GUINNESS REALLY IS GOOD FOR YOU!

Brennan, like many cardiologists, recommends a drink a day for his cardiac patients. Red wine, in particular, has been shown to help prevent heart attacks. Now maybe it’s beer’s turn. A University of Wisconsin study last fall found that moderate consumption of Guinness worked like aspirin to prevent clots that increase the risk of heart attacks. In the study, Guinness proved twice as effective as Heineken at preventing blood clots. Guinness is loaded with flavonoids, antioxidants that give dark color to certain fruits and vegetables. These antioxidants are better than vitamins C and E, the study found, at keeping bad LDL (bad) cholesterol from clogging arteries. Blocked arteries also contribute to erectile dysfunction, as does overindulgence in alcohol.

Guinness has a higher concentration than lighter beers of vitamin B, which lowers levels of homocysteine, linked to clogged arteries. And researchers have found that antioxidants from the moderate use of stout might reduce the incidence of cataracts by as much as 50 percent.

It’s milk’s line, but beer gives you strong bones, too.

That’s actually a Belhaven Scottish Ale I’m drinking in the picture, but I suspect it’s medicinal too, and you can’t drink the same
medicine all the time. And, as you can see from the other picture, my brother is taking no chances with his health, either.

Well, if Lileks can write about his Easter travels, I don’t see why I can’t post photos of mine. That’s Nicholson’s in Cincinnati, where my brother and I enjoyed a couple of cool ones. Nice place. Though I’m not a serious Scotch drinker, they gave us a sample of Aberlour A’bunadh, which was very nice if rather strong. Is it good for your heart, too? Why take chances. . . .?

JEFF JACOBY and Louis Freeh both have comments on how the world — especially the intelligence and foreign-policy world — has changed since 9/11, and how difficult it is to look at pre-9/11 actions without engaging in excessive hindsight.

Freeh, of course, has some incentive to make that point.

RICHARD CLARKE will be working for ABC News. This has left some people unimpressed. I’d say that Clarke moved just in time, as his credibility is facing new challenges:

Disputing Clarke’s claim, Rice testified customs agents “weren’t actually on alert.”

At least one of the agents who helped apprehend Ressam sides with Rice’s version of events.

Moreover, others involved in the Ressam case say Clarke’s book contains factual errors and wrongly implies national-security officials knew of Ressam’s plan to set a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport long before they actually did.

More in this report. And consistent with the poll I linked yesterday, showing that the 9/11 hearings seem to have helped Bush, a reader sends this story:

A growing number of Americans say they believe the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush did everything that could be expected to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to two new polls.

A Time/CNN survey taken yesterday showed that 48 percent of Americans said they believe the Bush administration did all it could to prevent the attacks, up from 42 percent in a poll taken March 26-28. A CBS News poll, also conducted yesterday, showed 32 percent of Americans said the administration did everything possible to stop the attacks, up from 22 percent the previous week.

The two polls follow the testimony of U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and former Bush and Clinton administration counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke before an independent commission investigating the terrorist attacks.

Ouch.

UPDATE: More on Ressam here. It seems that he was actually a casualty of the war on drugs, as Customs agents, rather than looking for a terrorist, thought he was a smuggler:

They peered in and saw no spare tire. In its place were several green bags that appeared to filled with white powder, as well as four black boxes, two pill bottles and two jars of brown liquid. A drug dealer, perhaps? . . .

Johnson took a sample of the white powder from the trunk to test. Was it heroin, speed, cocaine? Negative on each. As he shook the jars of brown liquid, Noris, who could see Johnson from the patrol car, ducked down to the floor.

Within a couple of days, the inspectors would learn that the brown liquid Johnson had shaken was a powerful, highly unstable relative of nitroglycerin that could have blown them all to bits.

(Emphasis added.) Doesn’t sound like this was because of a terrorist alert to me, and it suggests that Clarke is rewriting history again. I doubt he’ll do a lot for ABC’s reputation.

OVERUSE OF THE NANOTECHNOLOGY LABEL is being called securities fraud by some.

AM I BEHIND THE CURVE? I’m quoted in the latest Wired as saying that the Bush folks are way behind where blogs are concerned. And certainly Larry Purpuro’s dismissive comments supported that. But on the other hand, the BlogsforBush blogroll now lists over 400 blogs who have signed on as officially affiliated Bush blogs.

UPDATE: My mistake — they’re not officially affiliated, and one of the bloggers associated with it says that Blogs For Bush is more a sign that the Bush Campaign doesn’t get blogs, and that the slack is being picked up by outsiders, than that the Bushies are on the ball. Er, I mean, this proves I was right all along! Yeah, that’s it.

MARK STEYN:

So how bad are things in Iraq?

Answer: not very. Fallujah is not the new Mogadishu, Muqtaba al-Sadr is not the new Ayatollah Khomeini and, despite what Ted Kennedy says, Iraq is not ”George Bush’s Vietnam.” Or even George Bush’s Chappaquiddick.

Here’s a good rule of thumb: The Pentagon’s demonstrated in two wars now that it’s got beyond Vietnam. If a politician or pundit can’t, pay him no further heed. If Sen. Kennedy wants to give rhetorical aid and comfort to the enemy, he could at least be less lazy about it.

Now here’s the more important question: Are the Iraqi people on the American side?

Answer: No. . . . That’s the point to remember: The Iraqi people don’t want to be on the American side, only on the winning side.

Read the whole thing, which offers some interesting insights from Steyn’s own visit to Fallujah, and some thoughts on what the coalition has been doing wrong.

CAN’T BLAME JOHN ASHCROFT FOR THIS ONE: John Leo notes a serious threat to free speech in Canada. What’s left of it there, anyway, which is pretty limited by American standards.

UPDATE: Reader Kevin O’Meara emails: “It will be interesting to see if the Canadians apply this law to sermons in mosques.” Yes, it will be.

ROGER SIMON WRITES: “It’s the mullahs, stupid!”

Nowhere can we see that better [than] in the see no evil, hear no evil international response to that fulcrum of Islamic fascism itself Iran. One of the most populous countries in the region with one of the most educated populaces, if not the most educated populace, its people are suffering under one of the most heinous regimes in the world, a mullahcracy that is the greatest single exporter of violent terror and frightening reactionary ideology extant. All of this is enabled, even de facto supported, by our European allies (yes, including the British, alas) who have treated the mad mullahs in much the same way they treated the Nazis in 1937, looking the other way to preserve their business interests. Meanwhile students are tortured, dissidents murdered, nuclear weapons constructed and millions of dollars sent overseas to support their Islamofascist brethren in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.

Read the whole thing. Roger also notes that there’s considerable resistance to the mullarchy in Iran, and that we should be supporting it.

JOURNALISTIC ETHICS UPDATE:

NEW YORK — Blindsided by a controversy over its corporate ties to the publisher of Richard Clarke’s book, “60 Minutes” has promised that it will not happen again.

Indeed. The piece notes the dangers posed by media consolidation, though I think pays too little attention to the political temptations, and motivations, involved in the treatment given Clarke’s book.

UPDATE: Reader Paul Shelton emails:

In a far cry from CBS, kudos to NBC last night for their movie “Homeland Security.” Although I rarely watch network television, I happened to tune in and was very impressed. The lack of political correctness or political motivation was surprising.

Did you see it? I thought it was a realistic, gripping account of the troubles with the FBI/CIA firewall that caused many of the blindspots before 9-11. The scenes in Afghanistan were also gripping. It depicted the inability to “connect the dots” in a variety of ways at the agency level. The movie tactfully did NOT focus on the president or his cabinet. A very refreshing take on a subject, even to the point of depicting men of Arab descent who were involved in terrorism as “bad guys!”

Shocking. Good for NBC.

I didn’t see it, but that sounds good.

BLOGGERS MAKE IT BIG — Mitch Berg emails:

The Northern Alliance will be filling in for Hugh Hewitt tomorrow and Wednesday, 6-9 Eastern/3-6 Pacific.

Over the two days, the show will feature Captain Ed, PowerLine, Fraters Libertas, King Banaian from SCSU Scholars, James Lileks, and me.

Cool!

HOWARD KURTZ has a McCain Veeptalk roundup. Just remember, you heard it here first!

PEOPLE GENERALLY SEEM to like the new site design. One person complained that I took down the blogroll — er, no, it’s over there on the right, which makes the page load faster than when it’s on the left. Just scroll. Also note that you can change font sizes to suit your display, just click on the stylesheet switcher on the right.

A couple of readers wondered, meanwhile, if there was political significance to my blogroll moving from left to right, though there was some disagreement as to whether I was “moving right” or “subtly positioning myself to the left of the blogosphere.” Er, neither.

The site redesign is by Stacy Tabb of Sekimori Designs, who rules.

WINDS OF CHANGE has its war news roundup posted. Among other things, we learn that Iran has pumped $80 million into Sadr’s revolt. That seems to call for a response.

JEFF JARVIS has a roundup of Iraqi blog posts, which offer interestingly varied perspectives on what’s going on. Zeyad is particularly depressed, but Alaa offers this point, which seems clearly true:

I hope you all realize that a major objective of the enemy is to produce defeatism in the U.S. and allied nations home front, counting on the democratic process to force the hand of policy makers. The War in fact never stopped from the first day of the fall of the Icon….

One thing is fundamental though: Once you start exercising firmness it will be disastrous if you falter and show weakness again. Diplomacy and politics are essential of course, but the arguments of the strong are always much more convincing.

Indeed. Meanwhile David Schuler wonders why Sadr’s Iranian support is getting so little media attention.

SOME THOUGHTS on biosecurity and the bioterror gap. I had a somewhat similar column here a while back. Different perspectives, same problem.

ALPHECCA’S WEEKLY SURVEY OF MEDIA BIAS CONCERNING GUNS is up. He notes a particularly juvenile piece by Mike Seate in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Grow up and get a clue, Mike.

HOWARD DEAN’S LATEST OPED gets a bad review:

Dean’s editorial perfectly encapsulates the Democratic approach this year; their focus isn’t on what they can offer the American public but simply to vent hatred as a selling point. Here’s a measure of what Dean is selling: Ralph Nader is mentioned in the text of this article eight times, not counting the headline. George Bush is mentioned seven times by name.

John Kerry is mentioned once.

Ouch.

POWER LINE: “I wonder: does Glenn Reynolds cover beauty pageants? He may want to start.” Hmm. They make a persuasive case.