Perhaps Kathryn, Kate and the rest of the NR delegation to Italy convinced the voters? Exit polls this morning are looking good for Silvio Berlusconi. He should finish with a narrow parliamentary majority in the lower house. The Senate elections, based on an unusual regional system that favors small parties (a system Berlusconi created before the last election), could go either way.

From the old country, naturally.  The Boston Globe has the details in a succulently illustrated article that you can find here: The English food company Aunt Bessie's has invented an unusual way to keep the popular pub specialty 'bangers and mash' (sausages and mashed potatoes) in one tight parcel. Their solution is the 'mash cone.' The Metro in England ran [a] photo under the headline, 'World most disgusting ice cream,' with the caption, 'horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible.' Well Aunt Bessie's was understandably upset. So the company delivered mash cones to the offices of The Metro, where the staff felt obligated to eat them and really say what they thought. Here's the review: 'Metro is happy to report that that the mash has 'good texture', the sausage is 'pretty tasty' and the gravy 'actually quite nice'. Unfortunately, the makers have had to backtrack on the actual cone element of the product, as the cones were disintegrating. However, they said they'd give serious consideration to our suggestion that they should make the cones out of Yorkshire pudding. Some further suggestions: the mash is perhaps a little bland - it could use a bit of gentle spicing up. Also, it would be awesome if you could get a kind of 'gravy ripple' effect running throughout the mash, rather than just as a sauce on top. Eat your heart out, Alain Ducasse.

That is what Popes are intended to do -- they are to represent Christ, the Prince of Peace, in a world that is and has always been a maelstrom of passions, conflict, and wars. Popes have sometimes been warlike, but that ill becomes their office, and nearly always causes lasting repugnance. That is why in 2003 many Americans who believed that the war in Iraq was justified, also believed that it was very good for Pope John Paul II to oppose the war.  The Pope should not be, and should not even be allowed to seem to be, a proponent of war, especially of a war with so many complex religious tendrils, and with so many centuries of conflicted history. It was right and just for Pope John Paul II to oppose the war. The role and munus (office, burden, duty) of the Presidents of nations are different. Presidents must make a probable judgment about the long-run implications both of inaction and action, and about what in the long run will have been the most creative path for them to have taken. These are excruciating judgments, for they usually involve long-run costs, discouragements, and difficulties. Many of us of a certain age remember the long sacrifices and costs of World War II. This background is important to grasp, since Pope Benedict XVI will almost certainly judge that he is duty-bound to call for the violence in Iraq to cease. The edge of his words will be felt more sharply here, where he delivers them, than among Al Sadr and his Shia militias, who are now causing so much of the violence in three cities in Iraq. The Shiites militias very much want the Americans to stop fighting, and to depart.The Pope may also continue saying, as he has often in the last year, that the religious freedom and dignity of every person in Iraq must be protected, and minority populations (in this case, one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world) must be especially respected. He may repeat his deep conviction that violence is contrary to the nature of God. Benedict XVI may also wish the future of democracy and the rule of law in Iraq to flower fully,  and to be long-lasting. He may express the hope that these will bear good fruit for justice and human dignity throughout the Middle East, and all around the world. The Pope is not primarily a political player, and yet the cultural and moral power of his words and actions this week may well have long political consequences. On the record, we are entitled to have confidence in Benedict's bravery, balance of mind, and concern to do his duty.

Yuval may be reluctant to engage in shameless boosterism of his work, but I ain't. Read his piece. It's very enlightening on a number of fronts, typically thoughtful on every front, and remarkably free of profanity.  Yuval's spent a lot of time thinking about science and the left and I have some substantive quibbles and questions and other things that begin with 'qu' but they need to wait until I get the time to commit them to paper, or pixels or whatever. Seriously, it's a very worthwhile read for those even remotely interested in these things. 

The latest issue of The New Atlantis is now online. It includes, among many other offerings, an essay by yours truly on science and the left; reflections on the limits of neuroimaging and on the unintended consequences of its use in capital cases; Cheryl Miller on infertility bloggers; and some thoughts from the editors about John McCain and the stem cell debate. While you're there, have a look at the rest of our newly revamped website -- offering some brand new blogs, and of course the opportunity to subscribe.

If only someone would get Pope Benedict  a good job, he'd quit making such a fuss and we wouldn't have these traffic problems.

From his interview with Raymond Arroyo (which aired Friday and can be viewed online at ewtn.org): Q Do you think it's important, though, to have a pro-life President on the Republican ticket? What might be the ramifications? THE PRESIDENT: I think it's important for people to understand that a culture of life is in our national interests and that -- it's also important to understand that the politics of abortion isn't going to change until people's hearts change, and fully understand the meaning of life and what it means for a society to value life in all forms -- whether it be the life of the unborn, or the life of the elderly; whether it be the life of the less fortunate among us, or the life of the rich guy. I mean, it's a moral touchstone, I think, that will speak to a healthy society in the long run. And I don't know what's going to happen in American politics, I really don't. I do know that in order for a President to be effective he better bring a set of principles from which he will not deviate, and articulate them as clearly as he can -- or she can -- and then not worry about immediate popularity, because popularity comes and goes, but what doesn't change are solid principles. And I'm going to remind His Holy Father how important his voice is in making it easier for politicians like me to be able to kind of stand and defend our positions that are, I think, very important positions to take.

It's been bothering me since the beginning of the Pennsylvania primary race 6,000 years ago (give or take). The Democrats keep insisting that the economy in Pennsylvania is abysmal. The pundits keep comparing the state to Ohio. Barack Obama says the state's economy is so bad that a once prosperous and secular people have been driven to embrace their sky god and shoot animals for sport. But my impression had always been that the Pennsylvania economy wasn't that bad. I've been there a bit   over the last few years and the talk has always been that the hard times were pretty much over and that Pennsylvania, unlike Ohio or Michigan, had largely succeeded in diversifying its economy. No one ever said it was Shangri-La or anything, but the grim picture we get these days doesn't jibe with what the students, politicos and professors I'd chatted with had to say. Anyway I was searching for some stats and instead found this newsletter from last Summer from Ed Rendell, the Democratic Governor and Hillary Clinton's state chairman: Pennsylvania's economy is strong and growing, and new data released this week offers more solid proof of our continuing success and progress. May was the fourth consecutive month that Pennsylvania's economy outperformed the nation's economy. Our statewide unemployment rate of 4.2 percent was three tenths of a percentage point below the national rate for the month. During my time in office, Pennsylvania's unemployment rate has been at or below the national rate in 43 out of 53 months - more than 80 percent of the time. This, coupled with the strength and growth of our job count, is a positive indication that our efforts to improve the quality of our workforce and expand the state's business climate are indeed working. To measure Pennsylvania's economic strength, consider these four factors: * Our unemployment rate is low: Only the most cynical of analysts could say that the 30-year record low we recorded earlier this year was anything other than good news. And, as I noted earlier, our jobless rate remains considerably below the national rate. * We are a leader in available jobs: In this category, Pennsylvania is truly off the charts. For nine of the last 10 months, we have broken our record for the all-time-high number of jobs in the state, according to Department of Labor statistics. Pennsylvania's overall job increase - 168,000-plus jobs in the last four years - makes us a leader among industrial states. * We're a magnet for business expansion: According to a 2006 study released by IBM Global Consulting, 'Pennsylvania jumped into first place as the top destination state in terms of investment projects in 2005. In 2004, it did not make the list. For manufacturing projects, it moved from third to first place.' * State revenues are strong: The growth of the Pennsylvania economy produced a surplus of nearly $1 billion at the end of fiscal 2006. And when fiscal 2007 ends in a few short weeks, we expect to build on that growth and produce an additional $500 million surplus. Although these four measurements are more proof that our economy is robust, there is more important work to be done. My proposed Jonas Salk Fund and the Energy Independence Program are examples of how we are continuing to find ways to generate new economic growth. Investments through the Salk fund proposal will greatly strengthen Pennsylvania's reputation as an international center for biotechnology research and development. The Energy Independence initiative, which has already created more than 2,500 jobs in renewable energy production and technology, is projected to generate 13,000 new jobs and $3.5 billion in new private investment. In addition, the $2.8 billion economic-stimulus program we enacted in 2004 clearly is producing results, and we have almost 40 percent of the funds in that program left to invest. The economic growth we are creating through these strategic investments will provide new opportunities for Pennsylvania workers today and for generations to come. Sincerely, Edward G. Rendell.  

As controversy continues over Carter's current trip to the Middle East and his plans to meet with Hamas' most unrepentant terrorist--a man responsible for the deaths not only of Israelis but also Americans--one major item remains absent from the press coverage: The inconsistency of Carter's statements with the historical record. The press gives Carter a pass that they would never give Hillary Clinton. It may be worth re-reading Ken Stein's review of Carter's recent book. Stein was Carter's note-taker during several of Carter's Middle East trips and blew the whistle on Carter's fabrications or 'misrememberings.' After reading Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, I was troubled by a passage recounting a meeting Carter and I had attended with Assad at his presidential office in March 1990. I revisited my notes and saw discrepancies between them and the story Carter recounts. When discussing the Syrian dispute with Israel, Assad, as always, chose his words carefully. The notes (see Figure 1) show the following passage: JC: Your severest critics know you keep your word--would you accept demilitarization of [the] Golan Heights? A: Today, Peres [Israel's foreign minister] said Syria would accept [a] demilitarized Golan. But we cannot accept this because we are sacrificing our sovereignty. A: In the past we have said that things must be done mutually on both sides of the Golan--international forces, semi-demilitarization--on equal footing. If anyone can ask for additional measures, we should ask for a larger DMZ [demilitarized zone] from their part. But, in Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Carter wrote: When I visited Damascus in 1990, President Assad informed me that he was willing to negotiate with Israel on the status of the Golan Heights. His proposal was that both sides withdraw from the international border, with a small force of foreign observers and electronic devices to monitor the neutral zone. When I asked him if each nation would have to fall back an equal distance, he replied that Syria might move its troops farther from the border because of the terrain. He also gave me permission to report his proposal to Washington and to the Israelis, which I did in Jerusalem three days later. Carter reworded the conversation to suggest that Assad was flexible and the Israelis were not. Assad did not say he would accept a demilitarized zone; to do so would be to sacrifice his sovereignty. Nor did he say he would withdraw deeper from his side of the border. This was not a slip of memory for Carter; Carter received a full set of my notes of the March 1990 trip after its conclusion. These were intentional distortions.

E-mail:  Hi Mr. Lowry, It seems to me that Jim Webb, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama had the same exact intention when they said their respective comments.  The only difference, to me, is that Webb and Clinton said theirs in an Op-Ed, and a book, respectively.  Thus, they had time to fine-tune it to be politically safe, whereas Obama said his off the cuff... thus, not politically safe, but nonetheless, with the same intent.  Again, here's Bill Clinton in his book. 'If [Republicans] could cut funding for Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment, middle-class Americans would see fewer benefits from their tax dollars, feel more resentful paying taxes, and become even more receptive to their appeals for tax cuts and their strategy of waging campaigns on divisive social and cultural issues like abortion, gay rights, and guns.' And here's Jim Webb in the WSJ Op-Ed. The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of 'God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag' while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet.

My worlds converge outside Grand Central Station:

A lot of readers seem to have been following my blogs from the 'Toward a Science of Consciousness' conference. For convenience, I have glued all those blogs together on a single web page. This includes the blog about Friday's session, which got lost in the NRO weekend traffic.

Appropriately cited by Bill Kristol this morning. Don't you love the fact that Obama slipped and the news broke just before the papal visit? We'll have a week's worth of oppressed people at the White House, at Catholic University, at two baseball stadiums, lining the streets of Washington and New York. It's Obama vs. these clingers.

They lost me at Hillary Clinton attacking Barack Obama for being elitist. It's appropriate the forum aired on Desperate Housewives night.

Pelosi makes a joke at Bill Clinton's expense (pretty racy for Face the Nation!) -- it's nasty out there on the Left.

Excellent Politico piece.

Here: At the same time, Iraq's Cabinet ratcheted up the pressure on anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr by approving draft legislation barring political parties with militias from participating in upcoming provincial elections. Al-Sadr, who heads the country's biggest militia, the Mahdi Army, has been under intense pressure from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, also a Shiite, to disband the Mahdi Army or face political isolation. Al-Sadr's followers are eager to take part in the local elections because they believe they can take power away from rival Shiite parties in the vast, oil-rich Shiite heartland of southern Iraq. And in a new move to stem the flow of money to armed groups, the government ordered a crackdown on militiamen controlling state-run and private gas stations, refineries and oil distribution centers. It is believed that gas stations and distribution centers, especially in eastern Baghdad and some southern provinces, are covertly controlled by Shiite militiamen dominated by the Mahdi Army.

I have received a lot of feedback on the pro-family, pro-growth tax reform that Robert Stein and I wrote about last week. A few readers wanted to know where they could find out more about the plan, since Stein and I were not so much outlining it as defending it against criticisms. This National Review article from 2006 is probably the best place to go. Some readers asked what impact the plan would have on federal revenues. The idea is to set the width of the tax brackets so as to raise the same amount of revenue as the current system. Compared, then, to making the Bush tax cuts permanent, the plan would be revenue neutral. The common theme of critical emails was that we should not "subsidize" child-bearing. But Stein and I are not calling for subsidies; we're arguing that current policies put the government's thumb on the scale against raising children and seeking to offset that bias. Jagadeesh Gokhale of the Cato Institute wrote a post agreeing with our contention that entitlements tend to suppress fertility. (He seems, however, to have some misconceptions about our views. I'm not against efforts to rein in entitlement spending, as he oddly suggests, and I doubt Stein is either.) Finally, a blogger calling himself ProGrowthLiberal asks how our plan can cut taxes on both the rich and the poor if it is revenue neutral. The answer is that it cuts marginal tax rates on high earners, while raising their average tax rates. The distribution of the tax burden would move modestly upward but the code would do more to encourage growth.

Daniel Burke in the Washington Post: 'There was a very self-conscious awareness that religious conservatives had brought Bush into the White House and that [the administration] wanted to do what they had been mandated to do,' says Hudson. To conservative Catholics, that meant holding the line on same-sex marriage, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research, and working to limit abortion in the United States and abroad while nominating judges who would eventually outlaw it.There is no organized political movement in this country, made up of conservative Catholics or anyone else, to nominate judges who would outlaw abortion. No justice of the Supreme Court has ever taken the view that the Court should outlaw abortion.

I'm headed to evening Mass in a bit. I might even get there early and pray for a few minutes beforehand, because I'm feeling especially bitter about the economy this week.