CHUCK HAWKS: How To Defeat Terrorism: Pacifism Or Guns?. Hawks considered and rejected pacifist arguments to avoid war after 9/11, and looked at the classic examples of pacifism: Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ghandi, and Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement.

After some thought I have concluded that for pacifist tactics to succeed, at the minimum, the following conditions must pertain. One, the pacifist's opponents must be rational (capable of understanding the logic of the pacifist's position). Two, the opponents must have moral values and ideals that are not inimical to the pacifist's. Three, the opponents must respect basic human rights. And four, the pacifist's opponents must not necessarily equate non-violence with weakness.

Islamofascist terrorists and Saddam Hussein fail on all four counts.

MASSAD AYOOB: In Time of War: The Israeli Answer to Terrorism. Israel decided to deal with terrorist attacks on schools by allowing teachers and volunteer guards to carry concealed weapons, a decision that ended the deadly attacks.

Of course, the politically correct hand-wringers want nothing to do with this. Sadly, being helpless themselves, sheep tend to instinctively fear anything with canine teeth. Many of them cannot distinguish between the wolf and the sheepdog, and thus fear them both equally.

ROBERT KAGAN: Power and Weakness, a study of the different political approaches of the U.S. and Europe. Kagan credits the difference to the fact that the former is strong, while the latter is weak.

The psychology of weakness is easy enough to understand. A man armed only with a knife may decide that a bear prowling the forest is a tolerable danger, inasmuch as the alternative - hunting the bear armed only with a knife - is actually riskier than lying low and hoping the bear never attacks. The same man armed with a rifle, however, will likely make a different calculation of what constitutes a tolerable risk. Why should he risk being mauled to death if he doesn't need to?

COLONEL JEFF COOPER:

The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.

One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that 'violence begets violence.' I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure - and in some cases I have - that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.

An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.

ROGER L SIMON: I'm a Democrat, but the current Democratic presidential candidates are a bunch of low-rent losers. Hat tip to Bill Hobbs.

FRIENDS OF THE SMOKIES: 2003 Needs List for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I became a member this morning. You can earmark your donation for a particular project. Following the lead of Smoky Mountain Blog, my money's going towards study of ways to combat the balsam woolly adelgid, a pest insect that is destroying trees in the high elevations.

Tennessee has the southernmost spruce fir forest in the world, complete with flying squirrels. My old UTK forestry professor Ed Buckner used to say that driving a vertical mile to the top of Clingman's Dome is like driving two thousand horizontal miles to Canada, in terms of the forest type you experience. If you've been to Clingman's Dome in the last 20 years you've seen the damage done to the spruce fir forest by the adelgid. I'd like to save that forest if we can.

ROGER EBERT: "There are two things you can't argue in film: comedy and erotica. If something doesn't make you laugh, no one can tell you why it's funny, and likewise, it's hard to argue someone out of an erection."

ANDREW SULLIVAN: John Kerry is against gay marriage, saying "Marriage is an institution between men and women for the purpose of having children and procreating." Sullivan finds just one little tiny nit to pick: "Now, Kerry is in a second marriage to a woman also in a second marriage, with no apparent connection to the goal of reproduction or child-rearing. Like Pat Buchanan, he lives a marriage that is childless."

EUGENE VOLOKH: Update: related to the Andrew Sullivan post is Eugene's How Sweet: "What do we think when we hear that two 70-year-olds get married (usually because their earlier marriages were ended either by the spouse's death or divorce)? I take it that it's usually, "How sweet." Old love makes us smile just as young love does, and a desire to express lifelong commitment seems noble and worthy at any age. Sure, there likely won't be any pitter-patter of little feet coming from that marriage, but so what?"

I got up to get a drink of water, realized it was almost time for Melissa's alarm clock to go off, and decided to stay up and do some blogging.

Some coffee would be great. Then I remembered I emptied the coffee tin last weekend. I rummage through the cabinets. No coffee.

I decided to check my backpacks, thinking I might have some leftover grounds from the last camping trip. No coffee.

I remembered having a little bit of decaf (arg!) in the freezer. Maybe I could fool myself. I poured the beans into the grinder, but there weren't enough beans to fill it. I could maybe stretch it to two cups.

Then - mirabilu dictu! - I remembered finding Penguin caffeinated peppermints in my home office desk a few days ago. Three mints are supposed to equal a cup of coffee. There were five mints left in the tin. I spread them across the two cups of java.

And you know what? This stuff tastes pretty good. Coffee and peppermint is a tasty combination, and I can feel the kick just like regular coffee. What a great morning.