From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, December 22, 2006 3:06 P.M. EST

Best of the Tube Tonight: Watch James Taranto on "Lou Dobbs Tonight" with Michael Goodwin of New York's Daily News and syndicated columnist Miguel Perez. CNN, 6-7 p.m. EST, with a repeat showing at 4 a.m. EST Saturday.

Today's Video on WSJ.com: Dorothy Rabinowitz discusses the best of television in 2006.

Keep This Under Your Hat
"An analysis done for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says that the PATH train tunnels under the Hudson River are more vulnerable to a bomb attack than previously thought, and that a relatively small amount of high explosives could cause significant flooding of the rail system within hours," the New York Times reports:

The analysis, based on work by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, revises some critical aspects of an assessment of the system's vulnerability that was presented to the agency last spring. It makes clear that the tunnels--four tubes of varying design and sturdiness that stretch across the Hudson riverbed--are structurally more fragile than first thought.

A draft summary of the most recent analysis was given to The New York Times by a government official who was troubled by what the official felt was a lack of action in response to the analysis, which the official said the Port Authority got about three weeks ago. The official said the latest analysis indicates that it would take only six minutes for one of the PATH tubes to flood if a significant but not necessarily very large bomb were detonated.

Well, kudos to the New York Times for alerting us to this danger. Now that you've heard about it, please keep it to yourself. Whatever you do, don't publish it anywhere a terrorist might find out about it!

This Space Intentionally Left Xxxxx
The New York Times today publishes an op-ed by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann, former national-security officials, complaining about CIA censorship of another op-ed they'd planned to publish in the Times. (Because they held security clearances, they were required to submit the piece to the agency's Publication Review Board). The Times cleverly publishes the original op-ed as well, with some of the text blacked out to indicate CIA redaction. Here's a sample paragraph:

In December 2001, xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx x Tehran to keep Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the brutal pro-Al Qaeda warlord, from returning to Afghanistan to lead jihadist resistance there. xxxxx xxxxxxx so long as the Bush administration did not criticize it for harboring terrorists. But, in his January 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush did just that in labeling Iran part of the "axis of evil." Unsurprisingly, Mr. Hekmatyar managed to leave Iran in short order after the speech. xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxx the Islamic Republic could not be seen to be harboring terrorists.

(If you're viewing this in text mode, the Xxx's actually look like solid black bars in the paper and on the Web.)

We guess the Times means to make fun of the CIA for being overly secretive, but even the Times recognizes that there are some secrets so vital that they must not be exposed. Well, one of them anyway: the identity of Xxxxxxx Xxxxx, the xxxx xx Joe Wilson, xxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxx x xxxx to Niger, where he said he investigated whether Saddam Hussein had acquired yellowcake uranium.

Jimmy Cower--II
Yesterday we noted that Jimmy Carter, the anti-Israel author who served one term as president during the 1970s, was refusing an invitation to debate Alan Dershowitz at Brandeis University--this after complaining that Jewish-dominated universities had turned down his invitations to speak free. It turns out that he didn't mean quite free, according to the Boston Globe:

Brandeis spokesman Dennis Nealon said the university is and always was open to Carter coming to campus.

"Jimmy Carter is welcome to speak on the Brandeis campus," he said. . . .

Nealon said the administration would work with faculty who wanted to set up a visit. He indicated that money would probably not be an obstacle.

"I think the administration would be willing to figure out how to pay for it," he said.

Carter told the Globe last week that he would give the talk for free, if the university sent a plane to pick him up from Georgia, where he lives.

He wants to be alone, and he wants a plane. But other than that, no conditions!

Tim, Dick and Terri
The senator best known for likening American servicemen to Nazis, thinks it's in poor taste to speculate about the health of one of his colleagues, reports the Daily Herald of suburban Chicago:

With South Dakota Democrat Tim Johnson reportedly exceeding expectations in his initial recovery from emergency brain surgery, Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin took a shot Thursday at the politicians and pundits who rushed to speculate on potential replacements.

"It was ironic that some of the same people that were arguing for Terri Schiavo after 15 years in a somewhat vegetative state should live on, were pronouncing Tim Johnson a goner after 15 hours and brain surgery," Durbin told the Daily Herald in an interview. "It had more to do with politics than it did with medicine."

It's true that some of the talk about Johnson was a bit ghoulish--though we can remember similar talk about South Carolina Republican Strom Thurmond when he won his final Senate term at 93 years young.

But c'mon, Sen. Durbin. As we know blogger "Grand Old Partisan" is right:

I challenge Mr. Durbin (or his apologists) to cite one prominent advocate for continuing Ms. Schiavo's life-support who "pronounced" that Mr. Johnson would likely either die or be unable to return to the Senate.

Also, would Durbin have favored pulling the plug on Schiavo if she had been a Democratic senator on whom the majority depended?

Charles Darwin, Call Your Office
Sorry if this item is a little gross, but hey, it's science. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

New science shows that there's a reason you can pack on a pound or two if you nibble a few holiday cookies while your skinny friend can snarf a whole plate and not gain an ounce.

Part of the reason is friendly bacteria in your gut. Some of these bacteria are too friendly, acting like over-indulgent grandparents who show their love with food. . . .

A team of scientists led by Dr. Jeffrey I. Gordon at Washington University has discovered that obese people may get more calories from food than lean people do because they have a different mix of those friendly bacteria. In two studies appearing today in the journal Nature, the researchers show that obesity is linked to the makeup of bacterial communities inside our intestines. . . .

Those surveys are only a first estimate of the number and complexity of the organisms living within us, said Dr. Martin J. Blaser, chairman of medicine at New York University.

"The diversity in the human colon is unfathomable," Blaser said. Our relationship with bacteria has evolved over a billion years, and it is no accident that we carry the organisms we do, he said.

Whoa, hold on a second there. "No accident"? What are you, Dr. Blaser, some kind of creationist?

Ap***ude Test
Remember that Waco Tribune article from yesterday about the 4-year-old sex predator? A reader calls our attention to an anomaly in the reader comments on the Trib's Web site. On Tuesday "Ed" posted the following:

My son was expelled in the 5th grade for telling another fifth grader that he liked her. I guess saying that to someone who doesn't feel the same way now cons***utes sexual harrassment [sic]. So much for dating!

"Cons***utes"? The next day, "Aschersleben" commented:

Isn't it ironic in this very context that in Ed's comment (Dec 19, 2006 9:24 AM) the word CONS***UTE reads consute?

It looks as though the Trib has some sort of zero-tolerance filter of its own that tries to screen out "bad" words and sometimes ends up hitting good ones. "Fred" has some fun with this:

It sounds like this teacher is disturbed, if a little kid can't give her a hug! Take her out of that cl****and subs***ute someone with a brain and a heart.

Just one question: Why are the Wacovians so sensitive about the name of a bird?

Hungry for Tenure
"An MIT professor is reportedly threatening to 'die defiantly' in a hunger strike outside the provost's office, if that's what it takes, to overturn a university decision denying him tenure," the Boston Herald reports:

Dr. James Sherley, a professor of biological engineering at MIT who is black, contends "racist attitudes" on the part of his department colleagues were a key factor in the rejection of his bid to become a permanent member of the university's faculty. MIT denies Sherley's charges. . . .

In an open letter to fellow MIT professors that was posted on an Internet blog, Sherley is threatening to go forth with a planned hunger strike on Feb. 5 outside the provost's office unless his demands are met. Sherley, who could not be reached for comment, is inviting fellow MIT colleagues to accompany him for moral support. The letter, corroborated by one source, was first reported online by the Boston Business Journal.

"I will either see the Provost resign and my hard-earned tenure granted at MIT, or I will die defiantly right outside his office," Sherley writes. "This is the strength of my conviction that racism in America must end."

We don't think he'll go through with it and starve to death. Anyone want to put some money on it?

Hot News Flash
"Studies Leave Women Confused About Menopause"--headline, ABCNews.com, Dec. 20

The Low-Level Guys? 'Never Seen 'Em.'
"Police Department Recognizes Top Employees"--headline, Paris (Texas) News, Dec. 21

World Ends, Etc.
"Pandemic Would Hit Poor the Hardest, New Flu Study Says"--headline, Seattle Times, Dec. 22

Pessimists Just Get Really Old
"Optimists May Have Longer Lives"--headline, Reuters, Dec. 22

News You Can Use

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • "Jessica Simpson Out of Parton Tribute"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 21

  • "Gorilla on Fertility Drug Gives Birth"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 22

  • "Georgia Family's Last Name is Christmas"--headline, FoxNews.com, Dec. 22

  • "Bar's Security Video Offers No Help"--headline, Chicago Tribune, Dec. 22

Back Is Beautiful
From San Jose, Calif.'s KNTV comes evidence that racism is still alive and well in America:

A school bus driver made black high school students sit at the front of the bus, triggering charges of segregation from the students, and an investigation by the school district and a civil rights group.

About two dozen black students were made to sit at the front by the driver, who said he wanted to keep an eye on the students following a fight between two of them on Oct. 31. The driver's name wasn't released by the school district. . . .

The NAACP has asked the school district to take steps to improve relations between staff and black students, who said they didn't feel comfortable riding the bus anymore.

Good for the NAACP. After all, Rosa Parks and all the other civil rights heroes didn't make the sacrifices they did so that black Americans could sit in the front of the bus!

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michael Segal, Daniel Freedman, Ethel Fenig, Jeffrey Spiegel, Cliff Thier, Anthony Brunsvold, Frank Varnavas, Thomas Dillon, Joseph Tully, George Struve, Billy Harvey, Jim Orheim, Bruce Goldman, Kyle Kyllan, Peter Iorio, Jane Vawter, Jim Reingruber, Jeff Baird and Thomas Carr. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

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  • Samuel Heilman: A Conservative Jewish legal body considers the status of homosexuality.

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