Bundle o' Bits

Short week. Busy day. Pardon the cryptic style--and apologies in advance for 72 hours of radio silence starting tomorrow night as I depart for an intensive faith-formation retreat. A few items:

• 17.6 of professors in the social scientists consider themselves Marxists. Only academics doing a survey of other academics could possibly think that this is low (actually, the authors use the term "rare"!). The next time someone tells you that conservatives avoid academic positions in the social sciences because they believe in nonsensical superstitions with no empirical or logical support, while liberals believe in the scientific method, remember that 17.6% figure.
  
  
• As if awarding the Nobel to Yasser Arafat hadn't done enough, this will do more to damage the prestige of the prize than it will help Al Gore and his cause. The (London) Times puts it nicely: "Al Gore is being tipped as a favourite to win the Nobel peace prize in Oslo this Friday in a controversial move that could place saving the planet above saving people from war and conflict." (Last I checked, his environmental jihad was highly divisive, not peace- inducing.) Modest proposal: award him a science Nobel in 100 years... if his theories can be proven correct at that time.
  
  
• Just finished Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower" over breakfast. I read a lot. I thought I knew a lot about Islam, Al Q'aeda, 9-11 and American dysfunction in intelligence and response to this threat. I didn't. This one goes deep--absolutely packed with facts but with a literary flair for character and story-telling. (Liberals will find plenty to chew on also.) Over 500 original interviews. Dozens of pages of end-notes. Read it.
  
  
• "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday [called] for a full Israeli withdrawal from all territories captured in the 1967 Mideast war." (A war that would have ended in Israel's destruction had they not acted pre-emptively against the five nations massing on their borders.) Meanwhile, American Indians asked for a withdrawal to pre-1492 borders, Brits asked for a withdrawal to pre-1775 borders, and Osama bin Laden asked Europe for a withdrawal to pre-1683 borders. It's a thin cover for what Palestinians and other Arabs really want but won't get: an instant multi-century 'fix' of cultural and socio-economic self-esteem and a reversal of the public humiliation and castration they woke up to in June, 1967. It's about as likely as my neutered dog having puppies. Meanwhile, other Islamists called for Israel to return to its pre-1948 borders.