Theodore Dalrymple's intelligence and common sense have allowed him to bring quite a lot of high-flying inanities back to earth. In City Journal last week, he had a shy at noble guerrillas and their Guardian angel. "Notwithstanding the political catastrophes of the twentieth century, the notion of the noble guerrilla persists on the left. According to this notion, a man or woman who takes to the hills, gun in hand, must be fighting for a good cause, and bringing about a better and more just world. The Guardian, Britain's left-liberal newspaper, which (alas) is also its most serious paper, can't get enough of the noble guerrilla.

"The Guardian's latest glossy weekend supplement carried a photographic essay about PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party) guerrillas on the Turkish-Iraqi border. Romanticizing them could hardly go further: in rugged landscapes, we see fresh-faced young men and women in gray-green fatigues either in pensive, poetic mood or happily singing revolutionary songs."

But.

I'm not sure the popular notion of addiction qualifies as an inanity, but in another article, this one chosen to feature on my home page, Arts & Letters Daily, he makes a good case for our having got it pretty substantially wrong.

"Heroin doesn't hook people", he writes, "rather, people hook heroin. It is quite untrue that withdrawal from heroin or other opiates is a serious business, so serious that it would justify or at least mitigate the commission of crimes such as mugging. Withdrawal effects from opiates are trivial, medically speaking (unlike those from alcohol, barbiturates or even, on occasion, benzodiazepines such as valium), and experiment demonstrates that they are largely, though not entirely, psychological in origin. Lurid descriptions in books and depictions in films exaggerate them à la De Quincey (and also Coleridge, who was a chronic self-dramatizer).

"I have witnessed thousands of addicts withdraw; and, notwithstanding the histrionic displays of suffering, provoked by the presence of someone in a position to prescribe substitute opiates, and which cease when that person is no longer present, I have never had any reason to fear for their safety from the effects of withdrawal. It is well known that addicts present themselves differently according to whether they are speaking to doctors or fellow addicts. In front of doctors, they will emphasize their suffering; but among themselves, they will talk about where to get the best and cheapest heroin.

"When, unbeknown to them, I have observed addicts before they entered my office, they were cheerful; in my office, they doubled up in pain and claimed never to have experienced suffering like it, threatening suicide unless I gave them what they wanted. When refused, they often turned abusive, but a few laughed and confessed that it had been worth a try. Somehow, doctors—most of whom have had similar experiences— never draw the appropriate conclusion from all of this. Insofar as there is a causative relation between criminality and opiate addiction, it is more likely that a criminal tendency causes addiction than that addiction causes criminality."

In London, there is outrage over George Galloway's approval of the murder of the leader of his own country. The Telegraph reports a number of fairly caustic statements from politicians, including this one: "Stephen Pound, the Labour MP for Ealing North, said: 'Galloway is disgraceful and twisted. He is low enough to walk under a snake's stomach with a top hat on.'"

I thought that was rather finely put.

I watched a short debate last night on the Jim Lehrer News Hour, which featured two law professors opining on whether the search of a Congessional office was kosher or not. Stephen Gillers of the New York University School of law, who took the position that there was nothing wrong with it, won hands down, I thought. Jonathan Turley of the George Washington Law School came across as glib and off the point, and made the fatal mistake of trying to suggest it was all that dreadful George Bush's fault. You can watch a video of the segment at this page.

Two developments this morning that seem to support the way that debate went. First, the New York Times reports that no less a figure than the Attorney General felt so strongly that what was done was correct, that he (and others including the Director of the FBI) would have resigned had they been ordered to give the seized documents back to Mr Jefferson of Louisiana. That's a pretty eloquent development.

And if you're a harder sell than I was, here's the trump card: a report early this morning, also published in the New York Times that House leaders have conceded the point. "House leaders acknowledged Friday that FBI agents with a court-issued warrant can legally search a congressman's office, but they said they want procedures established after agents with a court warrant took over a lawmaker's office last week."

Takes care of that.

The fine old political art of shooting oneself in the foot has been taken to new heights by the British Labour Party government in the last few weeks. But just as one began to think there couldn't be anything else - the Telegraph reports that "Leaked plans that would allow some of the country's top listed buildings to be demolished to generate money for the taxpayer led to an extraordinary row between the head of English Heritage and the Government last night.

"Simon Thurley, the chief executive of English Heritage, called the legislation proposed by Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary and Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, with the approval of Tony Blair, a 'demolishers' charter'."

That paragon of restraint, dignity and good sense, George Galloway, is at it again. Fresh from a visit to Cuba during which he fawned over El Commandante in a big way (and no doubt replenished his supply of his favourite cigars), he is quoted in the Independent this morning as having told a magazine that it would be morally justified for a suicide bomber to kill Tony Blair. But just in case you (and the police) mistake his meaning, he did add that he wasn't himself calling for such an act to take place.

Whew. For a moment, there...

Hamas has pulled its militia off the streets of Gaza, quieting fears of civil war that arose because of serious clashes between Hamas and Fatah militias. Hamas has had a pretty sobering dose of reality in the last few weeks, and has obviously realised that its uncompromising stance on the existence of Israel is taking it nowhere but deeper into trouble. But what has undoubtedly added a note of urgency to the situation has been Ehud Olmert's much-publicised talk of unilaterally tucking large chunks of the West Bank into Israel under the so-called Convergence Plan, if he cannot find someone on the Palestinian side to negotiate Israel's borders with. The Telegraph has a decent summary of events.

Israel has added some spice to the dish by announcing that it has okayed the transfer of arms and ammunition in limited amounts to the Palestinian Authority's presidential guard. This will enable PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to 'contend with Hamas,' senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad said Friday.

"The transfer, which was recommended by defense officials and approved by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, will allow Abbas to 'carry out the courageous decision he made and contend with Hamas,' said Gilad, who heads the Defense Ministry's political-security division. Gilad was referring to Abbas's statement Thursday that he would hold a national referendum on a document calling for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, should the ruling Hamas party fail to agree to the proposal within 10 days."

I spent a lot of time in Jamaica from the late 60s through to the 80s, and was around when ska and rock steady gave way to reggae. Desmond Dekker and the Aces were very much a presence in ska days, and a favourite of mine, at least in part because I thought their music had something attractively whimsical about it. Sad to read in the Telegraph this morning that "Reggae singer (they're a bit one-dimensional about Jamaican music at the Telegraph) Desmond Dekker has died suddenly from a heart attack - only a week before his next concert. The 64-year-old Jamaican, best known for his 1969 smash hit Israelites, collapsed at his home in Surrey yesterday morning."

I think I may have mentioned the sad decline in the state of universities in the Western World before in this space. This Wall Street Journal piece is a review of a new book by Harry Lewis, a former dean at Harvard, who still teaches computer science there. He thinks the problem is deeper than a handful of alarming anecdotes might suggest. "In Excellence Without a Soul," the Journal says, "Mr. Lewis decries the 'hollowness of undergraduate education'.

"He takes Harvard as his case study, but many of his conclusions apply to the rest of American higher education. Mr. Lewis finds American universities soulless and argues that they rarely speak as proponents of high ideals for future American leaders. He bluntly states that Harvard 'has lost, indeed willingly surrendered, its moral authority to shape the souls of its students...Harvard articulates no ideals of what it means to be a good person."

This Weekly Standard reporter must have been paid by the word, because his piece is longer than it needs to be. Drilling down's worth it, though: "...Forest fires today are entirely unlike those of a century ago. They are hotter, faster, and more destructive. Today, 190 million acres of public forests are at an elevated risk of fires, and 24 million acres are at the highest risk of catastrophic fire.

"What happened to the forests? Why did they degrade? Two main reasons: the suppression of small fires that destroy weak trees and underbrush and that create fire breaks, and a lack of thinning. Which is to say, logging. The failure to cull the forests has left them little more than kindling."

The lack of logging, he says, is down to misguided, though well-meaning, environmentalists who have persuaded politicians and bureaucrats to lay down an impenetrable thicket of regulations designed to stop anyone from so much as thinking about cutting trees down.

I'm not sure that the Washington Times isn't making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill when it says, in an editorial, that a backlash against Hamas is building in the Arab world. Nonetheless, it is true that "Hamas's relations with Jordan are worsening, and the same may be about to occur with Egypt.

"Two recent events deserve considerably more attention then they have been receiving thus far: Jordan's announcement last month that it had uncovered a Syrian-backed Hamas plot to attack the kingdom; and Egypt's announcement on Tuesday that the terrorists who carried out the April 24 bombings that killed 24 people in Dahab, a Sinai resort town trained for the operation in Gaza.

"Hamas's most serious problem is with Jordan, where security forces last month arrested 20 of its members. Amman accuses Hamas of smuggling detonators, rocket launchers and explosives into the country from Syria, and of attempting to recruit Jordanians to send to Iran and Syria for 'military training'."

That's certainly true. The King is pissed. He's been parading the unfortunate Hamas people in front of television cameras so that all of Jordan can see what perfidious creatures they are. You can read some of the testimony that has been wrung from them in this MEMRI coverage.

This story was sent to me, without comment, by a friend in England. It's about an Oz philosopher, Peter Singer, who feels that people who have suffered severe brain damage, and who are to be allowed to die, should be kept alive for a little longer so that drug experiments can be carried out on them before the plug is pulled, as it were. Singer says, in an Australian magazine: "The more intellectually sophisticated non-human animals have a mental and emotional life that in every significant respect equals or surpasses that of some of the most profoundly intellectually disabled human beings. This is not my subjective value judgement. It is a statement of fact that can be tested and verified over and over again. Only human arrogance can prevent us from seeing it."

Maybe, but while we're talking about human responses like arrogance, let's talk about the impulse to protect the helpless, and how that may be illogical and in some ways self-destructive, but still enormously powerful and quintessentially human. We wouldn't be where we are if we were all head and no heart. Singer obviously has a flaw - he's by no means the first or the last to have it - and it will prevent him from getting girls and winning an election. Isn't democracy clever?

Nietzche's "What doesn't kill me makes me strong" has helped countless people to do tough things in their lives. In the Caribbean, there's a saying that uses some of the same language, but goes in a completely different direction - "What doesn't kill me makes me fat." The implied difference in outlook can sometimes explain why people from the Caribbean (and Bermuda) are less prone, let's say, to recognising imperatives in life.

COHA, the Council on Hemispheric Relations, takes the Caribbean view of Cuba: "...Logic and a sense of proportionality seem to have once again been trampled by raw ideology, and the charges (in the State Department's latest characterisation of Cuba as a state that has ties to terrorist groups) reveal the alarming extent to which Condoleezza Rice and the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs has allowed a Miami-based cabal of Cuban-American extremists to continue their de facto control over U.S. policy towards the island." It's a fiery piece that reflects the Caribbean view that Castro and his regime are no longer a threat to anyone, and should be readmitted to the rolls of the world's respectable nations.

The State Department's case against Cuba is here for those who have an interest in making a balanced judgement.

Meantime, Vaclev Havel, former Czechoslovak leader and a man who knows all about Nietzche's version of things, reminds us that COHA's argument is off the point. In Lebanon's Daily Star, he writes: "Some Europeans apparently regard Cuba as a faraway country whose fate they need take no interest in, because they have problems of their own. But what Cubans are enduring today is part of our own European history. Who better than Europeans, who brought communism to life, exported it to the world, and then paid dearly for it over many decades, could know the torments inflicted upon the Cuban people?

"Humanity will pay the price for communism until such a time as we learn to stand up to it with all political responsibility and decisiveness. We have many opportunities to do so in Europe and Cuba. And it is no surprise that the new member countries of the EU have brought to Europe fresh historical experience, and with it far less understanding for and tolerance of concession and compromise.

"Representatives of the EU's member states will meet in Brussels in mid-June to review a common policy toward Cuba. European diplomats should weigh up the consequences of accommodating Castro's regime. They should show that they will neither ignore his practices nor neglect the suffering of Cuban prisoners of conscience. We must never forget the seemingly anonymous victims of Castro's 'acts of rejection.'"

A senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, Patrick J Michaels, says that not only do environmentalists like Al Gore exaggerate the danger of global warming, they say the danger justifies their doing so. His article is published in the Washington Times this morning.

It's fusion vs fission - this Guardian article outlines a new way of producing nuclear power that is safer and more powerful than the old way, but poses all kinds of technical challenges. "Unlike nuclear fission, which tears atomic nuclei apart to release energy, fusion involves squeezing the nuclei of two hydrogen atoms together. This process releases a helium nucleus and a neutron plus huge quantities of energy. The hydrogen fuel is part heavy hydrogen or deuterium, which can be easily extracted from water, and part super-heavy hydrogen or tritium, which can be made from lithium, a reasonably abundant metal.

"The energy produced is truly colossal. The lithium in just one laptop battery and the heavy hydrogen from half a bath of water could provide enough energy for the average European for 30 years."

New York City's Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, (presumably with one eye to an election race of some kind, some time in the future, in which he would need to be able to demonstrate an ability to form this kind of judgement), weighs in on the illegal alien debate in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning. "There is only one practical solution," he says, "and it is a solution that respects the history of our nation: Offer those already here the opportunity to earn permanent status and keep their families together, provided they pay appropriate penalties. For decades, the federal government has tacitly welcomed them into the workforce and collected their income and Social Security taxes, which two-thirds of undocumented workers pay. Now, instead of pointing fingers about the past, let's accept the present for what it is by bringing people out of the shadows, and focus on the future by casting those shadows aside, permanently."

It's sensible, and probably pretty safe, since that's what's in the bill the Senate's getting ready to vote on. The Washington Times certainly thinks so, and approves - calling it a peach of a bill.

For a man who so adamantly declared, just a few weeks ago, that he would rather die than let any flexibility at all creep into his position that all Jews must be eliminated from the Middle East immediately, Palestinian Prime Minister (and prominent Hamas leader) Ismail Haniyeh is sounding remarkably flexible. He told Haaretz yesterday that "If Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, peace will prevail and we will implement a cease-fire [hudna] for many years. Our government is prepared to maintain a long-term cease-fire with Israel."

And he seems to have forgotten about the 'I'd rather die' bit: "With time we will suit our positions to reality and change," he said. "But under no circumstances will we do so under the pressure of a siege and only to get money. As we have already said, we will eat bread and hyssop [za'atar] and not give in."

A little personal testimony. I've had the bread and za'atar of which he speaks. It is absolutely delicious.

Pete du Pont, who is the chairman of the National Center for Policy Analysis and was governor of Delaware, gives what is, in my judgement, a pretty straight summary of the truth about global warming in the Wall Street Journal this morning: "So what is the reality about global warming and its impact on the world? A new study released this week by the National Center for Policy Analysis, Climate Science: Climate Change and Its Impacts (www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st285) looks at a wide variety of climate matters, from global warming and hurricanes to rain and drought, sea levels, arctic temperatures and solar radiation. It concludes that 'the science does not support claims of drastic increases in global temperatures over the 21rst century, nor does it support claims of human influence on weather events and other secondary effects of climate change.'"

That runs contrary to the little wave of hysteria that has broken out in the media recently. The politically correct theory is that we are on the leading edge of a breaking wave of disaster. It is so incorrect now to disagree with that proposition that writers and editors have given up any attempt to discipline themselves, and are now falling like wolves on absolutely any claim that bolsters the politically correct theory. It's a wonderful climate (npi) for people like Al Gore, who are getting a ride for free that otherwise couldn't be bought for love or money.

From Britain this morning, just to give an example, this is a Guardian story written by a man whose ignorance of anything resembling a relevant fact glows incandescently (pi) from the page. His theory is that the cause of high CO2 levels in at least one area of Britain is the rich (and at least one of them's not really British) leaving their lights on. A little bizarre? Perhaps, but it does play to that trifficly popular British theory that wealth is the greatest bogeyman of them all, so the Brits will no doubt be pleased to suspend their critical faculties for the occasion.

Speaking of which, the Church of England issued a report yesterday saying that the disgraceful gap between rich and poor in Britain "is as great now as it was under Margaret Thatcher." For those who don't know, poor old Mrs Thatcher's name is another extremely powerful political juju for the Brits. Any issue that combines, as this one does, the rich and Maggie Thatcher is a great winner...almost cannot be lost. (Go on, admit it, it made you forget what a pathetic bunch of wankers the leadership of the Church of England has become, unable to deal calmly even with such issues as homosexuality, which the rest of us got over without too much difficulty about 50 years ago.)

I suppose I shouldn't carp - some of my best friends are Church of England, I don't mind admitting - but I just wonder why they can't get counselling or something.

The Telegraph, in an editorial, said it didn't mind the Church commenting on social issues in this way. But it did wag its finger just a bit: "For it is not the state's but our own responsibility to care for our neighbour. 'Market-driven capitalism' is not just the way to make the money that the good Samaritan spent on the stricken traveller. With its emphasis on freedom, diversity and responsiveness to users, capitalism is the model that should also characterise the welfare system. If it abandoned its socialism, the Church of England would do God's work much better."

I think the Telegraph knows it should object to the Church's report, but couldn't in the short time available figure out why, so it's just being frothy. The Church pronouncing on social issues is rather like Dr Dre rapping about politics. One respects his opinion, but one's respect is tempered by knowing that accident probably has more of a role in its correctness than knowledge does. The Church of England's attitude is that the Government should make the poor more comfortable in their state of poverty. That's a correctly compassionate view, but it's no help to the poor at all, because it institutionalises their condition. The way to tackle poverty is to give the poor the tools to claw their way up the pecking order...a tough idea for the Brits, maybe, because they are so used to thinking of people as being fixed in a particular class from which there is no exit.

Here's another example: the Telegraph reports that a report funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and written by a group that included one of Britain's most senior police officers, says that "Drug addicts should be allowed to take heroin, crack cocaine and other illegal drugs in legalised rooms run by the Government." The report says drug consumption rooms would let addicts take drugs in 'supervised, hygienic conditions', reducing drug-related deaths and diseases.

So they would, no doubt, but making addicts' lives easier encourages their addiction. The Telegraphs quotes Robert Whelan, the deputy director of the think-tank Civitas, as saying: "This is legalising drugs through the backdoor and is an obnoxious proposal by a committee of do-gooders." To which one might add that they are do-gooders entirely too used to thinking in terms of the human condition being immutable.

I'm back on the Western side of the Atlantic (where broadband means broadband), re-committed to banging on about the things I think need banging on about. The CIA, for example. Rich Lowry of the National Review says the new cliche in Washington is that there's nothing wrong with the CIA that "can't be cured by the agency ending its mendacious kowtowing to the Bush administration.

"Unfortunately, cowardly dishonesty is not what ails the CIA - that could be fixed relatively easily. Instead, the agency is institutionally incapable of providing intelligence on unpleasant places in the world because it has no or few agents there...

"Liberal critics of the agency long ago decided that covert operations, and the down-and-dirty tactics they often entail, aren't compatible with the values of an open democratic society. So the CIA shriveled into a defensive crouch from which it has never emerged. In an instance of institutional Stockholm syndrome, over time the agency adopted the attitudes of its critics. No power center in Washington, outside of the Democratic congressional caucus, is as hostile to Bush's aggressive pursuit of the War on Terror - secret prisons, forceful interrogations, etc - as the CIA bureaucracy. This is the reason liberal Democrats now demand independence for the CIA, which would have been inconceivable coming from the left 30 years ago."

Then, the CIA had to be reined in; now it's safely kinder, gentler and pretty much useless.

Suzanne Gershowitz of the Weekly Standard notes that the new UN Human Rights Council looks pretty much like its predecessor, the Human Rights Commission. "Of the Council's forty-seven members, Freedom House considers almost one out of five to be 'unfree'. These member countries are: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia. An additional fourteen Council members are rated only 'partly free'. So does anyone seriously expect these countries to serve as leaders in the struggle for human rights?

"The Human Rights Council, created in April, is governed by different rules than was its predecessor, the Human Rights Commission, which had become a parody of what a human rights body should be. Optimists insisted that, because of these rules - which, for example, intimidated such former members as Libya and Sudan from even running for election - the new body would be more accountable than the last. General Assembly President Jan Elliason called the creation of the new Council an 'historic occasion' and said that it had the 'legitimacy needed for the very important work of human rights.'

"After the election, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, told the New York Times, 'The good news is that we did better than expected in the voting because Iran and Venezuela both lost. Venezuela's losing shows that bluster and anti-Americanism isn't enough to get elected.' If those were the standards, it's no wonder some see the new body as little better than the last."

Yale is just about to give a tenured post on its staff to Juan Cole, a left-wing academic and blogger who has been making a mark more for his mistakes than his analysis. In the Washington Times, columnist Joel Mowbray says: "If Yale executives were to read Mr. Cole's blog with any kind of critical eye...they would almost certainly reconsider their likely offer. His writings are marked by an endless cavalcade of errors. Flagrant, jaw-dropping errors. He regularly makes bold claims backed by precious little substantiation. And hell hath no fury like a Juan Cole scorned; ad hominem is his weapon of first resort...

"It's not just that Mr. Cole sees Israel lurking behind most major US policy decisions; he actually believes Israel is pulling the strings of almost anyone who dares challenge him. He lashes out at his critics with startling frequency, labeling them Zionists, neocons, Likudniks, or pawns of Israeli intelligence...

"What will Mr. Cole do when he is inevitably caught making a mistake in the classroom? Belittle the student as a stooge of the neocons? Accuse a teenager of being a Mossad agent? Prattle on about the Zionist campaign against him?

"Does Yale (or its donors) really want to find out?"

Tony Blair is being dragged down by forces as ineluctable as the laws of physics. Like John Major in the mid-1990s, there is nothing he can do to edge out of his nosedive, according to an editorial in this morning's Telegraph.

"It is almost superfluous to list examples of Labour's mismanagement: the tax credits fiasco, the breakdown of the farm payments, the failure of the probation service, the collapse of government-approved pension schemes, the EU budget surrender, the inability to deport foreign criminals.

"Sir Alistair Graham, who oversees standards in public life, complained yesterday that Mr Blair - Mr Blair, of all people, who won office promising to be whiter than white - saw sleaze as a 'minor issue, not worthy of serious consideration'."

As a result, at least partly, "All his attempts to regain the initiative are slotted in to the existing narrative: that of a floundering regime in its final months. People have made up their minds about Mr Blair: they think he is more interested in presentation than delivery. Which is true."