NEAL STEPHENSON AGAIN: Here’s a quote worth remembering:

The twentieth century was one in which limits on state power were removed in order to let the intellectuals run with the ball, and they screwed everything up and turned the century into an abattoir. . . . We Americans are the only ones who didn’t get creamed at some point during all of this. We are free and prosperous because we have inherited political and value systems fabricated by a particular set of eighteenth-century intellectuals who happened to get it right. But we have lost touch with those intellectuals.

I thought of it while reading this comment by Steven Chapman on the U.S. / European divide:

In fact, the “basic values and interests” of Europe and America diverged as long ago as the 18th century, and revolve around a fairly profound disagreement over the notion of liberty. I’m not going to go into that here (read Isaiah Berlin if you want the low-down on this), but this disagreement is at the root of the fact that neither fascism or socialism has been attractive to Americans (nor to a lesser extent the British), for example.

The Stephenson quote is from In the Beginning Was the Command Line, p. 53.

UPDATE: Here’s more on the European left and the war, consistent with the points above.

ANOTHER UPDATE: (From 2011): The Stephenson quote is wrong. Not in a way that changes the meaning, but still, accuracy is important. Follow the link for the correct version.

IAIN MURRAY demurs regarding my post on Ares and Athena. He suggests a different deity.

But where’s Doctor Weevil on this?

JOHN CHIPMAN WRITES in the Financial Times that existing Security Council resolutions give the United States legal authority to invade Iraq.

I HAVE A NEW BLOGCHILD. She’s been known by her middle name, Aimee, though she’s now using her first name (Madeleine) for trademark reasons. Some of you will recognize her.

UPDATE: I should have noted that this is yet another Sekimori Designs site. They’re taking over the Blogosphere! Er, and making it prettier.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jeez, and here’s another one! When do these people sleep?

STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: They’re breeding like rabbits out there!

BLOGCRITICS.COM is now up and running. Check it out.

RACHEL LUCAS has some advice on social interaction that shouldn’t be needed. But in my experience, it often is.

STEPHEN GREEN IS BACK! Sort of. I’m sure he’ll be up to his old rate of posting soon.

JOE KATZMAN has an article on invading Iraq, and what beliefs might make such an invasion seem undesirable. It might profitably be compared with this post by Steven Chapman, which takes a contrary position.

THE IMPEACH NORM MINETA MOVEMENT looks to have found some more support.

They’re not laughing with you, Norm. They’re laughing at you.

JUST CHECKED THE AMAZON HONORS BALANCE: Thanks to all the people who donated yesterday!

MATT WELCH makes a Yahoo! list of the world’s leading journalists. But of course! (Layne’s there too!)

TED TURNER LAND GRAB UPDATE: WyethWire notes that Ted Turner’s PR offensive isn’t working, as witnessed by yet another hostile editorial.

Wyeth also wonders why Ted Turner is suddenly trying to gain control of this land. The obvious answer: he needs to sell the adjoining parcel and can’t get enough money for it without this one, too.

Does he have big development plans? Is he short of cash? Or both? WyethWire is on top of the story.

GREG GREENE shares a Cynthia McKinney attack email with the Blogosphere.

UPDATE: Well behind the Blogosphere — but better late than never — the Washington Post’s Thomas Edsall is onto the Cynthia McKinney donation story.

UPDATE: Reid Stott, who along with the IndePundit is McKinney-central, has more.

IS MAUREEN DOWD GHOSTING EDITORIALS FOR THE NEW YORK SUN? Read the introduction to this editorial:

It feels a bit like Los Angeles here in New York these days. It was bad enough when people started getting Botox injections. Then Monica Lewinsky moved here. Lawyers and bankers stopped wearing neckties to work. The next thing you know, Mayor Bloomberg made a pitch for the Big Apple to host the Academy Awards, a symbol if ever there was one of the star-obsessed culture of the City of Angels. He’s also trying to lure the Democratic National Convention, which was in Los Angeles the last time around. Now, our mayor is trying to import L.A.’s health fanaticism to the city that never sleeps by outlawing smoking in our bars and restaurants.

Hmm. Does Howell Raines know about this?

STRATFOR has a lengthy analysis of the Administration’s reasons for invading Iraq. Excerpt:

From Washington’s point of view, the problem of al Qaeda has become the problem of U.S. relations with the Islamic world in general and with al Qaeda in particular. The Bush people also see this as unsolvable. The creation of a Palestinian state simply will be the preface for the next generation of the war. Repudiation of Israel might satisfy some — while destabilizing Jordan and Egypt — but it still would not solve the core problem, which is the desire to expel the United States from the region.

That leaves abandoning the region altogether, which is seen as impossible. First, there is oil. Although the development of Russian oil reserves is underway, the fact is that Persian Gulf oil is a foundation of the Western economic system, and abandoning direct and indirect (through client regimes) access to that oil would be unacceptable.

Second, al Qaeda’s dream is the creation of an integrated Islamic world in confrontation with the non-Islamic world. This is a distant threat, but were the United States to leave the region, it would not be unthinkable. That itself makes withdrawal unthinkable.

The al Qaeda problem cannot be confined simply to al Qaeda or even to allied groups. It is a problem of a massive movement in the Islamic world that must be contained and controlled. Placating this movement is impossible. The manner in which the movement has evolved makes finding a stable modus vivendi impossible.

What may be possible is reshaping the movement, which would mean changing the psychological structure of the Islamic world. Five events have shaped that psychology:

1. The 1973 oil embargo

2. The survival of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein

3. The defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan

4. The perceived defeat of the United States in Somalia

5. Sept. 11, 2001

Each of these events served to reverse an Islamic sense of impotence. From 1973 until Sept. 11, the Islamic world has been undergoing a dual process. On the one side, there has been a growing sense of the ability of the Islamic and Arab worlds to resist Western power. On the other side, there has been an ongoing sense of victimization, a sense predating the United States by centuries.

The center of gravity of Washington’s problem is psychological. There is no certain military or covert means to destroy al Qaeda or any of its murky allied organizations. They can be harassed, they can be disrupted, but there is no clear and certain way to destroy them. There may, however, be a way to undermine their psychological foundations, by reversing what radical Islamists portray as the inherent inevitability of their cause. Sacrifice toward victory is the ground of their movement. Therefore, if the sense of manifest destiny can be destroyed, then the foundations of the movement can be disrupted.

While invading Iraq has important military and strategic implications, the psychological angle is important, too.

A MAILBOX IN NEW JERSEY HAS TESTED POSITIVE FOR ANTHRAX: Which seems to undermine the Steven Hatfill theory somewhat, given the well-established presence of Islamic extremists in New Jersey.

Yeah, sure, he could have travelled to New Jersey to mail the stuff. But Occam’s razor suggests otherwise.

JAMES LILEKS reflects on nuking Iraq (tragic and unnecessary) and Jennifer Connelly’s plastic surgery (tragic and unnecessary).

ELIZABETH BUMILLER’S ECONOMIC-SUMMIT PIECE in the New York Times is translated thus: “Clinton’s team had ‘political skills’ because they didn’t give reporters like me an opening to take the dumb cheap shots I just took at Bush.”

UGH. SCHOOL STARTS TODAY. Up at the crack of dawn.

I miss summer already.

ALLISON responds to my Athena / Ares post. The answer to your questions, Allison, is that no, war isn’t nice, but many necessary things are not nice. In this case, I don’t think that it’s hard to tell which side is which — but that the other side thinks it’s right too is no reason not to act. The Nazis thought they were right. So did Stalin. But they weren’t, and we’re lucky that the people who opposed them didn’t throw up their hands in response to that.

And, sure, humans are fallible. But imperfect knowledge is a condition of human existence. It’s not an excuse not to act. Because even a decision not to act is based on imperfect knowledge. You have to do the best you can. People who go on for too long about the complex nature of problems either (1) just want to sound profound without taking responsibility for choosing a position; or (2) don’t really think the problems are problems.

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS: Randy Smith notes that there appears to be a vaccine against botulinum toxin — a potential terrorist bioweapon — in the works. The bad news: “Does this mean I’ll get my wrinkles back if I’m inoculated?”

BEAUTIFYING THE BLOGOSPHERE: Radley Balko has a new, Sekimori-designed blog. So does David Kenner, who has a nifty “Across the Web” feature in the upper left corner.

INTERESTING OBSERVATION from Gedankenpundit. The map is very informative.

DANIEL TAYLOR is back in the hospital again, with brain hemorrhages that are worrisome but reportedly not life-threatening. Maybe they’ve got his blood-thinners dosed too high? Anyway, you may want to drop by and leave a “get well” in the comments.

I JUST REALIZED I NEVER LINKED TO this New York Times piece by Emily Eakin on weblogs and Internet journalism. So now I have.