Mark Steyn picks up where Meryl Yourish left off. It’s good stuff. Steyn wonders:

I gave up worrying “Why do they hate us?” on the evening of September 11, 2001. But, if I were that Osodden bin Loser guy watching the infidels truck in water, food, medical supplies and emergency clothing for villagers whose jihad-chic T-shirt collection was washed out to sea, I might ask myself a more pertinent question: “Why do they like us?” . . .

But, as usual, when disaster strikes it’s the Great Satan and his various Little Satans who leap to respond. In the decade before September 11, the US military functioned, more or less exclusively, as a Muslim rapid reaction force – coming to the aid of Kuwaiti Muslims, Bosnian Muslims, Somali Muslims and Albanian Muslims. . . .

True dat.

The incomparable Bill Lyon on coaching and leadership. Don’t miss it.

If you haven’t seen it yet, print out Philip Noblie’s mammoth review of The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, which has caused so much stir by positing a gay Rail-Splitter.

Nobile has a unique understanding of C.A. Tripp and the gay Lincoln project. The details of this story are fairly amazing.

The debate about the ethics of the White House paying Armstrong Williams $240,000 to plug the No Child Left Behind Act seems to circling, understandably, around the ethics of Williams’s actions. That’s fine enough.

But why don’t I see anyone questioning the White House’s judgment in picking Armstrong Williams as their highly-paid mouthpiece? I mean, if you’re going to blow money on a paid-for pundit, shouldn’t you get someone with a little higher stature? Who’s the genius who said, Wait a minute, forget Bill Bennet–let’s get Armstrong!

Nick Naylor would never make that sort of bush-league call.

D.C. Bonus Points: Williams says, “I wanted to do it because it’s something I believe in.” Ummm, if you believe in it, why didn’t you do it for free?

I can’t believe that I’m saying this, but: Vince Carter’s getting a bum rap because of his recent remarks about not trying his hardest.

Carter sure isn’t one of my favorites. He’s an over-rated player and as an individual, I put him only a couple tiers above Kobe Bryant. But it seems to me that Carter isn’t saying, I didn’t give 100% effort on the court every night.

Instead, I think he’s saying I didn’t work hard enough to develop my game because I could hide deficiencies with talent.

In a perfect world, highly-paid professional athletes would take everything about their job seriously, but Carter is just admitting to what most athletes do: Hide behind their talent until it’s no longer enough, and then construct other facets of their game. I don’t think he’s saying that he used to dog it on the court in Toronto.

RatherBiased has an interesting tidbit . . .

The Smoking Gun lays out a devastating case against the King of Pop Michael Jackson based on recently reviewed documents from the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department. What deputies allegedly found at the Neverland Ranch wasn’t pretty: a stash of porn including “Barely Legal” DVDs and “Pimp Up, Ho’s Down,” and books of nude men. But most damaging are the eyewitness accounts, especially those of Jordan Chandler, the 13-year-old boy who received an out-of-court settlement and in return dropped the molestation charges against the singer in 1993. From The Smoking Gun (and let me warn you that the following descriptions are graphic):

[Chandler] told police that Jackson frequently masturbated him, adding that he could provide a detailed description of the star’s penis as a way of proving the pair had been intimate…. With Los Angeles Police Department detectives weighing his claims, Chandler gave them a roadmap to Jackson’s below-the-waist geography, which, he said, includes distinctive “splotches” on his buttocks and one on his penis, “which is a light color similar to the color of his face.” The boy’s information was so precise, he even pinpointed where the splotch fell while Jackson’s penis was erect, the length of the performer’s pubic hair, and that he was circumcised.

There’s much more unpleasantness to be found in the documents but that should suffice. On the other hand, if this is true, it does give credence to Jackson’s explanation for his whiteness. Though he has admitted to suffering from vitiligo, a skin condition involving white spots on the body, critics rejected the claim, saying that he just wanted to be a white man. Now it seems he has been vindicated.

Who says there’s no silver lining?

It seems the folks at Planned Parenthood may want to reexamine their own birth control recommendations before looking down on the president’s abstinence program. To wit, the latest findings from Consumer Reports, which, in the past, has told us what appliances work best, which cars are the safest, and which strollers won’t turn into death traps when you are crossing the street. Now add to this which condoms are the strongest: If your choice of prophylactic is Durex Extra Sensitive Lubricated Latex, you can rest easy—it gets an “excellent” in both strength and reliability. The same goes for LifeStyles Classic Collection Ultra Sensitive Lubricated. On the other hand, if you just so happen to use the condoms dispensed at the local Planned Parenthood clinic, you may also want to pick up one of those e.p.t. pregnancy test kits.

Indeed, of the 23 latex condoms tested (and two made of polyurethane for skin sensitive to latex), the two lowest-rated were from Planned Parenthood—both the “assorted colors” variety and “honeydew.” The latter, according to ConsumerReports.org, received a “poor” in both strength and reliability categories and “broke 18 of 120 times at volumes below our strength threshold of 25 liters” of air.

Consumer Reports provide some useful guidelines for condom use, such as: “Never reuse a condom,” “Follow package directions,” and “Open the condom packet with care. Never use scissors, a knife, or your teeth.” And whatever you do, avoid the honeydew.