Andrew Sullivan has a sickening, heart-rending post about the execution of two gay youths in Iran. It brings home the importance not just of the war in Iraq and the war against terrorism but–I know, we’re not supposed to say this out loud–the culture war with Islam as practiced in the Middle East.

This is a daunting project and many people, understandably, are simply unwilling to confront it. But this isn’t a fight between Middle Eastern Islam and America or Democracy or even Liberalism. It’s a fight between Middle Eastern Islam and modernity. A culture which is compatible with the modern world is simply incapable of this barbarism. And remember, this isn’t an isolated example.

What worries me most about America’s democratization project in the Middle East isn’t the pictures of Nick Berg having his head sawed off. That is, in its own misguided way, part of war, with people who style themselves as soldiers acting the part of butchers. It is barbaric, but you can, after much struggle, dimly comprehend it.

No, what worries me are the pictures of Iraqis <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/images/weblogs/publiceditor/fallujah_iraq_ap.jpg"dancing around the charred bodies of American contractors. The pictures of Palestinians joyously waving their hands, stained purple with the blood of Jews, out the windows in Ramallah to a cheering throng below. This picture of two kids who barely look old enough to drive being trussed up on the gallows because they’re gay. There is no comprehension available here. The people in these pictures are not grimly carrying out politics by other means. They are rhapsodic about death.

You can stop an insurgency. You can kill and capture terrorists. It is not clear to me how you instigate a reformation in a major sect of a religion which breeds this sort of hatred and bloodlust.

The New York Times should get some sort of award for this inscrutable story about Larry Brown leaving the Pistons. Try to untangle this sentence:

The sides tried to work out their differences before the Pistons determined they were irreconcilable, a conclusion apparently made easier by Brown’s recent public attempts to cling to a job he had sought to leave during the season.

Huh?

Update, 11:00 a.m.: The Times‘s pathetic coverage of sports is on even greater display when it comes to boxing. Brian Moore takes apart this credulous story about boxing promoters turning to hip-hop to revive the sport. It’s almost like the Times sports editors don’t care unless the story is about Augusta National or the WNBA.

The Washington Post‘s editorial on Roberts doesn’t concede much, except that the judge is “a man of substance and seriousness.” That’s in the first sentence. When the compliment is up top, you always know there’s a “but” coming down the way.

The Post for some reason believes that the Roberts nomination will not “proceed without controversy.” And–here’s the best bit of code:

His confirmation hearings offer the Senate the opportunity to probe whether his evident reticence and caution would translate into a restrained jurisprudence that respects the stability of precedent.

I wonder about which precedents the Post is concerned? I mean, do you have any idea, any clue?

Let the record show that at 11:58 p.m. I clicked over to Kausfiles and found this ad already running. It’s NARAL, helping you stop “right-wing judicial activist” John Roberts from rushing into your doctor’s office with his Mighty Gavel of Truth!

After all, “We must not allow someone who’s spent his career advocating ending the right to choose to be appointed to the most important court in our country.” Right?

Well, we had very nearly three hours of dignification. That’s not nothing.

I don’t know much of the legal fine tuning about John Roberts. He seems on first blush to be a smart, very impressive fellow. People who do know about this sort of thing, such as Confirm Them, believe that he will confirmed easily by the Senate. I’m not so sure about that.

If, as smart people are saying, Roberts is a Rehnquist and not a Scalia, that puts a lot of pressure on moderate Dems who might want to pass Roberts, but who will be feeling the full weight of liberal interest groups on them. Certainly, the stance of Senators Leahy and Schumer tonight did not seem particularly warm to Roberts.

The Daily Kos, for instance, says about Roberts:

Roberts has been floated as a nominee who could win widespread support in the Senate. Not so likely. He hasn’t been on the bench long enough for his judicial opinions to provide much ammunition for liberal opposition groups. But his record as a lawyer for the Reagan and first Bush administrations and in private practice is down-the-line conservative on key contested fronts, including abortion, separation of church and state, and environmental protection.

As noted on Law.com Many who know Roberts say he, unlike Souter, is a reliable conservative who can be counted on to undermine if not immediately overturn liberal landmarks like abortion rights and affirmative action. Indicators of his true stripes cited by friends include: clerking for Rehnquist, membership in the Federalist Society, laboring in the Ronald Reagan White House counsel’s office and at the Justice Department into the Bush years, working with Kenneth Starr among others, and even his lunchtime conversations at Hogan & Hartson. “He is as conservative as you can get,” one friend puts it. In short, Roberts may combine the stealth appeal of Souter with the unwavering ideology of Scalia and Thomas.

And then there’s the bitterness that comes with misdirection. For much of today Democrats and liberals thought they were getting Edith Clement; this evening they got Roberts. I suspect that for them the feeling is slightly reminiscent of Election Day when, for several hours they thought matters were going to turn out to their liking, only to have to adapt to a new reality.

At the end of the day, I expect Roberts will be confirmed, but I’ll be surprised if Democrats aren’t pushed into fighting him.

I don’t speak French but I’ve been told that the CDU’s foreign policy spokesman Friedbert Pflüger has written an op-ed in Le Figaro that, for our Francophone readers, is worth checking out. In particular is Pflüger’s hope that, if Angela Merkel succeeds incumbent chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the new administration will break the Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis and revitalize the transatlantic partnership and NATO. We can only hope.

(The paraphrase comes from Christian Schmidt, the CDU/CSU spokesperson and featured guest at a conference this afternoon sponsored by the Hanns Seidel Foundation and the Hudson Institute.)

Very good, very interesting Slate piece about the self-storage industry. Here’s a business without pretensions:

The first self-storage facilities originated in Texas in the late 1960s. As one industry participant put it, “They just decided to build a bunch of garages in one day. They were able to rent them out. They built more. They rented them. Someone else caught on and did the same.”

But there are all sorts of sociological waypoints going on here. I could do with a whole book about it by Brooks. Or failing that, a book by the piece’s author, Tom Vanderbilt.

Galley Brother B.J. sends along a link to this Onionish story about 21st century playgrounds:

Andrea Levin is grateful that Broward County schools care about her daughter’s safety. But this year when they posted a sign that demanded “no running” on the playground, it seemed like overkill. . . .

Broward’s “Rules of the Playground” signs, bought from an equipment catalogue and displayed at all 137 elementary schools in the district, are just one of several steps taken to cut down on injuries and the lawsuits they inspire.

“It’s too tight around the equipment to be running,” said Safety Director Jerry Graziose, the Broward County official who ordered the signs. “Our job was to try to control it.”

How about swings or those hand-pulled merry-go-rounds?

“Nope. They’ve got moving parts. Moving parts on equipment is the number one cause of injury on the playgrounds.”

Teeter-totters?

“Nope. That’s moving too.”

Sandboxes?

“Well, I have to be careful about animals” turning them into litter boxes.

Cement crawl tubes?

“Vagrants. The longer they are, the higher possibility that a vagrant could stay in them. We have shorter ones now that are made out of plastic or fiberglass.”

Broward playgrounds aren’t the only ones to avoid equipment that most adults remember. Swings, merry-go-rounds, teeter-totters and other old standards are vanishing from schools and parks around the country, according to the National Program for Playground Safety. . . .

In their place, a lot of playgrounds now are inhabited with clusters of bright, multi-use contraptions with names like “Ed Center” and “Platform Climber Composite Structure.” They’re lower to the ground than their predecessors, coated with plastic and engineered for safety.

“We could do a lot more if we didn’t have to watch our back every single second,” said Graziose, who has led a playground safety committee for 17 years. “We sometimes get a letter from the attorney before we even get an accident report from the school.”

Go back to Russia!