Discovery News

Heather Robinson profiles one of the true heroes of Iraq, a man of courage and high principle. The cost has been terrible--the murder of his two sons, Ayman and Gamal, and a security guard. But almost alone he overturned the old Saddam era ban on travel to Israel. His passion is freedom and representative government.

From Baghdad Omar Fadhil writes in The Australian that the war was "worth it." Notice that he writes about the war in past-tense. Increasingly, it is clear that the path to building a more prosperous, as well as more democratic Iraq is now wide open.

Just the booming Iraqi stock market says worlds about the turnaround in the nation's stability.

One hopes the Fadhil brothers continue their fine blog and resume regular posts. One also hopes that President Obama will give credit to Iraqis--and to the American-led Coalition that liberated them--when he addresses the Arab world from Cairo.

The country needs a general upgrade of infrastructure. Billions are now available through the stimulus bill, but still not enough. The emphasis on "shovel-ready" projects in the stimulus package, though understandable as a recession-fighter, is unhelpful when the need is for serious long term planning.

One way to pay for highway improvements and related activities is tolling. Aubrey Cohen writes about it in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Secondhand Smoke, the popular bioethics blog of Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith, is now being hosted by First Things, the distinguished journal of religion and culture. Secondhand Smoke, described by Smith as “Your 24/7 seminar on bioethics and the importance of being human,” was named a “Top Health Blog” by Wellsphere, and “One of the Fifty Best Business Ethics Blogs” by Online MBA Reviews. The American Journal of Bioethics review of Secondhand Smoke stated:

“In Smith's ‘human exceptionalist’ view, a great range of bioethical theory improperly undermines human rights by coupling rights not to our humanity simpliciter, but to our possession of certain capacities—consciousness, perhaps, or ‘moral personhood,’ or mere sentience...Thus Smith's critique runs in two directions: against those who, like embryonic stem-cell researchers and assisted-suicide advocates, use capacity arguments to justify what Smith regards as the immoral destruction of humans; and against those who, like animal rights extremists, use a different sort of capacity argument to extend rights--in his view, improperly--to non-humans, even at the expense of humans (as when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA] activists seek to shut down medical experimentation on animals).

This core critique gives SHS an unusual combination of variety and unity.”

Smith has been affiliated with the Discovery Institute since 2004 and is the most prolific contributor to the DI’s Center for Human Rights and Bioethics project. He asserts that “In a time of when many newspapers and other information media are in crisis, it is vital that alternative methods of communicating about crucial issues such as assisted suicide, human cloning, and the dangers of radical animal rights ideology and deep ecology ‘environmentalism’ be developed and disseminated. Being part of the First Things family of blogs can only assist in that important work.”

Bruce Chapman, president of the Discovery institute lauded the development, saying, “Having Wesley blogging at First Things can only increase the penetration of Smith’s work among the general public and increase the visibility of the Discovery Institute’s bioethics project as we develop our work in this important field in the coming years.”

The blog will continue, of course, to be carried on Discovery’s own site and also www.wesleyjsmith.com .

It has been fun mocking the abuse of second-home stipends by British Members of Parliament, but the weight of the scandal is now becoming an impossible burden for the ruling Labour Party.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is facing the front of the attack, but to some extent he is heir to a culture of entitlement that has been developing for years--at least since the cheery era of "New Labour" under Tony Blair. The latter got out and handed off the festering problem to Brown, just as Prime Minister Chretien, in a somewhat similar situation, did to his sometime rival and Liberal successor as PM in Canada, Paul Martin. Mr. Martin suffered from the scandals of his party, and, alas for Mr. Brown, the same seems fated for him.

The capper for the current British scandal is the seriousness of Members' reported failures to pay taxes. A little petty spending greed is one thing (using taxpayer funds to pay for dog food or videos), but claiming a tax break for two houses that is meant for one house -- that's really annoying to the voters.

We now have in Barack Obama an American president who prides himself on criticizing his country's past, doing so while abroad and doing so in a way that gives undue satisfaction to our critics and undue pain to our friends. He omits points in our country's favor and exaggerates our failings.

The inconsistencies in the Cairo speech are astonishing. Here is Pete Wehner's account.

Here is another paradox to consider: we have a President of the United States who is eager to show his support for nuclear power development in Iran--a reliable foe of America--but cannot bring himself to support nuclear power in his own country, the United States of America.

What is going on?

It would seem to be a bad time for a new Canadian election and there is a question as to whether the opposition in Parliament (three parties whose ambitions clearly are not in sync) would be willing now to unite on a vote of no-confidence and bring down the minority Conservative government of Stephen Harper.

Canada is suffering from the American recession that is now world-wide. Its deficits are growing, but are paltry in comparison to ours, even given the difference in the size of the two countries. Overall, Canada's finances are pretty well managed. Still, if you are a Canadian looking out, rather than an outsider looking in, there is a natural tendency to blame the government in power for whatever is besetting the commonweal.

One might have thought, in these conditions, that the Liberals would bide their time and build up their resources--and their credit with the voters--before trying to precipitate a new election. Now, however, that common sense expectation may be in for a dramatic change.

From an American standpoint, it is hard to see that it will matter much to us whether the Liberals or Conservatives are in power. Both parties are pro-American, but quite prepared to differ with us. The Conservatives are supposed to be the party of competent management and proponents of economic growth, but their recent record could be more inspiring. On one issue that we follow here--the development of passenger rail traffic over the border to help tourism, something that clearly is in Canada's interest, especially leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics in British Columbia--the Harper government inexplicably seems to be dragging its feet. We at Discovery Institute are always urging our own government to think more pro-actively about Canadian trade--Canada is our biggest trading partner, after all. But at the moment it is the Canadians who seem to need a bit of a prod.

I think that if I were Mr. Harper I would not want to crouch in a defensive posture, but instead come out with positive vision on the economy and actions to support it, then challenge the opposition to go along or be cited for obstruction. Either way he would win.

But then I am just a Yank--albeit a friendly one--observing the situation from a safe distance. Since Canadian pundits never hesitate to give America advice, I hope they won't mind if we return the compliment from time to time.

By George Gilder

(Cross-posted at Discovery's Disco-Tech's Blog.)

President Obama received a Cyberspace Policy Review from cybersecurity experts this week and pledged to create an Office of Cybersecurity Coordinator in the White House.

A federal cybersecurity coordinator may help government agencies better coordinate their responsibilities and authorities and eliminate duplicative or inconsistent efforts.

But most of the networks and computers which power the world’s most dynamic economy and support the strongest military are owned and operated by the private sector, as the cybersecurity experts and the President acknowledged. The private sector has been hard at work improving the reliability of software and building security features into the network.

The importance of the network in combating cyber attacks has largely been overlooked. Network operators eliminate most spam, which, according to Semantech, comprises 90 percent of email.

Unusual traffic patterns give network operators early warning of worm strikes and distributed denial-of-service attacks. Network operators can divert malicious traffic to scrubbers so it never reaches its intended destination. Networks are the first and possibly the most effective line of defense.

The federal government will not dictate security standards for private companies nor monitor private sector networks or Internet traffic, according to the President. But with new high-level officials there will be a continuing temptation for government to micromanage the dynamic technology, telecommunications and cable sectors.

The President may bemoan the extent of taxpayer investment in cyberspace,

just as we failed in the past to invest in our physical infrastructure – our roads, our bridges and rails – we’ve failed to invest in the security of our digital infrastructure,
but unlike roads, bridges and rails, there are still opportunities for profit in software, hardware and broadband.

The biggest threat to continued private investment in cyberspace may be the President’s oft-repeated support for net neutrality regulation, which would divert investment away from the core of the network. Cybersecurity requires investment throughout the network. The network is an ecosystem in which everyone has an important role to play.

The President’s interest in cybersecurity is a good thing. But the federal government can do more to harm cybersecurity than to promote it.

The issues in Britain are somewhat idiosyncratic, but there is no avoiding the reality that that nation's delegation to the European Parliament is moving right, as are local governments. It could be a signal of a new election and a Tory government (after 12 years of Labour). Conservatives and even the far right made gains in other European elections this week. And the pro-Western coalition in Lebanon seems set to continue in power, despite earlier predictions of advances for the Hezbollah/pro-Iranian parties.

Meanwhile, however, President Obama is moving U.S. policy leftward as he declares the recession an unwelcome, but long term guest. It is being touted almost as an excuse for further government takeover of the economy, though the takeover and big spending are actually contributing to the country's economic woes, not to their improvement. Creating new government jobs is not the solution to the loss of jobs in the private sector.

The beating the Labour Party took in local and European Parliament elections this past weekend are described in some quarters as an ominous sign of a surge of fascism. Not only did the Conservatives gain, but so, too, did the British National Party, a far right outfit. Melanie Phillips isn’t buying it.

by John R. Miller

President Obama’s speech in Cairo has been praised, and rightly so, for its effort to reach out to the Muslim world. But amidst the idealistic exhortations to practice democracy, further women’s rights, practice religious freedom and of course avoid violence and take responsibility, there continues to sit—almost incongruously—only one very specific prescription for action, and it is directed at only one country—Israel.

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israel settlements” the President proclaimed to loud applause. Commentators have assumed that the President was asking Israel to not extend existing settlements in the disputed West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the following sentence does refer to “this construction”. But the President in his applause line did not talk about merely discontinuing the settling process; he puts himself on record against the continuation of “settlements”, which appears to mean the settlements that are already there.

This indeed is a prescription, all right, but if the words mean what they seem to mean—and we must assume every word in this speech was carefully vetted—the President’s speech marks a new direction for the United States’ policy regarding Israel. There is a big difference between telling Israel that it should stop allowing new settlers to take up residence on the West Bank and East Jerusalem and telling Israel to evict the nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers already there. No U.S. President has ventured this way before. When President Clinton urged a comprehensive settlement on PLO leader Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Barak, he asked that additional settlements be stopped but asked that the bulk of existing Israeli settlements remain with Israel offering in exchange pieces of Israeli territory.

President Obama’s departure from traditional U.S. policy plays well in the Arab world but it will not enhance peace in the Middle East nor is it in keeping with the “universal ideals” the President proclaimed. No Israeli government can follow the President’s advice, no matter how much pressure Obama exerts. To evict 500,000 settlers would set off a war within Israel that would leave Israel looking less like a modern state and more like the Palestinian territory riven by conflicts between Hamas and Fatah. And as for the “universal ideals” that the President urged his listeners to follow, what “universal ideal” says that people should be evicted from living somewhere based on race, religion or national origin? True, such anti-Semitic policies were pushed by Czars in Russia and by Hitler in Nazi Germany, but no modern democratic government has or does so. President Obama would not suggest such a rule in the United States. Certainly Israel does not suggest that Arab settlements in what the U.S. recognizes as Israeli land should be discontinued. PLO laws today prescribe death to Arabs who sell land to Jews, a policy that presumably would continue in a Palestinian state where Israeli settlements had been removed. One trusts the President does not support this method of discontinuing Jewish settlements.

Every U.S. President fervently desires to appeal to the Muslim world, but the President should beware of embracing solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will neither end the conflict nor be consistent with either universal or American ideals.

John R. Miller
Former United States Ambassador at Large on Modern Slavery
Visiting Scholar, Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute

The nationalization of a large part of America's auto industry is such a shock that the full realization has yet to settle in one's brain. John Wohlstetter (Discovery senior fellow) puts it in context.

Will someone please find out how long this public ownership is supposed to last? Surely those who care about the functioning of a free market will want the beast put up for sale as soon as possible.

The Liberals have decided not to try to force an election this pleasant summertime in Canada. There were a couple of only mildly interesting provincial elections recently--in BC and Nova Scotia--and there is a business-as-usual mood in Ottawa, apparently. "When it is not necessary to do something it is necessary to do nothing," as Disraeli once said (I am paraphrasing, actually), and so Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff decided to read some reports and let the House of Commons snooze on.

Spring, following late frosts, was tardy in Canada this year, and now our neighbors are greedy for a little summer sunshine. They don't want an election. Who can blame them?

Freedom and opportunity are the salient reasons America is a success in the world. That heritage is the birthright of American citizens. But the horizon of freedom and opportunity is receding for the current generation of the young. Unfortunately, most of them don't even know it.

The headlines are full of fake priorities. Instead of reports about the real economy--how people assess the chances for getting ahead in this recession and after it--you have stories from Washington excoriating private sector executives who make what someone considers too much salary. Even if that were a problem, what business is it of the government's? And if it somehow is a legitimate government concern (for example, because the government is busy nationalizing various previously private corporations), why is it more deemed more important than the opposite issue--the disincentives for people of skill and talent to save and invest? Why is there so little focus on what it takes to get people who still have money to create wealth, add jobs and provide a way to pay off the mountain range of debt President Obama has raised up?

The younger generation is being asked to endorse new government programs--including the take over of health care by stealth--and are not being told that they will have to pay for it. They will pay either through higher payroll and income taxes or through the hidden tax of inflation. The only other option is to grow the economy fast enough to provide new sources of government revenue, but that option is being closed by the Obama Administration's high-tax, high regulation policies and its unremitting demonizing of business people.

Mark Steyn asked a week or two ago (in National Review) how the generation now being born can handle all the new debt being piled up when the next generation, in plain fact, isn't big enough--the age cohort is too small--to do the job.

Ask yourself: how many children have you had? (Remember, the replacement rate is technically, 2.1 children per woman.) How many of those--and those of your friends--are getting married and having children themselves? Of those, how many are applying themselves to the study and hard work that will provide a living as high or higher than that which you have achieved?

Do the math. It doesn't pencil out when you are looking at the country as a whole. Even immigration doesn't solve the problem, since most immigrants are not educated for the jobs of the future.

So, you have a population too small to carry the burden being placed on them and unequipped to shoulder it anyhow. Then you adopt tax and regulatory policies that discourage rather than encourage enterprise and economic growth. And guess what? You get a rather more bleak future than people have faced in a very long time.

We can get over this, but it won't be easy or painless and it won't happen with the present media slant that misinforms the people about what is really going on. The beginning of constructive change is honesty about our problems.

Sadly, the generation whose hopes are being blighted is the generation that has been most successfully bamboozled about the present reality.

Iran cannot sustain its authoritarian regime, that's the message from this week's elections. Street crowds of angry youth--and youth are a majority in Iran--are bold now. Even if they are crushed tomorrow, as the mullah promise, the anger is not going away. It will incite division and intrigue within the government. The military may grow restless.

"Vox populi, vox Deo" is not just an ultimate reality in the West. Opposition leader Hossein Mousavi himself is only a latter-day reformer, after all, riding the wave of revolt the way the mullahs rode it in 1979. Only now the revolt is against the theocrats, not a pro-Western government. This is an election that got away from the the repressive anti-democrats.

Two weeks ago it didn't seem possible that the theocrats could be put into such a panic. President Obama then was only too eager then to find common ground with them. Only toward the end did it become clear that the public mood was different. The claim of a landslide for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was too clever by half; it confirmed the suspicion of fraud.

Now the illegitimacy of the regime is on display. It has an eerie familiarity, doesn't it? It is the feeling of freedom let lose when the Communists fell in the old Soviet bloc.

(Sunday morning update.)

If Canadians could have voted in the 2008 American elections, Barack Obama would have received a runaway landslide. So the slow realization that the new Administration and its allies in Congress are quite indifferent to the neighbors to the North is only slowly dawning on Canadians. It doesn't fit their expectations. They don't know what to do with the information.

The same goes for Mexico. You just don't hear a lot of protest about the trucking policy from Latino political groups, almost all of whom backed Obama. Punishing our Southern neighbor just doesn't fit their expectations, either. So they are mostly silent.

The adroit and insightful Deroy Murdock nails it. I'm sorry if the reality makes free trade advocate friends uncomfortable. But it turns out that the new crowd really does not completely respect NAFTA. Face it.

The tens of thousands of protestors are now hundreds of thousands. The outbursts in Teheran now turn out to be occurring in "every town", according to Iranians here in Seattle hearing from friends and relations. (Iranian Americans number about one million, a sizable and largely unrecognized group.) The TV in Iran apparently continues to downplay the demonstrations, if not ignoring them altogether, a sure sign of a dictatorship in panic. Trying to pretend that nothing is happening when the streets are full of people and gunshots are heard around the capital is another indication to the people that the government and its agents are out of touch and frightened.

I just heard from one immigrant here that a group of Revolutionary Guard leaders--from the 150,000 or so elite force supposedly most loyal to the mullahs--has been arrested in Teheran for suspected sympathy to the demonstrators.

In the Iranian news recently was a story about how much money--reportedly $700 million--was pent by Iran to bolster Hizbollah in Lebanon's elections (Hizbollah lost). That sort of news account may have added fuel to popular discontent, since Iranians understand that money that could be used to ease the local economic distress has gone instead to political adventurism abroad.

Bribery is a big problem in the Middle East and some of that $700 million may have gone down that particular rabbit hole. The mullahs inside Iran are corrupt themselves. That feeds the outcry, too.

Meanwhile, repression like that of the past few days--raiding the University dorms and putting student leaders in prison--can only work if the problem has not grown too large. When protestors are too numerous to arrest and the prisons too full, neither brutality nor partial capitulation will prevail.

Americans should be outspoken in support of the forces of freedom.

Twitter in San Francisco must be uncommonly proud. Its service is defeating the Iranian censors. As this article indicates, Ahmadinejad government is playing "whack a mole", wielding centralized technology by theocrats against distributed technology in the hands of democrats.

(UPDATE: The most disturbing Twitter reports are of non-Farsi-speaking thugs attacking students and others in Teheran. Twitter reports believe they are Hizbollah and other imports. Many are on motorbikes. Michael Ledeen has fine analysis at Pajama Media. (Final note: It's nearly noon Tuesday in Iran. The country is literally on its own time--eleven and HALF hours later than Pacific Coast time, which is to say, eight and a half hours later than the East Coast.)

People on the outs imagine--wrongly, in most cases--that people on the inside are prejudiced and corrupt. This makes it more likely, sadly, that when the outs get in, they feel entitled to behave the same way they imagine is customary. Much of the wrong done in the world occurs when leaders project their own negative attitudes onto others and then punish their foes--class enemies, racial rivals, or what have you-- preemptively.

Brother Howard Chapman applies a similar analysis (why should you be surprised?) to the conduct of the judiciary. What the Sotomayor nomination exalts is the daunting post-modern principle that law is based on the interests of the powerful, and that therefore it is all right for the minority, upon acquiring power, to exercise discrimination in favor of their own perceived group interests.

A Tehran University student's computer, purportedly broken during a militia raid.

The discussions in the White House right now must be fascinating and maybe heated--should we openly side with the Iranian demonstrators or hold to the neutrality pose? Just now the President's spokesman said he hopes Twitter will continue to delay needed maintenance downtime so that direct news can be reported from the Iranian people. That's a positive step. After all, Western reporters are being ordered to stay in their offices and not to report from the street. So brave reports from Iranians are all there are to get the truth out. (Two top Twitter sites #IranElection and #CNNfail--a running reproach to CNN's less than helpful coverage.)

Right now there are a spate of Twitter messages saying that there are more deaths today and raids of homes and offices; also that the Army has entered Tehran to confront the demonstrators. If so, this escalation raises the prospect of rank and file Iranian soldiers being called upon to attack their fellow citizens. It is a different prospect from the actions of the Basij ("Mobilization") militia that are a kind of kind of palace guard for the theocrats and have been beating demonstrators with batons over several days. In many revolutions, a critical moment comes when ordinary citizens in Army service are asked to fire on other citizens. They may do it once, even twice. But eventually, they may refuse their orders and then, whether planning it or not, may switch sides. If that happens, the revolution reaches a new, more explosive stage. Remember, too, the soldiers are young, and so are most demonstrators. They are all Iranians.

An alternative scenario is that the supposed reformer Moussavi goes on TV (which the Twitterers also say he is trying to do) and essentially cools down the protests with minimum demands, whereafter the regime regains control.

Regardless, as Amir Fakhravar, the former head of the Iran Student Confederation and a prisoner tortured repeatedly in the infamous Iranian prisons, said today, the people of Iran have not had a chance to express their will about the main contours of the government. The real powers in the theocracy merely present them with pre-approved candidates they can choose among. Fakhravar spoke eloquently at Discovery Institute two years ago; today he pointed out on FOX News that the Iranians are expressing themselves in the street as never before. The demonstrators are an appealing lot, not hateful, but peaceful, almost too pleading. And they are braver than the demonstrators of 30 years ago who were standing up to forces that already were crumbling.

They need to know our moral support.

Discovery Sr. Fellow John Wohlstetter (author, The Long War Ahead: And the Short War Upon Us) was on the Dennis Miller program today discussing the so-far inadequate response of President Obama to the sham election in Iran and the need for a new, internationally supervised election.

Time is important. The anti-Ahmadinejad demonstrations are widely supported, but not well organized. The government owns the power of force and the will to use it. If the White House imagines that failing to state a stronger view will somehow appease Ahmadinejab, they haven't been paying attention. As Wohlstetter says, our President apparently is being put to school the way Jimmy Carter was, but the lesson has not yet sunk in. Is this the crisis (as I suggested in this blog) that Joe Biden had in mind when, during the campaign, he predicted one within six months of the new Administration?

John Wohlstetter also says on the Miller show, there may well be connections between Iran and North Korea (remember "the Axis of Evil"?). And, meanwhile, Al Qaida is watching closely, as are Iran's clients, Hezbollah and Hamas.

Almost unnoticed, Mohammed El Baradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is stating about as plainly as possible that Iran seeks nuclear arms.

Some mullahs are breaking away from the theocratic core in Iran and its current driving force, the security services. Division grows. The legitimacy of the government is being undermined. The least we can do is show moral support for the cause of real democracy and reform.

The top Shia cleric in the world is Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, 78, born in Iran, living in Najaf, Iraq since 1951. Ayatollah al-Sistani had a major influence in calming sectarian violence in Iraq after the American invasion, turning Shia voters away from the extremists, led by Iran-backed Ahmed Mukhtar al-Sadr. The senior cleric and scholar seldom leaves Najaf; indeed, he seldom leaves his house.

But in the battle over legitimacy in Iran, if Ayatollah Sistani says much negative about the repressive present government in Iran--the backers of Sadrites in Iraq, as well as of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon--it could have serious consequences for Iran's government under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Grand Ayatollah doesn't even have to say his piece publicly. Many Iranian mullahs could switch their allegiance rapidly.

As this is posted, it is high noon Saturday in Iran. Mousavi and his aides, and former President Rafsanjani who supports the protests, are being threatened personally, say bloggers and the tweets. This is a fateful day.

It no longer is a question of whether Iran is in a revolution, but whether the revolution will succeed. There is still a question, as in many revolutions, about the revolutionaries' ultimate goal. Until now, at least, there would have been great happiness among the protestors if Supreme Leader Ali Kahmenei had simply agreed to reform--another election, in this case. But the stakes are being raised. Kahmenei is signaling worsening repression. The thuggish Basij milita, in plainclothes with knives, clubs and guns, are being given increased freedom to attack the peaceful protestors and the homes of suspected supporters. Unknown scores are dead, hundreds, maybe thousands, are in prison. The foreign media are being evicted. The fierce response of a government against its own peaceful citizens is incitement for more far-reaching revolutionary ambitions.

To its lasting discredit, the Russian government of Medvedev and Putin has recognized the highly doubtful election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=29285 China joins in. According to the South China Post (Hong Kong), mainland government authorities are ordering the media to downplay protest events in Iran. Wouldn't want people getting ideas.http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2c913216495213d5df646910cba0a0a0/?vgnextoid=1991d1a7a69f1210VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=teaser&ss=China&s=News

In the next stage, the huge crowds of protestors in Iran's cities--accessible to the world largely through cell phones and Twitter--will crumble under the assault of the state. Or the state will make concessions to gain time. Or the revolution will take a new direction and state violence will be answered with popular violence. It would take overwhelming numbers for the latter to succeed. That, and expanding divisions within the current ruling class.

Many observers are assuming that even if the protestors prevail and the government collapses--in one way or another--and Mousavi accedes to the presidency, the West will still still face an antagonistic regime bent on developing nuclear weapons. I'm not so sure. Revolutions famously take on a life of their own. After all this, why should Iranians put up with an authoritarian dictatorship, international isolation and a crippled economy for sake of a belligerent defense and foreign policy? The achievable alternative is a relatively liberal state with genuine elections (where a Supreme Leader and his Guardian Council don't get to vet candidates), international cooperation and economic growth.

There certainly is some hand-wringing at CNN and in the major media generally about the criticism of CNN. Much of it is coming from Iran. The widely cited Twitter address #CNNfail is based on disgust with that network. CNN is more popular internationally and has more sophisticated content, someone should point out, than does CNN inside the U.S.

To some analysts the rise of #CNNfail is a matter of demand for more coverage. http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/200906/1752/ CNN, they say, is held to higher standards than, say, Fox. That seems a peculiar reading of the Twitter and blog traffic

Try out this interpretation instead: CNN failed the Iranian people and its international audience because it was slow to acknowledge the breadth and depth of popular discontent in Iran. CNN's coverage exhibited this failure. CNN correspondents and anchors reflected the network's diffidence. They acted as if they lacked sympathy for the protesters. Perhaps that was because, at first, at least, they did lack such sympathy. A liberal (small "l") revolution in Iran didn't fit their template, for some reason.

That is why we have seen the phenomenon of #CNNfail. Even young Iranians are media critics now.

This is from Huffington Post, implicitly confirming my earlier post (June 17) that speculated about the behind-the-scenes role in Iran of Shia Grand Ayatollah Sistani (who lives in Iraq). So far as I know, nobody else has raised this possibility:

6:00 PM ET -- Where is Rafsanjani? "According to an online reformist news source Rooyeh, Rafsanjani has been in Qom meeting some members of Council of Experts and a representative of Ayatollah Sistani.

According to the source that asked to remain anonymous, during this meeting they recounted memories of the days of the Revolution.

A reasonable purpose of these meetings, according to the source, is that Rafsanjani is looking for a majority to possibly call for Ahmadinejad's resignation.

As one reader points out, Sistani is "one of the most respected Grand Ayatollahs within Shia Islam in the world. He's Iranian (from Mashhad, same city as Khamenei), but spends most time in Najaf/Karbala in Iraq."

Cell phones are wonderful, especially the complicated new ones that do everything short of cooking dinner and baby sitting the children. The future George Gilder predicted thirty years ago in Life After Television is here.

But when it comes to cell phone etiquette we are stuck in the barbarian past. Some people still shout into the little devices as if they couldn't be heard otherwise. That is annoying even out on a busy street. But the worst bores are those who ruthlessly ignore everyone around them in restaurants, theaters and meetings, dulling their (probably well-justified) loneliness by talking loudly on their cell phones to whoever they think might validate their existence and the importance of their every fleeting thought.

A woman at the neighborhood coffee house sat right across from me one recent morning and for twenty minutes blathered on her phone about her job as a university soccer coach. She talked about her pay, the team's schedule, even the supposed derelictions of her fellow coaches.

There was no reading my paper; she had seized me by the eardrums and wouldn't let go. Like many with cellphonitis, she stared straight ahead, resolutely avoiding eye contact. Other patrons squirmed, finished their coffee and left. So did I. Too bad we couldn't have charged her for our time.

I am not going to let this happen again. Lady, you are going to be confronted. If you are happy to broadcast your private business to an uncaring world, fine, but I plan to share my own discomfiture in being forced to share that activity--and I will share it with you. I won't raise my voice, but I will stand in space where you can't avoid me and start discussing the situation reasonably with you until you give up your call and quit bellowing.

Meanwhile, here is a good indication that cell phone providers--like liquor makers who run ads about "responsible drinking"--are alert to the irritation their product can cause.

I don't want another law (please), just enforcement of a custom that civilized people respect in other situations. Keep your conversations to yourself.

Avvenire, a prominent Italian newspaper, has been following a story there of denied end-of-life care. The reporter wanted to know the opinion of Wesley Smith, Discovery Sr. Fellow, and his replies are printed here (translated):

"After Terri Schiavo, Silence"

Wesley J. Smith is the author of numerous books, most notably Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America. Mr. Smith, a member of the Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide and an advocate for Terri Schiavo and her family, was happy to chat with us about “end of life” issues. He began by saying that “no human being, even if they are in Eluana (Englaro's) condition, may be called a 'vegetable'. It is a word that is intended to dehumanize them."

What is the importance of cases like Eluana, and what is the public's reaction to them?

The country (USA) is generally unaware of the Eluana Englaro case. Ever since the Terri Schiavo media circus, I think that the attention to these issues has waned, especially if they are overseas stories —perhaps because the media think the issue has been settled.

From a legal point of view, what are the repercussions of the Schiavo case in the United States?

After Terri’s death, there have been a few attempts to make it more difficult to dehydrate people with cognitive disabilities. But politicians were scared off by the media outcry against Terri’s family and the “religious right”, ignoring the fact that disability rights activists were also part of the movement to save her life.

The issue of artificial nutrition as a medical treatment is of very topical interest in Italy. What do American doctors think about it?

I don’t think that doctors behaved differently after the Terri Schiavo case. Food and water are pulled almost as a matter of routine. Most doctors think of it as just part of the practice of medicine. It is only when families disagree that these cases go to court or make news.

What are the consequences of these definitions?

Because the tube requires a minor surgical procedure and the sustenance is specially prepared to have a proper balance of nutrients, in the United States it is defined as a medical treatment. But if it means that it can be refused as you can refuse an aspirin, then there are ethical problems, because refusing food and water will have only one possible outcome: death. So I think artificial nutrition and hydration should be in a category of its own and not so easily withheld or withdrawn.

Seeing this in context shows how hard it has become in the U.S. to stop the current slippery slide into moral relativism.

First President Obama had little to say about the demonstrators in Iran, saying he didn't think America should "meddle". A number of liberal US pundits praised this posture. Then, the President apparently changed his mind and started using tougher language about the brutal regime of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. In fact, "Administration" spokesmen are now suggesting that the President's Cairo speech may have inspired the demonstrators in the first place.

Moral: if you don't like President Obama's position on a foreign policy issue, wait a minute. It may change. Not only that, you'll find out it was always what it has changed to now.

Theistic evolution is the concept that Darwin's theory of unguided evolution is absolutely true and unquestionable, but that this unguided process was secretly guided by God. (Any evidence of guidance is not for human eyes, however, especially scientists'.) To make this eyebrow raising assertion, theistic evolutionists Ken Miller and Francis Collins want us to believe a version of process theology, where God didn't know how intelligent beings would come out when he set the self-propelling evolutionary process into motion. We could as well have become not human beings, but big brained dinosaurs or intelligent mollusks, as Ken Miller has said. On his religion blog at Beliefnet ("Kingdom of Priests"), David Klinghoffer enjoys a sporting day at sea with the concept.

Theistic evolution makes no sense and simply begs for such satire. As science it defies Darwin's theory, as such Darwinians as Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins state. (If theistic evolution is unguided, even behind the scenes, it's not Darwinian evolution.) But theistic evolution also makes a hash of orthodox religious belief.

If the human body is just a fleshy vessel, and not the temple designed for the soul, then the downgraded product is justly relegated to the status of other animals. That's how we get Stephen Pinker and his views on radical animal rights. That is how we get to embryonic stem research, unlimited abortion and euthanasia.

There are reasons why orthodox Christians and Jews have granted dignity to the body; and why, for example, the traditional Judeo-Christian culture opposes self-mutilation. In contrast, the early Christian heresy of gnosticism sought to downgrade the body and set the spirit against it. But Christians especially treat the human body as different from all others and a partner of the soul. For example, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans and Anglicans are chief among the Christian denominations, though not the only ones, that attach great significance to the body of Christ in the Eucharist. Christ's body was raised from the dead, as, in Christian cosmology, our human bodies, too, will be raised at the day of Judgement.

It is doubtful that Collins or Miller have much appreciation of the thin theological ice on which they blithely skate. "The theology of the body", Pope John Paul II's phrase, is crucial to the faith, and the "body" that it, the Bible and tradition have in mind is irrefragably human and two legged, not aquatic.

Intelligent design is not involved in this fight since it doesn't identify a designer or get into theological issues. ID does have implications for theology (and philosophy), , of course, as does Darwin's theory. But it doesn't try to make them part of its scientific argument as the theistic evolutionists seemingly cannot resist doing.

Steve Meyer is the leader of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute--the organization that puts the most noted critics of Darwinism and proponents of intelligent design onto the field of intellectual competition. He also exemplifies the movement in his own writing, speeches and debates. Publication (by Harper/One) this week of Signature in the Cell assembles the most searching and advanced argument for ID yet. It seems likely to become a classic treatise, a scientific Mt. Probable that Darwinists like Richard Dawkins will not be able to scale by steps small or large. (See http://www.signatureinthecell.com/.)

I met Steve almost 15 years ago when he was a popular young professor at Whitworth College in Spokane, not long removed from private sector work in geology in Texas and his doctoral research in the philosophy of science at Cambridge University. He already had emerged as a leader, however. From that time on, Steve's energy and resourceful insights helped re-shape the mission of Discovery Institute and extend the debate over intelligent design world-wide.

During these years he has written many distinguished articles and papers, including the peer-reviewed paper on the Cambrian explosion for The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington that got the journal's editor, Richard Sternberg, into such celebrated trouble at the Smithsonian, as the film Expelled explained. (It's a great story told well in the new book.) All the while, Steve has been a mentor and editor for the other fellows and staff of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute and has given sacrificially of his talent to help others achieve their goals.

Now he has distilled his own research and reflection into one big, pathfinding book. Signature in the Cell could have been a couple of books, actually, since it is packed with so many provocative ideas. But Steve was advised early on by his Discovery friend and colleague George Gilder to "put everything you have into one book," and that's what he has done. Along the way, he also describes his own, often surprising personal journey. There are a number of rollicking inside accounts here not seen anywhere before.

I had the challenge of serving as one of Steve's readers when Signature in the Cell was still in manuscript form this past winter. I relished the learning opportunity. What a relief and thrill for all of us to have it finished and published now. You'll see, it was worth waiting for.

I have to congratulate Steve here, and urge everyone I know who cares about the big ideas that rock our times to read Signature in the Cell. Expect a torrent of contrived Darwinian media alarm, of course, and consider the source. They once accused us of operating mainly as a public relations office, but the opposite is true. Dr. Meyer's scholarship is as sophisticated as his style is accessible. The Darwinists meanwhile are treading very stale water these days and pretending they are swimming in a fresh, sylvan pool.

So, as usual, do your own reading and thinking, and tell your friends. To my own way of thinking, Steve Meyer, with this book, should be recognized as one of the foremost intellectual entrepreneurs of our age.

The producers of The Stoning of Soraya M. could not be opening their film at a better time than now. The fictionalized telling of a true story from Iran's post-revolution is hard to watch at times and it leaves an audience feeling drained and frustrated. But when I watched a preview a couple of months ago it was clear that everyone present had been affected deeply by the experience. This is about the kind of "evil" that won Iran a position in George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil" category. You understand again the kind of hypocritical theocrats that would bludgeon peaceful demonstrators in Tehran these past few weeks and loot their homes.

The fine acting by Shoreh Aghadahloo is a revelation. She is someone I have never seen before. The nominal co-star, Jim Caviezel (of Passion of the Chris fame), is also excellent, though his role is much smaller than the top billing would indicate.

You can see it nation-wide starting tomorrow. http://www.thestoning.com/

The badly flawed and increasingly unpopular energy bill that is now in Congress--and barely passed by the overwhelmingly Democratic House--does not have to be the only choice presented to the American people.

A constructive idea that accords well with the overall need to stimulate the economy as well as reduce pollution and dependence on foreign oil has been offered today in a Seattle Times article by Bruce Flory, economist, and Todd Myers, environmental director of the Washington Policy Center.