Prof. Arthur Brooks writes in OpinionJournal that too much has been made of Mother Theresa’s admission in her private papers that she felt “terrible sorrow about her life, describing it in terms of ‘dryness,’ ‘darkness’ and ’sadness.’” He goes on to point out that studies show that as a class, religious people say they are much happier than secular or sort-of religious persons, and that this is true regardless of the identity of the religion itself or the culture of the respondents.

I left the following observation in the comments to Prof. Brooks’ essay:

Professor Brooks does indeed raise an interesting fact about religious life but it is not an “inconvenient truth”. Mother Teresa’s “sorrow about her life” is not a reflection of dissatisfaction with her religious life; rather, it is an effect of the sort of rarified consciousness that animated her mission until she died. If she had retired to some religious retreat in the south of France in her later years and wrote these words-O.K. But she did not. She continued her work in the slums of Calcutta caring for the dying and the unimaginably poor.

Mother Teresa’s words reflect, instead, the writing of Ecclesiastes. Kohelet, the author of Ecclesiastes, repeatedly tells us that life is “futility of futilities, all is futile”. However, Kohelet concludes “banish anger from your heart and remove evil from your flesh-for childhood and youth are futile”. The timeless message, echoed in Asian traditions as well, focuses on the need to override the apparent emptiness of existence in the world with our own righteous actions and an awareness of accountability.

At the core of leading a religious life (even once a week) is a sense that there is a larger meaning/process that transcends our experience, that endures beyond our life. The fact that so many Americans manifest and process a religious component to their personal wellbeing speaks volumes about how they come to terms with the world in all its forms. Like Mother Teresa, Americans know the difficulties in the real world; yet, they continue to act with civic pride and civil discourse in a gentile fashion. Professor Rodney Stark of Baylor University tells us that Americans have the highest church attendance in the world. Perhaps that is why so many theological monopolies fear American culture.

See what you think.

Tim Rutten in the LA Times:

You cannot change the totalitarian mind through dialogue or conversation, because totalitarianism — however ingenious the superstructure of faux ideas with which it surrounds itself — is a creature of the will and not the mind.

He’s right - it is a crucial understanding to have when dealing with Ahmadinejad or any other tyrant. After all, Hitler’s greatest propaganda film was entitled Triumph des Willens, or Triumph of the Will, not, “Triumph of Ideas.”

Last July Tennessee raised the state tax on cigarettes to 62 cents per pack - a 42-cent per pack raise. That made Tennessee’s cigarette tax higher than any of the eight states it borders, in some cases, much higher.

And Tennessee’s ruling class seems surprised - but shouldn’t be - that smokers living within an hour’s drive of the border, which is almost all Tennesseans, are cruising to another state the buy their smokes. Maybe smokers (I am not one) drive more than an hour, I dunno. But drive they do, even though their purchase savings are greatly offset, if not eliminated, by the cost of the fuel they use and the wear and tear on their autos.

Unles,, of course, they buy a lot of cigarettes. And therein lies the problem. It is also against the law in Tennessee to bring more than two cartons per person (I think, but it could be per vehicle) of cigarettes into Tennessee.

Under state law, bringing more than two cartons of cigarettes into the state without paying Tennessee taxes is a “Class B” misdemeanor, carrying punishment of up to six months in jail and/or a $500 fine. Bringing 25 or more cartons is a “Class E” felony, with minimum penalty of one year in prison and a maximum of six years plus a fine of up to $3,000. In addition, the specific state statute dealing with untaxed cigarettes provides that vehicles used to transport more than two cartons “are considered contraband and are subject to seizure,” says a Department of Revenue statement.

Farr said that agents have been instructed to seize any vehicle carrying more than 25 cartons of cigarettes without Tennessee tax stamps. In cases where three to 24 cartons are involved, he said vehicle seizure is “at the officer’s discretion.”

As one wag remarked somewhere on the Internet, Tennessee’s increased revenue from the rise in taxes will be used to pay for stopping freelance bootleggers. James Joyner (whence the cite) asks, reasonably enough,

How this can possibly be constitutional is beyond me. First, what gives Tennessee police officers the authority to operate across state lines? Second, surely seizing a vehicle potentially worth upwards of $40,000 for the “crime” of possessing more than two cartons of cigarettes amounts to excessive punishment under the 8th and 14th Amendments?

First, Tennessee revenooers can’t make arrests outside their legal jurisdiction, but they may cross state lines in the otherwise performance of their duties. But the Constitutional questions are compelling, I think. I’d argue against what Tennessee is doing because of the Commerce Clause of the main body of the Contitution:

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, known as the Commerce Clause, reads as follows:”The Congress shall have Power …To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

I think it’s simply beyond arguing that Tennessee is attempting to regulate commerce across state borders, authority for which is reserved by the Constitution to the US Congress, and is thereby usurping a federal power.

Where does personal use end and bootlegging begin? Bootlegging meaning reselling the smokes in Tennessee for profit, not buying a dozen cartons for Aunt Esmerelda, who is too weak to drive because of her emphysema, and who pays back the exact amount of the purchase.

Tennessee does have a legitimate interest in prohibiting bootlegging of cigarettes, and for that the 25-carton limit seems reasonable to me. But conviction for actual bootlegging would require more than possession of some arbitrary number of cartons, would it not? If a legger bought other-state cigs, saving $4.50 per carton (45 cents per pack), then he’d have to charge his illicit customers at least half that to recoup costs and make a profit. So, 25 cartons bought at $4.50 discount = $112.50, call half of it profit at resale, or $66. Do that six days per week and the legger nets almost $400 per week.

But the state has brought all this on itself because it raised the tax and thereby generated the incentive for the majority of Tennessee smokers to buy across state lines. That’s the trouble with vice taxes, they require inordinate resources to enforce and often criminalize what would otherwise be seen as quite reasonable behavior. Tennessee’s standard sales tax is already one of the highest in the nation, why not just tax cigarettes at that rate (9.25 percent where I live) and be done with it?

Oh, I know, I know, don’t bother to try to enlighten me.

WCBS has a slide show of, “50 years of goofs in Best Picture winners and notable nominees.” Interesting stuff.

If you post an eBay auction for “allsop’s arctic ale.full and corked with a wax seal,” you get three bids and sell for $304.

And if you are the buyer of that item, you wait less than two months and repost the bottle of 155-year-old beer for sale on eBay again, this time spelling it correctly: “Museum Quality ALLSOPP’s ARCTIC ALE 1852 SEALED/FULL!!!”

And you make - sit down, please - $503,300. A cool half-mil profit. Bet he can afford a few Buds now.

Fromp nowp onp, I’mp goingp top writep everypthingp withp extrap “P’s.”

Three Muslim would-be terrorists, trained in Pakistan’s death (to others) camps, have been arrested by German authorities for plotting to attack Ramstein Air Base and Frankfurt International Airport with explosives.

Bombs more powerful than Madrid, London: “Monika Harms, the German federal prosecutor, said the three had trained at camps in Pakistan and obtained some 680kg (1,500lb) of hydrogen peroxide for making explosives.

‘This would have enabled them to make bombs with more explosive power than the ones used in the London and Madrid bombings,’ Joerg Ziercke, the head of Germany’s federal crime office, said at a joint news conference with Ms Harms.” (Guardian)

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a bleaching agent with common household uses. I’ve used it as a wound disinfectant and it’s particualrly effective at removing blood stains, though it tends to remove fabric color as well as the blood.

The the stuff you buy in a drug store is only about three percent strength, far too weak to use as an explosive. In more concentrated forms it can be used alone as a rocket fuel or as a rocket fuel component. The famed Bell Rocket Belt, for example, used H2O2 as a monofuel. H2O2 is still used for thrusters in spacecraft.

Used alone, H2O2 needs a catalyst to ignite. But it can be combined with acetone to produce a highly volatile liquid explosive. Acetone is also a commonly available household chemical, used in nail polish for example. Larger and purer quantities are commercially obtainable without much difficulty. Acetone plus H2O2 is called triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, an explosive. It is very easy to ignite (hence dangerous to handle). But obtaining H2O2 in the high concentration required to make a powerful TATP bomb is not easy; even chemical-supply companies rarely offer H2O2 in greater concentration than 30-35 percent, and for a big bang from TATP, 70 percent or higher is needed.

Thirty-percent H2O2 can be distilled into higher concentrations. Since the three men were arrested with 1,500 pounds of the stuff, I’m guessing that is what they wanted to do. That amount would distill down to about 650 pounds of 70-percent strength stuff. CNN reported that German sources said the bomb attack, just days from being carried out, would have produced an explosion equivalent to more than half a ton of TNT.

Der Spiegel reports that the three men had legally obtained 730 kilograms (>1,600 pounds) of chemicals, which raised the attention level of the authorities.

A few days ago, police experts secretly swapped the 35-percent solution of hydrogen peroxide contained in 12 barrels for a diluted liquid that only contained 3 percent of the chemical. …

[T]he men had all the necessary components ready — they had even already procured a military ignition mechanism for the explosive device. “An attack was imminent — it was only a question of time,” said one high-ranking security expert. Probably the men wanted to place the bombs in one or more cars and explode them in front of the target.

TATP was said by British authorities to have been used in the London bus bombings and apparently is favored by such attackers because it is free of nitrogen, a common component of explosives. TATP is thus undetectable by nitrogenous-compound sniffing scanners.

Even had an actual high-explosive bomb not been intended, a weaker form of TATP could cause considerable damage if used as an arson agent. It burns very hot and will burn right through aluminum. This was apparently the plan of the 2006 al Qaeda scheme to down 10 airliners over the mid-Atlantic in one day.

Though the planned attacks were intended to take place on airports, authorities said that the actual targets were not aviation facilities or aircraft, but against crowded facilities such as restaurants, bars or clubs at or near the airports. If so, then the 35-percent solution of H2O2 probably would have been sufficient to make a potent flame weapon, basically a low-order explosive (with luck) that spread burning TATP through the targets.

Der Spiegel says that this barely-thwarted attack is a wakeup call for Germany that it is definitely a target of Islamist terrorists. This may be difficult for the German people to accept, since they consider themselves as having good relations with the Middle East. That doesn’t matter to Islamists, of course, who mainly despise the Arab governments with whom Germany gets along so well. The Germans are learning what I’ve said before - you may not be interested in terrorists, but terrorists are definitely interested in you.

That’s the bright idea of a Tory panel in Britain.

Patients who refuse to change their unhealthy lifestyles should not be treated by the NHS, the Conservatives said today.

In a bid to ease spiralling levels of obesity and other health concerns, a Tory panel said certain treatments should be denied to patients who refuse to co-operate with health professionals and live healthier lifestyles.

And those who do manage to improve their general health by losing weight and quitting smoking, for example, would receive “Health Miles” cards.

Points earned could then be used to pay for health-related products such as gym membership and fresh vegetables.

That’s the inevitable end of socialized medicine. As a Canadian wrote recently (I’ll try to find the link again), the main object of a free-market, insurance-based medical system is curing disease or injury, but the main object of government-run medical system is controlling costs, for which cures are secondary. Hence, said the new head of Canada’s medical association, you can get a hip replacement for your dog there is a week, but it will take a year for you to get one for yourself.

So who in Britain will get to say whether you are leading a healthy lifestyle worthy of medical care? Oh, just guess. No doubt the Toruies would create a new Department of Lifestyle and Health Benefit Qualification Assessment.