Interesting things to read today

It's Monday, and I'm already behind on my work, so I'm not going to start the day off with any intense blogging. Instead, I thought I'd just mention the articles I read this morning that I found most interesting. 1. Michael Ledeen's article pointing out that the Grim Reaper and U.S. troops, for the past several years and continuing into the indefinite future, have been at work in the Middle East, making this a potential time for real change as old leaders go and new leaders emerge. (This article also mentions credible authority that Bin Laden is really and truly dead this time.) 2. Mark Goldblatt's funny, but incredibly scary, article about the Leftist one-sided thinking that pervades the Modern Language Association's annual convention. Funny, because these people don't appear capable of logical thought; scary, because they're not only teaching your children, but you're paying them to do it. (The good news, though, is that Katie O'Beirne's book "Women Who Make the World Worse: and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports" topped Amazon's "women's studies" bestseller list.) 3. Thomas Lifson points out that ordinary Brits have figured out what the British elite still ignore, and that is that nature of true power in Britain. 4. J. Peter Mulhern's lucid column explaining why the NSA "scandal" is a non-starter, so that, once the huffing and puffing ends, Pres. Bush's brick house of American security will still be standing. (How's that for an anguished metaphor?) 5. Matt May's refresher course on the Senator's who will be grilling Judge Alito, aptly titled "Send in the Clowns." 6. Jeff Jacoby's thoughts about the horrible fact, not only that Abramoff is a deep-dyed financial crook, but that he is an Orthodox Jew who parades his religion, even while engaging in acts totally antithetical to religous beliefs. 7. Laura Ingraham's discussion about Dave Letterman's sorry performance when Bill O'Reilly appeared on the show, including an analysis about why Letterman's conduct is significant. Be sure to read this with O'Reilly's own take on his appearance on the Letterman show. 8. Aaron Hanscom and Jose Guardia explain why Spain's craven act of appeasement to terrorists in early 2004, didn't set either Spain or Iraq free but, instead, harmed Iraq and emboldened terrorists on Spanish soil. 9. Roz Rothstein's reporting the (to me) unsurprising fact that the Leftist Green Party has now officially turned on Israel, one of the innovators in Green inventions. 10. The LA Times' panicky editorial re Alito, in which the Times brushes asides abortion issues and says the real reason to worry about Alito is that Alito might actually approve of the President's wartime powers, something the Saintly O'Connor never would have done. You can get rid of the icky taste in your mouth by reading the WSJ's more intelligent editorial (if you have a subscription), which says the Demos are spoiling for a dirty fight, but it shouldn't bring Alito down. 11. The scary story about increased fatalities from bird flu in Turkey. Of course, this story led me and my husband to have a "Who's on first" moment this morning, when he asked what I thought of the turkey flu, and I said I wasn't aware that the turkey farmers were facing that problem. We concluded that there's a terrible irony that the bird flu is striking a country named "Turkey." 12. Another subscription only (at least for now) WSJ article about the horrible effects of legalized prostitution. This line really says it all: "The reason why legalizing prostitution doesn't work is easy to understand. By decriminalizing the sex industry, these countries have lowered the threshold for men to seek commercial sex. Where legal barriers disappear, so do the social and ethical barriers to treating women as objects. And like any other 'normal' business, sex traders are always trying to increase their profit margins by getting cheap 'labor,' mostly from Eastern and Central Europe." And even if you can't get on the WSJ, you can read Jennifer Roback's article pointing to the fact that the decline of Europe, which Mark Steyn so ably described in his much talked-about article, can also be traced to the fact that sex is no longer about relations and procreation, but about the commerce of gratification. 13. Jed Babbin's demand that we "push back" against the horrible anti-War, anti-President, anti-American rhetoric emanating from the Left. I love the idea but, considering that the Left controls America's media, I don't know how that's going to happen. Ideas? Good reading!