Here's a piece on the welfare state by Charles Murray in the Wall Street Journal, which is bound to raise controversy. Everything Charles Murray writes arouses controversy. And here are Francis Fukuyama and Adam Garfinkle on separating the war against Islamism and the struggle for democracy. Military historian Victor Davis Hanson lists the best five books on 20th century battles.

Kathryn Lopez interviews Charles Murray on his new book in the National Review. This is Lawrence Kudlow on the current disturbances in France. And here's Bill Crawford on good news from Iraq. Just one comment: Before the little debate section on TV the other day, they showed the photos of the Iraqi family supposedly murdered by US troops. Turns out the story is bogus, that the US military denies having anything to do with it. Wonder when they'll run the correction?

Here's a book review from the Washington Post on genealogical tell-all books about our ancestors' sins. Since some of my folks were living in Paris, Texas, during a 40-year lynching-plagued period, c.1890-c. 1930, I always figured that some of them must have been spectators. Paris was more of a frontier town than a Deep South cotton town, but it had some of the worst aspects of both.

This is a dumb piece of faxlore on a dog named Sex from Urban Legends Reference Pages. First Sex the soccer player, now Sex the dog. What's next?

Soccer fans might want to read Jonah Freedman's international club power rankings in Sports Illustrated. I dunno, Jonah, I really do think Barcelona is the favorite for the Champions' League this year, especially facing Benfica in the quarterfinals. Benfica is not a bad team, but they're only third in the Portuguese league this year, and Barcelona should defeat them without much of a problem. Oh, yeah, the story going around the American soccer league is that 40-year-old Romario may sign with second-division club Miami. Apparently he is well known on the Miami nightclub scene, and hasn't bothered showing up for training with his current club, so he'd fit in just fine. Now, it's generally figured that the American professional league is about equivalent to the second division in a country like Spain, Italy, or Germany. That means the American second division must be like a European third division. Just what a team like that needs, an over-the-hill undisciplined lazy ballhog.