SENATE DEMOCRATS LOOKING FOR AN IDENTITY

One of the problems of the media, I think, is their inability to actually explain the meaning of the words used in politics. On Wednesday during the beginnings of the Senate fight Democrats left the floor and walked down the Senate steps to a pre-set podium with a sign that read, “Save our Democracy.”

Is that what Senate Democrats are fighting for, democracy? They’re trying to prevent democracy by preventing a vote. What they’re fighting for is the Senate precedent of filibusters. What precedent they’re fighting for is vague. No longer can a single Senator drone on like we saw in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Now you have to have 41 people willing to go along with the delay. What a filibuster is has changed many times in the past and changing it now isn’t going to hurt the Senate anymore than the last time those rules were altered.

But more importantly, Senate Democrats are hitching their wagon to precedent and thus the rules of the Senate, and therefore the consistency of the rule of law. The rule of law is the basis of a republican form of government not a democratic one. The bill of rights and the constitution in general is a republican document because it states what a majority cannot do to a minority.

The U.S. Constitution use to mean something in this country before the New Deal and the Supreme Court led by Earl Warren began re-inventing America. What Democrats learned in the 20th century is that they could gain power by buying people’s votes through government largesse. Since income redistribution is unconstitutional according to the 14th amendment’s “Equal Protection” standard, well they just got the right judges to say it wasn’t.

The problem that Democrats have found so far in this century is that people aren’t as anxious to be bought, so the only way Democrats can maintain their ideology is to have judges force it down voter’s throats. It’s funny that as they lose grasp of the one institution that will mandate their minority views, they cite democracy as the virtue in danger.

Now they can no longer win by democratic means, they try republican principles. It won’t be long until they crave a return of the king. But, I guess, they already have the king back or at least an oligarchy, in the form of Federal judges. If they can’t save that, they’ll have to re-invent their entire opposition party much like Tony Blair did in Great Britain.

It’s a shame that the media isn’t interested in the principles behind these fights. It’s also a shame that public schools aren’t teaching these principles. It seems like my property taxes and cable bill could be promoting a smarter America, but we’re getting a louder America instead.

SHAKY FOUNDATION

The San Andreas Fault, which snakes uncomfortably close to Los Angeles and other large cities along much of California's length, has been relatively quiet for the past 148 years.

This could end soon, scientists said today.

Researchers have calculated a 20 to 70 percent probability that southern California will be hit by a large earthquake in the next 30 years. The forecast is based on the frequency of past events.

Geologists stress, however, that earthquake prediction, in its infancy, is notoriously difficult. Forecasts tend to be very general, specifying a range of decades rather than years or weeks for possible activity.

The last really big quake to hit southern California was the Fort Tejon Earthquake of 1857, which was estimated to be around magnitude 8 from the 186 miles (300 kilometers) of rupture along the San Andreas.

Bet you wouldn't guess that California ranks only 10th on the list of the strongest earthquakes. So far Gov. Ahnold has done a good job keeping the earthquakes at bay.

Strongest US Earthquakes (source: USGS)

Rank Locale Size

1 Prince William Sound, AK 9.2
2 Andreanof Islands, AK 9.1
3 Rat Islands, AK 8.7
4 Shumagin Islands, AK 8.2
5 New Madrid, MO 8.1
6 Yakutat Bay, AK 8.0
7 Andreanof Islands, AK 8.0
8 New Madrid, MO 8.0
9 Cape Yakataga, AK 7.9
10 Fort Tejon, CA 7.9

BREAK ON THROUGH TO SOUTHERN OREGON

NEW YORK (Wireless Flash) – Here’s news that will light the fire of Jim Morrison fans: A filmmaker claims The Doors’ frontman is alive and raising horses on a ranch in southern Oregon.

Rodeo photographer Gerald Pitts insists Morrison didn’t die in July of 1971 and he has current photographs and film footage of the rocker to prove it.

Pitts, who met Morrison in 1998, says the rocker staged his death because of a French conspiracy to kill him, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix with narcotics because they were all Vietnam war protestors.

These days, Morrison isn’t the drug user he once was, although Pitts says when he goes over to Jim’s house he’ll “maybe have an occasional beer.”

Now Pitts claims that Morrison is announcing he’s alive, in part, to promote his recent agreement to star in a rodeo shoot-out movie based on events that actually happened to Pitts.

Pitts’ whole story airs on A Current Affair tomorrow (May 20).

T.O. MUST G.O.

Terrell Owens has always been a Keyshawn, whining and crying about how great and misunderstood he is and behaving like he's more important than the team. The Eagles gambled on him and cut him some slack because he produced. No longer. McNabb has turned on him, his teammates want him gone, and the adulation and respect he earned with fans by sucking it up and overachieving in the Super Bowl is rapidly disappearing if not gone. He could have reversed field at any time and all would have been forgiven. It is really a shame when immaturity or ego costs you millions of dollars, not to mention endorsements and your life after football. What's worse is that another team will pick him up and pay him. But the price tag of having a T.O. on your team is steep indeed.

No doubt Owens, in his infinitely infantile worldview, is feeling persecuted by the public criticism he has been getting. It probably doesn't occur to him that he created this mess for himself. That would require a sense of accountability. Instead, he lashes out at McNabb, who is everything Owens will never be.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a player's trying to improve his contract. Owens' first mistake was in making it public and squandering the immense goodwill he had earned from Eagles fans. His second mistake was dragging McNabb into it with that first ill-advised insult. Now he has made a third, more serious mistake.

If Reid is as concerned with team chemistry as he says he is, the coach will make sure this is Owens' last mistake as an Eagle.

This whole situation also argues against using NCAA Division I football as the NFL's minor league system. Not that I have a better suggestion, but how can somebody this stupid have earned a college degree? Oh, but I forget - he probably didn't.

NO MEDIA ACCOUNTABILITY

I happened to watch a few minutes of the CBS Evening News last night before I realized what I was doing. I usually avoid CBS News and CNN because they make me angry. Last night was no exception.

I saw four stories -- each political, each anti-Bush administration. First, the Newsweek story. More on this below. Second, a story about how the right wing wants to end the filibusters and get an up-or-down vote so they can revoke women's constitutional right to abort a fetus. Third, some story on how badly the war in Iraq is going. I forget the fourth because I was lecturing the TV.

I have not followed the Newsweek story very closely but I get the gist that Newsweek reported that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet at a military base in Afghanistan, which caused riots which caused 16(?) deaths, and that the report was apparently false, based on one shaky secondhand source, and that Newsweek has written a one-line retraction. The obvious logic is that another incident of overzealous anti-Bush reporting has caused damage to the US as well as the loss of human life. But the story at CBS is the White House's "unprecedented" suggestion that Newsweek do its part to undo the damage that the magazine itself created. The press is aghast at the suggestion, citing freedom of the press -- presumably (again) the freedom to publish wrong stories that, while technically false, ring true.

Here is what McClellan actually said. He suggested (gasp!) that the people who made the mess should contribute to cleaning up the mess. Only a liberal could object to that.

Q With respect, who made you the editor of Newsweek? Do you think it's appropriate for you, at that podium, speaking with the authority of the President of the United States, to tell an American magazine what they should print?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not telling them. I'm saying that we would encourage them to help --

Q You're pressuring them.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm saying that we would encourage them --

Q It's not pressure?

MR. McCLELLAN: Look, this report caused serious damage to the image of the United States abroad. And Newsweek has said that they got it wrong. I think Newsweek recognizes the responsibility they have. We appreciate the step that they took by retracting the story. Now we would encourage them to move forward and do all that they can to help repair the damage that has been done by this report. And that's all I'm saying. But, no, you're absolutely right, it's not my position to get into telling people what they can and cannot report....

Q Are you asking them to write a story about how great the American military is; is that what you're saying here?

MR. McCLELLAN: Elisabeth, let me finish my sentence. Our military --

Q You've already said what you're -- I know what -- how it ends.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm coming to your question, and you're not letting me have a chance to respond. But our military goes out of their way to handle the Koran with care and respect. There are policies and practices that are in place. This report was wrong. Newsweek, itself, stated that it was wrong. And so now I think it's incumbent and -- incumbent upon Newsweek to do their part to help repair the damage. And they can do that through ways that they see best, but one way that would be good would be to point out what the policies and practices are in that part of the world, because it's in that region where this report has been exploited and used to cause lasting damage to the image of the United States of America. It has had serious consequences. And so that's all I'm saying, is that we would encourage them to take steps to help repair the damage. And I think that they recognize the importance of doing that. That's all I'm saying.

Q As far as the Newsweek article is concerned, first, how and where the story came from? And do you think somebody can investigate if it really happened at the base, and who told Newsweek? Because somebody wrote a story.

I guess the last line argues that because somebody felt confident enough in their source to write a story, then the story must be true. Forget that its own author and publisher have retracted it. Has the press learned anything from Rathergate? Or is its bias so complete that it is utterly impenetrable?

And then there's the related point that we spend tax dollars to remove the ten commandments from the public square but the purported flushing of a Koran is some sacred headline-making violation. But I leave that for another day. Matthew 10:16-42 explains this to my satisfaction.

BORDER PATROL POLITICS

U.S. Border Patrol agents have been ordered not to arrest illegal aliens along the section of the Arizona border where protesters patrolled last month because an increase in apprehensions there would prove the effectiveness of Minuteman volunteers, The Washington Times has learned.

More than a dozen agents, all of whom asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, said orders relayed by Border Patrol supervisors at the Naco, Ariz., station made it clear that arrests were "not to go up" along the 23-mile section of border that the volunteers monitored to protest illegal immigration.

The Minutemen volunteers are a great example of citizen government. The media wants to find something about them to dislike, but it's not just because they are making Illegals think twice about crossing the border. Their effectiveness sheds light on the abhorrent job being done by government. Their continued success could create copycats on other issues to the point that some government agencies would have to scramble to justify their existence.

Government agencies need problems to thrive. Their budgets are based on problems not effectiveness. Bureaucrats learn early on that you don't solve problems to increase your power. Instead you invent new problems that need to be funded. The Illegal alien subject is touchy in Washington so these citizens decided that they'd battle the problem themselves. Their success is now exposing the waste and fraud going on in a Federal Government with a different agenda. It's no surprise that the border patrol is intentionally trying to discredit their project. They'd love things to just get back to normal.

WWII - WORTH IT?

Pat Buchanan is taking heat for remarking in a speech that World War II was "not worth it."

When one considers the losses suffered by Britain and France – hundreds of thousands dead, destitution, bankruptcy, the end of the empires – was World War II worth it, considering that Poland and all the other nations east of the Elbe were lost anyway?

If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a "smashing" success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in.

If it was to keep Hitler out of Western Europe, why declare war on him and draw him into Western Europe? If it was to keep Hitler out of Central and Eastern Europe, then, inevitably, Stalin would inherit Central and Eastern Europe.

Was that worth fighting a world war – with 50 million dead?

The war Britain and France declared to defend Polish freedom ended up making Poland and all of Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. And at the festivities in Moscow, Americans and Russians were front and center, smiling – not British and French. Understandably.

For Buchanan, it comes down to how tight your definition of "national interest" is. He would probably characterize the Revolutionary War and the Spanish-American War as "in the national interest," the World Wars, Vietnam, Korea, the Gulf War, and Iraq as outside it. He has a viable and important argument, an argument he has been consistently voicing for years, an argument that repeatedly fails to be heard and debated because the cries of anti-Semitism prevent anyone from discussing the logic of it.

The question of what is in our national interest is at the root of major foreign policy decisions. Buchanan makes a reasonable argument that messing around in other nation's sovereign business is what drains superpowers of their economic and military might, that the essence of power is maintaining it by not wasting it here, there, and everywhere. Nations that fight, wear down and eventually get beat.

His argument is that 50 million dead soldiers and 6 million dead Jews is not better than 6 million dead Jews. That is not a crazy argument. It might not be right, and it might not be politically correct, but it's not crazy. I guess his crime is that he's not nuanced enough. And not socialist.

DEAN MAKES HIS SOCIALISM OFFICIAL

Breaking party lines, former Gov. Howard Dean said Monday he supports Rep. Bernard Sanders' bid for the U.S. Senate, saying the Independent makes a "strong candidate."

"A victory for Bernie Sanders is a win for Democrats," Dean said in a telephone interview Monday.

Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., announced last month he would not seek re-election, clearing the way for what's expected to be a crowded race in fall 2006.

"We've got a few things to work out with Bernie," he said, adding, "Bernie's not a Democrat."

Jeff Weaver, Sanders' chief of staff and campaign spokesman, said the congressman won't formally announce his candidacy until "much later this year."

But Weaver said Dean's support is natural in a political atmosphere dominated by conservative voices.

"I think Gov. Dean and Congressman Sanders share an interest in beating back a very aggressive reactionary agenda of President Bush and congressional Republicans," Weaver said. "We intend to win this seat and Bernie will be a strong voice against the Bush agenda."

No where in the article does it mention that Sanders is a socialist. If Bush were endorsing a fascist do you think that might get ink?

NR examines the British Elections

rom the standpoint of a foreign-policy conservative, Blair’s loss is a sign of weakening support for the U.S. across Europe, even in America’s most reliable ally. Blair is generally reckoned to have lost a large number of “middle-class progressive” votes (i.e., Guardian-reading, muesli-eating, electric-car-driving voters) to the Liberal Democrats because of their hostility to the Iraq war.

Blair’s Labor colleagues will draw the appropriate lesson. Britain will not soon support the U.S. in any future U.S. crisis and may gradually be absorbed by the anti-American political culture of continental Europe. And from the standpoint of a philosophical conservative, the upsurge of Liberal Democrat support in university towns in opposition to Blair's modest free-market proposal of “top-up” university fees flags the difficulty of reversing even the most indefensible free lunch offered by the welfare state.

In confusion there is profit, however, as Tony Curtis’s character says in Operation Petticoat. There are signs of conservative opportunities in the current situation — in the form of voters, issues, and readiness.

First there are a lot of voters now in play after the election results. Labor lost six percent of its 2001 vote. Many more voters — about 40 percent — did not vote at all. Some of Labor’s missing voters went to the Lib-Dems, but not all. And the Lib-Dems themselves lost some voters who finally recognized that they were a left-wing party rather than a centrist one. What has gone unnoticed is that almost eight percent of the voters — a very large percentage in the British system — chose small protest parties such as Veritas, the fascist British National party, and the eccentrically Euroskeptic UKIP. Most of these voters are right-wing in some sense or other. They might once have voted Lib-Dem but not now. And they are open to persuasion over the next few years.

Second, the upcoming issues in this parliament are likely to be conservative ones that drive people to the right — for instance, the referendum on the European constitution. Left-wing issues such as Iraq are likely to fade from the public mind. And the biggest issue of all will be the fiscal crises against which the IMF warned during the campaign. Whether Blair or Brown is prime minister, the government will be unable to finance large injections of public money into failing public services from “stealth” taxes that nobody notices. On the contrary, massive bills for previous expenditures and regulatory costs will become due shortly. So Labor will either have to raise taxes sharply or cut back on spending, and in either event they will have to bring serious market reforms into health and other public services.

However such choices go, they would tend to split Labor, antagonize the Lib-Dems, and benefit the Tories. And in all cases they will clarify political choices for the voters in a way that New Labor has confused them.

Third, the Tories are more ready than any other party to take advantage of these two opportunities. Their vote rose, albeit only slightly, rather than fell. They fought a hard-hitting and focused campaign that won back some of their core. (Australian Lynton Crosby earned his fee and then some.) The issues they emphasized, notably immigration, are those likely to win over the voters newly in play.

The world is more than willing to look the other way to dictators and genocide. You'd think Europe would have learned their lessons after World War II.

What have you done for me lately?

THE LINGERING EFFECTS OF WWII

Sixty years after the end of the Second World War in Europe, British people are still obsessed with Nazism, and ignorant about Germany, said the German ambassador to London, Thomas Matussek.

"The British behave as if they had conquered Hitler's hordes single-handedly. And they continue to see us as Nazis, as if they have to refight the battles every evening. They are enchanted by this Nazi dimension," he said yesterday.

A recent survey showed that when British 10- to 16-year olds were asked what they associated Germany with, 78 per cent said the Second World War, and 50 per cent mentioned Hitler.

"Like the conquering of the West is part of the American myth, so it is the same with the British and the defeat of Nazism," Mr Matussek told The Observer.

"We Germans confront the guilt and shame of our past daily, and more thoroughly and obsessively than probably any other nation on earth."

Parts of the United States were still fighting the Civil War 100 years later. The Germans would love to forget World War II just like Putin wants us to forget the cold war. The people who lived through those events will have to die before all wounds are fully healed. Lesson to the next dictator.

THROW HEAT

You're throwing a ball for a toddler to smack with a plastic bat. You toss it gently, slowly, to make it easier. He just can't hit it.

It's because you throw too slowly, a new study finds.

Kids' brains aren't wired for slow motion.

"When you throw something slowly to a child, you think you're doing them a favor by trying to be helpful," said Terri Lewis, professor of psychology at McMaster University. "Slow balls actually appear stationary to a child."

Add a little speed to the pitch, Lewis and her colleagues suggest, and the child is able to judge its speed more accurately.

"Our brain has very few neurons that deal specifically with slow motion and many neurons that deal with faster motion," Lewis said. "Even adults are worse at slow speeds than they are at faster speeds."

Kids' neurons are immature, making the task even more challenging for them.

The study will be detailed in the July issue of Vision Research.

I found this out by accident. Ben was whiffing at the underhand lobs and starting spraying line drives when I started throwing overhand heat.

BAD NEWS: EARTH'S AIR IS CLEANER

The air is cleaner, which should be good, right? No, it could increase the greenhouse effect. It is interesting to note the headlines the editors apply to reframe good news in a negative light.

Bush's opponents use his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol to label him as pro-big business and to hell with the environment. His actual position is that the regulations already in place are cleaning up the environment and that it will be cheaper to respond to the eventual real impacts of environmental change than to throw money into the wind trying to keep the environment from changing.

More bad news: the water is cleaner too, and has been for many years. We hear so much squawking about the environment, most people don't realize the environment is in much better shape today than it was when the squawking started. But the truth never stands in the way of a useful argument.

BOOK REVIEW: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte.

Major takeaways included the Ink-to-Data Ratio, meaning that as high a percentage of a chart's ink as possible should be dedicated to conveying data, and its corollary The Eraser Rule, which mandates erasing all parts of a chart that do not convey data. The goals are simplicity, elegance, and ease of interpretation.

I was invited to my client's retreat in Baltimore and asked to deliver a 25-minute presentation discussing the kind of work I've been doing for the firm and what I'd like to do going forward. The ideas in the book led me to organize my remarks around the chart shown above, discussing the relative amounts of work each partner has given me, the different kinds of work I've been doing for each, and the various applications for other partners in the room. It led directly to a massive influx of work of the type I suggested. Normally I may have 1 or 2 projects open at any given time, 3 if I'm very busy. At the moment I have 10. At the break, a partner who is not on the chart told me he wants to be the tallest bar on the chart next year. I'm all for it.

LAUGHS FOR LAURA

Monday night I was listening to Michael Savage in the car. He was going off on the Bushes for demeaning the presidency, alienating the base, pandering to Hollywood, and handing a free gift to the Islamic propaganda machine in the form of Laura Bush's self-deprecating humor at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

The left also jumped on it, calling the Bushes hypocrites and so forth.

Settle down, everybody. It's just a little comedic monologue at an event that calls for a little comedic monologue. Watch it here - it's pretty funny.

I thought last year's routine was quite funny also - Bush looking under his desk for WMDs and so forth. Everyone got all bent out of shape over some very funny jokes. Touchy, touchy.

BRITISH ELECTION

The BBC has a wonderful interactive map if you're following the returns like me.

MAD LIBS

The thing I like best about terrorist-takedown reportage is the before and after shot. It is the classic mug-shot mien. Hair mussed, clothes rumpled, downcast — nothing remotely heroic about it.

The message is that we are winning. We're winning well. That stated, al Qaeda remains a threat because, despite all the hardships they face, many of these people refuse to give up. Most of them are ideologically motivated and committed sociopaths. They have a need to kill. Our civilization and their organization cannot coexist in this world — they will be the first to admit it. So the Coalition is forced to wage war on them, to track them down, capture, or kill them, one by one. It takes time, but gradually the job is getting done.

The daily life of an al Qaeda leader is an endurance test for survival. They spend their time moving from safe house to safe house, in constant fear of discovery, attempting vainly to organize large-scale attacks on their enemies and speculating when they will be betrayed by their friends. It is not a rewarding existence, not even by terrorist standards. This cannot be the jihad they signed up for. Even the most committed among them may be wondering when Osama's master plan is going to kick in and they will start winning a few rounds.

Al Qaeda's failure to achieve any of its strategic goals or to conduct operations against the U.S. homeland is discouraging to some of its members. Recently Abu Musab al-Zarqawi complained about the lack of "willing martyrs" for attacks on the United States. Several days ago, U.S. Central Command posted a letter to Zarqawi from one of his underlings that revealed low morale and lack of trust within his organization. Zarqawi is not exactly safe either; he recently narrowly evaded capture during a hot pursuit by bailing out of a pickup truck under a highway underpass. Coalition forces captured his laptop and a trove of documents. Now he being reported allegedly wounded, or maybe sick, frequenting a hospital apparently for treatment. His insurgency controls no territory, and apart from being able to inflict some casualties, Zarqawi does not seem to be making much progress in his area of responsibility.

The war on terror has been tremendously successful. Two regimes deposed, Iraqis voted, and a popularly elected goverment is being installed, all in a few years' time, which by historical standards is absolutely incredible. But liberals can't get past their own simplistic stereotypes.

Do you really think the president is sheltered from those he’s pitching his plan to?

Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA): The only actual news that he reads is the sports section. All the national news, all the opinions that he gets have been filtered, and it goes to his daily briefing that has already been pre-screened to give him what he wants to read. He doesn’t read any books, and he doesn’t talk with people that don’t already agree with him. He’s surrounded himself with ideological sycophants. And the biggest ass-kisser of all is Dick Cheney.

I am still not hearing anything from the minority party that sounds like a reason to elect some of them to Congress in 2006. The UT incident with Ann Coulter is just the latest example of libs with nothing to say just saying it louder. Forget civility, that's gone, I'd just like to hear one coherent argument from one liberal. I'm reasonable - just one. No screaming, no arm waving, no ranting, no insults, no pies, just one coherent argument, in complete sentences, on any subject.

VIETNAM HISTORY LESSON

30 years ago we fled like rats from a burning ship. But was it a failure?

The "civil war between Vietnamese" is a misrepresentation of the Geneva Agreement of 1954 that, among other things, negotiated the removal of the French colonial power and separated North and South Vietnam at the 17th parallel, pending a popular election to be held in 1956 to determine a single government for them both. The majority of the population remained in the communist North, even after several million fled to South Vietnam. Sen. John Kennedy regarded the election as "obviously stacked and subverted in advance."

When, not surprisingly, it did not take place, the war began in the late 1950s with the return of communist cadres to what had now become South Vietnam as a "National Liberation Front" to create an insurgency against the Diem government. Better known as the Viet Cong, the NLF was not an independent political movement of South Vietnamese. According to an editor of the official North Vietnamese People's Daily, "It was set up by our Communist Party." So this was no civil war. North Vietnam began and supported a campaign of Viet Cong subversion of its sovereign southern neighbor.

Driving in downtown Orlando this morning I was surprised to see over 100 Vietnamese Americans protesting the slave-state of Vietnam. While John Kerry was sure that we were committing attrocities, these people are still protesting the attrocities that resulted from our departure.

HERO SENATOR

Dr. Tom Coburn, a U.S. senator from Oklahoma for less than four months, last week was up to old tricks he started playing in the House a decade ago. He was making colleagues' lives miserable by exposing wasteful, unnecessary spending that is supposed to stay hidden. The Senate establishment, like its House counterpart, has retaliated by bringing ethics charges against the obstetrician-senator for going home to Muskogee, Okla., to deliver babies.

His early departure from the Senate would occasion rejoicing there, as he showed April 20. Not observing a freshman senator's customary silent period, he proposed reducing the $592 million for a new U.S. embassy in Baghdad provided by the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Coburn argued that since only $106 million could be spent over the next two years, "we are going to have $486 million hanging out there that will be rescinded and spent on something else." Instead of settling for the usual voice vote, Coburn insisted on a roll call (which he lost by only 54 to 45).

During six years in the House, Coburn's campaign against pork-barrel spending made him anathema to Republican leaders. He planned a lower profile in the Senate, but the ethics complaint made that impossible. He also had an agenda ensuring him more attention than ordinary freshmen: bringing free market principles to health care, oversight of federal programs (as chairman of the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee) and assaulting congressional pork. For the first time since Phil Gramm left the Senate, Sen. John McCain had an anti-pork partner.

That we have so few Coburns is why I identify less as a Republican and more as a Libertarian.

THE LONGEVITY GAME

How long will you live?

NOT ALIVE, NOT DANCIN' - THAT'S WHY WE'RE HERE

SYDNEY (AFP) - Some of the thousands of Australians who flocked to Turkey's Anzac Cove to commemorate their war dead were reportedly outraged when Australian organisers of the ceremony played the Bee Gees' hit song "Stayin' Alive."

The disco hit, along with "You Should Be Dancin", was played on a large screen to entertain some 20,000 people -- mainly Australians and New Zealanders -- during a break in the official programme, The Australian newspaper reported.

"It's not a festival," one member of the crowd, Amy Hutton, was quoted as saying. "You are here to pay respect."

"I think they must have rocks in their heads."

THE NEW INVENTORS

An interesting article by Virginia Postrel about how consumers are the new inventors.

"A growing body of empirical work shows that users are the first to develop many, and perhaps most, new industrial and consumer products," Eric von Hippel, head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in "Democratizing Innovation," recently published by MIT Press. (The book can be downloaded at Professor von Hippel's Web site, http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/ .)

Innovation by users is not new, but it is growing. Thanks to low-cost computer-based design products, innovators do not have to work in a professional organization to have access to high-quality tools. Even home sewing machines have all sorts of computerized abilities. And once a new design is in digital form, the Internet allows users to share their ideas easily.

In order for companies to generate new ideas, Professor von Hippel urges them to pay more attention to "lead users" like these biking enthusiasts: people who stretch the limits of a technology and create their own innovative prototypes.

In a study at 3M, he and several colleagues found that product ideas from lead users generated eight times the sales of ideas generated internally - $146 million versus $18 million a year - in part because lead users were more likely to come up with ideas for entire new product lines rather than minor improvements.

The definition of "lead users" can become a bit circular, identifying anyone who innovates as a "lead user." But in some fields, it is not hard to spot the people whose need to lower costs or enhance performance is particularly great.

"The Disney animators or Pixar animators are ahead on video editing tools from the ordinary consumer," Professor von Hippel said. "Yet we know the stuff that these guys develop now ends up migrating downstream to the general people over time."

Although governments and businesses move toward central planning, consumers still find a way to get what they want.

WASH POST EDITOR: U.S. SHOULD NOT LEAD WORLD

Tom’s post below reminded me of an article that got buried unread in my stack. China’s PEOPLE’S DAILY’s Washington correspondent interview Washington Post’s Managing Editor Philip Bennett. The following excerpts are from the interview that ran in China on 3/10.

Yong Tang: Do you think America should be the leader of the world?

Bennett: No, I don't think US should be the leader of the world. My job is helping my readers trying to understand what is happening now. What is happening now is very difficult to understand. The world is very complex. There are various complex forces occurring in it. I don't think you can imagine a world where one country or one group of people could lead everybody else. I can't imagine that could happen. I also think it is unhealthy to have one country as the leader of the world.
That is also a sort of colonial question. The world has gone through colonialism and imperialism. We have seen the danger and shortcomings of those systems. If we are heading into another period of imperialism where the US thinks itself as the leader of the area and its interest should prevail over all other interests of its neighbors and others, then I think the world will be in an unhappy period.

Yong Tang: So the world order should be democratic?

Bennett: Democracy means many things. How do you define democracy? As a Chinese journalist, you may have your own definition of democracy which corresponds to your history and your way of seeing the world. I may have another definition. Someone else may have their own definitions. Democracy means a lot of different things. As UK late Prime Minister Winston Churchill said, democracy is the least bad system that we have ever thought of. So democracy is never perfect. It always has problems. Our democracy here in the US has many contradictions, problems and challenges. So democracy is not a cure that could turn everything bad into good. It has its own advantages and its disadvantages.

Yong Tang: How do you think of the roles American mainstream media play in American foreign policy?

Bennett: We don't have any political point of view that we are trying to advance. We don't represent any political parties. We are not tied to any political movement. On the news side of the paper we try not to give opinions. So I think the role the Washington Post should play is to hold the government accountable for decisions made by it.

So you see it is all very complex, very complicated. It’s nuanced. And I am glad I have the Washington Post to sort it out for me in a straightforward, pro-America, unbiased manner.

FISH TALE

Heading east along Pensacola Beach, Redman spotted a large shadow in the water
about 100 yards offshore. Thinking it was a large ray that could be hiding a pod
of cobia, he aimed the boat at the mystery spot and closed in.

"Initially, we saw a splash that we thought was a manta ray," Pinney said. "It was about 30 yards off shore."

As the boat got closer, debate arose as to what the spot in the water was. A ray? A whale? It was neither.

What they found was a 14-foot mako shark making a meal of a tarpon estimated to be more than 200 pounds.

"What was left we estimated to be 180-200 pounds," Pinney said. "It was cut off right behind the dorsal fin. I'd say it was missing 30 inches minimum. The total weight had to be 220-250 pounds. Both (the shark and the tarpon) were potential state records."

Seven and a half minutes of constant profanity as a boatful of yahoos try to reel in a giant mako off Pensacola Beach. View the video here.

POLITICS AND THE UNITED NATIONS

The Opinion Journal weighs in on the John Bolton nomination.

Bolton's view--with which this column agrees--seems to be that the U.N. is useful and worthy of respect only insofar as it responds to American leadership and serves American interests. The Democrats' view, by contrast, seems to be that the U.S. has an obligation to follow the U.N., whether it acts in America's interests or not. That's why, for example, John Kerry*, who voted in 2002 to authorize U.S. military force in Iraq, changed his mind the next year when the U.N. Security Council balked at passing a resolution expressly permitting such action.

Only that's not quite right. The classic example of the U.S. leading the U.N. was the first Gulf War. In November 1990 the Security Council passed Resolution 678, which authorized member states "to use all necessary means," including military force, to liberate Kuwait, then under occupation by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The resolution also "request[ed] all States to provide appropriate support" to that end.

In January 1991 Congress obliged. The House voted 250-183, with 179 Democrats voting "no," to authorize U.S. military force. The Senate vote was 52-47, with 45 Democrats voting "no." Only 86 House Democrats and 10 Senate Democrats voted in favor.

Among the negative votes were all five current Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who were then in Congress: Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Paul Sarbanes and then-Rep. Barbara Boxer. All told, 25 of the 28 current Senate Democrats who were in Congress in 1991 voted against the Gulf War. (The three who voted for it, in case you're wondering, were Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Tom Carper of Delaware and Harry Reid of Nevada.)

So the U.N. gave the thumbs-up for military force and asked for help, and most Democrats balked. Only a handful of lawmakers, including Sen. Jim Jeffords, ex-Sen. Bob Graham, Reps. John Dingell and Jim Leach and a few other House members (along with Al Gore), took what might be considered the consistent pro-U.N. position, supporting the liberation of Kuwait but not Iraq. Most Dems who now pose as champions of the U.N. showed their disdain for the world body by voting to refuse its request for help in 1991.

It seems fair to conclude, then, that most liberal Democrats, like Bolton, are pro-U.N. only when it suits their purposes--and that their purposes are the opposite of Bolton's. That is, for the Democratic left, the U.N. is useful and worthy of respect only insofar as it acts as an obstacle to American leadership and an opponent of American interests.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

In some professions, a large part of the time of first-rate people is spent countering the half-baked ideas of second-rate people and trying to salvage something from the wreckage of the disasters they create.

-Thomas Sowell

RECENTLY VIEWED

SWINGERS
I saw this when it was originally in theaters and proclaimed it one of my top 100 favorite films. I recently watched it again on IFC and it holds up well. Although the retro-swing era came to a swift conclusion, this film sneaks in a few songs by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy to capture that mid-to-late '90s era. Jon Favreau's character is a bit Woody Allen, but manages to be an interesting pathetic, rather than simply a pathetic loser. That he triumphs in the end in clearing his mind of the past girlfriend and embracing the new relationship with Heather Graham well rewards the patience we have shown in rooting for him while he behaved like a loser. This is a good portrait of an age group that has the bulk of their lives ahead of them, but are too old to be involved in a true "coming-of-age" story.

IN THE BEDROOM
This film was much acclaimed. I give it kudos for being mature - I am always appreciate of films made for grown-ups, but it didn't do a lot for me personally. There is a surface story that is somewhat interesting, and the characters are finely drawn. I especially liked Tom Wilkinson as the dad. He was not overly mousey, but just passive enough to be much more like a real person than most screen dads. I liked how the villain was humanized in the third act, that also was very real. There may have been a tremendous amount of subtext that was lost on me, but generally, I considered the film a well-acted melodrama that took awhile to get going.

ALPHAVILLE
I've wanted to see this French New Wave classic for some time. My first attempt, on the plane home from Monaco, put me to sleep. It would take several attempts before I made it to the end. The film is truly bizarre. I think it's safe to presume there was nothing ever quite like it at the time of its release in 1965. There are stunning visuals sprinkled throughout, and some very interesting situations, such as the public execution cum syncronized swimming exhibition. The story works as a film noir. The femme fatale is stunning with an otherworldly aloofness about her. I love the scene where the goons plan to apprehend the hero by accosting him when he doubles over from laughter after being told a joke. They then stand by, emotionless, as the girl delivers the gag. If you are curious about how Terry Gilliam developed his m.o. and how the French redefined cinema while Hollywood was churning out Doris Day-Rock Hudson vehicles, then this film is a must.

NAPOLEAN DYNAMITE
Every year there are movies that receive acclaim for no discernable reason. This would be 2004's entry. It's the rare movie that puts me to sleep. Alphaville doesn't really count, since I had been up all night before turning it on. This film, however, just never went anywhere interesting. I was asleep within twenty minutes with a sleeping wife on my lap. The next day, I finished watching it, and realized that sleep was the more productive use of time. The music is good and quirky, and the color scheme is vibrant and quirky, but the plot is simply quirky without being interesting or amusing in the least. It's got nothing to say, with no insights on coming of age, or anything. Another instance of a first-time writer-director being lauded unnecessarily.

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY
I really liked The Bourne Identity. It was intelligent entertainment for adults. Director, Doug Liman gave us the sublime Swingers, and also Go, which was quality fare. Liman directed the first Bourne installment, and it worked like a charm. He retreats to behind a desk for this installment, handing the reigns to a director who absolutely destroys the action sequences, opting for close-ups and furious editing, which is a poor substitute for good blocking. Matt Damon is very good in this role - he manages to make Jason Bourne interesting and complex and not at all like a Robocop, impervious to defeat. Joan Allen is interesting as always, even if she is cast as the generic hard-driven agent. There is of course the devious beaurocrat, not below killing a coworker to cover-up his treacherous ways. The Brian Cox character is interesting, even if a touch underdeveloped, because he was in over his head, rather than most movies (like Minority Report) where everything has been thought out to the tiniest detail by the powermongering bossman. I like that this series is aimed for grown-ups, which is increasingly rare for action flicks, but in the end this is a letdown from the fist installment.

My local pump cuts me off at $35.00, which doesn't fill the van.

HILLARY TRANSFORMED

I was flipping channels Saturday night and caught a minute or two of Hillary Clinton (she's like a horrible car wreck, you have to slow down and look, just to confirm how awful) making a speech on C-SPAN at a Democrat-Farmer-Labor party fundraiser -- Minnesota's version of (D).

It certainly played like a campaign speech. Main themes:

- She bemoaned the "radical right's consolidation of power" (a clever rephrasing of ABB)

- She advocated a "return to traditional values" ("traditional" meaning "consistent with what is taught in college sociology classes")

- She promised a return to a "fair and prosperous America" (which, if achieved, usurps any call to values) (see also, "It's the economy, stupid")

- She promoted "personal responsibility - especially where it counts the most, with our own children." I never did get what she was trying to say there, except that it was something she knows she has to say to get elected. She went on to discuss how she still believes "it takes a village to raise a child," (a statement she knows she cannot escape) and explained what she really meant by that in a way that wasn't what she really meant by that.

- "Poverty is creeping back up." "Children deserve access to medical care." "Jobs are no longer as plentiful or as rewarding." Somewhere in there she talked about moms taking their kids to soccer games and Little League - this from the woman who made the famously disdainful remark about women "staying home and baking cookies," another statement she knows she cannot escape and so must redefine.

- "While the Republicans play their power games, they're leaving America behind - and it's going to take you and me to get it back!! Thank you and God bless you!!"

Well that certainly sounds like a campaign speech to me, using the classic political maneuver of appropriating her opponent's positions. But can she pull it off? It's hard to believe a Clinton can stand behind a microphone and talk about traditional values, personal responsibility, and effective parenting, but if anybody can look into your eyes and confidently say what they do not believe, it's a Clinton.

I know one guy is happy: Dick Morris. He is making a whole career out of respinning the Clinton's spin.

I can only hope that by the time Hillary has someone to run against, he will have figured out how to thoroughly dismantle her. No doubt Karl is working on that today.

THE AMITYVILLE HOKUM

Apparently when the author said THE AMITYVILLE HORROR was a true story, what he meant was that it really was a story. Bummer. The great appeal of that story was that it was supposed to have been based on real events. Funny how a good story takes on a life of its own.

Anson’s tactic was clear—when strapped for good material for a book, pad it with quasi-factoids." And Father Pecoraro, the priest who was driven from the house by demons? According to Moran, who interviewed Pecoraro, "he said he never saw anything in the house."

Joe Nickell, author of Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings (and who personally visited Amityville, and interviewed later owners), also found numerous holes in the Amityville story. A few examples: 1) The Lutzes could not have found the demonic hoofprint in the snow when they said they did, because weather records showed there had been no snowfall to leave prints in. 2) Though the book details extensive damage to the home’s doors and hardware, the original locks, doorknobs, and hinges were actually untouched. 3) The book and film show police being called to the house, instead, Nickell writes, "during the 28-day ‘siege’ that drove them from the house, they never once called the police." Over and over, both big claims and small details were refuted by eyewitnesses, investigations, and forensic evidence. Still, the Lutzes stuck to their story, reaping tens of thousands of dollars from the book and film rights.

The truth behind The Amityville Horror was finally revealed when Butch DeFeo’s lawyer, William Weber, admitted that he, along with the Lutzes, "created this horror story over many bottles of wine." The house was never really haunted; the horrific experiences they had claimed were simply made up. Jay Anson further embellished the tale for his book, and by the time the film’s screenwriters had adapted it, any grains of truth that might have been there were long gone. While the Lutzes profited handsomely from their story, Weber had planned to use the haunting to gain a new trial for his client. George Lutz reportedly still claims that the events are mostly true, but has offered no evidence to back up his claim.

Their account was likely influenced by another fictionalized story—that of The Exorcist. In fact, it is not much of a stretch to suggest that The Exorcist strongly influenced the Amityville story; recall that The Exorcist came out in December 1973. Demonic possession and hauntings were very much in the public’s mind when the Lutzes spun their stories of demonic activity a year or two later. The revelation that the story was based on a hoax has led to embarrassment, especially by the handful of "paranormal experts" who "verified" the fictional tale. The Lutzes must have had a good laugh at the expense of the mystery-mongering ghost hunters and self-proclaimed psychics who reported their terrifying visions and verified the house’s (non-existent) demonic residents.

To this day, the fact that The Amityville Horror story was an admitted hoax is still not widely known; as they say, the truth never stands in the way of a good story. Though the story was made up by the Lutzes and further sensationalized by Anson, there were real victims of the Amityville Horror (the film, not the demons). In addition to the murdered DeFeo family, the subsequent occupants of the Amityville home have suffered a continual stream of harassment by curiosity seekers, horror fans, and gawkers who want to photograph and tour their infamous house. Then there are the people who, fooled by the films’ and book’s tagline, think that they are seeing a film based on true events.

Taking out the trash -- FAQ

Q: Don’t you think husbands should be responsible for taking the trash out?

A: The responsibility for trash removal should be determined by each individual couple according to their own circumstances. The blanket policy of the husband always taking out the trash has met disaster in households where the husband is paralyzed from the neck down.

Q: But shouldn’t most husbands be responsible, at least the ones with working limbs?

A: Not necessarily. A better policy would be choosing the spouse with the right aptitude for the job.

Q: Don’t you think this husband would be a prime example of a qualified candidate?

A: I’m not so certain. The wife has shown an incredible ability at trash removal during her single years, whereas the husband has a long record of neglect and funny smells coming from the kitchen.

Q: Why can’t this wife teach this husband the art of trash removal?

A: The husband feels that the wife’s superior ability at the task will create an inferiority complex when his job isn’t good enough for her.

Q: When are you going to take the trash out?

A: Later.

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS STORY AT ALL.

I haven't really been following the Terri Schiavo story, but I see the headlines and am generally aware of the basic facts. Frankly I still don't get it. I don't know what the issue is around which it is suddenly so important that I have an opinion, and it is even less obvious to me why my opinion will label me as good or evil, moral or indecent, left or right.

I'm still unclear what exactly the controversy is. Is the dispute over the dignity of life? the rule of law? checks and balances between governmental branches? Is the dispute because she is being slowly (and maybe horribly and maybe not so horribly) starved to death rather than, say, taking her off a respirator, where death would be quicker? Is it because the husband may or may not have surrendered his legal right to speak on his wife's behalf when he took up with another woman? Seriously, I don't get what this story is about.

Another thing I don't get... I know there are lots of protestors out there on Terri's side. Has anyone been out there making the argument in favor of starving her to death? What is that argument? Simply that she said she would want it that way -- and if she didn't say that, then should have? Is the argument that, by implication, anyone in her condition would want taken out?

Why is this issue generally divided along party lines?

Maybe my confusion is because I do have a living will, and in it I state that if I should become incapacitated, then my wife can decide to authorize or refuse care in whatever ways she thinks is best. And if she is dead or likewise incapacitated, then my pastor makes the call. I figure in that condition, I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, and probably am in no position to judge. Am I now to conclude that my thinking is somehow missing the mark? Am I supposed to rethink the hypotheticals? Why? How? And why is this more important today than it was yesterday?

Is this a real story with lasting implications, or just this month's Big Story?

Seriously, help a fella out.

LAWS OR GOOD IDEAS

Walter Williams offers a different take on "General Welfare."

I regularly bike for fun, cardiovascular fitness and, hopefully, for a longer, healthier life. In my opinion, that's a good idea. That being the case, would you deem it proper for Congress to enact legislation requiring Americans to bike regularly or perform some other cardiovascular fitness exercise?

What if Congress didn't act on this good idea? Would you deem it proper and acceptable if five out of nine U.S. Supreme Court justices, in the name of "evolving standards" and promoting the general welfare, decreed that we all participate in some fitness exercise?

Suppose biking advocates saw no hope in getting Congress to enact legislation mandating regular biking and saw the U.S. Supreme Court as a means to accomplish their ends. Tell me your preference. Would you prefer the justices to rule along the lines they did in the recent Roper v. Simmons case, finding the execution of teenagers unconstitutional because, as Justice Anthony Kennedy speaking for the 5-4 majority said, "It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty"? Modified to fit my biking example, Justice Kennedy might say, "We acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion that regular biking is a good idea."

Or, would you prefer the justices to say, "We're guided by the U.S. Constitution, and we find no constitutional authority to rule that Americans must regularly bike, despite your nonsense argument about the 'promoting the general welfare' clause; get out of our court"?

Whether "evolving standards," the "weight of international opinion" and good ideas should determine court decisions underlies much of the ongoing conflict over President Bush's federal court appointees. A federal court appointee who'd say his decisions are guided by the letter and spirit of our Constitution would be tagged by Democrat senators and a few Republican senators, such as Arlen Specter, as an extremist. They'd prefer justices who share former Chief Justice Charles E. Hughes' vision that, "We live under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is." Translated, that means we don't live under the Constitution; we live under tyrannical judges.

THE EASE OF VOTER FRAUD (From Boortz)

Race warlords in Georgia are screaming. They are mightily upset. "Governor Perdue, don't sign this bill!!!!" Oh the humanity. This hideous and horrible bill is being cast by race pimps as "a disaster for race relations in the State of Georgia." One black legislator said that this new bill was "spitting on the grave of Martin Luther King, Jr." This bill is so bad that black lawmakers staged a walkout when the measure was debated earlier this month. They said that it could turn back the clock on civil rights. "It's an attack on the rights of minorities."

So, what's going on? Well, it seems that both the Georgia House and Senate have passed bills requiring all voters to show some kind of picture ID before they can cast a vote. Any one of six different types of picture ID will do. A Driver's license will work, even if it is expired. The law provides for free state-issued picture IDs for anyone who wants one. Still, the race pimps aren't satisfied.

You know what's going on here, don't you? Voter fraud is a reality, and across this country most of the votes that are illegally cast are cast for Democrats. It is Democrats who are driving the demands that non-citizens be allowed to vote in local elections. It is Democrats who are even insisting that illegal aliens be permitted to vote in some areas. It is Democrats who have opposed each and every move, no matter where, to attempt to clean up the election process by making sure that people who vote are actually legally qualified to vote. It is Democrats who want felons to vote! They know that felons will, by and large, vote for Democrats.

I'll say it again. Most illegally cast votes are cast for Democrats. Democrats have been at the forefront of every move to loosen voting restrictions and to counter any attempt to combat voter fraud.

Now .. if you really want to hear Democrats howl ... make it easier for military personnel to vote. Military personnel, you see, usually vote Republican.

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS

There's a perfectly good argument going around about how a Husband has the obligation and the authority to make life and death situations for his wife. Another perfectly reasonable argument is that most of us wouldn't want to survive in the situation that Terrie Shiavo is presently in. The polls ask these two questions and the American public agrees with the decision made by Michael Shaivo and the judge. The controversy arises out of whether things are as they appear.

The reason we have judges is to weigh the context in which these laws are applied. The law by itself is a blunt instrument. A judge is the only figure that can see the human element. Why isn't this judge suspicious of Michael's motives?

If Michael is living with another woman and reproducing why hasn't he divorced his wife? Can he mentally peform the functions of a husband when he first answers to a different woman?

His loyalties are to his new family. That being the case, the court can't fully trust his word or judgment. A life and death situation doesn't need a protagonist with divided loyalties. While it may be interesting to have a bunch of doctors diagnose Terrie, it might be equally interesting to have a psychologist examine Michael's state of mind. Can a man be the head of two households? If he knows a dead Terrie provides money for the family he now supports, wouldn't it be awful hard not to wish her death a bit sooner?

We can argue that he beat her or that these were her wishes. We can argue whether or not she is a vegetable or cognizant. We can argue how this hurts or strengthens abortion law. I've heard a bunch of people on TV arguing all of these points. What we should be arguing is whether Michael's actions post accident make him a good objective candidate for guardianship. If we can't be sure of his objectivity, we should give custodial rights to someone else.

I don't know what the judge has in mind here. Maybe he thinks this case will create a precedent for a lot of other people who are suffering and need relief. Maybe his interest lies in getting rich by writing a book about this famous case. What he isn't doing is judging the credibility of the star witness. Michael Shiavo may have the best of intentions, but he has too much baggage to be the last word.

You can't always default to the husband here just like you can't always give custody of the kids to the wife after a divorce. You not only have to believe that Michael is being objective but her parents are so selfish that they want her suffering to continue. Is it possible to look at this case and think her parents are more likely to have divided loyalties?

Context is the key to the situation and the polls. The pollster didn't tell respondents that Michael has another wife and kids. The pollster didn't tell the respondents that Terrie isn't in pain. When it’s simply about whether a husband has the right to let his wife pass comfortably into the beyond, then yes he does have the right. It's a national event because it’s being presented as a simple "husband doing the best for his wife" case when it's much more complicated than that.

The same people who always criticize rightwing thinking as being simple minded, or black and white are perfectly willing to simplify things here. Elian Gonzalez was a good example from 2000. Sure a child should be with his father, but would we have sent Anne Frank back to the concentration camp to be with her father?

We always hear catchy phrases like "living constitution" and "social justice" when academics and the learned culture want to force laws that have no popular appeal down our throats. When it comes to individuals, the same learned monster's hands are tied by the letter of the law.

This case has become a circus of politicians throwing blame at one another, but that's a sideshow compared to the runaway judiciary that answers to no one. For this case to have been solved correctly you have to believe that Terrie's parents want to selfishly extend her painful life while her cheating husband only wants the best for her. That's a tough one for me to swallow.

UPDATE: Democrats have been out since late last week trying to make this a partisan issue, although Jesse Jackson seems to have other ideas. I've heard a dozen different liberals argue that it's a state's rights issue. Only a bunch of judge-loving lefties could argue that local and state judges embody the founder's ideas of Federalism. The 10th amendment gives the states the right to decide local through legislative bodies. How are the state's rights protected when judges go unchecked?

The shame of this whole issue is that Terrie will die on the word of a shaky husband and it will result in the kind of legislation that will prolong the lives of people who really do want to die. We're seeing the worst of government from the judge's decision to the circus atmosphere outside her hospice. Thomas Sowell has a good breakdown of how the court system is running amok in this case.

SCRAPPLEFACE LOL

Parents Offer Trade: Terri Schiavo for Scott Peterson
by Scott Ott

(2005-03-22) -- Just minutes after a federal judge denied a request to provide a starving, dehydrating Florida woman with food and water, Terri Schiavo's parents offered to trade their 41-year-old daughter for convicted double-murderer Scott Peterson.

"What we're offering to the state of California is an even-up trade," said Bob Schindler, Mrs. Schiavo's father. "Scott Peterson, who murdered his wife and son, gets to come to this nursing home where he'll die in a week or two. Our daughter goes to death row in San Quentin, where she'll likely live a long life as Peterson's case is appealed."

The Schindlers' desperation offer calls for the names on all legal documents to be exchanged so that Mrs. Schiavo will be treated under law as if she had committed Mr. Peterson's crimes, and he will be treated as a healthy, but brain-damaged woman whose estranged husband controls her future.

George Felos, the attorney for Mrs. Schiavo's husband, Michael, immediately rejected the Schindler's offer with a single word: "Nuts."

POET MURDERER

A man known as J. J. Jameson became one of Chicago’s prominent anti-war figures and a member of the community of leftist anti-war poets. The author of two books, a congregation leader at a church, and named Chicagopoetry.com's poet of the month in March 2004, Jameson seemed the very model of a modern “enlightened” cultural leader.

He was also living as a fugitive under a phony identity, an escaped con, and a vicious murderer. His real name was Norman A. Porter, Jr. Michael Dukakis commuted one of his life sentences, and unsuccessfully tried to commute a second. According to the Boston Globe,

Porter's criminal history in Massachusetts began with a string of robberies. On Sept. 29, 1960, he robbed a Robert Hall Clothing Store in Saugus, brandishing a sawed-off shotgun. Porter herded customers and employees into a back room and ordered them to give up their valuables, according to the state Department of Correction.

''As a part-time clerk was reaching into his pocket for his cash, Porter, with no known provocation, placed his shotgun's muzzle against the back of the clerk's head and pulled the trigger, killing him 'execution style,' " the department's website states.

Have you ever seen the movie RUNNING ON EMPTY? It gave me an idea for a movie about a guy who hunts down old 60s radicals, much like Simon Weisenthal hunts down old Nazis. Of course, it would be played for laughs. When our hero finds the first radical he makes a comment about the terrible living conditions a fugitive must live in. The radical takes offense. He's not a fugitive. He's living in a commune.

WHEN THE NEWS BECAME SO UNWATCHABLY ASININE

With apologies to Pat Sajak, whose work I have mildly edited.

Very few people have given credit (or blame) to the man most responsible for the changing nature of today’s television news coverage. I’m talking about O.J. Simpson. As he prowls the nation’s golf courses searching for the real murderers of his ex-wife, let us not forget that it was the Simpson saga that taught TV news directors an important lesson: a Big Story can generate big numbers and big profits. Without a Big Story, ratings take a tumble, so it’s important to have that one dominating story that goes on and on and on.

Some Big Stories are obvious: 9/11 and The War in Iraq. But some Big Stories have to be elevated to that status to keep all the talking heads talking: Gary Condit, Laci Peterson, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson. Without a new daily chapter in an ongoing Big Story soap opera, the news is just the news. How the heck do you promote that?

The major networks gave the Simpson story extensive coverage, pre-empting a lot of their regular programming to do it, and their payoff was big ratings. However, they also unknowingly began digging the graves of their own news divisions, because it was the cable networks that were better suited to apply the lessons learned from the O.J. coverage.

So you now have Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNBC and CNN day after day and night after night promoting the current Big Story (usually the same one). Hour upon hour of speculation, discussion and blah blah blah. New developments seem to be reported every hour, even though they are rarely new and frequently not even developments. In this world of the Big Story, we are treated to “Breaking News” that we saw three times last night.

A plus side does exist, because there is a certain comfort in waking up and finding that Michael Jackson is still the Big Story. At least it tells you that nothing horrible has happened in the world that would force them to move on to real news.

Little did we know that O.J.'s white Bronco was driving us into the era of the Big Story. Thanks for nothing, O.J.

RECENT COURT CASES


TERRIE SHAIVO

This is great political theatre so it’s a shame that this woman is suffering to provide it. This is a good reason for everyone to get a living will.

I can’t imagine Terrie wanting to live if she were up to the choice, but I don’t quite believe Michael’s dinner conversation story either. It took him seven years to remember it. His reasoning that Terrie wanted to die would be more credible if he weren’t shacked up with some other woman producing tots. Does he really care for Terrie’s person or does he want the money he stands to inherit? His personal situation complicates his testimony. He stands to gain the most from her death and while the vibrant Terrie would seem to choose death herself, the current Terrie is seen almost smiling. Maybe she’s in some dreamy state that feels like a constant heroin fix. She doesn’t make it look like hell the way Million Dollar Baby did.

While Michael’s feelings for Terrie are complicated with his new life, her parents truly love her and will do anything not to lose her. While I would choose death for myself, I think the court has error on the side of life. The only witness has too much baggage to trust his objectivity and Terrie doesn't seem to be in torturous pain.

Someone needs to explain to me why an alert Hillary Swank couldn’t just ask the doctor to turn off her respirator?

MICHAEL JACKSON

We’ve been waiting for this one a long time. We know he’s a freak and probably a creap. The stories of wine and porno only re-enforce the idea. I can just see him explain to the kids that the human body is beautiful and drink up your Jesus juice and you’ll go to heaven.

The family may have seen a way to cash in our prejudices. I tend to think he is capable of something like this and yet the testimony from this family seems erratic and contradictory.

He’s probably going to beat the criminal trial (see Robert Blake) but pay a substantial amount in the civil suit.


ROBERT BLAKE

I didn’t see it, but read that a reporter asked Blake after the verdict “If you didn’t kill Bonnie, who did?” Blake reportedly went nuts.

Any number of people might have wanted to kill her but Blake not only benefited the most, he actually tried to hire the job out. Was someone really tracking the Blake’s at dinner that night and made a move on Bonnie went Robert went back into the restaurant? It seems unlikely, unless Blake set it up with the shooter himself.

What’s funny is that no one saw anybody shoot her. No one saw anyone flee from the scene. Five million people in L.A. and not one person looked up when they heard a gunshot. Blake frequented that restaurant and knew that it was a remote spot for the killing. Someone tracking them independently wouldn’t have been so secure, especially with Blake just a few steps away.

This typical L.A. acquittal should pave the way for Michael Jackson’s.

HOW GOES THE ANTI-WAR?

This is a great find by Opinion Journal.

Idiot's Delight

The "antiwar movement" doesn't seem to be going well. An e-mail list called the Idiot's Delight Digest, inspired by the radio show of the same name, carries a first-person account from one Jordan Hoffman of a rally apparently in New York:

I went to the anti-war demonstration today. Anyone else go? Man, it was depressing. It was more of a group mope than a demonstration. People just kinda went to the park, wandered around, looked sad and left. And got harassed for contributions to every organization under the sun. That made me even sadder because I couldn't join a friend going downtown because I only had $2.00 on my metrocard & needed that to get home and I have $0.00 in my wallet until next week. . . .

I gotta relax. It is 4:49 AM and I haven't been to sleep. I've been up all night stewing about how much I can't stand the direction the US's policy has taken--I still can't get over the fact that John Kerry lost. It's kinda like a delayed thing. I just can't believe how willfully dumb people are. Or maybe just mean. Mean and nasty. And covering it up, like ketchup on a burnt steak, with their bornagain Christianity.

Agence France-Presse, meanwhile, reports from London:

People poured into the capital from across the country, including 29-year-old human rights author Susanna Akono who travelled in a coach from Kent. . . .

Akono from Cambodia, who is married to a British man and is pregnant, said that she planned to go on a hunger strike from April 14 in protest against the continuing war on terror.

"I want to do everything I can to make sure my child has a secure future," she said.

Hat tip: Arthur Chrenkoff. Starve-the-fetus is certainly a novel method of ensuring that your child has a secure future. If Akono has a daughter, maybe she'll grow up and marry Michael Schiavo.

$42 and brains buys you the world!!!

Read Dude's tournament exploits at The Nuts

FINAL RESULTS

WINNER - Rob Hollink - 635,000 Euros

2nd - Brandon Schaeffer, 350,000 Euros

3rd - Alex Stevic, 178,000 Euros.

4th - Romain Feriolo, 139,000 Euros

5th - Kevin Seeger, 118,000 Euros

6th - Abdullaziz Abdullaziz, 99,500 Euros.

7th - Ben Grundy, 79,500 Euros

8th, Mikhail Ustinov, 59,500 Euros.

9th, Jani Sointula, 39,300 Euros.

10th, Isabelle Mercier, 23,900 Euros

FINAL DAY

7 left - Dude looking for Magic
6 left
5 and Dude is alive

HUUUUUUGE KEY HAND
Hand 53

Romain is on the button. Alex is in the small blind. Kevin is in the big blind.
Brandon rasies to 30,000, Kevin calls in big clind.
Flop: T64 with two clubs. Kevin checks. Brandon bets 40,000. Kevin moves all in Brandon calls immediately.
Kevin: 88
Brandon: AA
Turn: 7
River: 3.
Aces hold up and Brandon wins a monster.

Kevin is out in fifth place with €118,000

Congratulations Dude. You played great!

Dude was the chip leader going into today. It looks like he's third with 17 players left. EPT has a running blog to keep up with the details.

15 Left and Dude outlasts Gus Hansen.

You can read Dude Day by Day at Poker Room.

He's made the final table. In the top 8. Dude the TV Star. Action starts tomorrow morning 11am EST.

E's FICTION LIST

On this date in history, MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN was published in 1818. Which reminds me that Tom (I think it was Tom) asked me in Orlando what my favorite works of fiction were. I get asked that from time to time, and it always kind of embarrasses me, because although I do a fair amount of reading, I do very little reading of fiction. I read what I like, and I like to learn, so I read nonfiction and opinion almost exclusively, yet I always feel somehow that I *should* be reading fiction, even if just for balance. But the books that catch my interest are generally "serious" books, and I can never quite shake the notion that fiction is a poor use of my time. Just the way I'm wired, I guess. And I'm just talking about *my* time, not yours.

Anyway, I'm trying to think of fiction books that I really liked, and here's my little list.

FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley. I love the way this book was written, back when English prose was majestic, lofty, precise. The Creature in the original is articulate, sensitive, and searching, not the grunting brute he became in the movies. It is really a story about man's relationship with his creator -- a probing, engaging, and moving treatment of that timeless subject.

OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET by C. S. Lewis. A short science fiction tale with a nice message.

TARZAN OF THE APES and its many sequels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I wish I still had all those paperbacks with the classic cover art.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck. One of those books I had to read and liked anyway. I have never seen the movie version -- got it for Christmas 2004, will do that soon.

THE PUPPET MASTERS by Robert Heinlein. At the time I read this, I could really relate. Alien beings attach themselves across their victims' shoulders and take over their minds. I was in late drunkenness or early sobriety at the time.

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE by Robert Louis Stevenson. I reread this last year and it was just as good.

THE EDUCATION OF LITTLE TREE was a humorous little book that fit my liberal mindset circa 1994 before I grew up and went conservative. I remember giving it as a gift.

I loved AGATHA CHRISTIE'S HERCULE POIROT mysteries as a kid. Haven't read one since, though, so I'm putting her at the bottom of this list.

It may not be much, but that's all I have to offer. That I am going back to college and high school to compile such a meager lists tells you and me that I'm just not into works of fiction. As Dude laments, I'm always asking what's the point, what's the payoff, what's the practical application. In recent years I've kept a list of the books I've read, and of the 144 entries, I see 3 works of fiction, and even those had a serious bent. Again, not sure why I feel I should apologize, but I do.

THE WEDDING
photo credit E Seeger

BALLPLAYERS TO CONGRESS

The 11 witnesses are:

Jose Canseco, former Oakland Athletic and Texas Ranger.

Jason Giambi, current New York Yankee and former Oakland Athletic.

Mark McGwire, former Oakland Athletic and St. Louis Cardinal.

Rafael Palmeiro, current Baltimore Oriole and former Texas Ranger.

Curt Schilling, currently of the Boston Red Sox.

Sammy Sosa, current Baltimore Oriole and former Chicago Cub.

Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox.

Bud Selig, commissioner of baseball for Major League Baseball.

Sandy Alderson, former general manager of the Oakland Athletics and current executive vice president of baseball operations for Major League Baseball.

Don Fehr, executive director and general counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Kevin Towers, general manager and executive vice president of the San Diego Padres.

Is this government meddling or a legitimate concern of the government?

My favorite federal law was the one passed 10-15 years ago that insisted that food companies label their product with nutritional information. The consumer should know what they're getting.

As a consumer of MLB I want to know what I'm getting too. Are the players using substances that are altering the games I am paying for? Am I watching men with their natural ability or comic book characters? MLB obviously likes the comic book characters masked as regular men and they have no intention of unmasking them. Olympic athletes are suspended for two years on their first steroids violation. MLB players have to be caught 4 times to get a mere one-year suspension. Since the tests are random a player could juice up his whole life and never get caught.

These guys have the right to put anything they want into their bodies. I wouldn't prosecute any of them, but Baseball hurts its own integrity by letting them play. Since baseball is going to pretend its not happening, I don't mind Congress getting to the truth. Sure it's grandstanding (ha ha) but sometimes it takes grandstanding to push an issue to the forefront.

Let the consumer decide if he wants to watch Barry Bonds break a record on dope.

Oh, but Congress left Bonds off the list. What will Kevin Towers tell us that is more interesting than what Bonds might have to say?

TERESA WRIGHT DIES
Whenever Tom and I would list the sexiest babes of Hollywood history, my mind would always fill with images of Teresa Wright. She was sexy in an offhanded kind of way, as an offshoot of being smart and engaging. I've wanted to marry her ever since first seeing her attend to her ailing husband's collar button when the poor sap was stricken with Lou Gehrig's Disease, or ALS, as it was known then. She always seemed to me sweet enough to fall for, smart enough to talk with, and pretty enough to lay beside for fifty years - some kind of classy babe.

I have never seen acknowledged classics THE LITTLE FOXES (1941) or MRS. MINIVER (1942), but Teresa Wright enjoys three spots on my top 100 movies list:
THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES (1942)
SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943)
THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946)

BEST OF DAN RATHER

The Media Research Center has fun with this "objective" news man.

This bit between Rather and O'Reilly is well-known but priceless.

Bill O’Reilly: “I want to ask you flat out, do you think President Clinton’s an honest man?”
Dan Rather: “Yes, I think he’s an honest man.”
O’Reilly: “Do you, really?”
Rather: “I do.”
O’Reilly: “Even though he lied to Jim Lehrer’s face about the Lewinsky case?”
Rather: “Who among us has not lied about something?”
O’Reilly: “Well, I didn’t lie to anybody’s face on national television. I don’t think you have, have you?”
Rather: “I don’t think I ever have. I hope I never have. But, look, it’s one thing – ”
O’Reilly: “How can you say he’s an honest guy then?”
Rather: “Well, because I think he is. I think at core he’s an honest person. I know that you have a different view. I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so, but I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.”
— Exchange on FNC’s The O’Reilly Factor, May 15, 2001.