As is so often the case, no one has spoken more clearly than Steyn about the Abdul Rahman situation.

Will we stick our necks out for his faith?
By MARK STEYN

Fate conspires to remind us what this war is really about: civilizational confidence. And so history repeats itself: first the farce of the Danish cartoons, and now the tragedy - a man on trial for his life in post-Taliban Afghanistan because he has committed the crime of converting to Christianity.

The cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad were deeply offensive to Muslims, and so thousands protested around the world in the usual restrained manner - rioting, torching, killing, etc.

The impending execution of Abdul Rahman for embracing Christianity is, of course, offensive to Westerners, and so around the world we reacted equally violently by issuing blood-curdling threats like that made by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack: "Freedom of worship is an important element of any democracy," he said. "And these are issues as Afghan democracy matures that they are going to have to deal with increasingly."

The immediate problem for Abdul Rahman is whether he'll get the chance to "mature" along with Afghan democracy. The president, the Canadian prime minister and the Australian prime minister have all made statements of concern about his fate, and it seems clear that Afghanistan's dapper leader, Hamid Karzai, would like to resolve this issue before his fledgling democracy gets a reputation as just another barbarous Islamist sewer state. There's talk of various artful compromises, such as Rahman being declared unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity on the grounds that (I'm no Islamic jurist so I'm paraphrasing here) anyone who converts from Islam to Christianity must, ipso facto, be nuts.

On the other hand, this "moderate" compromise solution is being rejected by leading theologians. "We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," says Abdul Raoulf of the nation's principal Muslim body, the Afghan Ulama Council. "Cut off his head! We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there's nothing left." Needless to say, Imam Raoulf is one of Afghanistan's leading "moderate" clerics.

For what it's worth, I'm with the Afghan Ulama Council in objecting to the insanity defense. It's not enough for Abdul Rahman to get off on a technicality. Afghanistan is supposed to be "the good war," the one even the French supported, albeit notionally and mostly retrospectively. Karzai is kept alive by a bodyguard of foreigners. The fragile Afghan state is protected by American, British, Canadian, Australian, Italian and other troops, hundreds of whom have died. You cannot ask Americans or Britons to expend blood and treasure to build a society in which a man can be executed for his choice of religion. You cannot tell a Canadian soldier serving in Kandahar that he, as a Christian, must sacrifice his life to create a Muslim state in which his faith is a capital offense.

As always, we come back to the words of Osama bin Laden: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse." That's really the only issue: The Islamists know our side have tanks and planes, but they have will and faith, and they reckon in a long struggle that's the better bet. Most prominent Western leaders sound way too eager to climb into the weak-horse suit and audition to play the rear end. Consider, for example, the words of the Prince of Wales, speaking a few days ago at al-Azhar University in Cairo, which makes the average Ivy League nuthouse look like a beacon of sanity. Anyway, this is what His Royal Highness had to say to 800 Islamic "scholars":

"The recent ghastly strife and anger over the Danish cartoons shows the danger that comes of our failure to listen and to respect what is precious and sacred to others. In my view, the true mark of a civilized society is the respect it pays to minorities and to strangers."

That's correct. But the reality is that our society pays enormous respect to minorities - President Bush holds a monthlong Ramadan-a-ding-dong at the White House every year. The immediate reaction to the slaughter of 9/11 by Western leaders everywhere was to visit a mosque to demonstrate their great respect for Islam. One party to this dispute is respectful to a fault: after all, to describe the violence perpetrated by Muslims over the Danish cartoons as the "recent ghastly strife" barely passes muster as effete Brit toff understatement.

Unfortunately, what's "precious and sacred" to Islam is its institutional contempt for others. In his book "Islam And The West," Bernard Lewis writes, "The primary duty of the Muslim as set forth not once but many times in the Quran is 'to command good and forbid evil.' It is not enough to do good and refrain from evil as a personal choice. It is incumbent upon Muslims also to command and forbid." Or as the Canadian columnist David Warren put it: "We take it for granted that it is wrong to kill someone for his religious beliefs. Whereas Islam holds it is wrong not to kill him." In that sense, those imams are right, and Karzai's attempts to finesse the issue are, sharia-wise, wrong.

I can understand why the president and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would rather deal with this through back channels, private assurances from their Afghan counterparts, etc. But the public rhetoric is critical, too. At some point we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies. Abdul Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to, not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet.

What can we do? Should governments with troops in Afghanistan pass joint emergency legislation conferring their citizenship on this poor man and declaring him, as much as Karzai, under their protection?

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" - the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Gen. Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

India today is better off without suttee. If we shrink from the logic of that, then in Afghanistan and many places far closer to home the implications are, as the Prince of Wales would say, "ghastly."

©Mark Steyn

Are the Neocons Losing It?
By Patrick Buchanan

While President Bush appears serenely confident about Iraq, the same cannot be said of the War Party propagandists who were plotting this conflict when Dubya was still a rookie governor of Texas.

William Kristol of The Weekly Standard now demands the firing of Donald Rumsfeld. William F. Buckley, whose National Review branded the antiwar Right "unpatriotic conservatives" who "hate" America, now calls upon Bush for an "acknowledgement of defeat."

Richard Perle says the administration "got the war right and the aftermath wrong." Self-described "humiliated pundit" Andrew Sullivan confesses to "a sense of shame and sorrow." Michael Ledeen says of Bush's war, "Wrong war, wrong time, wrong way, wrong place."

Frank ("The End of History") Fukuyama concedes that "Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, a training ground and an operational base for jihadists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at."

But it is a March 20 essay in The Wall Street Journal that suggests the neocons may be coming unhinged. Written by Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes, the piece urges Bush to begin the "rejuvenation of his presidency by shocking the media and political community with a sweeping overhaul of his administration."

The purge Barnes recommends would have caused Stalin to recoil.

Barnes calls on Bush to fire press secretary Scott McClellan, chief of staff Andy Card, political adviser Karl Rove, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Treasury Secretary John Snow -- and Vice President Richard Cheney.

"The trickiest issue is how to handle Karl Rove," says Barnes.

I don't think so, Fred. I think "the trickiest issue" will be how to handle Dick and Lynne when they are told by Dubya they must give up a constitutional office to which Cheney was elected by the nation, vacate the vice presidential mansion and turn the keys over to Condi Rice.

That's right, Barnes urges Bush to appoint Condi vice president and "anoint" her as "presidential successor."

Who would replace Condi at State? Pro-war liberal Joe Lieberman.

I should like to be in earshot when Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hears that he has been passed over for secretary of state by the junior Democratic senator from Connecticut.

"Mr. Cheney would probably be happy to step down and return to Wyoming," Barnes assures us.

Is he sure? Why would Cheney not regard any such attempt by Bush as a stab in the back by a friend to whom he has given years of service? For if Cheney is forced to quit his office, he goes down in history as a failed vice president and, along with Rumsfeld, the Bush-designated scapegoats of the Iraq war.

What, other than poor poll ratings, would be the rationale for removing Cheney, who is infinitely more qualified than Condi Rice by philosophy, experience and knowledge to take over the presidency?

All of Cheney's problems are tied to Iraq. But so are Bush and Condi tied to Iraq. Her failure at the National Security Council to screen the intelligence and ensure that Defense did due diligence for the occupation produced today's crisis. And what has Condi's crusade for democracy produced, other than historic gains for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas on the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Moqtada al Sadr and the Shia clerics in Iraq?

Exactly what qualifies her to be president?

Well, says Barnes, it would be a "spectacular move."

I'll say. Putting Rice directly in the line of succession to the Oval Office would detonate an explosion far more ruinous to Bush than the Dubai ports deal. It would instantly jump-start the presidential campaign of 2008. Conservatives who consider Condi weak on life and a pro-affirmative-action social liberal would start carving her up before she reached the Senate hearing room.

Did not the firestorm over the Dubai deal wake these Beltway dreamers up?

Would John McCain stand aside for Rice? Would George Allen? Would the evangelical Christians? All would move to block her. And no one would worry about any damage this would do to a George Bush who was so arrogant as to try to impose, as his choice for the 2008 nominee of the GOP, another ex-staffer and spinster like Harriet Miers.

That Bush is in trouble is undeniable. But his people are not Bush's problem. His policies are. It is these policies, not his advisers, that have given us huge deficits, 12 million illegal aliens, a trade deficit running at $800 billion a year and a no-win war that is bleeding our country.

If Bush should follow Barnes' advice and throw his most loyal people to the wolves as a P.R. stunt, he will have earned their lasting contempt, and that of the country. For all will know he was scapegoating them for his own failures -- failures that come of having listened to the neocons who are even now slipping out of camp, rehearsing alibis and blaming Bush for not heeding their brilliant advice.

From Real Clear Politics blog:

Doing The Lord's Work On Immigration
By Tom Bevan

Watching this issue take the spotlight is like watching someone take the lid off a pot of water that's been boiling for hours: steam is rising everywhere. Jonathan Weisman and Jim VandeHei take the 2008 angle in the Washington Post this morning, and Elisabeth Bumiller looks at the issue from the view of President Bush in the New York Times.

The best immigration story of the day, however, is by Peter Clark in Newsday who reports on Rep. Peter King's (one of the co-sponsors of the immigration bill passed by the House) response to critics - including Hillary Clinton - who suggest that some of the enforcement measures in the immigration bill are too draconian and don't comport with Scripture:

Peter King, the recreational boxer with a combative record during nearly 14 years in the House, is now taking on the Roman Catholic Church.

King is co-sponsor of a bill that would strengthen the nation's borders and make it a felony to knowingly aid illegal immigrants, a measure that has outraged Catholic activists who work with them.

King (R-Seaford) has no patience for the mounting criticism of him and his bill, even from his own church's leaders.

"Stopping alien smuggling gangs is doing God's work," King said in an interview Thursday. "These people who are supposed to be speaking for God, saying this [the bill] is a sin, and they should go to confession, he added.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) added to the religious nature of the debate Wednesday at a news conference when she claimed that a Republican-supported immigration proposal would judge "Jesus himself" as a criminal.

King was as outspokenly critical of Catholic leaders Wednesday as he was Thursday.

He said Catholic leaders opposed to the bill are politically correct liberals who "should spend more time protecting little boys from pedophile priests."

Needless to say, that last remark didn't go over well with some members of the clergy. What's interesting about this aspect of the immigration debate is that once again Democrats are trying to recast their policies in a religious context - something they've been trying to do for some time with issues like poverty and education - to help try and bridge the cultural gap that has made it exceedingly difficult for them in red states. Up until now, this effort has been a failure characterized by embarrassing displays of false piety and by folks like Howard Dean and John Kerry. My impression is this latest effort on immigration won't yield much better results.

From NASHVILLE SKYLINE:

Johnny Cash Treasure Chest on the Way
By: Chet Flippo

Thursday, March 23, 2006
(NASHVILLE SKYLINE is a column by CMT/CMT.com Editorial Director Chet Flippo.)

Even though this two-CD package won't be in stores until May 23, I think many Johnny Cash fans would enjoy a preview of the latest in his long line of releases.

Johnny Cash: Personal File is a collection of 49 previously unreleased tracks that had been stored on tapes marked "Personal File" in the House of Cash in Hendersonville. They were all tracks he recorded with just his acoustic guitar and his voice and then stored away in a private room where he kept such personal treasures as his Jimmie Rodgers memorabilia. Apparently at the time he recorded them, he thought no one would be interested in such a stripped-down sound. When he later cut his first CD for the American Recordings label with producer Rick Rubin (1994's American Recordings), he remarked that he had made a similar record in the 1970s but could interest no labels in it. Those songs are here, in addition to some he recorded later.

The song selection reflects Cash's far-ranging interest in all kinds of music. There are poems, old Carter Family songs, 19th century ballads, Irish songs, as well as original Cash material. Cash covers such country hits as Lefty Frizzell's "Saginaw, Michigan" and Johnny Horton's "When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below)," as well as the Cash-Horton collaboration, "Girl in Saskatoon."

Cash tells a charming story about the children's song "Tiger Whitehead," which Cash co-wrote with his friend Dr. Nat Winston. The song resulted from Dr. Winston taking Cash to see the 19th century gravesites of the famed bear hunter and his wife Sally in Whitehead, Tenn. Tiger's tombstone noted that he killed 99 bears. His wife's burial marker notes that she nursed two bear cubs that Tiger had brought home. Cash later recorded it on a children's album.

There are songs by such contemporary writers as his then-son-in-law Rodney Crowell, his stepdaughter Carlene Carter, Kris Kristofferson and John Prine. And there are spoken introductions to many of the songs.

This is a treasure chest of vintage acoustic Cash. A cache of 49 songs is a lot to absorb all at once, so I've sifted through the songs over several days and found much to savor. Cash began recording these in July 1973 and cut 24 songs then. The other sessions came three months later in 1973 and in 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980 and 1982. The bulk of the recordings are from 1973, which astonishingly was a very prolific records release year for Cash, in which Columbia Records released four Cash albums, followed by three more in 1974. None of them sold especially well, and only 1973's Any Old Wind That Blows broke the Billboard Top 10.

The first 1973 sessions are obviously songs that 1973-era Nashville record labels would never release, and you have to wonder if these songs amounted to pressure valves that Johnny Cash, the artist, wanted to cut versus songs Johnny Cash, the hit machine, couldn't record. These were mostly covers, and some were very sentimental songs such as "There's a Mother Always Waiting at Home," "Missouri Waltz" and the Louvin Brothers' "When I Stop Dreaming." He also did a five and a-half-minute version of the epic poem, "The Cremation of Sam McGee," which I memorized in college and which was a staple of Texas bars and I'm sure of bars everywhere late at night. I think Cash fans will be delighted to hear his lively rendition of this classic Robert W. Service poem.

It's eerily like sitting in Cash's den with him and listening to him reminisce about memories of people he had known, places he had been and songs he has loved.

Most revelatory perhaps is a series of original Cash gospel songs, reflecting his lifelong desire to record a gospel album. What became his only gospel album was My Mother's Hymn Book, part of the posthumously-issued Unearthed boxed set. All of disc two of Personal File is made up of gospel or inspirational songs, 24 in all. Eleven of them are Cash originals (one co-written with his wife June). I especially like "One of These Days I'm Gonna Sit Down and Talk to Paul," about St. Paul, with whom Cash was fascinated. He later wrote his only novel, Man in White about the life of Paul. "I know just how he felt locked in that jail," Cash sings. "One of these days I'm gonna shake that healing hand."

From Tar Heel Daily:

In the mood for a pick-me up?
It's easy -- just think about next season
By Eddy Landreth

March 22, 2006

The key to North Carolina's immediate future in men's basketball rests not with the tallest member of the recruiting class that will arrive this summer, but rather with the shortest.

Bobby Frasor, a freshman this past season, did a fine job of running the team. Backup point Quentin Thomas overcame a poor freshman year and horrible start to his sophomore season to play a vital role down the stretch.

But for the Tar Heels to reach their potential at both ends of the court -- which means streaking fast breaks, penetrating the lane against all kinds of defenses and applying the kind of ball pressure that will stop teams from feeding the post at will -- Carolina needs a world-class quarterback to run the show.

There is no substitute for quickness, and the Tar Heels' lack of quickness at the point against fast opponents showed in the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament.

The Virginia guards drove Carolina repeatedly in the ACC Tournament, and the Tar Heels could not seem to do anything but foul against their quicker opponents. Boston College and later George Mason fed the post almost at will, particularly when the game was on the line.

The first line of defense in basketball is the point guard, and to win a national championship, it is not enough to be able to stop most people on the perimeter. A team must be able to do what Raymond Felton did and harass all opponents equally.

Enter Tywon Lawson, a 5-foot-11, 182-pound streak from Clinton, Md., who played for Oak Hill Academy in Virginia. Lawson is strong and fast and has the extra burst of quickness that made Felton such an explosive player.

The big men in Carolina's incoming class are excellent, and several of them joined Lawson on the U.S. junior national team at the Douai Junior World Championships last summer. Lawson still walked way with MVP honors.

He controlled the games, even sinking the winning bucket against Turkey in the final seconds. The United States won the gold medal.

"He can control the whole game like nobody else I've seen," USA coach Linzy Davis said of Lawson. "When he gets to North Carolina, they are going to win a national championship if he controls the games like he did here in France."

Davis has coached some of the finest young ballplayers America has produced in recent years, but he still gushed about Lawson and what he can do.

"He did it all on offense and defense," Davis said. "He's super fast; he scores at will; he locates the open man and defends really well. He's the best guard I've ever coached or coached against over here."

Davis went so far as to compare Lawson's effect on games to that of Carmelo Anthony, who led Syracuse to a national championship from the wing spot before turning pro.

In the last couple of years, Roy Williams stood along the sideline and waved his arms to remind Carolina's guards to hurry up the court. It is doubtful he will need to do much waving when Lawson takes control.

What does all this mean for Frasor? He will probably become more offensive-oriented and play shooting guard along side Lawson. Frasor is an excellent shooter, although he did not always shoot the ball effectively this season.

Running the team, particularly as a freshman, put a great burden on Frasor, and it affected his offense. For anyone who ever watched Frasor in AAU or high school, there is no doubt he can shoot with great skill.

With Lawson running the show, Frasor will be free to race off picks and fire away. He can operate more as a scorer and be burdened less with the job of running the team.

There are other talented freshmen who will help to make Carolina a contender for the national championship next season. One of those is 6-9 Brandan Wright of Tennessee. His lengthy arms make him a much bigger player than any measuring tape could from head to toe.

Wright is an excellent shot blocker and all-around player who almost certainly will make an immediate impact for Carolina.

Shooting guard Wayne Ellington of Philadelphia is the top-rated player at his position, but he will enter a crowded spot at UNC. Wes Miller is a returning starter at shooting guard, and he proved himself as much on the defensive end of the floor as he did firing three-pointers.

Marcus Ginyard is sensational talent who should only get better and better. Ginyard's defensive skills alone will earn him playing time, but he is a far more well-rounded player than many people realized before he arrived in Chapel Hill.

So what happens with Ellington is going to be an interesting scenario.

William Graves (6-6) of Greensboro may be the odd man out this fall, although coach Roy Williams isn't likely to think that way. Williams gives players their opportunities, and Graves will certainly get his in practice. But only so many people can play, and the wings should be filled ahead of Graves.

The outlook will be different for big men Alex Stepheson and Deon Thompson. There should be a spot for at least one of them to earn playing time. Those two will not have to worry about scoring. The main part of their job will be to rebound, block shots and play defense. Whatever points they score will probably come on offensive rebounds.

Stepheson may be the surprise of this class. Many have envisioned him as a long-term project, but the kid just keeps getting better and better. He's an excellent shot blocker and rebounder, as well as being big and strong.

If Stepheson can add a post presence, it will free Tyler Hansbrough to move away from the bucket and begin to realize even more of his tremendous potential.

Hansbrough had to hang around the basket this past season, and goodness knows, he did a remarkable job. But for anyone who kept a close eye on him, the big guy showed he has many more skills. He can handle the ball and shoot it, so look for him to work the baseline from about 12 to 15 feet. When he hits those jump shots with some consistency, he will be nearly impossible to guard at the collegiate level.

The fact is everyone on the court should be more effective with Lawson running the show from the point. His presence alone should make a huge difference for the Tar Heels.

From livedaily.com:

Bruce Springsteen's recent Asbury Park rehearsals

Bruce and the Seeger Sessions Band just finished up five days of rehearsals over the past two weeks at the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park.
From what I heard, this tour is going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be very upeat and we're going to be dancing in the aisles.
Here's some notes on each day of the rehearsals:

SPOILER ALERT....If you don't want to know what songs they have been working on, they read no further.

MONDAY, MARCH 13

There's a lot of instruments. Today I heard a banjo, guitars, flute, violin, fiddle, piano, drums, Hammond B3 organ, trumpet, trombone and a lot more. Sounds like Bruce with an orchestra at times.
Today's setlist:
1. Old Dan Tucker
2. Jesse James
3. John Henry
4. Erie Canal
5. Jesus Was an Only Son.
Starts off sort of the same as we've heared it then the band kicks in.
6. If I Should Fall Behind.
Very nice sounding, nice accordian with it.
7. Oh, Mary Don't You Weep.
Outstanding! This is going to be a lot of fun. Before the band played this song Bruce had it played over the sound system so they could get a feel for it. Has a Zydeco swound to it. He ran through it a couple of times and worked on some of the arrangements with the band.
At the end of a real hot version of this Bruce yelled out: "People are going to be throwing their clothes off!"
One of my friends commented that this sounded like Bob Dylan on the Band Basement Tapes.
8. Jacob's Ladder.
Again played over the sound system first. Bruce then told the band, "I want it to sound more like Chuck Berry than Django Reinhardt. For those who don't know Django Reinhardt is a jazz legend, idolized for his incredible guitar playing which is documented on more than 400 recordings.

9. Old Dan Tucker.
10. Jesse James.
11. Erie Canal.

My friend, who is very knowledgable about music, described as "It's a combination of classic America music. New Orleans jazz, Zydeco, jump blues, swing. It is anything but the four-four time folk music."

THURSDAY, MARCH 16

A woman who was riding a bike by told me Bruce had been working on the new songs earlier in the day.
I didn't get there to early in the afternoon and I did hear Bruce reworking some "Bruce" songs and I, again, liked what I heard.
1. Adam Raised a Cain.
A lot of violin. Could hear Patti on the background vocals. It reminded me of the way Johnny 99 was played toward the end of the Rising Tour in 2003. Could hear banjo also.

2. If I Should Fall Behind.
A much slower version, a country-style version, it reminded me of a country-western band playing it in some bar around 1:30 a.m. when you slow-dance with your wife or girlfriend.
There was pedal steel being played. And a saxaphone solo.
Patti even did one verse of the song.
Reminded me of "Mansion of the Hill" from the Reunion Tour when Bruce and Patti would do a duet.

3. Ramrod.
Real nice! It's the version that Bruce did in the encores of the Devils & Dust Tour. With the harmonica and you've got to hear it with the full band. Sounds real good. Again violins playing. He'll have the crowd up and dancing with this one.

MONDAY, MARCH 20

1. Mrs. McGrath
Has a traditional Irish arraignment.

2. My Oklahoma Home.
Nice Ed Manion sax solo.

3. Ramrod
Played like he did last week, which was like the encores during the Devils & Dust Tour.

4. Froggie Went a Courtin'
Starts out acoustic then goes to the full band.

5. Dan Tucker
6. Jesse James.
7. Eyes On the Prize
8. We Shall Overcome
Sort of a gospel arraignement.
9. Jacob's Ladder
10. My Oklahoma Home (again).
11. O, Mary, Don't You Weep
This one is going to have everyone dancing.


12. John Henry
Lots of Soozie violin. There was also a guitar solo and an
accordian solo.
13. Mrs. McGrath.
Bruce worked on the beggining a bit. He really showcases the other
musicians on this song. Lots of different solos.
14. Froggie Went a Courtin'
Reminded me of something you would hear at Disney's Country Bear
Jamboree. Bruce plays some harmonica and Soozie again has a solo.
15. Johnny 99
A New Orleans style. Someone said it reminded them of the Neville
Brothers.
16. Pay Me My Money Down.
Worked on the beginning with Soozie and Lisa Lowell signing some
vocals. Song highlights a lot of different instruments. There was a
violin solo, a trumpet solo and LaBamba had a trombone solo. The
horns really shine on this song.
17. Adam Raise A Cain
Banjo intro....Lisa and Soozie on background vocals. He did it twice.
18. Further On Up The Road.
Very slow and deliberate. Just Bruce at first on the guitar. Sort of like the version of Promised Land he did on the Devils & Dust tour (without the guitar banging). Later a banjo, accordian, bass and dobro joined in.

19. Open All Night
The highlight of the day! This is going to be fun. At first the horns were working on a bit of a New Orlenas riff. It has a very jazzystyle. A "talking blues" was how some described and it did some like a faster version of Dylan's "Highway 61."
When Bruce got toward the end and sang "hey, ho, rock'n'roll, deliver me from nowhere." he said, "I need everyone to sing with me on this one!"
The horns really go strong toward the end and there's a lot of piano and again, Soozie violin. Bruce at one point said "Wooooooooooooooh!"
And then he yelled out: "Play it Mark Clifford!""
Clifford is the banjo player.
I think people will be dancing to this one too.

20. Some sort of musical riff with the horns. Kind of a ZZ Top style.
21. If I Should Fall Beind.
Same way he played it last week, a slow-countryfied version.
Someone said it reminded them of a George Jones-Tammy Wynette duet as Bruce and Patti shared the vocals. Patti must have arrived late, because I did not hear her on any of the songs before this.
22. Jesse James.

Jon Landau was there. He was observing from inside the theater.

TUESDAY, MARCH 21

Another cold day in Asbury Park, another hot rehearsal by Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band.
The fifth, and from what I heard, final (for now), day of rehearsals.

1. Jacob's Ladder
2. Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep.
3. My Oklahoma Home
4. Jesse James
5. Erie Canal
6. Eyes On The Prize.
7. We Shall Overcome
8. Pay Me My Money Down
9. Shenadoah.
Violin intro with a banjo. Bruce worked on the beginning of it a bit before going into the song.

10. The Long Black Veil
This is a Johnny Cash song from 1964 and I also believe it has been covered by the Dave Matthews band. People told me Bruce had been working on this in the morning also.

11. John Henry.
Bruce sang one line of this kiddingly, "John Henry had him a red-headed woman."

12. Buffalo Girls.
This is one of the bonus track on the CD. I believe this was the first time Bruce rehearsed this. Lots of different solos and some nice playing by the horn section.

13. Froggy Went-A-Courtin.
14. Adam Raised a Cain.
Bruce worked on the vocals of the female singers a bit. And then worked on the end of the song, where different people sing the "Adam Raised a Cain" part, one after another.
15. Pretty Boy Floyd.
This is a Pete Seeger song that is not on the new CD.

16. Open All Night
Someone said it's like the "Jump Blues."
A lot of fun. Had us dancing which helped us stay warm.

At the end of Open All Night, Bruce said: "Thank you everyone. It's been a great five-six days. Let's hear it for the band!"
We could hear some applause from inside the theater.
Bruce then said, "This is just the tip of the iceberg!"

The only song that I didn't hear rehearsed was "How Can I Keep From Singing" which is one of the bonus tracks on the CD.

This is going to be a fun tour. It will be different but I think we will walk out of these shows saying we had a good time.


Stan

Who Will Save Abdul Rahman?
By Michelle Malkin

Abdul Rahman is a man of faith. "I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in Christ. And I am a Christian," he declared this week.

Unfortunately for Rahman, he was originally born a Muslim in Afghanistan -- and he has been forced to defend his religious conversion in his home country's court, where he now faces the death penalty for turning to Jesus. Despite the defeat of the totalitarian Taliban and the existence of a U.S.-backed "moderate" democratic government, it is a capital crime for Afghanis to openly embrace any religion other than Islam. Sharia law, embedded in the Afghan constitution, overrides its human rights provisions.

Rahman's family has denounced him as mentally ill. Afghan officials are thirsting for his blood. "We will cut him into little pieces," jail employee Hosnia Wafayosofi told the Chicago Tribune, as she "made a cutting motion with her hands."

The Tribune reported that prosecutor Abdul Wasi demanded Rahman's repentance and called him a traitor: "He is known as a microbe in society, and he should be cut off and removed from the rest of Muslim society and should be killed." The country's attorney general says Rahman should be hung. The judge handling the case, who has been photographed wielding Rahman's Bible as evidence against him, threatens: "If he doesn't regret his conversion, the punishment will be enforced on him. And the punishment is death."

This is a watershed moment in the post-Sept. 11 world. The Taliban are out of power. And yet today, an innocent man sits in the jail of a "moderate" Muslim nation praying for his life because he owned a Bible and refuses to renounce his Christian faith. Rahman, who converted many years ago while working for a Christian aid agency in Germany, "is standing by his words," fellow jail inmate Sayad Miakel told Canada's Globe and Mail. Another cellmate, Khalylullah Safi, reported: "He keeps looking up to the sky, to God."

As of Tuesday afternoon, left-wing Amnesty International had nothing to say about the case. But neither did President Bush, a man of faith and a Christian brother. During his extensive White House press conference on the War on Terror and the defense of freedom overseas, Bush spent plenty of time describing what life was like for Afghanis before Operation Enduring Freedom:

"There was no such thing as religious freedom. There was no such thing as being able to express yourself in the public square. There was no such thing as press conferences like this. They were totalitarian in their view. And that would be -- I'm referring to the Taliban, of course. And that's how they would like to run government. They rule by intimidation and fear, by death and destruction. And the United States of America must take this threat seriously and must not -- must never forget the natural rights that formed our country."

President Bush, who will defend Abdul Rahman's natural rights from being usurped and terminated by Afghanistan's Islamic executioners?

Tony Perkins at the Family Research Council raises the unpleasant question Bush evaded and no one in the White House press corps bothered to ask: "How can we congratulate ourselves for liberating Afghanistan from the rule of jihadists only to be ruled by Islamists who kill Christians? . . . President Bush should immediately send Vice President Cheney or Secretary Rice to Kabul to read [Afghan President] Hamid Karzai's government the riot act. Americans will not give their blood and treasure to prop up new Islamic fundamentalist regimes. Democracy is more than purple thumbs."

Embarrassingly, the governments of Italy and Germany have already stepped forward to make direct appeals to Karzai to save Rahman's life. Hamid Karzai has ducked the issue so far. Our feckless State Department is "monitoring" the situation.

If we sit on the sidelines and watch this man "cut into little pieces" for his love of Christ, we do not deserve the legacy of liberty our Founding Fathers left us. How about offering Rahman asylum in the United States? Perhaps Yale University, proud sponsor of former Taliban official Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, can offer Rahman a scholarship. Where's the Catholic Church, so quick to offer sanctuary to every last illegal alien streaming across the borders? And how about Hollywood, so quick to take up the cause of every last Death Row inmate?

Hello, anyone, hello?

Democratic Apostasy
The Martyrdom of Abdul Rahman
By Chuck Colson

March 21, 2006

Since October 2001, approximately three hundred Americans have been killed and another eight hundred have been wounded in Afghanistan. The overthrow of the Taliban was about more than denying a base of operations to al Qaeda—it was also about liberating the people of Afghanistan from a brutal theocracy.

All of this makes recent news from Kabul all the more ironic—and outrageous.

Abdul Rahman is on trial for his life in a Kabul court. His crime? Converting to Christianity.

According to reports, Rahman converted to Christianity sixteen years ago while working for a Christian group that helped Afghan refugees in Peshawar, Pakistan. When he returned to Afghanistan in 2002, he tried to regain custody of his daughters from his parents. They referred the matter to the police, and his conversion came to the attention of Afghani authorities.

While the Taliban no longer rules the country, conversion from Islam to another religion, called apostasy, is still punishable by death. The prosecutor offered to drop the charges if Rahman converted back to Islam, but Rahman refused. According to the prosecutor, Rahman “said he was a Christian and would always remain one.”

That fidelity could cost Rahman his life if the judge decides that his “attack on Islam” meets the requirements of apostasy.

The irony is inescapable: This is the country that we rid of the Taliban because of its religious oppression. This is the country in which we have spent at least $70 billion to establish a free democratic government. This is the country whose freedom cost us three hundred American lives and eight hundred casualties. And this is the country that is preparing to execute a man for becoming a Christian after he witnessed other Christians caring for his countrymen.

Is this the fruit of democracy? Is this why we have shed American blood and invested American treasure to set a people free? What have we accomplished for overthrowing the Taliban? This is the kind of thing we would expect from the Taliban, not from President Karzai and his freely elected democratic government.

I have supported the Bush administration’s foreign policy because I came to believe that the best way to stop Islamo-fascism was by promoting democracy. But if we can’t guarantee fundamental religious freedoms in the countries where we establish democratic reforms, then the whole credibility of our foreign policy is thrown into serious question. I hope the president and the administration can recognize what a devastating setback Rahman’s execution would be to the cause of democracy and freedom.

But just in case they don’t, we had better tell them. While Abdul Rahman is prepared to be a martyr, it is our solemn obligation before God to protest as loudly and strenuously as we can. You need to both call and e-mail your elected representatives and the White House. You need to tell them that Abdul Rahman’s execution must not take place. You need to let them know that “democracy” worth the name must include protection of the most basic human right: freedom of conscience and belief.

Otherwise, places like Afghanistan, whoever is in charge, are nothing more than brutal theocracies and will always remain so.

Take action:

Contact your representative and senators (Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121) and President Bush (e-mail president@whitehouse.gov or call 202-456-1111), and urge them to take action to prevent the execution of Afghan Christian Abdul Rahman.

From La Shawn Barber's Corner:

Former Muslim Asked to Deny Christ or Die

A former Muslim’s family turned him in for becoming a Christian, and now he faces the death penalty unless he denies Christ. From the Herald Sun:

Islamic sharia law proposes the death sentence for Muslims who abandon the religion. Afghanistan’s new constitution says “no law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam.”
…
He would be charged with abandoning Islam, Mr Mawlavizada said.

“The prosecutor says he should be executed on the basis of the constitution,” Mr Mawlavizada said, who added that Mr Rahman could come back to Islam…”If he does not … he will be punished,” he said.

Over the past 2,000 years, millions of Christ followers have been killed, and Abdul Rahman will likely be added to the list. Before Christ returns, countless others will be martyred. Unlike Islam, Christianity doesn’t require its adherents to kill those who renounce the faith. While believers are permitted to fight in wars and defend themselves, we are not permitted to murder for any reason.

Beginning in Acts 6, we read about a man called Stephen, considered the first martyr in Christendom. After Christ was murdered, his disciples continued to preach and teach, and the number of believers grew. Acts is also where we read about the formation and expansion of the Christian church.

The unbelieving Jews of the Sanhedrin arrested Stephen for blasphemy. Knowing he would be found guilty and sentenced to death, Stephen gave a rousing speech (in Acts 7) about Israel’s deliverance from physical slavery in Egypt, a sign pointing to deliverance from spiritual slavery through the Messiah. Just as their forefathers doubted Moses, many Jews also doubted Jesus. But others believed.

As he was being stoned, Stephen was recorded to have said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” He asked God to forgive his murderers. One of the witnesses to his stoning was Paul (Saul), a Christ hater who would become one of the greatest apostles and lead a mission to spread Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. (See maps of his first, second, and third journeys.) It is believed that Paul was murdered for the faith under Nero’s reign.

Christians, unless you live in the Middle East or Africa or anywhere Muslims rule, it’s doubtful that you’ll be murdered for believing in Christ, but remember the saints who are. Pray for them to remain strong and encouraged. Ask God to give them a calm heart and mind, knowing that he can use even evil for his divine purpose. Who knows how many people will be converted as a result of Rahman’s death? Perhaps one of his murderers will take up the cross and follow Christ, just as the Apostle Paul did!

Rahman’s reward will be great. He will be face to face with Christ.

The marytrs cry, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” That blood will be avenged. Remember this when you hear others talk about God’s love but ignore his righteous wrath.

Right Now
Adam Lucas on the loss to George Mason.

March 19, 2006

DAYTON--Right now this hurts.

Tomorrow, supposedly, it will feel better.

Right now all I know is that tomorrow will bring a morning newspaper with the obligatory "sad faces on bench" photo of the Tar Heels.

Tomorrow I think I will leave the paper in the driveway all day.

Right now Quentin Thomas is in the Dayton Arena, in the shower, flat on his back in full uniform.

Tomorrow I think Quentin Thomas should be so proud of the progress he made this season.

Right now Wes Miller, who has been the go-to guy for the media all season, isn't answering any questions. Right now he is hunched over facing his locker, head in his hands.

Tomorrow I think Wes Miller will be back in the gym working on his shot. Maybe even tonight.

Right now Tyler Hansbrough is up on that familiar NCAA blue podium answering questions from the media, and you know what? Right now Tyler Hansbrough looks very young.

Tomorrow I think Tyler Hansbrough might take a moment to reflect on one of the most fantastic freshman seasons in Carolina history.

Right now I look back on that senior night win in Durham as, frustratingly, the emotional peak of the season.

Tomorrow I think I will look back on that senior night win in Durham as one of the most memorable wins of the Roy Williams era.


Right now Roy Williams is not crying. And that, somehow, makes it hurt worse. Right now his eyes are red and the tears are there, but he is talking about his team and calling them "an unbelievable group of kids" and the tears can't fall. Have you ever been so hurt you can't cry anymore?

Tomorrow I think he will still feel the same way about this team, and that is what makes them--and him--so endearing.

Right now I wish George Mason had never put in that 1-2-2 zone in practice a few weeks ago.

Tomorrow I think we will start to realize, just as Williams said, that the game has changed. The first- and second-round games are no longer walkovers for the power programs. They are legitimate contests against competitive teams who have good basketball players and aren't intimidated.

Right now I wish Carolina hadn't made that last comeback. Right now I wish David Noel hadn't made that game-tying three-pointer and Bobby Frasor hadn't cut the lead to two points with 20 seconds to play. Because that just made it more painful at the end.

Tomorrow I think that spirit will make me proud.

Right now Reyshawn Terry knows he could have done better.

Tomorrow I think he will start committing himself to doing exactly that.

Right now Bobby Frasor's eyes are red.

Tomorrow I think he will be better from having played a full season at point guard and being forced to run a team in the Atlantic Coast Conference, something very few rookies ever have to do.

Right now David Noel...right now I am not ready to write about David Noel.

Right now I want the Tar Heels to come back on the floor. They walked off the Dayton Arena floor all wrong. They walked off at the opposite corner from the hundreds of Carolina fans who had come to support them. We were standing there, completely silent, ready to give them one last ovation, hoping there might be one more chance to raise our hands above our heads and clap until our hands hurt. And then they were gone, disappearing into the tunnel, and all we could do was stand there and put our hands in our pockets.

Tomorrow I think I will write them a letter.

Right now I do not want to hear about brackets, Cinderellas, or upsets. Right now I do not want to watch one second of the rest of the NCAA Tournament.

Tomorrow I think I will start paying attention to baseball.

Right now Marcus Ginyard is doing what he has always been willing to do--answer questions from the media. They have ignored him for most of the year but now he is one of the few capable of putting together a coherent sentence, and now they need him. And right now he is as gracious as he has been throughout the season.

Tomorrow I think he'll be on the way to being one of the best defenders Carolina has ever had.

Right now David Noel...right now I am not ready to write about David Noel.

Right now Danny Green is not smiling for one of the first times all season.

Tomorrow I think the smile will be back, because 19-year-olds bounce back so much faster than we do.

Right now Byron Sanders is a success story. He has been occasionally maligned and occasionally loved. And he will leave as something maybe no one expected a year ago--a valuable contributor to the 2006 Tar Heels.

Tomorrow I think Byron Sanders will be a success story, because he'll be one day closer to his degree and one day he'll probably do something with a computer that will make you shake your head and say, "Man, that kid knows his stuff."

Right now I don't want to think about next year, which is funny because when this season started--think back with me--all anyone wanted to talk about was next year. "Just survive this year and get to next year. Man, we are going to be good next year. I can't wait until next year." But right now I don't want to hear about recruits or depth or predictions or schedules.

Tomorrow I think 2007 might start to look very enjoyable.

Right now I am disappointed.

Tomorrow I think this team becomes a benchmark. As in sitting around 10 years from now and telling your buddy, "Man, if this team played as hard as that team we had in 2006..."

Right now David Noel is everything that's right about Carolina basketball, everything you thought had been lost in a wave of NBA early entries and me-first players and a lack of fundamentals. David Noel takes charges. David Noel thanks the passer. David Noel huddles at the foul line. David Noel says "yes, sir." David Noel leads.

Tomorrow I think someone will say, "All they're losing is David Noel next year," and they will vastly underestimate what a colossal loss that will be, as though all you have to do is replace the 12.6 points and 6.8 rebounds per game and the role is filled.

Right now I am still in love with a basketball team and I am heartbroken.

Tomorrow I think the pain will start to go away.

Right now I am ready for tomorrow.

From The Wilmington Star-News:

Unheralded Noel left his mark at UNC
By Andrew Jones

DAYTON, OHIO | David Noel hurriedly walked off the court at the University of Dayton Arena on Sunday, fighting back tears.
The senior had just concluded his final game at North Carolina, a disappointing 65-60 loss to George Mason in the second round of the NCAA tournament. And for Noel, the final 40 minutes of his college career was a snapshot of his entire four-years in Chapel Hill.
“He fought so hard for us,” freshman Marcus Ginyard said before his eyes began to well up. “David was fighting for his life tonight. It was the last game of his career and he was doing all he could to help us.
“You saw him out there sacrificing his body for us.”
Noel scored 22 points, grabbed seven rebounds, handed out four assists and blocked four shots. He also turned over the ball six times. Perhaps he was trying to do too much.
“Maybe he was, but only because he’s so competitive and wanted so badly for us to win again,” junior Wes Miller said. “That’s David. He’s a warrior, he’s a great teammate.”
Noel loved the role of the veteran leader, the forgotten one from last year’s national championship club even though he was on the floor for the final seconds of UNC’s 75-71 victory over Illinois in the title game.
His head never grew too large, however. Noel’s way became the Carolina way, and without even knowing it, he was always teaching the youthful Heels.
“To persevere,” Ginyard said when asked what he learned from Noel. “Not to settle for what everybody thinks you should do. To put the team ahead of you.
“It’s tough. To be honest with you, I can’t even look him in the face right now.”
The emotions certainly ran high between Noel and coach Roy Williams.
When Noel and teammate Tyler Hansbrough answered postgame questions at the podium, Williams sat there, rarely looking to the senior sitting to his right. He couldn’t. The anguish on the coach’s face spoke more about his feelings for Noel than losing the game.
“I think David Noel epitomizes what we want all student-athletes to be,” Williams said. “I think David Noel epitomizes what we want as a tremendous team player.
“He tried to help our team win on and off the court as well as anyone I have been around in my life. I was very fortunate to coach him. I’m better today because I have coached him.”
Noel’s legacy won’t include his jersey hanging in the rafters, but it will likely be seen in future Tar Heel teams.
And that’s just fine with him.
“All I tried to get across is doing things the right way to 100 percent of your ability will most ensure future success.”

Increasing Muslim Violence in Europe Is Not Being Reported
By John Leo

Like many news junkies, I've noticed that stories putting Muslims in a bad light tend to be sketchy and underreported. A minor example is this comment by the head Muslim chaplain of New York City's prisons: "The greatest terrorists in the world occupy the White House." In Manhattan, remarks like that are nearly as conventional as talk about the weather, so the controversy was fairly small.

It might have been larger if the media had shown any interest in other points the imam made. For instance that Muslim prisoners are being tortured in Manhattan, and that Muslims must be "hard against the kaffir" (i.e., nasty to infidels), which presumably city employees are not paid to recommend. (By the way, why are clergymen city employees at all?)

A much bigger example is the misleadingly low-key reporting of the Ilan Halimi murder in Paris. We now know that Halimi was killed as a classic expression of Jew hatred. But with so much evasiveness and misdirection by police, government and press, it took a month to get that fact clearly on the table. Halimi, a cell phone salesman, was kidnapped and held for ransom by a mostly Muslim gang. He was horrifically tortured for three weeks, then slain. From time to time, neighbors had come to watch the torture or to participate in it. Nobody called the gendarmes.

At first the government and the press presented this story as a straightforward kidnapping for ransom. A spokesman said Jewishness may have played a role simply because the kidnappers thought Jews were rich. AP and UPI, in feeds to the United States, barely mentioned the possibility of anti-Semitism. After arrests were made, the BBC worked hard to avoid using the word "Muslim," though verses from the Quran were recited during the torture.

The Los Angeles Times account of Feb. 28 shows how hard candor can be. It reported that the gang made hundreds of abusive phone calls to Jews and had systematically tried to kidnap Jews. But the reporters wrote this: "Rather than a premeditated anti-Semitic murder, it seems a more complex product of criminality and dysfunction in the narrow world of thug culture: a poisonous mentality that designates Jews as enemies along with other faces of 'outsiders.'"

Oh, please. If whites had tortured and killed a black man, I doubt that reporters would be carrying on about how complex and unpremeditated it all was. They would just say it was a lynching.

In an excellent article last week, Colin Nickerson of The Boston Globe said the crime was being attributed to a "predominantly Muslim youth gang" notorious for "virulent anti-Semitism." The gang's taunting phone calls to Halimi's father were filled with anti-Semitic slurs and a rabbi had been told, "We have a Jew." The Globe said hatred of Jews is now a hallmark of what's cool in France, even among young immigrants from non-Muslim nations. Very strong article. No dancing around, just good reporting.

Governments and the media often avoid calling terrorism by its proper name. Presumably the idea is to calm the public and avoid embarrassing Muslims. It took nine months for the FBI and the government to admit that the attack on L.A. airport in 2002 was a terrorist operation. We had been told that personal reasons might explain why a pro-Palestinian gunman, who openly admitted the desire to kill civilians, would kill two people at an El Al counter.

The same verbal dance took place recently when an Iranian student rented a large van and tried to run down and kill as many students as possible in North Carolina. He said he was attempting to "avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world." But the university tried desperately to avoid the obvious T-word.

Tony Blankley wrote a Washington Times column, March 8, on the underreporting of Muslim violence. He said British politicians tell him there is increasing radical Muslim street violence, explicitly motivated by radical Islam, but not reported or characterized as such. Blankley said rioting Moroccan youths in Antwerp went on a rampage, beating up reporters and destroying cars, but police were instructed not to arrest or stop them. A database search shows little reporting on Antwerp riots.

The scary riots in Australia last December, pitting Lebanese immigrants against native whites, were well-covered. But nobody seems quite sure that we are getting the full story about other serious disturbances. From time to time the Internet carries reports of riots that don't make the newspapers, but they are mostly uncheckable.

Suppressing news, whether out of multicultural deference or fear, is a perilous business. We can't know how to react to upheavals if we aren't told about them.

Port decision won't put U.S. in a safe harbor
BY MARK STEYN

How's that Dubai ports deal going? You remember, the one where Dubai Ports World agreed to sell its U.S. port operations to an American company?

"It appears," huffed Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), "that the divestiture announcement from DPW last week may have been nothing more than a diversion designed to deflect attention away from this outsourcing of American port security. Congressional action blocking this deal is the only true assurance we have that this deal is dead."

You go, girl! Tote that barge, lift that bale, git a little drunk an' you land in Congress! Why doesn't the House of Representatives buy the port operations with the money earmarked for prescription drugs for seniors or Hurricane Katrina "relief"? I don't expect a busy woman like Schultz to run the new company herself -- though she could certainly put in a couple of shifts at the Port of Miami each weekend -- but how about that INS official who mailed Mohammed Atta his visa six months to the day after he died in an unusual flying accident in Lower Manhattan? How about leaving the ports to those State Department chaps who approved the 9/11 killers' laughably incomplete paperwork ("Address in the United States: HOTEL, AMERICA")? Or how about those officials at FAA headquarters who on the morning of 9/11 found it all a little too much and just walked out of the room?

After all, all those guys are still working for the U.S. government. By golly, if we're gonna have security breaches at American ports, let's make sure they're all-American security breaches! If I were Dubai Ports World, I'd sell the U.S. operations to Cosco, the Chinese Commies who run port operations in California, just for the fun of watching congressional heads explode. Or does Washington's new fun xenophobia stop at the (Pacific) water's edge?

Congress' demand that DPW sell its U.S. operations to someone even if there's no someone to sell them to is almost a parody of the Democrats' (and naysaying Republicans') approach to national security: Goddammit, we may not know what we're for but we sure as hell know what we're against. In that sense, whatever one's dissatisfactions on this third anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the Bush Doctrine remains the only game in town. It recognizes that the problem has to be fixed at the source, which means changing the nature of the terrorist breeding grounds. That's not sappy internationalism, but taking the game to the enemy.

Right now, in the generally squalid Arab world, you'll find four types of regimes:

1. Dictators with oil (Iraq, Libya)

2. Monarchs with oil (Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states)

3. Dictators without oil (Egypt, Syria)

4. Monarchs without oil (Jordan, Morocco)

Numbers 1 and 3 are, almost by definition, unreformable: In essence, they have to be overthrown or made to see that the only option is self-liquidation. The second category -- monarchs with oil -- are also largely unreformable: They're basically a globalized version of the dhimmi economy. The dhimmi -- the non-Muslim in a Muslim society -- was obliged to pay the jizya, a special tax levied on him as an infidel. When Islam in its heyday conquered infidel lands, it set in motion a massive transfer of wealth, enacting punitive taxation to transfer money from nonbelievers to Muslims -- or from the productive part of the economy to the nonproductive. That's why almost all Muslim societies tend toward the economically moribund. You can see it literally in the landscape in rural parts of the Balkans: Christian tradesmen got fed up paying the jizya and moved out of the towns up into remote hills. For the House of Saud, oil wealth is a global jizya: an enormous wealth transfer from the economically productive world -- Europe, North America -- to Islam. The Saudi state uses oil money as a giant welfare check to keep its people quiescent and too pampered to revolt. You can say the same about many of the Gulf statelets.

But Dubai, with less oil than its fellow emirates, can't depend on the global oil jizya. It's had to diversify into banking and tourism: These days it's like Hong Kong with an en suite Lawrence of Arabia theme park. Unlike almost anywhere else in the Arab world, it's moving toward a non-deformed socioeconomic structure. Next to Morocco, it's about the best shot at real reform among the existing regimes. To be sure, they're not hot for Jews and there are some pretty disgusting books for sale in their stores. But so what? You can say the same about Paris and London.

And yes, DPW is a "state-owned" bauble, just as King Willem III of the Netherlands was a founding shareholder of Royal Dutch Shell petroleum, just as Prince Maurits of Orange founded the Dutch East India Company, the original Royal Dutch shell company and the Halliburton of its day. In monarchical societies, economic innovation often begins with royal protection.

So saying "Get lost, Dubai" isn't a new steeliness so much as a retreat into an unsustainable bunker mentality more sentimental than Bush's liberty promotion. My National Review comrade John Derbyshire has been promoting the slogan "Rubble Doesn't Cause Trouble." Cute, and I wish him well with the T-shirt sales. But, in arguing for a "realist" foreign policy of long-range bombing, he overlooks the very obvious point that rubble causes quite a lot of trouble: The rubble of Bosnia is directly responsible for radicalizing a generation of European Muslims, including Daniel Pearl's executioner; the rubble of Afghanistan became an international terrorist training camp, whose alumni include the shoebomber Richard Reid, the millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam, and the 9/11 plotters; the rubble of Grozny turned Chechen nationalists into pan-Islamist jihadi. Those correspondents of mine who send me e-mails headed "Nuke Mecca!" might like to consider the broader strategic impact on a billion Muslims from Indonesia to Yorkshire, for whom any fallout will be psychological rather than carcinogenic. Rubble is an insufficient solution, unless you're also going to attend to the Muslim world's real problem: its intellectual rubble.

Arab Muslims fought in Afghanistan, British Muslims took up arms in Bosnia, Pakistani Muslims have been killed in Chechnya. When you're up against a globalized ideology, you need to globalize your own, not hunker down in Fortress America. Right now the Arab world's principal exports are oil and Islamism. Ports management is a rare diversification and long overdue.

© Mark Steyn 2006

From The News & Observer:

Workouts keep Heels' Hansbrough hale, hardy
Hansbrough's conditioning a big factor in his success.

By Robbi Pickeral, Staff Writer

After every game and most practices, North Carolina freshman Tyler Hansbrough sinks into a tub for a nice, relaxing, 10-minute soak.

At about 40 degrees.

"That's another reason we call him Psycho T," said strength and conditioning coach Jonas Sahratian, whose third-seeded Tar Heels (23-7) play No. 11 seed George Mason (24-7) in the NCAA Tournament second round today in Dayton, Ohio.

And another reason why the ACC rookie of the year has been able to maintain his health, and improve his game, all while being pushed, pounded, and pressured by some of the meatiest men in the country.

As hard as he has worked to quicken his moves around the basket and extend his shooting range, Hansbrough likewise has focused on taking care of -- and building up -- his 6-foot-9, 235-pound body.

He often can be found in the weight room 12 hours after a game, when some of his teammates take the day off. He keeps up with an elaborate stretching routine, meant to help with his flexibility. Plus, he eats four or five times a day so all of that work is not for naught. And then there are the ice baths, meant to quicken Hansbrough's recovery time by calming the inflammation in his muscles so he can do all that work all over again.

"There's no question that when Tyler works on his basketball, that means working on his body," UNC coach Roy Williams said. "He attacks everything he does with intensity. Because of that work ethic, I personally feel he's going to get a heck of a lot better."

He already has. In the second half of the season, Hansbrough, who is averaging a team-leading 19.2 points and 7.8 rebounds per game, systematically has added more moves to his aggressive repertoire -- making it even harder for double- and triple-teams to slow him down.

He takes, and makes, more 12-foot jumpers. He feels more comfortable shooting the ball from the post without putting it on the floor first. His jump-hook shot is more consistent, as evidenced by the go-ahead bucket he buried against Murray State on Friday. And he is laying the ball in the basket off one foot instead of two, making it harder for defenders to block it.

Part of the improvement in the paint can be credited to assistant coach Joe Holladay, who has been going through occasional 15 minute-long extra practice sessions with Hansbrough since December to hone those skills.

But another factor has to do with a focused routine that has kept Hansbrough fit and refreshed enough to pummel through a freshman wall -- if he ever hit one.

"If I had to say one thing: He will do whatever it takes to improve," Holladay said. "He improves and gets better because he will do whatever it takes to win."

It all starts in the weight room. Because of a basement filled with gym equipment back in Poplar Bluff, Mo., Hansbrough arrived in Chapel Hill last summer with plenty of what Sahratian called "beach muscles" -- a cut upper body that made him look fully toned, but didn't necessarily mean his body was sculpted to its fullest.

Hansbrough has maintained his biceps (and also shows off a funny little flexing move when he works out, much to the mirth of his teammates) but has done more work on the muscles needed to improve his explosiveness -- his abdominals, his legs, his hips, his lower back.

"I had a lot of the smaller muscle groups that I just wasn't using enough," said Hansbrough, who now can squat a vein-bulging 225 pounds. "Now that I've developed them, I can feel a difference."

He can see it, too, with the way he muscles opponents on the way to a two-handed dunk.

Flexibility also helps when surrounded by tall, strong defenders. So Hansbrough stretches for up to an hour a day, limbering up sore muscles in a way that also aids his quickness. His complex routine includes rolling different parts of his body along three-foot long foam tubes. That serves to massage the muscles he just worked out, while also training them.

"It seems like I'm stretching all the time, sometimes," Hansbrough said. "But it does help with the soreness ... and I just feel like I can reach the ball a lot better."

Such as when he outstretches opponents, and sometimes his own teammates, for seemingly out-of-reach rebounds.

With all that training, the cafeteria might be Hansbrough's third-favorite place on campus, after the court and his bed. Fish, veggies, steak, eggs and protein shakes are his staples. And with all the energy he expends, he consumes a lot in order to maintain his weight. In a rare moment of public levity, Hansbrough said earlier this season that if he hadn't eaten in a while, "I could probably take down a whole cow."

Don't doubt it -- especially if it would help him also take down a stockier opposing player, such as 6-foot-7, 275-pound George Mason forward/center Jai Lewis.

"He's probably the most conscientious player on the team as far as eating to win," said Holladay, who added that he never has coached a big man quite as aggressive as Hansbrough. "He watches what fuel he puts in his body; he does not put a lot of junk in there. And if he needs to eat five times a day, then that's what he does.

"Again, he does what he has to do."

Such as when he turns the thermostat on his daily hip-high ice baths to 10 degrees colder than the ones his teammates usually take.

Brrr!

"As hard as he works, as bruised up as he gets, he'd probably get in there up to his nose if you gave him a pair of goggles," roommate and point guard Bobby Frasor said.