MORTMAN on Milbank. It almost seems unfair.

VIOLENT MOB wants peace.

PEOPLE ARE MUCH HEALTHIER NOW than just a few generations ago:

The difference does not involve changes in genes, as far as is known, but changes in the human form. It shows up in several ways, from those that are well known and almost taken for granted, like greater heights and longer lives, to ones that are emerging only from comparisons of health records.

The biggest surprise emerging from the new studies is that many chronic ailments like heart disease, lung disease and arthritis are occurring an average of 10 to 25 years later than they used to. There is also less disability among older people today, according to a federal study that directly measures it. And that is not just because medical treatments like cataract surgery keep people functioning. Human bodies are simply not breaking down the way they did before.

Even the human mind seems improved. The average I.Q. has been increasing for decades, and at least one study found that a person’s chances of having dementia in old age appeared to have fallen in recent years.

If it seems otherwise, it’s probably because people now have more energy to complain . . . .

UPDATE: Related medical thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader suggests that it’s not just physical:

If it seems otherwise, it’s probably because people now have more energy to complain . . . .

I worked for 15 years as an operation manager for a large trucking company – UPS. The full time path for advancement is first delivering packages (120 stops a day with constant public interaction) and on to tractor trailer driving for a much easier (one stop a day) existence.

The personality change of people was astonishing. Great, hard working, productive, optimistic package car drivers became lazy, complaining, pessimistic tractor trailer drivers that made much more money with a lot less effort. This happened almost overnight.

Has this happened in our county as a whole? Could we be so “fat and happy” that the only thing left to pursue is whining? I wonder sometimes if this “UPS syndrome” is part of what motivates so much political turmoil.

Times have never been better for most people.

It seems that way sometimes.

THE SEATTLE SHOOTINGS and the moral equivalence brigade. Though Josh Marshall claims that he’s being misread here, too. I’ve never seen him as a member of the moral-equivalence crowd, myself. But then, he’s got complaints about my readings of his other stuff, as well, so what do I know . . .

UPDATE: Josh Marshall aside, there’s certainly plenty of moral equivalence out there:

This is the kind of talk one hears around Madison. If the U.S. or Israel does something violent, you speak only in terms of your horror and righteous anger that we have killed people. If our enemies do something violent, you call attention to their understandable frustration and outrage and our role in making them feel that way.

Indeed.

MICHAEL BARONE on the Doha Round’s collapse: “Farming interests, although only a small part of the economy, have effectively killed a trade agreement that would have been beneficial to many more people. The persistence of farm subsidies in this country, and the much larger farm subsidies in Europe, are an example of how interests of the past have more political clout than interests of the present and future. . . . You can see this in one of the worst policy mistakes of the Bush presidency — the 2002 farm bill.”

A LOOK AT porn-star politicians. There’s not much difference between them and the other kind, which may — or may not — come as a shock.

A LOOK AT how Israel and Thailand are preventing Jihadi shootings.

JOSH MARSHALL says I’ve misrepresented a column of his from 2003, though I quoted it at length. I respond here.

UPDATE: For the record, I was not serious in recommending Atrios for Secretary of State. Just having some fun with an over-the-top statement by someone who’s quick to pounce on those. In case, you know, anyone thought I saw him as a useful replacement for Condi, or otherwise took him seriously . . .

Apparently, however, the new rule is that when lefties write these sorts of things we’re supposed to know they don’t mean them. Which makes sense, I guess, since they claim to know what I mean when I don’t write about things! Nonetheless, I reserve my right to tweak.

ISRAELI POLITICS are “upside down,” according to Reuven Hazan in an interview with Allison Kaplan Sommer.

ROGER SIMON has more thoughts on the Seattle jihadist shooting.

And Eugene Volokh, like me, opposes special treatment for hate crimes, but observes: “Nonetheless it certainly makes sense that we would notice these crimes for what they are — manifestations of ethnic hatred that needs to be recognized in order to be fought.”

Meanwhile, Andrew McCarthy notes the media spin. “This is militant Islam in action, but we don’t want to think or talk about Islam, so we’ll pretend that the fact he’s a Muslim is irrelevant (‘terrorists come in all shapes and sizes’ is the official PC postion of government), and if we can’t attach a known group to the shooter we’ll close our eyes to the fact that he might have reason to understand that his religion impelled him to act.”

That’s true, but I can also imagine pretty good reasons why the authorities might wish to downplay this, in order to avoid copycats. Meanwhile, a name and photo for the shooter, here. And Gerard van der Leun, who lives in Seattle, posts some thoughts.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt looks at the spin:

Five weeks ago seven would-be terrorists, home grown division, were arretsed in Miami. Their stories have largely vanished from the news.

Seven weeks ago 17 would-be terrorists, home grown/Canada division, were arrested in Toronto. Their stories have largely vanished from the news.

So in less than two months we have 25 arrests of terrorists intent on killing in the US, only one of whom succeeded, but the successful one is described by the home town paper as “having a history of mental illness” and the others have dropped off the list of MSM-approved topics for coverage.

Can we agree that all terrorists have some degree of mental illness? Can we also agree that it is completely and utterly irrelevant to the victims of their crimes?

What we need to know –and what the American MSM seems profoundly uninterested in– is where did they come from? What made them terrorists?

With Tim McVeigh they were happy to generalize guilt, all the way from the NRA to Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. Here, the “climate of opinion” in subcultures producing terrorists seems to get less attention, or to be processed in more of a “why do they hate us?” fashion. I wonder why?

But here’s a starting place.

Rusty Shackleford writes: “Me? I’m going to buy a gun. I’m serious.”

UPDATE: Eric Muller has some thoughts on the subculture issue.

A CALL TO PORKBUSTING ARMS: “By last count, 43 blogs were on board covering 86 House members. One person in Ohio even created a blog specifically to watch pork-barrel spending close to home.” Join up!

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY is down in the polls.

A MASS SHOOTING at the Seattle Jewish Center:

At least five people were shot, one of them fatally, Friday afternoon at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, and one person was arrested, authorities said.

Five or six people were wounded, assistant police chief Jim Pugel said.

One person died, fire department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick said.

One wounded woman was shot in the abdomen and another woman was hit in the arm, according to news accounts. Information on the others wounded was not immediately available. . . .

Several witnesses said they saw a man walk up and shoot a woman in the leg on a sidewalk near the building.

“We heard this horrible screaming on the floor above us and shots,” Patti Simon said in a phone interview, her voice shaking. “We didn’t know what was happening.”

Simon, who sells advertising for the federation’s newspaper, was working on the first floor when she heard screaming, shots and what sounded like furniture crashing on the floor above.

Yoni is posting updates, and the Seattle Times reports:

According to Amy Wasser-Simpson, the vice president for planning and community services for the Jewish Federation, the man told staff members, “I’m a Muslim American; I’m angry at Israel,” then began shooting, Wasser-Simpson said she heard the account from staff members who witnessed the shootings.

Another report, however, says he’s a Pakistani national. Early reports are often wrong, so stay tuned.

Pajamas Media has a big roundup with lots of photos, maps and links.

UPDATE: More here:

Sources told KING 5 the suspect is a 31-year-old Pakistani man with a criminal background. He is from the Pasco but his citizenship status or how long he has lived in the United States is unknown. Also unknown is what sort of criminal record he has. Officials are on the way to the Pasco to interview his family.

FBI spokesman David Gomez said officials believe the suspect acted alone and is not affiliated with a foreign organization.

I suppose that’s probably right, though I don’t know how they could possibly have much basis for that belief at this point. And regardless, I think this is particularly bad news for both American Jews and American Muslims. But it’s bad news for all of us.

Meanwhile, Charles Johnson has video, and notes that all of the shooting victims were women.

SURELY THE END TIMES ARE UPON US: Ana Marie Cox is now Time.com’s Washington Editor.

DON SURBER: “The problem with catching Glenn Greenwald at sock puppetry is that it allows his very weak arguments to pass unchallenged.”

Surber picks up the ball.

UPDATE: All right, I’m busted, and I admit it. Glenn Greenwald is my sock puppet. That’s why you never see us photographed together.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Say what you will about Greenwald — no, really, say what you will, it’s okay with me — but he’s certainly providing a lot of blogospheric amusement. And people can use that about now.

Thanks, Glenn!

MORE: Surber responds to a critic.

THIS WOULD SEEM TO ARGUE AGAINST THE THEORY THAT HEZBOLLAH IS WINNING: “Hezbollah leader said to be hiding in Iranian Embassy.”

The Iranians are no doubt confident that no one would be so depraved as to disregard the sanctity of an embassy . . . .

ALAN BOYLE looks at new vs. old space.

RON BAILEY follows the money.

MAJOR JOHN TAMMES rounds up news from Afghanistan that you may have missed.

OKAY, this didn’t come in the mail, but was handed to me by a colleague. It’s Nina Planck’s Real Food: What to Eat and Why. Helen immediately stole it when I brought it home, but she pronounces it good.

DOG BITES MAN: In The New Republic, Joshua Brook writes:

The war between Israel and Hezbollah has sparked widespread debate on the subject of proportionality. One might have hoped that the human rights community would take this opportunity to educate political leaders and the public on the international law of proportionality and how it applies to the current fighting. Indeed, some groups have done just that. But others have chosen to brazenly distort international law in their zeal to condemn Israel.

The basic rule of international law in some people’s minds seems to be that anything that the United States or Israel does is wrong. As I say, dog bites man.

UPDATE: Prof. Kenneth Anderson has more on proportionality and writes:

Legal scholars who want to focus on the UN Charter as the sole source of legal authority for the use of force – and hence see any armed action by a party as having to be ‘proportionate’ pending some (typically mythological) intervention by the Security Council – tend to underplay that the Charter does not remove the customary law of self-defense, which does not require a “proportionate” response once belligerency is underway.

These abuses of international law are drastically undermining its credibility. More here, here, and here.

As one blog commenter noted (I forget where I saw it), the difference is that Israel causes civilian casualties when it misses its targets, Hezbollah causes civilian casualties when it hits its targets.

JOHN KERRY VS. JOHN BOLTON.

JOHN PODHORETZ WONDERS if Israel is too nice to win.

This reminds me of Josh Marshall’s 2003 worry that we weren’t killing enough Iraqis and that this would come back to haunt us. I think they’re both probably wrong. I certainly hope so.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Bill Roggio.

And Jim Dunnigan looks at Hezbollah’s Iranian rocket force. I’m guessing that you can’t solve the Hezbollah problem without solving the Iranian problem.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Donald Sensing thinks that Israel is blowing it.

MORE: Josh Marshall now says I’m misrepresenting his column. Well, the post I link above contains a lengthy in-context quote, and observes: “Not that Josh wants people to die, he just thinks it has a valuable pedagogical function.” (Josh claims that I said he called for “the mass and indiscriminate killing of civilians at the outset of the Iraq War,” which is at least as much a misrepresentation of my post as he’s claiming for his; I don’t think that either Podhoretz or Marshall ever called for that).

I thought that was a fair reading of his column then, and I don’t believe he objected. Here’s another link to his original column, which I also linked along with the blockquote. You can decide for yourself whether I’ve misrepresented him, but it seems to me that it was a fair reading then, and that it’s a fair reading now. But if Josh meant something else by his language, he should say so. He links to other people who say that my reading of his language is wrong, so I guess he has disclaimed that meaning now, but I should note that those posts came after mine. So either I’ve been misreading him for three years (possible), or he is more worried about sounding bellicose now than he was in March of 2003. Your call, but I thought the latter, which is why I was tweaking him by bringing it up.

STILL MORE: Hmm. Marshall seems to have a problem making himself understood.

AND MORE: Dan Riehl thinks my reading of Marshall was excessively generous. “Marshall was invoking Nagasaki and Hiroshima as examples of how to win a war … and the hearts and minds which are left. But, as Reynolds duly noted, he was criticizing Bush’s plan, not necessarily advocating mass death.” Yes, Marshall — as I noted — wasn’t calling for more deaths, but rather expressing the worry that a war that didn’t involve massive casualties or damage wouldn’t have enough of a psychological effect to produce peace. That Marshall reads this as a claim that he was calling for more deaths is, well, not surprising since he applies similar misreading to my stuff.

HMM, this Sony gadget looks like a pretty good mobile blogging tool, complete with builtin camera — what the TREO promised but didn’t really deliver. But I wish it came with Verizon EVDO instead of Cingular. Anybody out there got one?

BREWERY NEWS: The secret is out. And I would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for that meddling Basil’s blog!