The Daily Top Five: March 26, 2007

1. Moral Equivalence Revived? See Suzanne Fields excellent piece:

The intellectual elites of the left, both here and in Britain and Europe, are resuscitating moral equivalence, this time promoting the idea that the values of the West are no better than the nostrums of the Islamists. Bernard Lewis, the distinguished scholar of the history of the Middle East, doesn't like the terms "left" and "right," but he applies them to Europeans of the left who encourage radical Muslims who spout anti-American slogans and the Europeans on the right who encourage Muslims who vow to destroy the Jews: "In Europe, their hatreds outweigh their loyalties."

Bruce Bawer makes this point in his book, "While Europe Slept: How Radicalism Is Destroying the West from Within." One of the most disgraceful developments of our time, he writes, "is that many Western intellectuals who pride themselves on being liberals have effectively aligned themselves with an outrageously illiberal movement that rejects equal rights for women, that believes gays and Jews should be executed, that supports the cold-blooded murder of one's own children in the name of honor." Young Europeans who wear Che Guevara T-shirts and Palestinian scarves, to identify with a "glamorous" revolution that exists only in their naive imaginations, are dangerously out of touch with the authentic peril in the world.

Not all ideologies are compatibale with Western democracy and a rule of secular law. The sooner we recognize that fact the better off we as a civiliation will be.

2. This is not good news in relation to the British military personell currently being held by Iran.

The British Foreign Office said Ambassador Geoffrey Adams met with senior Iranian officials and demanded the immediate release of the captured personnel, the Foreign Office said.

Iran's top military official, Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, said on Saturday the seized Britons were taken to Tehran for questioning and had confessed to what he called an "aggression into the Islamic Republic of Iran's waters." He did not say what would happen to them but said all were being treated well and were in good health.

The Foreign Office said Sunday that British requests for access to the 15 Britons have been denied.

. Iran is also saying the Briton confessed to being in Iranian waters. Forgive my impertinance, but hogwash!!

3. Hmmm! Not sure how to take this one. Details via Drudge:

Phillip Thompson, executive assistant to Senator James Webb (D-VA ), has been arrested by Capitol Hill Police on Monday for 'inadvertently' holding the senator's loaded gun, according to a person close to the investigation. A Senate staffer reports that Thompson was arrested for carrying the gun in a bag through security at the Russell Senate Office building while the Senator was parking his car. Thompson was booked for carrying a pistol without a license (CPWL) and for possessing unregistered ammunition.

Oops!!

4. This is the tragic response to the success of charter schools--stop charters from opening because parents are abandoning traditional schools in droves.

Some 15,000 children applied to the state's 29 charter schools in 2005-06, but only about 5,000 new students were accepted, state data show. The number of children turned away--about 10,000--was significantly larger than in each of the previous two years, when roughly 5,500 to 6,500 children were not accepted.

This school year, 34 charter schools are operating, most of them in Chicago, serving an estimated 19,960 students.

snip

The rise in applications to charter schools "is a sad commentary on our existing public schools," said State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), who has filed legislation to stop the proliferation of charter schools.

If parents are turning away from the traditional public schools in their neighborhoods, she said, teachers and administrators should figure out why and fix the problems.

"Instead of opening charter schools, we need to go in there and see what the hell is going on in our schools," Davis said.

With a decade of data of successful chaters schools, the fact that traditional schools are not learning from chaters indicates the stagnation of public schools even more than the massive numbers of applicants demonstrates.

5. Like the Instapundit, I liked this article title: Fred Thompson and the Hunt for a red November?