Why support a tax cut if you aren't going to pay your taxes anyway?

Sen. John Edwards, North Carolina Democrat and 2004 presidential hopeful, is four months delinquent in paying the property taxes on his Georgetown mansion and owes the cash-strapped District more than $11,000, city records show.

Ah, but don't let such behavior calm the rhetoric.

On the presidential campaign trail, Mr. Edwards often rails against President Bush's tax cuts as giveaways to wealthy people for whom tens of thousands of dollars is pocket change.

Oh, does this house have a tax bill?

Mr. Edwards' office was not aware of the unpaid taxes but at 7 p.m. yesterday issued the following response by e-mail after The Washington Times faxed a copy of the bill: The senator and his wife, Elizabeth, "had not received a bill. As soon as they received one, they paid it," the statement says.

I missed this quote on Andrew Sullivan Yesterday:

"This time I think the Americans are serious. Bush is not like Clinton. I think this is the end." - Uday Hussein, Saddam's son, in early April, according to an associate.

Some are leaders and some play politics with national security. The enemy sees it clearly.

Thomas Sowell has written another column of aphorisms. Here are some of the gems:

We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did.

Gun control laws are like OSHA for criminals. When criminals have guns and their victims don't, crime becomes a safer occupation. In some countries with strict gun-control laws, burglars enter houses while people are still at home several times as often as that happens in the United States.

Liberals' attempts to create a left-wing Rush Limbaugh demonstrate their basic misconception of the world. The Rush Limbaugh program was not created by big government, big business, or big media. It was one of those spontaneous things that happens in the real world of individual initiative that liberals are so out of touch with -- and so hostile to.

As long as human beings are imperfect, there will always be arguments for extending the power of government to deal with these imperfections. The only logical stopping place is totalitarianism -- unless we realize that tolerating imperfections is the price of freedom.

Ask ten people what "fairness" means and you can get eleven different definitions. Expecting government to promote "fairness" is just giving politicians more arbitrary power.

The others were good too, but these were my favorites.

Thanks to Cathy for clueing me in to the Pentagon idea of a future's market for terrorism. On a cold policy basis to a statistician I can see the appeal, but why didn't someone see the political ramifications. Anyway, they are closing shop before they can open.

Under fire from all sides, the Pentagon on Tuesday dropped plans for a futures market that would have allowed traders to profit from accurate predictions on terrorism, assassinations and other events in the Middle East.

From the trading patterns, the Pentagon agency, known as DARPA, hoped to gain clues about possible terrorist attacks. In statements Monday and Tuesday, it said markets are often better than experts in making predictions.

I can't find the New York Times link that Cathy sent, but the NYT did a better job explaining it. WaPo leads with the shock and only later explains the idea behind it.

At a hearing where senators criticized the program, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said, "I share your shock at this kind of program." But he also defended the Pentagon office that came up with the project, saying "it is brilliantly imaginative in places where we want them to be imaginative."

As he praised DARPA at a Senate Foreign Relations hearing, Wolfowitz said with a smile, "It sounds like maybe they got too imaginative."

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., told Wolfowitz, "I don't think we can laugh off that program."

"There is something very sick about it," she said. "And if it's going to end, I think you ought to end the careers of whoever it was thought that up. Because terrorists knowing they were planning an attack could have bet on the attack and collected a lot of money. It's a sick idea."

It's certainly dehumanizing, but would it have been successful?

Bookmakers set odds according to how much money goes down on each side of a question. People bet according to past performance. They assume that Mike Tyson will beat Buster Douglas. The odds are a price to bet that fluxuates so as to entice gamblers to buy as many tickets for each outcome. The bookie makes a percentage and doesn't care who wins so as long as the same amount of money is bet on each side of the question.

The odds are neither right nor wrong, they are just a reflection of people's attitudes according to the information they have. If they bet college football they can look at record, rivalries, rankings and key injuries. Those are pretty good indicators to outcome.

The average bettor doesn't know how much security surrounds the Brooklyn Bridge versus how closely law enforcement is watching the Grand Canyon. Without that information, it would be hard to determine real probability. The game would have worked a lot better if the gamblers all had the highest security clearance.

I admire the fact that these guys are willing to try things. I'm surprised that this one got so far. Calling for people’s heads seems a bit much. It seems like the oversight committee found it and ended it. Do we really want to fire idea guys for brainstorming?Thanks to Cathy for clueing me in to the Pentagon idea of a future's market for terrorism. On a cold policy basis to a statistician I can see the appeal, but why didn't someone see the political ramifications. Anyway, they are closing shop before they can open.

Under fire from all sides, the Pentagon on Tuesday dropped plans for a futures market that would have allowed traders to profit from accurate predictions on terrorism, assassinations and other events in the Middle East.

From the trading patterns, the Pentagon agency, known as DARPA, hoped to gain clues about possible terrorist attacks. In statements Monday and Tuesday, it said markets are often better than experts in making predictions.

I can't find the New York Times link that Cathy sent, but the NYT did a better job explaining it. WaPo leads with the shock and only later explains the idea behind it.

At a hearing where senators criticized the program, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said, "I share your shock at this kind of program." But he also defended the Pentagon office that came up with the project, saying "it is brilliantly imaginative in places where we want them to be imaginative."

As he praised DARPA at a Senate Foreign Relations hearing, Wolfowitz said with a smile, "It sounds like maybe they got too imaginative."

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., told Wolfowitz, "I don't think we can laugh off that program."

"There is something very sick about it," she said. "And if it's going to end, I think you ought to end the careers of whoever it was thought that up. Because terrorists knowing they were planning an attack could have bet on the attack and collected a lot of money. It's a sick idea."

It's certainly dehumanizing, but would it have been successful?

Bookmakers set odds according to how much money goes down on each side of a question. People bet according to past performance. They assume that Mike Tyson will beat Buster Douglas. The odds are a price to bet that fluxuates so as to entice gamblers to buy as many tickets for each outcome. The bookie makes a percentage and doesn't care who wins so as long as the same amount of money is bet on each side of the question.

The odds are neither right nor wrong, they are just a reflection of people's attitudes according to the information they have. If they bet college football they can look at record, rivalries, rankings and key injuries. Those are pretty good indicators to outcome.

The average bettor doesn't know how much security surrounds the Brooklyn Bridge versus how closely law enforcement is watching the Grand Canyon. Without that information, it would be hard to determine real probability. The game would have worked a lot better if the gamblers all had the highest security clearance.


On a serious note, the government is just too big. I'm sure that inefficiency and unchecked ideas are happening all over the place and most do not get reported. Until we get the government to a manageable level, we should expect more and more nonsense like this. Boxer can call for their heads, but why not call for real government reform.

Regulations and enforcements and policy are really driven by un-elected officials. Politicians come and go, but government employees stay and hold the real power. Federalizing the Air Marshalls program didn't seem to yield better employees.

The fewer government employees we have, the more our elected leaders are bound to our wishes. Why do people think a gigantic welfare state is consistent with republican democracy?

Back from his recent visit, Christopher Hitchens has good things to say about the American Occupation in Iraq.

The press is still investing itself, it seems to me, in a sort of cynicism. It comes out better for them if they can predict hard times, bogging down, sniping, attrition. . . It's quite extraordinary to see the way that American soldiers are welcomed. To see the work that they're doing and not just rolling up these filthy networks of Baathists and Jihaddists, but building schools, opening soccer stadiums, helping people connect to the Internet, there is a really intelligent political program as well as a very tough military one.

We're certainly not hearing about the good times, are we?

AMAZON.COM – Meet Number 973

I must not be reading enough books these days. My Amazon reviewer ranking has slipped in the past few years from 608 to currently 973. I've been in the top 1000 almost continuously from the beginning of the rankings, but I have never understood how the system works. It has something to do with how many reviews you post and how many positive feedbacks you get. Some people review everything including movies and electronics. I only review books.

I decided in 1999 that I would review every book I read completely so as to keep an online journal of my history. It was before the ranking system began. It’s nice to read over some of the older stuff and remember what I was thinking at the time. When the ranking system began I was immediately in the 900s, then almost immediately I was kicked out for about 6 months. They devised a new rankings soon after and I began climbing the charts, getting into the low 600s. I tried to convince all my friends to write reviews too.. Steve Saunders and Brother John joined me. When I found Newt Gingrich reviewing books he was ranked around 1600, now he is ranked 349.

I started to realize that my political books were better reviewed than my fiction books. Hardly anyone seemed to care what I thought about John Updike, but over 20 people liked my review of Bill O’Reilly’s book. My biggest hit the David Schippers book on Clinton’s impeachment. It was selected as a spotlight review and I got 50 positives, most in a two-week period. Usually anything dealing with public policy was worth 10 positive points. But I could scarcely scrape out 3 for a detective novel.

I have wondered if that means my understanding of politics is better than my understanding of English Literature, or if Amazon puts me into the political spotlight more often because of past performance.

I find other people’s reviews are more helpful than anything when trying to purchase a book. In an age of PR and spin it is nice to see what a regular person has to say about something. I really love Amazon, and you could say that Amazon was really the beginning of this blog.

Bob Hope alive in our hearts.

"What a delivery, what a song, what an audience reaction!" - columnist Damon Runyon on "Thanks for the Memory," 1938.

Bob Hope survived to 100 which is quite a feat. When our modern day celebrities march against wars of liberation it is nice to remember the days when entertainers would support such things. Hope gave so much to those who risked their lives. He was funny for a long time. I remember watching the TV specials growing up. I especially liked the ones the featured the All-American College Football teams at the end of the year. Bob Hope would read off their names and they would march up to the camera. I enjoyed the Road pictures growing up, but like Frank Sinatra, Hope stopped doing movies but his celebrity didn’t wane.

In the summer of 1984 my parents took us to Disney World and the World’s Fair in New Orleans. We brought along our childhood pal, Brian Fergison. My brother bought the latest craze, Trivial Pursuit at the Polynesian Village Hotel and we played it the rest of the trip. Brian wasn’t much for trivia so he would just say Bob Hope if he didn’t know the answer. One time the answer was actually Bob Hope, but Brian said, “not Bob Hope, but . . .” You can imagine our laughter.

A Texan beats the French at their own game.

(Lance) Armstrong's victory today, by a margin of only 61 seconds after more than 83 hours of racing across 2,128 miles, was his toughest of the five and capped what emerged as the most dramatic and unpredictable Tour in recent memory, with the champion not determined until the penultimate stage Saturday.

Before the race began July 5 in Paris, there were fears of terrorism and concern about possible hostile reaction in France to a defending American champion during a time of transatlantic tension because of the war in Iraq. But in the end, the only drama came from the race itself.

"It's incredible to win again," Armstrong said.

Speaking in French to local television, he said shortly after his victory, "I'm very happy because I'm finished and I'm very tired."

I don't remember Hitler speaking in French the last time he defeated France. Americans defeat you with class.

I saw this on Drudge this morning. The new Harry Potter director, Alfonso Cuaron had this to say.

Cuaron’s outspokenness is also new to the franchise. Does the evil wizard Voldemort still remind him of George W. Bush, as he said recently? “In combination with Saddam,” he says. “They both have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people.

You can argue about environmental policy and whether someone takes it seriously, but Cuaron saying Bush is in love with power is just a cliché we attribute to any powerful person. To compare Bush the liberator to Hussein the enslaver is a typical third-world intellectual behavior. While the Millionaire proletariat will cheer, that statement is as empty as Cuaron’s 2001 film, Y Tu Mama También.

If you read the article it treads very lightly on the idea that Cuaron is moving back and forth in his career from children’s films to soft porn. Y Tu Mama También was shock value marketed as a charming coming of age tale (without the charm). It was too much Todd Solondz and not enough Giuseppe Tornatore.

Cuaron’s 1995 film, Secret Garden was well done. I didn’t see Great Expectations, but Tricia lists it as one of her favorites. He is no doubt talented. But it is funny what reporters are interested in. Here you have a story of a guy who likes to take swipes at Middle Class values as witnessed in his statements about Bush and even his Mexican film. Agreeing to direct a middle-class project like Harry Potter seems to be a great angle in which to cover this article. I would have asked Cuaron if he was just doing Harry Potter for the big payday. I would have asked if he is selling out to the same audience that voted for Bush.

Instead they let the Producer give the typical publicists answer about how both films are really about teenagers. Oh, then they are just alike, I suppose. It’s not that I dislike hearing Hollywood leftists rant. It’s actually interesting to know what they think. I just wish that reporters would question their inconsistencies.

Here's a fun article about how we have so few characters in sports.

Greg Norman was the Shark. Jack Nicklaus was the Bear. In tennis, Ilie Nastase was Nasty and John McEnroe was, well, a lot of things. Baseball had the Mick, the Babe, the Barber and Joltin' Joe. Name three nicknames in baseball today.

Psychologists such as Jim Loehr in tennis and Bob Rotella in golf have taught young athletes that possessing preternatural athletic skills at the age of 15 is not enough, not now when the margin between the top players is thinner than ever. To win consistently at the highest level, and at crunch time, young racquet-smashing, club-throwing players have been taught not to let their emotions drive all those thousands of hours of practice over the cliff. Only a pure genius like John McEnroe can work athletic miracles and toy with his emotional demons at the same time. For almost anyone else now, we recommend not Mr. McEnroe's "You Cannot Be Serious!" but Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations."

That's the benign explanation. But in our time, characters who wear their hearts on their sleeves, on or off the field, run the risk of having their hearts stuffed very publicly back down their throats. Ask Vijay Singh.

Vijay Singh, among the five best golfers in the world and one of the sport's cheerier personalities, let slip his opinion that Annika Sorenstam "didn't belong" on the PGA Tour. Mr. Singh wasn't merely refuted by the media's moral gatekeepers; he was teed up and whacked for a long ride. USA Today summed up the sand-trapping of Mr. Singh: "After a day of intense criticism, golfer Vijay Singh backed away from his derogatory comments." And dropped out of the tournament.

McEnroe was laugh out-loud fun. I saw my normally stoic brother smash two rackets one summer and could only figure he got his inspiration from one place.

Here's what a Canadian thinks of his country's "free" health care system.

Health care in Ontario is free, but so is eating lunch from a trashcan. So last week I flew to Baltimore to see an eye specialist. I did this to avoid a two-month wait in Toronto, the indignity of being treated like a head of cattle at Toronto Western, and health-care workers that are Canada's best answer to an authoritarian regime.

Most of the article is really about how Canadian Health Care workers treat you like dirt, while American Health Care workers treat you like a guest.

In Canada. . .

On appointment day, I waited two hours in a room crowded with dozens of patients. My stomach churned.

I overheard an agitated nurse trying to convince someone that I shouldn't be seen. She remembered I hadn't gone through proper channels when I made my appointment the week before.

Then they called my name.

I moved to a jam-packed room where I sat shoulder to shoulder with three other patients. The on-deck circle. I started to sweat. Nurses snapped at patients at a reception desk three feet away.

But in America. . .

My first indication that Johns Hopkins was different came on the phone. Receptionists were friendly, cheerful and helpful. The answering system has an option where you can speak to an ophthalmologist by phone. In Toronto this would be like phoning a major bank and discovering that by pressing 1 you could chat with the bank president about your service charges. I laughed out loud.

Here's a good article about Clinton's approach to attacking Saddam in 1998 and Bush's in 2003.

On December 16, 1998, Bill Clinton informed the nation that he had ordered military action against Iraq. No less than three times Clinton referred to Iraq's nuclear arms or nuclear program.

Example 1: "Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors."

But Bush saying that Saddam trying to buy Uranium is a lie?

When you contrast Clinton's unequivocal yet insupportable arguments about Iraq's nuclear program with the qualified yet accurate 16-words President George Bush used in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union Address to describe Iraq's effort to secure uranium, the liberal bias of the mainstream media in giving a continuing voice to Democratic charges becomes obvious. The Democrats are, and will remain, unsatisfied with any response provided by the Bush administration. Such is their political strategy.

Yep!

It looks like CNN is cuddling up to the bad guys in Iran. Didn't they learn a lesson is Iraq?

The next time we hear the media talk about Iraqis unhappy with our presence, reflect on this:

Baghdad's curfew was broken by the crackle of gunfire as word spread last night that Saddam's hated sons had been killed.

"It's a celebration, people have heard about what happened," a US military spokesman said.

On the streets, many Iraqis were prepared to speak out for the first time about Uday and Qusay. But while some celebrated their deaths, others wished they had been captured alive.

Alaa Hamed, regularly beaten with clubs while he worked as a producer for Uday's television station, said: "I don't want him dead. I want to torture him first."

Shopkeeper Abu Muhammed said: "This is very good news. Uday, Qusay, and Saddam are the ones who ruined this country."

There you have it.

Andrew Sullivan has a lot of gems about the current situation in Iraq, His whole site is worth seeing, but especially don't miss this letter from a soldier:

A bunch of bad guys used a group of women and children as human shields.The GIs surrounded them and negotiated their surrender fifteen hours later and when they discovered a three year-old girl had been injured by the big tough guys throwing her down a flight of stairs, the GIs called in a MedVac helicopter to take her and her mother to the nearest field hospital. The Iraqis watched it all, and there hasn't been a problem inthat neighborhood since. How many such stories, and there are hundreds of them, never get reported in the fair and balanced press? You know, nada.

And his commentary about the media in relation to the war.

These people, it's worth remembering, believe that the exercise of American military power is almost always more morally problematic than any foreign tyranny or even a serious security threat to the homeland. They can only justify American military power if it is wielded under imminent, grave danger that can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. That's why they are so exercised about tiny pieces of evidence today. They still believe we were wrong to remove Saddam from power without incontrovertible proof of WMDs of a type unobtainable in police states; they still believe America had no moral sanction for such an action; and they are even more determined to prove the superiority of their case now that the war was such a military success. So they have to turn the fallible evidence before the war into "lies"; and they have to turn the difficult but worthy post-war reconstruction into a "quagmire."

Lindsey Graham, the Senator who replaces Thurmond, wants to reform social security now, even if the President wants to wait until after the 2004 elections. Graham is showing some real leadership on this issue. It's one of the most important and least discussed problems facing us in the future. Social Security will go bankrupt in its current form. Most politicians would rather demagogue their opponents with it than solve the actual problem.

A Bill Clinton lie begins with a denial. When the evidence refutes the denial he changes gears and restates the lie in a way that acknowledges all the known facts. When the rest of the lie is determined, he blames his right wing critics.

A George Bush lie begins with some faulty intelligence passed to him. When he explains that it wasn't intentional and hardly the strongest part of his case anyway, he is accused of covering up. When the British government continues to stick by the original intelligence, the press makes little mention of it.

The whole thing is painted in terms of Clinton's personal behavior versus Bush's public behavior, but nothing is mentioned about Clinton bombing the Iraqis when he was trying to stop the impeachment process. Has there ever been a more obvious time when a President was willing to kill people for his personal political survival? Bush was actually trying to defeat the enemy. Clinton was trying to save only himself.

Tony Blair to Congress yesterday.

There is no more dangerous theory in international politics today than that we need to balance the power of America with other competitor powers, different poles around which nations gather.

This is a good message not only to the world, but left-wingers who hold office in this country. We stand for the liberty of people everywhere. How can the world balance that without propping up some despot to rival us? Any free nation is by definition not our rival. Two legitimate democracies have never gone to war in the history of the earth. The balance of power is only necessary in the world if powerful nations seek to conquer and enslave free people. How can you give moral equivalence between that and countries that free people?

The quote I heard on the radio doesn’t appear in this article. But Blair said there is a tendency to believe that not all people want freedom, that some people are perfectly happy without it. I was happy to hear Blair reject that theory.

It reminded me that Liberals in this country were quick to embrace the Marxist leadership of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua even though he was being funded by Cuba and Moscow. They cut off all aid to the counter-revolutionaries and tried to taint Regan’s association with them. The contras won anyway, and the first free election threw Ortega from office. You quote any number of media people who had great things to say about Ortega or list the many celebrities that visited him in Central America. They had all predicted that Ortega would easily win that election, because they were more interested in his showing of collectivism than the reality of living under his oppression.

Why do people continue to embrace gun control laws when cities that have strict laws also have high murder rates? At least Orrin Hatch is on the right side this time.

"Try to imagine the horror that the victim felt when he faced a gun-toting criminal and could not legally reach for a firearm to protect himself," said the chairman (Orrin Hatch) of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "We must act now to stop the carnage and put law-abiding citizens in a position to exercise their right to self-defense."

I love the opposition to this:

"We do not want to make it easier for anyone to buy a gun that might result in a crime -- at least now they have to go through the trouble of going out of town or buying a gun illegally in D.C.," said (Eleanor) Holmes Norton.

Do you think she stops and wonders why gun crime isn’t higher in the places where these guns come from? Why not adopt the policies of cities that have lower murder rates? But her next comment is a lot of fun too.

" The evidence and data suggest that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens result in suicides and unintended murders of relatives and friends.”

She’s a moron. How many people commit suicide without a gun? Should we outlaw rope? And what in the hell is an unintended murder? Murder by definition must include malice or intent. Yes there are some accidental deaths attributed to guns, but drowning kills more people than guns.

The people committing these real murders in DC know that law-abiding citizens cannot protect themselves. The law is creating victims. That is the real crime.

It’s been really hard to blog lately. I have at least a half dozen Europe stories left over, but this project I am working on at night leaves me no time. Once in a while I can sneak an entry in during the daytime, but I never have my Europe journal. Just you wait!

Once again this morning, NPR had a story about the State of the Union speech. I guess if they talk about it everyday they can get a Democrat into the White House. 17 U.N. resolutions mean nothing compared to a sloppy speech.

Tim Russert interviewed Bob Graham on Sunday:

MR. RUSSERT: The director of the CIA has said it was a mistake to include words in the president’s State of the Union message about uranium from Africa, and the president and his people have said it’s time to move on. Does that settle the issue?

SEN. GRAHAM: Tim, as I see it, this is not an issue of George Tenet. This is an issue of George Bush. And it’s not a singular incident. There’s been a pattern in this administration, beginning with the development of the energy policy in the first few weeks, running through environmental policy, economic policy, and now Iraq and the war on terror, in which the American people have not been let in to understand what is going on, what the basis of decisions will be, and we end up having to go through almost a grammar lesson of word-by-word assessment of what’s been said in order to understand what the leadership of this country is intending to communicate.

And Later. . .

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Graham, in October of 2002, you said, “Saddam Hussein’s regime has chemical and biological weapons and is trying to get nuclear capacity.” Do you still agree with that?

SEN. GRAHAM: I believed that at the time because that is exactly what we have been told by the intelligence agencies, that the United States government and I believed it as a citizen, as a member of Congress, as chairman of the Intelligence Committee. You have a right to believe that what’s being told to you by the highest levels of American intelligence is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Ah, so Bush and Graham get their information from the same place, but Graham is innocent of his conclusions, but Bush's mistake is a pattern of behavior. I suspect a pattern of behavior in Bob Graham. He's a quiet hard working Senator and Governor for most of his life, but now that he wants to be President he sees wrongdoing everywhere. If he had only been running when this exchange happened:

"I did not have sex with that woman (pause to remember her name) Miss Lewinsky." Bill Clinton 1998.

Maybe Bob could have found a pattern of behavior there. Clinton Lied to a grand jury, bombed Iraq to forestall impeachment and repeatedly proclaiming innocence up into the point he was caught and then changed gears and said that it was no one's business.

More Russert. . .

MR. RUSSERT: But Bill Clinton, as president in 1998 said, “Mark my words, Saddam will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them. He will use them.” What President Clinton misled?

SEN. GRAHAM: I don’t know the basis upon which he made that statement and that was in 1998. As you’ll recall, and as the questions that you just asked of Secretary Rumsfeld indicated, the reason for this war—particularly, this was not just a garden variety war; this was a pre-emptive war, because there was an imminent threat to the security of the United States of America. So it’s not just a matter of finding the history of weapons of mass destruction. It’s finding weapons of mass destruction which were capable of imminent use. The British even got it down to 45 minutes’ ability to utilize weapons of mass destruction. Were there weapons that were in that condition of readiness? That’s the question.

When a Democrat is President, Bob Graham didn't bother to find the basis for remarks that a rougue nation was developing WMD. For Bush to go to war he has to know if the weapons were in a condition of readiness. How can anyone know that without invading to find out? If Graham knows how to decifer the nuclear, biological and chemical capability of every nation on Earth solely by reading intelligence reports then he will be the greatest President in the history of the nation. Somehow Clinton's tough talk and inaction is laudable, but Bush's resolve is reckless.

Graham's problem is that he was head or ranking member of the Senate intelligence committee for years. He can't run for President as this outsider who wants to clean the mess up. His party was in the White House for 8 years and he couldn't persuade his President to do anything about these problems. Graham is either a poor communicator or he didn't care. Neither speaks well for his leadership skills.

Senator Graham is just another in a long line of wannabees that have no original ideas. They give speeches about how tax cuts are dangerous while promising yet more government giveaways. He just wants to be President. But Graham is in too important of a position to be playing politics. If he wants to be President he should resign his membership on the intelligence committee and let a serious senator take his place. That committee oversees the security of our lives. It doesn't need to be a bully pulpit for an opportunist.

Can we stop talking about the State of the Union speech, now.

Federal appellate Judge Gilbert Merritt, who is currently in Iraq, said an Iraqi lawyer brought him documents that included the name of an Iraqi officer in that country's embassy in Pakistan who was described as "responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group."

"It seems to me to be strong proof that the two were in contact and conspiring to perform terrorist acts," Merritt, a Democrat and longtime family friend of Al Gore, wrote in a dispatch for The Tennesseean newspaper - charges similar to those previously reported by The Weekly Standard.

The link is no surprise but there have been plenty of politicians that complained that there was no Saddam/Osama link. It continues. . .

He said an Iraqi lawyer recently brought him a Nov. 14, 2002, edition of a newspaper controlled by Saddam's sadistic son Uday that included photos of Saddam, bin Laden, and a "List of Honor" - 600 names of "regime persons," including all 55 of the wanted deck-of-card Iraqis.

The lawyer told Merritt that Uday had published the list to make the men more loyal, but Saddam hit the roof when he saw it and sent his henchmen to confiscate the newspapers, even going door to door to force people to turn them over. The lawyer had kept his copy.

It would take a hippy or a Presidential candidate to think that Middle Eastern terrorists work independently.

From Harry Truman's recently discovered diary:

Truman then went into a rant about Jews: "The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes."

Are Truman's comments against Jews that much different than liberal criticisms of Christians?

"Truman was often critical, sometimes hypercritical, of Jews in his diary entries and in his correspondences, but this doesn't make him an anti-Semite," says John Lewis Gaddis, a professor of history at Yale University and a prominent Cold War scholar. "Anyone who played the role he did in creating the state of Israel can hardly be regarded in that way."

I would surely accept this as a standard in politics if it worked both ways. I wonder if Gaddis, the Cold War Scholar, thinks it acceptable that Reagan visited the cemetery in Bitburg to strengthen his alliance with the Germans who were allies in the Cold War fight. Since Reagan also supported Israel, does that make his action benign?

Bob Graham is trying populism. You may have heard he sponsored a NASCAR racing truck. But he hasn't won over the driver.

Jon Wood, the 21-year-old who steered the "Bob Graham for President Ford F-150" to a career-first win at Kansas Speedway this past weekend, isn't certain about his political affiliation, nor does he really care.

"I don't know anything about politics - nothing," said Wood of Stuart, Va.

When Wood got a voter registration card, he asked his father, Winston Cup team owner Eddie Wood, for guidance. "He said 'I'm a Democrat,' so I said, 'I guess I'll have to be a Republican,'" Wood said. "I still don't know what I am."

Sounds like dad signed the contract.

There is an interesting article in Richard Gephardt's home newspaper about his record on National Health Care. I had no idea that he was leader behind killing Carter's health care price controls. Now, of course, he wants the government controlling the whole industry.

(Leon) Panetta, who had been at odds with Gephardt, attributed the switch to a maturation process that many in Congress go through. "The longer you're there, and the more you have a national perspective, the more you realize the problem is bigger than St. Louis," he said.

So the willingness to cripple someone’s business is maturity.

If anyone needs a reminder of how despots put down dissent, check out Andrew Sullivan for some pictures of what happened to the Iranian Students protesting for Democracy.

As a free market guy I have been unhappy with Bush's expansion of the federal government. If he is serious about Social Security reform, he can win back some points.

A source close to the president’s reelection campaign said Bush will run “big time” on revamping the Social Security system, a longstanding conservative goal.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a member of the House Social Security Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee, said reform could come in the 109th Congress. “What we’d like to do is run on it … so we have moral authority to act on it in ’05,” Ryan said.

Michelle Hitt, spokeswoman for Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), said voters generally understand that the Social Security system, slated to go bankrupt in 2018, is nearing insolvency.

How can someone defend this?

For an average white 30-year-old male, who is expected to die in his mid- to late 70s, the Social Security investment yields a negative 0.5 percent return over the course of a lifetime.

Most black men, one Republican staffer added, will not live long enough to draw on their pensions. Also, Social Security accounts, unlike the personal retirement accounts favored by conservative reformers, limit transferability. If a recipient’s children are older than 18 and a spouse’s income exceeds that of the recipient, the recipient’s Social Security investment will not stay in the family.

Sounds like theft to me.

Dan Maffei, Democratic spokesman for the House Ways and Means Committee, said Social Security is not simply a pension plan, as Republicans portray it, but part of a multipronged social insurance program.

That's what has to change.

Bush Denounces Slavery

President Bush began a five-day tour through Africa yesterday by denouncing slavery as "one of the greatest crimes of history," and promising to help restore peace to war-ravaged Liberia, a country founded by freed American slaves.

"Human beings were delivered and sorted, and weighed, and branded with the marks of commercial enterprises, and loaded as cargo on a voyage without return," he said. "One of the largest migrations of history was also one of the greatest crimes of history."

I would be interested in hearing Bush's opinion on how American slavery differentiates from say the slavery of communism. If Slavery is a horror then aren't we honor bound to defeat it at our doorstep? And wouldn't the Monroe Doctrine give us ample reason for invading and overthrowing Castro? It's easy to apologize for sins of the past, but it is disingenuous if you allow the sins of today go on without interference.

I don't think we can or should topple every dictator in the world, but why not conquer the ones that will help us in other ways. Defeating Saddam sends a good message to perpetrators in the Middle East. Why not send a message in our own hemisphere by ending the hardships of the Cuban people. How would it be any different than our invasion of Haiti?

The Democrats hate the idea of federal subsidies for private health insurance.

"The bill cannot give seniors false choices that coerce them into leaving conventional Medicare to enroll in HMOs and private plans," the Democrats wrote. "It is wrong to provide greater resources to enrich private plans while starving Medicare in the bargain. It is wrong to legislate a vast social experiment that would raise premiums for Medicare and victimize the oldest and sickest senior citizens."

Suddenly they hate social experiments. Somehow giving seniors money to buy private insurance is victimizing them. If handing me money is victimization, what have I been waiting for? Also, does that mean the rest of us with private insurance are already victims?

In a letter yesterday, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and 36 other Democratic senators said they would reject any compromise that includes what is known as premium support.

It should be obvious this group of 36 Democrats aren't interested in public health, but expanding the role of the federal government. The bigger the government, the more power for them.

I was sorry to hear about Katharine Hepburn last week. She didn’t quite make 100, but what a long life and career.

Here are some lesser-known favorites of mine:

STAGE DOOR (1937) A great cast the pits Ginger Rogers against Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn is the rich girl who is resented by all of the other boarding house actresses. The same scenario played out in real life as Hepburn and Rogers feuded off screen as well.

BRINGING UP BABY (1938) Well known, but not really seen by anyone but film buffs. Hepburn chases and finally wins the serious professor, Cary Grant. It’s full of sight gags and great dialogue. A box office turkey upon release, Brining Up Baby is now recognized as a work of genius.

WOMAN OF THE YEAR (1942) This was the first Spencer Tracy – Katharine Hepburn film and it was a good one. Tracy plays a sportswriter and Hepburn a columinst for the same paper. They begin by fighting each other in their columns until they run out of material and get married. Hepburn is such a well-connected busy personality she has no time for Spence and their marriage. Soon Tracy feels like the neglected wife. He even gets upset when she doesn’t comment on his new hat. This was a good one to show potential girlfriends, because you could get a good feel for their personalities by how much they identified with Hepburn. One girl loved the movie until Spencer got fed up and left and Hepburn tried to win him back by showing him she could make breakfast. She felt that it was a betrayal of her character. I laugh every time I think of that.

PAT AND MIKE (1952) Hepburn plays a champion athlete and Tracy plays her coach/agent. Hepburn was a good enough athlete to pull it off and it is full of laughs. Even young Charles Bronson shows up in a bit part.

LION IN WINTER (1968) Hepburn plays the older Queen Eleanor who is only let out of prison for special occasions. Peter O’Toole plays King Henry II who is worried about leaving his kingdom to one of his three lousy sons. Every plot description makes this movie sound boring, but the dialogue and plot are so well-written that it is really a treat.

Michael Leeden writes a wonderful column on the Iranian Revolution that seems to be beginning.

Those odors (of revolution) are beginning to waft through the air of the central squares of Iran's major cities, and have stimulated the people to an increasingly open challenge to the reigning mullahs. There have now been six consecutive nights of demonstrations all over Iran, and although Western reporters there are on a tight leash — the regime has banned all journalists and photographers from the sites of demonstrations, so the "reports" are almost always based on second-hand information — and although there do not seem to be any Western reporters covering events outside Tehran itself, several facts are dramatically clear.

Our cabdriver last week in Heidelberger, Germany left Iran 15 years ago. He said that the people are fed up with the Islamic leaders and he expects the regime to be toppled in less than a year. But he also said that he thought it could easily happen this month. A part of him would like to go back when the Mullahs are toppled, but he has been in Germany so long that he hates to uproot his son from his friends and send him to a strange land. I asked him why he chose Germany when he left Iran. He said that he couldn’t get a Visa to America.

I guess Dusty Baker is going to get away with saying the kinds of things that got Jimmy the Greek fired. Is it easier to play baseball in the heat when you are dark?

"It's easier for most Latin guys and it's easier for most minority people because most of us come from heat. You don't find too many brothers in New Hampshire and Maine and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Right?" he said with a chuckle.

"We were brought over here for the heat, right? Isn't that history? Weren't we brought over because we could take the heat?"

Had a white manager said such a thing he would be making a public apology. Jesse Jackson would march until the guy resigned his job, unless, of course, the manager decided to donate millions to the Rainbow Coalition.

Baker may have a point, but until a white person can say the same thing, these kinds of double standards only cause more racism. The assumption is that only black people can know anything about black people. If true, that would be saying that the races were different, which sounds racist. But taken a step further, if only blacks understand blacks, then only whites must understand whites. If that were the case then Jesse Jackson shouldn't be able to accuse a white person of racism, because he wouldn't understand them enough to know their thinking.

Europe was a great experience. We went to a new city almost everyday, traveling through Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. There were many castles and old style villages. I could probably post 10 different entries about different parts of the trip, but I'm not sure where to start.

Here are some quick observations:

What I liked

1) History

Castles, medieval villages and art museums galore. This is why you go and this is why people keep going back. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is in itself worth a trip to the Netherlands. One castle is enough reason to see Heidelberg and Brugge was worth the side trip just to imagine what life must have been like circa 1300.

2) The Train system

The trains almost always arrive on time and when they are late they make it up before you reach your destination. The ride is much smoother than air travel and there is more leg room. Three hours on a train is much easier than three hours on a plane. Sit back, read a book and you arrive in no time.

3) Bike Riding

Most streets have bike paths or you are allowed to ride on the sidewalk. So many people ride bikes, especially in Holland. It's a great way to get around and good exercise.

4) Beer

The Pilsner has more of that bitter hops taste. I drank the same Heineken, Amstel, Grolsh and Becks available here. But I also tried the Belgian beer, Juliper, and German beers called Bitberger, & Konnigsbecher. Instead of Light beer, they have White Beer. I didn't really care for it because it tasted a little to sweet, especially compared to the lager that had that nice crisp bitterness. It was also nice that you could walk anywhere while drinking one.

5) Fewer subsidies for farmers

These governments must not be artificially boosting the prices of milk, because cheese is so inexpensive they eat it at every meal. Breakfast usually consisted of bread, cheese, lunch meat and cereal. You can buy 16 ounces of Brie for 75 cents. You could buy a big whole grain roll for 33 cents.

What I didn't like

1) German Food

It wasn’t bad tasting, but it got a bit tiring. Everything seems heavy. After beefsteak so many days in a row, I ordered Quiche and salad and the quiche came hot with heaviness not unlike chicken potpie. On the upside, the Belgian and Dutch food was good and authentic Italian could be had anywhere we went.

2) TV

Every hotel had CNN International, but that will practically put you to sleep. In fact, it doesn't even cover American news unless something big happens. I did learn about Strom Thurmond and Katharine Hepburn from CNN, and even a little about Liberia, but practically nothing else happening in America was covered. I was able to get a hold of USA Today twice and read some box scores, but it was impossible to follow baseball there. USA Today would print Sunday's Box Scores on Tuesday afternoon.

3) No Air conditioning in the room

Not one hotel had it. Opening the window meant that the partying Europeans would keep you awake for hours with their racket, even on a Tuesday Night. The upside was their late hours meant that they were never competition for the buffet breakfast the next morning.

4) Not speaking 7 different languages like Europeans

For the most part it didn't matter, but it was impossible renting a bike from the German kid who understood us no better than we understood him. It took five minutes and an interpreter to tell us that we needed to sign at the bottom.

5) Grey skies and spitting rain

I expected this in England, but a sunny day even in July was hard to come by. This was especially true in Holland. The Fourth of July there was a 50 Degree affair. I brought one turtle neck that got a lot of action.

6) The Service

You’ll have to chase them down for clean towels the second day in a hotel. And they never come back to your table when you are eating dinner. More water? A second beer? Dessert? The check? You’ll have to get their attention. They won’t follow-up on their own.

Conclusion

I learned a lot, but am happy to be home. I feel at home in London because the people are so nice and we speak a common language. Continental Europeans are not the same. They seem very indifferent about everything, trudging along and sharing very few laughs. No one was ever mean, but only a few seemed to be happy.

Being an American is truly a unique experience in the world. Being away from this country gives one even more love for it.

I'll some specific stories this week.