The Supreme Court today ruled the death penalty unconstitutional for killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes.

The New York Times editorial board:

[T]his has so far been a year of heartening surprises - each one remarkable in itself, and taken together truly astonishing. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance. And for all the negative consequences that flowed from the American invasion of Iraq, there could have been no democratic elections there this January if Saddam Hussein had still been in power. Washington’s challenge now lies in finding ways to nurture and encourage these still fragile trends without smothering them in a triumphalist embrace.

Lebanon’s political reawakening took a significant new turn yesterday when popular protests brought down the pro-Syrian government of Prime Minister Omar Karami. Syria’s occupation of Lebanon, nearly three decades long, started tottering after the Feb. 14 assassination of the country’s leading independent politician, the former prime minister Rafik Hariri. … To stem the growing backlash over the Hariri murder, last week Syria announced its intentions to pull back its occupation forces to a region near the border - although without offering any firm timetable. Yesterday, with protests continuing, the pro-Syrian cabinet resigned. …

Last weekend’s surprise announcement of plans to hold at least nominally competitive presidential elections in Egypt could prove even more historic, although many of the specific details seem likely to be disappointing. Egypt is the Arab world’s most populous country and one of its most politically influential. In more than five millenniums of recorded history, it has never seen a truly free and competitive election.

To be realistic, Egypt isn’t likely to see one this year either. For all his talk of opening up the process, President Hosni Mubarak, 76, is likely to make sure that no threatening candidates emerge to deny him a fifth six-year term. But after seeing more than eight million Iraqis choose their leaders in January, Egypt’s voters, and its increasingly courageous opposition movement, will no longer retreat into sullen hopelessness so readily. …

Over the past two decades, as democracies replaced police states across Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, and a new economic dynamism lifted hundreds of millions of eastern and southern Asia out of poverty and into the middle class, the Middle East stagnated in a perverse time warp that reduced its brightest people to hopelessness or barely contained rage. The wonder is less that a new political restlessness is finally visible, but that it took so long to break through the ice.

But it didn’t take long at all, really, once the Western world actually showed a commitment to the cause of freedom in the Middle East. As long as we allowed ourselves to be lulled into inaction by the paternalistic attitude of the “multi-culturalist” Left — the belief that Arabs have a “different way” of doing things, that we shouldn’t “force Western democracy” on them because, really, they don’t want democracy — the tin-pot tyrants of the region were able to hold sway over the teeming masses.

Many liberals used this result as evidence that their paternalistic attitude was correct, asserting (or, more often, snidely implying) that the people of the Middle East could rise up if they wanted to, without Western support — and if they didn’t do so, that meant they didn’t want to. Hence the argument, “I support the overthrow of Saddam, but only if it comes from within.” (Lest we forget, the United States needed foreign help to throw off the yoke of tyrannical rule, too. Internal revolution is hard.)

Thankfully, we have a president who recognizes that freedom from tyranny is not a cultural construct, but a universal human yearning — and a universal human right. Now, at last, it’s perfectly clear that the awesome power of the United States stands not with the tyrants, but with the democracy-supporting masses… and suddenly those masses are feeling emboldened, and are proving the Left wrong and (though it pains me somewhat to say it) the Right right.

And the New York Times, which opposed the policies that brought about this sea change, wonders why it took so long.

As Dale Franks says: “Finally, the NYT is on board with Democracy promotion in the Mideast. Glad to have you aboard, guys.”

The Times is right about one thing: we shouldn’t be triumphalist. These are small steps, and there is plenty of time and opportunity yet for the forces of repression to push back. But these small steps could very well be, as Gandalf said, “like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche.” The pro-democracy Arabs are beginning to wake up and realize that they are strong. That is a very good thing.

Andrew yesterday pointed me to this post, which cites some evidence that even the execrable House of Saud may be starting to come around. Wouldn’t that be something? And as Franks says, these are developments that “we wouldn’t be seeing at all had we followed the advice of the Dean/Kennedy crowd.”

Money quote from the article Andrew sent me:

The most deeply pessimistic view one can take of all this is that regimes in the Middle East and the Arab world now feel pressured into giving lip service to election reform and to making cosmetic changes allowing women more rights and participation in the process of government. But even this is an improvement from where we were just a few short months ago. You don’t have to be a full-blooded neocon to feel a twinge of cautious optimism in your gut over these recent events and to hope they are the beginning of something much bigger.

I’m not a full-blooded neocon by any means; I’ve always been appalled by the Left’s attitude toward this stuff, but I’ve never been quite sure that the Right was right, either. I’ve long been on the fence as to whether this “democracy promotion” business would work, though I certainly hoped it would. I am definitely feeling a “twinge of cautious optimism” now.

Oh, and about that whole “Arabs don’t want democracy” meme? I think we can safely conclude that it, too, is bound for history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies.

UPDATE: Ed Kilgore of the Democratic Leadership Council, guestblogging for Josh Marshall on Talking Points Memo, provides a rebuttal:

[I]t literally never crossed my mind that Bush’s fans would credit him with for this positive event [in Lebanon], as though his pro-democracy speeches exercise some sort of rhetorical enchantment.

This is the kind of thinking, of course, that has convinced God knows how many people that Ronald Reagan personally won the Cold War. It’s the old post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) logical fallacy. This is a president and an administration that chronically refuse to accept responsibility for the bad things that have happened on their watch–even things like the insurgency in Iraq that are directly attributable to its policies. Barring any specific evidence (provided, say, by Lebanese pro-democracy leaders) that Bush had anything in particular to do with Syria’s setbacks in Lebanon, I see no particular reason to high-five him for being in office when they happened.

Let us congratulate the Lebanese, not those in Washington who would take credit for their accomplishments.

I suppose it’s possible that post hoc ergo propter hoc applies here, but when democracy in the Middle East makes virtually no progress for decades, and then suddenly a whole bunch of positive developments occur in rapid succession within the course of a few months, I am inclined to invoke a different rule: Occam’s Razor. Which is more likely: that these simultaneous developments are being helped along — catalyzed, if you will — by the presence, almost literally next door, of the world’s most powerful military, whose commanders publicly and vigorously support the spread of freedom in the Middle East… or that this is all a grand coincidence?

I think the answer is fairly obvious.

BoiFromTroy, covering the Los Angeles mayor’s race, laments the pitiful state of political journalism in that city:

The reason the candidates have been allowed to skirt around the issues in this campaign became clear once the candidates made their trip to the spin room after the debate. Each candidate had six minutes to speak to the press and in that six minutes, each was asked about the poll numbers, the horse race, their advertizing, whether they’d learned anything from the debates, whether they support public financing–all questions about the process of the campaign. Rarely were they asked to answer substantive policy questions or to defend statements they made in the debate.

The Los Angeles Times has SIX reporters covering the race…you’d think between those resources someone could ask a more intelligent question than, “are you worried that you’re in third place, Mayor Hahn?”

This is a huge problem, and not just in L.A. You can complain till you’re blue in the face about bias and corporate ownership — and those are very real and legitimate concerns — but in the end, I’d argue that the biggest problem of all is also the simplest: journalistic laziness.

An awful lot of reporters, editors and news directors need to get it through their heads that what’s easy to report isn’t necessarily what’s important to report (indeed, the two are probably very rarely aligned), and — news flash! — the First Amendment doesn’t guarantee freedom of the press so that the press can report on topics that are easy and unimportant, like celebrity trials and horse-race politics.

We make a big deal at NDLS about the law being a “profession.” I don’t know whether journalism technically counts as a profession under the law-school definition of that word — I think not — but it’s important enough that it should be considered one. Journalists have obligations not just to their immediate bosses, but to their readers/viewers and to society at large. They are, after all, singled out in the Constitution; that’s a pretty big deal.

If you’re going to be satisfied with an easy paycheck, don’t go into journalism. Go into finance or real estate or something. Or go work for Boeing. :) Journalism ought to be reserved for those who are committed to something larger than themselves — like the health and welfare of the republic.

And asking Jim Hahn whether he’s worried about being in third place does not contribute to the health and welfare of the republic.

OneStat.com reports that the global browser market share of Mozilla/Firefox has increased to 8.45 percent (an increase of more than 1% in three months), while Safari has finally crested single digits with a whopping 1.21 percent share (up from 0.91%). Alas, Microsoft Internet Explorer retains 87.28 percent of the market, which is 1.62 percent less than three months ago, but which is nevertheless still distressingly high. (Hat tip: MacNN.)

BrendanLoy.com readers, however, are smarter than the rest of the world, evidently. There has been a substantial spike in non-IE browser usage in recent months, to the point that Firefox now accounts for nearly 20 percent of my hits (19.76% as of the most recent snapshot) and Safari between 5 and 6 percent. The total share for Internet Explorer, which once hovered around 90 percent, has dropped below 70 percent! (Latest stats here, reporting the browser usage of the most recent 1,000 visitors.)

P.S. In case you’re wondering, crazy Mac users don’t account for most of the difference between BrendanLoy.com and the rest of the world. Mac OS X makes up 7.4 percent of my visitors, according to my most recent snapshot. Since there’s no such thing as Safari for Windows, these numbers suggest that most of my Mac users are Safari users (5.8% out of 7.4%, or roughly 78 percent), which means that the vast majority of my Firefox users are Windows users. That’s right! They can be taught! Now if only we can get them to realize that Microsoft’s operating system sucks just as much as its browser… :)

Via email from the Notre Dame student government:

February 28-March 4, 2005 is Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Questioning Awareness Week at the University of Notre Dame. This week is presented by the Student Union Senate Committee on Diversity Affairs. …

Wednesday: Theology on Tap will discuss homosexuality within a Catholic context. Legends, 10pm

Thursday: FREE FOOD and a screening of In and Out. LaFortune Ballroom, 6pm

The Laramie Project, dealing with the brutal murder of gay college student Matthew Shephard, will be performed Tue, Wed and Thurs at 7:30pm in the Performing Arts Center.

GLBQ Week at Notre Dame? Oh, Patrick & co. are going to loooove this…

Today is the first day of March, so it’s only fitting that the NCAA men’s basketball conference championship season officially gets underway this evening.

Admittedly, the first round of the Horizon League tournament and the quarterfinals of the Big South and Ohio Valley conference tourneys do not exactly inspire visions of true “March Madness.” But hey, it’s like a gradual crescendo, building to a fever pitch. [Hooray for mixing metaphors! -ed.]

Some might say that a slightly bigger game today is Wisconsin vs. Indiana. But tell that to the players on those pipsqueak minor-conference teams who are just three measly wins away from the Big Dance!

Anyway… yay!!! March Madness rocks!!! Selection Sunday is only 12 days away!!! :)

P.S. In other news, Pitt stunned Boston College yesterday. I think that’s good news for Notre Dame: the Panthers should now be safely in the NCAA Tournament regardless of how they do against the Irish on Saturday, so hopefully they won’t be feeling quite as desperate when they come to the Joyce Center. Notre Dame, on the other hand, needs a win badly.

Meanwhile, Georgetown is playing its way into the NIT, which is also good news for Notre Dame (one less Big East team competing for the NCAA committee’s attention).

Last but not least, Gonzaga won its 25th straight at home. Go Zags!

Two weeks ago, in an article about Michael’s Jackson’s “all-star witness list,” E! Online wrote, “About the only name missing was Bubbles the Chimp.”

Well… not anymore, apparently. Drudge now reports: “PAPER: JACKO’S CHIMP TO TESTIFY… DEVELOPING…”

If that’s true, then I think we can say it’s official: the judicial system has become a three-ring circus.

Wow, if you type Bo Brice in Google, the entry I made on this blog last week is number 3…. How do you do that, Brendan? Your Blog Rocks!

Speaking of Rocks.. Bo Brice is amazing.. just fantastic.
If he sings a Springteen tune, I will just faint!

Ah, nothing like a school Girl Crush when you are 44!
LOL, go for it BO!