DanKohn.com

Classic WSJ story on the Chinese bringing competition to the gravestone indusrty. Rednecks, hard working Chinese physicians, gravestone plants in China going up next to Boeing plants, it’s all here:

“I wanted to see how Americans are buried,” she said, wandering again through another graveyard here on a recent afternoon. She crouched before various graves to study their finish and cut. “Ah, this one is nice,” she said, admiring a marker depicting a pickup truck and Jesus on opposite sides of a lake.

My friends are expecting to deliver their son this week. If, as Bill Kristof suggests, cows will “someday be made to produce torrents of genuine human breast milk from their udders” by splicing in human DNA, then fathers will no longer have an excuse (such as the inconvenience of breast pumps) not to get up in the middle of the night for feedings.

NYT on Ghanaians entering NY traffic tickets in Accra:

Data Management workers said they were surprised — but grateful — for New Yorkers’ apparent willingness to break the law.
“They know the rules and they still are always violating them,” Ms. Mensah said. “Maybe they don’t understand simple instructions. But they have to keep doing it, because it’s how we make our money.”

NYT editorial on Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS: “The Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism tactics — secret detentions of suspects, denial of the right to trial and now citizen spying — have in common a lack of faith in democratic institutions and a free society.“

When thinking about God in the Pledge of Allegiance, ever wonder how other countries, especially traditionally religious ones with a recent chance to redo their constitutions, deal with the question? Here’s a section from the preamble of Poland’s constitution:

We, the Polish Nation - all citizens of the Republic, Both those who believe in God as the source of truth, justice, good and beauty, As well as those not sharing such faith but respecting those universal values as arising from other sources….

Desiring to guarantee the rights of the citizens for all time, and to ensure diligence and efficiency in the work of public bodies, Recognizing our responsibility before God or our own consciences, Hereby establish this Constitution of the Republic of Poland…

Not bad. Note that the US Constitution mentions religion twice, once when prohibiting religious tests for any office (Article VI) and the first part of the First Amendment (”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”), even before mentioning the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly. Of course, I have every expectation that the Supreme Court will overrule the 9th circuit, but that doesn’t mean it’s correct, just that it’s the law.

Christopher Caldwell has an NY Press column on how bad Bush’s profits from Harkin Energy makes the President look. It includes this gem, which is too odd to comment on:

An editorial on Harken in last week’s Wall Street Journal noted “interesting Saudi connections on the finance side.” One of Bush’s early investors in Arbusto was James Bath, agent of Salem bin Laden (Osama’s half-brother) in the United States.