Here's the an interesting interpretation of the U.N. bombing in Baghdad yesterday.

With their comrades killed, wounded or captured, their leaders apprehended (another one yesterday), their bases of support whittled away and U.S. resolve only hardened, our enemies have turned to a new, desperate strategy.

Our enemies' initial "Mogadishu Strategy" - based on the faulty notion that if you kill Americans they pack up and go home - was a disaster for them. Our response devastated their already-crippled organization. Now, with reduced capabilities and decayed leadership, they've turned to attacking soft targets. It's the best they can do.

It's ugly. But it's an indicator of their weakness, not of strength.

Why the U.N.?

The attack on the U.N. headquarters also was an effort to undercut reconstruction efforts. Our enemies hope that, by attacking aid workers, they can prevent other international agencies from coming to Iraq, that they can drive a wedge between the coalition and the Johnny-come-latelies nudging their way into reconstruction programs.

The truck bomb didn't simply attack the U.N. - it struck at the U.N.'s idea of itself. The lesson the U.N. must take away is that no one can be neutral in the struggle with evil.

We've taken the War Against Terror to our enemies. It's far better to draw the terrorists out of their holes in the Middle East, where we don't have to read them their rights, than to wait for them to show up in Manhattan again.

In Iraq, we can just kill the bastards. And we're doing it with gusto.

So many people are ready to label the liberation as a defeat. At the rate we're going, it would take 100 years to have as many casualties as we suffered in Vietnam. And yet the media research center reports this.

On Tuesday night's Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth noticed, Olbermann plugged an upcoming segment: "Ahead of us here tonight, critics of the war said it would turn into a quagmire like Vietnam. Did today's events start to make them right?"

It would be nice if News commentators had some knowledge of real history. Instead they take the lazy approach of using buzzwords and scary analogies.

If there were enough rightwing critics in the world then every leftwing politician could have a free out for their own policies and behavior. Enter Gray Davis who is sounding the Bill Clinton alarm.

"The Republicans behind the recall say they want you to vote me out because of past mistakes. But they don't give a rip about past mistakes -- they want power for the future, and with so many candidates, they think they can get it with the support of a tiny fraction of California voters."

It was progressives like Davis that made it possible to oust a sitting politician in California. It was all about the people. Recall is an iffy proposition in general, but it’s the least of the problems befalling California. Bustamante is ready for more of the same.

California's Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the leading Democrat seeking to replace Gov. Gray Davis, proposed on Tuesday raising taxes by $8 billion to help the state's ailing finances -- while Davis readied a major defense of himself and his administration.

Arnold's choice of Warren Buffett the tax champion isn't much better. Raising taxes is just begging more productive Californians to leave the state. It also ensures that consumer spending will decline. The pirate ship is sinking and instead of plugging the hole, the captains are more interested in getting the treasure.

It would seem that a California politician cannot get elected saying, "We won't provide you a living." Years of social spending programs have convinced people that they deserve even more. Any state can survive in a strong economy, but in a sluggish economy, the irresponsible states are the first to fall apart. Gray Davis has a government solution to every hangnail. Davis is like the spoiled girl who wants diamonds because she “deserves” them. Any interruption in his power or spending is just evidence of an evil plot by conservatives.

I’m less convinced that the viable alternatives won’t make the same mistakes.

WHAT IS IT THAT JUDGES ARE SUPPOSED TO DO?

Why isn't the media talking about the Democrats filibuster of the Presidents judicial nominees? If the media weren't lazy or partisan it would be telling us that a judge's job is to follow the law. It should be asking senate Democrats to come up with evidence that these judges haven't been following the law in their other appointments. Short of that, the Democrats have no standing to oppose them.

The Democrats want judges to make law. Now this seems paradoxical, because making law should be in the realm of Senate Democrats. But Senate Democrats cannot pass the laws they really want, because people aren't as liberal as the Senators. Therefore, if they can force enough un-elected progressives on the court they can achieve the things they really want while bypassing the people who elected them. If "conservatives" get on the court they will actually have to live with the laws they can win with a vote.

The Republicans who opposed Clinton’s nominees were able to say that they weren’t living up to the law. That is the standard that worked in this country until Earl Warren and company decided to launch a coup on the nations laws.

Courts can have the ability to right a great many wrongs. The Warren court speeded up de-segregation. But tyrants and dictators always gain power with popular measures that re-assure the masses. These judges that choose to dictate public policy rather than let the appropriate branches of government do their jobs are becoming more worrisome. The Democrats who think they are winning the war in the courts are really weakening their own power and the entire system. Someday there won’t be any constructionists on the court. The rightwing judges will be just as meddlesome as the leftwing ones. Then the Senate Democrats will lose their power on both ends.

IS COLORBLIND REALLY RACIST?

Ward Connerly has been going around the country trying to make real Dr. King's idea of a colorblind society. Who are his biggest opponents? Supporters of the late Dr. King. Connerly's latest proposal on the California ballot is a measure that outlaws the collection of race data altogether. What is more colorblind than that? Institutions cannot judge a person by their race if you don't make him/her identify their race. It's the first step to thinking of people as people.

Now if people were people, what would Jesse Jackson do for a living? Here is his argument.

California businessman Ward Connerly's Proposition 54 is bad medicine for the people of California. It would place a ''gag order'' on the collection of data and information needed to analyze social problems, design public policy and identify positive solutions.

Jackson isn’t dumb to the idea that this sort of collection began in the old south as a way to keep black people in their place. The whole theory that a single drop of Negro blood makes someone black originated with people that Jackson says he opposes. What do you think those good old boys were doing if they weren’t “designing public policy” as Jackson puts it? Jackson just supports using the same racist tactics to meet his own ends.

Proposition 54 argues not for privacy, but for ignorance. It is nothing less than a recall of the historic commitment to civil rights, equal access and equal protection under the law. And Connerly has already threatened to put it on the ballot in states across the country.

Another Jackson non-sequitor. How can equal access and equal protection flourish in a society that is designing public policy around race? Jackson is nothing less than a modern day version of all which he says he opposes. He’s got the perfect setup. He decries the sins of 50 years ago and asks that the remedy be the tactics of the old sinners. Enough hue and cry and he can continue on like this until his dying day.

Jesse Jackson is to blacks what Yassar Arafat is to Palestinians. Their followers love them despite their selfish motives. Neither wants to see a solution to the problems before them, because that would negate their own personal power. Just like Arafat wouldn’t sign the peace accord in the waning days of the Clinton administration, Jackson won’t cede that there will ever be a time in which blacks shouldn’t get preferential treatment.

A hairstyle has endorsed a Kentucky Governor candidate.

It seems that Republicans are happy to have the Mullet-vote as long as the curtain is drawn and they don't have to see you. The will never turn down a donation but worry little about you showing up at $500 a plate fund raisers.

On the contrary, Democrats see diverse people as a vital part of the fabric that makes our country so great. As the party of the real Family Values, it is only Democrats that value the place of workers and citizens in our communities.

I wonder how Dr. King felt about mullet discrimination.

Discovery of Civil War-Era Shipwreck Off Georgia Coast Could Yield Up to $180 Million in Coins

Explorers believe they have found the sunken remains of an 1860s steamer that could yield the richest cargo ever recovered from a shipwreck: thousands of gold coins worth as much as $180 million.

The S.S. Republic was carrying 59 passengers and 20,000 $20 gold coins from New York to New Orleans when it sank in a hurricane off Savannah, Ga., on Oct. 25, 1865, according to newspaper accounts and other historical records.

Odyssey, a publicly traded company founded in the mid-1990s, has a number of shipwreck search projects in various stages. Stemm and Morris have performed only one other deep-water excavation, that of a Spanish wreck in the Dry Tortugas that yielded about $5 million in gold and thousands of artifacts.

There is just something about treasure that captures the imagination.

Decade of Rad: The 10 Eightiest Movies

I forgot some of these movies existed. Here's a sample of the wry commentary.

10. Over the Top, 1987

“Hawk” showed that arm wrestling is in the heart, not the actual arm. The ‘80s were notorious for this type of nonsensical motivation, where the human spirit could keep your arm from being torn off by Mad Dog Madison. But in fairness to the decade, it was considered unusual for child custody cases to be decided by arm wrestling truck drivers.

6. Gymkata, 1985

the US government decides to send in a gymnast to whom they’ve taught karate for a couple weekends. This ends up being a great decision since all of his opponents come at him in perfectly symmetrical paired formations that can only be stopped with graceful flying splits.

5. Disorderlies, 1987

The only way Winslow Lowry can pay off his gambling debts is to receive the inheritance from his father. And since just murdering him wouldn’t ensue any humorous mayhem, he hires the Fat Boys as orderlies, counting on their bumbling incompetence to kill his dad.

2. Moonwalker, 1988

Moonwalker is a mix of music videos like “Leave Me Alone,” which demands you to not pay attention to him during his own movie, and “Man in the Mirror,” which demands you to cure world hunger. This comes off as a little hypocritical, since if you added up all the hush money that Michael’s paid to the parents of allegedly fondled children, he could have replaced Ethiopia with a 1,200-mile wide bowl of pudding.

THE BLACKOUT

The first thought was terrorism, especially since we have arrested suspects who were planning to take down power grids. Happy that it wasn't sabotage, but the fact that it happened outside the country and affected so many things means the terror makers have spotted a weakness. We'll have to put a lot of effort forward to protect these places while finding a way to make them less dependent on one another.

The situation also reminds you of how many things that have to go right to make Manhattan function, and yet it functions everyday. My first thoughts were to Cathy and Rob who had to get back to Hoboken from New York. The Ariel shots of the ferry landing reminded one of ants swarming the picnic. Cathy said on September 11th she walked to 33rd street to catch the ferry, but the line extended 20 blocks north. Yesterday didn't look any better. Seeing Time Square without lights and video probably gave me the best feel for what was going on. It would have seemed much more distant without that picture.

In the Midwest, Steve and Kristen are supposed to be in Detroit tonight to see KISS, but with their airport not even servicing passengers, I bet there is a good chance it won't come off either. Businesses in Detroit are telling people to stay home according to NPR. Luckily he is driving.

This is just the sort of the thing everyone was expecting from the Millennium bug. Companies spent millions of dollars and there wasn't even a report of traffic light going fritz. It gives a lot of credence to the philosophy that most worry is imagined and needless. The real catastrophes and dangers come swift and by surprise. We spend our time locking the barn after the horse gets out. Terrorists blow up the twin towers and our response is to strip search old Irish ladies getting on planes.

I don't know what Amtrak is doing here, but there was absolutely no security on any Eurail Train when we were over there. You walk into the station with all of your bags and enter any train of your choosing. Some terrorist will no doubt take advantage of this and try something. The reaction will be a crackdown too far the other way. It would make sense if they implemented reasonable security measures now, but the world has few leaders who lead. Most politicians are just managers that react.

Coulter on California:

Democrats governed their petri dish as they always govern. They buy the votes of government workers with taxpayer-funded jobs, salaries and benefits -- and then turn around and accuse the productive class of "greed" for wanting their taxes cut. This has worked so well nationally that more people in America now work for the government than work in any sort of manufacturing job.

Most touchingly, Democrats claim to be shocked at the exorbitant cost of a recall election. They were not such penny-pinchers when contemplating Enron-style pensions for school crossing guards. Nor did their fiscal conservatism kick in when Davis announced this week that he would sign legislation providing "intolerance and hatred control training" for all California schoolteachers. Yeah, this is the guy who wants another crack at straightening out the budget.

1) When a Republican presides over a strong economy it is called greed.
2) When a Democrat presides over strong economy it is called leadership.
3) When a Republican presides over a weak economy it is called incompetence.
4) When a Democrat presides over a weak economy it is called perplexing.

The eloquent Thomas Sowell takes on Anthony Kennedy and his recent remarks about mandatory sentencing laws. Kennedy won applause saying:

"Every day in prison is much longer than any day you've ever spent," Justice Kennedy said. "A country which is secure in its institutions and confident in its laws should not be ashamed of the concept of mercy."

To which Sowell rejoins:

Two centuries ago, Adam Smith had something to say about mercy as well: "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."

Innocent victims of crime seem to disappear from the lofty vision and ringing rhetoric of those who worry that the punishment of criminals is "too severe," as Justice Kennedy put it. If a day in prison can be pretty long, so can every day living in a high-crime neighborhood, where you have to wonder what is going to happen to your son or daughter on the way to or from school.

The whole piece is brilliant as always, but I have to share the conclusion.

"Our sentences are too long," Justice Kennedy also told the ABA. Compared to what? Compared to sentences in Europe? Justice Kennedy has apparently become a citizen of the world, even citing foreign legal precedents in a recent Supreme Court opinion.

Our laws were not made to deal with conditions in Europe. Our judges are sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States — not the European Union. If Justice Kennedy finds all this too parochial and confining, he is free to resign from the Supreme Court of the United States and go join the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

Justice Anthony Kennedy is a classic example of someone appointed to the Supreme Court by a conservative Republican, who arrives bearing the "conservative" label, but who then goes native in Washington — or, as the liberals say, "grows."

We can only hope the Bush administration does not succumb to the Senate Democrats' filibuster threat by appointing more Anthony Kennedys to the federal courts. These appointments last a lifetime — which is too long a sentence for crime victims.

Here's a couple of fun answers from a recent Tom Clancy interview:

NEWSWEEK: With the homeland security alert bouncing from yellow to orange and back again, has the government done clumsy job of keeping the public calm and informed?
CLANCY: Yeah, I think that’s pretty stupid. And the trouble with you guys in the media is that someone does something stupid and you [attack] him. Why don’t you just say, “this is stupid” and just go on? Or better yet, don’t even talk about it. One of the problems I have with the news media is that you’d rather have a bad story than a good one. What you should ask is, “How do you fix it,” not, “Who got it wrong.” The first thing that people asked when the planes crashed into the twin towers was, “whose fault is this.” Well, it’s the fault of the idiots flying the airplanes for starters. But you can’t blame the intelligence community for not doing its job properly if you don’t give it proper support, and when was the last time the media supported the CIA?

A good point. The media does seem more interested in exacting blood than finding solutions to problems.

NEWSWEEK: You’ve said that you’re proud to be American. Do you ever worry about patriotism or national pride being mistaken abroad for hubris?
CLANCY: [Laughs] The people with the most hubris in America work at the New York Times and the Washington Post. The New York Times really thinks their pages are holy. They’re a newspaper—it’s not holy; they make mistakes. We all make mistakes. But hubris? That’s a Greek word from a long time ago. That’s really a disease of kings and princes.

He said it.

Here are some short thoughts on the California situation.

1) Rush said last week that Gray Davis will step down before the actual recall which will nullify the vote and Bustamante will become governor by default. A similar strategy was used in New Jersey to replace Robert Toricelli when the polls showed he couldn't win.

2) The strategy of trying to stop the recall alone was de-railed when Bustamante put himself on the ballot. Will Davis be too angry to resign and hand it to Bustamante?

3) Now Rush thinks that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will step in and end the recall.

4) Tricia was in San Diego last week and said no one even seemed interested in talking the issue. Are people tired of it already or just embarrassed?

5) Bob Novak says that Arnold decided to run when he felt that Riordin was confused and disorganized.

The real winner in California seems to be George Bush who no longer spends everyday answering fool questions about WMD.

If it is true that Congress wants to restrict the use of Special Ops, then our leaders are throwing us to the wolves.

Congress is set to impose new restrictions on the use of Special Operations Forces that for the first time will require a presidential order before deploying commandos in routine but hidden activities.

The new rules, if contained in the final version of the bill, would add a burden to the military's deployment of Special Operations Forces by requiring the Pentagon to first obtain a presidential "finding," or directive, similar to those required for covert-action intelligence operations.

Findings are declarations that the president "finds" a secret activity is in national interest.

After signing that humongous and scary Patriot Act that allows the government to pry into our lives, Congress is suddenly worried about what our forces do to defeat the enemy. It’s the typical Washington upside down thinking. We should be passing laws that allow Special Forces all sorts of leeway in doing their job overseas while restricting what the government can do to American citizens.

That Horse's Ass Castro turned 77 yesterday.

Rumors about his health, a taboo subject, swirl regularly.

Rather than avoid the subject, Castro faces it head-on. He insists the Revolution will live on without him. And a few months back he stressed that "my destiny was not to come into the world to rest at the end of my life."

"You have to have passions and dreams," he (Castro) said recently, but "life has inexorable laws." He promised to stay on as president "until nature itself decides, not a minute less and not a second longer."

That could sum up the sad state of the entire country. Those with passions and dreams are usually imprisoned while he lives off the fat of the land.

But this ideal society concept does not mesh with a complicated and crumbling reality. After 40 years of communism, more than 11 million Cubans do not have their basic needs met.

Housing shortages hit crisis levels years ago. Insufficient subsidized food supplies, combined with low salaries that make purchasing nonsubsidized food prohibitive for most, are dawn-to-dusk frustrations for millions.

Limits on personal freedoms also take their toll, and these are just the beginning of problems facing Cuba's revolution.

The economy is limping, as a tough US economic embargo, combined with a rigid communist bureaucracy here, less tourism and sliding international prices for top export sectors sugar and nickel, have slammed the brakes on growth.

Somehow I don't think Castro's lifestyle has changed any.

I was surprised to see the American Bar Association voted to relax attorney/client privilege.

In a 218 to 201 vote, the ABA's policy-making body amended its ethics code to allow, but not require, lawyers to breach attorney-client privilege if they believe doing so would stop a client from committing a financial crime or fraud.

It appears that the ABA is saying that financial crimes must be stopped, but if you have information that your client has the potential to kill someone, you'd better keep your mouth shut still.

It's a shame the Dude and Kristi decided against running for Governor, because they would have easily won on the game show.

The Game Show Network has found a reason to get into politics: the California recall, which will be spoofed in an October special.

The channel said it is lining up five candidates to take part in the Oct. 1 program. The show will chronicle their campaigns and include a "wide-ranging" debate, including buzz-in answers and bonus questions, the channel said.

The Arnold campaign has also unleashed another media issue. A media issue is something that the regular person could care less about, but that the media hammers away at until change comes. Recent examples include August National Golf Club. Another famous entry is Campaign Finance Reform. For some reason, the media continues to recoil at the thought of proposition 187.

In 1994, Californians, including Governor Pete Wilson and even Arnold voted overwhelmingly for Proposition 187.

The GOP-backed Proposition 187 to deny health care and public education to illegal immigrants was passed by a wide margin, although it was eventually ruled unconstitutional. It remains a contentious issue and a litmus test for some voters, particularly Hispanics, to gauge whether a candidate is immigrant-friendly.

Does it remain a contentious issue? I remember the exit polling showed that a majority of legal immingrants favored the proposal. The only people who seemed to be against this were the ones who cannot legally vote.

Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Art Torres, chairman of the California Democratic Party, slammed Schwarzenegger for his decision to appoint former Gov. Pete Wilson, the architect of Proposition 187, as chairman of his new campaign.

"There's a famous phrase in our community, and that is, judge a person by the friends that he keeps," Torres said. "And unfortunately, his new chairman, Governor Wilson, supported 187 furiously against immigrants and Latinos."

One can only gather that the Democrats are trying to garner the illegal alien vote. Is that the key to winning elections in California?
UPDATE: I was sort of wrong about immigrants favoring this as it turned out. Legal Spanish speaking immigrants voted against this measure. However, Asian immigrants, blacks and non-Hispanic whites voted in favor of it. I guess the big deal is that 600,000 Californians have fled to other states since this vote and over a million new Spanish-speaking immigrants took their place. In other words, the vote would probably have more trouble getting through.

The Kennedy's are full of praise, but don't expect any help, Arnold.

Schwarzenegger's wife, Maria Shriver, has proclaimed her support for his candidacy and is considered a powerful asset.

But other members of America's Democratic dynasty have toed the line drawn by patriarch Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who showered praise on the Republican action star last week but vowed to oppose his political premiere.

Although Schwarzenegger has crossed the political line to raise money - and even campaign - for Ted Kennedy, the Kennedys would never consider returning the favor, the family source said.

That rebellious Maria went and married a self-made man when she could have chosen any number of trust fund babies.

The only thing keeping Gore from being the most appealing Democrat is that he is the most condescending. This was easy to forget as he spent months with a zipped lip. I saw some of the speech yesterday and every sentence seemed to be delivered as a father to his small children. He talks slow and he draws things out and the whole delivery gives the feeling of superiority. No wonder nobody bought the book last year. Who wants to read 400 pages of this? When you stack him up against the other candidates, he seems effeminate.

Gore needs to listen to Howard Dean. Dean may have two left feet, but he talks to you instead of at you. Dean is also the only one who makes his anti-war views seem genuine. Everybody else sounds like they are reacting to the polls.

Gore was part of an administration that said many of the things Bush did. Gore missed a golden opportunity to be the Lieberman of the campaign who helped Bush make the case for war while differentiating on other policies. Nixon wasn’t running around in 1963 giving speeches denouncing Kennedy and his Cuba policy. As it stands, it seems more and more like Gore was being a good little soldier while he disagreed with Clinton more than he let on at the time.

"Too many of our soldiers are paying the highest price for the strategic miscalculations, serious misjudgments and historic mistakes that have put them and our nation in harm's way," said Mr. Gore, whose critique of the administration resembled that of the Democratic contenders for president.

"Listening to him speak, you'd almost think that he wasn't vice president when terrorists attacked the USS Cole, when they attacked U.S. military barracks overseas, when they attacked the World Trade Center the first time [in 1993]. These were not 'mistaken impressions,'" Miss (Christine) Iverson (spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee) said.

Gore wants to capture the spirit of the 60s war protesters, but regardless of the media’s romanticism of that era, the average voter doesn’t respond well to hearing his country blasted from “leaders.”

The Texas re-districting plan is a great little drama being played out.

They have missed important family birthdays, time with new babies and the hospitalization of parents, but Democratic state senators who fled to New Mexico to boycott congressional redistricting say they are resolved in their protest.

Sen. Rodney Ellis has a newborn daughter at his Houston home. Sen. Eddie Lucio of Brownsville said his mother was hospitalized for pneumonia and his father was diagnosed as having stones in his gallbladder.

Sen. Mario Gallegos of Houston has a new grandson and several senators have missed family birthdays. Sen. Royce West's son turned 19 while West was in Albuquerque, and Ellis' grandfather celebrated his 82nd birthday on Tuesday.

When this happened last time, I didn't know that Democrats had 17 congressmen to the Republicans 15. This is the essence of the way districts are drawn. Texas has two Republican Senators and a Republican Governor. The outlay of congressmen is totally in the way the districts are being drawn. The Republicans control the state Senate 19-12, meaning that the lines could easily be redrawn to match the State Senate lines and the Dems would be in trouble. How long will they or can they hold out?

Cuomo wants to see Gore get back in.

"I would like to see him get in," said Cuomo in an interview with WROW-AM radio in Albany, New York.

"Right now, the Democratic voice is not a single voice. It is not a chorus. It is a babble," said the former New York governor. Webster's Dictionary defines "babble," as "to make incoherent sounds, as a baby does, prattle."

Cuomo wouldn't say something like this if he thought Gore wasn't already considering it. In fact, what Gore needs is prominent Democrats to call for him to run. The fact that Cuomo doesn't like the Clinton's and knows Hillary is thinking similar things is a great motivator. This is beginning to look less and less spontaneous and more and more orchestrated. Watch his polling numbers a few days after the big speech when he gets a lot of press.

Woody and Mia created a prodigy.

Satchel, known as Seamus, is 14 and about to start his senior year at Bard College. You read that right: college. Seamus is a genius, no kidding, and has fit in well with the students.

It goes on to say that he hasn't seen or asked to see Woody in 10 years. Also, his brother is becoming a marriage counselor.

Khomeini's grandson praises the United States for its freedom.

"America" says Ayatollah Seyed Hussein Khomeini, "is the symbol of freedom."

Seated in the sprawling living room of his temporary Baghdad home, where he lives under armed guard, Khomeini says, "The best example of freedom in our life now is America, especially its Constitution."

Is he a natural born politician ready to return to Iran as soon as the freedom fighters win? Or is he an earnest citizen wanting the best for his country?

Never was there an election that begged for the opportunity to vote for NONE OF THE ABOVE than the 2002 California Governor’s race. Only Bill Simon’s ineptitude allowed a very unpopular Davis to survive. Now with the recall, anyone could wind up being the Governor of California. John Fund says that Arnold may surprise people tonight on Jay Leno.

Almost everyone expects Arnold Schwarzenegger to use his appearance tonight on "The Tonight Show" to explain why he isn't seeking the governorship and then to tout the candidacy of former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan. But what if Arnold makes a last-minute decision to join the race? Those who know his Hollywood negotiating tactics tell journalists he often keeps producers on hold until the last minute and then jumps in with a "total commitment." The Western Political Report concluded yesterday that "Schwarzenegger is not out of the running and Riordan is not a sure thing to jump in." His campaign aides say they honestly don't know what he will do. Apparently, the 73-year-old Riordan would strongly prefer his close friend Mr. Schwarzenegger to run instead.

California is a great example of what happens when you live by the welfare state. The rest of the country should take heed what happens when you raise taxes and expand government services (especially to non-citizens). Even the left-wingers in that state that elect Democrats to a large plurality are tired of paying for their “compassion.” I honestly don’t think a Republican can turn that state around very quickly. The real problem is spending and high taxes which the Democratic state legislatures aren’t going to be helpful with. Just like Clinton left Bush a bad economy and he now blames Bush, it won’t be long until Davis and the State Democrats are blaming Riordin or Arnold for the sluggish economy. The Republicans may be biting off more than they can chew here.

UPDATE: Drudge was mislead, but Fund was right.

On this Mel Gibson question, I can only think that the press is uncomfortable with an authentic movie based on the life of Christ. Gibson’s movie won’t let viewers forget the sacrifice. I have to think that this makes a lot of the right people uncomfortable. Frank Rich is dying to see the film so that he can blast it.

If "The Passion" is kosher, couldn't Mr. Gibson give Jews the same access to a Washington media screening, so they could see for themselves? Such inhospitality is not terribly Christian of him. One Jewish leader whose requests to see the film have been turned away is Abraham H. Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League. "If you tell everyone they won't see it until it's ready, O.K.," Mr. Foxman said in a phone interview from Jerusalem. "But what Gibson's done is preselect those who'll be his supporters. If the movie is a statement of love, as he says it is, why not show it to you or me?"

It’s obvious that Gibson hand-picked the viewers so that a good word-of-mouth would spread before the vultures got a hold of it. We have a word called anti-Semitism that describes anti-Jewish feelings. Why isn’t there a stinging word for when people are anti-Christian?

There are two different kinds of politicians. Some have ideas that they want to implement. Others want power for its own sake. How can you differentiate? Those who want power for its own sake will generally oppose any position their opponent takes.

Bob Dole’s train wreck campaign in 1996 was full of this. While not a true conservative, Dole took outrageous positions on things like Hollywood movies. It seemed so hollow but it was a direct opposition to Clinton who was being funded by those same people.

I can only think the Democrats are headed down the same road with Howard Dean or whoever else. Joe Lieberman is trying to stake out a moderate position, but it’s falling on deaf ears.

Determined to persuade Democrats that he is the only candidate capable of defeating President Bush (news - web sites), the Connecticut senator said the party must focus on strengthening America's security and economy and will, in turn, win over moderate voters.
"Some Democrats, on the contrary, still prefer the old, big government solutions to our problems," Lieberman said in a speech to the National Press Club. "But, my friends, with record deficits, a stalled economy and Social Security (news - web sites) in danger, we can't afford that."

Now we have Gore returning (though reportedly not running) to give a speech to the anti-war crowd.

Amid talk he's being urged to jump back into the presidential race, Al Gore has arranged to speak out on Iraq to a large anti-war group at New York University on Thursday.

I think he is dying to get back into the race. His book sales were so ugly last Christmas he knew he would have trouble getting out of the primaries. Now that the candidates all seem the same, he can offer the voters something different, experience. I bet he gives a few speeches the next couple of months and then checks the Zogby poll numbers to see if he is getting any traction. If his numbers don’t improve, he never considered running. If he breaks away from the pack, he “reluctantly” gets into the race because the country needs him.

I’ll tell you this. Al Gore still wants to be President and knows that Hillary is also waiting to jump in January if conditions warrant it. If Gore is going to make a move, it will have to be before the beginning of the year. He thinks his best bet is to oppose Bush's strengths. If Gore really wants to say that Iraq should have been left in tact, he has a large misunderstanding of the American public post 911. But he probably thinks that he can't win over many Bush supporters as a parrot. Reagan Democrats returned to Clinton or Perot in 1992, because as a centrist, Bush didn't offer moderate Democrats much reason to stray from their own party. Lieberman has a better understanding of this than Gore.

By dropping out last year, Gore has been able to think and talk strategy without having to go on TV and answer a bunch of fool questions from reporters. He doesn’t need to stay in the public eye to keep his name recognition. Watch the Zogby numbers in the next couple of months. Gore wants a Nixon style political comeback. If Gore succeeds, he'll need an economic depression to beat a man of action like Bush.

It's a cliche that old men are full of old ideas. This is not always true, but when it’s true, it’s really true. Such is the case with Fritz Hollings who plans to leave the Senate, but with his own brand of reality. He has no clue as to what the information age is. To him, communication is meaningless and only factory jobs are worthwhile.

I had to make a talk on trade last week, and I looked it up and found out that at the end of World War II we had 40 percent of our workforce in manufacturing. And now we're down to 10 percent. We've got 10 percent of the country working and producing, and we've got the other 90 percent talking and eating. That's all they're doing.

We have a higher standard of living than any country in anytime in the history of the world. We import people to do the kinds of jobs that Americans won't touch anymore. Hollings needs to see people walking out a plant with dirt and grime under their fingernails to feel that people have jobs. In reality, manufacturing is just a single step in the process of bringing products to market. Someone has to invent, someone has to finance, someone has to package, and someone has to sell. None of these are inferior to the actual physical labor it takes to make something.

Hollings is unable or unwilling to realize that progress has made it possible for more people to use their minds instead of their backs. If that isn’t a step forward in the history of employment, what else is?

THE BOYS ARE BACK IN BUSINESS

The Junto Boys are back from a long weekend in Biloxi. We entered a poker tourney with little luck, but we all saw our game improve at the regular tables. The Dude and I were even accused of being professionals by a local lady when we read her hand a couple of times. Steve had hardly played Texas Hold'em before the trip but saw his game improve enough that he walked with a small profit on our last session. He's going to be a tough player once he gets some time logged at the table.

Poker is not given its due as a game of skill. Because money is won and lost it is considered gambling, but life is a gamble. Unlike a game of chance such as blackjack, poker is consistently won by good players. California understood this long ago and allowed poker rooms but not regular casino games. In Florida, they allow poker in a convoluted form as long as no more than ten dollars is won on any hand. My libertarian views have trouble understanding the ban on gambling in general, but even more so on poker.

Why not let people wager at games. They already wager in the stock market. And you can argue that everything in life is a gamble, from the person you marry to the career you choose. There are no guarantees in life, but taking risks provides rewards and punishments. Should the government really be in the business of outlawing natural human behavior?

Risk theory suggests that we all need a certain amount of risk in our lives to feel alive. Wagering is one of the few risks you can take that doesn't put your physical health in danger. If there are winners and losers it is no different than in any other part of life.

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.