanistan over to some little group in the White House. It will become a political quagmire. Deciding on bombing targets in the Vietnam War didn't do a lot for LBJ, did it? The Census is controversial by nature, and often in fairly petty ways--people are always demanding more attention and resources for their states and cities. Why bring all that into the West Wing?

The Census Bureau arguably suffered from White House neglect in the Bush Administration. It has real problems to confront now as it readies a Decennial Census that is already well into the testing stage for a final push in a year and two months (April, 2010). It needs to get a new Director in place--and, at this point, someone qualified by past experience. Let that new director and his or her staff get on with the job and let the White House limit itself to assuring that politics is kept out of the picture. That will work.

In contrast, it is hard to conceive a more damaging way to complicate the Census process now than to try to put its direct oversight into the hands of a political and novice White House staff that has a whole world of other vital concerns to contend with.

Say you don't mean it, Mister President!

Is it possible that the Obama White House will insist on supervising the 2010 Census? Well, that largely depends on whether the media--watchdogs of integrity that they are--get interested in this issue.

The Wall Street Journal's John Fund has taken up the quetion in this article in tomorrow's paper:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123423384887066377.html

My blogs on the apparent White House intention to direct the 2010 Census from inside the West Wing attracted the attention of other blogs, while today's article by John Fund in the Wall Street Journal has led to a small flood of interest. I have been invited to appear on Fox News tomorrow morning and, apparently, some radio talk shows after that. Several additional commentators are picking up the theme.

This issue may have a long life unless the Obama Administration has enough sense to lay down some assurances soon. It is beginning to dawn on people that monkeying with the input assumptions of the Decennial Census could throw off all the other statistical indices of the country. That is what happens in countries that put their census to the service of politics.

The new, fallback position that West Wing officials merely would "work with" the Bureau in setting up the Decennial Census of 2010 (one that is already is set up and is in test phase), and that there is some "precedent" for White House involvement in directing the Census Bureau, as White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs has said, doesn't hold up to scrutiny. I have known most of the Census Directors since JFK's time and none had to go to the White House for directions on how to set up the census. Some did have to account to the White House for reports of unacceptable delays or cost overruns. (But that sort of thing is really an OMB concern more than a West Wing concern.) Most of the time, directors were going through two levels of Commerce Department bureaucracy just to try to get the President to even notice the Census Bureau. Usually they were in line to plead for more resources. Some, like Dick Scammon (under Kennedy, and I, under Reagan) provided briefings of the President and his staff about the results of the Census--to help interpret the data a year or so after the Census was conducted.

But if any White House staff had suggested that they would like a personal hand in shaping the statistical assumptions going into conduct of the Decennial Census, alarms would have sounded in Suitland, Maryland, the Bureau's suburban headquarters. Statisticians are fairly mild mannered people until they think someone is trying to jimmy the numbers.

When I left the Census I went to work for the White House as a Deputy Assistant to the President, heading the office on Planning and Evaluation. Among other things, I enjoyed telling new colleagues and media people how to make more extensive use of the cornucopia of information that is available from the Census Bureau. The Bureau staff really appreciate the chance to share their data--with anyone--and a wise president will make ample use of the solid facts they can provide. That is the way to "work with" the Bureau. But the statisticians know best how to get the data in the first place.

The longer the White House lingers, the bigger the story gets.

The White House staff can defuse the controversy over its potential role in determining the course of the 2010 Decennial Census right now and very easily by announcing that the president has no intention of trying to determine the methodology for the Census or of trying to change the plans already underway for conducting what is truly a vast government exercise. Move fast, that's the usual public relations advice. The reason for reticence is that the West Wingers are preoccupied by the economy, I guess.

Either that, or they really think they can redevelop the statistical methodology for the Decennial Census from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and run the show out of Rahm Emanuel's office. If so, a credibility issue looms ahead. (Notice the tone of understatement.)

Meanwhile, the buzz grows. My earlier blogs on the topic have been picked up or referenced (I'm told) by a couple of hundred smaller blogs and a number of large ones. I was interviewed on Fox News this morning and asked back for a feature program. There have been about ten radio interviews yesterday and today and more are being requested. Here's a Fox News story that just came in.

Usually, our Discovery staffers have to reach out for interviews on topics we are following; but this one has its own momentum. John Fund's piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday gave it a big push.

Now, since the oversight issue surely will be brought up in the confirmation hearings of Judd Gregg to head the Commerce Department, and since many Congressional hearings are normally slated to monitor Census preparations on such matters as minority and urban outreach, you can be sure that the subject of potential politicization by the White House is not going to go away on its own. If we are still talking about this in twelve months there will be panic in the street canvass.

So why not just ask the Press Secretary to issue a short, solid "clarification" and make the controversy disappear?

What is coming in Israel after this week's exciting elections is a coalition, as usual. But, facing stressful and consequential days ahead, this coalition could turn out to be unusually conducive to vital domestic stability.

It is in this sensitive moment that Discovery Senior Fellow George Gilder is completing the edits for a new book, The Israel Test. This work will surprise many of his fans, but it makes sense in the progression of George's interests over four decades--from war to politics to families to "wealth and poverty" to entrepreneurism to technology and technology companies to (now) the Israel of the past dozen years that concatenates new free market policies, brilliant minds and the most fecund technology, acre for acre, in the world. For Gilder, the success of the United States is now linked as never before to the success of Israel. The links are more than sentiment, and more than political and military interests. The new links are shared technical knowledge, imagination, business acumen and, most of all, mental agility.

Benjamin Netanyahu helped usher in this new era when he was finance minister in the 90s. Now, as George first found on a Discovery-sponsored trip two years ago, the country is fairly bouncing with brash young businesses that have made tiny Israel an amazing tech powerhouse. In his distinctive fashion George weaves a story of the people who made this happen and their successors today. He interprets this account in the context of the history of the Jews in modern times and gives a frank report on the undeniable genius of the Jewish people.

Our Discovery colleague David Klinghoffer, who writes often on Jewish matters, read a draft this week and tells me he found it "brilliant, visionary, original, exciting, and beautiful... The fundamental insight about an 'Israel test' we all face is so intuitive and obviously true--yet not like anything I've heard before. Once he articulates it, I know exactly what he means and have to admit I've not always passed it myself.... It snaps so much into perspective, unarguably, I think."

Gilder is original. He's also funny and challenging.

Richard Vigilante Books is the publisher. The Israel Test is slated for publication this spring.

You heard about it here first.

The announcement today by Sen. Judd Gregg that he is withdrawing as the president's nominee to be Secretary of Commerce--and citing the Census issue as one reason--is going to increase scrutiny of White House plans to try to change the way the 2010 Decennial Census is conducted. Clearly the president has done little to alleviate concerns of Gregg, a Republican, that the Census might be conducted in a politicized manner.

It is now unavoidable that the White House statements claiming oversight of the Census preparations were not flukes caused by ignorance or naivete. They must have been serious or Sen. Gregg would not have decided to withdraw. One previously could give the president the benefit of the doubt. He was too busy with other matters to make his position clear. Now he has lost another cabinet nominee--not because of faults in the nominee, but because the nominee didn't want to be part of the Administration that ignored the chain of command and tried to micro-manage a function traditionally left to career scientists.

It is also possible, however, that Gregg didn't quit, but was shoved. The West Wing officials by now may have figured out that there are legal as well as political risks if they try to change the plans for the Census from the White House instead of the Commerce Department. Lawsuits were threatened today by House Republicans.

It would be more expedient for the White House to have a pliable Secretary of Commerce in place if the aim is to "re-evaluate" the conduct of the 2010 Census in order to introduce adjustment of results through sampling and computer modeling. Gregg presumably would not have gone along--and would have been hard to run over.

But the legal issues will remain even if a willing partisan is nominated and confirmed as Commerce Secretary. There is a 1999 Supreme Court ruling that would make sampling-based adjustment difficult in the absence of compelling evidence that the customary hard count would be less credible. And that evidence not only is lacking, but a three year statistical study that was finished in 2003 to respond to this issue concluded just the opposite: adjusting the Census numbers through sampling and computer models could lead to a less credible Census result. A hard count has always been legally defensible. A fuzzy "adjusted" Census--where figures at the Census tract and block level would be demonstrably erroneous in many cases--could invite endless litigation and bad will.

Another problem for the Obama White House if it wants to change the Census approach: planning for the 2010 Census has been underway for years and now is in preparation for testing. The disruptions caused by an Administration decision to change those plans would cause great problems and probably agitate the resistance of career statisticians charged with responsibility for conducting the Census.

Finally, one wonders if the President understands that the Census is a function of government that requires not only integrity in fact but also the appearance of integrity. The reputation of the Census should not be compromised. It is hard enough to get people to cooperate in the conduct of the Census without creating a reputation for politicization.

Those on Capitol Hill that want White House direction--and an adjustment plan--for the Census say they worry about the Census Bureau's ability to reach out to minorities and urban dwellers and to "count everybody." In truth, the Census Bureau's record on reducing the "undercount" has improved with each new Census. Huge efforts are made to reach out to all groups.

However, what might well cause the undercount to grow would be efforts to politicize the Census, thereby generating doubt in large parts of the citizenry that normally are quite willing to take part. If that is the case, and the Administration refuses to back off, Sen. Gregg's withdrawal will prove to be only one in a series of likely developments that will trouble the 2010 Census.

Various kinds of individuals, myself included, have served as Directors of the U.S. Census Bureau. One thing I think we all have in common is a desire to have the statisticians' work respected, without politicization. As far a the general public, I felt a bit alone on this subject a week ago when I first blogged on this, but awareness has grown daily in a startling way. The Gregg withdrawal really makes the issue unavoidable.

Dear Steve,

Your magazine's lively online service, Forbes.com, has been attacked by biologist Dr. Jerry Coyne for allowing several scientists who support intelligent design to dissent from an other-wise fawning parade of Darwinists who appeared in your spaces to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth. http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/12/evolution-creation-proof-opinions-darwin_0212_jerry_coyne.html

Coyne compares your carrying articles critical of Darwinian theory to support for Holocaust denial, among other extremities. He says you have "debased journalism as well as science."

Oh, my.

Actually, it is instructive to have Coyne exhibit in public the spirit of angry censorship that now pervades Darwinian science. Behind the scenes Coyne and his colleagues have intimidated a number of other media from publishing or interviewing scientific contrarians. It has become a trend.

There even was a legal effort by several Darwinists to block the showing of the 2008 Ben Stein film, Expelled. Fortunately, they were unsuccessful. Recently, a telephone call from Richard Dawkins helped inveigle the president of the University of Vermont to dispense with Ben Stein as one of this year's commencement speakers. Stein's crime was to defend the academic freedom of intelligent design scientists in his film.

The academic left's assault on free speech and academic freedom is often accompanied by adhominem attack, as in Coyne's repeated false characterization of Dr. Michael Egnor of SUNY (Stonybrook)--one of your recent writers--as a "creationist". Egnor further is a mere medical doctor, in Coyne's telling, not a "genuine scientist" like Coyne.

In reality, Dr. Egnor is, indeed, a well-known neurosurgeon, but he also is a distinguished neuroscientist. He not only teaches, but he also has conducted pathfinding research with an intelligent design perspective. He has been a visiting professor at Stanford, Harvard, and UCLA, among other leading institutions, and his discoveries about the manner in which blood flows into the brain after head injuries have influenced surgical practice.

Who is Jerry Coyne to question the bona fides of such a man?

Forbes proudly calls itself "The Capitalist Tool," and you personally have dedicated yourself first and foremost to the advancement of freedom in many arenas, especially economics.

You don't need to be reminded, therefore, that there have been places and times where the arguments for capitalism and against socialism have been banished--by definition!--from economics classes, exactly as Darwinists want to forbid the weaknesses of Darwinian theory from being heard in America's high schools and to prevent scientists who support intelligent design from being employed at universities--or read on the pages of your publication.

There is an arrogant, almost totalitarian mentality among certain scientists and Coyne is a prime example. There is a coercive ideology behind their calculations that challenges all friends of liberty.

With best regards,

Bruce Chapman

The only vote that counts.

The Hugo Chavez regime is a failure in terms of anyone's interests other than Chavez'--all classes and groups, and certainly the nation's standing in the world.

Sunday the voters are asked again to authorize an effective Chavez-for-life amendment to the constitution. This time it is unlikely that Jimmy Carter will be around to indicate that the voting was fair. The economy is in collapse and even redistributing what wealth is left will not long sustain vote-buying handouts to the poor. The only question now is how far the Chavez regime (like Mugabe's in Zimbabwe) will go to steal the election.

If the vote goes against Chavez and is fairly reported, turmoil will mount quickly. If it does not go against Chavez or is not reported fairly, the fate of Chavez will play out more slowly. But eventually the collapse of oil prices and skyrocketing inflation means the collapse of the government's finances and therefore Chavez' schemes.

A few years ago it was unimaginable that lovers could hold hands in a Baghdad park. It was not allowed by the religious extremists. And it wasn't safe. Now that is changing.

The recent elections saw defeat of Islamist and pan-Arab parties, whether Shiite or Sunni. Pro-Iranians were devastated politically.

Culturally as well as politically and economically, it appears that most Iraqis long to join the developed world. How much will the Obama Administration exert itself to help them?

The remarkable Elliott Abrams, a key foreign affairs adviser in three Republican administrations, is interviewed at length by the also-remarkable Ruthy Blum Leibowitz of The Jerusalem Post.

Here in one long article is an easy and excellent way to brief yourself on the American relationship with Israel over the past decade. Knowing that the interviewer and interviewee are related (fully disclosed) only adds to the enjoyment.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304768587&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Some critics may be too excited in their alarums about the danger of the Obama Administration's prospective politicization of the conduct of the 2010 Census. It is a serious threat that needs to be faced head on, but it is not the end of democracy as we know it.

Moreover, members of the U.S. Senate are going to get a chance soon to ask questions of the next nominee to head the Department of Commerce (the president's third choice), and then to vote on whether to confirm that nominee. After that they will get a chance to do the same with a a prospective new Deputy Secretary and then a new Director of the Census Bureau. A conscientious senator and his staff can get all the information they need through normal committee processes.

Meanwhile, members of the House will have several opportunities to conduct reviews of Census 2010 planning and find out what the Administration intends. Crucially, will the White House let the Census Bureau stick with the present plan that has been years in the making on a non-partisan basis, or does it intend to impose (or inveigle) a last minute, politically-motivated "adjustment" based on sampling?

Liberal Democrats and their allies in the media and the sciences have been lamentably quiet about this subject since it surfaced two weeks ago. There hasn't been a peep out of the National Academy of Sciences that I have heard. (I'll be happy to be shown that there has been one if I have missed it.) Some of these folks have strong opinions--which they present as facts--on other matters bearing on science policy, but they apparently have trouble standing up for the scientific discipline of statistics when it is being given a political arm-twist.

It makes one wonder how far politics reaches.

Meanwhile, the danger for Republicans is that they merely will vent and gesture when the confirmation and oversight hearings come. If they don't prepare themselves they are likely to be rendered ineffectual in the end. To put it bluntly, the Senate and House staffs need to be doing their homework now.

To begin with, they need to read and digest the 2003 report of statisticians who dealt authoritatively with the adjustment/sampling issue. It is readily available through the ever-cooperative Census Bureau. Legislators would be wise to consult with statisticians personally who know this subject cold and also with project managers who have handled a Decennial Census in the past. These experts know all the difficulties in both theory and practice.

Legislators also need to study the 1999 Supreme Court case on adjustment (United States Department of Commerce v. House of Representatives), a road-block to sampling for adjustment. And talk to some law professors. Among other things, they need to be alert to Administration attempts to use cagey language to dodge the Court ruling.

They also need to acquaint themselves with the outreach programs the Census Bureau already has underway for 2010 so that they can blunt interest group claims that adjustment by sampling and computer models is the only or best response to an undercount. (Thanks to such efforts in past decades, by the way, the undercount has substantially diminished.)

They also have to respond to the proposed legislative alternative of making the Census Bureau an independent agency, or, as another option, increasing the prominence and relative independence of the Bureau within the Commerce Department.

The defenders of a Decennial Census that relies on an actual enumeration and eschews the mistake of adjustment by sampling can prevail on this issue. But they will do so only if they do adequate preparatory work. Otherwise, they may get rolled. And that would be a shame for the country as well as for them.

This fine blog post by physicist Frank Tipler of Tulane is nominally about global warming, but it really is about the credentialism that makes a mockery of sound judgment in many scientific fields.

I am warming to a theme: Money and ideological power increasingly threaten to warp scientific research, sometimes to the exclusion of integrity and responsibility. The argument from authority is being overdone.

Here is the tip-off. As you notice scientists demand conformity based mainly on their say-so, become alert.

When members of the scientific establishment want to pursue a controversial scientific enterprise--let's say, crossing the human-animal species line through lab attempts at creating chimeras, such as ape-men--the argument is made that science must rule and moral objections are antiquated, unreasonable and repressive.

Darwinism, similarly, is not just true, we're told, but a thorough-going explanation for practically everything, because men with doctorates declare it.

But when big money and ideological power collude to resist scientific consensus--for example, in the cause of asserting animal rights versus human medical advances, or in the advocacy for "adjusting" a U.S. Census with sampling and computer models (as I have described recently)--then all of a sudden the response of "scientific community" is rather quiescent. Make way for money and power.

For another example, how many public billions (in bankrupt California alone) are being squandered on the barren fetish of embryonic stem cell research, while almost all the noted medical advances are coming from other forms of stem cells? Few scientists want to talk about this in polite company for fear of losing friends or funding.

I am fearful that federal and foundation grants are corrupting the priorities and integrity of science. It is a little-examined ethical scandal.

The late "Travis", seen here in happier times.

Are you aware that some of the main cheerleaders for the birthday of Charles Darwin--such as Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer--are also the spokesmen for a plan to give great apes "human rights"?

It is grotesque mistake. Chimpanzees are not people, nor are gorillas. It is a romantic delusion borne of Hollywood fantasy and misleading "animal rights" propaganda that they are. The results can be catastrophe for all involved.

Imagine turning such tragedies into legal battles where the apes were considered to have rights comparable to those of people. But that is where scientific materialists would take us. The object is to erase the line between humans and animals.

This country is not interested in having scandals right now, not in the still-opening weeks of the new Obama Administration. But the scandals are coming, like Sandburg's fog, "on little cat's feet." They are not Republican inventions or campaign strutting, but genuine, old fashioned revelations that cannot be ignored. Newly minted Senator Roland Burris of Illinois (replacing Senator--now President--Obama), power House chairman Charles Rangel, Sen. Chris Dodd , Rep. John Murtha, and, not least, the stunning financial barons, Bernie Madoff and (fanfare, please) Allen Stanford.

At first Stanford's depredations seemed mere pallid reflections of the 50 billion Madoff scam. Now it seems they may be comparable.

From tomorrow's London Times:

The scale of his influence was becoming clear. He donated funds to President Obama's election campaign and sponsored the annual charity polo day at Sandhurst, hosted by the Prince of Wales....

The scam is the second major fraud to hit America in three months after Bernard Madoff confessed that his $50 billion investment firm was "just one big lie". It is a devastating blow to the Obama Administration, which is trying to persuade investors to trust their savings to American institutions.

There are best-sellers on these topics whose authors are only now waking up to the potential. There are movie scripts that are just beginning to invade the dreams of Hollywood writers, "60 Minutes" segments whose story teams have yet to meet. But it all still seems untimely.

"Yes, We Can!", meet "They Did What?!"

The three legged stool of the Reagan coalition was fiscal conservatism, social conservatism and defense/foreign policy conservatism. Now the stool has two legs. The social conservatives are on the outs.

Looking ahead, the Obama Administration, given its economic policies, may be destined for calamity. Conservatives of the sort who take part in national politics can all rally around that awareness. But meanwhile, social issues embarrass the kind of folk who publish most national papers and magazines on the right, their homes and offices located in the metro regions of Washington, DC and New York, their hearts and minds functionally agnostic. They tend to regard social conservatives as poor relations.

The trouble is, even if the national leaders of the social conservatives agree for now to soft-pedal issues of primary concern to their constituents and join the conservative Common Front, they can't make their "followers" follow. Like liberals, social conservative voters are values-driven. They are not "Republicans" or even "conservatives" as a first commitment. Many are religious. Some are temperamentally closer to liberals than conservatives on economic perceptions. The difference is, they think the country is on the wrong moral track and cannot see how to save the next generation from materialism and relatavism. Reagan resonated with them. Hardly anyone on the national scene does today. They are oblivious to The New York Times, but they care little more for The Wall Street Journal or National Review.

Right now social conservatives supposedly have no where to go politically. Therefore, while they are upset about the new Administration, they are being patronized by Republican party leaders and even more by most so-called conservative media and columnists.

But it is false to imagine that they have no choice.

They can stay home.

If and when that happens, do the math. See how far conservatism gets without them.

In the 19th Century the competition between the West and Russia for influence in Iran was dubbed "The Great Game." Such games can turn dangerous, however.

Iran in the 21st Century arms terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon. It has targeted Israel for destruction and, by many accounts, is building a nuclear bomb. It boasts of plans for guided missiles. Meanwhile, Iran has sought weaponry to protect its nuclear sites from Israeli preventative attacks.

Russia is helping Iran to build its nuclear plant, though it says it is not helping Iran to convert its facilities to bomb-making and to develop guided missile capacity. Meanwhile, Russia is blocking efforts at the U.N. to sanction Iran for its nuclear weapons ambitions. And Russia is continuing to arm Iran to thwart possible attacks.

We have been told that this is about nothing more than mere money. Russia has weapons to sell and needs markets.

We are told quietly that Russia really is monitoring Iran's situation and won't let it get out of hand.

Unfortunately, all such assertions are beginning to wear thin. Friends of the U.S-Russian relationship have to be sober in the face of these realities.

There is a tricky game of false compassion the media played during the Iraq War, as earlier, wherein TV programs and newspapers daily ran the names and pictures of Americans killed in action (or a soldier who died for any reason in the war zone). Another version of the trick was to show the flag covered coffins of the slain being unloaded ceremoniously at Dover Airbase in Delaware. The superficial implication was that people would want to show sympathy for the dead and their families and acknowledge their sacrifices.

People do want to show such sympathy. Some families appreciate it. Some don't like the intrusion into their privacy.

Regardless, for some the real reason for the photos was to build popular dismay at the cost of war in American lives. It was meant to demoralize. Almost everyone in the media and the military and the government surely knows the effect and therefore the motive. That is why Franklin Roosevelt banned pictures of Americans being killed in World War II. George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton and George W. Bush eventually decided in most cases to keep the media away from the delivery of the coffins of the deceased personnel. But the reason the government doesn't want to dwell on the pictures is also why the left wing media want them. They have an agenda.

There have been a number of articles lately about the possibility of a change in policy in the Obama Administration that, one way or another, would reopen the opportunity for the media to show pictures of arriving coffins.

There are two remarkable facets of this. First, the media want to show the coffins of Americans killed overseas, even though that now predominantly means coffins from Afghanistan, where President Obama--whose election they overwhelming supported--is sending more troops to fight, just as he said he would during the campaign. The media are suddenly and already willing to undercut the man they helped elect president--only a month after he took office.

Second, some of the media are fairly obvious in hinting at their true motives. You don't have to read too much between the lines, for example, to gather the anti-war policy agenda of this editorial of The Palm Beach Post.

There is, however, another possible hidden motive in this situation, however unlikely it seems. If President Obama actually now wants to get out of Afghanistan as well as Iraq--despite his past commitments--and wants the public to end its support for the Afghan War before he does so officially, then changing the policy on photos of arriving coffins would be a good way to get the "change" underway. In that case, editorials like the Post's are just getting ahead of Mr. Obama, not turning against him.

For my part, and for the good of the all-too real war on terrorism, I hope that the new president does not grant the media rights to showcase American deaths and instead gives sustained support to defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Ave Maria, Florida is hard to locate on any conventional map. I discovered that when I tried to drive there from Sarasota in the North rather than from Miami to the Southeast, as I had done once before when I had been given directions. On this occasion I had no luck with Hertz' "NeverLost" tracking system. Never Lost was Lost. Google and Yahoo! declared the town non-existent. I found out later that the U.S. Post Office doesn't think the town exists, either, which is why they have it enrolled as a neighborhood of Immokalee, five miles distant.

Ave Maria's problem is that it is very new. Only a couple of years ago the community was the dream of Thomas S. Monaghan, the Michigan businessman, and otherwise it was thousands of acres of Collier Country scrub brush--palmetto palm bushes and pine trees--in the farming area north of Naples, hugging the Everglades.

But in 2009 Ave Maria already is home to 2,000 souls, most of those souls orthodox Catholic students at Ave Maria University ("the only university that takes its name directly from a line in the Bible," as I once heard Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., theologian in residence, tell a mostly Christian group). In what history would describe as an instant, a Florida version of an Italian piazza has sprung up, graced in its center by an "Oratory", a large, modern church with Gothic sentiments in stone and steel, dominating the landscape for miles in any direction.

Recently the Oratory was the scene of the beginning of a massive new front sculpture of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, putatively the largest Carrara marble sculpture that can be found anywhere. Marton Varo, a Transylvanian (Hungarian) sculptor, is in charge. You can get a picture of what it is to be from this university press release.

Meanwhile, non-students who would like to live in such a town --glorious in winter, hot in summer, beautiful in concept and initial realization of that concept, stimulating whenever the students are around--or even to enjoy a part time residence, have helped through their home purchases to pay for the university's endowment. Sales are slow just now, with only a few new houses going up each month rather than the scores that were typical of the first couple of years. Given the hideous real estate market elsewhere--especially elsewhere in Florida--having any new construction underway is remarkable.

It is not hard to see why the inflow continues. The tourist/pilgrims who visit daily are testimony to the lure of a unique faith-based new town. They can't help but admire the new student halls and dormitories going up before their eyes, but they also must be noticing the new stores, restaurants, schools, fitness center, swimming pool and golf courses. A new, professional quality soccer field has been announced.

Five miles away is the largely immigrant town of Immokalee, population 20,000. As Ave Maria's president Nick Healy told me over lunch, these are the folks who pick your winter tomatoes and make your beds if you are visiting the fine hotels of Naples. He says they are law abiding, quiet and potentially great partners for the neighboring university.

Whether you are religious or a New Urbanist or just a curious connoisseur of the novel, keep an eye on Ave Maria.

This article by Discovery Sr. Fellow Wesley J. Smith in The London Telegraph is worth noting on many grounds.

The topic itself is timely, especially given Smith's recent speaking trip to Ireland and England. But it also is interesting for the reactions it elicits in the comments section of the paper. Some are reasonable, but others simply attempt to answer reason with smears. E.g., Smith opposes assisted suicide. (Check.) He is a fellow of Discovery Institute. (Check.) But (here comes the whopper) Discovery is made up of religious fundamentalists, and therefore presumably should be excoriated, then ignored. (Whoa!)

This information about fundamentalists, we are assured, comes from Barbara Forrest, a professor in Louisiana who has studied Discovery Institute. But while Forrest may teach at a university, she is no expert on Discovery. She is a propagandist, an avowed atheist in other forums who seems to have as a mission the assault of people who are not. The "fundamentalist" smear is an example. There undoubtedly are fundamentalists who have ideas on science and, well, good for them. But the term is not at all fairly applicable to Discovery Institute. The term in this case actually seems to be code for anyone who belongs to a church or synagogue.

I don't propose that atheists should not express views on bioethics. Why then should they propose that people who happen to be Christians or Jews should not express their views?

Before we go on parsing the nonsense of comment ranters, however, notice the way the subject shifts from the actual topic--whether assisted suicide leads to a duty to die for the weak and vulnerable--to the supposed unfashionable religious motivations of somebody the author knows and associates with.

Thus is discourse coarsened. People who engage in this sort of thing should look in the mirror the next time they bemoan the declining prestige of what passes for bioethics.

The market doesn't like the stimulus plan, the bank reorganization plan or the prospective tax plan.

It could be worse. Every month some large share of the 92 percent of Americans who still have jobs put money automatically into their 401(K) and IRA investment instruments. Unless they specify that their money will be held back and saved in Treasury notes or CDs (as many do specify), it is available for fund managers to invest. This is a huge hidden asset for upward momentum in the economy. Without thinking about it much, some people are still voting with their wallets to support growth. Brokers are in the business of assisting them.

Yet it is not enough to save the day, is it?

The reason is as plain as your own motivation, dear reader. Are you investing now? Or are you holding your money back?

If you really believe in the new economic team you should be in the market with all you've got, right? But are you?

Talk to relatives and friends. Are they "in cash" or are they investing? If not, what is the collective result? Is it not the market's seemingly bottomless downturn?

The Administration seems strangely oblivious. Congress has barely enacted a nearly unexamined stimulus plan of unprecedented size and now is talking about needing another. The Congress and the president talk about cutting the deficit by taxing the rich. That, of course, is what Herbert Hoover and FDR did and we had a whole decade of depression. Of course, there were other factors involved in the 30s. But demonizing the people who instead should be wooed--the people who have money to invest and who are too frightened to invest it now--is a very poor economic strategy.

Big government spending cannot turn the economy around, either. Having big business lining up for handouts and promising to accept whatever industrial policy and regulations are thrown at them by sage, experienced businesspeople like Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd will not turn things around. The private economy has to be induced to function, to lend and take reasonable risks (with commensurate rewards clearly possible), to invest in expansions, new ventures and jobs.

A few months ago, for the first time, a majority of rich people, along with (as usual) most media and academics, voted for the Democratic presidential ticket. When these people connect what is happening to their savings, their retirement nest eggs, their funds for children's education, and their charitable dollars, and then start talking turkey to the White House, maybe the message will get through.

But first they need to ponder the question, why am I not investing now?

"Rollover" Your IRA Into Your House -- Tax Free!
An Alternative Stimulus Idea
BY KEN SCOTT

High Point, N.C. -- Some say that government spending on a massive scale is the best answer to the economic crisis. Others believe that immediate tax cuts are the solution. I propose a better option -- something that would require neither immediate government spending nor tax cuts, but which could still have a substantial "stimulative" impact. Here is the proposal: Make a change to the retirement account withdrawal exception list so that homeowners can use retirement fund assets (401K, IRA, etc.) to "pay-off" primary home mortgage debt without tax penalties or consequences.

Under my scenario, homeowners would have immediate monthly cash (their previous monthly payment) available to reinvest at now favorably low rates. They would spend into the consumer economy, pay down other debt, and/or increase savings. Regardless of how the funds are used, their mere availability would likely increase the economic confidence factor, an important consideration in any economic recovery. This "payoff" of mortgages would inject substantial cash into the mortgage and housing lenders. That's right where it needs to be given that's where the economic crisis began and where "loanable" assets are needed.

The impact of this measure on government tax revenues would be spread out and diffuse because tax revenues from these retirement assets aren't expected for several years (usually until the homeowners reach retirement). And, in fact, the reduced interest deductions in early years will add money to the government tax coffers. I'd suspect that many of those who would take advantage of this option would already have used the majority of their interest deduction as their home loans are toward the end of their life.

My proposal would allow homeowners to convert from riskier assets (such as the stock market and related investments) into a more stable asset -- their own home. It took around 25 years for the U.S. stock market to return to 1929 pre-crash levels. If past is prologue, anything remotely similar following today's situation would reinforce the wisdom of pursuing other uses for that capital.

As homeowners exercised this newly available option, there would be short-term negative downward pressure on stock prices. This would be offset by the greater positive impacts of the stimulus package and the positive impact of consumer purchases made possible by new cash flow available to homeowners.

The fact that this measure can substantially stimulate the economy without a large government outlay can't be emphasized enough. There is nearly $10 trillion in primary residence U.S. mortgage debt. One hundred billion dollars (about 10 percent of the current "stimulus" package) would enter the U.S. economy if only one percent of the U.S. mortgage debt could be retired.

This measure is likely to benefit those homeowners who have done things right (i.e. made their payments steadily, didn't buy beyond their means, etc.). It will, however, help many homeowners who would likely not receive any direct stimulus benefit otherwise. Although it's true that homeowners would give up the long term upside of their investment holdings used in this way, a portion of this loss would be offset by the interest payments they would no longer be required to make.

The success of this measure in part relies on it not being misused. It does no one any good if homeowners deplete retirement accounts and do nothing to rebuild them. For those who prefer to have their decisions made by elected officials, this level of risk tied to personal responsibility unfortunately makes them nervous.

To alleviate legitimate concerns, certain administrative constraints could be placed on this measure. Among these could be its application on a year-by-year basis. That is, a homeowner could pay the next 12 months of primary home payments using retirement accounts assets without penalty. This would minimize impact on retirement account balances while providing "stimulative" effects. An alternative control might be to place a limit or guideline on the percentage of the retirement funds that could be used. While perhaps difficult to implement, this limitation would minimize gross depletion of retirement accounts and would at least allow home refinancing based on a substantially lower remaining balance. It would, of course, be paramount for homeowners considering this option to seek out sound and prudent guidance as to whether their personal financial situation would benefit from leveraging this policy.

The implementation of this measure would benefit our current economic situation and could be put in place quickly, with little administrative or bureaucratic overhead. In stark contrast to most solutions now on the table, where the government is making the decision and the bureaucracy will implement it, this idea could be triggered by and through a series of personal decisions.

Chris Matthews 2008:

Chris Matthews 2009:

Many liberal writers deny that Darwin's theory--and Darwin's writings in Descent of Man--contributed to the racist thinking of later generations and even the race-theories of the Nazis. Tony Campolo, the noted liberal Christian who once advised President Bill Clinton, does not make that mistake.

Regrettably, however, Campolo apparently is unaware of the gaping holes in modern Darwinian theory as science. He might be more optimistic if he could see that the future of the scientific debate is bright. Both faith and science oblige us to see the exceptionalism of human beings.

The commentator and radio host Dennis Prager makes a fascinating case for the unique American philosophy that distinguishes our country from others. As it happens, he points out, the distinguishing values are engraved on our coins. To summarize:

"In God We Trust." This is the solid source we turn to for our ethics. It erases relatavism.

"Liberty". Not equality or even equality and liberty (France). Liberty is the fountain of our creativity as a nation. It gives genius a home and conscience a refuge.

"E Pluribus Unum," out of many, one. The new ideal of "diversity" seems to turn that phrase on its head: you start with unity, and create "many". Multi-culturalism celebrates the varieties of Americans and our loyalties, but all that does is make a positive out of the negative divisions that characterize many nations. It isn't hard to retreat to one's own kind. It's the norm in the world and in history. The Founders' vision, in contrast, was revolutionary; to provide opportunity to all once they signed onto the common American project.

It goes without saying that the Founders' vision is in danger today. So the next time you want to explain to someone what distinguishes our country from others, flip them a coin.