Discovery Blog

I wrote last week about Bella and urged you to see it. (See below.)

Anyhow, people in large numbers did attend the opening weekend, though the number of screens on which the film appeared was limited (800 nationally). That means it has not opened yet in certain big cities such as Seattle, or smaller cities like Fort Wayne, say, or Boca Raton, not to mention small towns like Galesburg, Illinois. It will now, I guess, so see it. I don't want to give away the plot, but I will say that it says much worthwhile about America today, our heritage and the positive influence of the "new" hispanic culture. (It has nothing to do with illegal immigration, however!)

Here is what the people promoting the film just sent film supporters (note the link to the Ebert review):

THANK YOU!!!!!
Because of your help Bella broke records on opening weekend! Bella achieved:
-#1 highest avg Box Office per screen of any film in our category in the world this year!
-#2 highest avg Box Office per screen of any film in the world on Friday & Saturday
-#1 highest avg Box Office per screen of any film in the world on Sunday

Ebert's incredible thumbs up review.

Last week Tony Bennett spontaneously took the microphone from lead actor Eduardo Verastegui after the premiere at Tribeca and gave an impassioned speech thru his tears saying; “it is a perfect movie, an artistic masterpiece that every American must see”. He said a lot more and you can see the video on You Tube. You can also see Eduardo’s appearance on Fox and other interviews at www.BellaNews.com.

LATEST REVIEWS
Warm, sweet and funny. -Roger Ebert, rogerebert.com

Versategui is a natural on the big screen, a compelling presence. -Ruthe Stein,

SF Chronicle "A sweet, life-affirming picture" - Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times

"A bear-hugging embrace of sweetness and light" -Stephen Holden, The New York Times

"Cynics need not apply, but I found "Bella" a real heart tugger." - Lou Lumenick, New York Post

An unforgettable experience! A celebration of family, food, music and life-affirming values -Michael Medved

Powerful and moving... a true inspiration. -CNN, Ana Maria Montero

"The warmest family drama I've seen in years" -Frank Lovece - Film Journal FOX NEWS

John Stossel takes on the global warming issue--how much is man's fault and how much does it matter, anyhow?

More importantly, why the attacks on dissenting scientists? Is this how science is supposed to operate?

View here:

The Associated Press' Douglas Birch writes in today's papers--a bit after it was reported in many other places--that US deaths in Iraq were way down in October, and so were civilian deaths. But Birch apparently just can't figure out why that is so.

Is it because there are so few people left to kill, now that Sunni areas have been depopulated by Shia militia, and vice versa? Is it because so many people have fled the country?

In the AP version run in the Thursday Seattle Post-Intelligencer, at least, the one explanation not mentioned is that the decline in deaths might have something to do with the success of the U.S. military's Surge.

It reminds me of the stories about high prison incarceration numbers. They are high, one hears, even though the crime rate has gone down. It doesn't occur to reporters providing such coverage that crime might have declined precisely because so many criminals have been caught and incarcerated. And it may not occur to the AP (unless this was just an editor's error) that the reason deaths of US service personnel have declined might have something to do with growing success in combatting the terrorists.

Why avoid the obvious?

There are 21 pages of comments on a blog essay written by author Disesh D'Souza to answer the question, "Was Hitler a Christian?" It is an excellent polemic against the bizarre claims of Darwinian atheists (Hitchens, et al) who want to chalk up the crimes of Hitler to religion--Christianity, of all things. The whole attack is backfiring, since it practically invites people to examine the real intellectual roots of Nazism.

Of course you can find Hitler propaganda quotes--especially in his early political career--posturing in defense of Christianity, but his whole record runs against it. As for those who want to credit the Spanish Inquisition with inspiring Hitler, forget it. The complete death list of people ever burned at the stake for heresy would not have equalled the number of people killed by the Nazis on slow day at Auschwitz.

Let this debate continue, by all means. Historian Richard Weikart's resource book, From Darwin to Hitler, is totally authoritative and scholarly, unlike the ramblings of Hitchens, Harris, et al. As for D'Souza, following Weikart, he is not claiming that Darwin and Nietszche would have been Nazi admirers, only, as he says, that the Nazis definitely admired Darwin and Nietszche.

The mystery the AP couldn't solve (below, November 1) is readily solved by The Times of London here.

Senator Chris Dodd called the idea of Governor Spitzer in New York to give illegal immigrants drivers licenses "troublesome", but Sen. Clinton in the recent Democrats' debate seemed to come down in support of it. The next day, instead of distancing herself from the policy, she embraced it more fully. I had to check twice to make sure I had that right. Surely, I thought, no one in the present environment--when domestic security is so tense and when illegal immigration remains unpopular--would back such a patently dangerous scheme. But Senator Clinton did.

John Fund writes an editorial column on it in The Wall Street Journal. Jim Pinkerton, in a Newsdaycolumn likens it to the Willy Horton episode that undid Mike Dukakis in the 1988 presidential race. But Pinkerton's analysis, while apt, would leave people thinking that this licenses idea is just going to be used as a symbolic issue, as was the case with Willy Horton, the convicted killer Dukakis let out of prison, only to see him kill again. No, as Fund shows, this issue is far more serious. It is a real threat to the core issue of trust in government and the institutions of democracy. It is an invitation to corruption and scandal.

Simply put, drivers' licenses these days are acting as de facto substitutes for a national identity card. If you are not able to drive for some reason, you almost have to get some other photo-ID, such as a passport, or you won't be able to fly, charge goods in some stores or vote in some states. If New York or some other state provides drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants--even with supposed "safeguards"--it will open the welfare and health care system to new enrollees, give superficial legitimacy to potential terrorists (several of the 9/11 terrorists had obtained drivers licenses) and ultimately endanger the integrity of the electoral process. Illegal immigrants who vote deprive valid voters of their full franchise. It is a form of stealing. It will demoralize the electorate.

The news controversy over the New York plan is producing some indications that illegal immigrants already are voting in ceertain jurisdictions. There should be a federal investigation of this situation now, well before the 2008 election.

I like immigrants--legal immigrants. I feel sorry for illegal immigrants who are desperately seeking ways to feed their families. I would like to see the U.S. do more to help Mexico and other countries develop jobs and to reform their economies to make growth more likely. But why should I or anyone have sympathy for politicians who exploit the current immigration issue to get illegal immigrants the same benefits that belong to U.S. citizens, especially the right to vote? Does any other country (including Mexico) do such an outlandish thing? It is a sovereignty matter, pure and simple.

If Senator Clinton and the Democrats don't repudiate this idea quickly and firmly, the Republicans cannot be blamed for making the most of it. The only way to avoid being politically damaged by such a bad plan is to disown it fast.

The intelligent new on-line Seattle regional magazine "Crosscut", edited by David Brewster, carries a column (as Anika Smith pointed out yesterday) called "Bruce Chapman is Right," written by "Mossback" liberal Knute Berger. It generally agrees with recent comments of mine on Dr. James Watson and the battle over eugenics.

I hate to cavil after such welcome praise, but I have to demur from Berger's one demurral. That is, when he says that we should remember that many Christian and Jewish clergy backed the original eugenics program in America, some heavy qualification is needed.

I will leave the details to John West's authoritative new book, Darwin Day in America—being launched today at a Washington, D.C. book event at the Heritage Foundation—but the point I want to make here is that most traditionalist Christian clergy did not back eugenics. Those who did tended to be liberal theologians in liberal denominations that already had made their peace with Darwinism and modernity. In contrast, virtually the whole scientific establishment not only lined up behind the "consensus" position in support of eugenics, but they also sought to silence dissent. (Sound familiar?)

Theologically conservative Protestants and the Catholic Church were largely opponents of eugenics. The Vatican, which is always a little behind the times, thank God, set Catholic public policy on the issue. As for evangelicals, almost forgotten now is the fact that eugenics was one reason former Democratic presidential candidate and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan became so passionately involved in the Scopes Trial of 1925.

The eugenics was preached in Hunter’s Biology textbook and its treatment of evolution, and it was this book that was at issue in Dayton, Tennessee and all around the country.

Playbill from Inherit the Wind, National Production, Chicago, 1956

Bryan feared that evolutionary theory was being used to justify mistreatment of the weak in society, as well as to discredit religion. This motivation takes on even more significance when one realizes, as Ed Larson makes clear in his book on the Scopes Trial, Summer for the Gods, that Bryan himself was not a young Earth creationist, even though his fictional surrogate is so characterized in the play and film, Inherit the Wind. It might help to rehabilitate the liberal reputation of Bryan, "The Great Commoner," if his stand on evolution was better understood and not permanently warped by the fictional accounts.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Scopes Trial, what about H. L. Mencken, the famous Baltimore Sun journalist who did more than anyone to denigrate Bryan in the public eye and whose bitterly funny style was employed so effectively against other opponents of Darwinism? Well, Mencken's sarcasm has been a great inspiration to aspiring journalists right up to our own time and especially on the topic of evolution. But as to his content, Mencken was an on-and-off-again eugenicist, a racist and an anti-Semite right up to and past the time when that was no longer an acceptable position in polite society.

Sorry, but that is the history. Those who doubt it should be prepared to debate it in public. John West, the expert, along with Richard Weikart of California State (author of From Darwin to Hitler) have the research mastered.

Meanwhile, regardless of the above, I want to repeat that I'm grateful that Knute Berger has been so clear on the need to examine the real way eugenics developed. Because eugenics is still with us in various forms. It is a human rights issue of historic proportions. It goes right to the question that John Paul II always asked, "What does it mean to be human?"

The Chevrolet Volt


Republicans are doing a lot right--holding firm in Iraq, taking the war to the terrorists, fighting tax increases, finally halting the big federal spending spree--but they are failing to heed an obvious issue that would resonate strongly with the public and address an urgent need. The Administration and the Republican candidates for president seem to be tone-deaf on the technology that will diminish America's oil addiction, the plug-in hybrid car. This one development can do more to reduce our dependence on foreign oil than anything else that is even close to available. It also will help prevent the country's slide into long term economic stagnation.

Democrats haven't done any better on this issue, until now. They are wising up, however.

Today the market dropped 360 points and oil shot up briefly to $98 a barrel. The United States has a housing credit crunch that is clearly hurting our economy, but the dollar is getting battered more seriously because we cannot pay our oil bills. We are now in a vicious cycle, where the falling dollar means higher oil prices in this country, and that means a weakening economy and further drops in the dollar.

Why is the "Loonie", Canada's dollar, so strong against the U.S. dollar today? After all, Canada's economy is linked tightly to ours and Canadians certainly aren't more productive than Americans. Our Discovery Senior Fellow Steve Marshall points out the answer: Canada is producing all the oil it needs and has plenty left over to export. It makes money on oil.

Russians, for the same reason, are hugely prosperous these days (relative to their past): they have oil. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are booming like the good old days. And we are paying for it. Hundreds of billions of dollars are moving from here to there. We also are indirectly propping up the Chavez dictatorship in Venezuela. Even though Chavez' socialism is grotesquely inefficient, El Jefe still gets more money out of what oil does get produced.

Expansion in China and India are identified in some quarters as the reason for the oil squeeze here. But that is only indirectly responsible for our plight. The reason we are in such bad shape on oil is that we are using too much of it relative to what we produce. The fastest way to reduce the usage is to conserve and the way to do that without great pain is to introduce plug in hybrid vehicles ("PHEVs"). These cars not only will enjoy the savings of standard hybrids, but also will be able to use non-peak electric power to greatly reduce effective use of gas.

GM is a few months away from testable PHEVs. Toyota, the pioneer in hybrids, has stalled, it seems, and won't have a vehicle ready for about another year. GM apparently has access to a faster battery developer for the car that is to be called the "Volt". It could be tested in the spring and made available, if pushed, a year from now.

Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center has been the leading think tank promoting PHEVs for years now. We have held three national conferences on the topic, featuring our own people and such outside experts as James Woolsey, the former CIA Director. Last year at this time we pleaded with the White House to take the public political lead on this issue, but the subject evidently was not a high priority.

In December '06 we suggested that the President use his State of the Union address in January to announce that the Administration would place an order for 100,000 PHEVs for its federal fleet purchases as soon as the products were available. That would have helped stimulate the market and assure early production. Instead, the day after a State of the Union address that barely mentioned the issue the President issued a throw-away Executive Order that indicated a desire to consider PHEVs at such time as they might become available. That was a mere token gesture deservedly ignored by the media. Absent was a sense of urgency and recognition that PHEVs might relate seriously to a worsening fuel problem in America, not to mention the growing political stir about air pollution and global warming.

Why the failure to grasp this issue? Was the Administration afraid that Toyota, a foreign company, would wind up with the Federal contract if the fleet purchase pledge was made too soon? Did they want to give Detroit time to catch up? If any of that is true, it is a nice display of nationalism that comes at the price of America's overall economic health. Or was the White House policy bureaucracy just too sluggish to move efficiently on an issue like this? President Bush should have been the leader on PHEVs. He didn't even need Congressional co-operation to move ahead. But, for all his other accomplishements, he not a leader on this at all.

Meanwhile, a bi-partisan field of Senators and a couple of House members did speak out, including Rep. Jay Inslee, Washington Democrat, who has written a book on the topic, Apollo's Fire, Rep. Dave Reichert, Senators Sam Brownback of Kansas, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Norman Colman of Minnesota, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Barack Obama of Illinois. Several have been smart enough to engage the help of experts such as Woolsey. Brownback, who should have been courageous and shrewd enough to make this a prominent campaign issue in his GOP presidential bid, dropped the subject and let his leadership role wither. Maybe he thought that ethanol was a better horse to ride. If so, a lot of good that did him; he's now a former candidate.

But now comes Hillary Clinton, stealing Obama's issue (he claims), but who cares? The rest of the energy program she announced on Monday is greatly flawed. But again, on this part of it, if she takes the lead, she leads. She is taking up an issue the Republican field is missing. Hillary has the platform to make this a national priority issue at last.

This blog is fond of the important events, developments and ideas that the major media ignore, not to mention the correct definitions of ideas that keep escaping many media reports. High on the list must be supply side economics. Perhaps the people who won't credit the Bush tax cuts with the economic expansion of the past four years, and didn't give Reagan's cuts credit for the long run of expansion in the 80s and 90s, would have to be more forthcoming in the clear case that Estonia presents. That is, they'd have to if they bothered to exmine it. Fortunately, Steve Moore does examine it in the Wall Street Journal here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119457501118587478.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

So, "Newly Rich Nations Want a Piece of Us," The Washington Post reports, and The Seattle Times features in today's issue. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004005678_oilinvest11.html

Why should these papers wring their hands over such a development? Both supposedly understand global finance and neither is an economic nativist. Why are they trying to stir up such totally inappropriate angst in this country?

David Cho and Thomas Heath tell us about funds from oil-rich countries and China "buying stakes in key industries in the U.S...including banks, ports, stock exchasnges and energy companies." Well, yes, and that's good, isn't it? Nationalists elsewhere are always decrying U.S. companies' purchases of property and companies in their countries and that doesn't seem to upset Americans. In fact, the best thing those countries can have is investment from us. So, why should it upset us when the shoe is on the other foot?

Back in the 80s when Japan was riding high we were supposed to be alarmed that the Japanese were purchasing such American landmarks as Rockefeller Center. Well, did it make any difference? The answer is, none. Last time I was in New York, Rockefeller Center was still there and looking good.

When foreigners buy property and companies here they actually are expressing confidence in our future, and they also are helping assure it. The money they pay goes to Americans, doesn't it? The business they help to generate employees Americans, doesn't it? The international links that are forged benefit us as much as the foreigners, don't they?

Then why the scare stories?

The erudite and entertaining M.D. Aeschliman of Boston University and the University of Italian Switzerland has written a fine tribute to that promethean intellectual figure of our time, Jacques Barzun, who turns 100 this month and will be feted at Columbia University.http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=ZDhjM2Y1YzhlY2JmNjE4NWZmNjk1NThhNTA0MjlkYTc=

Dr. Barzun published From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life in 2000--when he was 93, a great inspiration for all of us!

I like him also because he was onto Marx early, onto Darwin early, and quick to see the limits of the modernist artistic perspective.

I like him further because he disputes the determinist interpretations of history that threatened to prevail for his entire lifetime. He believes that individuals make a difference.

One individual who makes a difference is Jacques Barzun. In a time when intellectual pipsqueaks, montebanks and popinjays scurry about our culture, what a welcome relief a giant makes against the horizon!

Michael Medved, nationally syndicated talk radio host and bestselling author, has joined the Discovery Institute in the role of senior fellow. The position cements a longstanding friendship and recognizes a commonality of values and projects across a spectrum of issues.

“Michael Medved is an intellectual entrepreneur, a political and cultural polymath with great insights, judgment and wit. We are delighted to have this new relationship with him,” said Discovery Institute president Bruce Chapman.

The sixth largest talk radio audience in the country, 3.7 million listeners, hears Medved’s daily three-hour radio program, The Michael Medved Show. Michael’s show is carried on more than 200 stations across America. The author of several books, including Hollywood vs. America and a recent autobiography, Right Turns, the one-time “punk liberal activist” turned “lovable conservative curmudgeon" is currently at work on a book on The Ten Big Lies About America.

Chapman saluted Medved “as the national radio host—make that ‘media host’—who is best able to understand science issues, including the current conflict over Darwinism and intelligent design. He’s very smart, quick and resourceful. Yet he also is respectful of those he disagrees with.”

“Over the years, I’ve greatly appreciated Discovery’s scholarship and advocacy in many areas,” Medved commented. “We may not agree on every issue, but I often have been struck by how much our worldviews overlap. It has been my pleasure to have Discovery fellows on my show as guests, including Stephen Meyer, Jonathan Wells, and David Klinghoffer. Formalizing the relationship will, I’m sure, only deepen the feeling of collegiality I already have with my friends at Discovery. I look forward to working with Discovery on future projects.”

Medved’s first book, What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?, provided one of the first skeptical reconsiderations of the 1960s counterculture. His tenth book, Right Turns, drew national attention in 2005, offering 35 “unconventional lessons” from Michael’s dramatic political and religious evolution. The New York Times called Right Turns “A provocative memoir… Even many of his readers who hold to very different political and social views will concede, grudgingly, the quality of Medved’s intellect.”

Crown Forum will publish The Ten Big Lies About America, certain to be hugely controversial, in June 2008.

Long active in the Jewish community, Medved has served as president of an Orthodox congregation and co-founder of a Jewish Day School. Since 1996, Michael and his wife, Dr. Diane Medved

The Seattle headquarters of Discovery Institute no longer can contain the growing number of staff, fellows, interns and visitors active here on public policy issues that range from transportation to science, and from technology to foreign affairs. Therefore, as of this weekend Discovery will relocate its main office from Third and Pike Streets to 208 Columbia Street, Seattle, WA 98104. (Telephone and email connections will remain the same.)

The new offices are on the full second floor of a former bank building at the corner of Columbia Street and Second Avenue. They increase Discovery's space from 6500 to nearly 8000 square feet and feature a new meeting hall that can handle twice as many guests as before (100) and a studio to facilitate the institute's increasing online media presence. The new offices also include an outdoor patio for entertaining.

The new headquarters will continue to supplement the think tank's federal office at 1015 Fifteenth St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20005.

This move is made possible by the generosity of Discovery members who replied to our call to help the institute expand prudently. We are not the "lavishly funded" creature our critics like to imagine. We merely know how to squeeze extra value out of a growing budget.

Discovery Institute was founded in 1990. A headquarters staff of 25 serves approximately 55 scholars who are located in the Seattle and Washington, DC area and around the world.

As Discovery moves into its new Worldwide Headquarters (see previous post), I want to salute an article by Marvin Olasky in the November 17 issue of World magazine on the new exhbition on "Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York." http://www.worldmag.com/flash/PowerView.swf?cf=/powerviewdata.cfm&iid=5197

Jacobs, author most notably of The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), actually deserves the gratitude of those in any great city (I include Seattle) who have learned to treasure intense human life on the street. I remember living in New York in 1965 when Jacobs' book was being used to argue against Robert Moses' plan to put a big freeway accross the south end of Manhattan. I later had the satisfaction of helping the civic forces in 1970s Seattle that prevented a "Bay Freeway" from walling off the downtown from Lake Union and an "R.H. Thompson Freeway" from despoiling the Seattle Arboretum and the Central Area.

Jacobs' insights, as Olasky notes, were welcomed "by activists of both left and right." She showed why the ideals of modernism--the sort stylishly presented at the "futurist" exhibits of world's fairs over the first half of the 20th century--turned brutish, cold and hostile to human activity when implemented. They were splendid on paper and in models where the people not only "looked the size of ants" but were that size. When realized in steel and concreted they lacked "human scale."

Urban renewal replaced the brownstones where kids jumped rope on the sidewalk and played stickball on the street--to the dismay of urban planners who wanted them in wide open "greenscapes". But through it we lost the "eyes of the street" that gossiping grandmas and bustling shopkeepers provided, and the safety that assured. The new "greenscapes" and recreation grounds became high crime wastelands possessed by drug dealers and gangs. The old neighborhood shopping districts meantime were made barren objects of bureaucratic commercialism.

A few nights ago my wife and I watched that classic film noir, Naked Streets, the one with the closing line, "There are eight million stories in the city..." It's a nice yarn, but what really charmed us was seeing so much film footage of New York in the late 40s.

Jacobs was influential more broadly in opening people's eyes to the rhythms of urban life, the way people act around public spaces. When it came to the big downtown buildings, for example, she said, the modernists also got it wrong. Too often they made gargantuan edifices that people found imposing but made mere mortals feel small. What we want are buildings that make us feel grand and give us something to do.

Jacobs was a pioneer in what would become a revitalized historic preservation movement . Where earlier leaders had saved distinguished landmarks and the homes of notable statesmen and writers, Jacobs called for saving the old cityscapes themselves, the connected fabric that evokes harmony, memory (even vicariously, in the young) and intimacy.

She noted the affinity people in "the knowledge industry", as it would later be called, had for historic or merely old structures. "New ideas often need old buildings."

Marvin Olasky and the new Kings College is now resident in the Empire State Building, that glorious Art Deco icon of New York, a building that makes the individual feel grand, not small. Discovery Institute has found a happy home in a former bank building in downtown Seatttle. We will be contacting you from there from now on.

One way you can tell an ideologue is if he ditches an old friend because the old friend no longer agrees with him. It has happened to me occasionally on the issue of Darwinism, and I rather relish it, frankly. I have been a card carrying member of the Centrist Establishment my whole adult life, so I experience a certain excitement in being stigmatized as an extremist by the Leftist Establishment. Me? An extremist? Why thank you so much!

The same thing is happening to Anthony Flew now, in double dossage, and I hope he, too, is enjoying the notoriety. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6501078.html

The New York Times--media headquarters for the Give No Quarter to Darwin Doubters campaign--decided to respond to the recent apostasy of England's hallowed Professor of Atheism by intimating that the old man must be daft. Never let it be said that The NYT lacks for objective anaylsis and journalistic professionalism on science issues. They simply are following the lead of that noted Darwinian ethicist, Richard Dawkins.

But Flew is fighting back. I may be old and slow, he says, but stop your carping insinuations about my intelligence and your eggregious age discrimination (okay, I added that last twist myself). Let my recent book speak for itself, he says.

Lovely. I say that the AARP (or their UK branch) should file a suit against The Times.

Meanwhile, let The New York Times wallow in its patronizing zeal. When the history of our real times is written it will be noted that The Times newspaper was no more accurate about trends in science in the early 21st century than it was about the nature of communism in the middle of the 20th. It is easily addled by its ideology.

I had the honor as a young man to write editorials for the late, great New York Herald Tribune. We distrusted The Times then and I can't find any reason to think better of it as years go by.

We had a "heads up" yesterday from Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith to expect a breakthrough on the issue of embryonic stem cells and now he has published on it.

Apparently, it has become possible to obtain embryonic-like stem cells from adult stem cells. If that is so, the air may go out of the campaign to get federal and state financial support for using human embryos -- human lives at their beginning -- for research on disease. If the same benefits can be obtained without exploiting incipient human lives, what excuse remains for the kind of embryonic stem cell research we have been fighting over politically?

The answer, regrettably, is ideology and politics. There are people who like the issue more than the solution. But they are going to have a harder time now.

As usual, Smith is on top of the issue.

The Financial Times is the latest paper to report faster than anticipated improvement of conditions in Iraq. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ca653412-97b4-11dc-9e08-0000779fd2ac.html Therefore, the question is, when will this reality begin to gain acknowledgement by the American public and finally stifle the attempts in Congress to shut off funding and force a speedy withdrawal of troops?

The Left is engaged in a kind of ritual dance, it would seem. Its performers don't really expect a retreat soon, nor if they were in power would they execute a pullout themselves. Why would anyone? When you are getting close to victory, you should quit? But they clearly think that their current harrassing actions are supported in some sense by the public.

It takes a while for change to register. The public will figure it out eventually and that should boost Bush's popularity (now at 38% approval, according to the Rassmussen poll http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/political_updates/president_bush_job_approval and, in turn, make Iraq's future more secure.

Meanwhile, the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will be in many hearts and prayers this Thanksgiving Day, as they should be every day.

My other thoughts on Thanksgiving are expected to run on the editorial pages of tomorrow's Seattle Times. I must add my gratitude for all those who have supported or encouraged the many fine scholars and writers who make up Discovery Institute and our varied program--and for the outstanding Discovery team itself!

Among other things, I was grateful this morning to see that The Seattle Times gave such nice prominence and artwork to the following, and that Real Clear Politics, among others, has picked it up online.

Happy Thanksgiving, All! And remember to Whom our thanks are due!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004028141_chapman22.html

Richard Hayes, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Oakland, explains in an admirable Los Angeles Times article
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-hayes22nov22,0,340355.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrailthat many scientists who opposed embryonic stem cell research on various grounds were reluctant to say so until now: they didn't want to be seen helping President Bush politically. Hayes' candor is commendable, but the scientists' motives it perhaps unintentionally betrays are craven. It is, in truth, an indictment of the current politicization of science.

This is a serious matter. We can all be thrilled that new technology seems likely to make the use of human embryos an unnecessary source for stem cell production in research. It is a victory for human life and for common sense in laboratory science. Politically, it takes off the table an issue that hurt conservatives and that the materialist Left has been using as part of an attack on pro-life forces, whom they represent as "anti-science." It was slated to become a major theme in the 2008 elections.

But politics should not trump everything else. If scientists who were skeptical of embryonic stem cell research remained silent for essentially political reasons or were influenced by the big bucks that were behind efforts in California and Missouri to use taxpayer funds to support embryonic stem cell research, they should be chagrined now. They let their politics take precedence over their calling as scientists.

Politics was definitely at play in Missouri, for example, where the issue of stem cells on a state ballot measure was used to defeat conservatives. It was a real "wedge" issue. You can understand why the Left deployed it; polls showed 2 to 1 public acceptance of embryonic stem cell research. But that doesn't let scientists who knew better off the hook, does it? It is appalling that some scientists privately opposed embryonic stem cell research on what they might regard as liberal grounds--such as the program's exploitation of poor women for their eggs--still were guided chiefly by political correctness and kept their peace. Some others surely would have spoken out if the media had asked them. But most of the media, too, are P.C., of course.

So, on how many other issues are dissenting scientists holding their fire because they don't want to be seen helping President Bush or social conservatives? How about end of life issues? How about Darwin's theory of evolution, the sacred writ of materialism?

In some periods of history courage is demanded of statesmen, or military men, or even economists. In our period, we need scientists to show the courage of their private convictions on the whole range of issues that pertain to human dignity and distinctive worth.

War is hell. At least it is for Hollywood and The San Francisco Chronicle. It was a another liberal assualt on good sense for The Chronicle to write a story about the commerical failure of the half dozen anti-Iraq War films that have come out this fall. The reporter writes that he can't understand it. After all, most of the films had famous stars and got good reviews! Moreover, several anti-war veterans he interviewed are likewise disappointed, if not aggrieved! The American public--save "San Francisco intellectuals", which surely must mean 90% of the population there--just seem to be so lackadaisical and unresponsive. Maybe the films should have been even more provocative.

Nowhere did the reporter wonder the opposite: how Hollywood might have done if it had produced war films that expressed support and understanding for the U.S. mission in Iraq and the way our troops are making progress under great difficulties.

The real mistake, however, was not the article--typical left win gibberish and self-delusion--but the provision of a way for readers to comment on line. They do comment, and they make all the right points: people may be tired of the war, but they are really tired of Hollywood thinking it has found the truth about the war and using its wiles to manipulate the rest of us; and why did the reporter only talk to anti-war veterans? If there is any room for embarrassment at The Chronicle newsroom, reading the 165 plus comments to their piece should fill it to overflowing.

Here's the link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/11/23/MNJNTG272.DTL

Photo courtesy of Bloomberg.

I introduce you today to Venezuela News and Views, a blog I just encountered myself. i don't know anything about it, except that it provides an inside look at the constitutional election tht Hugo Chavez has foisted on the people of Venezuela.

My political intuition--whose accuracy, admittedly, is only so-so--tells me that public opinion may be turning against Chavismo. Even poor people who like a strong leader don't really want a dictator. And even uneducated people object to the kind of physical persecution of dissenting students going on in Caracas right now. There is no knowing whether the elections will be fair or whether there will be enough resentment built up to cost Chavez the victory he expects. But even a close election might pressage the eventual, if not iminent, end of his reign.

Incumbent politicians and the media chronically make the mistake of extrapolating from past popularity into the present. But politics is always changing. Blue states become red when the voters get fed up with presumptuous big government (e.g., New Jersey's recent vote against funding stem cell research) and red states turn on conservative leaders with alleged ethical weaknesses (e.g., the recent Republican defeat in Kentucky). Hillary the Inevitable is slipping in national polls, and could lose the Iowa caucuses. A hugely successful prime minister, John Howard, was just ousted in Australia. It just shows you.

Vox populi, vox deo. And, where sovereign, the people don't really have to justify their ways in order to get their way.

School's Out, by Lewis J. Perelman, an early Senior Fellow of Discovery Institute, makes the case that education as we know it will end by....well, by about now, the early 21st century. Obviously, it didn't happen. The book was published in 1992 and is another example of the comment of Disraeli that it is important not only to be right, but to be right at the right time. Perleman's book probably faded from prophetic influence because its predictions were too sweeping and too advanced. The education establishment was and is too entrenched to yield easily and the public's habits of genuflecting to prestigious degrees are too ingrained.

VIsionaries often have a difficulty with timing. George Gilder's 1985 prediction (in Life After Television) that TV and computers would converge was correct, but pre-mature. The changes he foresaw are only happening now, twenty some years later.

Is societal change finally catching up with Lew Perelman's vision? Only partially. We are nowhere close to abolishing schools and universities, though, thanks to the home schooling movement, we may be seeing some diminution of the prestige of formal education. Ending schools altogether doesn't seem to be on anyone's reform agenda now. Nonetheless, I thought of Lew when I heard an NPR segment today giving examples of the ways in which online education is going mainstream at last.

Memo to Lew: being proved partly-right is not a bad score for a prophet! And there is still a lot of validity to your insights of yore.

(Cross-posted at Disco Tech.)